Return to Transcripts main page
New Day
Trump Shirks Responsibility for Violence at Protests; Clinton & Sanders Target Trump at CNN Town Hall; New York Mayor: 'Of Course Trump is a Racist.' Aired 7-7:30a ET
Aired March 14, 2016 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A lot of them come from Bernie Sanders, and if he says no, he's lying.
[07:00:05] BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is a pathological liar.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He has turned the most important election in a generation to a circus.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What Trump has done is like a case of political arson.
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I hope he's going to chain his rhetoric and bring people together and start (ph) dividing.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The protesters have no right to engage in violence. They have no right to threaten violence.
CLINTON: Donald Trump has been not just inciting violence but applauding violence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. Chris and Michaela are off this morning. John Berman joins me here. Great to have you.
With the critical Super Tuesday showdown just a day away, Donald Trump's rivals on both sides of the aisle attacking the front-runner for the escalating violence at his rallies. Trump stands by his rhetoric, saying he is not to blame, and he defends his supporters' actions.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: At a CNN town hall on Sunday, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, they barely laid a glove on each other, but they ripped Donald Trump for inciting the violence at his rallies, all of this ahead of five contests tomorrow, including big winner-take-all primaries in Ohio and Florida for the Republicans. This really could reshape things for the 2016 race. We have complete coverage, starting with CNN's Jason Carroll in Tampa this morning.
Good morning, Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, John.
Donald Trump has three events in three different states. He'll be in Tampa here later on in the afternoon. He'll also be in North Carolina finishing off the evening in Ohio.
As for those events that happened on Friday and over the weekend, Trump says, "Look, these are not protesters who are showing up at my rallies." Instead, John, he's calling them disrupters.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: We had some -- I would say -- let's be nice -- protesters.
CARROLL (voice-over): After a turbulent weekend on the trail, a defiant Donald Trump pointing fingers.
TRUMP: Send them back to Bernie! Hey, Bernie, get your people in line, Bernie!
CARROLL: The billionaire trying to shift the blame to Bernie Sanders.
TRUMP: A lot of them come from Bernie Sanders, whether he wants to say it or not. And if he says no, then he's lying.
CARROLL: But at Sunday night's CNN town hall, both Democratic candidates turned it around, calling out Trump for his incendiarystatements.
SANDERS: He is saying, "If you go out and beat somebody up, that's OK. I'll pay the legal fees." That is an outrage.
CLINTON: He is the person who has, for months now, been not just inciting violence, but applauding violence.
CARROLL: The GOP front-runner canceling his event in Chicago Friday night after the rally erupted in chaos.
On Saturday, in Ohio, this man tried to rush the stage. The Secret Service quickly tackled the protester as Trump supporters cheered.
On Sunday--
TRUMP: Get them out of here!
CARROLL: -- more protesters crashed the party.
TRUMP: Get them out! Now!
CARROLL: With over 350 delegates on the line, in five states this Tuesday--
TRUMP: I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you. CARROLL: -- Trump is doubling down, claiming his heated words are not
to blame for the violence, like this supporter sucker-punching a protester last week.
TRUMP: I don't accept responsibility. I do not condone violence in any shape. And I will tell you, from what I saw, the young man stuck his finger up in the air, and the other man sort of just had it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL: Trump is leading in nearly all the states up for grabs tomorrow night with the exception of Ohio, with Kasich being slightly ahead.
The question is, will all of that unrest over the weekend and on Friday have any effect on Trump's momentum. Trump's camp says they do not believe that will be the case. They are predicting wins across the board tomorrow night.
BERMAN: All right. Jason Carroll, thanks so much.
Here to discuss with us this morning, KABC Talk Radio host John Phillips. He's also a political columnist for "The Orange County -- Orange County Register" and a Donald Trump supporter. And Ben Wikler, Washington director for MoveOn.org, which recruited and helps students print sides for Friday's canceled Trump protest in Chicago. That organization, MoveOn, has endorsed Bernie Sanders.
John, let me start with you. Donald Trump essentially says, you know, he's the victim here. He's the one being wronged. Let's play a little bit of sound and what he told Jake Tapper about the rally that was canceled Friday night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I've gotten a lot of credit for the fact that I canceled and postponed the other day in Chicago. You would have had a tremendous clash, and a lot of people would have gotten hurt or worse. And by canceling it, everybody disbursed beautifully, the police did a great job. The Secret Service was fantastic, and there was no injuries, no nothing. So I should get credit, not be scorned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Donald Trump should get credit for the tone at his rallies. Do you agree with that?
JOHN PHILLIPS, TALK RADIO HOST, KABC: I do. It was thousands of people who met in Chicago for a peaceful rally, and you had people, who I won't even refer to as protesters, because there trespassing and they're vandals, came in to assault police officers. They assaulted Trump supporters, destroyed property. They were there when they were asked to leave. They really prevented Donald Trump from being able to conduct this peaceful rally.
And a lot of the response that we've seen, not only from the Democratic allies of these protesters, but from his Republican rivals, reminds me of the response that we saw in Cologne, Germany, when you had all of those refugees that, on New Year's Day, decided to assault women, go after them, and what was the response from the mayor of Cologne, which is to put out a set of guidelines for women in the area. Don't wear your skirts too high. Don't -- don't do anything to provoke or incite, because they're not really responsible for what the reaction is. It's outrageous.
We live in a free society with a First Amendment. People should be able to meet peacefully. You have a problem with it, you have every right to protest. Just do it outside and don't be violent.
BERMAN: John, do you agree, though, that Donald Trump has used his First Amendment right at times to, if not provoke violence, at least condone the use of violence at his rallies? He's talked about punching protestors in the nose. He's talked about "the old days," where in his mind, the old days meant carrying protestors out on stretchers.
Do you think Donald Trump has done nothing to contribute to a somewhat caustic atmosphere at these events?
PHILLIPS: Well, again, I would consider the protesters to be the people outside the building, not the people inside the building who were trespassing. Donald speaks in bold terms.
BERMAN: No, but John, punch in the nose. Is punch in the nose a provocative remark?
PHILLIPS: Yes, that's -- it's provocative, but this is part of the reason why Donald Trump is the front-runner. Donald speaks in bold terms, and this is what the other Republicans running for president don't get.
He further solidified himself after Chicago as the Republican front- runner. I expect him to win in Florida. I expect him to win in North Carolina. I expect him to win in Illinois and Missouri. And the response that the other Republicans gave was pathetic, and it's going to further solidify themselves as the guys that fitted below him.
JOHN: Ben, MoveOn did put people inside that hall. Were they not part of setting up this environment where clashes took place on Friday night?
BEN WIKLER, WASHINGTON DIRECTOR, MOVEON.ORG: That will be, people in the community organized peaceful, non-violent demonstrations in Chicago, and MoveOn.org was proud to print signs and send e-mails, encouraging people to attend those demonstrations. There is one person responsible for the violence, for the tone of hate and the confrontations, and that's Donald Trump, who's openly calling for violence from the stage, something no other candidate is doing or should do.
BERMAN: Ben, you know, there was that guy who jumped up on that stage over the weekend with Donald Trump. Donald Trump, I don't think is responsible for a guy jumping up on stage with him, which in and of itself is very frightening. I mean, make no mistake: There have been candidates running for office who have been killed and injured over the last 50 years, so the safety of candidates is something that a lot of people take very, very seriously. Do you not think that that man -- we're watching video right now -- bears some responsibility for his own actions?
WIKLER: Look, he needs to take responsibility for his actions. Everyone's responsible for their actions. Donald Trump is responsible for his actions: talking about punching people in the face, talking about paying legal fees for people who commit acts of violence.
There are protests at every candidate's rallies, but in only one candidate's rallies, Donald Trump's, does it turn into a violent spectacle, a confrontation that is spreading hate and division and poison across this country. I think everyone has a responsibility, Republicans and Democrats, to stand up in opposition to the kind of hate and violence we're seeing coming from the Trump campaign.
BERMAN: John, Ben just brought up what happened in North Carolina, where you had one guy at the Trump rally, a Trump supporter cold-cock a protester right now. You have Donald Trump offering to pay legal fees of the man who threw the punch. You know, again, what message do you think that sends to voters?
PHILLIPS: That guy broke the law, and he should be criminally prosecuted. He should have been removed from the event. As to what happened with the police response was--
BERMAN: But John -- but John, if you're criminally prosecuted, Donald Trump says he's going to pay the legal fees, so he's supporting, somehow, a guy who you think broke the law.
PHILLIPS: Yes, look, I do think he broke the law. I think that guy should be prosecuted. But you have to put things in proportion, OK? That was one incident, and you and I are on the same page on that.
What we saw happen in Chicago was an organized effort among thousands that left police officers bloodied, that left people assaulted on your airwaves on CNN. I was watching it happen live. It caused streets to be closed down. It cause an event to not happen. So let's go ahead and put things in proportion here.
BERMAN: You know, Ben, Donald Trump said they're Bernie Sanders supporters doing this. Are they?
WIKLER: There are people supporting, I'm guessing, every presidential candidate and no presidential candidate. The overwhelming majority of the protesters in Chicago were non-violent, peaceful demonstrators, the same as demonstrators that have protested hateful marches and hateful rallies across the country.
[07:10:15] And it's important that people stand up against the hate sewn at Donald Trump's events. This is something that I think all of us have a responsibility to speak up about.
BERMAN: All right. Ben Wikler, John Phillips, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it, guys.
I think we all have a responsibility to make sure we don't have clashes like we had Friday night. I think those are just bad for the process any way you look at it.
Thanks, guys.
CAMEROTA: All right. Let's talk about the Democratic side, the candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, making their final pitch to voters ahead of tomorrow's pivotal primaries with dueling attacks on Donald Trump.
CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny live in Chicago where Clinton is on the stump today.
Hi, Jeff.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Alisyn.
One way to prove that you're the strongest Democrat in this race is showing how you would go after Donald Trump, that both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders did that last night at CNN's town hall, but it's one more sign that this Democratic primary fight is far from over.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLINTON: Whoever goes up against Donald Trump better be ready.
ZELENY (voice-over): Stopping the Republican front-runner, a critical topic for Democrats ahead of yet another Super Tuesday.
SANDERS: The way you beat Trump is to expose him. And he can be exposed at many, many levels.
ZELENY: Hillary Clinton touting her experience and resilience--
CLINTON: The Republicans have been after me for 25 years. And--
ZELENY: -- but keeping some of her battle plan against Trump under wraps for now.
CLINTON: I'm not going to spill the beans right now. But suffice it to say, there are many arguments that we can use against him.
I'm having foreign leaders ask if they can endorse me to stop Donald Trump. Some have done it publicly, actually. The Italian prime minister, for example.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: How about the ones that have done it privately?
CLINTON: No, Jake. We're holding that in reserve, too.
ZELENY: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders hitting his rival hard on trade, which he believes helped him pull off an upset last week in Michigan.
SANDERS: You are looking at a senator and a former congressman who opposed every one of these disastrous trade agreements, which have cost American workers millions of jobs. One of the very different, strong differences between Secretary Clinton and myself, she has supported almost all of those trade agreements.
ZELENY: And taking a dig at Trump along the way.
SANDERS: Everybody understands that trade is a positive thing. Nobody is talking about building a wall around the United States. Of course, we're going to trade. Oh, I beg your pardon, there is one guy who is talking about building a wall. Let me rephrase it. No rational person is talking about building a wall.
ZELENY: The most emotional moment of the night.
RICKY JACKSON, FALSELY IMPRISONED FOR 39 YEARS: Excuse me, I'm sorry.
ZELENY: On the death penalty, as Clinton was pressed by a man exonerated after nearly 40 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.
JACKSON: I came perilously close to my own execution. How can you still take your stance on the death penalty?
CLINTON: This is such a profoundly difficult question. A very limited use of it in cases where there has been horrific, mass killings. That's really the exception that I still am struggling with, and it would only be in the federal system. But what happened to you was a travesty.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZELENY: Now both Democratic candidates are campaigning hard here in the five states that are going to vote tomorrow, really going to test the power of Sanders' insurgency.
It's one of the reasons that Hillary Clinton is coming back to Chicago to this union hall right here behind me later this morning, because Illinois suddenly is not looking so comfortable for her. Yes, it's her native state, but Rahm Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff, longtime Clinton aide, is the mayor of Chicago now.
Bernie Sanders is running television ads against Rahm Emanuel, tying him to Hillary Clinton. He's very unpopular here among a lot of black voters and others, so that is making one very local Chicago issue a potential problem for the Clinton campaign here in Illinois. Those five states vote tomorrow.
CAMEROTA: Yes, it will be very interesting to see how all of that, Rahm Emanuel's struggle (ph), plays out tomorrow. Jeff, thank you for that.
And be sure to stay with CNN for tomorrow's final Super Tuesday. We'll have complete coverage of the day's activities and full results as they come in. That's all day tomorrow right here on CNN.
BERMAN: All right. Just in to CNN, an American turned himself in to Kurdish authorities after emerging from ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. The Kurdish official confirms the man had an American passport, but it is not clear what he was doing in ISIS-controlled areas. He has been handed over to the Kurdish security council, which will investigate further.
[07:15:05] CAMEROTA: An al Qaeda affiliate claiming responsibility for a deadly attack at a beach resort town in the Ivory Coast. Fourteen civilians and two soldiers killed by gunmen who stormed three luxury hotels.
The government says six jihadists were killed in response. In the past five months, the same al Qaeda-linked group has carried out similar high-profile attacks at hotels in Mali and Burkina Faso.
BERMAN: A Maryland police officer was shot and killed in an unprovoked ambush right outside his stationhouse in Landover. Undercover narcotics officer Jacai Colson, a four-year police veteran, was killed days shy of his 29th birthday. Fellow officers fired back at the suspect, leaving him wounded. He is in custody along with a possible accomplice. No details as of yet about a possible motive.
CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders going after Donald Trump at last night's CNN town hall. Up next, we will get reaction from New York City's mayor, who also has some very harsh words about Trump.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[07:20:03] SANDERS: Donald Trump is literally inciting violence with his supporters. He is saying if you go out and beat somebody up, that's OK.
CLINTON: What Trump has done is like a case of political arson. You know, he has lit the fire, and then he throws his hands up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: That's both Democratic candidates condemning violence on the campaign trail in the wake of several incidents at Donald Trump's rallies.
Our next guest is not mincing words about Trump's motivations, saying in a tweet, quote, "I didn't realize this was in question. Behaves like a racist, speaks like a racist, of course, Donald Trump is a racist."
Let's bring in New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Mayor, thanks so much for being here. That's the strongest language that we've heard yet. What do you mean Donald Trump behaves like a racist? MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK CIT Y: He separates us. He divides us
very openly and for his own purposes politically, for his own purposes strategically.
Look what he's said about the KKK. At first, when he was asked if he would accept support from David Duke, you saw how long he hesitated. He said nothing about what the KKK has done in our history. So he's basically suggesting that people who like the KKK, that he's their candidate.
Look what he said about Muslims. Look what he said about Mexicans. It's a clear pattern of division and using race as a wedge and using it as a strategic tool. That's racism.
And by the way, this is the worst kind of racism. It's cynical racism for his own political gain.
CAMEROTA: You're talking about his words, but don't actions speak louder than words? You have illustrations of Donald Trump, say, not hiring someone because they were black or passing someone over because they were Hispanic? When you say he behaves like a racist, is that going too far?
DE BLASIO: No, because I think at this case, he's on the national stage. He's a front-runner for the Republican nomination. His words are his actions in this case. He is literally encouraging people to feel negative things about people other than them. In fact, he's taking advantage of it politically.
He's trying to encourage people who have negative feelings towards other kinds of people to see him as their standard bearer. And then he's encouraging violence towards people who are different, whether they have different political beliefs or -- let's face it -- if you look at these rallies, the division in the rallies is clearly a lot of the times demographic, as well.
He's openly stoking that violence. He's encouraging it. He's supporting it. He's lauding it when it happens. Look, we've seen these kinds of historical parallels before, the xenophobia, the racism, the call to violence. This is when democracies start to break down a little bit, when someone like this emerges and are not stopped and are not countered. So this is a moment when people have to stand up and say Donald Trump doesn't represent our democracy.
CAMEROTA: Donald Trump says that outside organizations like MoveOn.org, basically professional protestors are being flooded to his rallies, and they're the ones who are stirring up the unrest. Do they bear any responsibility for going in and trying to disrupt his rallies?
DE BLASIO: Trying to disrupt someone who is trying to divide America I have no problem with whatsoever. Peacefully. Peacefully, the appropriate way. Go to someone else's rally and hold a counter rally. That's fine.
But them to see him say, "Let's beat them up," you know, and, "Of course, I'll pay the legal bills for someone who does beat them up." This is not normal. Let's be clear about that.
The American tradition is a peaceful political protest. You don't see candidates encouraging violence. We did back in the segregationist days. Right? George Wallace and others. My wife tweeted about this. George Wallace and others used to literally call for violence on the campaign trail, but people thought that was normal, because that was during the segregation period.
But to have a guy in 2016 say, "I'd like to punch him" or "We should punch him," that's suggesting, again, that we can -- somehow that it's acceptable for a leader in our society to call for violence when people have different views or look different. And with Donald Trump, the two concepts are not that far apart. Remember, how did we first start hearing a lot about him? With what he said about Mexican- Americans. He painted the entire community with a broad brush. That's going on.
CAMEROTA: Not Mexican-Americans. He was talking about Mexicans, and he was saying that they send criminals across the border.
DE BLASIO: The problem is, one after another, he paints Mexicans with a broad brush. He paints Muslims with a broad brush. He doesn't condemn the KKK.
How many times do we have to see it to understand, this is a racist appeal for votes, and now he's encouraging violence to go with it. This is not normal in American politics, and it's dangerous.
CAMEROTA: So both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders say that they are best equipped to beat him in the general election. Bernie Sanders says because he is most consistently beating him with the highest margin in the polls. And Hillary Clinton says this because she's been battle tested for the past 25 years.
What do you think about that argument? Because he has threatened to basically throw the kitchen sink at her. If he runs against her in the general, he's going to bring up her husband's sexual past. He's going to go anywhere he needs to. And I guess I'm wondering, is the American public prepared for that level of fight that might ensue?
[07:25:04] DE BLASIO: Hillary Clinton's been through every conceivable kind of political fight. She is battle-tested.
By the way, here's why she's going to win: because she has the best ideas about how to address the underlying frustration in this country. What's going on is economic. People are upset that their standard of living has actually gone backwards. They don't feel there's economic opportunity. They feel their kids are going to be worse off than they are. That's what's really going on.
Trump has very masterfully tapped into that economic frustration and layered it over with a racial appeal and a divisive appeal. What Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both are doing is they're talking about the core reality of income inequality and how do address it, how to restore the middle class, the need to tax the wealthy and stop the concentration of wealth and power in the 1 percent. Now Hillary Clinton, what we can say about her is she knows how to
fight. And she's had the kitchen sink thrown at her, and she doesn't stop.
So I have a lot of confidence in the Democratic nominee that she'll do what the Republicans haven't been doing. This is what's so amazing, Alisyn.
Republicans aren't talking about the fact that Donald Trump is a billionaire and part of the class of people that brought us a lot of these problems that we're experiencing. Republicans are not talking about many failed businesses, not talking about the fact that he walked onto the stage of business privileged by his inheritance of his father.
CAMEROTA: Well, they're trying to talk about it. They have mentioned them in the debates, but it doesn't seem to affect his supporters. They understand he's a billionaire. He touts that. Everyone knows that. They know he got an inheritance.
DE BLASIO: But Republicans do not connect it to the fact that this society has become so unfair economically. Maybe because Republicans are compromised by their own beliefs and their own involvement in the wrong kind of policies.
But what Hillary Clinton can do is say look, here's a problem in America. Donald Trump is a part of the class of people who brought you this problem. Donald Trump hasn't done a thing to try and address these problems. Donald Trump has benefited from the concentration of wealth and power in 1 percent. Hillary can go right at him in a way his Republican opponents never have.
CAMEROTA: Mayor de Blasio, Hillary Clinton supporter--
DE BLASIO: Yes.
CAMEROTA: -- in case people haven't figured that out. Great to have you on NEW DAY.
DE BLASIO: Thanks, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Let's get over to John.
BERMAN: All right, Alisyn. Thanks so much.
Judgment day fast approaching for Marco Rubio and John Kasich. Can either bring a home state win and perhaps keep their White House hopes alive? We're going to ask a Kasich supporter, former New Jersey governor Christie Todd Whitman. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
