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Clinton Aides Ready For Launch; Paul: "A Different Kind Of Republican Leader"; Closing Arguments In Boston Bombing Trial; Will Drought Inflate Food Prices? Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 6, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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


JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Happy Monday, Alisyn, to you; Chris and Michaela as well. Any second now, Alisyn, any second now, any second means Hillary Clinton could end the drama, if there is any drama left, and officially plunge into the 2016 presidential race.

With me to go INSIDE POLITICS this morning, Jackie Kucinich of "The Daily Beast", CNN's Jeff Zeleny. Jeff, you write a piece that's on cnnpolitics.com -- I urge everyone to take a peek at it this morning - that says aides were told essentially get back as of this morning because this could happen any second as we sit right here.

[07:30:05] JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Any second, any day more likely, probably not any second, but the reality is this is all coming, they signed the lease on Friday, which means they have 15 days to act on this presidential campaign.

But really more importantly what's happening is how they are going to present her as a candidate. We are finding out that there will be no big rallies. No big crowds, really trying to make this smaller one on one conversation, trying to reintroduce her.

But the big question is, can someone like this so famous, so well- known actually be introduced the second time around. That's their burden.

KING: But someone with a 100 percent name identity. Let me read, to your point, let me read one sentence from your article here. "As she and a coterie of advisers prepare to launch her campaign, their work is guided by a new set of humble principles, no big crowds, few soaring rallies.

Less mention of her own ambitions and extinguish the air of inevitability propelling her candidacy." The air of inevitability has a lot of Democrats have been complaining, where are you? Come out to Iowa and do small house parties, fine.

Come to New Hampshire, do small events, fine. Martin O'Malley and Jim Webb will be in Iowa this week, and yet among Democrats there is an air of inevitably.

JACKIE KUCINICH, "THE DAILY BEAST": Until she has a viable challenger, there will be an air of inevitability. When you have someone like Martin O'Malley who has been slowly presenting himself as a challenger, he still hasn't given a reason why O'Malley rather than Clinton.

That's their challenge to actually present a good challenger because otherwise, they're a sacrificial lamb -- going up against Hillary just for kicks.

KING: It's interesting because a lot of Democrats complain, let's see a race. I was up in Boston last week even Mayor Marty Walsh, who is likely to support Hillary Clinton, was like, let's not have a coronation, let's have a fight. Let's test her essentially and get the rust off in a good campaign.

And yet, listen to Gary Hart in a political interview published on Sunday, not Gary Hart the former Democratic senator and presidential candidate, I'm now told the Clinton campaign intends to raise $1 billion.

Now, that ought to frighten every American. If you've got a billion dollars to run for president, how many people can do that, only the Clintons and the Bushes, and one or two others, not Jim Webb or Martin O'Malley or Bernie Sanders.

ZELENY: That's right. A billion dollars sounds a lot of money, of course, it is, but now any modern day presidential campaign is going to be a billion dollars. But the reality is, what her advisers are finding when they are going out there?

They're visiting Iowa. They are visiting New Hampshire. They're finding that some Democrats are not necessarily all that excited just to see her. They want a campaign and a race and some Clinton advisers actually wish there was more of a challenger.

It would be easier to run against some person than kind of this mythic physical out there in the party. It would be easier to run against an Elizabeth Warren rather than the idea of Elizabeth Warren.

We don't think she is running, obviously, but the Clinton campaign, she is going to be running against herself, first and foremost. That's what they know, but it's time to get in it I believe.

KUCINICH: Particularly you'll hear concern among progressives because progressives think that they're going to be left behind, which they have been by this president in some ways. I think there is that frustration there. As you say, there is a mythic figure. There isn't anyone should really be their champion right now.

KING: We are about to get into the Republican's primaries. They are always about ideology and if you don't have it. That's how she got beaten in 2008. Barack Obama got to her left on the Iraq war issue.

The question is will these issues emerge. One other thing before we move on, though, she has an appointment yet to be scheduled at as far as we know with the Select Committee on Benghazi. They want to interview her in private first then they will be public testimony.

The biggest issue is why did she wipe her private e-mail server? Did the people inside the campaign think that's a speed bump and they get through it or they think it's potentially a danger zone?

ZELENY: The people inside her orbit believe that this ultimately will be a good thing for her. They say she will only appear publicly and they believe that running against House Republicans, against this Congress is a good thing.

But we still don't know what's in all those e-mails and they don't necessarily either. If they can say it's a speed bump, we'll see. I think we still have to see how she presents herself in that hearing.

KING: Right. It's a public official with a lot of experience in this realm of secrecy and transparency and the like. I think she still has a lot of explaining to do. How you completely wipe without having an outside source saying, OK, you give the government everything it deserves, now you can wipe it.

Without a second opinion on that one, she still has some answering to do there. One announcement, we don't know exactly when the Hillary Clinton one will come. It could come today. It could come this week or next.

We do know tomorrow, Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator, the one-time Tea Party darling, will announce his candidacy for president. He is getting ready in a little bit of a web video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, FOX HOST, "HANNITY": Senator Rand Paul filibustered yesterday for almost 13 hours on the Senate floor.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, he's out there talking, he is using the filibuster the way it's meant to be used.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: It's time for a new way, a new set of ideas, a new leader, one you can trust, and one who works for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So there is zero Republican frontrunner right now. You'd have to say Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker are the top tier, if there is such a thing, but nobody is above 20 percent in the national polls. Nobody has a lead in Iowa or New Hampshire.

But last year, we were calling Rand Paul. I think "Time" magazine even ran a cover the most interesting man in America, the most interesting politician in America. Has he lost his niche?

[07:35:03] He spent a lot of time trying to cater to the Republican establishment, saying, I'm not an isolationist, I'm not my dad essentially, I'm not Ron Paul, who wants to pull American out of its international commitments around the world. In doing that, has he lost his unique niche in the party?

KUCINICH: He could. He definitely could. The thing that struck me about that video, though, you have Hannity. You have Jon Stuart. He's trying to be the candidate of the middle, of people who are young. What his views that he has expressed in the last couple weeks, particularly on gay marriage, are not that.

KING: Right. He says he never proposed cutting off Israeli aid. We have video of him on CNN saying we should think about cutting off Israeli aid. He was someone who was very reluctant and in this race could be, let's be careful about al-Shabaab.

Let's be careful about Boko Haram, what are we going to do about ISIS? And yet, he has become not an interventionist, but more muscular in his rhetoric. Again, is he going to find a spot to the right of Marco Rubio or somebody like that in international defense?

ZELENY: It seems hard to imagine. I mean, the Rand Paul of a year ago seemed like such an interesting candidate inside this Republican primary, really sort of the newer version of his father. A lot of people were supportive of him.

Is that sentiment out there in the party? No question. Now he's tried to become more of the establishment. His first challenge will be running against himself, against all those old statements he said. He still has a big area of growth.

I think he's one of the few Republican candidates who actually can expand the party, but what type of candidate is he going to be? We saw it more of an optimistic sentiment I think in that video.

But boy, there are so many instances. We can have a list here of what he said at one point, and now he said, no, I'm different. We can go down the list. That's going to be his challenge.

KING: That will be his challenge although not to underestimate organization in a crowded race. But there is still a libertarian streak up in New Hampshire so even though he's sort of stumbled of late. He gets a chance to relaunch now. We'll see what happens, but don't discount --

ZELENY: He has a great online presence.

KING: We'll see if he can raise the money. Jackie and Jeff, thanks for coming in this morning. Alisyn, Chris, I'm sorry, as we get back to New York, my bracket. I'm limping alive at the end, but a guy we have to pay tribute to today, he didn't win the race for president.

But he's in the 99th percentile, the ESPN bracket challenge is Mitt Romney. He's got the elite eight right. He's got the final four right. He has the two teams in tonight's championship game right.

Either Mitt Romney went back to his data crunching days or he's got a really smart kid in the operation or they just got lucky throwing the darts, I guess. That's a pretty good bracket.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I guess he didn't use the uniform color test like my co-anchor, Alisyn Camerota, did. Who does he have winning it?

KING: I don't know the answer to that. I think --

CUOMO: John King caught short. Heading into baseball season, are you for Wisconsin because they red like your Sox.

KING: You know, the CNN anchor bracket, it's Bill Weir who is in first place. I'm in sixth, but I'm the only other guy who can beat Bill Weir. I have duke, he has Wisconsin. We'll be up late watching.

CUOMO: Do you feel good about your Sox this year, do you?

KING: I do. We'll see them open in Philadelphia today. I do feel good about my Sox although, as always, we'll see how the pitching works out.

CUOMO: That's true. John King, always a pleasure.

Speaking of Boston, we have closing arguments set this morning in the Boston marathon bombing trial. Now this trial has always been about the sentence and the question is, can the defense convince the jury not the kill the Boston bomber? We have the key to the case ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:42:15]

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: This morning jurors will hear closing arguments in the Boston bombing trial. In the coming days, jurors will decide not only on a verdict, but also Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will face the death penalty.

Here to break it all down, we have so much to discuss, CNN commentator and legal analyst, Mel Robbins and HLN legal analyst, Joey Jackson. Hello, my friends. Good to have you both.

Mel, I'll start with you. Ladies first, it seems I think to most of us a fairly open and shut case. Do you expect the decision to come from the jury fairly quickly?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR AND LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I do. There are 30 counts. We know 17 of them carry the death penalty. They are very straight forward actually, Michaela. So I think what we are going to see today is closing arguments and depending upon how long those go, they can take the balance of the day.

You'll then going to hear the judge give the jury the charges the instructions and then the jury could get the case as soon as later today or first thing tomorrow morning, Michaela, and I think we are going to have a verdict within a day or two.

PEREIRA: Speedy and rapid, absolutely, we know the defense attorney, Judy Clark, well versed in this kind of strategy. She actually said in those opening statements, it was him, not refuting the fact that her client was there. What was her end game? What has been her strategy?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, it's one strategy, only. Michaela, good morning. Good morning, Mel. The reality is this. What she's attempting to do is spare his life. There is no really mystery in terms of whether he will be convicted. We know he will be convicted, absolutely. It was him, but I think what she is trying to do is establish a context upon which it was him. He was the puppet. His brother led the way. He was controlled. He was manipulated.

And I think we saw that manifest itself in the defense case where they talked about supplies and bomb components. Guess what, Michaela, they were the prints of his older controlling brother, Tamerlan and they were not his and the computer searches, guess what as to that, they were also the searches about the gun.

The searches about bombs and that type thing. They came from the computer of the manipulating, controlling older brother, Tamerlan, not my client. So that's what they'll go on to in the next phase.

PEREIRA: How effective of the defense is that?

JACKSON: You know, you use what you have as Mel can tell you and I think we'll agree to. The reality is that they're very limited here. Why? Because it, it was him and so what do you if you try to say it wasn't, is you lose credibility. That's all you have as an attorney is credibility. If the end game is to spare his life, that's the only road you can go down.

PEREIRA: Yes, Mel, go with your strength. I mean, he was seen on video. He was caught in that boat. I mean, there are so many aspects of this that are just a home run for the prosecution, but in terms of, you know, he was a victim to his brother, his brother enlisted him. His brother essentially influenced him into this heinous act. How much do you think that matters to the jurors?

[07:45:00] ROBBINS: Well, it only has to matter to one of them because in order to get a death penalty verdict, you need a unanimous verdict for that. So the U.S. Code 228 is what will control the next phase of the trial.

And what we are going to see happen is the prosecution goes first and they present what are called the aggregating factors and what those include are the actual natural crime and how heinous it was.

The damage that was done, the lack of remorse and the response by Tsarnaev in the fact that he also committed a crime against America and there are aggregating factors, two of the victims, one of them, Sean Collier was a law enforcement officer and Martin Richard was just 8-years-old.

Those are major aggregating factors. The mitigating factors are his age, the fact that he may have been impaired with weed. The fact that he had no criminal record and the family history, but whether or not that makes a difference, that remains to be seen.

And one more thing, Michaela, under the code, the defense does not have to give us notice as to what they plan to argue. So we don't know yet what exactly they're going to do. We don't know whether or not they will put Dzhokhar on the stand in an attempt to humanize him -- Michaela. PEREIRA: I want to ask you about that. Impaired with weed, for that entire siege, the days leading up to it, for the entire season even the days after when he tries to hide the evidence and influence his friends to do so?

ROBBINS: Yes, I don't think it's a viable argument at all. But as Joey said earlier, you take whatever you got. You throw it against the wall. You hope some casserole sticks with one juror.

PEREIRA: Do you think, Joey, that Dzhokhar will take the stand?

JACKSON: I don't think it's -- I mean, if I'm advising him and Judy Clark certainly has the experience, the wisdom, he has to stay off that witness stand. The reality is that he would be savaged by the prosecution and it would be so much that he would have to admit.

Not only that in terms of exposing him to a savage cross examination, but the other thing is, is that he could wreck his own defense. Does he now say, well, I want to die? Please put me to death. That certainly, if the jury believes he wants to die, maybe they don't put him to death.

So there is an interesting psychology and dynamic that I think you will see play out during the penalty phase and obviously we're presuming the jury will find him guilty. But I think that's at a pretty good presumption to be making.

PEREIRA: So there is no doubt about his guilt that he was involved, but talk to us what we can expect about this next phase because this might be new to some.

JACKSON: You know, interestingly enough, Michaela, I think what you are going to expect is the why he did it. I think you will learn about who he is. Remember during the trial, itself, we heard from one friend of his. That's it.

That's a lot because the judge has limited what the defense was able to do in terms of the blame the older brother defense, why? It's not a defense, it's a mitigating factor.

And as Mel spoke to, you have now an opportunity the defense does to speak to the issues of mitigation, why he did it. So we will learn about his family history. How he grew up, what was his psychology, what he is all about. Are there any instances of abuse or misdirection?

What was the relationship like between him and his brother? Was his brother manipulating, controlling? And so this is going to be a look, Michaela, into the window of exactly who is sitting in that chair and why he was compelled to do what he did.

PEREIRA: I want to get both your quick takes. Do you think that the jury is going to elect death or life, Mel, what do you think?

ROBBINS: You know, this is a tough one because I think the biggest piece of evidence is him standing behind Martin Richard with the backpack placing the bomb and walking away. I actually the think they'll find one juror that does not vote for the death penalty. I think he will get life in prison.

JACKSON: You know, Mel may be right, but I think the reality is this is such a compelling act that we all can relate to and it affected and devastated the Boston community, but the nation as a whole and certainly many things, we don't like as Americans. Terrorism has to be at the top. I think I'm not surprised if they sentence him to death, Michaela.

PEREIRA: Joey, Mel, boy, those jurors are having to go through a lot. Maybe this city of Boston and our nation can start to heal after all of this is done. Thank you for all your expertise. We appreciate it. Happy Monday -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Mich, we'll be watching that one. That's for sure. Another story that should be on your radar, California is suffering historic drought. So what do you say? I live in New York? Wrong. Empathy aside, you could feel their pain and real soon in your wallet. We'll tell you why ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:53:24]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Time for "CNN Money now." Chief business correspondent, Christine Romans is in our money center. No, she's not -- why are you sitting at our new table?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I had to be here.

PEREIRA: Be a part of it.

CAMEROTA: Also, keep a close eye on California.

ROMANS: That's right. I'm looking at the drought in California, growing a third of our vegetables and two-thirds of our fruits. A four-year long drought in California is now driving up prices for berries, broccoli, grapes, melons, lettuce peppers.

We could see prices climb again this year because of this drought. Lower oil prices make shipping foods in California cheaper because of the strong dollar means food imports are cheaper, but this drought has already forced farmers to abandon thousands of acres.

Now farmers are deciding if they should plant less next year, those decisions could affect food prices long term because imagine if you're talking about grapevines, if you're talking about trees, you know, like nut files and you're planting less, you know, it can take years, years to recover production if you decide --

PEREIRA: But aren't they pointing to the farmers as being a source of why this drought is happening in the first place?

ROMANS: They are the big consumer of water in California. Just look at this, a pound of almond, 2,126 gallons of water to create one pound of almonds and beef also very, very water intensive and so are walnuts.

So you got Jerry Brown, the governor there, exempting agriculture from his mandatory restrictions on water because they said it's so important for the U.S. economy, but yet, agriculture is the big water user.

CUOMO: You're telling us to lay off the nuts. That's what you're trying to say?

ROMANS: Well, Chris, how about everything in moderation?

PEREIRA: I like moderation.

CAMEROTA: Do you know that term, moderation?

CUOMO: Never.

PEREIRA: All right, Christine, thank you.

[07:55:07] CUOMO: President Obama is selling the Iran deal, but Israel's prime minister is not buying it. The question is, is there a middle here? Will they meet and who loss if they can't and how? Big questions, answers ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:59:10]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It is a good deal, even if Iran doesn't change at all.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: A better deal would roll back Iran's vast majority in construction.

SENATOR DIANE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: It can be a very serviceable, practical agreement and it could signal a new day.

PEREIRA: The manhunt intensifying for the alleged mastermind of last week's university terror attack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a new ideology. Anything to do with Christianity they want to efface from the sight of the earth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This bill is bipartisan. It protects religious freedom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was disappointed that you could see Christians and their businesses face discrimination.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tolerance is a two-way street.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Some basic failures of journalism 101.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They based their entire article on one --

STELTER: Rolling Stone just did not get it right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CUOMO: Good morning to you.

[08:00:00] Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Monday, April 6th, 8:00 in the East. First up, President Obama says the Iran nuclear deal is a once in a lifetime opportunity.