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Republican Second Presidential Debate Had Record Number of Viewers; Carlyf Fiorina Talked About Her Stepdaughter. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 17, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00] ED LEE, EMORY UNIVERSITY DEBATE DIRECTOR: And understanding that we are actually human beings trying to make connections with other human beings, that's a positive moment. I thought that was a great moment for both of those candidates. Even the interactions at times between Bush and Trump that became more jovial and less enlightening, they were good for Bush, who has had some difficulties connecting with the audience in these debates.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Yes. Especially the code name for secret service and Jeb Bush said ever ready, obvious not to or jab back at Donald Trump and energizer bunny. Comparison and Trump said, you got me. That was a good one.

Carly Fiorina, I know, Ed, at the top of your list. Tell me why.

LEE: It was a masterful performance. We have this notion in our debate circuit called debate like a girl. And I thought that all of the other ten on the desk should have figured out how to debate like a girl. That she had a command of the material. She had such a command of the materials that were there. That whether it was a riff in understanding, what we should do with Putin, who the commanders are we should be engaging with in order to deal with Iran, there was that discussion about her children who dealt with addiction and then connecting it back to Bush and this notion of smoking marijuana. That was that dramatic pause that she had when talking about how all of the women in the audience understands very clearly what Donald Trump said and just the pause. Not stumbling over wanting to continue to say things as most people would do, but letting the audience make the rest of the arguments for her.

There are times in which we had a lot of people who are very good speakers. You have a lot of people who are very good politicians. She is clearly a masterful debater. And I loved every moment of it. That whenever you have the audience and thinking about being the audience, I want more Carly Fiorina. She's doing a fantastic job.

BALDWIN: You and so many others I'm talking to today, and you are so right about, you know, pauses or silence. I talked to, you know, even people getting into journalism, you have to let the silence breathe.

Ed Lee, thank you at Emory University for us.

LEE: Thank you for having me. BALDWIN: Next, he was -- you got it. He was the center of the storm.

My colleague, debate moderator Jake Tapper. He will join me live. He was sitting right there asking all these tough questions he wanted to debate. We'll get his main takeaways, biggest surprises and maybe something from behind the scenes. We will talk to Tapper coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:36:55] BALDWIN: Welcome back. We're live in beautiful Simi, Valley California at the Ronald Reagan presidential library. And last night's second Republican presidential debate was the most watched program in CNN history. This is huge, 23 million of you tuned in. And obviously, as thrilled as we are about that at CNN. For those 11 candidates, that mea means the stakes were so incredibly high. The spotlight so bright this go around.

And so joining me is a man who I think slept two minutes, my friend and moderator, Jake Tapper.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Not a lot of sleep.

BALDWIN: I mean, how are you doing today? Nice job.

TAPPER: Thank you. I'm good. I'm on fumes. But I'm doing all right. I'm really glad that people tuned in.

BALDWIN: Twenty three million people, CNN history. Not nothing.

TAPPER: Yes. I'm very excited. The previous record was 14 million for the famous Al Gore and Ross Perot debate NAFTA. So we beat that. And I think we did it. I hope we did it with a mix of lively politics as well as serious substance.

BALDWIN: You wanted a debate. Do you feel like you got it?

TAPPER: I feel like we did get a debate. I feel like the candidates who came to differentiate their views from fellow candidates really got an opportunity to shine. The ones who didn't probably didn't get as much of an opportunity as they wanted to because we really tailored the debate to be a debate.

BALDWIN: So many questions, I know you guys were all sitting in this room. Not a lot of people could get near it and near you because it was all about, you know, tweaking and making sure it was updated even to a new --

TAPPER: It wasn't just that. You couldn't leave the cone room with the questions. And we had a special trash because we knew the people would want those tough questions. They would want them ahead of time. So it wasn't --

BALDWIN: Shred it.

TAPPER: Yes,

BALDWIN: I'm not surprised. TAPPER: We didn't email questions, ever. Just in case.

BALDWIN: Nothing would have an electronic --

TAPPER: So nothing could be forwarded or --

BALDWIN: So now that we can talk about it all today.

TAPPER: Yes.

BALDWIN: I know that you must had questions that you wanted to get to and it is impossible. And even though it was three hours --

TAPPER: You know, it's a heartbreak because there are topics that you really want to get to. A few things get in the way of that. One is one of the things we did was we tried to get the candidate debate -- candidates debate. So we would, you know, have people go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, bring somebody else back and forth, you know. In and that meant the questions necessarily got cut.

Two, sometimes whether or not a question made the cut at the end of the day when we have to start cutting, it didn't really -- it wasn't a reflection of the topic. Like for instance, you know I care a lot about veterans issues. And CNN covers Black Lives Matter and issues having to do with law enforcement a great deal as well. And neither of those were in the debate. And it was heartbreaking on one level because, you know, you want to bring up topics that are important.

Another level, I don't know how much difference there was on the stage in terms of what the candidates were going to say. I don't know how much anybody was going to debate policy and that -- so when you started cutting sometimes that meant you would cut a question because it wasn't necessarily going to be a great exchange or it was going to be a great question as opposed to whether or not the topic was important.

Look, there are other ones -- we had a great one, I will tell people right now, maybe the people doing the next debate. We thought there could be a great debate on trade between Mike Huckabee and Senator Rubio. But it just got cut for time. It probably would have been a good exchange, too.

[15:40:24] BALDWIN: Not to get into details.

TAPPER: Education. We had a good one, Huckabee and Carson, on education too.

BALDWIN: Didn't make it.

TAPPER: Whoever is doing the next debate, let me know. I will forward it.

BALDWIN: I got his number.

TAPPER: CNBC, you have my number. BALDWIN: It's so different. I found it really interesting standing

up on that stage. I was watching in person and I would also then run down stairs to our work space. It's such a different experience watching all of them in person versus seeing them in split screen on television. I almost feel like it's better watching on TV. And that because you purposefully pitted two different people against one another. Well, you said this. How do you feel about how he said this? I think it is so much more effective for all 23 million people watching. Yes, it was cool be here, but --

TAPPER: I mean, yes, certainly. I mean, yes, I think it's probably more effective and when the candidates would look right at the TV and give their remarks, that's probably for them the smarter approach than say looking at their colleagues.

BALDWIN: Did anyone surprise you? Did it have a moment where you thought, what?

TAPPER: I was surprised that both Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina didn't answer the question about whether or not they trusted Donald Trump with the nuclear codes. I thought it was like either you say --

BALDWIN: They sort of played nice.

TAPPER: Yes and no. They kind of just like opted out. They opted out. I'm not going to use the word I was going to say. They opted out. You can say, look, I have differences with everybody on stage. But any of them is preferable to whoever the Democrats are going to put out. So, would I feel comfortable, yes, but I would feel more comfortable with me. The other's one answer.

The other answer is, no, are you crazy, you know, absolutely not and that's why I'm running. And then there is we need to the voters to decide. You know, it was like and they both said that. And it's just -- I kind of thought that was a cop out because it was an opportunity to either convey real unity as Republicans, or to really express a concern that I think some of them have. You know, Rand Paul and Bobby Jindal have, so why not express that. That surprised me a little. I thought somebody would take that opportunity to choose one of these two paths.

BALDWIN: Final question. Three hours, how was your bladder?

TAPPER: You know, I'm fine. I'm fine. I was good. That really wasn't an issue. We had a lot of stuff going on. And you know, myself was not really the issue. We wanted to make sure that we are bring in as many candidates as we could. And you know, and I'm so glad, thank you for watching, everybody who was.

BALDWIN: Twenty three million people.

TAPPER: Twenty three million, yes.

BALDWIN: Tapper, thank you. Doing your show today.

TAPPER: I am doing my show today. BALDWIN: It is great to see you do your job.

TAPPER: If I fall asleep during the show, you will be here and you'll do it.

BALDWIN: Maybe, we'll talk.

Tapper, thank you so much. Awesome job.

TAPPER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Right now, Hillary Clinton, she is talking at campaign event aimed at preventing drug abuse. She's there in New Hampshire. Got a lot of attention specifically talking about substance abuse last night here on the debate stage after Carly Fiorina actually shared how addiction has personally affected her family. Not a lot of people knew about that until she mentioned it. We'll talk about that issue head on with our chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:47:56] JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So 40 years ago I smoked marijuana and admitted it. I'm sure that other people may have done it and didn't want to say it on front of 25 million people. My mom is not happy that I just did. That's true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, not a lot of people might not have known that. That also touched a nerve last night with Carly Fiorina. She later spoke about how she lost her stepdaughter to drug addiction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A very much hope that I'm the only person on this stage who can say this, but I know there are millions of Americans out there who will say the same thing. My husband Frank and I buried a child to drug addiction. So we must invest more in the treatment of drugs. I agree with Senator Paul, I agree with state's rights, but we are misleading young people when we tell them that marijuana is just like having beer. It's not. Drug addiction is an epidemic. And it is taking too many of our young people. I know this sadly from personal experience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, that very moment according to Google spurred a lot of searches online. It was the number one topic searched actually during the debate.

So joining me now is our CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

And Sanjay, I mean, not a lot of people had any idea of what Carly Fiorina has had to deal with regard to this child or her stepchild. What is the story there?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And she wrote about this in her book recently, Brooke. But you are right. It's not a widely known story. She, Carly Fiorina, along with the husband have two stepdaughters. She's talking about her daughter Lori, who at the mid-30s pass away from an overdose. And it sounds like the story was she was someone who began drinking alcohol in college. Worked in pharmaceutical sales after that and began really taking prescription drugs and abusing them. She had bulimia. She was in and out of rehab three times. And she writes just this heartbreaking story when she found out with her husband that her daughter in fact passed away. She was 3,000 miles away at the time.

Just tough I think for anybody to hear, but that's the story that she's referring to. And she's used it to really talk about the idea of decriminalizing drug addiction as well, which is something again that she's spoken about quite a bit.

[15:50:16] BALDWIN: So that was something that came up. I mean, yes, we played the Jeb Bush sound bite and the tweet re-tweeted all around the whole sorry mom. But, you know, it became a pretty serious exchange between Rand Paul, a medical doctor who we know his stance arguing that there is a legitimate, you know, medical need for using marijuana. Chris Christie jumped in on it. New Jersey's a state where medical marijuana is legal. But he, you know, (INAUDIBLE) was saying that recreational use should absolutely be outlawed. What did you make of all those exchanges and stances on stage?

GUPTA: Well, it was really interesting and it is obviously something we've done a lot of reporting on as you know, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Right.

GUPTA: First of all, you know, sort of not commingling medical marijuana and recreational marijuana. I think people do this almost instinctively. These are two different issues. I mean, if you call medical marijuana by another name, cannabis for example, people won't always put it in the same name as recreational marijuana. I think Senator Paul, who's a doctor himself as you point out, made this point that there are legitimate uses for medicinal marijuana where it can be used as a medicine where nothing else has worked and have benefits. So that's a pretty significant, you know, testament to what medicinal marijuana can do.

What I think Carly Fiorina was talking about was really this idea of addiction overall. I don't know if she was sort of alluding to the idea that marijuana could be a gateway drug. There's really not scientific evidence that it is a gateway drug. Her daughter Lori suffered from alcoholism, it sounds like, and prescription drug abuse which is a significant problem the number one cause of preventable death in this country is accidental prescription drug overdoses. More people die this way, Brooke, than car accidents. So it's a huge issue.

BALDWIN: Wow.

GUPTA: And it was good to see them actually talking about it.

BALDWIN: I was thinking the same thing. It's tough to discuss, but even having Hillary Clinton talking about it today at an event in New Hampshire, it's important that it's part of the national discussion.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much.

GUPTA: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, a look at the laughs in the Republican presidential debate. We get one of the comedians takes on how the candidates faired last night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:56:46] BALDWIN: All right. With any debate this one definitely had some drop the mic moments, some light hearted moments, some zingers and some that just made those of you at home cringe.

So let's check in with one of my favorite comedians, comedian and writer Paul Mecurio was watching along with us here one of the 23 million watching on CNN.

Paul Mecurio, my friend, great to see you.

PAUL MECURIO, WRITER/COMEDIAN: Hey, great to see you. I miss you. You're in California, I'm here. Come on, we got to get together here. This is crazy.

BALDWIN: I'm hopping a plane soon. Don't worry about it. But I kind of don't want to leave Southern California. Bosses, do you hear me? No. But seriously, what did you think of the debate?

MECURIO: I mean, I thought it was very entertaining. I thought if you were just flipping around the channels and you didn't know better and you looked at this panel you thought, that's an episode of "the Bachelorette" like it was just --

BALDWIN: There was a rose on the stage. Jake Tapper wasn't handing out roses. Come on.

MECURIO: That's what I thought. CNN did a great job but I thought you should have had the roses.

The other thing was like all these a lot of yelling, a lot of yelling. It is like reminded me of my house like a lot of yelling. It was like they should change the name of the debates to the GOP debate for those of you who are fantasy football draft and there's not enough men yelling over one woman. Like it was incredible. But I love it.

BALDWIN: Paul. Let's begin with specifically Ben Carson, Ben Carson. I don't know if he simply would say you would like this rose to him after last night. How did he do?

MECURIO: Well, I think the question that we have to investigate is who shot Ben Carson with a tranquilizer dart just before the debate? I mean, come on.

BALDWIN: Oh.

MECURIO: He has low energy. He has the energy and enthusiasm of a Ben Carson supporter. Seriously. He's got kind of a dower demeanor. Can you imagine he's your doctor and he comes into the office and you don't know and you're like, my God, I got to get the last rights?

BALDWIN: You're sounding a little Trump-esque, Paul Mecurio. I know he said he makes Jeb Bush look like the energizer bunny.

OK, Chris Christie who definitely has a lot -- he seemed to bring it last night although he got pretty critical of, you know, the whole like calling Trump and Fiorina out about their childish behavior, it is not about you and your careers, it's about the middle class. Did you think it was fair?

MECURIO: I thought it was fair. I thought it was a good moment. Thought it brought it down to earth a little bit. And I think Trump was very, very jealous of Carly because she is the only person on that stage who's fired more people than he has.

BALDWIN: Ouch.

MECURIO: It's true.

BALDWIN: Ouch, Paul.

MECURIO: But you know, look, I thought she handled that, you know, the insult about her face I thought she handled it brilliantly. I thought she really did a great job. I thought it was really well done. I mean, you know.

BALDWIN: People definitely loving some Carly Fiorina today. Quickly though, before I let you go, Donald Trump, you know, he tried to sneak in a couple high fives from some to other candidates. Let me just play that moment. Do we have the tape? Can we play the moment?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I just want to mention that when the war -- when the issue occurred in 2003, I suggested to President Bush that he not go to war. OK. So I just want that On the Record.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We have to leave it with a high-five. I'm out of time. I don't want Jake Tapper to my left to pinch me at all.

Paul Mecurio, thank you so much. We'll look for your twitter for all your jokes. Thank you so much.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thanks for being with me her today. "The LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.