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Mississippi Gov. Signs Religious Freedom Bill Into Law; Can Cruz Win in Northeast After "New York Values" Comment?; Bernie Sanders Wins Big in Wisconsin; Sanders Had Trouble Answering Questions on Big Banks. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 06, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:31:48] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Critics are calling it legal discrimination, Mississippi becoming the state to allow private business and government agencies to deny services to the LGBT community base on religious objection.

Our Polo Sandoval have move on all the followup for us, Polo.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey Michaela good morning. You know, it seems that we've seen several of these religious freedom bills introduce and even past in several state since Supreme Court legalized gay marriage last summer. But the question is, why is this one in Mississippi so different?

Well, the answer according to several constitution law experts that I have spoken to or three religious beliefs that are now basically there is state by of the state and that is that marriage is union between a man and woman. It actually happens between a heterosexual married couple and -- a person sex is determined at birth. And again those are believes that are not protected by the state. Which means anyone who doesn't necessarily agree with that would be able to deny services to individuals.

Now, opponents of this call that discrimination. But then you hear from some of the supporters including Governor Phil Bryant who signed this into law yesterday who say they are simply trying to protect people's religious freedoms.

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GOV. PHIL BRYANT, (R) MISSISSIPPI: There's no intent. There's no one on the part of the Mississippi legislature, the governors office who wants to discriminate or harm anyone. This is simply -- if they are worried about protecting people's rights, also understand that people of faith have rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: And so again, important to remember what's happening also in North Carolina that's where a similar debate took place. A law was passed there that mandate what restrooms and locker rooms, transgender people can and can't use. Right now, the state under tremendous pressure to either modified that or even to delay with that.

And now, something to put on our radar Michaela is Tennessee. There is a bill there that's in the work that soon to be debated next week. They would give several caregivers, therapists and family counselors to turn away certain people based on their beliefs. It's going to be a very similar story to look out here for Mik. But obviously opponents of that hoping for a different outcome, a very different headline.

PEREIRA: Yeah, corporate America responding too, a lot of them saying that they will take their business elsewhere. We'll talk about this and unpack it more on New Days, Polo. Thank you so much for that.

Some other news for you, now Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland back on Capitol Hill this morning making case for the job. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell maintains Republicans will not consider a nominee until after the presidential election.

Two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and John Boozman of Arkansas did break with leadership to meet with Garland on Tuesday. Collins calling Garland impressive saying a vote should happen. Boozman now disagrees.

The UConn women winning a record fourth consecutive NCAA basketball championship routing Syracuse, 82-51 in the title game just capped another perfect season for the huskies at 38-0. The sixth time they have gone unbeaten, it runs their winning streak to a 75-game streak. It's also the 11th national championship for head coach Geno Auriemma. Congratulation to the Huskies, well done.

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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Wow.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Would of women's basketball Auriemma. What a legacy.

PEREIRA: Yeah.

[06:35:03] CAMEROTA: That is beautiful. All right meanwhile, it was big night for Ted Cruz. The Texas senator trouncing Donald Trump in Wisconsin. Cruz now claims he has a clear path to the nomination. Does his math add up?

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CUOMO: Senator Ted Cruz all smiles last night with a big win in Wisconsin. He calls it a turning point. Cruz victory making it almost impossible now for Donald Trump to reach the magic 1,237 delegate number before the Republican Convention.

Let's discuss how big this is and why with New Jersey chairman for the Cruz campaign Steve Lonegan. Congrats last night Steve. Good to have you here.

STEVE LONEGAN, N.J. CHAIRMAN, TED CRUZ PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Chris, more than a turning point I think. Last night is part of an earthquake that rolled out over the last two weeks. You know, too weeks ago Senator Cruz took Utah with amazing numbers. Then it goes into North Dakota where we took 18 out 19 delegates. An amazing ratio then 100 percent of the six delegates voter for so far in Colorado and we'll get the rest. And now a major victory in Wisconsin.

By the way, two weeks ago reporters were saying that Wisconsin was made perfectly tailor made (ph) for Donald Trump.

[06:40:04] So, you've total shift in the Republican Party. And this election going into the primaries, in April, May and June.

Ted Cruz has the momentum. Donald's Trumps campaign is literally disintegrating in front of (inaudible) eyes. It was an article in POLITICO yesterday about how his whole campaign is in turmoil.

What you've seen here Chris, since a year ago when Ted Cruz was in the field of 17 in about 3 points in the polls, you've seen consistent leadership, consistent messaging. And that's paying off over time. And that's what people want in the White House. They want consistency. They want a solid candidate they can rely on. Donald Trump's erratic behavior is just paying off in a bad way waiting in the end.

CUOMO: Now, in terms of turning point, OK. That would mean that the fates have changed in this race and when you look at the delegate count, if you want to put up a numbers for everybody, because that math can get deep, but there some simple points.

Trumps has to get about 60 percent of the remaining delegates. He hasn't been calling 60 percent. But your man can't win either. He has to have 88 percent of the remaining delegates. I do know that the campaign is very assiduously working existing delegates, going to state like Arizona and Louisiana, but even then it's a little bit of a stretch. What is your path to victory?

LONEGAN: And the existing Marco Rubio delegates and the delegates committed to Jeb Bush. Remember Ted Cruz has been endorsed by five of his opponents, Jeb Bush, Marco -- Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham and Carly Fiorina.

And all these delegates at some point are going to go to Ted Cruz. It's going to be a battle. But Ted Cruz has showed the leadership. Donald Trump is losing support. Donald Trump may have more delegates right now than Ted Cruz. But the vast majority of delegates are against Donald Trump, plus we have a long way to go. And Ted Cruz's victories are continuing to roll up.

Now, we are going into New York in two weeks. It's going to be a tough battle. But as he has done before, I think you're going to see Ted Cruz exceed expectations and do better than people think even if New York.

CUOMO: How?

LONEGAN: By having a message that resonates with New York voters. You know, yesterday was the first ... CUOMO: First day you're going to remember in New York just, you know, what I'm going with this is, New York values where he seeing sneer on his face with talking about New York. He gave Donald Trump one of his biggest moral high points and there haven't been many in this campaign where he said, New York values. What about 9/11?

LONEGAN: A conservative Republicans know exactly what that means. That's the values of comrade Bill de Blasio that Donald Trump said would be a great mayor, would make New York great again. Those are the values of Andrew Cuomo and Hillary Clinton and Charlie Rangel and Weiner and Spitzer and all the Democrats that Donald Trump has supported over the last 20 years from his cocktail parties in penthouse ...

CUOMO: So it's just politics. It's not about the people.

LONEGAN: It's about politics. Well, here what the people in the New York are going to remember, yesterday was the first day of common core testing in New York. Here's an issue that's important to conservative votes in New York. Donald Trump has said that's a role of federal government to provide education. John Kasich supports common core. There's only one candidate and here's another key issue where Ted Cruz's clear message will resonate with the votes (ph) with New York, as well as his leadership in bringing jobs and security for the state of New York.

CUOMO: So you don't think you win in New York, do you?

LONEGAN: I'm not going to predict the win I wouldn't do that. But I will say we will take delegates out of New York and we'll exceed expectation. The next two weeks ago. Again, two weeks before Wisconsin pundits said that Wisconsin was telling me (ph) for Donald Trump. Now they're saying he's going win big in New York. Let's see how that plays out.

CUOMO: Wisconsin, if you look at the numbers last night. One of the categories that mattered that's new somewhat against Trump for Ted Cruz is White non-degree having males. To be honest, I don't love that demographic description. But that's the way the polls just doing. He won this by a larger margin than we have seen. We're not talking about evangelicals there. What does this mean?

LONEGAN: It means that people are galvanizing really behind Ted Cruz. You've saying that went for Ted Cruz?

CUOMO: Yeah, 49-38 that's (inaudible) spread that we've seen.

LONEGAN: That's true and that's because they understand to create real economic growth in this country want consistency in the White House. We can't afford some guy in the White House. You never know what's going to come out of his mouth. That might look like fund in the circus of a primary. But when it comes to leadership but it doesn't work. It doesn't speed economic growth. It's creates world turmoil, it creates economic turmoil.

And those workers understand it for Americans to be competitive. We need to import and export products. We can't afford the president who says I'm going to allow (ph) you 35 percent tax on (inaudible) and destroy and create a trade war that we cannot win. Wisconsin voters understand this. They are very smart. As are New York voters. And all the other Republican primary.

CUOMO: Give me a yes, no on this. Do you believe that Donald Trump or any of his campaign team can bring out proof that the Republican national committee the party helped Ted Cruz inappropriately in Wisconsin or the super PAC coordinated with a campaign in a way that is illegal?

LONEGAN: Absolutely, positively not. Another of issue crazy allegations coming on out of Donald Trump's mouth, the same kind of things he would in the White House that would create world turmoil and economic turmoil. Absolutely, positively not. Donald Trump makes these accusations, lying on Ted and all of this nonsense. The voters of this country are on this, they are not going to buy it.

[06:45:04] Steve Lonegan, thank you for being on NEW DAY. Appreciate it.

LONEGAN: Thanks for having.

CUOMO: Mik.

PEREIRA: All right, Chris.

Up next, we're going to a little deeper dig into how Wisconsin primaries were won. Voters in the state citing trade, jobs and the economy are their chief concerns. Will those issues propel Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders to the top moving forward?

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PEREIRA: All right. It's time for your money, your vote. Chief Business and correspondent Christine Romans in the money, (inaudible) going to look how important the economy and jobs are to Wisconsin voter.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CHIEF BUSSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Very, very important economy is issue number one for voters in Wisconsin. Something we have seen in almost every single primary state. 32 of Republican voters tell us the economy is their top issue. Government spending comes in a close second here just like the other primaries state. Terrorism is third. Not a surprise really after the attacks in Brussels.

So what was a surprise of those who said the economy and jobs is their top issue, they decidedly voted for Ted Cruz 46 percent. Trump in second with 30 percent. More than half of all Republican voters say trade with other countries takes away U.S. jobs. Trade is a job killer. This is rich Trump territory. But in Wisconsin, it was closer than in previous contests. Much closer. Donald Trump with only a slight edge over Cruz. More than one third of all Democratic voters put the economy as their top issue. They voted for Bernie Sanders. 54 percent to Clinton's 46 percent. Guys. [06:49:23] CAMEROTA: OK, thanks so much for that, Christine. Well,

Bernie Sanders flying high after his Wisconsin win but his also being criticized for a recent interview with "The New York Daily News." Will his answers hurt him?

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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Please keep this a secret. Do not tell Secretary Clinton. She's getting a little nervous, and I don't want her to get more nervous. But I believe we've got an excellent chance to win New York and a lot of delegates in that state.

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CAMEROTA: That was Bernie Sanders celebrating his big win last night in Wisconsin over Hillary Clinton. That is six out of the last seven states for Sanders. But he is also still recovering from a stumble in an interview with the editorial board of "The New York Daily News" which raised questions about whether the media has been tough enough on Sanders.

Joining us now to talk about all this is National affairs correspondent for the nation John Nichols and CNN Senior reporter and Media Politics Dylan Byers.

Great to have both of you gentleman with us this morning. John, let start with you he had a resounding victory last night in Wisconsin. Do you think that perhaps the media has not taken Bernie Sanders seriously enough before now?

JOHN NICHOLS, NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, THE NATION: Well, I think the media has taken him pretty seriously in the last couple of months since the New Hampshire win in that and maybe the week or so before New Hampshire, quite seriously.

But the core premise that you're getting to is an important one. Because I'm not sure the media has taken the Democratic race quite so seriously as it has in Republican race. The Republican race has grabbed the spotlight, and obviously for reasons well discussed. Now is this contest gets to New York, if we believe the polls, the Republican race is not going to be that close in New York.

[06:55:02] The Democratic race is going to be very competitive. And New York is a media hot house. It's a place where you really do have things breaking very, very fast, as Dylan well knows. And you have table papers, the Daily News and the post that really go at it every morning with incredible headlines (inaudible). So I think this is going to be real test.

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's talk about this daily news interview Dylan that it has been labeled basically a disaster in some corners for Bernie Sanders because of how he answered some questions. So let me give our viewers an example of some of the things that they say that he botched. For instance, one of his signature platforms is that he would break up the greedy big banks. So he was asked by the editorial board of "The Daily News." How would you go about doing that breaking up the banks? Sanders says "How you would do is having legislation passed, or giving the authority to the secretary of treasury to determine, under Dodd- Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over the problem of too-big-to-fail. "The Daily News" says "But do you think that the Fed, now, has that authority?' Bernie Sanders says "Well, I don't know if the Fed has it."

It seems like that's one he should be able to hit out of the park, Dylan.

DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: That absolutely when he should be able to hit out of parking.

Look, these sorts of answers happen throughout this interview. They happen on foreign policy which has been -- Sanders has been weak on foreign policy in terms of identifying specific proposal about what he would do for some time. Fine, his issue was always taking on Wall Street. It's always about the economy. That really is what brought him as far as he's come. But now in an interview, he can't even really get into specifics about how he would break up the banks or how he would implement this ambitious economic policy that he's brought up.

And, you know, look the point is right. We're getting into a New York City media market. They're going to go very hard, they're going to take advantage of the fact that they've got two weeks in the national spotlight right now with this race. And they're going to go really hard on all of these candidates.

And for Bernie Sanders, a guy who has been able to get up there and rail against Wall Street day after day after day and get called for specifics and just well, you know, Wall Street deserves everything it gets but not have any specifics on that issue now might be that time when people really begin to take a second look at just how effective he can be in actually implementing these proposals.

CAMEROTA: John, here is another example. This one is, what you would do to fight ISIS basically and what you would do with a captured is commander? "The Daily News" asked, what would you do with the captured ISIS commander? Sanders says "Imprison him." "Daily News" says "Where?" Sanders says, well, if that questions leads us to Guantanamo." And "Daily News" says "Well, no separate and apart from Guantanamo. It could be there, it could be anywhere. Where would a President Sanders imprison, interrogate that person. What would you do? Sanders says "actually, I haven't thought a lot about it. I suppose, somewhere near the locale where that person was captured.

Should Bernie Sanders have thought more about that answer?

NICHOLS: Yeah, look, that's a rough answer. And, you know, I think when you get to the heart of the matter, rather than going, you know, on this specifics of that issue, which people have wrestled with a great deal, what you recognize here is there is that there is something unique about a newspaper editorial board session. You are sitting with a group of folks where they have done a lot of research. They would do editorials on these issues. They take stands. And one of the critical things in the moments like this is to simply have a clear stance, take it and, you know, let it sort out as it does.

CAMEROTA: And so, why didn't he give to you John. I mean, why didn't Bernie Sanders have a clear stance on both those things? Whether he has the authority to break up the banks and what he would do with imprisoned ISIS commanders.

NICHOLS: Well, I think that the answer to that is -- I can't get into somebody's head and say why you did or you didn't. But I can say that you have to setting like this. Let me also suggest on that first one, the banking question, I do think that on that one, I'd like to see more questions and more answers there. Maybe some other additional newspaper editorial sessions.

My sense is that Sanders can and will do better on those. But of course this gets to the heart of the matter. You have two weeks. You're going to get hit very aggressively again and again and again. And there are not those opportunities to clean things up. You've got to hit the mark in every interview and every setting. And so, for Sanders, if he recognizes that this interview did not go as he wanted it to go.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

NICHOLS: And then really kind of get stronger, he could do fine in New York. But if you see a series of this, if you see a pattern of this, New York City especially is the sort of place where this can become a real problem.

[07:00:04] CAMEROTA: Yeah, John Nichols, Dylan Byers. Sorry gentlemen we're out of time. But thank you very much.

BYERS: No worries.

CAMEROTA: We appreciate you're being here on NEW DAY. Talk to you guys again soon.

We're following a lot of news including the results from Wisconsin primaries so let's get ...