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Chicago Teachers Staging One-Day Strike; Sarah Palin's Husband Out Of Intensive Care And Resting At Home; Tornadoes Slam Parts Of The South; Trump Backlash Over Abortion & Nukes Comments; Candidates Have Fun With April Fools' Day; FBI To Help Unlock iPhone In Murder Case; Who Is Corey Lewandowsk? Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired April 01, 2016 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN HOST: Well, Chicago teachers are promising to shut down the entire city school system today. They are planning a full day of teach-ins and rallies to protest what they call the death of education. Over 27,000 Chicago teachers have been working without a contract since last summer. The nation's third largest school district is facing a $1.1 billion budget deficit.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Sarah Palin's husband out of the hospital and resting at home in Alaska. Last month, you might remember, Todd Palin landed in the ICU after getting into a serious snowmobile crash. On Thursday, his wife, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, took to Facebook to update their supporters. Palin says Todd is in a good place and passing the time watching March Madness.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, severe storms packing isolated tornadoes excepted to flare up again the southeast and the Gulf Coast today. Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi already reeling from tornado touchdowns on Thursday.
A Mississippi teenager was killed when his SUV apparently slid on a rain-slicked road and flipped as he was heading to school. The storms downing trees and power lines, damaging homes, and causing flash flooding, as you can see.
LEMON: Oh, my gosh.
CAMEROTA: All right, well, the fallout continues over Donald Trump's controversial statements on abortion and nuclear proliferation. Rival Ohio Gov. John Kasich breaking with his positive tone to criticize Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As a commander in chief and leader of the free world you don't get do-overs. You need to be able to get it right the first time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: All right, let's bring in our political commentators to talk about this. Margaret Hoover is a Republican consultant and former George W. Bush White House staffer, and Jeffrey Lord from a Reagan White House, political director and Donald Trump supporter. Great to have both of you here.
JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Aly.
CAMEROTA: Hi, great to have you, Jeffery.
MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.
LEMON: Morning.
CAMEROTA: OK, Margaret, let's start here. So, it's been a challenging -- I think it's fair to say it's been a challenging week for Donald Trump. Corey Lewandowski is arrested first and charged with a misdemeanor battery, then there's the comments about women should be punished for abortions. Nuclear proliferation -- maybe South Korea and Japan should get nuclear weapons. Will any of this have an effect, do you think, on the upcoming races?
HOOVER: Yes, it's certainly going to have an effect on Wisconsin, and then the question is whether it has -- how much effect does it have in terms of blocking the delegate count that Donald Trump needs to get in order to get over the 1,237 which he likely now actually really has a chance of not getting to.
Here's the deep read on the numbers. Trump's numbers have actually plateaued over the last month. His number aren't actually going to be hurt by his comments because, as we know, his supporters like him and there's very little he can do to dissuade them from liking him.
What this has done is A, energize everybody else so those very conservative voters who like Ted Cruz are now even more energized over this, especially the abortion flip-flop. That was very, very difficult for those very conservative voters.
But, they're also benefiting from the winnowing of the field. Donald Trump does have a ceiling. We've discussed this for a long time. It's around 30-35 percent. It doesn't get any higher than that. There's only two other people competing for the rest of those votes now -- not 17, not 14, not 5, and that's what's actually going to help Ted Cruz and John Kasich.
LEMON: Jeffrey Lord, I heard you say on this program yesterday -- you actually said that you believe Donald Trump made a mistake in his response to Chris Matthews about abortion and that -- I don't know if you believe that he has had a rough couple of weeks, but certainly he has not indicated as such at all and has not really said he was sorry or apologized about it.
He said well, I maybe I misspoke, but then said MSNBC edited the video. MSNBC has said no, we did not edit it. It ran in its entirety. Does he believe that he's had a bad week? Does he think that he needs to rejigger his campaign?
LORD: Well, I don't know that he thinks he needs to rejigger his campaign. I do think he misspoke, Don, on the abortion issue. He corrected himself quickly.
LEMON: You said mistake yesterday.
LORD: Candidates -- all candidates -- I'm sorry?
LEMON: You said mistake yesterday.
LORD: Yes, yes, I'm saying the same thing, sure, exactly. He corrected himself very quickly. Candidates of all stripes in both parties have bad moments as campaigns move along here. To be perfectly candid,I'd rather be Donald Trump and to have had a misspeak on abortion as opposed to Hillary Clinton having to have a personal sit-down with the FBI director.
[07:35:00] LEMON: But is that a misspeak on it -- where you keep saying a misspeak and a mistake --
LORD: Sure, sure.
LEMON: -- and that is a pretty big issue. It's always been an issue when it comes to presidential campaigns and a contentious issue. And as someone who's running for the presidency of the United States, shouldn't they have their act together, at least when it comes to the language for pro-life or for pro-choice?
LORD: Well, Don, I said this the other night. Donald Trump does not come from a political background. He doesn't speak the language of the political class that I speak --
LEMON: What does that mean, Jeffrey Lord? What does that mean he --
LORD: Sure.
LEMON: -- doesn't come from political class because that has nothing to do with absorbing knowledge or having information.
LORD: Yes it does, Don. Yes, it does. Yes, it does, Don, because he doesn't know all the buzzwords. For instance, let me give you an example. Senator Cruz was in Iowa a year ago, and I've seen this on C-SPAN. He was asked, essentially, the same question that Donald Trump was asked on abortion. He refused to answer it. He just said I'm pro-life. He stuck with that. He didn't answer the question. That's the political class --
LEMON: You're making the point, though, right?
HOOVER: Here's the point. You don't -- so, I hear you, Jeffrey. I'm going to give you this. One of the things Republicans need to take away from this Trump disaster, once we're all said and done, is that we don't talk to people the way people hear politics, right? And Donald Trump has really simplified how you speak to people, and people who aren't into politics understand what he's saying.
But here's the major failing that I think Don is getting at and that you and I both understand. This candidate -- your candidate has shown absolutely no capacity to learn as a candidate on the trail. You're just referencing something he did back in Iowa --
LORD: Oh, I disagree with that, Margaret.
HOOVER: -- but this is evidence of this. And to continue to say -- to the flap over the Iraq war, the flap over announcing the Geneva Convention, the flap over the enhanced interrogation techniques and torture. He hasn't ended up internalizing the lessons of the campaign trail in demonstrating that he can learn on the trail and become a serious candidate. And that's why part of his lack of curiosity is --
LORD: Margaret, he is a serious --
HOOVER: -- about learning the issues that are going to confront a --
LEMON: And the policy is not buzzwords. Let's get that straight. There's a difference between buzzwords and policy. Even if you don't know the correct language you should at least know the policy.
CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Jeffrey.
LORD: Don, all I'm saying is -- and Margaret, in particular -- Donald Trump is about message and I know this irritates everybody when I say this but I'm going to say it again. Ronald Reagan was about message. He got exactly this kind of criticism -- that he didn't know the details of policy.
HOOVER: But, Jeffrey --
LORD: That was a criticism that was made not just when he was a candidate, but when he was president.
HOOVER: But you and I both know there's a huge difference between the amount that Ronald Reagan, as a two-time governor of California, knew and the amount that Donald Trump. One that has a policy matter.
CAMEROTA: But hold on, guys because I want to talk about an interesting paradox that we're seeing with the numbers, Jeffrey. Donald Trump is popular with voters. He continues to win. He is the front-runner. Yet, when you poll people, as we have in this most recent CNN/ORC poll, he has the highest unfavorables of any candidate.
He has 67 percent, Hillary Clinton has 56 percent, Ted Cruz has 54 percent. Here's what's notable. The Washington Post says that Trump is the least popular politician, or if he becomes the nominee, in their 32 years of the survey. So how does that work, Jeffrey? How will it work if he has 67 percent unfavorables?
LORD: Because Aly -- sure. Aly, what happens is every single time when you get down to a fall election and the choice is between candidate A and candidate B -- instead of talking about this in March or April 1st as we are -- the election always looks different. People, by then -- both candidates have negatives.
In this case, if this becomes an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton I guarantee you Hillary Clinton's negatives, which are pretty high right now, will be even higher. But the choice will then be between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and people are going to have to go there. So, I don't worry about that kind of thing at all because this kind of thing always happens.
HOOVER: And to Jeffrey's first point, yes, it's going to be against two unfavorable candidates. The question is who is more unfavorable amongst the people that they need to win? And as Jeffrey and I, and all of us know, if you're a Republican you have to get all of the people Mitt Romney got in addition to more Hispanics, more African- Americans, more women, and frankly, more white male voters.
Donald Trump will get those male white voters but he won't even get the baseline of what Mitt Romney won in terms of Hispanics, which was dismal anyway, let alone women.
CAMEROTA: OK, guys, it is April Fools' Day, as you both know, and Ted Cruz has just tweeted this morning, "Happy to hear @realDonaldTrump accepted my challenge to debate one-on-one." And then --
LORD: I saw it.
CAMEROTA: You saw it, Jeffrey?
LORD: I thought it was really well done.
CAMEROTA: OK, so then he has a link to this video. Enjoy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would like to invite Donald, right now, to engage in a one-on-one debate with me anytime.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We've had 11 debates. According to the polls,I've won every single debate. We're going to go on forever with these debates.
(RICK ASTLEY SONG PLAYING -- Never Going to Let You Down).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[07:40:00] LEMON: I can't --
CAMEROTA: I can't believe Ted Cruz is rickrolling us. Ted Cruz is Rickrolling us but I love being Rickrolled. I Love Rick Astley.
LEMON (Singing): Never gonna give you up.
LORD: We need a laugh.
LEMON & CAMEROTA (Singing): Never gonna let you down.
HOOVER: Ted Cruz -- the softer side of Ted Cruz for April Fools' Day, everybody. Thank you very much.
CAMEROTA: That is great.
PEREIRA: And it's particularly great because we sort of feel that our new correspondent, Phil Mattingly, is like a dead ringer for Rick.
CAMEROTA: I know. We've been playing more Rick Astley on this show for the past couple of weeks. Jeffrey, Margaret --
LEMON: Have a great weekend, Jeffrey. Happy April Fools' Day.
PEREIRA: Nothing like a good Rickroll for April Fools' Day
CAMEROTA: Thank you.
PEREIRA: All right, no Apple, no problem. The FBI now agreeing to unlock an iPhone, but this one in a murder case after figuring out how to do it in the San Bernardino terror investigation. Is it a slippery slope when it comes to privacy? We'll examine that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:44:00] PEREIRA: The FBI has agreed to help Arkansas prosecutors unlock an iPhone and an iPod that may contain key evidence in a murder case. This comes after the agency managed to hack an iPhone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists without the help of Apple.
Here to discuss this is Juliette Kayyem. She's a CNN national security analyst -- worked in the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. This is a perfect story for you to help us with. First of all, I think this is -- we know is what some were concerned about -- the slippery slope of allowing access to these iPhones.
This is a very different story. This is not terror, this is a murder case. A couple was murdered. There are four suspects -- teenagers. One of them, I think, is their grandson. Not a terror case. Why is the FBI getting involved in this one?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, that's the big question for those who are concerned about whether the FBI is now on a tear to go after these encrypted devices. In law enforcement we call this the deadbeat dad problem. Essentially, it goes something like this.
In a terrorism case people might feel comfortable with the government having more authority to get inside an encrypted phone. The next case is a murder case and that seems OK. Well, we don't like murder. We want to help the government.
The next case is a deadbeat dad case, right? It has less significance but the government, now having had the authority in the terrorism case, will use it in lesser cases. I'm not saying murder is OK, it's just different in terms of its public impact than a terrorism case like San Bernardino.
PEREIRA: You talk about the sliding scale and I think others have looked at this as being like a slippery slope because then it comes back to folks any of us here that have iPhones because we think well, wait, does that mean that they can just subpoena or ask for, or access, or simply crack into my iPhone?
KAYYEM: Well, that's the great question and what's so unclear at this stage is why this police department didn't actually go to Apple, which happens in dozens and dozens of cases, and seek some help from Apple to get into it. What people --
PEREIRA: Cooperation, right?
KAYYEM: Exactly. What people forget about the Apple-FBI fight over San Bernardino is that it hid the fact that there are hundreds of cases in which the government is going to these service providers and saying look, we need to get in this phone. And the service provider is saying, look, you have the court authority. We're happy to help you. It came to a loggerhead when the FBI actually asked Apple to create a new technology to get into the phone, ultimately, as we know.
PEREIRA: Instead of just asking for the information from that phone they were asking for the key to the phone and that was the concern Apple had because they were saying look, it will just -- just because the good guys have it that means then the vulnerability is there and bad guys could have it.
Now, here's the question then. Is there a scenario where Apple could get an order to get the FBI to show their work -- to show their methodology of how they got access?
KAYYEM: I think it would be a very hard case for Apple to win. They can certainly bring it, saying that it undermines their business focus, which is essentially to give people iPhones that the government or anyone else can't get into. It would be a very difficult case.
What you're more likely to see, Michaela, and in particular any of these other cases, is that the person whose phone is taken who's a defendant will then, in the courtroom, say hey, FBI, show me how you opened my phone. So the FBI actually probably does not want a log of these cases to go before an open court because in discovery they are going to have to say how we got into this phone.
So, in some ways, San Bernardino was an outlier because there's probably -- it's not clear there is ever going to be a criminal case. The FBI just wanted the information. The more the FBI tries to do this in your traditional cases, they're going to have to put up, and they're not going to want to do that. So, I think in some ways this may be a unique case and I think one that the FBI is not going to want to utilize very often.
PEREIRA: It will be very interesting to see how -- we'll watch this as an indication of potentially what could come. Juliette, always a pleasure to have you walk us through this stuff. Thanks so much.
KAYYEM: Thank you.
PEREIRA: And you can get in on the conversation on social media. You can either tweet us or post your comments on facebook.com/NewDay -- Aly.
CAMEROTA: Well, Donald Trump's campaign manager accused of bruising a reporter at a rally. The incident was caught on video, but who is Corey Lewandowski? We'll take a closer look at that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:52:00] LEMON: Donald Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, making headlines after being charged with battery for allegedly grabbing and bruising a reporter's arm. Even though surveillance video appears to corroborate her story, Trump is still standing by his man.
CNN's Drew Griffin has been digging into Lewandowski's past and he joins us now live from the CNN center in Atlanta to reveal what he found. What did you find? Good morning, and what did you find?
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Don. It's a somewhat remarkable story. Corey Lewandowski, a guy you would never have bet on running the Trump campaign, but here he is. And despite his trouble and Trump's continued troubles, and perhaps because of those troubles, these two guys are sticking together.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: The candidate may be a novice to politics --
TRUMP: Corey, good job, Corey.
GRIFFIN: -- but Donald Trump's campaign manager is someone D.C. types call a long-time political operative who stays on message, and Corey Lewandowski's message is to stick to the Trump script.
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR DONALD TRUMP: The first thing that we need to do is to build a wall --
GRIFFIN: Lewandowski, just 42 years old, has been around politics, controversy, and even arrests, his entire political life including one of the biggest political scandals of the new century.
JACK ABRAMOFF, REPUBLICAN LOBBYIST: I do.
GRIFFIN: It involved Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist who went to prison after admitting how he bought politicians and even an administration official with bribes, freebies, and favors.
SEN. BOB NEY (R-OH): And I stand before you today --
GRIFFIN: One of the politicians he bribed, Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio. Corey Lewandowski had previously been Congressman Bob Ney's right-hand man. Lewandowski cut his political teeth in the office of the Ohio Republican, and when Congressman Ney was to be sentenced to prison, Corey Lewandowski wrote this letter to the judge about his old boss, calling the convicted congressman a "surrogate father".
It was during his time as an aide to Bob Ney that Lewandowski also had his first brush with the law. In August of 1999, the then- congressional staffer was heading to work at the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill.
That's when police found a loaded pistol, three pistol magazines, ammunition, and a holster in his overnight bag. He was arrested for carrying a gun without a license. The charge quickly dropped. Lewandowski sued the federal government trying to get his own gun back but lost an appeal. Lewandowski never got the gun back.
[07:55:00] In 2001, he joined up to run the reelection campaign of another Republican politician, U.S. Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire. Smith, a sitting senator, was in a heated Republican primary with John E. Sununu. Smith, with Corey Lewandowski running the campaign, was trounced.
From there, Corey Lewandowski took jobs as a real estate agent, with a P.R. firm, and even worked as an officer trainee in New Hampshire's state marine patrol, but eventually worked his way back into politics through lobbying. For the last eight years he has worked as a lobbyist and adviser to the Americans for Prosperity political action group, a conservative PAC founded by one of the Koch brothers.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: And, Don, Lewandowski, the story goes, didn't even tell his wife he was joining the Trump campaign. He just went down and convinced Trump no one was going to work harder and he got that job.
LEMON: All right, let's back up a little back. It is an add coupling, right, teaming up for this campaign. So he was really, as you have been showing, a low-level political insider from New Hampshire. Trump is a billionaire political outsider from New York. So how did they come together? He just went to him and said I want to work for you?
GRIFFIN: Well, it was a chance meeting -- April of 2014. This is more than a year before Trump even jumps into the race. They met backstage at a New Hampshire event and they hit it off. Kindred spirits -- two very, very high energy guys.
Lewandowski is a Red Bull-chugging hard charger and I guess they just felt like they could be pals and developed this friendship. Very odd that these two people from these two different social economic and background groups have been together, but that's how they hit off and Trump really has put all his faith in him.
LEMON: Yes, just even the past couple of months, too, it's a very tight bond. Donald Trump publicly stated that he has no plans to fire Corey Lewandowski and, in fact, has really gone out of his way to defend him and blame the reporter for much of what happened. But do you think this is going to continue to be a distraction for the campaign and maybe one that becomes too much of a burden, even for the Trump campaign to sustain?
GRIFFIN: You know, this Trump campaign is moving so quickly. Look how fast that this whole bruising incident dropped out of the headlines. It just took one day -- one interview on MSNBC and we're not talking about Lewandowski anymore.
I think a lot will depend, Don, on what happens in May when Lewandowski goes to court and the judge either takes a look at this charge and throws it out or it becomes an actual criminal case that keeps moving forward. We'll have to see. But right now, as you said, these two guys are sticking together. Trump, especially, saying I'm sticking with this guy.
LEMON: And we haven't heard from Lewandowski, right?
GRIFFIN: No, they keep him kind of out of the way. He did a couple of interviews early on. He made a couple of statements that didn't go so well. He's basically a back-scenes guy -- keep Trump on the move. Keeping him moving through reporters as he's now famously been doing, but we have not heard from him.
LEMON: Drew Griffin, thank you.
GRIFFIN: Thanks, Don.
LEMON: We're following a lot of news, so let's get right to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PEREIRA: Donald Trump meets with the RNC behind closed doors in D.C.
TRUMP: Actually, a terrific meeting, I think, and it's really a unity meeting.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: Trump doing damage control.
TRUMP: This was a long discussion and they just cut it out.
CRUZ: Donald's comments, they were wrong.
KASICH: You don't get do-overs.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I'm sick of it.
BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Enough is enough.
CLINTON: We've got to unite.
SANDERS: We are going to make it to the White House.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard a honk, honk, honk, crash.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just went and grabbed on to the side of the ship.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just slammed up against there -- my head and my arm.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, April 1st, 8:00.
PEREIRA: Or is it? CAMEROTA: It is April 1st. That we know.It's 8:00 and Chris is off this morning. Don Lemon has been joining us all week. It's been great to have you here.
LEMON: One hour and then to my night job.
CAMEROTA: That's right, double duty. All right, well, up first, Donald Trump trying to make peace with his fractured party. The Republican front-runner meeting behind closed doors with RNC leadership in Washington. This, as Trump's campaign deals with the uproar over his incendiary comments about abortion and nuclear security.
LEMON: The GOP front-runner says his pow wow with the RNC about unity was terrific, but his critics are questioning Trump's fitness to lead. The latest polls -- they show Trump trailing Ted Cruz by double digits in Wisconsin, with that crucial primary just four days away.
So, we've got this race covered, of course, only the way that we can do here at CNN, and we're going to begin with Phil Mattingly. He is live from Hershey, Pennsylvania. Hello, Phil.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Don. Donald Trump stepping off the campaign trail yesterday probably couldn't have come at a more opportune time in the wake of a wild week, one of the more dangerous political weeks Donald Trump's found himself in over the course of his campaign.
