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Trump Ignites Firestorm Over Abortion Comment; Obama to Host Final Nuclear Security Summit. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 31, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Do you believe in punishment for abortion?

[05:58:57] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There has to be some form of punishment.

MATTHEWS: For the woman?

TRUMP: Yes.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via phone): That is absolutely unacceptable.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Of course people shouldn't be punished.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The latest demonstration of how little Donald has thought about any of the serious issues.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To punish a woman for having an abortion is beyond comprehension.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: World leaders gathering at a fourth and final nuclear security summit, keeping nuclear material out of terrorists' hands topping the agenda.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The nuclear threat is growing as the very same time that these nuclear summits are ending.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My cousin would never have thought a cop would kill him. We have to get justice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Criminal charges are not warranted for the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people united will never be defeated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people united will never be defeated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people united will never be defeated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will not rest until we see justice for Jamar. (END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, March 31, 6 a.m. in the East. Don Lemon is in for Chris Cuomo this morning. It's great to have you. Michaela is on assignment, but she will be joining us later in the hour.

Up first, Donald Trump's stance on abortion. The Republican frontrunner taking three different positions on abortion within the span of three hours, first suggesting that women who get them should face, quote, "some sort of punishment." Then, he said it should be up to the states to decide the issue. House later, he did another about face, declaring that it's doctors who perform the procedure who should be punished, not the women.

LEMON: Criticism, and there's been a lot of it, to these comments coming from both sides of the aisle. His Democratic rivals describing them as "shameful" and "horrific." And Ted Cruz accusing Trump of damaging the pro-life cause.

How will Trump's evolving stance on abortion impact the race? We've got this story covered only the way that we can here at CNN. I want to begin this morning with CNN's Phil Mattingly, live in Milwaukee. Good morning to you, sir.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Don.

Throughout this kind of wild topsy-turvy and unpredictable campaign season, one thing has remained consistent. Donald Trump doesn't back down. That means he's not apologizing. When other campaigns would go into a defensive crouch, he's going on offense. That all changed Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEWS: This is not something you dodge.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Donald Trump smack in the center of another controversy, this time abortion. In a town hall with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, the frontrunner stating that women who get abortions should face, quote, "some sort of punishment," if the procedure were to be outlawed.

MATTHEWS: Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle?

TRUMP: The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.

MATTHEWS: For the woman?

TRUMP: Yes, there has to be some form.

MATTHEWS: Ten cents, ten years, what? TRUMP: That I don't know. That I don't know.

MATTHEWS: Why not?

MATTINGLY: The backlash, fast, furious and bipartisan. Trump's rivals on both sides of the abortion issue quick to pounce and reject the notion.

KASICH: But of course, women shouldn't be punished. I don't think that's an appropriate response, and it's a difficult enough situation than to try to punish somebody.

CRUZ: Donald's comments, they were unfortunate. They were wrong, and I strongly disagree.

MATTINGLY: Anti-abortion groups and Democratic presidential candidates all lining up to criticize the comments.

CLINTON: When he was asked whether women should be punished, he said yes, and that is absolutely unacceptable. It is outrageous.

SANDERS: To punish a woman for having an abortion is beyond comprehension.

MATTINGLY: Amid the firestorm, Trump's campaign uncharacteristically backtracking, quickly issuing this statement, attempting to clarify his remarks. Quote, "This issue is unclear and should be put back into the states for determination. Like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions."

And in a few hours, another statement, a complete reversal of the first, saying, if abortion were made illegal, quote, "the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb."

His son coming to his defense, tweeting, "Be fair. I was asked if it was illegal, should there be punishment. Shouldn't there be consequences for breaking laws?"

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Now, Donald Trump's comments come, obviously, as his campaign manager is facing misdemeanor simple battery charges down in Florida. A particularly fraught time for Trump's campaign. He is in Wisconsin, a state where the latest polling shows he's trailing Ted Cruz by as many as ten points and perhaps bigger than that. His factorability with women is in the 20 to 30 percent rate. That's 70 percent of the potential general electorate unfavorable opinion to Donald Trump. These issues certainly won't help those numbers.

Donald Trump was asked about those numbers last night on MSNBC, said he didn't really have an answer for it. They used to be high. Now they're low, and he's not really sure why -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Phil. Thank you for that. Here to discuss all of that, our CNN political commentator and

political anchor at Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis. And senior politics editor for "The Daily Beast," a fellow at Georgetown's Institute of Politics and Public Service, Jackie Kucinich.

Jackie, I want to start with you. How could Trump have been so outside the mainstream thinking on this? In his first initial response to Chris Matthews where he said women should be criminalized. I mean, even the most stalwart pro-life advocates do not say that.

JACKIE KUCINICH, SENIOR POLITICS EDITOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": You know, Penny Nance, who leads Concerned Women for America, said somewhere that it's almost like Trump was kind of going into a parody or some kind of stereotype the left puts out about people in the right movement, on the right on this issue. It really didn't make any sense.

And it really did seem like he never really thought it through and was just sort of following Chris Matthew's prompts there. And it really is puzzling. Don't -- this is one of those issues you don't really see people evolving on at all, or, you know, in a couple hours. I don't think I've seen anything like this before.

LEMON: It's interesting, because it's only adding more fuel to the fire, especially his Republican opponents, right? His Republican rivals who are saying Donald Trump really isn't a conservative anyway, so how would he know what conservative stances -- stance is on this particular issue? This really gives them more fuel.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's right. He has said that he has evolved on the issue, and so he has acknowledged up front that he's a convert to the stance that he currently holds. On the other hand you still have to study that. In fact, as a convert, you would expect him to maybe be a little bit more...

(CROSSTALK)

LOUIS: I mean, literally, you can just watch the video and see. Roe v. Wade was 43 years ago. It's not like nobody ever thought about this stuff before. I think what this really speaks to, though, Don, is the issue of you've got an outsider.

Well, yes, he's an outsider to Washington and the bad stuff, the lobbyists and the influence, and so forth. But he's also an outsider to the conservative movement. He's also an outsider to the whole world of policy where people have developed this. He's an outsider to the theologians and the philosophical discussion that's also going on for 43 years.

He's very much an outsider, and he got caught got doing what outsiders would do, which is kind of trying to making it up and think it through, and it's much too late for that. I mean, he really should have had policy advisers and others to advise him about what the state of the conversation is, let him decide where he wants to sort of fit into the whole thing. But when you -- when you sweep everything aside and say everyone in Washington is stupid, everyone in the universities is stupid. Nobody knows anything as much as I am and I'm rich. Well, that leaves you exactly where he was, with the lights on, the nation waiting, and a guy who hadn't really thought through the issues.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, he was evolving in real time yesterday, over the space of three hours. After he said it, there was a big eruption on all sides. So then, he tried to clarify what he meant, and he tweeted this first to Jake Tapper. He tweeted this at 3:58 p.m., OK, so just about 4 p.m. He said -- oh, sorry, this is Donald Trump Jr. This is his son, OK? So he's saying, "Be fair. he was asked if it was illegal, should there be punishment? Shouldn't there be consequences for breaking the laws?" OK, so that's his son first trying to say, like, wait it was about whether or not it's illegal.

First of all, the questioning was also all over the map, because Chris Matthews asked, like, umpteen times in different ways, but how do you feel, how do you feel?

KUCINICH: Right.

CAMEROTA: You know, really pressed him. So he had many different answers.

Then Donald Trump sent out this longer statement at 5 p.m. "If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal, and the federal courts upheld this legislation or any states were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman should be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case, as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed. Like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions."

Except his position did change, and we all saw it with our own eyes.

KUCINICH: Right.

LEMON: There was one before that. He did issue one at 3:45 that said "The issue is unclear and should be put back into the states for determination."

KUCINICH: Yes.

LEMON: Then he goes on again saying -- saying that it's Ronald Reagan. So three different statements within the span of, what, two hours, three hours?

KUCINICH: It's almost like he wanted to -- he was trying to think of the most right -- the farthest right he could go, and he's running against someone like John Kasich who effectively defunded Planned Parenthood in the state of Ohio. So it really is. It's kind of incomprehensible where he went with this.

And now -- you know, but that said, I don't know that this will hurt Donald Trump with his people. They're very loyal. They haven't moved on any other issue that he seems to have missed the mark on.

Now, who this will affect him with is someone who might be wavering between Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Donald Trump. If they're looking for someone who is a traditional evangelical conservative, Donald Trump is not their guy.

LEMON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And women, right?

KUCINICH: And women, and women. I mean, he's kind of lost women, though. Seventy-five percent is pretty -- That's not great.

LOUIS: He was already in trouble with many women voters, including women Republicans, and so this certainly isn't going to help.

Ted Cruz released a statement yesterday, and John Kasich, of course, releasing a statement, at least speaking on camera. But what's interesting, I think, is Hillary Clinton, who called in to "AC 360" last night to talk about Donald Trump's comments. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON (via phone): They all want to dictate a women's reproductive health care decisions, so you know, the choice is really clear. The Republicans all line up together. Now, maybe they aren't quite as open about it as Donald Trump was earlier today, but they all have the same position. And if you make abortion a crime, you make it illegal, then you make women and doctors criminals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Not surprising that he would capitalize on this particular issue, Errol, but to say that all conservatives feel the way that Donald Trump feels about abortion I think is a bit much.

LOUIS: Well, right. She sees blue sky, and she's trying to capitalize on it. So she is going to try and make the Republican Party the party of Trump. She also released a new ad yesterday that doesn't refer to anybody, although it sort of slyly refers to Trump and sort of sticks his name into the ad. She's going to try and make it the party of Trump, whether or not he is the nominee.

[06:10:09] LEMON: This is their stance on this particular issue, is that "We're concerned about the life of the child and the mother. Both of them are victims. We don't want to prosecute women for having abortions, even if they become illegal."

LOUIS: Well, that's right. I mean, look, that -- what you just described is a very nuanced position; it's a very difficult position. People have struggled and agonized over it. But if you've got somebody who's going to stumble into the issue like a bull in a China shop, you know, obviously, Hillary Clinton is going to take advantage of that.

LEMON: All right. CAMEROTA: Jackie, Errol, thank you very much. Great to talk to you both this morning.

LEMON: Let's talk about the Democratic side right now, shall we? OK, because Bernie Sanders hoping to keep his winning streak going in Wisconsin. Next Tuesday, Sanders and Hillary Clinton are brain -- barnstorming Wisconsin and New York to win over voters. A new poll out this morning shows Clinton has a double-digit lead over Sanders in New York.

CNN's Joe Johns live, early for us this morning in Washington with more. Good morning, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Don.

Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have strong ties to New York City, but at least for now, the home state advantage appears to go to Hillary Clinton, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll that shows Hillary Clinton up 12 points over Bernie Sanders in New York.

And important to say that both the Democrats and the race appear to have an edge against Donald Trump. In the hypothetical match-up with the Republican frontrunner, Hillary Clinton leading by about 20 points, Bernie Sanders doing even better against Trump, up by about 24 points.

But when you take a look at the snapshot of the race between the two Democrats in the state of Wisconsin, which votes on Tuesday, it's really a different story. A Marquette University poll shows Bernie Sanders with a very narrow lead that's within the margin of error. And Wisconsin is the next big state to vote, followed by Wyoming and then New York, with its huge haul of 247 delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

Bernie Sanders has been pushing hard to debate Hillary Clinton in New York before the primary there on April 19, and this poll suggests he may need something to change the dynamic of the race before the big day. Back to you.

CAMEROTA: OK, Joe, thanks so much for that. Well, Preside Obama hoping to follow-through on one of his signal foreign policy initiatives today reducing the risks of nuclear terror. The president will host his fourth and final world summit with more than 50 world leaders today with one notable leader missing.

CNN's Athena Jones is live at the White House with more on that. Morning, Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

I believe you're talking about Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who won't be here. But this is a big day for the president and for world leaders. Topping the agenda: preventing the world's most dangerous network's from getting a hold of the world's most dangerous weapons. That's how the president put it in an op-ed in "The Washington Post." And it means keeping nukes out of the hands of terror groups like ISIS. Take a listen to what more he had so say about the importance of this summit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In light of recent events, this gathering takes on more meaning. Around the world we have seen horrific acts of terrorism, most recently Brussels, as well as what happened in Pakistan: innocent families, mostly women and children, Christians and Muslims.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And I should mention that ISIS won't be the only topic on the president. The president is having a tri-level meeting with the Japanese prime minister and South Korea's president to talk about North Korea's provocation and also efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. He'll meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and also with French President Francois Hollande. They'll talk about progress in implementing the nuclear deal with Iran; also, efforts to combat terrorism.

I should let you know, also, Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be in attendance. That means he won't be at the working dinner tonight with the leaders here at the White House.

And I should mention that all this comes as one of the candidates who wants to occupy the White House, GOP frontrunner, Donald Trump, made a lot of headlines over the last several days with some provocative statements about nuclear weapons, starting with a CNN town hall on Tuesday night, when he said he'd be open to Japan and South Korea obtaining nuclear weapons. That, of course, flies in the face of decades of efforts at nonproliferation. So a lot to talk about today. A lot on the agenda -- Don.

LEMON: Athena Jones, up and at them this morning from the White House. Thank you, Athena. Appreciate that.

We're following some breaking news out of India to tell you about right now. At least 10 people are dead and more than 100 missing. That's after a bridge that was under construction collapsed. This happened in a busy commercial area. This is north of Calcutta in Eastern India. Officials tell CNN 52 people have been pulled out of the rubble with injuries. The Indian army now deployed to help rescue operations. We will bring you more as we get it here on NEW DAY.

CAMEROTA: All right. Now to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where people took cover when severe storms moved through the area, including at least one tornado. Seven people rushed to area hospitals, one of them in critical condition. The storms downed power lines. They also produced hail. The severe weather threat is expected to shift east, affecting much of Alabama and possibly Georgia.

[06:15:15] LEMON: The State Department apologizing for some questionable spring break advice. OK. The Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs getting backlash after tweeting this: "Not a 10 in the U.S.? Then not a 10 overseas. Beware of being lured into buying expensive drinks or worse -- being robbed. #SpringBreakingBadly. The tweet was deleted after a barrage of criticism from people who

called it sexist and offensive.

CAMEROTA: All right. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton ready to do battle. The state of Wisconsin is up for grabs on Tuesday with the big New York primary on the horizon. So can the Vermont senator close the delegate gap? We'll show you the numbers, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: And we're back. Hillary Clintons and Bernie Sanders each setting their sights on next week's Wisconsin primary. New polling show Sanders with a narrow lead. Can he pull off another big win in the upper Midwest? Can he do it?

[06:20:11] What do you think, Alisyn? Well, I think Errol Louis might know. Jackie Kucinich might know. You guys bring your crystal balls this morning?

LOUIS: Not in the prediction business.

KUCINICH: Mine broke so long ago.

LEMON: Well, let's go to the big boards, as they say. Let's put up some of the polling numbers. This is out of Wisconsin. Wisconsin and New York State. First, Wisconsin. Marquette University poll showing Sanders with a four-point lead over Hillary Clinton. That's within the margin of error. It's wider, though, than what he had in November and a bit wider. He's gaining in February. How does -- how does a win in Wisconsin for Sanders help what still appears to look like a road to the nomination?

LOUIS: He's got -- he's got an issue of staving off elimination. I mean, we're really kind of coming down the home stretch. There's a 200-delegate lead that Hillary Clinton has. That's just in the pledged delegates. Set aside the super delegates for a minute.

That is a much wider lead than Obama ever had over Hillary Clinton back in 2008. So she's on a glide path to victory. Bernie Sanders has to try and disrupt that. He's got to do something sudden. He's got to get a lot of delegates fairly quickly. And that's what he's got to try to set up.

LEMON: He's got to be like Obama in 2008, basically.

LOUIS: Well, it's a little too late for that. What he's really got to do is he's got to -- he's got to come up with 200 delegates. He's got to close that 200-delegate gap or come close to it, and so everyone that he gets, it's got to be a blowout. If he wins Wisconsin it can't be by just a couple of points. He's got to get a lot of delegates. He's got to do a lot better than four points.

CAMEROTA: OK, so 86 delegates up for grabs on the Democratic side in Wisconsin. What do you think, Jackie, how he's going to -- how Bernie can pull it off? KUCINICH: You know, the other thing that Bernie has against him in

this is that Democratic -- all the primaries are proportional. And the caucuses are proportional. So every time he gets a couple delegates, Hillary gets some delegates, too, and that's not including the super delegates.

Last night, in an interview, Bernie Sanders was saying that they were trying to woo super delegates. That they were -- that Wisconsin would help power them forward. It will continue to create momentum and a reason for Bernie Sanders to stay in. But as far as the math, the math is still very difficult for him going forward, as Errol pointed out.

LEMON: Jackie, he's really -- she's really downplaying Wisconsin. Her camp is downplaying Wisconsin and really not talking much about Bernie Sanders setting her sights when she was here yesterday in Harlem at the Apollo, on Donald Trump without even mentioning his name and focusing on New York. Do you think that's a good strategy for her?

KUCINICH: You know, what you're seeing Hillary Clinton do, she hasn't totally forgotten Bernie Sanders. Earlier this week she had a speech about the Supreme Court. She referenced someone who's a one-issue candidate. She also referenced Donald Trump.

So he is sort of keeping a foot in both camps. In terms of New York, New York is must-win for Hillary Clinton. It's somewhere that she was a senator. She was elected twice statewide there.

LEMON: Wouldn't you think she'd have a bigger lead? I mean, it's 54- 42. You would think the lead would be bigger. Yes.

KUCINICH: And that's the thing. She can't -- not only should she win New York. For all intents and purposes, she needs to win big in order to deal a real blow to Bernie Sanders. Will he still drop -- will he drop out if he loses New York? Probably not? I mean, let's be real. But it will maybe deflate his campaign a little bit if she beats him in a big way right there.

CAMEROTA: Errol, where are we with another debate? As you know, Bernie Sanders was pushing for it, and then we had Karen Finney on our program this week. Joel Berenson has been on, saying, "We're not going to agree to another debate unless Bernie Sanders changes his tone." That was their condition.

LOUIS: That's right.

CAMEROTA: So where are we with that?

LOUIS: That question about tone is not a new one. To be fair to the Clinton camp, they've been raising this since November. They raised it in January. They don't like it when Bernie Sanders says there are two ways to regulate Wall Street. One of them involves taking a lot of money from Wall Street and somehow regulating that. That's sort of an attack on Clinton. So when he says, "Oh, I've never run negative ads, not being

negative," they're saying, "Actually, you sort of are." And so they've kind of put that out there.

My sense is that they are going to relent. I mean, what I'm hearing from people inside the campaign is that they are going to ultimately probably agree to some kind of debate in New York. That's a part, but then she's got great debating skills. She doesn't do poorly in debates, by any means.

CAMEROTA: It's to her advantage.

LOUIS: Well, yes and no. I mean, Bernie Sanders is going to make a real, for lack of a better word, kamikaze run, I think, in New York. I mean, it's the best place for him to pick up those 200 delegates that he needs. He is a native New Yorker. He's in some ways more native New York than Hillary Clinton.

LEMON: He doesn't have a big lead.

LOUIS: Well, that's right. It's hard for the proportional reasons that Jackie mentioned. I mean, yes, so he's clearly going to position himself to go great guns in New York. And there are a lot of very -- the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the base that is supporting Bernie Sanders, very much at home. There's a lot of them. And they're not just in New York City. A lot of them are upstate, places like Woodstock, New York, you know, where they're going to really come out for Bernie Sanders.

LEMON: Can we look at this hypothetical match-ups, because I thought that was interesting, when you put up the poll.

[06:25:03] Hilary Clinton -- if it was Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and both -- I guess you could say it's his home state; her adopted home state, right? Donald Trump's home state. She beats him 53-33 percent. That's a pretty big match-up. And also Sanders versus Trump, 56 to 32 percent. Donald Trump not doing well in his home state.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Jackie. That's the widest margins we've seen, isn't it?

KUCINICH: Right. And you know, Bernie Sanders is also using this as a justification for -- for really contesting New York, because he's beating -- he's actually polling better against Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. So we'll probably hear a lot of that from him and his campaign going forward, saying Donald Trump is the likely nominee and look at that: I'm actually beating him with a larger margin than Hillary Clinton.

CAMEROTA: There we go. All right. Errol, Jackie, thank you for walking us through all of this this morning.

KUCINICH: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Well, protestors on the streets of Minneapolis after two police officers were cleared with the shooting death of a young black man. What his family is saying about the decision, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Protests in Minneapolis after a prosecutor declines to charge two police officers who gunned down a young black man. Investigators say they acted in self-defense, but the 24-year-old's family says otherwise.

CNN's Ryan Young live for us in Minneapolis with more.

Morning, Ryan.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Don.