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Clinton, Sanders Spar in Contentious Debate; Trump: 'I Don't Care' About Disputing Iowa Results; Powell, Rice Aides Received Classified E-mails on Personal Accounts. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 05, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Before it was e-mails, it was Benghazi. You have these people in the government who are doing the same thing to Secretary Powell and Secretary Rice's aides they've been doing to me. This is an absurdity.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The war in Iraq, one of us voted the right way, and one of us didn't.

CLINTON: A vote in 2002 is not a plan to defeat ISIS.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to start winning again.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He told the entire world he was going to win Iowa. Then he didn't win.

TRUMP: I'm so much in demand for that. I just -- I don't care.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm a proven leader.

BARBARA BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY: He's everything we need in a president.

CUOMO: Super Bowl 50. Denver Broncos, Carolina Panthers. Who will come out on top?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. I'm live in California ahead of Super Bowl 50 this Sunday. We have a lot on the big game coming up.

But let's get to the real news. It is now on between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Forget about feisty. The pair was pouncing in each other in their first and final one-on-one debate before the votes that are cast in New Hampshire.

What was Clinton's focus? Well, she was looking at Sanders's accusations, which she called an artful smear for suggesting undue influence because of her relationship and Wall Street, Alisyn. Did he make the case? CAMEROTA: Well, over on the Republican side, Chris, Donald Trump

claims that he's moving past the issues of Iowa to focus on New Hampshire where a new CNN poll has him ahead of the pack with four days to the primary. Let's begin our coverage with John Berman, who has all the highlights from last night's feisty debate.

Hi, John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This was different, period. Sort of a pivot point in this campaign, in fact. If you thought Hillary Clinton was going to wait, wait until Nevada, wait until South Carolina when the terrain gets more favorable for her, before he goes after Bernie Sanders, you do not have to wait anymore.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN (voice-over): Three days after barely winning Iowa, five days before facing daunting odds in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton clearly decided she could not wait another day to fight back.

CLINTON: I really don't think these kinds of attacks by insinuation are worthy of you.

BERMAN: The battle: who is the real progressive, and who is beholden to the establishment?

CLINTON: I am a progressive who gets things done, and the root of that word, "progressive," is "progress."

SANDERS: Secretary Clinton does represent the establishment. I represent, I hope, ordinary Americans. And by the way, who are not all that enamored with the establishment.

BERMAN: Clinton, who has been careful not to offend the young, passionate support behind Bernie Sanders, now seems to think it is worth the risk.

CLINTON: Senator Sanders is the only person who I think would characterize me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment. And I've got to tell you, that's really quite amusing to me.

SANDERS: What being part of the establishment is, is in the last quarter, having a super PAC to raise $15 million from Wall Street.

CLINTON: Enough is enough. If you've got something to say, say it directly.

You will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation that I ever received.

I think it's time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out in recent weeks, and let's talk about the issues that divide us.

BERMAN: Sanders was only too happy to talk about those divisions, not just on Wall Street donations, but also then-Senator Clinton's vote to authorize the Iraq War.

SANDERS: Experience is not the only point. Judgment is. And once again, back in 2002, when we both looked at the same evidence about the wisdom of the war in Iraq, one of us voted the right way; and one of us didn't.

CLINTON: A vote in 2002 is not a plan to defeat ISIS. We have to look at the threats that we face right now. And we have to be prepared to take them on and defeat them.

BERMAN: Clinton also tried to use new information to defuse the controversy over her use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state. The fact that now e-mails sent to both Colin Powell and top aides to Condoleezza Rice when they held the job have been deemed classified.

CLINTON: You have these people in the government who are doing the same thing to Secretary Powell and Secretary Rice's aides they've been doing to me, which is that I never sent or received any classified material. They are retroactively classifying it. I agree completely with Secretary Powell, who said today this is an absurdity.

BERMAN: Once again, Sanders refused to pounce on the e-mail questions, though he noted the opportunity is out there.

SANDERS: I will not politicize it. There's not a day that goes by when I am -- when I am not asked to attack her on that issue. And I have refrained from doing that. And I will continue to refrain from doing that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[07:05:06] BERMAN: So this debate was in New Hampshire, but you had the sense, particularly with Hillary Clinton, she was looking beyond New Hampshire, sending a message to Nevada, South Carolina, the states on March 1, that she is going to be aggressive and aggressively making her case.

And she also announced, which is very interesting, she is leaving New Hampshire to campaign in Michigan in Flint on Sunday. So that could be a sense of where her mind is in this campaign -- Chris.

CUOMO: Keen insight, my friend. I like the worst of the use -- use of the word "case," because there is one against her, as well.

Let's test it right now. Let's bring in Jennifer Granholm, of course, the former governor of Michigan, also senior adviser to the pro- Hillary group, Correct the Record.

It's good to have you with us. Let's deal with the record right now. It is really cold out here in San Francisco. But the race itself heating up. What -- what Hillary said last night was the artful smear. "Just say what you want to say." Bernie Sanders took a step back on that point last night. But let's take a step forward right now. You take a lot of money from Wall Street. You got paid a ton of

money, as Maeve Reston said, money you could buy a house with, from Wall Street. It doesn't smell good. It doesn't give confidence that you can regulate the same people who pay you. Fair criticism?

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, FORMER GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN: Chris, what she said is that Bernie Sanders has been essentially accusing her of changing her positions as a result of taking speaking fees or campaign contributions. And she said, "If you've got something to say, bring it on." Because what she's done is proposed a more robust plan to reign in Wall Street than even he has.

This is what their contributions got them. A plan that would tax high-speed trades. A plan that would increasingly enforce and send to jail violators. A plan that would beef up Dodd-Frank. A plan that would separate banking -- commercial banking from investment banking by reinstituting and strengthening the Volcker Rule, a plan that would regulate shadow banking, like the hedge funds, et cetera, that aren't already regulated.

Now, if that's what they got for their quid pro quo for contributing, I would say that would be a negative return on investment.

CUOMO: Well, Governor, Sanders would argue that he matches that plan point for point in terms of his criteria and exceeds it.

GRANHOLM: He does not.

CUOMO: And the question would be, what can you point to that substantiates the claim that he says she changed votes?

GRANHOLM: But that's the point, is that she did not. He did not -- last night...

CUOMO: But he never say she did. When did he say she did?

GRANHOLM: Well, that's his -- what he's -- what he is suggesting -- isn't that what he's suggesting that -- that by taking these, that she cannot effectively regulate Wall Street.

And her point is "I know these guys. I know their game. That's why I've put forth a plan that Paul Krugman calls incredibly effective." That is, he has supported it. The more people have praised her plan to regulate Wall Street than his. So it is influencing her in some way. It's influencing her to be against them and not for them.

CUOMO: OK. Another big issue that came up yesterday, not in the debate but in the news. Yes, you and others in the Clinton camp have been saying she's not the only secretary of state who had personal e- mail and may have had information come across that now, after the fact, is being scrutinized differently as classified.

But from the government's side, you wind up having a leak, essentially, that said Powell and Rice had things come across their personal e-mail, as well. How much does this help Clinton, but how much is still out there in terms of her judgment of having her own server, which distinguishes her from the others, certainly from Rice. She says she didn't even use e-mail.

GRANHOLM: Right. I mean, she has said that it wasn't the best decision to have her own server. But what these -- this revelation yesterday reveals, is that she's been accurate on two things.

One is that she wasn't the only one using her private e-mail. That it was allowed and that others did it.

But second, that the number of things that have been retroactively classified is amazing. And that she has been calling for the State Department to release these documents, because the documents now will not jeopardize national security, which is the exact same thing that Colin Powell is saying. Over classification, basically.

CUOMO: As an advocate for -- right. That has been the suggestion by Clinton's camp. It's also what Secretary Powell is now saying. General Powell is saying coming forward, saying, "No, no, don't tell me I was messing around with classified information." This was after the fact.

So as an advocate for Clinton, make the case to the American voter that she can be trusted, even though the allegation is the private server was a manifestation of Clinton paranoia and the desire to control her activities outside the scrutinizing eye of the public or the government.

GRANHOLM: I think as she said, it was not the best case -- choice to make, but it was purely a choice of not wanting to have multiple devices. It wasn't -- it wasn't something that was some kind of back- room plot. It was really just somebody who didn't want technology to be confusing her life. She wanted it on one device. She wanted it simple. And now she wants these e-mails released.

And as we've seen with the traunches (ph) of e-mails...

CUOMO: The ones she did not delete.

GRANHOLM: There is no -- Chris, the ones she did not delete? Who is saying she deleted e-mails?

CUOMO: She deleted a whole bunch of them. That fuels a lot of speculation. Off the server. Off the server. Thirty thousand e- mails that weren't...

GRANHOLM: Nobody has said that. There were -- she turned over 55,000 e-mails that were relative to work. She didn't turn over the ones that were personal. Like no other -- I mean, every state employee and federal employee has the choice of making the decision about personal e-mail and which -- whether they use their personal e-mail or whether they use their government e-mail. She turned over all of her government e-mails.

And now the FBI is looking at it. Bottom line is, Chris, this is not the issue. And as Bernie Sanders even said last night, this is not the issue for the Democratic primary. I'm sure the Republicans will continue to make an issue of it, and it's not going to go away. But for this primary and this debate last night, and the debate last

night I thought that was a terrific, you know, brawl. I think both of them brought a really strong game. But I think Secretary Clinton ended up winning.

CUOMO: Governor, thank you very much for making the case. You know, I'm not creating these accusations. They're out there. And that's why I asked you to answer for them. Thank you very much. I appreciate having you on NEW DAY, as always -- Alisyn.

GRANHOLM: I appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, just one day after accusing rival Ted Cruz of voter fraud and demanding a rematch in Iowa, Donald Trump now says he's over it. The frontrunner telling CNN's Anderson Cooper the only thing on his mind is New Hampshire.

A new CNN/WMUR poll shows Trump holding a commanding lead among Republicans in the Granite State as a battle brews for the No. 2 spot.

Sunlen Serfaty is live in Manchester, New Hampshire, with all the developments. What's the latest, Sunlen?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Well, Donald Trump is noticeably toning down his rhetoric, backing off his attacks on Ted Cruz, and recalibrating just a bit on the ground here in New Hampshire to campaign in a much more traditional way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY (voice-over): Going into the nation's first primary next Tuesday, the GOP candidates are taking New Hampshire by storm.

TRUMP: February 9, you've got to get out and vote. No matter where you are, no matter how you feel. I don't give a damn.

SERFATY: Donald Trump ramping up his ground game, a lesson learned from his second-place finish in Iowa. Switching gears at last night's rally in Portsmouth, he didn't attack opponents Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, instead firing up the crowd with one message: He's in it to win it.

TRUMP: We're going to win on health care. We're going to win with the military. We're going to knock the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of ISIS. We're going to knock the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of them.

SERFATY: The latest CNN polls show Trump maintaining his lead among Granite State voters. Rubio surging to second place, Ted Cruz downplaying his third-place status.

CRUZ: If momentum were measured by the media, Marco Rubio would already be the Republican nominee. Iowa demonstrated the media doesn't get to pick the Republican candidate.

SERFATY: While sharpening attacks on Trump. CRUZ: Donald Trump is very rattled right now. He told the entire

world he was going to win Iowa. And then he didn't win.

God bless the great state of Iowa.

SERFATY: Just a day after accusing the Texas senator of stealing those Iowa caucus votes, Trump now telling CNN's Anderson Cooper he's over it.

TRUMP: I'm so much, because I've been here now for two days. I'm so much into this and into New Hampshire that I just -- I don't care about that anymore.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR; But do you think Ted Cruz intentionally was spreading...

TRUMP: I don't care. I don't want to even say. Let's see what happens. I guess people are looking at it. Who cares?

SERFATY: Meanwhile, former GOP candidate Lindsey Graham, who's endorsed Jeb Bush, blasting both candidates this week, calling Trump's views on foreign policy gibberish and calling Cruz an opportunist.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: If you're a Republican and your choice is Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, in the general election, it's the difference between poisoned or shot. You're still dead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY: And while Ted Cruz and Donald Trump duke it out amongst themselves, the battle within the establishment lane of the party, the establishment candidates, it's really escalating in the last 24 hours with Marco Rubio remaining target No. 1 -- Alisyn.

[07:15:07] PEREIRA: I'll take it here, Sunlen. Thanks so much for that.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton appears to be getting an unexpected assist from the State Department on that issue of dogging her campaign. The inspector general has been digging into the electronic communications of previous secretaries of state and finds that Clinton was not the only secretary to receive classified e-mails on a personal account.

Our justice reporter, Evan Perez, is live in Washington. He has more for us -- Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, we're talking about two e-mails that former Secretary of State Colin Powell received on this private e-mail account that are now deemed classified. And ten classified e-mails were received by close aides to Condoleezza Rice when she was secretary of state.

Powell and Rice dispute these findings by the state, State Department's internal watchdog. Powell issued this statement saying, quote, "I have reviewed the messages, and I do not see what makes them classified. If the department wishes to say a dozen years later they should have been classified, that is an opinion of the department that I do not share."

Rice's office at Sanford University says she does not -- she never used e-mail at all and that the messages in question didn't include intelligence information when sent to her aides. But Clinton says the report supports exactly what she's been talking about in this e-mail controversy. Take a listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Now you have these people in the government who are doing the same thing to Secretary Powell and Secretary Rice's aides they've been doing to me, which is that I never sent or received any classified material. They are retroactively classifying it. I agree completely with Secretary Powell who said today this is an absurdity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And Alisyn, it bears reminding everyone here that, unlike her predecessors, Clinton set up a private server to handle all of her government e-mails.

CAMEROTA: OK, Evan, thanks so much for that.

We do have some breaking news to tell you about. The Vatican announcing an historic meeting set for next week between Pope Francis and the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Cuba. This will be the very first meeting since tensions emerged over eastern and western branches of Christianity a thousand years ago, over issues including the prominence of the pope.

The two churches say they hope the meeting will be a sign of hope for all people of goodwill.

PEREIRA: Oh, yes, time for some laughs. The current political season is providing a wealth of material each and every late night. So here's today's installment of "Late Night Laughs."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, NBC'S "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON": Donald Trump's plane made an emergency landing in Nashville yesterday after reporting engine problems. When asked what the issue was, the pilot said, "Nothing. I just couldn't take it anymore. I just need three minutes."

CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, TBS'S "CONAN": The Marco Rubio campaign is now selling a T-shirt that calls Marco Rubio "Bey." Hillary Clinton called it such a desperate attempt to appeal to young people I can't believe I didn't think of it first.

SETH MEYERS, NBC'S "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": Bernie Sanders yesterday interrupted his own speech to rush to the aid of a man who fainted in the audience. He was able to shout him back to consciousness: "Are you OK? Wake up! The middle class is disappearing!"

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: I gave a little snort there.

CAMEROTA: I like that. That was funny.

PEREIRA: That was great.

CAMEROTA: Everybody has a good night, everybody. But some of the late nights have a great Bernie Sanders impression.

PEREIRA: Larry David tomorrow on "Saturday Night Live." I might stay up past my bedtime.

CAMEROTA: Me, too. All right. So Donald Trump saying that he's moving on after Iowa and asking New Hampshire voters to make his lead in the polls stick. His strategy is shifting. Will it work? And what is it?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And by the way, I'm No. 1 in New Hampshire. Will you please keep me there? This is ridiculous. Ridiculous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Donald Trump ramping up his ground game in New Hampshire and saying he's moved on from his allegations that Ted Cruz stole the Iowa caucuses. So what is Trump's new strategy? Here this morning is Trump campaign co-chairman and policy adviser Sam Clovis.

SAM CLOVIS, DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIRMAN AND POLICY ADVISER: How are you doing, Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Doing well. So yesterday, Donald Trump said Anderson Cooper, in this little town hall that he, quote, "doesn't care anymore about what he called voter fraud in Iowa." How can he not care about voter fraud?

CLOVIS: Well, I think the big issue in Iowa is that the people of Iowa will take care of this if there was anything that happened. The process the secretary of state likely to investigate, will probably have the Republican Party of Iowa investigate to see what happened.

I mean, they're both responsible for the process and the ethics that take place as far as campaigns go. And for us, we have to concentrated on New Hampshire. And we'll let the people of Iowa settle this in their own way.

CAMEROTA: But I mean, it was just two days ago that Donald Trump was calling for the results to be nullified. He was calling for a new vote in Iowa. I mean, if there really were a stolen election, that's a constitutional issue. How -- how can he say two days later that he doesn't care? CLOVIS: Well, it's not really a constitutional issue. The whole

issue, you have to understand, is the caucus process is run by the parties. And the party process, the Democrat Party and the Republican Party of Iowa are responsible for those processes. And that's part of it. It's not a sanctioned election by the state.

The issue there is the secretary of state's sole responsibility in those cases deals with the ethics and how those -- those processes are conducted according to the ethical standards and the law that we have that exists.

So this is really one of those things where the tactics of a particular candidate used in an election really may fall in a crack there between the Republican Party of Iowa and the secretary of state. So it's really not a constitutional issue.

CAMEROTA: It appears that Donald Trump is shifting strategy now in Iowa. What's the new -- I'm sorry, in New Hampshire. What's the new plan?

[07:25:10] CLOVIS: Well, the whole idea is that we're concentrating here. We've got four days until the primary here. There's no difference in anything that we're doing. We're following our plan. This is the plan we've had all along. We'll spend more time here. We're trying to concentrate more, trying to get more events in. We'll do all of those things, because this is no change. It's just exactly what we've had in mind all along.

CAMEROTA: But it looks like a change, Sam. Because now Donald Trump -- I mean, he had two events scheduled. He beefed that up to five yesterday. He's taking more questions from the audience. He sat down for a town hall. In fact, there was this Politico report that said that some of his staff in New Hampshire was calling for more money and manpower. They felt that the ground game wasn't robust enough there. So are you responding to this?

CLOVIS: I don't think that's accurate. I don't know if that's accurate. I think a lot of times, it becomes apparent for us is that -- when the media starts getting involved in a lot of the issues that are ongoing, I think that sometimes, it's easy to roll something out there and get the media to bite on it.

And it's -- and frankly, I think that we're in great shape here. We have been for several weeks. We've increased our -- our footprint here in the state of Iowa. We have thousands of people working for us up here and volunteering and helping us out.

So nothing has really changed. I mean, I don't know where you get this. But that is simply not the case. This is what we have to do.

The other thing you have to understand is when we're dealing with a candidate who has the protective services that are available to him, you have to be very careful about what you schedule and not schedule and what you can announce and what you can't announce because of access and a lot of other issues there. So that has to be rolled into this, as well. CAMEROTA: Does Donald Trump now consider Marco Rubio to be his

biggest threat in New Hampshire?

CLOVIS: I think, you know -- I don't know if you remember Lewis Grizzard. He was a great columnist for the "Atlanta Constitution- Journal," great southern wit. He said if you're not the lead dog, the scenery never changes. And I think Mr. Trump is not too concerned about who's behind him. He's looking to the future and what's ahead of him.

CAMEROTA: Even Donald Trump expressed some remorse this week about not having a more robust ground game in Iowa, and he felt that that might have tipped the scales for him. Are you confident, Sam, that what you need to have in place in Iowa is going to deliver a win on Tuesday?

CLOVIS: Well, Iowa is over.

CAMEROTA: That's right.

CLOVIS: We're in New Hampshire, and that's where we are. And I think that, yes -- I think we're OK with what we have going on.

CAMEROTA: The snowy scape is confusing.

CLOVIS: Well, I'm here on this palatial set you have set for us here in New Hampshire. And I -- the cameraman is deeper into this U-Haul truck we're in. So I just wanted to make sure that the backdrop here is beautiful.

And again, I love coming on your show, Alisyn. It's always a great joy for me.

CAMEROTA: Does it get any more glamorous, Sam?

But my question is, are you confident that you will deliver the win in New Hampshire next week?

CLOVIS: Well, I think our team will deliver the win. And we have a great candidate. We have a great team. And I think we're going to do fine. We'll check the results on Tuesday night.

CAMEROTA: All right. We will see you Monday there in New Hampshire. Sam, thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

CLOVIS: All right, Alisyn. Great to talk to you again.

CAMEROTA: OK, you, too.

What's your take on all this? You can tweet us @NewDay or post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay.

Let's go to -- out to California. We know that's where Chris is.

Hey, Chris. CUOMO: It is cold out here, my friend. But the tone of the debate

between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is heating up. Can the Democrats keep it civil, or as it gets tight, as it gets more important, will it get uglier? That's the question. Insight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)