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Trump Leads In Polls But Carson Edges Closer; Trump Talks Tonight On National Security; Stakes High For Republican Debate; Bush Super PAC Drops $24 Million On Ads; Rubio's Debate Prep; Strategy For An 11-Person Debate; A Look Forward to the Republican Debate. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired September 15, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I hear they are all going after me.

My whole life is preparation for a debate.

I'll be attacked. I guess I'm going I'm going into a lions' den.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'll campaign hard. If someone comes at me, bam, I'll come back at them.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I feel like if there's something I need to say on Wednesday night, I will say it. I've watched this Jeb Bush, you know, Donald Trump food fight and nobody cares.

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is an entertainer and I am a leader.

TRUMP: Carly has given me a little bit of a hard time even though her poll numbers are horrible.

DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I hope that we will focus more on the tissues and what our vision is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 10:00 a.m. here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. It's 1:00 p.m. in Washington, 6:00 p.m. in London, 8:00 p.m. in Jerusalem. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

Up first, Donald Trump is leading, but Dr. Ben Carson is gaining on him. That's the headline from a brand new poll released on this, the eve of the big Republican debate hosted by CNN. While most of the candidates are very busy preparing for tomorrow night's debate, Trump delivers a speech tonight on national security. Last night, he held a huge rally in Dallas, Texas, shrugged off the possibility that his rivals will attack him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So, the debate. I hear they're all going after me. Whatever. Whatever. No, I hear it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's go to our Correspondent Athena Jones. She's with us here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. She's inside the arena there.

Athena, let's start with new CBS-New York Times poll. How worried should Donald Trump be that Dr. Ben Carson appears to be closing in on him?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Wolf. Well, I doubt Donald Trump himself would say that he's worried but maybe he should be. Let's take a look at those numbers, if we can put them up on the screen. You see this poll shows him still in the lead, Donald Trump at 27 percent. But Ben Carson is close behind at 23 percent, and he has gained 17 points in just the last month. He was at six percent just a month ago.

In third place, you see Jeb Bush tied with Mike Huckabee and Marco Rubio. Look how much ground Jeb Bush has lost. He's lost seven points in the last month. And it's interesting, at that huge rally that Trump had last night in Dallas, he was complaining loudly about the fact that Ben Carson is getting all of this attention for surging in the polls. But this is yet another poll that shows that he is surging. So, that's the lay of the land heading into tomorrow night -- Wolf.

BLITZER: The story continues, though, to be the strength of the so- called outsider candidates. How's the anti-establishment set and then playing out when it comes to both Democrats and Republicans?

JONES: This is really interesting. If you look at the numbers we have from just the poll out just yesterday, "Washington Post"-ABC News poll, we can put them up on the screen. And you -- and you look at the difference there between the anti-establishment appeal of these candidates to Republicans versus Democrats, the number for Republicans is quite high. You can see there, 60 percent of GOP voters want to see an outsider candidate. In fact, their outsider status is more important to them than having political experience.

That's very different than Democrats. For Democrats, experience -- 69 percent want to see experience. But that number, that 60 percent number, on the Republican side explains what we've been seeing all summer, the strength of these outsider candidates, folks who've never held elected office like Donald Trump and Ben Carson, the top two folks on the polls right now -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Athena, she's got a good view of what's about to take place here in California. Athena, thanks very much.

The stakes are certainly high for round two of the Republican primary debates. Eleven candidates meet for the main event tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

So, who has the most to gain, the most to lose? Let's discuss what's going on. Joining us, our National Political Reporter Maeve Reston, our Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny and our Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger.

Maeve, you read an excellent article on CNN.com about Jeb Bush. His numbers really have significantly dropped over the past month or so. He's got a lot at stake tomorrow night.

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: He really does. And I think, you know, what -- certainly what donors and his allies are looking to see from him is that he can channel the kind of anger and frustration that voters are feeling right now in the way that Trump has been doing that over the last couple of weeks. Obviously, Jeb's been dealing with a lot of incoming fire from Trump calling him a low energy candidate and a boring candidate.

And so, Jeb has really got to get out there. He's been throwing a lot of punches, but he's really got to get out there and show that he can take on Trump, really excite voters, come back from this slide in the polls that we've seen which is really amazing from a candidate who we all thought was going to be the front runner with $100 million.

[13:05:08] BLITZER: And, Gloria, he's got a huge super PAC that supports him, $100 million as you say, Maeve. And they've now come out --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: -- with an ad buy in Iowa and New Hampshire. They've got to do something. Let me play a little clip. This is the super PAC that supports Jeb Bush.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He took on unions and won, with new accountability and over 200 new charter schools. The state was Florida. The governor was Jeb Bush. Proven conservative, real results, Jeb.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. So, Gloria, this is an ad that shows positive things about --

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

BLITZER: -- Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor. It's not an attack ad that goes after Donald Trump or anyone else.

BORGER: But this is an ad that talks about experience. And what we're seeing in the polls is that the voters don't care about experience. Republican voters usually do but this time they don't. They're, like, experience? We don't like Washington. We don't want insiders. We don't want people who have run states before. We want somebody new and different, the bright shiny thing. I mean, Republicans are actually acting like Democrats these days.

But -- so, I'm not so sure that this ad is going to, you know, have an awful lot of appeal to the people who are rallying around Trump that all these other candidates want to pick up if Trump should implode in some way, shape or form.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: One thing that they're doing, though, is clearly trying to lay the ground work for when voters may, sort of, feel ready to turn the page from Donald Trump --

BORGER: Right.

ZELENY: -- and Ben Carson. They want to remind voters of Jeb Bush's conservative record. It's actually amazing. We think we know everything about Jeb Bush. His family has been in the public spotlight for so long. But voters say that they don't know exactly what he stands for. So, that's what their hope is there.

But I'm not sure that's going to be pay off, though, because up until now --

BORGER: Right.

ZELENY: We're already mid-September. And they thought that Trump's sort of boom, it would have faded by now. So, they're laying this groundwork but it may not happen. So, what they're doing is reserving time. A fourth of their $100 million. And they may switch this pretty quickly. And we'll see. If they start to go negative on Trump, we'll know that this is not working.

BLITZER: You can buy -- for $24 million in Iowa and New Hampshire, you can buy a ton of commercials.

RESTON: Yes, you actually can. And there -- and there will actually be a third state that they're adding, South Carolina, later on. Iowa and New Hampshire are going up today.

But what's really interesting, to Jeff's point, is that, you know, they feel like Jeb has been defined as the moderate in this race, and they really need to fill out the portrait of him as much more of a conservative who has done these things in Florida. And they feel as though that will help them kind of blunt Trump's edge here.

But, like Gloria said, I was talking to a lot of long-time debate prep strategists over the last week, and they were saying, throw out the rule book. Like, do not get up there and recite your resume, stick with something different. You know, nothing applies like it has in the past.

BORGER: Yes. I -- look, you know, these -- when you have Trump on the stage, you're not going to out-Trump him. You can't be Donald Trump. You have to be something else. And I think if Jeb were to attack Trump, it would be on the conservative -- it would be on the conservative issue. The big thing in all these polls that we have to point out is that more than 60 percent of the people who are being polled now say they're really undecided. So, there is a lot of window shopping --

RESTON: Right.

BLITZER: People sure change their mind. But Trump --

RESTON: Absolutely, it's such a huge frustration. I mean, we've been talking about this. But when you actually go out and talk to voters, nobody says, I'm just supporting this candidate --

BORGER: Right.

RESTON: -- at this moment. They say, here are my top five, four candidates.

ZELENY: Right.

RESTON: Nobody has decided and, yet, --

ZELENY: And Ben Carson now is --

BLITZER: I want to -- before we get to Ben Carson, let's talk a little bit more about Donald Trump because he's giving a speech tonight out here in California, a national security speech. I'll be curious to see if he's going to read that speech either from a teleprompter or from a script or he's going to wing it as he does all of his other speeches. But this is really important because he seemed to have stumbled a little bit in that interview with Hugh Hewitt on foreign policy.

ZELENY: Sure, he did. He said that he thought that, you know, you did not need to know all these specific leaders and specific tribal leaders. He's probably right about that but you do need to grasp the challenges. So, he is going to give a foreign policy speech. We'll see how much foreign policy is in this speech. I think it'll be more speech than foreign policy. But where is he going it at? On the "U.S. Iowa," a battleship named after of course, the first primary state -- or the first caucus state. It's down in Los Angeles.

So, I'll be surprised if he goes sort of line and verse through policy. But it is important for him to fill this out. Six weeks since the last debate. We're are at a new phase in this campaign where voters want more, I think. That's why the Ben Carson surge is interesting, because it shows that some Republicans are eager to turn the page from Donald Trump and look for someone else. That's what gives these other candidates some hope.

BORGER: So, can you explain to me, in this poll, how Donald Trump beats Ben Carson with evangelical voters?

RESTON: When you talk to the strategists in Iowa, for example, it's what they keep saying over and over again, nobody out there is really familiar with these other aspects of what Trump has said in the past -- BORGER: Right.

RESTON: -- about some of these social issues, about abortion.

[13:10:04] One of them was saying to me last week, you know, you only have to show Donald Trump talking about how he was prochoice --

BORGER: Prochoice.

RESTON: -- over and over a few times for people to get that message. And, clearly, --

BORGER: Well, the Bush super PAC has done that --

RESTON: Yes.

BORGER: -- or tried to do that online.

RESTON: On Instagram, right.

BORGER: Right.

RESTON: Yes.

BLITZER: You know, it's interesting that Dr. Ben Carson, the famed pediatric neurosurgeon, now retired from John Hopkins University, one of the great neurosurgeons of our time. All of a sudden, he's number two in all of these polls just behind Donald Trump. He's way ahead of all those other established politicians.

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: What's going on here?

ZELENY: It validates that voters are looking for someone from the outside, like Gloria mentioned earlier, that this is not a campaign where you are viewed favorably if you have a senator or governor or some other title in your name. But I think it also shows that voters may -- not all voters sort of want the volume that Donald Trump brings to this race. Ben Carson is the most laid back candidate. I mean, --

BORGER: Low energy, right?

ZELENY: He is low energy. And he wears that as a badge of honor here. So, I think that that is a sign that Donald Trump may be at the ceiling. I know we keep saying that, but I think the move toward Ben Carson shows that there's an opening for other candidates.

BLITZER: And let me just get Gloria to weigh in on Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor.

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: He was actually born in Iowa. He's from the neighboring state of Wisconsin.

BORGER: Yes, he is.

BLITZER: We've seen his numbers go down, down, down.

BORGER: Right. And I was talking to one of his chief strategists the other day, we had a cup of coffee. And he was saying to me, look, we're not sure that the voters that you guys are polling are the actual voters that will go to the polls. Are they going to be participants? Because, at this stage of the game, we don't poll likely voters. We just poll Republicans. And he is saying that I'm not so sure that these are participant voters.

Now, whether Trump or Carson could bring them in and make them become participants is a big question. So, they're still holding out hope that if he does well, that maybe he can sort of pop out of the box here.

ZELENY: His define in Iowa, though, can be only explained by his own actions, not that the right people aren't being polled.

BLITZER: Right.

BORGER: Well, right.

BLITZER: And if it were only one or two polls, or three polls maybe, but if there is 10 or 15 or 20 polls that all show basically the same, consistent drop for Scott Walker over the past few months, that would -- that's a lot to --

RESTON: But, also, you know, it's so interesting being with these Carson voters at a number of his campaign events last week. A lot of them are the kinds of people that you were talking about who were really attracted to Trump at first and are now turning the page and saying, I just feel nervous about having him in the oval office. I want someone who seems more thoughtful. I like the quiet aspect of Ben Carson and his biography. And so, I think we may begin to see, like, that sort of shift to the other candidates.

BLITZER: All right, hold your thought because there's a lot more coming up. We're here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, getting ready for tomorrow night's major debate. Marco Rubio, by the way, saw a jump in his poll numbers after the first debate. But can he do it again? I'll speak with Marco Rubio's communications director about what his candidate is going to do to prepare for this debate.

And later, it's not easy debating 10 other people. And it gets more tricky when one of them is Donald Trump. We're going to talk strategy with a man who helped President Obama prepare for his debate. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:34] BLITZER: As we head into this second Republican presidential debate this season, each candidate not named Donald Trump is looking to break out with voters and capture the attention of the nation and the enthusiasm of Republican voters out there, Florida Senator Marco Rubio among them. Here with us is Senator Rubio's communications director Alex Conant,

who's already getting ready.

How's the senator getting ready for this debate tomorrow night because, obviously, the stakes for him and the other candidates are enormous right now?

ALEX CONANT, COMMUNICATION'S DIRECTOR, RUBIO FOR PRESIDENT: Yes, it's a great opportunity, and we felt very good about how we did in the first debate in Cleveland and so, honestly, the preparations for this debate are very similar to that one. You know, he has the benefit of having, for the last five years, been actively engaged on foreign policy issues around the world, traveling the world on the Senate Intelligent Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So, you know, he comes into this with a deep understanding of the issues that I think Jake and Hugh and Dana are going to want to talk about that.

BLITZER: Does -- does he go through rehearsals? In other words, is there someone who plays the other candidates, including Trump, in dress rehearsals for him?

CONANT: No, I would -- no, he doesn't need that. I mean he's ready to go. As you saw in Cleveland, he wants to talk about his agenda for a new American century tomorrow night, like he did in Cleveland. We felt good about that debate. So the preparations for this debate are very similar.

BLITZER: So how hard does he hit Trump tomorrow night?

CONANT: He's not going to hit any of the candidates. He's going to go out there and talk about his ideas, his agenda. I know Jake and Dana and Hugh are probably going to want to try to mix it up a little bit, but, quite frankly, I'd be surprised if any of the candidates attacked him and he's not going to attack any of the other candidates.

BLITZER: Is he going to suggest that Trump is not ready to be commander in chief?

CONANT: No, he's not. He's going to talk about his agenda and he's going to talk about why he's running for president. Why he thinks that -- that we need to turn the page on yesterday and why we need new ideas and a new generation of leadership and he's going to talk about his agenda for the 21st century.

BLITZER: Because we've heard other Republican presidential candidates, George Pataki, for example, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, they don't believe that Donald Trump is -- is ready to be president of the United States and they have really gone after him. We're not going to hear that, you're saying, that -- from Senator Rubio?

CONANT: Yes. Senator Rubio is not coming here tomorrow night to attack other Republicans. He's coming here to talk about why he's running for president and why he thinks we need a new generation of leadership in the White House, why he thinks Washington isn't working and why if we keep electing the same people to the same positions, we're not going to have different results. BLITZER: Now Senator Rubio is the senator, obviously, from Florida, the junior senator. He's up for re-election next year, but he has decided he's not going to seek re-election, right?

CONANT: That's right, Wolf. After four and a half, five years in the Senate he realized that Washington is just not working and he need -- and we need real change in the executive branch. That's why he's running for president. He's not going to be seeking re-election to the Senate.

[13:20:08] BLITZER: So right now basically it's either president of the United States or maybe vice president. Is that something that's on his agenda right now because --

CONANT: It's not.

BLITZER: A lot of people have raised that possibility, as you well know.

CONANT: Wolf, I'll be honest with you, we feel very confident that Marco is going to be the nominee. We have a strategy to win in February. We view these debates as great opportunities to introduce him to the nation. Any time you put Marco on TV in front of millions of people, that's a very good night for our campaign. The first debate in Cleveland was a good night. We're very excited about tomorrow night. And we're very confident that when we get to February, he's going to do well in those early states and he'll be the nominee of the Republican party.

BLITZER: All right, we'll look forward to welcoming him here to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Alex, thanks very much for coming in.

CONANT: Thanks. Thanks, Wolf. Appreciate it.

BLITZER: And good luck tomorrow right.

CONANT: Thank you.

BLITZER: Still to come, we're going to bring back our panel to talk about how this debate is shaping to be different than the last one and the candidate that they think has the best chance to break out of the pack. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:25:16] BLITZER: Take a look at this beautiful presidential library, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, in Simi Valley out here in California. It is an amazing place. If you have a chance, you should come visit it.

Donald Trump may still be leading the pack of contenders, but since the last Republican presidential debate, the rest of the field has been reshaped. Let's bring back our excellent panel. Alex Castellanos is the founder

of newrepublican.org, chairman of Purple Strategies. Dan Pfeiffer is a CNN contributor. He's a former top aide to President Obama. And Jeffrey Lord is a CNN political contributor, former political director in, yes, the Reagan White House.

Well, let's start -- you worked in the Reagan White House. We're here in the Reagan Library.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: I -- I was here.

BLITZER: So it's an amazing place.

What are these candidates -- specifically the undercard, what do they need to do, if anything? Are they -- is it -- is it the four who are going to be in the first debate, do they realistically have a chance of -- of moving up?

LORD: You know I -- I'm starting to get a little skeptical here because this divide has now become so sharp between the outsiders and the insiders that there's almost nothing they can say about the records that isn't going to further incriminate them, if you get the deal, here. In other words, the more they say, well, as governor or as senator or what have you, I did this, you've got people out there, 87 percent in one poll, say that they want somebody who's an outsider. So their appeals are starting, I think, to fall on deaf ears.

BLITZER: Dan, you helped with what's then considered an outsider, 2007-2008, a junior senator from Illinois, who hadn't spent a lot of time in Washington at all, a guy by the name of Barack Obama, become president of the United States. He had a strategy in going against Hillary Clinton. It worked. What advice to do you have for these guys right now?

DAN PFEIFFER, CNN COMMENTATOR: Well, I think for the -- I think the candidates on the undercard are in serious trouble and they've got to swing for the fences. I think in the -- in this debate, in the -- in the -- in the main card, the big question will be, how can the out -- the insiders, if you will, explain why the outsider message won't work. Obama was able to use outsider appeal with a well-run, traditional, innovative campaign and a real -- a real plan on how you actually get things done. They're going to have to draw that (INAUDIBLE). I think they're in a -- they're in a really hard position and I think for the Walkers, the Bushs, the Christies and the rand Pauls, they're all there in very desperate straits right now.

BLITZER: Because you remember early, mid, even later in 2007, a lot of people said, you know, Barack Obama is going to beat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination? Yet he did.

ALEX CASTELLANOS, FOUNDER, NEWREPUBLICAN.ORG: Right, because Americans like optimistic leaders. Barack Obama was hope, change, and yes, we can. And our great presidents, the ones that -- if you ask, who are the greatest modern presidents, people name FDR, new deal, we have nothing to fear. They name Ronald Reagan, shining city on a hill, rendezvous with destiny. That's why we're here. They love the optimistic candidate, ultimately at the end of the day. Even Bill Clinton, don't stop thinking about tomorrow. So that is a way to pull yourself out of this pack, too.

Trump, to his credit, has both sides of the equation. America's in decline, and we're in terrible shape, get angry about it, but he also has the other side, let's make America great again.

BLITZER: He's giving a speech tonight, as you know, Donald Trump, out here in California aboard the USS Iowa, which is now a museum --

LORD: Right.

BLITZER: If you will, on national security, foreign policy. Is this the kind of speech that he's going to have a teleprompter to read or a script to read or is he just going to go out, as he does with all of his speeches, and simply wing it?

LORD: I mean I -- I know that people have written speeches for them and that they're there. Whether he intends to use them I think he decides on the moment. You know, and this will be significant for him to be on the battleship "Iowa" because when we had the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, they had the battleship "Iowa" in New York Harbor and President Reagan was on the -- on the ship and that, you know, was much televised and made an event in that day. So I think that, you know, it's interesting that he's going if go from there to here, both of which are connected to Ronald Reagan.

BLITZER: And both -- and Iowa, obviously, a pretty important state right now.

PFEIFFER: Right.

LORD: Exactly. Who could forget that?

BLITZER: Well --

CASTELLANOS: And, Wolf --

BLITZER: Yes, go ahead.

CASTELLANOS: It's interesting that Trump is the only candidate with the presence to take a lead in a debate before it even occurs. He can generate so much media, a huge rally in Dallas, going to the "Iowa," that he dominates news coverage and so the debate is all about him.

BLITZER: He doesn't even have to spend money, Dan, on commercials does he --

PFEIFFER: Right. Right.

BLITZER: Because he's on television all the time.

[13:29:50] PFEIFFER: Right. He -- look, his strategy is flood the zone. Be omnipresent. He's doing interviews. He's doing -- if he can't get to the studio, he'll call in. He's doing speeches, while the other candidates are off the stage. I haven't seen John Kasich or Marco Rubio do anything in weeks. And I think political professionals like those of us on the stage, we tend to sort of laugh at Donald Trump. It's kind of a joke. But the truth is, he is running what -- his moves here are very savvy.