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New Day
GOP Rivals Spar in Last Debate of Year; Trump Weighs in on Debate Performance; Cruz on Immigration, National Security; Cruz on Immigration, National Security. Aired 5:45-6:30a ET
Aired December 16, 2015 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, December 16th, approaching 6:00 in the east. Mich is in New York. Alyson and I are at the Venetian Hotel in Vegas, baby, this is where the Republican presidential race will have a new face because of what happened last night.
Nine contenders took the stage, but really only two rivalries garnering headlines this morning. You got Cruz-Rubio that were taking it all over immigration and a lot of other issues and Jeb Bush landing some punches on Donald Trump.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: One of the big headlines, Donald Trump renewing his vow not to run as an independent. So who are the big winners and the losers on the stage last night? And how are voters responding this morning? We have it all covered for you, the way only CNN can.
John Berman joins us now with a look at the key moments of the debate. John, tell us what you saw.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We were in this. Last night, there was a two-hour debate. It wasn't one debate on that stage, remarkable. You know, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush zero interaction. Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, almost no interaction, but the candidates who did decide to engage, man, oh, man, was there tension.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": This is the final Republican debate before the election year begins.
BERMAN (voice-over): There was serious substance like Donald Trump's plan to ban Muslims from entering the country.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are not talking isolation. We are talking security. We're not talking religion, we're talking about security.
BERMAN: But also serious strategy, namely the question to throw down or not to throw down. The answer, a definitive yes to both.
JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald, you know, is great at the one-liners, but he's a chaos candidate and he'd be a chaos president. TRUMP: Jeb doesn't really believe I'm unhinged. He said that very simply because he has failed in this campaign. It has been a total disaster. Nobody cares.
BERMAN: Jeb Bush taking it to Donald Trump, not just once.
BUSH: Donald, you are not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency. That's not going to happen.
BERMAN: Not just twice.
BUSH: If I'm president, I will be a commander-in-chief, not an agitator-in-chief or a divider-in-chief.
BERMAN: But at least three times and maybe just maybe getting under his skin.
BUSH: You will never be the president of the United States by insulting your way to the presidency.
TRUMP: I'm at 42 and you are at 3 so far I'm doing better.
BUSH: It doesn't matter.
BERMAN: That was just one battle. Another between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio on several fronts, domestic under surveillance --
MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are now at a time when we need more tools, not less tools, and that tool we lost the metadata program was a valuable tool that we no longer have at our disposal.
TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Marco knows what he's saying isn't true.
BERMAN: Defense spending.
RUBIO: Three times that he voted against a bill that funds the troops.
CRUZ: Marco has continued these attacks and he knows they're untrue.
BERMAN: And crucially immigration.
RUBIO: It's an issue I've lived around my whole life. My wife is an immigrant. All my neighbors are immigrants.
BERMAN: The first time yet that Rubio has been pushed on his support for immigration reform in a debate.
CRUZ: You know there was a time for choosing as Reagan put it where there was a battle over amnesty and some shows like Senator Rubio to stand with Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer and support a massive amnesty plan. He was fighting to grant amnesty. I was fighting to secure the border.
BERMAN: Carly Fiorina suggested neither candidate is up to the task. CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To wage war, we need a commander-in-chief who has made tough calls in tough times and stood up to be held accountable over and over. Not first time senators who never made an executive decision in their life. I'll add that Margaret Thatcher once said, if you want something talked about, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.
BERMAN: There was heat between Chris Christie and Rand Paul over no- fly zones in Syria.
CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots, if, in fact, they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling than the president we have in the oval office is right now.
RAND PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think if you are in favor of World War III, you have your candidate. Here's the thing.
BERMAN: But for all the insults hurled, there were also hugs, rhetorical.
CRUZ: We will build a wall that works and I'll get Donald Trump to pay for it.
BERMAN: And quite literal between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the current front runners, who just plain refuse to rumble.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If he was a maniac --
TRUMP: I got to know him over the last three or four days. He has a wonderful temperament. He's just fine. Don't worry about it.
BERMAN: And finally, a revealing truce perhaps between Donald Trump and the party. His strongest disavow yet of a third party run.
TRUMP: I am totally committed to the Republican Party. I feel very honored to be the frontrunner.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: OK. A lot to talk about. John Berman, stay with us. We also want to bring in our CNN national political reporter, Maeve Reston; and CNN senior political analyst and editorial director for "The National Journal," Ron Brownstein.
Ron, I'll start with you. What was your takeaway?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, it was a terrific debate. I've been covering presidential debates for a long time. It was crisp. It was informative. It was revealing, and it really teased out subtle differences among the candidates.
If you kind of say who had the best night, well, I think clearly, the Cruz/Rubio showdown was the center stage. I thought Trump was more measured and presidential than I've seen him. It was the first time I thought -- I felt that he was calibrating his words against the possibility that he might actually be the nominee.
But to me, the most striking thing was that you have the two frontrunners now in the race by the polls, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, each largely repudiating the foreign policy of the last Republican president, George W. Bush, both Trump and Cruz and then joined by Rand Paul, making a strong case against the kind of interventionist foreign policy that defined Bush. And I thought being more assertive in their argument than those who were defending the intervention, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, primarily.
CUOMO: John Berman ended his piece with what is probably the biggest news out of the night. Donald Trump, volitionally, under intense questioning -- he said it on the stage; he said it to me with several follow-ups. He went to the spin room and said the same thing. He's giving up the biggest leverage that anybody has in this race right now and saying, "I will not run as a third-party candidate."
How big is that, Maeve, and why do you think he's doing it?
MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it's huge. And I -- as we were talking about this morning, I don't know why he did that, giving up that kind of leverage. But at the same time, you know, it's Donald Trump. He could go back and...
CUOMO: What?
RESTON: ... find some wiggle room somewhere there.
CUOMO: He was very -- he was very declarative.
RESTON: Right? Sure, right?
CUOMO: Declarative.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes, I agree. He could find wiggle room someday. But you're moving into a Republican primary. And one potential line of vulnerability is you're not a real Republican; you're not committed to the party. It really takes away a line of attack for the others if he sticks with it over the next several weeks.
CAMEROTA: And I mean, as he's pointed out, why would he leave? He's winning. He's winning handily in the Republican Party. Let's listen -- before I get your comment, let's listen to that moment where he declared that again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I am totally committed to the Republican Party. I feel very honored to be the frontrunner. And I think I'll do very well if I'm chosen. If I'm so fortunate to be chosen, I think I'll do very well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: But he went farther than that.
BERMAN: He did, but what was interesting there, and yes, he's saying, "I'm the frontrunner," but there was a tiny little dose, if you listen very carefully, of humility there.
CAMEROTA: "If I'm fortunate enough."
BERMAN: Exactly.
RESTON: Honored.
BERMAN: He for the first time, he may be feeling like this is actually possible, and he's playing to the crowd here.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Absolutely. Look, I mean, you know, the positions he put out there are still, you know, on the Muslim ban, for example, where only Jeb Bush really challenged him. You saw Rubio and Cruz disagree, but after so much kind of understanding that it was kind of hard to find the needle in that haystack of disagreement, I mean, Trump still represents a very large roll of the dice for the party, if he is the nominee, based on the things that he said and the kind of coalition that might array against him.
But as I said, last night he seemed to be more calibrated, more kind of -- you know, less about kind of the bombast of the moment and more having kind of a long-term plan. How does this fit in with getting Republicans comfortable with the idea of me as the actual nominee.
CUOMO: Maeve, did you think that Christie tried to borrow a little bit from the Trump playbook by doing something that the others just don't do well. What we saw with Rubio and Cruz, a great battle of the minds. I thought Christie grabbed a moment there where he said, "You see? This is the problem with how many angels on the head of a pin." The ability to connect to the mood as opposed to arguing the policy.
Trump is genius at that. Christie tried to do it last night. Let's play you the moment just so you get the context.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want to talk to the audience at home for a second. If your eyes are glazing over like mine, this is what it's like to be on the floor of the United States Senate. I mean, endless debates about how many angels on the head of a pin from people who have never had to make a consequential decision in an executive decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Now, which thing?
RESTON: I mean, I think that that is just vintage Christie right there. He cuts through it. He was able to connect in the same way as you were saying that Donald Trump has.
Carly Fiorina tried that a couple of times but was not as effective as Christie in doing that. I thought that Christie actually did have a number of strong moments in the debate last night. There was a little bit of Trumpism, almost, in some of his going after Obamacare, the feckless... CUOMO: Weakling.
RESTON: Weakling, right.
[06:05:03] BROWNSTEIN: Watching Christie reminded me of kind of the larger point we talked about yesterday. Is whether Marco Rubio understands the race that he is in.
Last night you saw that his principle focus is squeezing Ted Cruz on the right, carving into that support that Cruz has on the right. But ultimately, the question is, if Rubio cannot emerge in New Hampshire, does he emerge at any point to get to that point of worrying about Ted Cruz and he does have Jeb Bush.
BERMAN: All of a sudden. All of a sudden Jeb Bush.
BROWNSTEIN: And there was -- as John said before, there was no focus in that direction. As Christie rises, Rubio ultimately needs a strong performance in New Hampshire to emerge as this candidate. They believe the senator will ultimately consolidate behind them, because there won't be anybody else. They can focus on the right. Maybe there will be somebody else if one of those others can rise in New Hampshire.
CAMEROTA: Let's talk about -- let's quick just talk about Jeb Bush. That came up. And so there was a different tone from him. People said that he seemed feistier, if that's the right word, or more forceful. So let's watch the exchange between Jeb Bush and Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a tough business to run for president.
TRUMP: I know. You're a tough guy, Jeb. I know.
BUSH: And we need to have a leader that is...
TRUMP: You're tough. You're real tough.
BUSH: You're never going to be president of the United States by insulting your way to the presidency.
TRUMP: Let's see. I'm at 42, and you're at 3. So far I'm doing better.
BUSH: Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.
TRUMP: So far I'm doing better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: John.
BERMAN: He didn't wither. You know, he took on Donald Trump and was there at the end of every one of the exchanges. And that's the first time you've seen that from Jeb Bush, really in an exchange with anybody, including Marco Rubio up until this point.
I think it was his strongest debate until now. But for all the tough talk with Donald Trump, I don't think he hurt Trump one bit. I think Trump -- I mean, you can make a case that Jeb Bush actually helps Donald Trump because -- because Bush takes away from Rubio in New Hampshire, takes away from Christie in New Hampshire and then levels and groups that field together there, and Trump stays right where he is. Trump is like, yes, sure, bring it on, doesn't hurt me one bit.
CUOMO: What is the big calculus at the end of the day? Once you approach Super Tuesday and you start getting moderate -- traditional GOPs, you know -- we're saying now, like, they're some type of dinosaur, but they're still a main part of the party. And when they have that moment, when they walk into whatever the voting, you know, contraption is, they say, "Well, who's going to beat Hillary?"
RESTON: Well, that -- I think that was why it was such an important performance from Trump last night. Because in those moments of humility, that's clearly what he was going for, the kind of electability argument. You guys can kind of -- everybody can calm down. I'm going to be an adult in the room.
And you know, I think that it is going to be a fascinating dynamic to see what those voters do, all of those voters who are going to make up their mind in the final weekend before New Hampshire.
BROWNSTEIN: Right. The paradox, as John said, though, is that if you -- as Bush rises, ultimately, if he does rise, if Christie rises, you increase the chances that that vote that you're describing, Chris, will fragment in New Hampshire. And you'll have Rubio, Bush, Kasich, Christie, all somewhere between 8 and 18, and Donald Trump at a relatively low number, 25, 26, 27 could win New Hampshire.
Ted Cruz seems to be on a track toward possibly winning Iowa. You could have Cruz, Trump, Cruz in South Carolina and then the establishment of the party, really is, you know, kind of at wit's end.
CAMEROTA: Let's talk about how much time everyone got. Wolf Blitzer did a very good job of trying to arbitrate the time and watch the clock. Let's look -- I believe we have a graphic, how much speaking time. Cruz dominated. He got 16 minutes, followed by Rubio. That's pretty far behind. Two and a half minutes behind Rubio. Then Trump, Christie, Carson, who complained at one point that he was not being called upon. Jeb Bush, not that much time. Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina also had a harder time, John, in the past of getting some words in edgewise. And then John Kasich.
CUOMO: I think Bush making the most of his time, speaks to the point that we're hearing from the panel here, which is that maybe he did make the most of his moment last night.
Let me ask you something. When you get to the lower time allotments, you think that's also an indication of who really is slipping out of this top tier of candidates? RESTON: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, someone like Carson who...
CUOMO: You think that last night was just bad for him last night?
RESTON: Oh, yes.
CUOMO: Now he's going to drop again?
RESTON: He's -- I mean, he's had such a flame out over the last, you know, couple of weeks and months here. And he doesn't interject the way -- in an aggressive way the way the other candidates do. And that's really his loss.
CUOMO: Although Fiorina tried it last night.
BERMAN: Finally -- finally, you weren't allowed to. Finally...
The extra two points Cruz had were the two he was trying to talk over -- he was trying to talk over Wolf, which was not -- which was not a good moment.
CUOMO: As if anybody didn't know it, I called Wolf Blitzer the captain for good reason. He is no joke. I stopped talking when he was...
BERMAN: Wolf told me to stand by once two years ago. I'm still standing by.
CUOMO: You're standing by.
CAMEROTA: You're sitting by.
John, Maeve, Ron, thank you. Obviously, we'll be calling upon you all morning. Throughout the morning also, you will hear from the candidates about how they themselves believe they fared last night.
Coming up in the next hour, Jeb Bush will join us live. Also in our 8 a.m. hour, we will have Carly Fiorina here; also, Lindsey Graham. A lot to talk about.
CUOMO: Lindsey Graham, very strong in the first debate. I'll tell you what? Donald Trump lucky he wasn't on the stage last night because of what he was saying about the threat of the ban of all Muslims.
[06:10:06] So Trump, no question, goes in the frontrunner, goes out the frontrunner. The question is, how was his ratio of give to take in the debate last night? We're all seeing a new strategy. We'll go through it.
CAMEROTA: And why didn't Ted Cruz go after Trump? We spoke to both candidates moments after the debate, Chris did, and we have their reactions for you, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CUOMO: Donald Trump, different on the stage in the debate last night, I would submit, and different after the debate...
CAMEROTA: Oh, yes?
CUOMO: ... than I've seen him in the past. Comfortable. Confident, reserved. And he seemed to show that in the interview that we did with him right after the debate. You have to remember, there's no time to talk to the handlers. There's no time to process.
CAMEROTA: Because you descend. You just get right in there with your microphone.
CUOMO: I am -- I am there. I am the reporter at his worst. Just when you don't want the person there.
[06:15:04] And to talk to him about the big news that you're really going to say you won't run as a third-party candidate? And what about Ted Cruz? He took a shot at you in private. You're supposed to go after him. That's what Trump does. Not this time. Why? Here are the answers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CUOMO: The burden of being a frontrunner. As you say, you set the agenda on some big issues. Certainly, you brought immigration into the fore in a way it hadn't been before. You could argue you did that about how to deal with radical Islamism. You're going to be taking the heat when you set the agenda, aren't you?
TRUMP: Well, I don't think there's ever a burden to be a frontrunner. I would like to have that burden for the rest of my life. I like to be frontrunner, and frankly, to me it's a great honor. It's not a burden. Having that center podium is a great honor to me.
CUOMO: I want to make sure that we got something right tonight. You were asked by Hugh, will you promise to honor, basically, the pledge that you'll stick with the party no matter what? You said yes.
TRUMP: Well, look, No. 1, I'm in first place, not by a little bit, by a lot. You see the polls that came out today. "Washington Post," ABC came out with a big one. And I mean, it's been amazing.
Monmouth came out with one that was 41 to 14 or 15. So No. 1, I'm the frontrunner. But I've really gotten to respect so many of the people in the party that I didn't know on the other side. I'd been in the party, but I've been a contributor. I've been sort of a fair-haired boy. Now all of a sudden I'm a little bit different.
But I've gotten to know so many of the people, including many of the people on the stage. I had a lot of respect for a lot of the people on the stage. And so I just decided -- I didn't know that question was going to be asked. But when they asked it, I did not hesitate. I decided to just say, "Yes, I'm a Republican. I'm going to be a Republican. I'm not going to be doing a third party."
CUOMO: No matter what?
TRUMP: No. No matter what. Look...
CUOMO: Not no matter what?
TRUMP: No matter what. Look, it's like a boxer. The only way you win a home decision is you've got to knock them out. If I get the votes, nobody can do anything. If I get the delegates, nobody's going to do anything. I'm leading in a lot of states. You probably just see PPG just came out. I'm leading with -- I'm leading in Iowa now. And I'm leading in a lot of states. And, you know, it's on my shoulders.
I hope I get the votes. I'll be trying very hard. And I will make our country great again.
CUOMO: What if you have some delegates with be not enough, it goes to convention and you feel they box you out.
TRUMP: I want to really just do it the old-fashioned way. We're going to run as a Republican. I'm going to try and win as a Republican. I hope I'm going to be treated fairly.
FOX, as you know, just came out with a poll, and I beat Hillary Clinton head on. There are a couple of other ones that say that. And I haven't even really gone after her yet. You know, I've been focused here. There's 15 people here. And I've been focused here, as you may have noticed.
I haven't really focused on Hillary. When I do, I think she's going to fall. Because when she does as poor a job as -- and if she's allowed to run. I mean, I don't even know that she's going to be allowed to run.
CUOMO: Why wouldn't she be allowed to run?
TRUMP: What she did with the e-mails is a big problem for her, I think. However, probably, she will be protected, because she's a Democrat in a Democrat administration. But on the assumption that she's allowed to run, I think I will beat her soundly. I hope.
And if I do, we will make this country so great again, and we'll have such great spirit and happiness. And we're just going to have victories. We don't have victories anymore.
You know, in my closing statement, I said we don't win anymore. And that's the case, Chris. Our country doesn't win. We don't win with ISIS. We don't win with health care. We don't win with anything. We don't win with trade.
China is eating our lunch. Japan is eating our lunch. Vietnam eating our lunch. They're just taking our money out of our pocket. If I win, all of that's going to change.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CUOMO: You've got to see the two big weapons that he uses. The one is what you saw him do with Hillary. Is she going to be allowed to run? I don't know where he's going with that. But it shows that he can overreach to make a point.
CAMEROTA: Yes. Well, that's his specialty.
CUOMO: That's why it's shocking that he's giving up this leverage about the third party. I wasn't being a nudge. I heard what he said. But it's such a big admission that I kept going, just to see what the wiggle room was. And I don't know what it is.
CAMEROTA: Also, he tried to trip you up with the double negative. Not no matter what.
CUOMO: Right.
CAMEROTA: So you're like, does that mean yes or no?
CUOMO: And that's not -- it's not like a got you moment.
CAMEROTA: No. You wanted to clarify what actually was happening.
CUOMO: That's a big deal.
CAMEROTA: That is a big headline. Also, his energy, to your point, did seem different, in this post-debate, he did seem more up and more confident. In the past he had seemed a little fatigued after the debates. But here, he seemed like he -- and he also, his tone about him saying, "I feel fortunate. I hope I'm blessed to be the frontrunner." That was different.
CUOMO: Yes, absolutely. And what have we seen in the past? You go at Donald Trump, you're going to get it back. You know, you bring the noise, you get the funk. That's how it is. Not last night. Specifically with Ted Cruz.
I was talking it up before. I thought I wonder what Donald Trump will say about what he said to him -- about him in front of fund-raisers. But as they went through the issues, the opportunities were there, and Trump didn't go after Ted Cruz.
Now, how did Cruz see that? How did he see his night? He spoke to Jake Tapper right afterwards. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Let me ask you a question about immigration where you went after Marco Rubio very strongly.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes.
TAPPER: What would you do with the 11 million or however many are in this country illegally? Donald Trump says deport them all. I don't know what you would do with them.
[06:20:08] CRUZ: So what I've said, I've laid out a detailed 11-page immigration plan. I would enforce the law. And existing law provides what you do. You start by securing the borders, so you're not -- if you have a sinking ship, the first thing you do is fill the hole so that you don't have people coming back in.
The second thing you do is you start deporting illegal, criminal illegal aliens.
TAPPER: People who have broken the law beyond just immigration.
CRUZ: So in 2013 the Obama administration released about 104,000 criminal illegal aliens. You begin enforcing the law. So if someone is apprehended crossing illegally, if someone is apprehended by ICE, you enforce the law, who is you deport them. Which I would note is what every other country on earth does.
TAPPER: Right. A majority of the Republican voters out there, according to at least one or two polls that I've seen, support Donald Trump's proposal, disagree with you.
CRUZ: Well, look, people are reacting to the Orwellian double speak from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. When you have the Democratic Party, as a matter of policy, refusing to even utter the words "radical Islamic"...
TAPPER: You know why they're doing that, though, right? Because it's the same reason George W. Bush was reluctant to do it, which was national security experts say if you do that, you feed into the propaganda of the west versus Islam.
CRUZ: Jake, that's fundamentally wrong. They're doing it because of political correctness, because they don't want to identify what it is we're fighting.
TAPPER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) too, though.
CRUZ: And it's having real consequences, because we're not stopping the bad guys.
So for example, you look at the female jihadist in San Bernardino. She posted on Facebook years ago calling for jihad, and yet, DHS when processing her fiance visa, didn't -- didn't look at social media. They have a policy in place not to look at social media, which is public. It's literally just looking to see what she has said publicly to the world -- because they think it would be inappropriate. Political correctness doesn't make any sense when we are fighting...
TAPPER: But how is that political correctness and not just privacy issues? Because that's my understanding, is that the message that she wrote was, first of all, in Urdu, second of all under a pseudonym and sort of all in a private message that she was saying back and forth with some friends.
CRUZ: Listen, if we're not capable of understanding Urdu, then we shouldn't be approving visa applications.
TAPPER: We don't have access to the Facebook private messages of people. This wasn't posted on her page. It was a private message.
CRUZ: We should be directing our attention to focusing on radical Islamic terrorism. I'll give you another example, one that I brought up in the debate, which is Nidal Hasan.
Now, the Obama administration knew that Nidal Hasan was in contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a known radical Islamic cleric. They knew that he had inquired about the permissibility of waging jihad against American soldiers.
And yet, they did nothing, and apparently because it was politically incorrect. And as a result, Nidal Hasan murdered 14 innocent souls. And this is the consistent problem of the Obama administration, is their approach over and over again. It is to focus on law-abiding citizens.
What did President Obama, what did Hillary Clinton say after San Bernardino? Let's take away the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms of law-abiding citizens. That's the wrong problem. You've got to focus on the bad guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: All right. Always interesting to hear from the candidates after the debate how they think they did and the points that they want to build upon. And we're going to be bringing those to you this morning. You're going to hear from several of the other candidates live. We have Jeb Bush coming up in our next hour.
We also have Carly Fiorina coming up and Lindsey Graham, who many believe dominated that first undercard debate. He always has zingers. He's always funny. But people thought that he gave a particularly emotional performance also. And we will ask him about that.
So fears of terrorism and how each candidate would handle it were dominating last night's debate. And that appears to be coming the defining issue of this race.
CUOMO: You have to address the fear, the mood in the country. You have to talk about why you believe what you believe and how you would get it done. That was the standard last night. And we did see candidates laying out plans to combat ISIS, combat terror and fear. Did anyone own the issue? Judge for yourself when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:28:18] PEREIRA: We'll head back to Las Vegas in a moment for more debate coverage. But right now, some headlines for you.
Public schools in Los Angeles will re-open. Classes will resume in a matter of hours. Classes were canceled for 650,000 students in the L.A. Unified School System Tuesday after authorities received an e- mail threat, a threat that was later determined to be a hoax. The school's superintendent now coming under fire for his decision. However, he says he is not willing to take chances with the lives of his students.
A threatened government shutdown averted. Hour Speaker Paul Ryan announcing congressional leaders reached a $1.1 trillion deal to fund the government through September. Among the key provisions: the suspension of two major Obamacare taxes and the reauthorization of a health program for 9/11 first responders. A deal was also reached for a $600 billion in tax breaks. Votes on those packages are set for the end of the week.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter made a surprise visit to Baghdad this morning. This, a week after he told a Senate Armed Services Committee ISIS had not been contained. And U.S. military advisers might be sent to help Iraq's ground forces take back key territory. Carter has been in the Middle East this week to secure more military help from coalition partners against ISIS.
Quite a scary landing for passengers on a Southwest flight in Nashville. That flight from Houston rolled off a taxiway, got stuck, in fact, after landing. A Southwest spokesman said the nose gear collapsed. One hundred thirty-three people were on board. Eight, we're told, were sent to the hospital, mostly with bumps and bruises. The FAA is investigating.
All right, 29 minutes past the hour. Back to Las Vegas. How you doing, guys?
CAMEROTA; We're doing well, Michaela. It's really great. It was a great debate last night, really energizing, actually.
CUOMO: Better night. It was worth the money to have the private guard standing outside Alisyn's room. She only tried to slip out once.
CAMEROTA: Here we go. It starts at 6:29 East Coast time.
