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War of Words Intensifies Ahead of N.Y. Primary; Pope Francis Issues Document on Marriage & Family; Erosion a Major Concern at Iraq's Largest Dam. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 08, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not going to get beaten up. I'm not going to get lied about. We will fight back.

[05:58:06] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Senator Sanders, by his own admission, has never even been a Democrat.

SANDERS: The American people might wonder about your qualifications.

CLINTON: Well, that's kind of a silly thing to say.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've got this guy talking about New York values with scorn on his face.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Everyone in New York and outside of New York knows exactly what I meant by that.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you're asking me, am I'm tough enough, yes, I'm tough enough.

TRUMP: Folks, I think you can forget about him.

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It has been described as the most dangerous dam in the world. A stark warning. The lives of up to 1.5 million Iraqis could be at risk.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Will it get there? Are we good?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Sorry for my breakfast being obvious, but good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, April 8, 6 a.m. in the east.

Up first, a race for president is going the wrong way. Sanders and Clinton still playing the qualified game. A flurry of comments from candidates and the campaigns about whether the other can be president. Is this war of words all about what's happening next week? This big New York primary, this big CNN debate. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Now as for the Republicans, Donald Trump

taking a break from the campaign trail to focus on his delegate strategy. And Ted Cruz standing by his disparaging New York values comments.

Coming up, we'll hear from Ted Cruz about that and so much more. We'll also have breaking news out of the Vatican. Pope Francis is issuing a landmark document this morning on marriage and the family. We'll have more on that in a moment, but we want to begin our coverage with the race for the White House and CNN's Phil Mattingly.

Hi, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Alisyn. Well, for a moment yesterday, it appeared every single candidate in the race was trying to out-New York the other candidate. There was a stop by a subway station outside Yankee Stadium, a swing through an Italian deli in the Bronx, and of course, the tour of a matzo bakery in Brooklyn.

But underlying tension for both parties still remaining as we head into this New York primary: questions about qualifications, about New York values, and about the shape of Donald Trump's campaign team.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): 2016 presidential hopefuls hitting the streets of the Big Apple, courting voters ahead of New York's primary. Ted Cruz in Brooklyn making matzo. Secretary Clinton attempting to drum up support among subway riders.

CLINTON: How are you?

MATTINGLY: And fending off Senator Bernie Sanders' attacks.

SANDERS: Are you qualified to be president of the United States when you're raising millions of dollars from Wall Street, an entity whose greed, recklessness and illegal behavior helped destroy our economy?

MATTINGLY: Sanders refusing to back down Thursday.

SANDERS: I'm not going to get beaten up. I'm not going to get lied about. We will fight back.

MATTINGLY: Clinton trying to take the high road in a stop in front of Yankee Stadium.

CLINTON: I don't know why he's saying that, but I will take Bernie Sanders over Donald Trump or Ted Cruz any time.

MATTINGLY: Tensions in both races ratcheting up, with Ted Cruz continuing to defend his New York values comments, slamming New York's politicians. And Donald Trump.

CRUZ: Our friends in the media tell us that Donald Trump is unstoppable in New York state. And they really want to see a general election between two New York liberals who agree on Washington being the center of the universe.

MATTINGLY: John Kasich looking to capitalize on the backlash, touring a deli in the Bronx.

KASICH: How about a little cheese on the top of this? Mama mia.

MATTINGLY: Both his campaign and super PAC launching full-scale attack ads aimed at Cruz.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ted Cruz sneered at our New York values.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New Yorkers aren't stupid, Ted.

MATTINGLY: Donald Trump seizing on his home court advantage.

TRUMP: This is home. It's great to be home.

MATTINGLY: Backing out of scheduled stops in California and Colorado to take closed-door meetings with his staff.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, guys, all eyes now on Paul Manafort, the veteran GOP and well-respected operative, who is now the newly-minted convention manager for the Trump campaign.

Now, this role is important for two reasons. One, it's the first real significant expansion of Trump's inner circle that we've seen. Kind of new responsibilities going to a new figure on the team.

But more importantly, the role itself, from here on out, is all about delegates and delegate wrangling. Paul Manafort will be heading up that operation.

If you want to know the work that they have to do, just last night Ted Cruz picking up another three delegates at a convention in Colorado. Now, there delegates doesn't seem like a lot. But as we get to Cleveland, those could be the most important delegates going forward. And if you look at Colorado, Donald Trump didn't even have a state director there earlier this week. So a lot of work for the Trump campaign. You have Paul Manafort heading up that convention operation -- Alisyn, Chris.

CAMEROTA: OK, Phil. We should mention that we are going to have an exclusive with Paul Manafort, interview in our 7 a.m. hour, in an hour, so stick around for that.

Let's focus right now, first, on the Democratic side and what's going over there. Joining us is CNN's political analyst and presidential campaign correspondent for the "New York Times", Maggie Haberman; CNN political analyst David Gregory...

CUOMO: Ahh.

CAMEROTA: ... and CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash.

CUOMO: Ho, ho, ho!

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I've never had an audience. Goodness. Sound effects.

CAMEROTA: He's a bit of a heckler. Sometimes he's a Greek chorus. You never know.

OK, Maggie, let me start with you. Let's talk about what's going on over on the Democratic side. This is tit for tat. You know, these two, weren't they supposed to be the adults in the race, in terms of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton? But somehow it's devolved into this, "No, she's not qualified," "He's not qualified." What's going on on that side?

HABERMAN: Yesterday was the ugliest day we have seen in the Democratic race. I think by a lot. To your point, it has looked pretty nice by comparison to the Republican side. It actually also looked pretty nice compared to what we saw in 2008 between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

It's striking yesterday, because Bernie Sanders' whole contention is, "I am not going to get in the muck with her. I'm not going to get negative. If they attack me, I'm going to keep it on policy." And he has now done sharper and sharper notes.

His people say -- and I think correctly -- that she started it. She sort of leaned into very strong the idea that he wasn't qualified without actually saying it. Without actually saying it.

He then did say it, fired back very hard.

And then yesterday you had Bill Clinton get very aggressive in response to protests about his time in office and raising questions about his wife.

I think both sides by the end of yesterday saw the need to ratchet it back down. I don't think you're necessarily going see a replay today. But I think it is a reflection of two things. One is that Sanders is finding his path is increasingly harder. And I think he does feel like he has a message and a following. And his money, the massive amount of small-dollar donations that are fueling him has encourage him.

And then on Hillary Clinton's side, this is a tough race in New York for her. Surprisingly so, I think, for her, given that she served the state for eight years as senator.

CUOMO: You've got the causation and you have the context. The causation is what Maggie's talking about: who started this? And I think it is fairly clear that the Sanders speech we're all using whatever, he keeps doing the quote marks around "qualified," was done in response to what he said was being said about him not being disqualified. We do know that since then he said, "I don't want to do this. I want to be about ideas."

[06:05:17] Hillary Clinton very intelligent. She returned almost in kind saying he's better than Trump or Ted Cruz. I don't know how much praise that is on the Democratic side.

But then you have the context: this party, just as much as the GOP, is going through an existential crisis. Who are we? And I believe that New York is going to show this in very sharp focus. People are fighting for Sanders in this state. And there are a lot more than people thought they would be. I'm saying from the institutional perspective.

This Working Family Party, I know it's in the weeds for some people. Not for us, Dana. And it's going to matter in a ground game in New York. What do you see here?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No question that it will matter in the ground game. And that's the dynamic that we've seen over the past several months. But you're right. I think that it's exploding here in New York for lots of reasons.

But look, I think just to take a step back, this was supposed to be the party where you can really have the exchange of those ideas, the race, I should say. Talk to go any Democrat and when they look on the bright side of this intense battle that they didn't expect, people at least were really talking about the issues in a deep way.

They are, but OK. You know, She is started it. No, he started it. That's what we've been seeing on the Republican side. And for that, we can also go up the street to the playground, you know, at recess, and we'll be fine.

CAMEROTA: Playground politics, as I've been calling it.

BASH: But we haven't seen it on the Democratic side. But you are absolutely right that -- that, as much as the Republican side that they are trying to kind of work through who they are -- are they the party of internationally the interventionist party or are they more nationalist and are they trying to spend more money at home and focus more inward?

And on the Democratic side, it's very similar. And that is why Bernie Sanders's message is doing well. They are sort of sick of many people on the Democratic base of politics as usual. Of people in Washington sort of thinking that they can run things the way they want to and not really paying attention to the little guy, which historically is what the Democratic Party was supposed to be about.

CAMEROTA: David, it sounds like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are ready to put this tit-for-tat to bed. Bernie Sanders was interviewed on "Charlie Rose" last night about it. So here were his thoughts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLIE ROSE, PBS: Do you believe Secretary Clinton is unqualified to be president?

SANDERS: Well, does Secretary Clinton believe that I am unqualified to be president? ROSE: Why can't you simply say yes.

SANDERS: She is experienced. She is extremely intelligent.

ROSE: So why don't you say it?

SANDERS: Because she is -- you know, I have some experience, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right, David. Is it he is basically saying, "Yes, OK, she's qualified." Is this the end of that kind of tone that we saw yesterday?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I think there's an element to this where Bernie Sanders and his supporters, particularly in New York, are happy to have this fight as something of a distraction. It feels good psychologically to say to his supporters, "You see, here are the Clintons, dismissive of the insurgents here. They don't take us seriously and what I believe in seriously." It plays right into his base of support, who do think that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are part of a bygone era. They're coopted by the establishment. They're not in tune with the ways in which so many Americans feel left behind by the political process.

You have the Black Lives Matter protester with Bill Clinton defending the crime bill of the early '90s. That was more evidence of that. And I think this is Bernie Sanders saying, "Don't try to dismiss me. I've got a lot of money. I've got a lot of support. I'm not going anywhere."

But it doesn't change -- first of all, you're not going to convince the tried and true of the Democratic Party Hillary Clinton is not qualified. And you're not demonstrating an ability to grow your base of support if you're Bernie Sanders, particularly in a big, diverse state like New York.

So I think that's the difficulty. In any other year, this might be a bigger deal. But let's not forget what's going on on the Republican side, and I think the prospect of a Trump nomination or a Cruz nomination is going to do enough to bring the Democrats together. I think these fears that they're going to be disunited are a little bit overblown.

HABERMAN: Yes, that's right.

CAMEROTA: Maggie, we only have a few seconds left. But Bill Clinton, wow, that was a fiery exchange he had with some Black Lives Matter protesters. They were angry about the -- his 1994 crime bill. They were angry about her term of "super predators," which she's apologized for. That was one of the fieriest exchanges that we saw yesterday on the campaign trail. And really, this came at a lighter moment. But he got red-faced and sort of dressed them down.

How do you explain what we're seeing there? You know what, actually? We have sound. Let me play this for you and our viewers. Here it is. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I talked to a lot of African-American groups. They thought black lives matter. They said, "Take this bill, because our kids are being shot in the street by gangs."

[06:10:09] Because of that Bill, we had a 25-year low in crime, a 33 low in the murder rate -- year low in the murder rate. And listen to this: because of that and the background check law, we had a 46-year low in the deaths of people by gun violence. And who do you think those lives were that mattered? Whose lives were saved that matter?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Vintage Bill Clinton there.

HABERMAN: In a couple of ways. I mean, you saw him getting very angry at a protester and red-faced, as you said. But this is the kind of thing you saw the Clinton people trying to avoid for most of the primary. He was put off in places where he was not going to attract as much attention. He had one episode in New Hampshire where he got very frustrated with Bernie Sanders. And what he was saying about Hillary Clinton, you saw him respond in kind. This I think was some of that.

You also saw the sort of explaining stuff thing, as President Obama has said about Bill Clinton where he's trying to sort of, in this moment of intense -- intense anger in the political system and explaining is really not what happens a lot, you saw him with the finger wagging and this is not what happened. He is never more defensive than when he thinks his wife is getting attacked. I think that's a lot of it. And he feels like his own record is getting attacked, too.

CAMEROTA: Panel, stick around. We have a lot more to talk on the Republican side.

Also, next Thursday night, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will face off in the CNN Democratic presidential debate. It will be in Brooklyn. That's April 14 -- mark your calendar -- 9 p.m. Eastern. Five days before the all-important New York primary -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Now we turn to that breaking news out of the Vatican. Pope Francis issuing a new document. I have it right here. It's a very big document, three years in the making, laying out the Catholic church's view on love, marriage, and the modern family.

There's a big question, though: Will the church's self-examination lead to substantive changes on divorce or even gay marriage? Delia Gallagher is live in Rome with all of the breaking details.

You got a chance to look through this massive document. What have you found?

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's a classic Francis document. What we have here is no major change in the church doctrine. But a change in the way that doctrine is put into practice.

That's Francis's key point in this 260-some-page document, saying throughout it, Michaela, that nonjudgment of complex family situations is the way to go.

What he's doing is two-fold. One is to say to people who are in divorce situations, who are in family situations which the church calls irregular, the nontraditional family, saying, "You are welcome into the church. We are opening the doors to you."

And also to say to his priests and to other Catholics that the emphasis needs to be on the welcome to these people.

One of the big questions going into this debate on the family was about divorced people. In particular, divorced and remarried Catholics. In the Catholic Church, if you are remarried after divorce, you cannot participate in a lot of the activities of the church, such as taking communion, for example, which is the big one, but also being a godparent, reading at mass and so on.

The pope addresses that in this way. He says, "Divorced people who have not remarried, and often bear witness to marital fidelity, ought to be encouraged to find in the Eucharist the nourishment they need to sustain them in their present state of life."

So first of all, an appeal to people who are divorcedwithout being remarried: "You are welcome into the church," because some people get confused about that.

And then, to the divorced and remarried question, the pope says, "We're going to put that to the local level. It's between the individual conscience and the priest to decide he particulars of that situation. We're not going to have a blanket norm -- excuse me -- coming from Rome."

That's one of the major points of this document, putting things back to the local level, allowing the priest and the people to make the decision based on their individual faiths.

Back to you.

PEREIRA: So a bit more softening of an approach and an interpretation. Delia, thank you so much for that.

It's interesting. And Delia said to us earlier, sort of emotional progress but not major change, not a major change in the doctrine, at all.

CAMEROTA: But still, the message of inclusion. Once again, the message of inclusion, not ostracization. You know, that's what he's trying to do. Make it a bigger tent.

PEREIRA: He's the people's pope. He's always said that, that he wanted to include, right?

CUOMO: This isn't an encyclical, first of all, so it doesn't have the same power of what the pope could have put out. Why? Because he wanted to do this as a group. These synods, these meetings that they have, where the bishops are called in. He wants this to be reflective of what they want.

Why? Because this is going to be about what Delia said: how you do it. This is about contextualizing the faith, not changing the faith. So he's not really going to be able to control it. It's going to be the bishops.

PEREIRA: In the churches and parishes.

CUOMO: He's aware of that issue. The Vatican is aware of that issue. That sounds simple for us in the United States, but you've got to remember, they're dealing with the world. They're dealing with poverty most of the time. You know, and people in really miserable conditions.

So he's saying to the bishops, "Be compassionate. Remember that the faith is about mercy and love." How that gets translated, we're going to have to wait and see.

[06:15:09] CAMEROTA: Good reminder.

All right. Back to politics, polls show Donald Trump leading in his home state of New York. But he still faces an uphill battle to clinch the nomination. So he's making a few tweaks. We have the details when NEW DAY continues.

CUOMO: Trump's tweets.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Donald Trump is looking for a landslide victory in his home state of New York and then some. He's looking for a complete change- about in the play of this election. That's what he wants.

But he's also trying to beef up his campaign staff to deal with what else is going on, namely, who's going to control the delegates? There's a real game afoot. Is he ready for it?

Let's bring back Dana Bash, David Gregory and Maggie Haberman. David, I'll start with you. Let's just talk about what's the "there" there with this, David? What's this big concern about delegates, especially for Trump?

GREGORY: Well, he doesn't have an organization in place that can actually negotiate a path of how you secure delegates for the convention; and if he falls short of the number of 1,237 to win on the first ballot, does he really have a mechanism in place to do the kind of horse trading that he's going to need to do in the course of the convention?

[06:20:11] That's where Paul Manafort comes into play. He did this in 1976. He plays an important role in the run-up to a convention. And perhaps a larger role in trying to get the Trump campaign to be more disciplined, to have better organization as a national organization, which could become critical if he's the nominee in some of the down ballot races, as well.

All of these things that kind of fly in the face of let Trump be Trump, fly by the seat of your pants. Let Trump kind of run everything, be his own adviser. That's gotten him quite a long ways in this fight so far. But it's also undermined them, as we've seen in the last couple weeks.

CAMEROTA: So Maggie, he's bringing in this old political hand, Paul Manafort, as David just referred to. What does this signal? What do we know about him?

HABERMAN: Sorry. I just...

CUOMO: How much time do we have in this segment?

HABERMAN: I'm laughing because of a profile that a colleague and I did about him, Paul Manafort, a couple of years ago. And he's sort of a -- he's a figure of intrigue in the Republican Party for a very long time. This mysterious person. But he is very, very well-versed in convention fights and floor fights and the delegate process. And he's putting together this large team now, as he told my colleague Ashley Parker, with people who have been involved in -- in presidential races over the last 20 years. And that is, as David said, what the Trump campaign has been lacking.

What he is not coming in to do, as it has been made very clear to me by a couple people, is take over the campaign. It's still being run by Corey Lewandowski and Michael Glassner, the campaign manager and deputy campaign manager.

To David's point about the "let Trump be Trump" philosophy and how far that's gotten him so far, Trump has wanted it that way. So this is going to be a real test of whether Trump wants to make major changes.

We've heard a couple of times in the last few weeks, few months, this is going to be a pivot point; Trump is going to start getting more serious, more policy minded. And then something happens and it undoes that. We will see if he can keep walking this path. We have seen in the last couple of weeks that Manafort has something of an uphill climb in trying to institute organization. It's a bit late in the process. There's all these GOP state conventions where you're already seeing Trump losing delegates. And that is going to be a major, major challenge.

BASH: And that's one challenge. The other challenge is going to be if it does go to an open convention, and there is one, two, three ballots, it's keeping the delegates that he already has. Because that's what Ted Cruz and their campaign, they're already working. They're already working the Trump delegates to say if there's a second ballot, come our way.

But to your point about -- about Trump, let Trump be Trump, the quote that has stuck with me from his top aides is from the beginning of this campaign: "He's a thoroughbred. Let's just get on and ride." And that was really their philosophy of Donald Trump. And it had worked. But I think just the fact that, in the last 24 hours, he decided to

shift strategy, not go ahead to California, which is what he had done in all of these other states, always leapfrogged ahead; stay here focusing on New York where he could also bleed into the other media markets which are around here, also will be having contact.

CUOMO: He's starting to listen a little bit.

BASH: Exactly.

CUOMO: He's starting to listen a little bit. Some would argue out of desperation. Are they desperate? No. They're the front-runner. He's got a really good lead, no question about it.

But David, there's no question that things are happening you haven't seen before, and people are talking to him in ways that hasn't happened before. Rudy Giuliani coming out and saying that, "Yes, I'm going to -- he's going to get my vote. He's my guy." That timing is not a mistake either, obviously, with New York coming.

But the question is can you separate this machine of how you keep delegates with the reason they may be vulnerable in the first place, which is what comes out of his mouth?

GREGORY: No, I don't think you can. And I think that's a big piece of this. Look, Ted Cruz has very high negatives within the party. We talk about that week in and week out.

But he does have an ability to capture the anti-establishment sentiment right now that's coursing through the Republican side of the electorate. So he may not be well-liked, but he's able to tap into that. And he's ultimately going to make an argument about whether Trump is electable. I think electability keeps playing larger and larger as we get closer to the convention.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you. Great to get your insights. Have a great weekend.

GREGORY: You bet.

CUOMO: All right. So who is this Paul Manafort? What does he mean to the Trump campaign? Who better to answer these questions than the man himself? Paul Manafort is going to join us for his first exclusive interview on behalf of the Trump campaign in the 7 a.m. hour.

CAMEROTA: Also, in just minutes, Ted Cruz speaks to our Dana Bash in a one-on-one interview. So stick around for that -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right. An epic disaster is looming in Iraq. A dam just outside Mosul may be compromised. If it collapses, entire cities could be wiped out. We have a live report next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:23:53] CAMEROTA: As the U.S. and Iraq forces prepare for a crucial offensive against ISIS in Mosul, there are serious concerns of the structural security of the Mosul dam. If the dam were to collapse, it would threaten countless lives.

CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is live in Erbil with more -- Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. And everyone really is focusing on the Mosul dam at this stage, whether or not it is going to remain intact or if it's actually going to collapse. Just adding to the many challenges this country already faces.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAMON (voice-over): It has been described by some as the most dangerous dam in the world, the Mosul dam. The largest in Iraq which produces hydroelectricity is built on a foundation of soft gypsum rock, making erosion a constant challenge.

We enter the underbelly of the dam to see how it is even still standing.

Completed in the mid-1980s, what keeps it all intact is a process that needs to happen daily. Workers are drilling bore holes. This one will go down 150 meters, or around 500 feet.