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New Day

Ted Cruz Pins Hopes on a Two-Man Race; Obama to Name Supreme Court Nominee Today; Interview with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 16, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Look, she does have problem with, you know, with these voters, but I think that she'll be able to correct it and fix it.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, panel, thanks so much for all of your insight. What a night. Great to have you break it down for us.

All right. Let's get to Michaela for other news.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Some other news: President Obama poised to announce his Supreme Court nominee as soon as today. Who is it going to be? We'll take a look at that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: So breaking overnight, we've learned that President Obama may name his choice to succeed late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as earlier as today.

CNN's Athena Jones is live from the White House with these breaking details for us -- Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

That's right. Sources familiar with the process tell us that the White House team in charge of vetting the potential candidates has completed its work.

So, who will it be? Well, we know President Obama has said he wants to pick a so-called consensus candidate, someone who could get Republican support.

And we also know from several sources that three appellate court judges are said to be in the top tier among potential picks. Let's go through them.

Sri Srinivasan is 49 years old. He's a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was confirmed in May of 2013 by a vote of 97-0 in the Senate, praised by Texas senator Ted Cruz, who calls him a longtime friend.

[06:35:07] Cruz is on the Senate judiciary committee. Now, Srinivasan was born in India and grew up in Kansas and would be the first Asian-American justice to serve if he's confirmed.

Merrick Garland is another judge on the D.C. circuit court. He's the chief judge. He was appointed in 1997 by President Clinton, confirmed by a vote of 67-23 and he's 63 years old.

Paul Watford, a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California is also a contender. Watford was confirmed by a vote of 61-34, he's 48 years old, and he would be the third African-American to serve after Justices Thurgood Marshal and Clarence Thomas.

So, those are three names said to be finalists. Of course, we are awaiting word on who is the ultimate finalist -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. It would be very interesting to see what happens there today. Thank you so much, Athena.

Is the Republican race now a two or three-man race? It depends on who you ask?

John Kasich has one opinion and Ted Cruz has another. We'll hear from Cruz on why he thinks he can stop Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:40:11] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Senator Ted Cruz prefers to look at the Republican field now as a two-man race with Donald Trump. But John Kasich's win in the key battleground state of Ohio, and what he says is a favorable map going forward puts that theory in doubt.

How did last night's results change the race?

Joining us now to discuss, Ted Cruz national spokesperson Ron Nehring, and KABC radio host and Donald Trump supporter, John Phillips.

Trump won the night, so, John, I start with you. What do you believe the situation is on the GOP side? Is it a two-man race? A three-man race? Or is it now all about your man Trump?

JOHN PHILLIPS, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, I think that last night was a huge night for Donald Trump, particularly when you look at Florida. Just to put that in perspective, he won Florida last night with 46 percent which is bigger than the margin that Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas with 44 percent.

And when you look at the map, it's a map that gets better for Donald Trump as we move on in to the future. A lot of big states, a lot of blue states, are going to be voting, including New York, New Jersey, California, states where Ted Cruz, who has courted evangelical voters very heavily, is going to have a lot of problems.

I think, effectively, Donald Trump is the only candidate that has a chance at securing the nomination without going to a contested convention. Without having to get the delegates of other candidates that have dropped out. It's his to lose.

CUOMO: Ron Nehring, make the counter-case.

RON NEHRING, TED CRUZ NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: Well, I don't think that's the scenario at all. I think you're looking at a very different scenario going forward. Number one, Donald Trump has a real problem winning in states which have closed Republican primaries. Donald Trump draws his strength not from Republican voters, but from non-Republican voters who get to vote in Republican primaries and tip the scale.

Of the 22 states that have yet to vote, 14 of them are closed Republican primaries. Four of them allow independents to vote. And four of them are what we call Trump primaries where Democrats can enter the Republican primary and shift the contest.

As for states like California, I was chairman of the California Republican Party for four years. I was the nominee for lieutenant governor in 2014. And anyone who thinks that California Republicans are blue really doesn't know what they're talking about.

California Republicans are conservative. In the last poll in the state of California, Donald Trump was behind Ted Cruz by two points. That was back in January. Those numbers are going to -- will have improved by then as the by now as the race continued to narrow.

So, I think the math going forward favors Ted Cruz and particularly in a two-person contest, which effectively this is. John Kasich is not a factor going forward because he would have to win 112 percent of the remaining delegates in order to be the nominee. That's a mathematical impossibility. So, this is a two-person race.

CUOMO: As you know, a lot of people who are crunching the numbers don't see how Ted Cruz gets to 1,237, but they do think he could keep Donald Trump from getting there. Both of them have concerns about going to a convention.

Ron, do you think that Senator Cruz can come out of a convention more easily than Donald Trump?

NEHRING: Well, of course he can, because, number one, Ted Cruz is a much stronger general election candidate than Donald Trump is. Donald Trump as a Republican nominee would give us President Hillary Clinton, a Democratic Senate and a liberal U.S. Supreme Court for a generation.

In head-to-head polls, even one which Donald Trump himself cited very selectively in the CNN debate, in a head-to-head contest, number one, in a head-to-head contest between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, Ted Cruz wins. In a head-to-head contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton wins.

And that's not something which the Republican Party nationally, our delegates from across the country, are going to select. We're not going to select a loser. We're going to select a winner.

CUOMO: John Phillips, how does Donald Trump unify the party? He's talking about that last night, we believe that's his message this morning. That's new for him.

Do you think he can do it?

PHILLIPS: Yes, well, he continues to win. That's what happens.

And I dispute what Ron just said about California. There's a field poll which is the most accurate poll in the state of California, that has Donald Trump on top. Donald Trump is ahead in the state of New York by double digits, according to the latest polls there. Of course, Ted Cruz attacked Donald Trump for having New York values very famously in that debate.

And we've seen candidates that have dropped out endorse Donald Trump. Dr. Ben Carson just did it. Chris Christie did it. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is a huge presence in the Northeast, did it.

I think you're going to see more and more Republicans get behind Donald Trump publicly as it looks like he's going to be the winner. Everyone likes to bet on a winning horse. And right now, Donald Trump is the winning horse.

CUOMO: Ron Nehring, how does Ted Cruz undo what he worked so hard to do, which is alienate himself from many of his brothers and sisters within the GOP?

NEHRING: Well, you know, it's been very interesting, because as the results were coming in last night, I've been receiving e-mail after e-mail from former Marco Rubio supporters who are coming on board to support Ted Cruz.

[06:45:01] That's very, very clear that those people who supported Marco Rubio, who support John Kasich, or supported John Kasich or any of the other candidates, they're not going to go on board with Donald Trump. Everybody knows Donald Trump. Everybody has an opinion about Donald Trump. And the overwhelming majority of Republicans do not want Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee. That is the single strongest strategic factor that Ted Cruz has.

And John needs to read his talking points, because in the field poll that was conducted in January, Donald Trump is behind Ted Cruz in California by two points. That is clear. So, let's not, you know, perpetuate these myths that somehow in California, or in other blue states, Ted Cruz can't win.

Ted Cruz is leading in those states. We're going to do very, very well. We will dominate this field in the June 7th primaries, because they tend to be closed, and the Democrats who tend to cross over and vote for Donald Trump won't be able to vote in those contests.

CUOMO: All right. Nobody's going to win by picking polls. We'll have to see how it plays out.

So, let's do this, Mr. Nearing, Mr. Phillips, let's come back after we get these results and we'll see who's right, and who is not.

Gentlemen, thank you for making strong points on NEW DAY this morning.

NEHRING: You bet.

CUOMO: Now, coming up in minutes we heard from the proxies, now we're going to hear from the men themselves. We have the front-runner Donald Trump coming on NEW DAY to make the case for why he can unify his party.

Mick?

PEREIRA: All right. Can you feel it? Spring may be in the air. However, millions of Americans might see snow in their forecast. I know, I said the "S" word. We'll tell you where you can expect it and when, ahead on NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:37] PEREIRA: Well, spring is a mere four days away, but could parts of the Northeast actually see snow this weekend?

We turn to Chad Myers, our meteorologist.

Are we talking like enough to do some spring skiing or just a minor accumulation?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No, you can use a broom on this one, yes, but not very much.

Hey, my mom always says, nothing good happens after midnight. But after midnight on Saturday night, we get to spring. Yes, it finally does get here. Don't tell that to Minnesota, and Wisconsin. It is still very cold there. Wind today in Chicago is going to blow 60, and we're going to have a foot of snow across parts of northern Michigan.

Now, I know it's not really spring up there yet. Spring happens like in July.

But, anyway, we get the idea. We begin to warm up and cool down, and here comes the snow for the weekend. A little bit. Boston, maybe the Cape, maybe to New York City, but I'm thinking two to three inches at best, that's s for Boston, probably a dusting for you.

Chris, I know you go fishing. There's a difference between fishing and wishing. I think this snow is wishing.

CUOMO: I do a lot of that when I go out there. But as long as everybody's safe at the end, it's all OK.

MYERS: Fair enough.

CUOMO: Chad, keep us in the loop. Appreciate it.

So, last night, no question about it, big night for Hillary Clinton. She now holds a commanding lead over rival Bernie Sanders. What will happen between now and the nomination? We have the paths ahead, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:55:30] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CAMEROTA: We do have some major breaking news for you out of the White House. This on the Supreme Court vacancy.

CNN's Athena Jones has all of the breaking details.

Athena, what have you learned?

JONES: Good morning, Alisyn.

Well, now, we know today is the day. This announcement was going to come in the Rose Garden a few hours from now, set for 11:00.

In an e-mail that is being sent out any moment from now, President Obama says that he is picking the person he believes is imminently qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. The e-mail also goes on to say that, "As president, it is both my constitutional duty to nominate a justice, and one of the most important decisions that I or any president will make."

And so, of course, the big question is, who is it going to be? Well, we know the president has said he wants to pick a so-called consensus candidate, someone who can get Republican support.

We also know from several sources that three appellate judges are said to be at the top of the list of potential picks. I'll go through them very quickly.

Sri Srinivasan is 49 years old. He's a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was confirmed in May of 2013, unanimously by the Senate. He was praised by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The two are longtime friends. Srinivasan was born in India, raised in Kansas, and would be the first Asian-American justice, should he be confirmed.

Another judge on that D.C. Circuit Court, the chief judge, Merrick Garland, is also said to be under consideration. He also was confirmed back in 1997 by bipartisan support. And last on this top tier that we've learned from sources, is Paul Watford, who is a judge in the ninth circuit in California. He is 48 years old. He would be the third African-American justice, should he be confirmed.

We will know at 11:00 a.m. who the pick is. Back to you.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for all of that breaking news and, of course, we'll check back in with you as it develops.

Joining us now with reaction to as well as Hillary Clinton's big night is Ohio senator and Clinton backer Sherrod Brown.

Senator, thanks so much for being here.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: Good to be with you. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Can we start with the breaking news first?

BROWN: Sure.

CAMEROTA: Who do you hope the president's pick will be?

BROWN: I don't have an opinion on who it is. I think that each of the three is imminently qualified. Each of the three has drawn strong bipartisan support, and I'm hopeful that means the Senate will just do its job.

There's not been a full year vacancy in the Supreme Court for 150 years. So, there's no historical precedent. That was because we were at war in the midst of the civil war.

So, the Senate needs to do its job. We need to meet with the nominee individually. We need to do hearings as a Judiciary Committee. We need to bring him, looks like three hims, if that's who it is, we need to bring him to a vote and up or down, and the Senate simply needs to do its job here, not just do what Mitch McConnell said so far refusing even to meet with the nominee.

CAMEROTA: Right. So what are the chances of what you hope for happening?

BROWN: Well, I don't know. I think if there's enough attention paid, I talk to a lot -- I was in Cleveland on the other day, on Sunday, I was talking to some Republicans who said it's just outrageous that they're talking about their own party, that they won't even give the nominee a hearing, and maybe since the president has reached across the aisle in the sense that all three of these have gotten good Republican support when they were confirmed, when each of them was confirmed, maybe Senator Grassley will do a hearing and they'll move on it, and actually bring it to a vote.

If they want to vote no, of course, that's their business.

CAMEROTA: Sure.

BROWN: But it's our duty to hear this, and to consider it, to advise and consent, bring them to a vote. It's historical precedent to do that when they say you don't do an election year. They're saying this president was only re-elected for a three-year term. And, of course, that's not true.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's talk about Hillary Clinton's big night last night. She won Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, and Ohio. Do you believe that for all intents and purposes, she has secured the nomination?

BROWN: I think that it's pretty much inevitable. I admire what Senator Sanders has done. I assume Senator Sanders stays in, as Secretary Clinton stayed in through the whole course of the campaign. I think he continues to raise important issues.

I think that what Senator Clinton did or Secretary Clinton did, especially in my state with her ideas about -- she's the only one really that's put together sort of a full blown plan on what do you do about manufacturing? What do you do to enforce trade rules, to make sure that our foreign competitors don't game the system, as much as they have in the past? And that's why I'm pretty excited about Secretary Clinton in this campaign.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BROWN: And raising her right hand on January 20th next year.

CAMEROTA: Senator Sanders says not so fast. His campaign says that the race now shifts to a math and to states that favor him. He says Wisconsin, California, New York, last night, he made a big appeal for Arizona.