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Trump Defends Comments on Carson, Fiorina on CNN; Donald Trump Goes After Dr. Ben Carson; Bobby Jindal Talks His Attack on Trump, Obama's Response to European Migrant Crisis; Bob Corker Talks Iran Nuclear Deal. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 10, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Hold on for a moment, because I want to move on to what Donald Trump also had to say about another Republican presidential candidate, the number two candidate according to the polls right now, Ben Carson, and that same interview earlier today. Carson yesterday said his faith is the biggest thing that distinguishes him from Trump and went on to say he didn't get the impression it was important, very important, for Donald Trump.

Here is how Trump responded on CNN today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION (voice-over): No, I have known Ben Carson, of him, for a long time. I never heard faith was a big thing until just recently.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST, NEW DAY: He's a Seven Day Adventist.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: It's something he talks about a lot.

TRUMP: And all of a sudden, he becomes this great religious figure. I don't think he's a great religious figure and I saw him yesterday quoting something on humility and it looked like he had just memorized it two minutes before he made the quote.

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: He also went after Dr. Carson, Jeffrey, saying his previous views, Dr. Carson, who was a noted pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, his previous views on abortion, Trump said, were horrendous. What do you make of this? This attack between Trump and Carson is getting ugly.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you know, first of all, Wolf, I have to say historically this is what's in presidential primaries. It happened with Reagan and Bush, Kennedy and Johnson, Obama and Hillary. This is what goes on with this. I think people tend to take some of this with a grain of salt. The specifics will get sorted out. I do think as I recall the other day or the other week Dr. Carson was under attack not from Donald Trump but his actions relating to abortion as a doctor. I don't have the details in front of me. In other words, there's grounds for controversy, I suppose, if you want to get into this. I just don't think that you get into somebody's religious faith, which Dr. Carson is starting to do here. That's a bad way to go. You can't possibly determine somebody's -- the degree of faith or their personal relationship with their creator, as it were.

BLITZER: Dr. Carson later told "The Washington Post" this morning, "I don't want to get into a gladiator fight with Donald Trump," saying he wasn't trying to criticize him on his comments.

We'll continue to watch what's going on.

All right, guys. Stand by. Thank you very, very much.

Just ahead, Republican presidential candidate, Bobby Jindal, calls rival, Donald Trump, a carnival act and an egomaniac. What's behind his new offensive against Donald Trump? I'll ask the Louisiana governor. The Republican presidential candidate is here with me, live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:37:54] BLITZER: It may be the most aggressive attack on Donald Trump in the campaign so far. Louisiana governor, presidential candidate, Bobby Jindal, today unleashed a barrage of criticism against Trump. He says it's time for the Republican front-runner to go back to reality TV.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBY JINDAL, (R), LOUISIANA GOVERNOR & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's not serious. He's a carnival act. Here is the truth about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is shallow. He has no understanding of policy. He is full of bluster. He has no substance. He lacks the intellectual capacity. The only thing Donald Trump believes in is himself. He tells us his health care plan will be fabulous. He tells us his tax plan will be really, really terrific. He is shallow. There is no substance. He doesn't know anything about policy. He has no idea what he's talking about. He makes it up on the fly. He doesn't believe in limited government, he has told us that. Over and over from his belief in socialized medicine to his desire for tax increases, he has told us over and over he has no problem with big, top down style government. We have no idea what he would actually do in the White House.

Folks, it is time to get serious about making America great again. It is time for Donald Trump to take the ride down the elevator. It is time for us to tell him, Donald, you are fired. It is time to tell him we will not put an unserious person in the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And Governor Bobby Jindal is with me here in Washington. Wow. Those are pretty strong words. All of a sudden, you're

attacking Donald Trump in a blistering tone like that. Why?

JINDAL: A couple of things. Summer season is over. We're past Labor Day. Time for silliness is over. I enjoyed the Trump show, he's entertaining. I love to see him go after the D.C. insiders but he's full of nonsense. The idea of America slipping away, I think the Democrats are handing us this election on a silver platter. Do we go back to our tested conservative principles or turn it over to a man who only believes in himself. We have no idea what he would do if he were there. It's time to stand up for conservative principles.

BLITZER: Your critics are already saying look at the new CNN/ORC poll. Trump has widened his lead. He's at 32 percent. Dr. Ben Carson at 19 percent. You're tied for 12th place now, maybe at 1 percent or 2 percent in the CNN poll. You're doing this to get publicity to generate excitement for your campaign.

JINDAL: Our early state strategy is working. We're moving up in the polls in Iowa. This isn't about me. Folks that have attacked Donald Trump have gone down in the polls. Those who haven't attacked him have gone down in the polls. The idea of America slipping, $18 trillion in debt, planned parenthood selling baby parts across the country, this is an important election. I think this is an election we can win. We have an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Hillary Clinton is a flawed candidate running a very bad campaign. Talking to Bernie Sanders before, Wolf, give him credit, at least he's honest enough to call himself a Socialist. Bernie is now ahead of Hillary. This election has been given to us. We can't trust this to Trump. He is an egomaniac, a narcissist. The only thing he believes in is himself. He's for socialized medicine, he's against it. The only problem he has with big government is he's not running it. He's not a conservative.

[13:40:25] BLITZER: So you signed the pledge that you would vote for any of the Republican candidates who eventually got the nominee. If Donald Trump is your party's presidential nominee, will you vote for him?

JINDAL: Wolf, that's why I'm here today, to stop that from happening. We've got to stop him.

BLITZER: Will you vote for him if he's the nominee?

JINDAL: We have to stop that hypothetical from happening. He's not a conservative. What is more dangerous, what happens if he gets elected? People say, it's dangerous, you can't have this madman near the nuclear. It's not just that. What's more dangerous is, we have a man -- there's no ideology, no policy, no intellectual curiosity. He's only for himself. He said his favorite book was the Bible. He couldn't name one verse that he liked or had an impact on his life. Wolf, I don't think he's read the Bible because he's not in it. This is a complete narcissist. It's been a fun show. The idea of Donald Trump is great. The reality is awful.

BLITZER: You don't think he's qualified to be president of the United States.

JINDAL: Absolutely not.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Will you vote for him if he's the Republican nominee?

JINDAL: I'm working hard to make sure he's not.

BLITZER: You keep saying -- the pledge is -- and this is the pledge Reince Priebus forced Donald Trump to sign that he would support the eventual nominee. Would you support Donald Trump as president of the United States if he wins the Republican nomination?

JINDAL: We're not going to let him win the nomination. This is bigger than the Republican Party. It's about our country. I'm not running as a third-party candidate. I'm a Republican. My point is he cannot be the nominee. He cannot be our next president. I think he's right to say we have to fire the professionals in D.C. He's right to be an outsider, to be politically incorrect. His diagnosis is right. His prescription is wrong. His prescription is he's the solution.

BLITZER: I don't hear you say here today that you will vote for him if he's the nominee. This new CNN/ORC poll says 51 percent of Republicans in this nationwide poll say it's likely he will be the nominee.

JINDAL: I don't think that will happen. People like the idea. It was funny when he gave out Lindsey Graham's phone number, fun when he gave helicopter rides. Wolf, he's not a serious man. He is not a man of substance. He's not qualified to be the nominee or the president. He's an egomaniac. He doesn't want to make America great. He wants to make Donald Trump great. This election is all about him for him. This election needs to be about our country. It's not about Donald Trump.

BLITZER: You know one of the headlines out of this interview will be Governor Bobby Jindal refuses to promise he will vote for Trump if he's elected to be the nominee.

JINDAL: It should be he will stop Trump from becoming the nominee. The voters will decide that. I think we need to nominate a principled conservative who will fight to shrink government. I'm the only one who has actually done it. Everyone else talks about it. We need to elect someone who will restore our military, invest in our military. These are critical issues. The idea of America is slipping away. The entertainment has been fun. CNN should give him a TV show. Give him time. He would be great for ratings. But he shouldn't be president.

BLITZER: Let's talk about refugees while I have you. The White House announcing a little while ago the president will go forward with the new initiative given the crisis in Europe.

Listen to Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president has directed his team to consider how we can further scale up our response. And one thing that the United States can do is to begin to admit more Syrian refugees into the United States. This year that will end the fiscal year at the end of this month, the United States is on track to take in about 1,500 Syrian refugees. The president has directed his team to scale up that number next year. And he's informed his team he would like them to accept, at least to make preparations to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Are you with the president on this?

JINDAL: No. Look, we normally take roughly -- and the numbers vary -- about 70,000 refugees. There's a vetting process. They're talking about putting a Band-Aid on a problem they helped cause. Let's understand why the refugee crisis happened. America is the most generous country in the world. We do more to help folks around the world. That's a great thing. This crisis was caused by his failure to enforce the red line. We're going to continue to see Syria disintegrate, continue to see millions flee, hundreds of thousands, it could be millions flee this region. We can't take in enough folks to solve this problem. What we can do is fix our flawed foreign policy. I am for fixing our fixing our flawed foreign policy. I'm for continuing the vetting process we already have in place for refugees where I am. It's fixing the foreign policy. He can't escape responsibility. This president, when he said he wanted to lead from behind, when he wanted to say there was a red line that he didn't enforce, these are the inevitable results.

BLITZER: Governor Jindal, thanks very much for coming in.

JINDAL: Thank you, Wolf.

[13:45:13] BLITZER: Good to have you here on CNN. I appreciate it.

CNN, by the way, will host the next Republican presidential debate, September 16, next Wednesday. We'll reveal which candidates, by the way, will be on the main debate stage, tonight, 8:00 p.m. eastern, on "A.C. 360.

Before that, check out Jeb Bush later today, speaking with our own Jake Tapper on "The Lead," at 4:00 p.m. eastern, here on CNN.

Still ahead, the debate over the Iran nuclear deal is causing a major split within the GOP over tactics. We'll talk about that live. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob Corker -- there you see him -- he's my guest when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:50:16] BLITZER: Senate leaders have a showdown vote set for two hours from now. Republican leaders want to stop the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal despite the fact that President Obama has enough Democratic support to ensure the agreement would survive congressional review, including a potential veto by the president.

He talked about it just a little while ago during a veteran's event. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are times where in a debate like this we hear a lot of this talk, casual threats of military force, false promises that military actions will be easy or simple or relatively costless. These veterans and their families remind us that that is not the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. Let's discuss what is going on with Republican Senate Bob Corker of Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator, you along with the ranking Democrat, Ben Cardin, of Maryland, sponsored this Iran nuclear arrangement, this Review Act of 2015. It gives the Congress 60 days to consider the Iran agreement. What do you hope to achieve now, though, that 42 Democrats are clearly with the president, more than enough to sustain a presidential veto?

SEN. BOB CORKER, (R-TN), CHAIRMAN, FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Well, Wolf, we have a bipartisan majority. Bipartisan majority, the two most knowledgeable Democrats, the ranking member Senator Cardin and Senator Menendez who opposed this. Along with two distinguished Democrats. Look, at the end of the day, the majority of Congress opposes this deal. The vast majority of the American people oppose this deal and, you know, at the end of the day we know this is an executive agreement and the president made no attempt to do something that Congress had approved. We wouldn't be doing what we are doing right now. We would be discussing a treaty. Instead, he decided to go straight to the U.N. Security Council, cut Congress out, cut the American people out and so we're having this review. I think where we have one is in the court of public opinion and what we have done is set it up with the next chief executive to look at this in a very different way in a year and four or five months.

So, look, I wish we could have stopped it. I really do think it's bad for our country and it's just hard to believe, Wolf, that we have this country, a rogue country with a boot on its neck and we were going to dismantle their program, as the president said, in their nuclear program, as the president said. And instead, this agreement with U.S. approval causes them to industrialize their program. Look, I'm disappointed we haven't been successful. But we have been successful in illuminating the many flaws and we have done so in a bipartisan way.

BLITZER: Last night, Senator Ted Cruz -- he's a Republican -- he really went after you and Ben Cardin on the Sean Hannity program on FOX. I want you to listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. TED CRUZ, (R), TEXAS & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I fought hard against Corker/Cardin when it was coming up. I introduced legislations and amendments to have it require the affirmative approval of Congress, and it was Republican leadership killed that and who pushed through this toothless deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: He's blaming you for the arrangement that was eventually worked out. Your response?

CORKER: Well, all I can say is Senator Cruz was a co-sponsor of this bill, and voted for it. So I don't know, that's my only response. He was a strong supporter. He put his name on it and he knew that the president had the ability to do this by executive agreement, unfortunately, and he knew that this was the only way for us to counter what was happening. So I don't know why he would make the comments that he made on this program but, again, I was glad to see someone like Senator Cruz who is so embedded in constitutional responsibilities and how the Congress should react put his name on this piece of legislation and strongly support it.

BLITZER: One question. You're the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. The White House now saying the president is ready to maybe take in as many as 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, about 1500 have been allowed in this fiscal year. It's going to cost some money. Are you ready to support the president with the financial commitment that will be necessary?

CORKER: Well, look, Wolf, I think -- I don't want to be a broken record. I know other people have said the same thing. This is a result of the president not following through on what he said he would do in August of 2013. So when Assad used chemical weapons against his people and we didn't follow along and do the ten-hour operation, roughly, that was going to occur when the opposition had momentum. So, look, we're going to have a lot of extensive hearings. This whole issue should not be handled in a sort of a quick response, knee-jerk reaction. We need to look at the region. This is a sad state of affairs that this administration has a hand in creating and not stopping and we're going to be over the next five or six weeks really delving into this with great detail.

So look, right now the United Nations has a lot to say with what type of refugees are taken in. I think we want to look at that and understand -- we want to take in some of the Christians that have been persecuted. What about the Iraqis who helped us so much while we were in Iraq and have been abandoned. So obviously we need -- we have some ownership. We need to look at it in an appropriate way.

[13:56:17] BLITZER: Senator Corker, thank you so much for joining us.

CORKER: Thank you. Thank you.

BLITZER: That's it for me. The news continues next, right after a quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)