Return to Transcripts main page
New Day
Debate Highlights Rifts Between Clinton & Sanders; Cruz Campaign Pulls Ad Featuring Adult Film Actress; Trump Ramps Up Attacks Despite New 'Positive' Tone; GOP Mega Donor Ken Langone Throws Support to Kasich; On the Front Lines of the Fight for Aleppo. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired February 12, 2016 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The kind of criticism that we've heard from Senator Sanders about our president I expect from Republicans.
[05:58:45] SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Madam Secretary, that is a low blow. Let's not insult the intelligence of the American people. People are not dumb. Why in God's name does Wall Street make huge campaign contributions?
CLINTON: Once I'm in the White House, we will have enough political capital.
SANDERS: Secretary Clinton, you're not in the White House yet.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There is no one left in the Republican field who has more experience than I have.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Don't listen to any of the campaign rhetoric.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I won't use foul language. I'm just not going to do it.
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How are you going to bring people together when all you're doing is trashing somebody else?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So we're told it's 13 degrees outside.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thirteen degrees, a nice, lovely, cold day here in Manhattan.
CAMEROTA: It's going to be like that all weekend. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Friday, February 12, 6 a.m. in the East. Chris and Michaela are off this morning. John Berman joins me. Great to have you with us.
Well, deeper divisions emerging between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in last night's debate. Clinton delivered her most forceful argument yet, that Sanders is too critical of President Obama. Sanders clashing with her over foreign policy and who can best lead a divided country.
BERMAN: The debate was full of brand-new attack lines. Clinton ended the debate by slamming Sanders for being a single-issue candidate.
Now on the other side, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is vowing to play nice and also going on the attack, both at the same time. The Republicans face off in their next debate tomorrow night.
Let's begin our coverage with senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny, live in Milwaukee, the scene of last night's debate.
Good morning, Jeff.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
It was quite an evening on the stage behind me here. Bernie Sanders and his call for a political revolution and Hillary Clinton and her call for a reality check. Now, it was just those two on the stage behind me. But President Obama hung on nearly every word. And she hugged him tightly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANDERS: Secretary Clinton, you're not in the White House yet.
ZELENY (voice-over): A civil but contentious night for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Side by side is on stage since Sanders' commanding New Hampshire victory upended the Democratic primary fight. Again and again, Clinton tried making one thing clear: She is the rightful heir to President Obama.
CLINTON: Today Senator Sanders said President Obama failed the presidential leadership test. And this is not the first time that he has criticized President Obama. In the past, he's called him weak. He's called him a disappointment.
ZELENY: It was a message for Democratic voters of South Carolina, more than half of whom are African-American and widely adore the president.
CLINTON: The kind of criticism that we've heard from Senator Sanders about our president I expect from Republicans. I do not expect from someone running for the Democratic nomination to succeed President Obama.
SANDERS: That is -- Madam Secretary, that is a low blow. The last time I heard a United States senator had the right to disagree with the president, including a president who's done such an extraordinary job. One of us ran against Barack Obama. I was not that candidate.
ZELENY: Sanders had the final word. But it opened a new chapter in the Democratic duel that may be just beginning. The PBS debate exposed deeper lines in their policy and political differences. On health care, immigration and Wall Street reform Clinton presented herself as the keeper of the Obama legacy.
CLINTON: Before it was called Obamacare, it was called Hillarycare.
ZELENY: If elected, Sanders said race relations would be better in his administration.
SANDERS: Absolutely. Because what we will do is say, instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires, we are going to create millions of jobs for low-income kids so they're not hanging out on street corners.
ZELENY: Another flash point: money in politics. Clinton again tied herself to Obama and rejected the suggestion she would be swayed by campaign donations.
CLINTON: So let's not in any way imply here that either President Obama or myself would not take on any vested interest,
whether it's Wall Street, or drug companies, or insurance companies or frankly, the gun lobby.
SANDERS: Let's not insult the intelligence of the American people. People aren't dumb. Why, in God's name, does Wall Street make huge campaign contributions? I guess just for the fun of it. They want to throw money around.
ZELENY: Sanders ran strong among women in New Hampshire. Clinton was asked why.
CLINTON: I'm not asking people to support me because I'm a woman. I'm asking people to support me because I think I'm the most qualified, experienced and ready person to be the president and the commander in chief.
ZELENY: On foreign policy, Sanders took a new approach in questioning Clinton's judgment, calling out her admiration for Henry Kissinger.
SANDERS: I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger.
CLINTON: Well, I know journalists have asked who you do listen to on foreign policy, and we have yet to know who that is.
SANDERS: Well, it ain't Henry Kissinger.
CLINTON: That's fine. That's fine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZELENY: And that was the tone that is going to carry this contest forward here, as these candidates go to Nevada and then on to South Carolina. If you came into this debate a Bernie Sanders fan, you certainly left a Bernie Sanders fan. Vice versa for the Clinton campaign. It didn't solve many things. But what it did show is that these deep lines are going to continue as this race now spreads all across the country -- John and Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: All right. Jeff, thanks so much for setting the table for us. Stay with us, if you would, because we want to bring in Errol Louis, our CNN political commentator and political anchor for Time Warner Cable News and Jackie Kucinich, senior politics editor for "The Daily Beast." Great to have all of you here this morning.
Errol, what was your big takeaway from last night's debate?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: My big takeaway was that Clinton was, I think, sort of slowing outpointing Bernie Sanders, you know, in subtle ways. You'd have to sort of be watching to -- so, for example, she had in the audience with her the mother of a kid named Dontre Hamilton, who had been killed in Milwaukee back in 2014. Very controversial case. He was shot 14 times. He had -- mental illness may have been involved. And it was a real sort of important issue. She drops the name. Bernie Sanders doesn't do that.
[06:05:07] She's talking past him to the electorate in South Carolina. She's making direct appeals to black voters in South Carolina in ways that he really wasn't doing. He was really kind of doing the standard stump speech.
This is somebody -- Hillary Clinton, I think, was showing her experience, that you've got to be thinking about who's watching. Not everybody watching is important or I should say some are more important than others. And so she was looking ahead and really trying to do some political business in a way that Bernie Sanders...
BERMAN: More important than others. You would put people who live in the states of Nevada and South Carolina in that category of people more important than others.
And Jackie, Jeff Zeleny, at the end there, he said that maybe, you know, Bernie Sanders didn't pick up any new supporters last night. Hillary Clinton didn't either.
But maybe what she did do was shift the terms of this debate to friendly terrain. And I'm not just talking about issues for minority voters. I'm talking about the Barack Obama legacy.
Let's play that key sound again where she really tries to suggest that she has been for Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders not so much.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I don't think he gets the credit he deserves for being a president who got us out, got us on firm ground, and set us into the future. And it is -- the kind of criticism that we've heard from Senator Sanders about our president I expect from Republicans. I do not expect from someone running for the Democratic nomination to succeed President Obama.
SANDERS: That is -- Madam Secretary, that is a low blow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: You know, Jackie, Bernie Sanders may have held his own in the back and forth there, but it seems to me that Hillary Clinton would rather talk about this for the next eight days about a billion times more than she wants to talk about who's the more progressive candidate.
JACKIE KUCINICH, SENIOR POLITICS EDITOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": Absolutely. You actually -- one of those lines you hear Hillary Clinton say on the stump quite a bit, about how President Obama doesn't get the credit that he deserves.
And this is with an eye on Nevada, and it is with an eye on South Carolina. But I will say, this is a strategy that's not without its risks. Because if she ends up the nominee, you have to bet that Republicans are going to be playing this over and over and over again with independents that might not be as favorable with President Obama. But right now, yes, it sure is serving her purposes courting these base voters.
CAMEROTA: Jeff, Hillary Clinton also had another moment where she talked about the historic nature of her candidacy, of being a woman. But she didn't sort of spell it out in those terms. Let me play it for you how she framed it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Somebody told me earlier today we've had, like, 200 presidential primary debates, and this is the first time there have been a majority of women on the stage. So, you know, we'll take our progress wherever we can find it.
SANDERS: From a historical point of view, somebody with my background, somebody with my views, somebody who has spent his entire life taking on the big money interests, I think a Sanders victory would be of some historical accomplishment, as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: That was interesting, right, Jeff? Because Bernie Sanders, if he were elected, that would be historical. But she was saying that, between Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff, the moderators, and herself, there are more women than had ever been on the stage in 200 years.
ZELENY: Right. And I'm not sure that worked for her. It sounded to me like she was trying to game the refs a little bit. She kind of shot them a look. And Gwen and Judy did not respond to that.
But look, the problem here is the challenge for the Clinton campaign, and one that they're actually quite concerned about, is women voters. Why are so many women voters, including young women voters, siding with his campaign, his candidacy? So that, going forward, is something that she knows she needs to work on and address.
He would be historic in some respects. He's an underdog; would be the first Jewish president, which he didn't mention, as well, here. But it was a fine moment for her, again, the challenge is she's not being able to translate the history of that into -- into votes going forward. And we'll see in Nevada and South Carolina if she's able to do that.
BERMAN: Bernie Sanders would be the first Jewish president. He'd be the first socialist, or democratic socialist.
CAMEROTA: Indeed.
BERMAN: So he's right: There is history there. You talk about the appeal to younger voters, you know who I don't think younger voters probably care that much about, Errol? Is Henry Kissinger. I mean, I don't think younger voters even know who Henry Kissinger is.
LOUIS: I'm sure they don't.
BERMAN: This is a Vietnam-era issue. This is a 1976 campaign argument or 1984. And both of them, you know, Bernie Sanders hurling a charge at Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton sort of, you know, surrounding herself in Henry Kissinger. Why bother having the argument over who likes Henry Kissinger less?
LOUIS: I think it's partly instinctive. You know? And also, we're getting older, John. But the reality is, there is a big swath. Anybody who is 50 and up, remembers very well who Henry Kissinger was. And for the left and especially for the Sanders generation, he was a very important figure and a very much reviled figure, frankly.
[06:10:04] So this is Bernie Sanders, I think, scoring points with the kids -- well, the kids...
BERMAN: They weren't kids in '76.
LOUIS: The parents of the kids or the professors of the kids on campuses, the people, the anti-war left from the -- not just the Iraq War but the Vietnam War, who remember very well what Henry Kissinger stood for. He's the father of the neocons. Let's put it that way.
And for a lot of people, for Bernie Sanders, I think it was just instinctive that he was going to sort of check that box off. I'm sure the editors at "The Nation" loved it. And that's kind of the crowd that he's playing to a lot of the time.
CAMEROTA: Jackie, what did you think was most effective last night?
KUCINICH: You know, I do think the final exchange where Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were debating on month loved the president more. I think that -- when you look at -- what was the most social moment, the one that people were talking the most about it, it was that exchange. And, you know, as Jeff said at the very top of the segment, I
don't think it changed any minds at the end of the day. But it seems like both candidates sort of got their traditional licks in.
CAMEROTA: All right. We have many more highlights and lowlights to play for everyone. Jackie, Errol, Jeff, thanks so much for this.
KUCINICH: Thank you.
BERMAN: We have more news this morning. A deal is in place for a ceasefire to stop the fighting in Syria. World leaders meeting in Germany are calling it a cessation of hostilities agreement. It takes effect in one week and provides desperately-needed aid for Syrian refugees over the next few days. Russia's foreign minister plans to end some of his country's airstrikes by next Friday; will continue to attack what Moscow considers terrorist targets.
CAMEROTA: A dramatic screen unfolding inside a Columbus, Ohio, restaurant as a man armed with a machete injures four people Thursday night. Authorities say the unidentified subject targeted people randomly inside the Mediterranean Eatery, as it's called. He then took off and led police on a short chase before officers gunned him down. At this point, the motive is unclear.
BERMAN: So Einstein, it turns out, was right. As if, you know, we'd call Einstein wrong, even if it took hundreds of years to prove it. Scientists announced they have detected gravitational waves rippling across the universe. Something predicted by Albert Einstein but never actually observed.
The waves were set off by the collision of two black holes a billion light years from earth, which is pretty far. The cosmic discovery is expected to have a major impact on future study of the university.
I read this article, like, four times, and I still -- I know it's a big deal, but I cannot tell you why.
CAMEROTA: That was word salad right there.
BERMAN: You know, but the whole thing. I really studied this for at least, like, 17 minutes yesterday, and it still makes no sense to me.
CAMEROTA: Well, I appreciate that. That you do it so we don't have to. Thank you.
Ted Cruz forced to quickly pull one of his campaign ads, all because of this actress, who appears in it for only a matter of seconds. What is it about her that led his campaign to pull an ad he endorsed. John Berman will explain.
BERMAN: It has to do with insatiable desires and private sex clubs.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: You will remember this story for years to come. The Ted
Cruz campaign forced to pull this attack ad targeting Marco Rubio. Take a look and see if you can guess why.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has anyone else here struggled with being lied to?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I voted for a guy who was a Tea Party hero on the campaign trail. And then went to D.C. and played patty- cake with Chuck Schumer and cut a deal on amnesty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that make you feel angry?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Angry? It makes me feel dumb for trusting him.
AMY LINDSEY, ACTRESS: Maybe you should vote for more than just a pretty face next time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you guys have room for one more?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on in. You can have Frank's chair.
CRUZ: I'm Ted Cruz, and I approve this message.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: "I'm Ted Cruz, and I approve this message." Remember that line. Why is the ad being pulled? Turns out that the actress you see right there, she has performed in films such as "Private Sex Club: Carnal Wishes," and "Insatiable Desires."
CAMEROTA: Those aren't even in the teleprompter. You are just enjoying reading this.
BERMAN: I know a lot about politics. I know a lot about politics.
All right. Her name is Amy Lindsey. She told BuzzFeed she considers herself a conservative Christian Republican and thought those involved making the commercial were aware of her, you know, tasteful adult soft-core porn background.
Here to discuss: CNN political commentator and political anchor at Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis; senior politics editor at "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich; and CNN political reporter, Sara Murray.
Errol, I mean, I think everyone reads this and, you know, sees this story and just laughs, just because it's -- on the one hand, it's entertaining. On the other hand, Ted Cruz is trying to be the social values candidate, the Christian conservative, the evangelical guy. It is an embarrassment for his campaign.
LOUIS: It's a bit of an embarrassment. I mean, you know, look, these things can really flip around. You know, if there's a real redemption story there, if she wants to get up and say, like, you know, "I went from one kind of darkness and into the light," then she turns into sort of a different kind of a thing. Never an asset, of course.
But yes, these things happen. It's sort of a bit of a goof. I don't think anybody thinks that Ted Cruz is in any way insincere about his faith or his intention to make that faith a cornerstone of his politics.
CAMEROTA: Well, Amy Lindsey is the actress. She does describe herself as a conservative Christian. She is a Republican. She is tweeting today her disappointment with having had the ad pulled. She said, "Extremely disappointed the Ted Cruz campaign pulled the national television spot I had a roll in."
Jackie, you know, they're heading to Nevada. Nevada doesn't discriminate against porn stars.
BERMAN: Glass half full.
KUCINICH: That -- that is true. That is true. And this is -- this seems like an incident that the Ted Cruz campaign desperately wants to get behind them. And they didn't want this chatter out there. But you know, he may have lost one vote: that actress, because she said -- as you said, she's not very happy that the ad was pulled.
BERMAN: Every vote counts.
All right. Donald Trump. Let's talk about the front-runner, Donald Trump. Won New Hampshire, heads into South Carolina. His campaign manager brags about the fact that they pulled a negative ad. The took an ad about Ted Cruz off the airways, because Donald Trump is going to be nice in South Carolina.
Then what does he do? He goes to Baton Rouge last night in Louisiana, and he's at a rally. And he talks about the other candidates and bashes them just like he has been. Listen to this one clip where he's talking about their negative ads, but he gets some of that emotion into it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[06:20:15] TRUMP: Poor Jeb. He spent $20 million on negative ads. If he didn't do that, I wouldn't be talking badly about him. You know? And he's so off that he -- all he needs to do is just stop, and I'll leave him alone. He's like a child.
Cruz -- Cruz today put up an ad that's so false. It's so false. They take these ads, and they're so vicious, and they say anything. They say anything. I just hope you don't believe the crap, because it's all crap. OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Sara, you spent plenty of time with Donald Trump here. Which is it? Is he going to be nicer in South Carolina? Is it going to be on the attack? You know, he called Ted Cruz "a liar, the worst kind of liar," crazy or very dishonest in a tweet. Which way is he going to go in South Carolina?
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, I think the reality is it's going to be a little bit of both. They like these positive spots. They think that staying above the fray message worked for them in New Hampshire.
But Donald Trump is not the kind of guy who is just going to take a punch from another candidate and not respond. I think he's actually incapable of doing that.
And you may notice that on the campaign trail yesterday, all of these guys -- Marco Rubio, for instance, who just thought sort of Donald Trump would disappear and not actually be a factor in this race -- seemed to have woken up and realized that, look, Donald Trump won New Hampshire. His support is real. And if they want to win, they're going to have to go through him. And so I think now that they are punching harder at him, Donald Trump is saying, "Wait, you want me to just not respond?"
CAMEROTA: Errol, I see you nodding.
LOUIS: Yes, well, look, I think this is for the so-called establishment candidates who are hoping to get a shot at being the candidate to take on Donald Trump. They're going to have to go through Ted Cruz. And this is, in some ways, I think, the scenario that they have to beware of, the shaping up as a Trump/Cruz race. The two of them going back and forth.
And they -- you know, really, it would have helped a lot of the other candidates if Trump had, indeed, decided to run a bunch of ads attacking Ted Cruz and get into it with him in a real sort of fierce way. But the reality is it helps both of them at the top to just kind of move on and let the establishment-lane candidates finish each other off.
BERMAN: So big day for John Kasich yesterday. He does well, finishes second in New Hampshire, goes down to South Carolina. People don't think he has a real shot in South Carolina. But he did get a big win in his wallet. Ken Langone, head of Home Depot, a guy who was very supportive of Ted [SIC] Christie, the bank behind Ted [SIC] Christie, now says...
CAMEROTA: Chris Christie?
BERMAN: What did I say? Yes, Chris Christie. Sorry.
CAMEROTA: They're just combining...
BERMAN: They're all getting together right now.
CAMEROTA: A hybrid.
BERMAN: Big backer of Chris Christie, gets behind John Kasich. Going to put his big money behind John Kasich right now. Ken Langone is worth a lot of money. He's a serious political player. You know, Jackie, how much of a difference, how much of a boost is this for John Kasich?
KUCINICH: This is good news, obviously, for John Kasich. I mean, he's someone who hasn't really raised a whole bunch of money. And he's going to need it.
And we've seen in other -- in other years one billionaire or one very rich person can keep a candidate afloat for quite a while. I mean, look at Foster Friess with Rick Santorum and Shel Adelson with Newt Gingrich.
So I mean, this is good news. It is still unclear where John Kasich can make some inroads, when you look at the -- when you look at the calendar in the near term. But, hey, this is -- this is a step in the right direction for him.
CAMEROTA: And Sara, John Kasich, as you know, is priding himself on running a positive campaign. He has a new ad just out this morning. So let's just play a little snippet of it and then analyze it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KASICH: My father was a postman that told me, "Johnny, you stand on your own two feet. You go out there and change the world."
My parents were killed by drunk driver, but my parents did not die in vain. I was transformed. I discovered my purpose by discovering the Lord. I believe the Lord put us on this earth to use the gifts that we've been given to bring about healing. And that's the motivation for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Sara, pretty powerful. Autobiographical stuff and talking about where his faith comes from.
MURRAY: Yes, he's really doubling down on this idea of a positive message and talking about his faith, of course, in South Carolina, which has a big evangelical population, could be the kind of thing that gives him a little bit of a boost here.
But ads like these, that's why you need a Ken Langone in your corner. Because as we get to place like South Carolina, places like Florida and then the SEC primary states, you need to be able to go up on the airwaves in a number of states at the same time, and that's expensive. And Ken Langone isn't just a billionaire, but he's the kind of billionaire who opens doors to other billionaires. And if you're someone like John Kasich, who's sort of building a national campaign from scratch right now, that's exactly what you need.
BERMAN: It's the best kind of billionaire to have in a campaign.
CAMEROTA: I like all of them, all of the billionaires, frankly. I don't discriminate against them.
Sara, Jackie, Errol, thank you very much.
MURRAY: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: All right. Up next, you'll want to see this. It's a CNN exclusive. Our Frederik Pleitgen following Syrian government forces as they advance on rebel-held positions with the help of Russian air cover. Only CNN is taking you to the front lines of the fight for Aleppo. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:29:09] CAMEROTA: Efforts underway this morning to reach a formal cease-fire in Syria. But for now, the fighting continues. Syrian government forces making significant advances on Aleppo and several Shiite towns, where rebels have been entrenched for years.
CNN is the first international network taking you to the front lines of the fight for Aleppo.
CNN's Frederik Pleitgen joins us live from Damascus with his exclusive report. Tell us about your access, Fred.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn.
And certainly, when we were there in Aleppo, you could hear Russian planes overhead in the skies virtually the whole time. There were a lot of airstrikes.
But what really stood out to us is that at this point in time is the confidence that the Syrian soldiers have right now but also, quite frankly, the devastation inside Aleppo, which has been on the front line of this brutal war for five years now. Let's have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Years of urban combat have laid waste to Aleppo's old town. Syrian army snipers scan the terrain for possible movement on the other side.
(on camera): We're right on the front line in the Syrian government's offensive against the opposition. The soldiers...
