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U.S. Special Forces Capture First ISIS Operative; Post-Super Tuesday Coverage; Will KKK Comments Haunt Trump's Campaign? Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired March 02, 2016 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:32:38] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We have more of our Super Tuesday coverage ahead. But, first, we want to take a look at your other headlines.
U.S. Special Operations Forces capturing their first suspected ISIS operative in northern Iraq. CNN's Barbara Starr reporting the suspect is being interrogated by U.S. military officials and will be turned over to Iraqi authorities in the next few days. The mission carried out by the Pentagon's special highly secretive targeting them lead by the Army's elite Delta Force.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: LGBT rights activists score major victory, as South Dakota Republican governor vetoes a bill that would have restricted bathroom access for transgender students. Governor Dennis Daugaard defying other conservative lawmakers, deciding the law would, quote, "invite conflict and litigation". He says local school districts can address the issue themselves.
The law would have been the first to make transgender students use bathrooms and locker rooms matching the gender listed on birth certificates.
CAMEROTA: Astronaut Scott Kelly back on earth after 340 days in space. Kelly and two Russian cosmonauts touched down late last night Kazakhstan.
Look at these pictures. Gosh, that's incredible. NASA officials will perform a battery of tests to see how such a lengthy stay in zero gravity affects the body. Wow.
Kelly posted who breath-taking pictures and tweeted extensively from space sent one final note reading in part, "Thanks for following our year in space. The journey is not over. Follow me as I rediscover earth." So cool.
CUOMO: It is so cool.
CAMEROTA: Such a sacrifice.
CUOMO: Absolutely.
Speaking of sacrifice, Christine Romans goes the extra mile in CNN Money now. Chief business correspondent looking at campaign spending.
What are the dollars that makes sense?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPODENT: Yes, I'm your money space case this morning.
The presidential candidates poured money you guys into Super Tuesday races. More than $27 million spent on broadcast cable and satellite TV ads in the states that voted. That's according to tracking firm Kantor Media. Candidates spent the most money in Texas, more than $4 million spent in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Oklahoma.
Bernie Sanders spent the most of any candidate, more than $7 million on ads in the Super Tuesday states. Hillary Clinton was second. She spent $5.6 million. Ted Cruz topped Republican candidates, $3.4 million. His super PACs almost matched that.
The spending won't slow down especially heading into delegate- rich swing states like Florida and North Carolina and Ohio.
[06:35:07] CAMEROTA: OK, Christine. Thanks so much for all of that.
Well, a heated discussion between two CNN commentators boiling over on the subject of race and Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What difference does it make?
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: They kill people. You don't play games with that. You don't play games with that.
JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You're right. And you don't hide and say that's not part of the base of the Democratic Party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: More of that heated debate when we come right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: The high stakes in this presidential race caused a fiery debate on CNN last night. Two of our political commentators, Jeffrey Lord, a Donald Trump supporter, and Van Jones, went at it about the racial tension in this election. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: The things that Donald Trump has done in this race are horribly offensive. You can go with back with this guy for a long time. I want to talk. I want to talk. This is important.
[06:40:01] LORD: I didn't say anything yet.
JONES: You breathed.
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: You can go back to the central jogger case. He came out and had innocent black kids --
LORD: No, innocent kids.
JONES: Hold on a sec -- innocent black kids. Listen, hold on a second.
We have a big problem at this point now, because I agree with you about a lot. I think we have taken him not seriously, we have not respected his voters, but there is a dark underside here.
And S.E. is right. He is whipping up and tapping into and pushing buttons that are very, very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people. Number one, when he is playing funny with the Klan, that is not cool.
LORD: He didn't play funny with the Klan.
JONES: Hold on a second. I know this man when he gets passionate about terrorism. I know how he talks about terrorism. The Klan is a terrorist organization that has killed --
LORD: A leftist terrorist organization.
JONES: You can put whatever label you want, that's your game to play.
LORD: No, it's important to history.
JONES: We're not going to play that game.
LORD: We're going to understand history.
JONES: No, you need to take a serious look at the fact that this man has been playing fast and loose and footsie -- when you talk about terrorism, he gets passionate. He says no, this is wrong. But when you talk about the Klan, oh, I don't know, I don't know. That's wrong.
And then you came on the air and you said, well this is just like when Reverend Wright was speaking. Reverend Wright never lynched anybody, Reverend Wright never killed anybody.
LORD: Reverend Wright is an anti-Semite.
JONES: Reverend Wright never put anybody on a post. And you guys play these word games and it's wrong to do in America. It is wrong to do.
LORD: It is wrong to understand that these are not leftists. They were --
JONES: What difference does it make if you call them leftists? They kill people. They don't play games with that.
LORD: You're right. You don't hide and say that's not part of the base of the Democratic Party. That has been -- they were the military arm, the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, according to historians. For God sakes, read your history.
JONES: Listen, I'm not, I don't know -- I don't care who --
LORD: This whole attitude of dividing by race is still here. And this is how Democrats do the deal.
JONES: I don't care how they voted 50 years ago. I care about who they killed.
LORD: I care about American history. It counts.
JONES: You have stood with Donald Trump. And you made a case for Donald Trump and nobody else wanted to. And you've earned the respect of an awful lot of people.
But when you do not acknowledge that he did not answer that question with the passion, he answered with other terrorist organizations, you do yourself a disservice. You do --
LORD: He has made this point over and over and over again. This is a media thing here. Did he make a mistake? Sure. But he said this many, many times. I've gone back and looked. He's well on record, over and over on this.
JONES: It's worse than that, sir. The whole thing with the central jogger kids, he got the entire city of New York whipped up on this idea that these kids had done nothing wrong. And then it turned out they were innocent, we all make mistakes.
LORD: Right.
JONES: He never apologized to those kids. That's a stain on him. You can walk through, time after time, where he's done stuff like that. The stuff he said about Native Americans, being criminal organizations and mafia. He said so many --
LORD: Van, but what you're doing right here, is dividing people. We're all Americans here, Van. You are dividing people. This is what liberals do. You're dividing people by race.
JONES: I'm not.
LORD: This is what liberalism is all about.
JONES: The Klan divided it by race.
LORD: You have to divide by race.
JONES: The Klan kill people by race and he had the opportunity and he didn't do --
LORD: And they did it -- they did it to further the progressive agenda. Hello?
JONES: That is, first of all, so absurd.
LORD: It is not absurd.
JONES: The Democratic Party of the south of the old days was a racist party. And you are correct, sir. They were a violent party. You were correct, sir.
LORD: How do you think we got Woodrow Wilson elected?
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: Hold on a second. That's not the Democratic Party of today. So, what are you talking about that for? You play these games --
LORD: It is the Democratic Party of today. The Democratic Party of today divides by race.
JONES: You know, I've got a kid, 7 years old.
LORD: Right.
JONES: He can't even watch -- I used to say -- I don't want you watching "The Kardashians." I want you watching the news you can learn something.
You know what? Watching in nonsense in your party, he says you're a liar. He doesn't know what the word means. But he sees so much vitriol from your party.
LORD: Right.
JONES: He brings that into our house. Now, we have to have him watching Nick Jr. He can't observe civics because of what is going on in your party, the circus wing in your party.
Do not play -- and tell Donald Trump -- I know you. I trust you. Tell Donald Trump he needs for my children's sake, for the children's sake of America, if he's going to lead this country, he needs to be as passionate about my community as anybody else.
LORD: We have to be passionate about making sure that as Robert Kennedy used to say that this country is color blind. We have to, as President Kennedy used to say in that Birmingham speech, that race has no place in American life or law.
That's what we have to do. We have lost that totally because the Democratic Party insists on dividing people by race and it's wrong. It's morally wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Sometimes you wind up having a conversation on TV that captures a big moment that's going on in the country. Not so much about Trump and the KKK. But this discussion about what's right and what's wrong when it comes to race, it happens in a lot of houses and a lot of barrooms.
[06:45:01] CAMEROTA: Absolutely. And you can see their passion on both sides. I appreciate they weren't leaning, but they were passionate and heated.
CUOMO: We're going to take it on more with our panel, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CUOMO: All right. So, let's reset what happened with Donald Trump. He did not disavow the KKK the way many would have liked or expected from a presidential candidate. Now, is that a reflection of Trump being a divider or proof of the Democratic Party being the dividers from way back until today? We saw it play out with Jeffrey Lord and Van Jones.
Let's continue the conversation right now. CNN political commentators, we have Republican consultant Margaret Hoover, Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany, and Bakari Sellers, a Clinton supporter.
All right. It's good to have you all here.
Bakari, let me start with you. As a former lawmaker from the South, you know the roots of this discussion. You understand Jeffrey Lord's point about the history of the KKK as early Democrats.
[06:50:01] Did you believe that it applies to understanding what happens today with the KKK?
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, I don't. But first let me say that I had the unenviable task of going behind such a passionate discussion by my big brother here on CNN, Van Jones, who did an awesome job laying out the frustration that many of us have with the Trump campaign and candidacy.
The fact that is playing coy, playing loose with your language, as if your earpiece doesn't work, when we're talking about David Duke, when we're talking about the KKK is very disingenuous and hurtful, because we know the pain, we know the death that's caused by the KKK.
It's not about whether or not they are liberal, or liberal once upon a time, were an arm of the Democratic Party once upon a time. We know the Democratic Party was racist at one point in time. But that's not the Democratic Party of today.
But what we are talking about is a person who's running for free leader of the free world who simply cannot look in the camera and when asked about the KKK and disavow them. And that is troublesome because of so much pain and so much bigotry, and so much hurt that so many families, especially those families of color, went through in this country.
CUOMO: Well, now, McEnany, the other side of the argument is that Trump has disavowed in the past and very recently. He flubbed the question. He didn't mean it the way it came off. That's his explanation.
But this deeper division that was played out with Van Jones and Jeffrey Lord is, well, the KKK was Democrats back in the day. Own that. Who cares? They have always been the KKK. They have always been horrible.
Why isn't that the only basis of analysis?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I agree with you. Look, I understood Jeffrey's point, but I think we've moved past this being a Democrat/Republican issue. The fact is, whatever the historical roots of the KKK, we can all agree racism is reprehensible, it's disgusting and it should be dismissed at every term.
And Donald Trump has done so five times when it comes to David Duke and the KKK. He has said --
CUOMO: Why didn't he do it with Jake? What do you think happened?
MCENANY: I think it was his earpiece malfunctioned. It happened to me last week and it's also happened to many other commentators. I do think it was his earpiece. He dismissed him five times.
And the bottom line is if you believe that he did not dismiss the KKK or did hear the question, it shows not (INAUDIBLE), you were believing that Trump is a racist. This is a man who has lived for 69 years on this earth, and I can promise you this, if he was a racist, we would know about it and there'd be many allegations.
It's a very charge to call someone a racist in this country. In fact, I think it's unethical if you have no proof.
MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: OK, let me just tell you then, love you. This is not about you. But I got to lay into this argument, because you know what? Rush Limbaugh thinks it wasn't his earpiece. Do you think Rush Limbaugh is a racist? And Rush Limbaugh is out defending Donald Trump every day.
That was a diversionary tactic. It is not about politics, I agree with you. And it doesn't matter where it was in the Democratic Party.
CUOMO: What was the up side for him?
HOOVER: You know what? I don't know. Maybe it was before the southern primary. Maybe it was before all of the South --
(CROSSTALK)
HOOVER: Nope, nope, I'm not saying the South is racist, Kayleigh. But you and I all know that there are undertones in our politics still. And it just seems --
(CROSSTALK)
HOOVER: Rush Limbaugh isn't saying he is racist.
MCENANY: Margaret --
HOOVER: But Rush Limbaugh is saying that's weird that he did it.
Here's the other point. That was an attack ad that he just gave great material as an attack ad for Democrats to run against him in a general election.
What do you think Hillary Clinton is going to run? How is she going to mobilize frankly less enthusiastic African-American and minority voters to the polls?
MCENANY: Margaret --
HOOVER: She's going to run the KKK piece, the Central Park jogger piece, conspiracy theories against the first black president in 2012 when he was flirting with a different presidential run. There is nothing about Donald Trump's history that suggests he actually has a unifying background with race.
MCENANY: The bottom line is either Donald Trump is the racist or the South is racist. That is the premise underlying your conclusion is that the South is racist or Donald Trump is racist.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Hold on. Let's get Bakari in.
SELLERS: That is not the prism we look through. Donald Trump has had more than troublesome dalliances with this issue of race. We're talking about the Central Park jogger. We're talking about the fact that Donald Trump put a $5 million bounty on the birth certificate for the first African-American president of the United States.
MCENANY: And that has nothing to do with this race.
SELLERS: I'm not done, I'm not done, I'm not done.
It does have something to do in this race.
(CROSSTALK)
MCENANY: That is an assumption.
SELLERS: No, it's not an assumption, Kayleigh. It has to do with the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama.
The fact of the matter is, Kayleigh, you can say his earpiece malfunctioned, but he actually regurgitated to Jake Tapper. He said to Jake Tapper, David Duke. He said to Jake Tapper, the KKK.
My only point to you and Margaret in there who's eloquently arguing the point, is that its' intellectually dishonest.
(CROSSTALK)
HOOVER: Throwing this term around, "racist" around, so we should talk about that.
CUOMO: That's what the question goes to, is do you have to be a racist to be an opportunist in a moment? That might be the worst criticism --
SELLERS: That's my point.
CUOMO: That may be the worst criticism that isn't about criticism. That you're not a racist.
[06:55:02] But here, you played opportunism.
MCENANY: To suggest this is opportunism is to suggest an entire region of the country likes the idea of embracing the KKK, which is false. That is a false assumption to say the South is racist. Likewise, it's false to say Donald Trump is racist.
If you're going to call someone -- let me finish, Margaret.
(CROSSTALK)
MCENANY: If you were going to call someone a racist in this country, you need facts. Bakari, I heard assumptions. He asked for Obama's birth certificate because he is black. That is an assumption.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Button this up.
HOOVER: Let me just say, nobody is calling an entire swath of America --
MCENANY: Yes, you are.
HOOVER: No, I'm not. Let me just tell you, I am not calling people racist. But what I am saying you and I both know the debate about race in this country is far more nuanced than just black and white, OK? No pun intended.
We know there are strains through our history and there are things as dog whistles, and there are such thing as people, who even if they are riling against black people --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: OK. Guys, we have to leave it there. I want to thank all three of you. This is not an easy conversation. But sometimes, those are the most important ones.
So, what do you think? Tweet us @newday. Post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay.
Coming up in the 8:00 hour, the men who sparked this will return with some time to think about it and have the conversation again. Jeffrey Lord, Van Jones will be here to continue this debate.
Alisyn?
CAMEROTA: OK, that will be interesting.
Meanwhile, it was a really Super Tuesday for the front-runners. But Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump night. Their rivals won some states, too. This morning they are all still alive.
So, we will break down the results and where the race goes from here.
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