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New Day
Ted Cruz Leading Republican Field in Iowa in Latest Polling; GOP Candidates Prepare for Debate. Aired 8-8:30a ET
Aired December 15, 2015 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:02] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Vegas, baby. Just hours ago Alisyn Camerota was swimming in those canals there at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.
(LAUGHTER)
CUOMO: Good morning to you. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, December 15th, and of course that is where we are, the Venetian in Vegas, because this is where the big debate is going to happen. Michaela is in New York, as you see. Alisyn and I are here just hours away from getting it on. Yes, 10 hours, but it feels like it could be any minute because we're in the big room. And we have a familiar pattern of greeting candidates. Donald Trump is taking heat, but it is working for him in the polls. He now has the biggest lead ever.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Two new national polls have Trump hitting all-time highs, even breaking the 40 percent ceiling for the very first time despite backlash over his controversial Muslim travel ban, or maybe because of the backlash over that Muslim ban. Also, Ted Cruz has surged into second place, but he has lots of ground to cover to catch up with Donald Trump. So let's kick off our coverage with CNN's Athena Jones. She's live on the debate floor just down behind us. Athena, how's it look?
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. The stakes are going to be high when the candidates take the stage just a few hours from now for the last GOP showdown of the year, and this comes as those new national poll numbers show Trump's support is reaching heights that many political pundits thought he would never reach. That makes him a top target tonight. He was also the target of protesters last night.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONES: Outrage overnight during Donald Trump's rally in Las Vegas, tensions high just hours before tonight's final GOP debate of 2015. Multiple protesters forcibly removed while trying to interrupt the frontrunner's speech.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Get them out.
JONES: Trump taking shots at his Republican competition.
TRUMP: The other candidates should be thankful, because I'm giving them a chance to make total fools of themselves.
JONES: And bashing the media.
TRUMP: I've learned two things. More than anything else, how smart the people are and how bad and dishonest the press is, because it is really dishonest.
JONES: Trump's GOP rivals going after the billionaire businessman who for the first time has topped 40 percent in a Monmouth University national poll of likely GOP voters. That's more than the next three competitors combined. And Trump towering 23 points above his closest rival in this new "Washington Post," ABC poll.
JEB BUSH, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I cannot image Donald Trump becoming president because he would never win. He would never win. Hillary Clinton would clean him.
JONES: This as Texas Senator Ted Cruz surges into to second place in national polling and tops Trump in several polls in Iowa.
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: God bless the great state of Iowa.
(APPLAUSE)
JONES: Which means all eyes will be on center stage to see if the two former allies will go after each other.
SARAH PALIN, (R) FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: They are both strong and very decisive, and someone who would take the initiative. That is what we need today. And both those candidates fit that bill.
JONES: Tonight's debate is the first for the GOP contenders since the Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks. It comes about a week after Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. The debate will keep national security at the forefront.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The vast majority are people that are trying to come and people we just don't have information on. This is an issue you have to be right 100 percent.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JONES: Now, Marco Rubio is another candidate to keep an eye on tonight. He's performed well in past debates and his team is hoping for another strong night. Their attitude going into tonight is why try to fix what isn't broken. As for Trump and Cruz, the question isn't so much whether or Trump will go after Cruz but whether and how Cruz will hit back. Alisyn, Chris?
CAMEROTA: OK, Athena, thanks so much for setting all of that up for us.
So what will happen when the Republican candidates take the stage tonight? Let's talk about it. Joining us is CNN's national political reporter Maeve Reston, CNN anchor of "EARLY START" and "AT THIS HOUR" John Berman, and senior contributor to "The Daily Caller" and conservative commentator Matt Lewis. Great to have all of you with us here.
So much, we have new national polls that are setting stage for tonight. Donald Trump has hit higher water marks in both of these polls than he had previously. Let's look at just what's happened since November. Let's pull up, this is the ABC News poll out at midnight tonight. I don't even know what time it is right now, so may an hour or two ago. And once he has gone from like 32 percent, which people said was the high, that was going to be his ceiling, and then it was 38. As you know Monmouth has it at 41. We call also look at Cruz who also has virtually doubled his support. Carson has fallen significantly in all of these latest polls. So what are you going tab watching, Maeve?
[08:05:03] MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, Carson's loss, Cruz's gain certainly. It is a big night for Ted Cruz. He obviously has momentum in Iowa. He really needs to capitalize on that, show that he has a broader appeal and really could unite the party. We definitely are expecting to see Trump go after him a little bit. They will be standing man to man next each other on the stage. And I think it will be just be a fascinating night for looking at those establishment candidates, Jeb, Rubio, Christie, which one of them stands out? And can they come in and fill the vacuum that exists right now.
CUOMO: Who is the man of the match tonight? Or is it a woman of the match?
RESTON: The man of the match?
CUOMO: What's going to have their breakout? This is where you and I usually part ways.
RESTON: I think it is going to be a big night for Christie.
CUOMO: Chris Christie, you say. All right, let me ask you something. You are great with the references, movie references. "The Princess Bride," there's one great line in it where the guy says "Despite all your strength, and yet look at him, he gains." When you look at Trump, the party bashing him, the establishment coming after him, saying he's way over the line. He's not where you want to be. Look at what he said about Muslims. It is all lifting him every time.
MATT LEWIS, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. Every time if it is a mainstream media person, if it is a moderate Republican, if more you attack him, the better he does. But I still think the man of the moment is Ted Cruz. I feel the gods are smiling on him. The media wants something different. Donald Trump has been at the top of polls now for month. And the national polls don't matter that much. I think Iowa matters, and I think Ted Cruz is poised to have a big moment tonight if he seizes it.
CAMEROTA: John, to that point, let's look at the "Des Moines Register" poll. This was out over the weekend, and this has Ted Cruz winning and beating Donald Trump there. He has 31 percent. That is Ted Cruz, versus Donald Trump at 21 percent, then Ben Carson 13, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush. So it's fun to look at the national polls. It is fun to see what Donald Trump is doing in the national polls, but this is more relevant.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is more relevant. Also relevant there not just the fact he has momentum but the fact he has money. Ted Cruz is polling well in Iowa. He's got money to back it up for the next six weeks or 48 days. He also has the organization. You go to Iowa, you talk to people on the ground there. He's building the team to put him over the top there.
But what happens after Iowa? Because New Hampshire is not going to be friendly to Ted Cruz. It is just not a state that lines up well for him. Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, even back in 1980 Pat Robertson did well in Iowa. They did nothing in New Hampshire. So Cruz has got to look past New Hampshire then to South Carolina and the SEC primaries on March 1st. But again he's got the money to do that.
But even if Cruz does win Iowa there is a window, a big New Hampshire window for someone else. Is it Donald Trump? Is that Chris Christie's chance? Can Marco Rubio do well enough to convince people that he deserves to be in the race for another two months? That's where some of the excitement will be.
CUOMO: Pat Robertson, that gives us our opening. In 1999 Donald Trump wrote an op-ed why he was considering running for president. And that time it was Pat Buchanan.
BERMAN: So we're doing the men named Pat.
(LAUGHTER)
CUOMO: It reminded me of this. Let's put up an excerpt of this letter. This is an op-ed that Donald Trump owned as to why he's thinking of running. "The second reason I'm considering a run is Patrick Buchanan. He has the virtue of plain speaking, but he often says stupid things, the latest example being his comments about questioning whether," it's going to be about Hitler, by the way, "whether the U.S. was right to stop Hitler. His arguments are repugnant, yet they were initially met by deafening silence from the professional politicians. It took three days for Elizabeth Dole and John McCain to react."
And now listen to his conclusion is here. "This underscores the problem with contemporary politicians. They're so concerned with winning votes that they can't even find it in themselves to immediately denounce a man who winks at barbarism."
CAMEROTA: Can you believe it, Donald Trump writing this? Prescient about himself.
RESTON: Yes. Maybe this was the secret to his success all along, just an amazing moment.
LEWIS: There have been moments. Pat Buchanan, but Ross Perot in 92, you could back to George Wallace who ran for president as a Democrat. There are moment where populist nativists can catch fire. Nobody, though, has really done it all the way. Maybe Donald Trump is studying where they went wrong and replicating it.
BERMAN: He also talked about Pat Buchanan's plain speaking. He also recognized why Buchanan was doing well at that point there. One of the questions going into this debate is which candidate will stand up to Donald Trump and talk about the ban on Muslims? A better question might be, why would they? Why would they from a political standpoint when 60 percent of Republican primary voters say they support banning Muslims coming into the United States?
LEWIS: When it comes to the flip-flopping and hypocrisy, though, you don't have to go back to Pat Buchanan. Donald Trump criticized Mitt Romney for speaking about Hispanics in a way that wasn't welcoming and wasn't healthy.
[08:10:02] CAMEROTA: So then what is he doing, Matt?
LEWIS: Winning. He's tapping into --
(LAUGHTER)
CAMEROTA: He felt that way about Mitt Romney, and he felt that way about Pat Buchanan, why now is he personifying these things?
LEWIS: I think it is a very cynical ploy to win the election. I think that Donald Trump has studied leadership. He had studied politics. He's studied Pat Buchanan. I think that he is telling the voters what they want to hear, which of course, I know we're shocked that there is gambling in a casino. But that is what he's doing. I think it is very cynical and very calculated.
CUOMO: Wait a minute, hold on a second. Why is it cynical and calculating? That is what politics is. You don't go to people and say, hey, you know why your taxes are too high? You don't make enough money.
LEWIS: Sometimes you have a vision.
CUOMO: But these are his convictions. The threat is real. People are trying to kill us. They happen to be usually Muslim. We should do something about them. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, big brain, knows this stuff very well. He says that is resonating because people want something. They are seeing the war on ISIS is not working.
BERMAN: They agree with it. It's not an issue of why isn't it hurting Donald Trump. People are seeing this, Republican primary voters are seeing it. And a majority agree with it.
CUOMO: And 59 percent support it.
LEWIS: He's exploiting it. The whole thing about banning all Muslims coming into the country, I think he's pushing buttons that some angry, frustrated voters have and it is working flawlessly. But it is very unhealthy I think for the political process, and it is very harmful if for conservative movement and the Republican Party in the long run.
RESTON: That's the big question we've been debating all morning. How big is the establishment wing of the Republican Party at this point? How many Republicans are there out there who really disagree with Donald Trump and are going to show that when we head into the caucus season and primaries?
BERMAN: You put up those numbers and you can get a sense of how big the establishment lane is. And it is not very big. If you have Trump at 38 percent and Cruz at -- I'm bad at math but Cruz at like 15 or 16 percent. You add in Ben Carson, now the non-establishment wing is over 60.
CAMEROTA: Panel, we have to leave it there. We could talk to you all day, and the good news is we will be talking to you all day. So go get some rest. Thank you so much.
CUOMO: We're also teeing up the big concern is tonight. The voters are going to be watching the men and women on stage and are saying who is going to keep me safe? That is the focus on topic. That's going to be the focus on intentions tonight. So you'll be watching, I hope, the first debate, 6:00 p.m., then the second 8:30, and the moderator, CNN captain, Wolf Blitzer. We will be here for a little bit while longer. And we will still be here somehow tomorrow morning in the same chairs at the Venetian.
CAMEROTA: All right, so bigger poll numbers mean Ted Cruz will be a bigger target tonight. So what does the candidate running for the top spot have to do? Where does she stand exactly on the key issues? We'll look at Cruz's views.
CUOMO: Ooh.
CAMEROTA: Yes. You heard me. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:16:51] CUOMO: Senator Ted Cruz, number two in national polls, making him a target tonight. It also makes him a target of his opponents but also of his own ambitions. What does he have to do tonight to make the case and solidify the momentum?
For that, we have CNN political commentator, Amanda Carpenter. She is a former communications director for the senator from Texas.
Good to have you here.
AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you. Thank you.
CUOMO: Let's start with the big ticket item tonight. The debate's focus: foreign policy, national security. Let's put up the Cruz card on that.
Here are his hot points in terms of his agenda: prevent the NSA from gathering phone metadata, allow Syria to fight civil war on its own, prevent ISIS members from returning to the U.S. Now, that middle one has been controversial for him in the past. How
do you see the strength and the vulnerability?
CARPENTER: Well, and the first point. Preventing NSA from getting metadata isn't quite right. The USA Freedom that he supported and passed the House by 383 votes, I believe, and the Senate by 67. This was the consensus position, just as the NSA has to get a warrant to get metadata from Americans. I mean, this is the reasonable standard. It doesn't stop the NSA from collecting the data. It just protects the privacy rights of Americans.
So, I think that is a good mainstream position. It may come up in the debate tonight because Marco Rubio wants to pick a fight over it. He's been blanketing the airways in Iowa over the surveillance issue. Rubio wants to position himself more as the muscular national security candidate. More in the camp of John McCain and Lindsay Graham, and that's something that Republican should have a good debate over, because this is something that's been brewing in Republican circles for a long time, because those voices have dominated Republican foreign policy and I think people are looking for an alternative.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about the Ted Cruz's response to Donald Trump's ban on Muslims entering the U.S. He at the time, when Donald Trump said it, all sorts of Republicans came out and said this is not who we are, this is not where the country stands for. His, Cruz's, response was the most tepid of all.
Now, the polls suggest that Republicans actually agree with Donald Trump's ban on this, 59 percent say that they agree with it and he's gone up in the polls. Now, what does Ted Cruz say tonight about that when it comes about it?
CARPENTER: Well, here's the thing: Donald Trump is very good at identifying issues people are concerned about. I don't agree with many of the solutions, but he identified the problem, you know, from July people are worried about in immigration. In the light of the terrorist attacks, he identified that people are worried about what's going on in Muslim communities.
His solution to this wholesale ban of Muslim refugees from coming here is probably not right, but again, it provides a lot of coverage for someone to provide a reasonable alternative. I like what Paul Ryan said, you know, we do need to pause some of these programs to find out what's going on. I think it's very reasonable to say we need to look at countries that are hot beds of terrorism. Pause the program, see what's going on, maybe start looking at media accounts which we found out that are administration is not doing.
So, while Donald Trump has kind of bombastic proposal, other people should be willing to talk about those issues and provide reasonable alternatives.
CAMEROTA: Is that what Cruz does tonight? Does he come up with slightly finessed version of that?
CARPENTER: Well, he's talked before about we should certainly let in Christian refugees.
[08:20:01] CAMEROTA: Yes.
CARPENTER: We should be looking at that. And so, that's something that can be fleshed out --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Is that any better than the Trump position? He says keep all Muslims out there, the threat?
CARPENTER: Well, it certainly --
CUOMO: For Cruz to say let in the Christian refugee.
CAMEROTA: It's same thing. It's just a different way of spinning it.
CARPENTER: Certainly, we need to maintain a refugee program. We need to find a way to screen out people who aren't going to be threats to our national security. Certainly, the Christian community is targeted. Certainly, Muslims are too. I'm not saying they're not. But people are trying to find a way that we can keep protecting people while at the same time protecting our homeland.
CAMEROTA: Let's look at Ted Cruz on immigration. He wants to end birthright citizenship, he said, and he wants to triple the patrol agents on the Mexican border.
CUOMO: Is he playing to the fear here?
CARPENTER: We'll, you know, I've worked for the guy. And I -- again and again, he says, we need to celebrate legal immigration. We need to take it to a place where we all are in favor of celebrating, upholding legal immigration. We can't give blanket status to people who keep violating the law, you know?
And, I think you see in that polling that national security concerns for voters are off the charts. Immigration is a big part of that. Immigration is a national security issue at this point. And so, we have do something to fix the system.
And if we automatically go to, well, what are we going to do to deport people, we're missing the problem. We're missing this wide consensus area where people agree that we need to fix the programs we have.
CUOMO: So, short-term, long-term. Short-term, Cruz being more hard line on this, I'm not going to negotiate. We're not going to break it apart. It helps with the base.
But look at what Senator Rubio did. He said, we can't get it done in one omnibus bill. It's not going to happen. And it has to happen. So I'm going look at the gang here with Democrats and Republicans. I'm going to look to do it piecemeal. He's getting killed in House.
But do you have to think about -- CARPENTER: Well, that's the problem, getting this bill was not
piecemeal. That was what ultimately sank it. They tied everything up together so that Democrats could get an amnesty program. That was what so objectionable about the gang of eight.
Listen, I think if Marco Rubio had not struck a deal with Chuck Schumer, and participated in the gangs of eight, he would be the de facto nominee. Illegal immigration is such a big issue to Republican voters. I think he lost his right to be that nominee by striking that deal.
CAMEROTA: Let's look at a couple of issues with social issues with Ted Cruz. He's criticized the Supreme Court's position on gay marriage. He supports defunding Planned Parenthood.
So, tonight, what does Ted Cruz do? Does he go after -- how does he stand out? Does he wait for people to attack him? Does he go after people? Does he go after Trump? What do you predict?
CARPENTER: Well, I think he needs to show that he has a commanding presence and he can rise above the attacks thrown at him. This is something he has a lot of experience. But -- I mean, all the Republicans are going to be coming at him and in other words, just another day for Ted Cruz on the main debate stage.
So --
CUOMO: Except, it's different now. He had gotten a reputation for being, you know -- being very tough, very aggressive with his positions, coming at people, saying bad things about the speaker.
CARPENTER: But this is the thing. He is very tough on his positions. He doesn't attack people personally that often. One time --
CUOMO: He called McConnell a lie.
CARPENTER: Well, he did lie. He did lie. Mitch McConnell told people that he was not striking a deal to prop up the Export-Import Bank, guess what? He just reauthorized it, it ultimately happened under Mitch McConnell's watch. And so, somehow, only in Washington does the person who exposes the lie is the bigger sinner than the person who told the lie. I mean, it is a really interesting tricky McConnell pulled. He deceived the Republican senators and Ted Cruz told everybody. I like that truth teller quality about Ted Cruz.
CAMEROTA: We'll see if that is on display tonight. Amanda Carpenter, thanks so much. Great to get your insight. Thanks so much.
Coverage of tonight's CNN GOP debate starts at 6:00 Eastern. That's the under card debate. It is followed by the main debate at 8:30. Set your watches now.
CUOMO: Donald Trump, top of the polls, bigger than ever. After his arguably most recent controversial -- I'll qualify it a little bit. But what he said everybody thought was so wrong is proven to be so right in the polls. So, what is the magic this man has as he comes to the stage tonight?
And --
CAMEROTA: Can anything stop his momentum? We'll explore that, Chris.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:28:38] CUOMO: So, that's when Camerota takes her wedding ring, throws it on black jack table and says, when I say I'm doubling down, I'm doubling down. I take the ring back --
CAMEROTA: This is his favorite story of the night --
CUOMO: She takes a wild swing at me. Winds up in the canal that we're showing you right now here outside the Venetian. It was a horrible scene.
And now, we're back.
CAMEROTA: Yes. And I got it back. Whew.
CUOMO: I mean, it was dicey.
All right. So, here we are, getting ready for the big debate tonight. And you know what, the stage couldn't be set better. Two new big polls show that Donald Trump has been rewarded for his recent statements about Muslims. He has broken yet another ceiling people said he wouldn't reach. So what are the others to do to try to catch the man in the middle?
Joining us now, Hugh Hewitt, host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show", and the panelist for tonight's debate, and Michael Smerconish, who shares similar ideas about how to name a show, the host of CNN's "SMERCONISH".
(LAUGHTER)
CUOMO: And a CNN political commentator.
I mean, your guys head are so huge.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, man.
CUOMO: So, you're looking at tonight. Donald has been rewarded for what he said in the cross-tabs as well. Almost 60 percent of the GOP support banning of Muslims, 38 percent of independents. It did not hurt him. It helped him.
What does it mean for the mood on the stage?
HUGH HEWITT, THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW: Well, it means that everybody on the stage has to decide. I call this the Christmas dinner debate. They are all going to be talking about whatever happens tonight for the next three weeks because we are shutting down news in a way that people will concentrate on these candidates and they'll say, did anyone show me that they are better than Trump? And so, they all have to go at him hard, soft. Whether you're Ted
Cruz and you bear-hug him, in the word of Kevin Madden.
