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Republican Presidential Candidates Face-to-Face in South Carolina; ISIS Claims Responsibility for Indonesian Attack; Defense Secretary: Navigational Error Caused U.S. Sailors to Enter Iranian Waters. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired January 15, 2016 - 01:00   ET

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


[01:00:12] JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour, Republican presidential candidates trade shots during their latest debate. But some of the sharpest blows were for Hillary Clinton.

The White House insists Iran's quick release of U.S. sailors is a sign of progress. Critics of the administration aren't so sure.

And the Oscars once again drawing fire for the nominees' lack of diversity.

Hello, everybody. Great to have you with us. We'd like to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. I'm John Vause. NEWSROOM L.A. starts now.

And we begin this hour with the latest U.S. Republican presidential debate. The top candidates met face-to-face in South Carolina talking taxes, Syrian refugees, and trade with China. There was a lot of sniping, especially between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. All the candidates took shots at President Barack Obama and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would go first of all one step further in this description of Hillary Clinton. She wouldn't just be a disaster. Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander-in-chief of the United States.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She's under investigation with the FBI right now. If she gets elected her first 100 days instead of setting an agenda she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You cannot give Hillary Clinton a third term of Barack Obama's leadership. I will not do that if I'm the nominee. She won't get within 10 miles of the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: Well, joining me now with more on the debate is CNN's senior political analyst Ron Brownstein and CNN political director David Chalian.

So, Ron, I mean, this debate started with 10 minutes of Hillary hating. The president was called a child twice. Chris Christie said we're going to kick his rear out of the White House. It seemed to be a very angry debate. But first we want to go to David Chalian who's there on the ground in North Charleston.

So, David, is that how it felt to you actually on the ground there at the debate?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, listen, I think that hitting Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is something that will always excite the Republican base but that's not what this debate was about. This debate was clearly about sort of two different races going on inside the Republican Party right now.

Primarily 18 days to Iowa, this was about Donald Trump versus Ted Cruz. They've been exchanging comments back and forth on the campaign trail of late and on the debate stage they delivered on the promise that these are the two leaders in the race right now fighting for those conservative votes in Iowa and they went to full battle mode tonight on the debate stage.

VAUSE: Well, let's get to that right now because obviously the birther issue came up pretty quickly in this debate. This is something which has been working quite well for Donald Trump in the last couple of weeks also. But it seems in this debate at least the senator from Texas was ready. Let's listen to some of the exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Back in September my friend Donald said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there. There was nothing to this birther issue. Now since September the Constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Yes, this was interesting because Trump actually came back and said yes, the polls have changed and that's why I'm doing it. Is this the end of the birther issue for Ted Cruz? Was that enough to put this away? Or will Trump keep this going all the way to Iowa?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think Trump keeps it going. I mean I think that Cruz is dealing with it as a legal issue. I think there really is a political argument I think Trump is trying to make here, which is he is reminding Republican voters, 93 percent of whom in 2012 were white, that Ted Cruz does not share their background.

But look, I kind of think the main point of the debate was really the opposite. I mean, the dog that didn't bark I thought was the biggest sound all night. We are less than three weeks from the Iowa caucuses and four weeks from the New Hampshire primary and the other candidates failed to make a systematic and sustained case against the frontrunner, Donald Trump. In fact, I would argue I thought at this debate they seemed less confident, not more, that they know arguments that will work against him with the Republican base.

And I think that is a very striking development as we get closer. And Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Chris Christie fighting among themselves is one thing.

VAUSE: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: But there is one guy who is leading all of them. And I think he came out of this largely unscathed.

VAUSE: In fact, most of the polls are saying that -- those instant polls, you look at the Drudge Report, most people believe Trump won. But I thought that Ted Cruz was actually taking some jabs at Donald Trump and the problem is if you jab away at Donald Trump he's going to clock you. And that seems to be what happened when Ted Cruz was asked about the whole New York values. He was asked what he meant when he said Trump has New York values. And then Trump nailed him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, focused around money and the media.

[01:05:08] TRUMP: New York is a great place. It's got great people. It's got loving people. Wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: OK. Let's go back to David in South Carolina.

So, David, the other big takeaway from the night, you've mentioned this just a short time ago, the Trump-Cruz detente is well and truly over. Yes?

(LAUGHTER)

CHALIAN: Yes. As Donald Trump said to our Dana Bash earlier, the bromance is over. There's no doubt about that. And I think that exchange encapsulated two important things. One, both of those guys -- Ted Cruz was speaking to his base in Iowa when he made sort of the attack on the liberal pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, New York crowd. That's something that his base in Iowa is happy to hear Ted Cruz make those comments.

But Donald Trump came back and delivered what I think is maybe one of the most sort of authentic moments we've seen from Donald Trump this entire campaign, really just speaking from a gut level of being a New Yorker, defending New York, invoking 9/11 in a really authentic way. And Ron's point about Trump earlier is really key to underscore here.

Donald Trump, who in the past was sort of -- he would hang back in debates a little bit. He was in full command of this stage, and he entered as the dominant force in this race. And there's nothing that happened on the stage that upended him from being the dominant force coming out of this debate.

There's very little time now between now and the caucuses. There's only one debate left. And I just don't see anything right now dislodging between now and when the voting begins Donald Trump from being the dominant force in this race.

BROWNSTEIN: You know, that was a very powerful --

VAUSE: Ron, yes.

BROWNSTEIN: That a very powerful --

VAUSE: It was one of the moments of the night.

BROWNSTEIN: It was probably one of the moments of the night. But it was set up to be so powerful because Ted Cruz, as they say in baseball, you know, here in the U.S., you've got to throw the pitch with conviction.

VAUSE: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: He did not throw the pitch with conviction. He basically said New York was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. He didn't say Donald Trump had had those positions himself.

VAUSE: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: Particularly on abortion in the past. And he basically -- I think it was a halfhearted kind of swing and then Donald Trump showed what a full kind of a punch. And the rest of the night to see these candidates going after each other it seems to imply they believe there is still a ceiling for Trump.

VAUSE: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: And if they can just get to him one on one they'll be fine. I think that the evidence is more they're going to have that take him down if he's going to go down.

VAUSE: Unlikely Cruz is going to use that line, right?

BROWNSTEIN: It didn't -- it didn't seem very powerful tonight.

VAUSE: He seemed rattled after that. Of course we mentioned the other big dust-up for the night was between Rubio and Christie. Let's listen to some of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO: Unfortunately, Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports whether it's Common Core or gun control or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood. Our next president and our Republican nominee cannot be someone who supports those positions.

CHRISTIE: I'd like to interrupt this debate on the floor of the Senate to actually answer the question you asked, which was on entitlements. Do you remember that, everybody? This was a question on entitlements. And the reason --

MARCO: All --

CHRISTIE: And the reason -- you already had your chance, Marco. You blew it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: OK. We've got a couple of sound bites there. A couple of different exchanges there. But it gave some of the passions on the feeling between these two guys. Unlikely to be a Christie-Rubio ticket anytime soon. But these guys are fighting it out essentially for third place right now.

BROWNSTEIN: Right. Right. Well, they're fighting it out to be the leader of the center-right --

VAUSE: The establishment.

BROWNSTEIN: The wing that may or may not ever consolidate. And it's a fight that's going on largely in New Hampshire where you have Christie, Rubio, even Kasich and to some extent Jeb Bush all clumped together. That, A, gives Donald Trump a very strong chance of winning the state but, B, makes it unclear whether anyone will emerge from that group to truly -- from New Hampshire with the momentum to consolidate that block of the party, which after all has picked the last two nominees and yet -- Mitt Romney and John McCain, and yet finds itself without a horse three weeks before Iowa.

VAUSE: Now we talked about someone going after Donald Trump. Jeb Bush tried. He's also chasing that sort of establishment vote.

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

VAUSE: That third ticket if you like. He seemed to be really taking it to Trump on policy issues. In particular one instance was on Trump's temporary Muslim travel ban. Let's look at that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there anything you've heard that makes you want to rethink this position?

TRUMP: No. No.

BUSH: I hope you reconsider this because this policy is a policy that makes it impossible to build the coalition necessary to take out ISIS. The Kurds are our strongest allies. They're Muslim. You're not going to even allow them come to our country?

TRUMP: I want security for this country. OK? I want security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: You know, David, in that room if you listened to the cheers they were sort of lukewarm reception for what Jeb Bush had to say. There was a loud roar for what Donald Trump had to say. That kind of says it all, doesn't it?

[01:10:08] CHALIAN: Yes. That's right there. The success of the Trump candidacy so far. Just completely ignore the arguments that Jeb Bush is making there and just get back to a basic truism obviously that everybody would like security and Donald Trump just takes that, cuts everything else away, and says this is what it's all about, folks. And people are responding to that.

You know, Jeb Bush has been taking it to Donald Trump on the campaign trail quite a bit. Even some paid advertising from his super PAC, from his own campaign. And now he's doing it on the debate stage as well. It's not necessarily sort of elevating Jeb Bush in this race, but it does seem to be now the path he is committed to.

VAUSE: OK. There was another sort of skirmish if you like between the other sort of lesser candidates, the lower-ranking candidates. This one was actually between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. And these guys have been going at each other. They've got similar sort of resumes, if you like. But this time in this debate it seemed Rubio really unloaded. He went after Cruz on his voting record in the Senate. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO: Ted Cruz, you used to say you supported doubling the number of green cards. Now you say that you're against it. You used to support a 500 percent increase in the number of guest workers. Now you say that you're against it. You used to support legalizing people that were here illegally. Now you say you're against it. You used to say that you were in favor of birthright citizenship. Now you say that you're against it.

And by the way, it's not just on immigration. You used to support TPA. Now you say you're against it. I saw you on the Senate floor flip your vote on crop insurance because they told you it would help you in Iowa. And last week we all saw you flip your vote on ethanol in Iowa for the same reason.

That is not consistent conservatism. That is political calculation. When I'm president, I will work consistently every single day to keep this country safe, not call Edward Snowden, as you did, a great public servant. Edward Snowden is a traitor. And if I am president and we get our hands on him he is standing trial for treason.

And one more point. One more point. One more point. Every single time that there has been a defense bill in the Senate three people team up to vote against it. Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz. CRUZ: I appreciate your dumping your oppo research folder on the

debate.

MARCO: No, it's your record.

CRUZ: But I will say --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: You think they like each other?

CRUZ: At least half of the things Marco said are flat-out false. They're absolutely false. So let's start --

(CROWD BOOS)

CRUZ: Let's start with immigration. Let's start with immigration and have a little bit of clarity. Marco stood with Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama on amnesty. I stood with Jeff Sessions and Steve King. Marco stood today, standing on this stage, Marco supports legalization and citizenship for 12 million illegals.

I opposed and oppose legalization and citizenship. And by the way, the attack he keeps throwing out on the military budget. Marco knows full well I voted for his amendment to increase military spending to $697 billion. What he said, and he said it in the last debate, it's simply not true. And as president I will rebuild the military and keep this country --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. We have --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: That seemed like a very big hit delivered by Marco Rubio. I felt it came a bit late. I think the rules of the debate is if you're going to go big go early.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think it was the biggest single hit that has been delivered on Ted Cruz in any debate.

VAUSE: Yes .

BROWNSTEIN: Especially for someone who presents himself as a conviction conservative. But I think if you're Donald Trump watching the candidates who are two and three in the polls behind you tearing each other apart as someone tweeted, you're probably eating popcorn and enjoying watching that and one other point. The engagements around immigration and basically accusing each other, debating who can move furthest to the right on immigration is a sign of how the Trumpian gravitational field really has pulled Republicans toward a message that is a huge roll of the dice in the general election in a rapidly diversifying America and how far they've come from where they were immediately after the 2012 election.

Don't lose sight of what is said in the primaries, how it can reverberate into the general election, regardless of who the candidate is. They have now camped out a position that could be problematic.

VAUSE: Well, Mitt Romney learned that lesson four years ago.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

VAUSE: But, David, back to you. Rubio seems to be campaigning on this electability argument, that he was sort of the nice guy with the positive message in this field. It seemed that he moved away from that in a big way tonight.

CHALIAN: Well, the challenge for Marco Rubio, you just saw it in the two exchanges you played tonight, the exchange with Cruz and earlier the exchange with Christie. He has to sort of fight this two-front war right now. So he's fighting those guys you talked about in New Hampshire and in more establishment lane but there's still this very heated Cruz-Rubio thing going on that Ron was just talking about.

That is a tricky proposition for a candidate to be in right now, to be having sort of fight in both directions. And that I think is a big challenge for Marco Rubio.

[01:15:04] VAUSE: David, thank you.

Ron, very quickly, in terms of substance how did this debate -- did we learn anything? I mean, was this essentially just candidates going after each other and trying to like -- who's the toughest guy here, who can hate Hillary the most?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, I think there wasn't a lot -- there wasn't a huge amount of substance. You have to preview some of the general election arguments. It's kind of odd when only one party is on the stage. But I do think the Trump doubling down on kind of the protectionist, kind of the mercantilist approach on China was striking. But other than that there was -- I think there was less -- you know, less of a policy debate than you might have expected and more about going after each other's record.

VAUSE: Then we'll get to the China stuff after the break. So hope you're going to stay with us. We appreciate you being with us.

David Chalian there in South Carolina. Thank you for being with us.

We will take a short break here.

CHALIAN: Thank you.

VAUSE: But when we come back we'll continue to break down the Republican debate. We'll have a panel of experts weighing in on how they saw all this play out for the candidates. And those other candidates that we haven't talked about yet.

Plus the U.S. offering an explanation as to why 10 American sailors unexpectedly ended up in Iranian waters earlier this week. We'll have that later in the hour.

Stay with us. You're watching CNN. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(SPORTS)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You've been getting good reviews. Can you explain why this felt different than in the past?

[01:20:05] TRUMP: Well, I think we've had all good debates. I mean I think every one of them was good. That's why I'm leading. If I didn't have good debates I wouldn't be leading. But a lot of people said this was my best debate. And I don't know if it was or not but I felt very, very good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: That is Donald Trump speaking a short time ago to our Dana Bash.

Welcome back, everybody. Just gone 20 past 10:00 here on the West Coast, and we're live with our continuing coverage of what was a very animated Republican debate.

Ron Brownstein, our senior political analyst, is still with us. And also John Thomas, who's a Republican strategist.

So, John, we heard from Donald Trump. He thought it was a very good debate. A lot of people seemed to agree with him. We looked at some of the instant polling, they said he walked away with it. Do you think he did and why?

JOHN THOMAS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I don't know that he walked away with it. I think it was more a case of everyone was attacking everybody else and Donald remained the least attacked of the bunch.

VAUSE: He seemed a lot more animated, though, this time than he has than on previous debates.

THOMAS: He did. But he has to because he does have to draw a contrast between Ted Cruz and himself in Iowa. We are just a few weeks away. So that was notable. But I think if you look at it from a whole Donald Trump got attacked the least.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. He was kind of floating above it like a Macy's -- you know, a Macy's parade float. I mean it was --

VAUSE: A big orange float up there.

BROWNSTEIN: You would not have thought watching that debate that this was the guy leading in the national polls, leading in New Hampshire, right on the brink of possibly winning Iowa and New Hampshire which no one has done in the Republican race since Gerald Ford I think in 1976. And yet there was no sense of urgency or confidence I think in the way the other candidates approached him.

VAUSE: We're talking about Donald Trump. And one area that I thought really brought him to life, he was really animated when he was talking about China and when he was talking about trade and he was talking about this tariff, 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods. This is some of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If they don't stop treating us fairly and stop devaluing and let their currency rise so that our companies can compete, and we don't lose all of these millions of jobs that we're losing, I would certainly start taxing goods that come in from China.

BUSH: This would be devastating for our economy. We need someone with a steady hand being president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Real quick, Senator. Good ahead, Senator Cruz. And then we have to get to tax reform.

TRUMP: And we don't need a weak person being president of the United States. OK? Because that's what we get if it were -- I tell you what. We don't need that. We don't need that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: You know, Ron, there is classic Trump tactics. Just hit Jeb Bush straight back. But I thought that this was Trump hitting on those populist themes that he hits on.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

VAUSE: You know, the China trade, the Muslim travel ban, and not letting him be hit most tonight.

BROWNSTEIN: No. Absolutely. And I think that you see in this debate how demographic change ultimately produces policy change. You had a generation of white working class voters realigning into the Republican Party and what that has done is provide an audience for an argument that fundamentally rejects the internationalist, free trading, open expansive immigration policies that have dominated the party since World War II.

And Trump is making a consistent, coherent argument toward predominantly the blue-collar wing of the Republican Party that rejects all of those ideas, also throws in ideas like the Muslim ban. Praised police tonight.

VAUSE: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Also another kind of note for this one. He was focused I thought like a laser on his constituency in this debate and a constituency that really didn't exist to this extent 20, 25 years ago in the Republican Party.

VAUSE: OK. So he was focused on basically the Trump supporters who were watching but it seemed to be a different mood inside that hall.

M.J. Lee, our political reporter, is actually in South Carolina. She's with us now.

So, M.J., did it feel that the crowd wasn't really quite with Trump? It seemed like he was getting booed a lot more than he has in the past.

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: That's true. He did get some boos. But I want to say that, you know, one of the most powerful moments actually I think from the debate and I saw on Twitter, you know, Democrats, Republicans, both saying that this was a good moment for Trump, was when he responded to the New York values criticism from Cruz. Right?

He spoke pretty passionately and personally about watching the World Trade Towers come down after 9/11 and just talking about the resiliency of the people of New York and the people of New York City. And that was actually a very good moment for him.

So, yes, I think at any debate Trump is going to get the boos and people who disagree with him or are critical of him but I do think that there were some strong moments for Trump in tonight's debate.

VAUSE: Yes. Absolutely. And, John, who we haven't really talked about during this debate, Ben Carson. Now -- the neurosurgeon. He got a couple of good laughs. This was one of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I'm very happy to get a question this early on. I was going to ask you to wake me up when the time came.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Hey, it's a funny line.

THOMAS: Right.

VAUSE: It is really hard to believe that this guy was leading the polls in November. So what's happened here?

THOMAS: Well, a bunch has happened.

[01:25:02] The idea that, you know, terrorism is the number one issue, and that hasn't been Ben Carson's strength. And he showed -- you know, he had to suspend his campaign to take a trip to Israel to bone up on the issues. I think the electorate has kind of shifted away from him.

And also the electorate wants somebody who's as angry as they are. And I think that was always the disconnect. I know early on the evangelicals did like Ben Carson a lot but he just never exuded the enthusiasm that he's going to go into D.C. and shake it up. So the issues have largely lost him. And he peaked too early. VAUSE: Yes. Ron, it seemed like an odd strategy for John Kasich to

keep talking about the amount of time that he has spent on congressional committees in an election cycle when everyone hates Washington.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

VAUSE: And again, this is a guy who on paper looks great but just hasn't performed well.

BROWNSTEIN: That's a really good point. But I think, you know, his core message tonight was kind of striking. It was, you know, we have to work together to solve problems, which again is kind of -- in fact, is the reality in a closely divided country but is not really the tenor and the current of this Republican primary.

Still potentially a vice president I suppose for the right Republican nominee. But after this campaign. Look, and even as we say that, he is still in the mix in New Hampshire. And that's part of the problem that the center right has that none of these four candidates who are kind of competing for that have emerged from that group and are all kind of cannibalizing each other in a place that usually anoints the favored from that wing of the party. --

THOMAS: I think Kasich looks at this and saying he's got a narrow lane to own, that bipartisan, that fiscal watch, and if he can own it better than anybody else and be consistent maybe there's a path to New Hampshire.

VAUSE: M.J., back to you. This all seem like hard-nosed politics tonight, it was a rough and tumble, and in some ways it seemed that these candidates are vying to see who can hate Hillary Clinton more.

LEE: Yes, that's right. I mean, this is an issue that all of the candidates have in the back of their minds to a certain degree. But going after Hillary Clinton at this point in the cycle doesn't do them a lot of good since, you know, the first votes haven't even been cast yet. Iowa's still a couple of weeks away. Right? So I think it's always a good political move for these Republican candidates to be able to show their audience, look, we are capable of taking on Hillary Clinton come next November. However, Iowa still hasn't happened.

I think a lot of these candidates are laser focused on winning Iowa, doing well in New Hampshire, and you know, taking it one day at a time. And I think Hillary Clinton, as good of an opponent in the abstract is she would make for these candidates, I think it's sort of a mixed bag how much these candidates would want to focus on her at this point in the cycle.

VAUSE: And we made the point that Iowa is, what, 17, 18 days away? And John, I'm wondering, is that one of the reasons why there seemed to be a lot more passion and a lot more anger in this debate?

THOMAS: It's a make or break debate. I mean, and that thing like Ron said really happened tonight, did shift the debate -- the standings. But this was their last attempt. If they didn't break out tonight -- (CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: I guess I was struck that there was more urgency in the second-tier candidates going after each other than there was in their attempt to make a case against the guy who's leading them all and is in position to potentially put them in a very difficult position in a matter of weeks if someone doesn't make a case against him.

THOMAS: You're right. But I think everyone is trying to position themselves as the anti-Trump. The establishment -- the choice, if you don't like Trump because the establishment's saying at some point Trump's going to implode.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: There is still a ceiling.

VAUSE: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Which may or may not --

VAUSE: I think Ron's point is that that's not really the argument anymore. That essentially someone's got to take him down.

BROWNSTEIN: Especially after Nikki Haley, you know, tried to make the case I think and made the case pretty pointedly in the State of the Union response. Except for Jeb Bush to some extent you do not hear anybody kind of pick up on those arguments. And even Cruz, as I say, if you're going to throw a pitch, you've got to throw it with conviction. If you want to say Donald Trump isn't a real conservative, don't blame it on the city of New York. Put the label on Donald Trump himself which he did not do.

VAUSE: OK. We got to leave it there. Ron, thank you. John, thank you for coming in. M.J. in North Charleston, thank you for also being with us.

It was a very interesting debate. And we're going to be talking about this for a while.

THOMAS: Yes.

VAUSE: Thank you both. Thank you, M.J., as well.

Well, U.S. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton appeared on the "Jimmy Fallon" show on Thursday. It was recorded before the Republican debate. She confessed she wishes she could fast-forward through it all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON": You have to watch the debates, right?

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, usually I'm not home when the debates are going on. FALLON: Yes.

CLINTON: I have other things that I'm out doing. So I do try to catch up on them.

FALLON: What is it like?

CLINTON: And I'd love to be able to fast forward.

(LAUGHTER)

FALLON: That's always nice. That's always fun. But what is it -- is it Hillary Clinton with a bowl of popcorn and just sitting back with a glass of wine watching and going, oh, this is -- that's wrong or that's -- do you watch with Bill? Does Bill watch as well?

[01:30:00] CLINTON: Sometimes. Yes. Yes.

FALLON: Does he get into it? Does he like -- like stand up and like a football coach, like, that's not how you do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Well, Secretary Clinton clearly watched nine debates. She was tweeting about it at one point she wrote, "Here's the truth. You can't make America greater by insulting, shaming and demonizing the people of America."

And her competitor, Bernie Sanders, also weighed in as well, tweeting, "I have a message for Donald Trump. No, we're not going to hate Latinos or Muslims. We're going to stand together.

A short break here on CNN. When we come back, Thursday's deadly attack in Indonesia. We'll have new information on the accused militant in charge.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Just gone 10:34 here on the West coast. I'm John Vause.

Time to check the headlines.

(HEADLINES)

VAUSE: ISIS says it is behind Thursday's terror attack in Jakarta. Indonesian police say the blasts killed two people and wounded 24 others. Officials believe the Indonesian militant behind the attack instructed members of his terror cells from Syria.

Let's get more on this now. CNN law enforcement analyst and retired FBI special agent, Steve Moore, is with me right now.

Steve, Indonesia's been hit with a number of terror attacks. The last was 2009, the Bali bombing in 2002, also in 2003, the Marriott Hotel that was hit by a suicide bomber.

[01:35:16] STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: That was my case.

VAUSE: You worked that case, took the lead for the FBI investigation. Those other attacks were linked in some way to al Qaeda in.

MOORE: Yes.

VAUSE: This one is linked to ISIS. Apart from that what is the difference?

MOORE: That's the sea change. Gemma Islamiah (ph) had pretty much all of Indonesia and the southern Philippines. But I think that's happening is ISIS is taking their membership away in this new group started by Barum Bayum (ph). What the future is going to be is the attacks, small unit attacks is going to be the new 9/11. You do 20 or 30 of those and it's going to have the same effect.

VAUSE: For our viewers not familiar with Gemma Islamiah (ph), they're a home-grown Southeast Asia Islamic terror group.

MOORE: Yes. They are homegrown. They work mainly in Indonesia and in the southern Philippines. This new group works in Indonesia and up the Malay Peninsula. West of where the other one was.

VAUSE: How much of these guys are actually loyal to ISIS and how much is it that these guys are hitching their wagon to whatever Islamic group is the one that seems to be strongest at the time?

MOORE: That's good insight. Everyone you see are band-wagoners. They are going with the team that's winning. So al Qaeda is staking a deposit. And ISIS is picking up all the people disenfranchised or feeling like they never get to do stuff.

VAUSE: These guys hit a Starbucks, office buildings, the U.N., embassies. Part from embassies and the U.N. Building we're looking at restaurants, cafes. These are soft starts. Again what we can do to protect those areas.

MOORE: The Indonesians have a very robust system. And again, we've discussed this before, where they have soldiers on the street at least paramilitary on the street with automatic weapons. They're all over the place. That is what stopped this so quickly. The other thing we're seeing here that's really interesting, in a sad way, is they're finding they can hit Western targets -- this was a Western area of Jakarta with a Chili's, McDonald, all these things. They don't have to go very far to hit westerners.

VAUSE: Talking about how having security on the ground to stop these guys, if you got to that point it's too late. All of this, if you haven't got the intelligence beforehand, if you haven't rounded these guys up, that's where the real action is, right?

MOORE: Yes, John. But the point I'm making with is with this leadership resistance it is going to be almost impossible to stop all of these attacks because these people decide on their own. The only person they talk about is these themselves. And they decide on these attacks and do them themselves. You can possibly pick them up as you're trying to get the case but you're going to have a real quick window where you can get them.

VAUSE: It's not like the Israelis where you've gone through 70 background checks and security checks before you go into the building. The times are changing.

MOORE: No. Right.

VAUSE: Steve Moore, thanks for being with us.

Still to come on CNN NEWSROOM, the U.S. is offering an explanation as to why 10 American sailors unexpectedly entered Iranian waters this week. More on that when we come back.

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[01:41:53] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching NEWSROOM L.A. all around the world.

The U.S. secretary of defense says a navigational error caused 10 American sailors to enter Iranian waters earlier this week though within three miles of Iran's Farsi Island when Iranians took them captive. A U.S. official says the sailors now released appear to be fine physically but they're tired and upset.

Here's Jim Sciutto.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The two U.S. Navy boats had drifted into Iranian territorial waters near an island where an Iranian naval base is located when Revolutionary Guards, their guns drawn, boarded the boats and disarmed the 10 U.S. sailors.

5th Fleet commanders became alarmed when the sailors missed a planned check-in call. The base consulted the boats' on-bored GPS system and discovered the vessels were inside Iranian waters.

The Navy then launched a search-and-rescue operation by sea and air. One Navy helicopter spotting the boats moored on shore, leading them to conclude the nine men and one woman were in Iranian custody.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. SAILOR: It was a misunderstanding.

SCIUTTO: What happened next is sparking even more outrage, both inside and outside the military. Iran broadcast and rebroadcast images of the captured sailors on their knees across the world.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R), ARIZONA: They now are taking our American servicemen and putting them on their knees, taking off their shoes and having them hold their hands over their head. That's not the way the United States of America would have been treated under any other president that I know of. SCIUTTO: Administration officials continue to insist the standoff

could have been much worse without the diplomatic channels resulting from nuclear negotiations with Iran.

JOHN KIRBY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: The video on the face of it, it's difficult to watch. I mean, there's no question about that. And nobody likes to see our sailors in that position. But we got our sailors back in less than 24 hours. And nobody got hurt.

SCIUTTO: The nuclear deal would take effect as soon as this weekend including the end of punishing economic sanctions on Iran, freeing up tens of millions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen overseas.

The taking of the U.S. sailors is the latest in a series of provocations by Tehran. In December, firing a barrage of rockets near an American aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. In October, testing a ballistic missile in violation, say U.S. officials, of a U.N. resolution banning such tests. In addition, Iran continues to hold four American steps on what the U.S. calls baseless or trumped-up charges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT LEVINSON, FORMER FBI AGENT: Please, help me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: And they believe they also know the whereabouts of former FBI Agent Robert Levinson who went missing in Iran in 2007, which Iran denies.

UNIDENTIFIED: I think this administration's willing to stomach just about anything to make sure this deal goes ahead.

SCIUTTO (on camera): The Geneva Conventions prohibit countries from parading members of foreign militaries. But the State Department said today that the Geneva Conventions do not apply here because the U.S. and Iran are not at war.

Jim Sciutto, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[11:45:05] VAUSE: Short break here. When we come back, the #Oscarsowhite is trending for the second consecutive year. We'll talk about the minorities considered to have been snubbed at the Oscar nominations.

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(SINGING)

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VAUSE: That's Adele there singing her hit "Hello" while taking a spin around London with television host, James Corden. Corden picked up his friend for his latest carpool karaoke episode. Adele proved she doesn't just stick to the old ballads. She and Corden sang along with some fellow Brits. The Spice Girls, and Adele rapped with ease to Nicki Minaj.

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[01:50:18] VAUSE: Enjoying themselves. Corden has picked up a couple other notable celebrities for his specials, including Stevie Wonder and Rod Stewart. Rod Stewart would have been interesting.

This may finally be the year for actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The nominations for the academy are in and Leonardo DiCaprio is nominated for his lead role in "The Revenant."

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LEONARDO DICAPRIO, ACTOR: There was a boy, and they took him from me. Do you understand?

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VAUSE: "The Revenant" took the most number of nominations. 12 in total. And this is the fifth acting Oscar nomination for DiCaprio.

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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I'm the one who runs from both the living and the dead. A man reduced --

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VAUSE: "Mad Max" Fury Road," second most number of nominations with 10. Other films nominated for best picture are "The Martian," and for that Matt Damon nominated for best actor. Also best film, "Room," "Brooklyn, "The Big Short," "Spotlight," and "Bridge of Spies." These lists seem to be getting longer each year.

Now, many people on Twitter are blasting the Oscars after no ethic minorities were nominated in the main acting categories for the second consecutive year. And the #Oscarsowhite is trending. Some minorities considered to have been snubbed, Idris Elba, for his role as a rebel commander in "beasts of No Nation." Will Smith for playing a doctor in the film "Concussion." Michael B. Jordan in "Creed," which is a sequel to Rocky and best one so far. Sylvester Stallone was nominated for best supporting actor in that film. And the cast of "Straight Outta Compton" for which two of the white co-writers were actually nominated. The irony.

Rebecca Sun with us now. She's a senior reporter with the "Hollywood Reporter."

Rebecca, thanks for being with us.

What's actually going on here? This is second year it has happened. It's not a case that the act mi doesn't have options out there. There's a lot of good talent. So exactly what's happening here for minorities as far as diversity?

REBECCA SUN, SENIOR REPORTER, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Yeah, it basically shows you that progress is going to be really slow. I think people were really surprised this year that we again saw 20 all-white nominees. Partly because of the backlash of the year before when "Selma" failed to be nominated and now where you felt there's not just one movie, there are at least five viable contenders and they were all shut out completely. It does show it's going to take a while for the academy membership to sort of diversify and change. As well you just need to keep putting more movies out there in the pipeline. Hollywood studios, last year they had "Selma," this year they have five vulnerable contenders. Can they keep increasing that number?

VAUSE: I guess the other argument is there's not enough lead roles or major roles for minorities as well. And that's a problem, right?

SUN: I'm reminded of what Viola Davis said in her Emmy speech. She said the only thing separating women of color from anyone else is opportunity. And that really goes across the board, whether you're talking about minority actors or directors or anything else.

VAUSE: This as we mentioned has been trending on the Twitterverse, Oscar so white. Let's look at some of the reaction. "Whoa, the attendance at this Trump rally sure is high class. Oh, never mind, it's just the Oscar nominations." "Best picture may go to Straight Outta Martha's Vineyard."

SUN: Zing.

VAUSE: That's a good zinger. People are onto this. Does academy listen to this kind of criticism?

SUN: The academy is listening.

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VAUSE: But not doing anything about it.

(LAUGHTER)

SUN: The leadership is listening. The voting members -- because the academy has about 6200 voting members, and the leadership, the President Sheldon Isaacs is an African-American woman and in November she announced this initiative called a-20 where in five years they want to really look at diversifying the membership. They're slowly doing that. They're inviting younger people to join the academy, more diverse people. But it's going to take a while for that population to change. VAUSE: What about people who say listen, if they were any good they'd

be nominated, this is sour grapes, you know, this isn't about a color thing, this is about a talent thing. As, this is, as you say, almost 7,000 people voting. It can't be a conspiracy.

SUN: It's not a deliberate conspiracy. But the problem is when you look at the fact the academy membership is like 94 percent white it's unconscious bias is what's happening.

VAUSE: 94 percent white. Old male. White, yes?

SUN: Yes. Old white male. And that reflects their taste. It's natural. If you ask a different constituency what their favorite -- it's not going to resonate with them as much.

VAUSE: And it's interesting that this issue comes up for Hollywood, the liberal elite, the left coast. This is the organization which is meant to be progressive, which is meant to break down stereotypes. This is what movies are often made to do, is to challenge the way we think. So I guess in some ways does that mean this whole progressive liberal image of Hollywood to some extent is a little bit bogus, if you like?

[01:55:25] SUN: There is a disconnect, and I think it's totally fair to point that out. The academy represents a very elite small percentage of that. If you look at what's out there on television now, much, much diverse than this film landscape. Even movies, all the movies still exist it's just the fact when you get to that really top-tier, we're not putting our money where our mouth is.

VAUSE: This is going to be a generation issue. As the academy changes and the views change and people wake up. But how long do people have to wait for these changes to occur? That's the question.

Rebecca, again, thank you for coming in. Appreciate it.

SUN: Thank you so much.

VAUSE: Appreciate it.

You've been watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.

Please stay with us. The news continues with George Howell at the CNN Center in Atlanta after a very short break.

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