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Dems Unite Behind Clinton, GOP Divided on Trump; Warren Intensifies Attacks on Trump. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 10, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm with her. She's got the courage, the compassion, and the heart to get the job done.

[05:58:14] SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Donald Trump is a loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraud.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: God willing, in my view, it will be Secretary Clinton.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump huddling with top donors and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Trump is learning how to be a candidate.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE; I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president.

OBAMA: Now, I know some of the presidential candidates have been critical of my foreign policy. Orange is not the new black.

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, NBC'S "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON": When the Republicans gave him lemons, he made so much lemonade, Beyonce started calling him, Barack-y with the good hair.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, June 10, 6 a.m. in the East.

Orange is not the new black. That's funny.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You know what? I didn't get it for a second. I'm tired. I'm tired. I was like -- why don't they like that show? I was like, oh! Yes, all right.

CAMEROTA: We have a lot of politics to talk about this morning. Up first, President Obama, Vice President Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren all throwing their support behind Hillary Clinton. What does this mean for Bernie Sanders and his plan?

CUOMO: All right. So if the Democrats do seem to be coming together, the Republicans are trying to figure out how to get behind a man they keep calling a bigot.

We have the 2016 race covered as only CNN can. Suzanne Malveaux starts our coverage from Washington.

Good morning.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. It was extraordinary. A coordinated effort by the White House and the Hillary Clinton camp. It was quite amazing to keep anything a secret in Washington for an hour, much less two days. But that is exactly what President Obama did, making a well-produced video Tuesday, prior to releasing it on Facebook. This was just after his Oval Office meeting with Bernie Sanders. Clinton had gotten a heads up as early as Sunday that the president's endorsement was forthcoming.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): An incredible show of force. Top Democrats lining up behind Hillary Clinton.

OBAMA: I'm with her. I am fired up, and I cannot wait to get out there and campaign for Hillary.

MALVEAUX: President Obama endorsing Clinton, just hours after meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders at the White House. The president and Clinton set to hit the campaign trail together in Wisconsin next week. Vice President Joe Biden following suit, making it clear who he thinks the next president should be.

BIDEN: God willing, in my view it will be Secretary Clinton.

MALVEAUX: And progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren backing Clinton, too.

WARREN: I am ready to get in this fight and work my heart out for Hillary Clinton to become the next president of the United States.

MALVEAUX: Warren, a liberal favorite, could be crucial in bridging the gap between Clinton and Sanders supporters. The coordinated endorsements, stealing the thunder of Sanders's trip to D.C., as his campaign winds down.

SANDERS: Needless to say, I am going to do everything in my power, and I will work as hard as I can, to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president of the United States.

MALVEAUX: Sanders also helping to project unity by meeting with the vice president and Senate congressional leaders.

SANDERS: Here we are in mid-June, and we're still standing!

MALVEAUX: The question now is when will Sanders fully support Clinton as the nominee?

OBAMA: My hope is, is that over the next couple of weeks, we're able to pull things together. The main role I'm going to be playing in this process is to remind the American people that this is a serious job. This is not reality TV.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: I talked to several folks in the White House who have been pressing me, telling me the president is eager to get out to campaign for Clinton. He enjoys an unusually high approval rating for an outgoing president, and that is going to benefit Clinton, of course. He also has a legacy to preserve and future Supreme Court nominations that are going to be critical to the Democratic Party.

CUOMO: True, true. Suzanne, there's definitely a sensitivity with the Obama team to kind of preserve what they've done, so let's discuss this state of play.

CNN political analyst and presidential campaign correspondent for the "New York Times," Maggie Haberman. Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich. And CNN political analyst and host of "The David Gregory Show" podcast, David Gregory.

So Maggie Haberman, we don't want you to get out. Take your time. This is good. Go meet the president. The door closes, and there's, like, a surprise party going on for Hillary Clinton. There are videos made, speeches ready to be given.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

CUOMO: Somewhat of a mixed message?

HABERMAN: That's like the person who has the date, who says this was great. We'll do it again sometime and then never calls again. I mean, look...

CUOMO: And is dating your best friend, is in their car and has a ring on their finger?

HABERMAN: I think that -- I think that it's been clear for the last week or so that President Obama was heading in this direction, assuming that Hillary Clinton won California. She not only won; she won it by a landslide.

So there are not very many places for Bernie Sanders to go. However, Bernie Sanders has a tremendous base of support that wants to see not just a different Democratic Party but potentially a different party entirely. And Hillary Clinton is going to need those supporters.

So yes, you saw on the one hand, we're going to give Bernie space. We're not going to be disrespectful, but you did see the rest of the party and the most important person there was not really President Obama -- that was important -- but it was Elizabeth Warren signaling to Bernie Sanders supporters, this is where we're heading. We understand that you are upset. We're going to give you time

to grieve what happened. It's very hard to run a race and not win, but it's time to move on.

CAMEROTA: But we're only going to give you one minute to grieve what happened, because it did happen in such rapid-fire succession. David Gregory, was -- I mean, this was supposed to be Bernie Sanders' moment in the sun. He was walking down the, you know, promenade at the White House. And then they did it right away.

CAMEROTA: It was not an extensive shiva.

Was this a diss to Bernie Sanders?

HABERMAN: What's going on this morning?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm going to need -- I'm going to need a minute after that Cuomo line.

CUOMO: You can have that.

GREGORY: Right. I had a slightly different view. I think Bernie Sanders really got his due yesterday. I mean, he had to walk on the colonnade of the White House, the West Wing of the White House, normally reserved for foreign heads of state.

He was greeted in similar fashion on Capitol Hill. He -- certainly, you have the president coming out and endorsing Hillary Clinton before the Washington, D.C., primary, but, again, I think he was given his due. He's not endorsing yet Sanders.

Again, I think what's important is, yes, the rest of the party is united. It's starting to move on. And maybe Sanders is already there, but he's also got a lot of supporters who may not be there yet. And I think he's probably doing the right thing by not rushing his own endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Despite the big day that the Clinton campaign had yesterday, the president had all the rest, Bernie Sanders is still going to be very influential at the convention and beyond. Is now really the head of the progressive movement.

CUOMO: Jackie, Maggie and I were talking this before when I was getting my nails done and my face put on. Elizabeth Warren made a choice. Not only is it to get full-throated behind Hillary Clinton right now, but to get down into the mud with Donald Trump.

We have the full screen of the endorsement, but, really, it was about the speech. What was her line yesterday? That he's a thin- skinned racist bully?

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE DAILY BEAST": Yes.

CUOMO: What do you make of her choice of that type of advocate, and that tactic?

KUCINICH: I mean, she's shown she can really get under Donald Trump's skin, and this allows Hillary Clinton maybe not to get into the mud. Elizabeth Warren can be that -- that, you know, fighter in front of her, really going into the trenches against Donald Trump.

So -- and allowing Hillary Clinton to sort of rise above it and stick to policy going forward.

So we'll see if she continues in that role, but she's been very successful, first on Twitter and then yesterday, in this very -- understatement, forceful speech that she gave.

CAMEROTA: Maggie, help me understand the strategy here of the trifecta of endorsements, one right after another. Why not save some of your back pocket until next week?

HABERMAN: Because it's an incredibly partisan country. This is not 20 years ago, where there was, like, wide numbers of independents to appeal to and swing voters. This is very much blue/red.

And so when you have the Republican Party, that tableau is people literally every day, top figures in the party twisting themselves into pretzels to say on the one hand, yes, Donald Trump's comments, I thought, were racist. In their words, I thought were racist, but I still support him. And you know, he is still going to be our nominee. And he is still better than Hillary Clinton. This show of unity is better and more significant. These are elections that are going to be about turning out your base voters, and that is why it matters.

CUOMO: All right. Listen a little bit, David, I want to get your take, of course, brother David Gregory, but we should give Warren a little bit of time here with her sound, because we've got to figure out what this is. Is she auditioning to be V.P. or just the attack dog? Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARREN: Even disqualifying judges based on their professional background isn't enough for Donald Trump.

Trump tells everyone who will listen that he is a great businessman, but let's be honest: He is just a guy who inherited a fortune and kept it rolling along by cheating people. In America, we have the rule of law, and that means, no matter how rich you are, no matter how loud you are, no matter how famous you are, if you break the law, you can be held accountable, even if your name is Donald Trump.

Trump is criticizing Judge Curiel for following the law instead of bending it to suit the financial interests of one wealthy and oh, so fragile defendant.

Now, Trump also whined that he's being treated unfairly, because the judge happens to be, we believe, Mexican. And when he got called out, he doubled down by saying, "I'm building a wall. It's an inherent conflict of interest." He has personally, personally, directed his army of campaign surrogates to step up their own public attacks on Judge Curiel. He's even condemned federal judges who are Muslim on the disgusting theory that Trump's own bigotry compromises the judge's neutrality. You just can't make this stuff up!

We will not allow a small, insecure, thin-skinned, wannabe tyrant or his allies in the Senate to destroy the rule of law in the United States of America! We will not.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: David.

GREGORY: Well, the "New York Times" describes her this morning as the sledgehammer of the Clinton campaign, and boy, did she give an effective political speech for two reasons.

One, we haven't seen a sustained attack on Donald Trump by a political rival that has worked. We didn't see that during the primary. Elizabeth Warren, I think, has opened up a front in this war that could be effective.

The other thing she did in that speech is not just go after Donald Trump. But she said of the -- all the hand-wringing among Republicans about Donald Trump that it's not hammering at all. She went after Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and said, "You know what?" They -- Donald Trump is acting this way because they set the tone for it and that it's really the view of the Republican Party.

So as a political matter, this is -- this is really effective. Not just going after Trump but saying he's not a wild card. He is kind of part and parcel of this Republican Party. That sets the stage for a broader attack by the Clinton team.

CAMEROTA: So, Jackie, in her endorsement, in Warren's endorsement of Hillary Clinton she says, "I'm ready to jump into this fight and make sure that Hillary Clinton is the next president of the United States."

So what will her role be? Is she the sort of designated attack dog now?

[06:10:10] KUCINICH: It certainly seems that way at this point. She also said in an interview that she wasn't being vetted for V.P. and that they hadn't talked about it.

Now, you know, we'll take her at her word at this point. But I wouldn't be surprised not only if you see Elizabeth Warren campaigning with Hillary Clinton. I wouldn't be surprised if you see her campaigning with other Senate candidates. Because she's talking about the Senate. She's talking about -- I mean, she would be more than happy to be part of an overall strategy to bring the Senate back to the Democrats in 2016.

CUOMO: You know, politics is going forward, especially in elections. And one thing that she hit on that happens to be true, Maggie, is the Republicans don't like that this stink is on the whole party. That line that, hey, don't stand up now and say that what he just said was racist. You enabled him, and you enabled him because this is what you are. They don't like that. They don't accept that. So now they're in

a weird position: "What you just said is bigoted, and it's not the first time you've done, but you're our bigot." How do you do that? How do you support the person, call them out as being a bigot but not own their bigotry?

HABERMAN: I think you don't in most cases. This is going to be really hard. You're going to see up and down the ticket. And Democrats were slow to start prosecuting that case against Republicans. They were slow to basically start making it about these down-ballot races.

But you are going to see ads in the fall against Senate candidates, against congressional candidates saying, "Here's you supporting Donald Trump. Here's you seeing he's better than X, Y, Z. Here's you agreeing with X, Y, Z policy." This is a very uncomfortable position for Mitch McConnell, in particular, whose main priority is holding the Senate. He is obviously concerned about the White House, but he is concerned about not losing the majority. And that's what Warren was going right to.

CAMEROTA: David Gregory, this just in. "Washington Post" reporting that Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren will be meeting this morning. Does this mean there's V.P. talk?

GREGORY: Well, first of all, the Clinton team has been -- has been vetting V.P. names now for a matter of months, and there's no question that she's in the mix.

You know, it's hard -- there's lots of -- you can make the case for and against in lots of different ways. What is clear is that Elizabeth Warren is emerging as an incredibly effective surrogate. Hillary Clinton has to do something to be mindful of the progressive wing of the party.

I think it's really important to point out that Republicans got into trouble by not paying attention to the rising Tea Party movement. Hillary Clinton in this courting of Sanders and his supporters and Elizabeth Warren, as part of that progressive wing, has to make sure that she's being mindful of the progressive wing of the party, lest there become a Tea Party on the left. This is a really important period of that kind of courting.

CUOMO: So what do we think, Jackie? If you had to game it out right now, is this the type...

KUCINICH: Oh, man...

CUOMO: I mean, just the way it's going. Take it easy. Take it easy.

I'm not asking you to pull out the tarot cards. What I'm saying is that, when you do this, you do it for a reason, Warren. You step up. What does it mean?

It means, one, you were asked to do it. OK? We saw what happened with the Twitter war with Trump. All of a sudden, she backed off. What did that tell you? Somebody told her to back off. Somebody told her to step back up again now, and she did it.

Do you think that this a role that can easily morph into V.P. or is a V.P. supposed to be more than a mouthpiece?

KUCINICH: I mean certainly, particularly for Hillary Clinton, having an attack dog as a V.P., to be the one to respond to the multitude of attacks that Donald Trump will no doubt lob their way would be beneficial, but it does depend on some of the other things.

Is Elizabeth Warren ready to be president? The commander in chief test. There are a lot of things in consideration when you're looking at a V.P. So, you know, and the Clinton campaign is probably going through all of those right now.

But it's not necessarily -- you're right. It is a role that someone like Elizabeth Warren could serve.

CAMEROTA: Panel, we do need to talk about what's going on with Donald Trump and on the Republican side. So, please, stand by.

CUOMO: Well, this is a first for Donald Trump. His mouth has literally put him in a bad position on both sides. It's not just the Democrats. You're hearing it from Republicans, as well.

Elizabeth Warren, that's obvious. It's the GOP leadership that he's worried about. Can he get them behind him? We'll discuss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:12] CUOMO: All right. Donald Trump has trouble among his own. The Republican Party is trying to figure out how to get behind Trump in the wake of this latest catastrophe of rhetoric when it comes to Judge Curiel, and what it means about Trump's campaign overall. You have leader after leader calling those comments racist. So what will the party do?

CNN's Chris Frates is live in Washington with more.

Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning.

Donald Trump's bad week doesn't appear to be ending any better than it began. Fellow Republicans continue to call his attacks on a federal judge hearing, a lawsuit against him racist.

Democrats, well, they're having a field day hammering Trump over his comments and enjoying the national spotlight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARREN: Trump is picking on someone who is ethically bound not to defend himself. Exactly what you would expect from a thin-skinned, racist bully. JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is racist.

FRATES (voice-over): Elizabeth Warren and Vice President Joe Biden are intensifying their attacks on Donald Trump.

BIDEN: To use the office of the presidency, were he to acquire it, to intimidate and undermine an independent judiciary, would be blatantly unconstitutional abuse of power.

FRATES: Democrats and many Republicans continue to blast Trump's verbal assault on Judge Gonzalo Curiel.

TRUMP: He's a Mexican. We're building a wall between here and Mexico.

KASICH: He's trending the wrong way with me.

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: The fact is, he has to realize that that would be a terrible mistake. First of all, he's wrong. It was a racist remark.

FRATES: House Speaker Paul Ryan forced to continue condemning Trump's attacks.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: That is beyond the pale. That's not political correctness. Suggesting that a person can't do a job because of race or ethnicity, that's not a politically incorrect thing to do. That's just a wrong thing to say.

[06:20:02] FRATES: But not all Republicans agree.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of us realize that last week was a distraction.

FRATES: Party leaders are hoping to coalesce a divided party, as Trump showed a more measured side after the firestorm of criticism this week.

TRUMP: He has to continue what he did Tuesday night with specific speeches aimed at big topics, drawing a clear distinction between where he is and where Hillary is.

FRATES: The controversy consuming Trump's campaign comes as the billionaire tries to convince wealthy donors to open their wallets and help fund his campaign. Now, some donors worry that he'll have hundreds of millions of dollars less than Hillary Clinton, but Trump believes his ability to command free media will help make up that difference after a meeting between Trump and donors yesterday. A senior campaign aide said they would raise enough money to win.

Alisyn, Chris, back to you guys.

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's talk about all of this. Chris, thank you very much.

What is going on in the Republican Party today? Bring back Maggie Haberman, Jackie Kucinich and David Gregory.

Maggie, Donald Trump first made the comments about the judge's Mexican heritage exactly two weeks ago today. This story has had more legs than I think anybody predicted. Because let's remember, he has said things about Muslims and handicapped people, et cetera, et cetera, but somehow this story has stuck around in a way that has taken hold even in the Republican Party. How do you explain what's happening?

HABERMAN: He's the nominee. He was not the nominee before. He actually said something about this judge back in February. He called him Spanish and then Hispanic, which is fine.

He did this attack a couple weeks ago. It actually didn't get wide pickup. But it was after the judge unsealed documents in the Trump University case, and that is when this exploded and Trump reacted. One of the things that Democrats have seen and I think you saw this with Elizabeth Warren, and Jackie was referring to this, she gets under his skin. A lot of people get under his skin.

And he has shown a willingness to chase shiny objects sort of down a rabbit hole. That's what happened here. He -- well, he said this repeatedly. He won't say that he made a mistake. We have never seen him say -- actually I think once, one time in this campaign. So this -- he has given this legs, and the ads he has given legs, refused to walk it back. Republicans have had to respond.

CAMEROTA: On that note, let me just say that we do have some information is out this morning that he is willing to admit that he made a mistake, but only in private.

David Gregory, this comes from Ben Carson. He is quoted in Politico today as saying, "Donald Trump fully recognizes this was not the right thing to say." He was probably talking out loud, rather than thinking. That's not a good thing to do when everything you say is going to be analyzed. In other words, he says that, in private, in a private meeting, Trump acknowledged this was a mistake?

GREGORY: Yes, we learn pretty early in our lives, I mean, not always effectively. We all make mistakes. You've really got to think before you speak. And Donald Trump is much more of a gut player, and it's gotten him this far. That's what's amazing, is that the party establishment wants him to kind of fall in line and run this conventional campaign now, ignoring what's made his politically successful politically thus far.

But I think what Maggie just alluded to is really the important point. It's a question of temperament. This is a campaign where voters are making assessments about their temperament, both of them.

Personal characteristics, how they handle scrutiny, how they conduct ourselves under stress, under pressure. Donald Trump has been suffering under that look right now. We'll know more when we see a spate of polls coming out, I think, in the next few days.

Hillary Clinton has deficiencies, too, in terms of trustworthiness and honesty. But this is a battle of personal characteristics but thin-skinned nature, temperament is really what I think is important now and will be important months from now.

CUOMO: Well, David, as you hear and we all hear, where's the balance in terms of how you go after Trump and how you go after Clinton? It's hard to equate what happened with the e-mail, what happened with the Clinton Global Initiative, with bigotry. You know, one of them is going to resonate, more among critics, not in the media. It's the parties. Here is a mash-up of sound from the leadership of his own party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MAJORITY LEADER: He needs to quit these gratuitous attacks on various Americans.

GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R-WI), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's at odds with us, not just as a party. It's at odd with who we are as Americans.

GOV. ADAM KINZINGER (R), INDIANA: I feel like a broken record, because I say this all the time but I continually am disappointed.

SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: It's kind of a moot point whether you have a Trump presidency. Because he won't be in the White House if he continues to make these kinds of statements.

RYAN (VIA PHONE): Do I think these antics are distracting and give us a campaign THAT we cannot be proud of? Yes. I've spoken very clearly about it.

(end video clip)

CUOMO: Maggie says they want him to run a traditional campaign. They just want him to stop insulting people and put them in a position where they can't handle it anymore, Jackie. I MEAN, That's what we're dealing with, with him.

Then you have Carson come out and say, you know, he wasn't speaking; he was thinking out loud. This is a man who said openly on this show that being gay is a choice. All right? Because it's not a very high bar for discretion in terms of what comes out of your mouth. And even he is saying he's got to rethink this. How do they get behind him when they know they'll be embracing what they see as a pattern of bigotry?

KUCINICH: I mean, at some point this becomes less about running the presidency and more about saving the Republican Party. It becomes a triage operation.

And I think that's what you -- what you hear from even Paul Ryan, from some of the -- Mitch McConnell, people who have a lot of skin in the game at this point. And so they don't want it to get to that point, which is why you're seeing all these frantic behind-the-scenes conversations with Donald Trump. And you saw that very stilted speech the other night for this

victory speech, but Donald Trump hasn't shown the capacity to do that twice in a row yet. You know, he hasn't really shown a discipline, and -- but this is what -- this is what the Republican base elected. And they either have to learn to live with this or they're going to have to ignore him entirely and, you know, save the House and Senate at some point.

CAMEROTA: Maggie, the first polls are coming out now, since this controversy over the Mexican judge -- American judge he called Mexican. Here's a FOX News poll. This is interesting. This is if there were a three-way race with Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, in. So Clinton gets 39 percent, same as in last month, but Donald Trump has dropped 6 points since last month. He gets 36 percent. If it's just a two-way race -- look at these numbers now -- Clinton gets 42 percent. He gets 39 percent. I think that's within the margin of error.

HABERMAN: One of the things that drove the Clinton campaign crazy for the last couple of months, which is when people would talk about, you know, you can't break through. He just gets so much attention. You know? It's just all of this free media.

Not all exposure is good exposure. Right? And so you're seeing that in those numbers. That this is not something really that Clinton did, although I do think that her speech probably fed into that, the one that she did a week ago.

CAMEROTA: The foreign policy?

HABERMAN: The alleged foreign policy, really about a stakes- framing speech.

I do think that that played a role, because it showed her willing to sort of fight back and take the fight directly to him. But this is of his own. This is of his own making, and it is hard to climb out of a hole if it gets too deep.

CUOMO: And as David Gregory often says on this show, it is also, maybe, the most complete look at temperament we've seen from him thus far.

He said something that got him in trouble. He doubled down on it. He then called a meeting and said, "This is what we're going to do. I win. And here's how I win."

And then it wound up hitting on a lot of different branches of what matters in this country, and now his leadership is against him. That's a big Tasty Kake of trouble that he has to deal with. How he'll deal with it will be very important in terms of how he moves forward.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much. Have a great weekend.

CUOMO: We have a big exclusive today that will help us take a step forward in understanding the state of play on the GOP side. The man on your screen, Wolf Blitzer, coming through with the big interview with Mitt Romney. What does he have to say about Donald Trump's status within the party? That will be on THE SITUATION ROOM with Wolf Blitzer at 5 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.

CAMEROTA: Good timing with that.

Well, the city of Louisville preparing for a day-long celebration for the life and legacy of Muhammad Ali. We have a live report, next on NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)