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Water Crisis; Trump vs. Cruz; Machete Attack. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 12, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:02]

JENNA WORTHAM, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": We should be placing that anger towards a system that lets people who are unarmed and often, you know, not doing anything wrong get injured and killed, rather than the singer who's trying to bring our attention to it.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: What's her last line about people getting -- the conversation, she started it. And good on her.

WORTHAM: Yes, she always starts the conversation.

BALDWIN: Jenna Wortham, thank you very much. She knows how to do it. Jenna, thank you. See you next time.

WORTHAM: Thanks, Brooke.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: All right, top of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Well,et's begin with this breaking news here out of Columbus, Ohio. Police there have identified a man allegedly involved in a brutal machete attack inside of a deli there.

Let's go straight to our justice correspondent, Evan Perez, who's been working this for us.

Evan, please start at the beginning. What the heck happened?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, this man, according to police and according to witnesses at this restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, walked in and simply started slashing some diners who were sitting right there by the door.

He attacked them with a machete, according to the diners and according to police. They have now identified him this afternoon, Brooke, as Mohammad Barry. He is 30 years old. And the FBI has now joined the investigations because we're told there are now indications that this may be -- that there may be -- terrorism may be the motive for this attack.

The Columbus police addressed all of this just a little while ago. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM JACOBS, COLUMBUS POLICE CHIEF: In this investigation, we're looking at three different avenues, the felonious assault that happened at the restaurant, the police-involved shooting that happened at Montclair and Stelzer, and the federal investigation of the suspect and his possible motivations.

MIKE WOODS, COLUMBUS POLICE DEPARTMENT: It's obviously one individual, so that's what we base our information off of. That's always a possibility. So start from the beginning, bring everybody in that you have right from the get-go. That way, you're not working backwards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: Brooke, we're told by sources there are no conclusions yet on any terrorism angle, there's no indication of any direction from ISIS, but obviously this is something they're going to look at his background, they're going to look at his computers, they're going to look at his travel to see whether or not there's any indication of any direction there.

This all happened, again, yesterday, at dinnertime. People were in this very popular, very popular Mediterranean restaurant called Nazareth, and this began around 6:00 p.m. And some of the witnesses described this very horrific scene where they had to defend themselves by throwing chairs at this guy. Listen to one witness as she hid, calling 911 next door.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

911 OPERATOR: Nine-one-one. Where's your emergency?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: North Hamilton Road.

911 OPERATOR: The Home Depot?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, we were in Nazareth restaurant.

(CROSSTALK)

911 OPERATOR: What's the address there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know, but some guy pulled out a machete and started stabbing people. I ran out with my kids. I'm at Tim Hortons in the bathroom with my two young kids.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

PEREZ: And, Brooke, one of the indications right now that -- one of the things the officials are looking at is the fact that this is owned by an Israeli man. He is an Arab Christian. They think that perhaps the attacker thought this was an Israeli Jewish-owned business -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Stay on it for us please, sir. Evan Perez, thank you. Now to presidential politics.

Tomorrow, Republican candidates return to the debate stage. For the first time, it will be in South Carolina. But forget about any influence of Southern hospitality here, because the rivalries seem to get nastier, especially between these two front-runners, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Case in point, Mr. Trump tweeting out today -- quote -- "How can Ted Cruz be an evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?"

Let me bring in White House correspondent, senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta, who is following team Trump in Tampa, Florida.

And in addition to that tweet, Jim, Trump dished out another Twitter attack. What was that?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, covering Donald Trump means following him on Twitter. I got to tell you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: True, true.

ACOSTA: And in the last several minutes here, this is one that will have us talking for the rest of afternoon. You know Trump has been furious with Ted Cruz over the last 24 hours, accusing Ted Cruz of doing dishonest push-polling in South Carolina, which is essentially negative attack telemarketing, if you will, in South Carolina before this primary coming up in eight days.

And Donald Trump just tweeted that it has to stop or else. He just says -- and we will put it up on screen -- "If Ted Cruz doesn't clean up his act, stop cheating and doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural-born citizen," this going back to -- we heard a lot about this heading into the Iowa caucuses.

Donald Trump saying Ted Cruz might not be qualified to be president of the United States because he was born in Canada, and Cruz and the Cruz campaign have said time and again, no, no, no, legal scholars have settled this, Cruz was born to an American mother, so, of course, he's eligible to be president.

[15:05:02]

But it just goes to show you how this is heating up. We knew this was going to happen down in South Carolina, Brooke, because it just has a reputation for just, you know, cutthroat politics between these different campaigns, especially because the stakes are so high at this point between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

We should point out we're not even in South Carolina right now.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Yes, why is that? Where's Trump?

ACOSTA: Yes, we're in Florida just -- yes, we're just outside of Tampa. This is the Trump playbook.

He's not at this Faith and Family Forum that is taking place in South Carolina this afternoon. Instead, he's here in Florida, because is the Trump playbook. They leapfrog ahead. They go to these states that are down the calendar, sort of start setting the table. He did this last night in Louisiana. That's where he vowed he's not going to use any more vulgarities out on the campaign trail. Made some news there.

And now he's going to be in Florida this evening here on the campus of the University of South Florida. I have to bet good money at this point, Brooke, that Donald Trump is going to go after Ted Cruz big time and talk about this issue of the negative attacks that are going on in South Carolina and this threat to sue Ted Cruz. We will have to see if it comes to fruition.

BALDWIN: Yes, what was that about yanking his negative ad against Ted Cruz? That lasted for a nanosecond.

Jim Acosta, thank you so much, sir.

I want to jump right on that with chief political analyst Gloria Borger sitting with me here in New York and CNN political commentator Michael Smerconish, host of "SMERCONISH" here on Saturday mornings on CNN.

Hello, hello.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi.

BALDWIN: Let's just talk about that. Guys, if we could throw up the tweet, the most recent tweet from Donald Trump talking about, what is "It, if Cruz doesn't clean up his act, stop cheating and doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural-born citizen."

Sue.

BORGER: Sue.

I don't like what you're doing in this campaign so I think I'm going to sue you. I don't think that works. That may work in real estate to a certain degree, but it really doesn't work in political campaigns. This is kind of ridiculous. By the way, Donald Trump saying that he doesn't like negative ads from somebody else is the pot calling the kettle black I think a little bit, so doesn't work. Doesn't work.

BALDWIN: You jump in.

(CROSSTALK)

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It's a good preview, I think, of what's to come tomorrow night. I have been saying to you all along they're all fighting within their own weight class. It's going to be Cruz and Trump tomorrow night. I think Ben Carson is pretty much a nonentity at this stage.

And then among the establishment lane, you're down to three and they will focus their efforts on one another, because a stumble by Trump doesn't benefit Jeb. A stumble by Cruz doesn't benefit Marco or John Kasich. They have got to consolidate within their own grouping.

BORGER: There are two debates.

BALDWIN: But if you're not Marco Rubio, you don't want to pull a Christie, right, and take him down, but go down with the ship as well? If I'm the other candidates, I'm pretty mindful of that, no?

BORGER: Right. Oh, yes, absolutely.

But I agree with Michael here. You have got these two debates going on. Jeb is very interested now in taking down Rubio, right? And Kasich is there. I'm sure they're going to compete with Kasich as well. But Kasich is eternally optimistic and positive, so it's kind of hard to give him a punch, right?

And then you have got the Cruz and the Trump fight going on, and the hope among the establishment is that one of these guys sort of kills the other one, right?

BALDWIN: So then what was that about? Because we were just talking yesterday about Trump pulling the negative campaign ad against Cruz, but then he's tweeting about, you know, he's questioning his faith, by the way, which is extraordinarily significant to me going into South Carolina, calling him a loser.

SMERCONISH: It's a shock and awe campaign. You remember those expressions? I mean, it's designed, I think, to constantly keep him off his balance. It's Donald Trump always being on the attack. It was almost successful in Iowa, because, you know, Trump really was able to regain ground that he had lost.

(CROSSTALK)

SMERCONISH: Cruz had a head of steam when we were three weeks, four weeks out from Iowa, and Donald Trump came very close to knocking him off by relentless attacks.

BORGER: You can have both though in political campaigns.

BALDWIN: You can.

BORGER: Normally, though -- Trump is doing it sort of in an odd way. Normally, it's the candidate who stays above the fray. And then you have the PAC do the negative advertising and, you know, you're distant from it.

With Donald Trump, it's just the opposite. Donald Trump is tweeting these threats. And this is what it is. It's a threat that I'm going to sue you. And he has a positive ad on the air. So it's kind of the opposite of the way we're used to seeing.

BALDWIN: On the ads, Ted Cruz, they have a couple new ads from their campaign. Here's the one. This is the ode to "Office Space."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SINGING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:10:05]

BALDWIN: So, obviously, this is there -- Hillary Clinton. It's the whole e-mail server bit. Do you think he's winning the memorable ad war?

SMERCONISH: I think it pops and it stands out. I was in a sports bar in New Hampshire on the night of the New Hampshire primary.

BALDWIN: Good for you.

(CROSSTALK)

SMERCONISH: Yes, thank you for that.

(LAUGHTER)

SMERCONISH: I didn't spend enough time there. But they had flat screens all throughout the bar. And to sit there and watch local television was to see commercial after commercial after commercial. That one, we'd stop and we'd watch, wouldn't we?

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: But he's got so many of these cute, funny ads going on that, after a while...

BALDWIN: Conservatives anonymous with the...

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Right, and the children's ad with the Trump doll.

BALDWIN: Yes, action figures.

BORGER: But after a while, they kind of cancel each other out to a degree. And the voters he's going after are very conservative evangelical voters.

BALDWIN: What about the young people?

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Well, this is not Cruz's target in South Carolina. So I don't know whether they work or not.

BALDWIN: George W. Bush, we know he's going to be on the trail for his brother. I believe it's Monday. What version of Bush 43 do you think we're going to see, like, the folksy Texan? SMERCONISH: Yes. Yes. I think he's going to try and play the role

of party sage and brother.

BALDWIN: Does he punch back on Trump?

SMERCONISH: I have got to believe that this weekend some Bush sports -- sportswriter -- speechwriter is going to come up with a very dismissive but clever line that he will hurl into the Donald's direction. I think it's very wise to trot him out now. Wouldn't have been in Iowa, wouldn't have been in New Hampshire.

BALDWIN: Why here?

(CROSSTALK)

SMERCONISH: The evangelical community, the military community, the history with the Bush family, it plays very well. I'm sure this was all calibrated that this would be the moment.

BORGER: Yes, he's very -- overall, Bush has a 77 percent popularity with Republicans.

But with the veterans community, with the military community, I guarantee you it's higher. He's kind of funny, the way his brother isn't. I think people would like to see them interact and see how that goes. The downside is dynasty. You're reminding everybody you're part of this political dynasty.

SMERCONISH: They will worry about that later. That is a general election concern.

BORGER: And in South Carolina, that might not be a bad thing.

BALDWIN: OK. For the Dems, here's the mash-up if you missed the debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: From my perspective, maybe because I understand what President Obama inherited, not only the worst financial crisis, but the antipathy of the Republicans in Congress, I don't think he gets the credit he deserves for being a president...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: ... who got us out of that...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: ... put us on firm ground, and has sent us into the future. And it is a -- the kind of criticism that we've heard from Senator Sanders about our president I expect from Republicans. I do not expect from someone running for the Democratic nomination to succeed President Obama.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (VT-I), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That is...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Madam Secretary, that is a low blow.

But you know what? Last I heard we lived in a democratic society. Last I heard, a United States senator had the right to disagree with the president, including a president who has done such an extraordinary job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Gloria, you first, what did you think?

BORGER: Look, she was hugging President Obama as hard as she could last night and I think he had a problem on that front, given the president's popularity in South Carolina.

Bernie Sanders' problem is when you call for a revolution, you have to say some things you don't like about the person who's running the country. And his problem is the person running the country in the Democratic Party has, what, an 80 or 90 percent approval rating. It's difficult for him and smart of her to make that point, very smart.

SMERCONISH: Not a pitch I think we would have heard her use in Iowa or New Hampshire, but now given the electorate changing in terms of its complexion, the diversity aspect, she wants everybody to know, I am tethered to this president at this moment.

BORGER: And then the general election comes if she's the nominee.

SMERCONISH: Little different.

BORGER: Not so much. Third Obama term, oops.

BALDWIN: Gloria Borger, Michael Smerconish, thank you both so much. Don't miss Mr. Smerconish here Saturday mornings 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. here on CNN. Thank you.

BORGER: Sure.

BALDWIN: The Republicans left standing set to face off again tomorrow. How will they avoid a moment like Marco Rubio most recently had? We will discuss that.

Also ahead, the man who died during a choke hold by New York police officers in Staten Island, his daughter is now endorsing Bernie Sanders with an emotional new video. We will talk to her live.

And the crisis in Flint. Did the tainted water cause women there to have miscarriages? A new investigation is under way. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:19:03] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for

being with me.

Look, there's a lot at stake tomorrow night in Greenville, South Carolina. It is indeed debate night for the Republicans still running for president. Keep this in mind. South Carolina is known for bare- knuckle, get down and dirty political fighting.

So tomorrow night could be a barn burner, to borrow a phrase. Already, Trump has been attacking Cruz, calling him a liar. Cruz has been punching back. Marco Rubio is hitting hard, both at Trump and Bush.

Whatever gloves there were, they're off.

Joining me, chief political correspondent Dana Bash and CNN political commentator Buck Sexton.

Happy Friday, you two.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Happy Friday.

BALDWIN: Dana, let's begin with this Trump tweet. We were just chatting with Jim Acosta about it. And we can throw it up on the screen. Basically, it's this. This is Trump.

"If Ted Cruz doesn't clean up his act, stop cheating and doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural-born citizen."

Why is he going back to this?

[15:20:01]

BASH: Right, he's going old-school. That was like so three weeks ago.

BALDWIN: So three weeks ago.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: If you came to me when I was looking down, it's because I was just texting to see if the Cruz campaign had any kind of reaction. If nothing else, they are known to have some maybe pop culture or pithy reaction.

BALDWIN: Trumper tantrum happening.

BASH: There you go, exactly.

But, look, I think if you go back in time to Iowa when Donald Trump started to needle Cruz about his citizenship, that was kind of the beginning of the end of their bromance, of their relationship. It didn't do very much for Donald Trump in Iowa, however.

Remember, Ted Cruz still won handily the Iowa caucuses. So it's unclear kind of where he's going with this in South Carolina or maybe it's just that he is really genuinely upset and angry about the fact that Ted Cruz has been hitting Donald Trump very hard, not just on the stump, but with paid advertising now, going after him on that eminent domain issue, saying he's out for just himself and he bulldozed a woman's house in Atlantic City, the same storyline that Jeb Bush tried in New Hampshire or Iowa, I believe.

So I think also -- I don't want to say it's getting personal because that happened a long time ago. But it is increasingly, increasingly personal.

BALDWIN: Buck, I want you to jump in, but also the notion, listen, if you're a real estate mogul, you threat, you sue. If you are running to be the president of this country, do you threat to sue? Does that fly in politics?

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Only if you're Donald Trump. This is an attack that he has deployed before.

He threatens to litigate when he thinks they're saying something he doesn't like. Look, this is huge stakes right now. When you look at -- the stakes here couldn't be any higher. If Trump is able to run in South Carolina, the perception is going to be that he can essentially win anywhere. And those national polls that show him way ahead seem to have a lot more -- will have a lot more resonance, I think.

It will be clear that momentum is with him. I think the Cruz campaign realizes if they're going to sort of make a Waterloo for Trump, South Carolina is as good a place as they will have and so that's why it's getting nasty. The gloves are off.

BALDWIN: So, it's getting nasty. I don't know though if this is sort of passive-aggressive, because sometimes when you watch them on stage at debates and they don't necessarily go at it, I think of Saturday night and Donald Trump standing in middle of all those guys sort of like watching the ping-pong match.

It was like the circling firing squad with the other candidates, but not Trump. Does it change Saturday?

SEXTON: I think you will see kind of a two-track race on Saturday.

There will be some candidates, Marco Rubio and a couple of the others, who will go after Trump a little bit because they feel like they have to, but it's really going to be Ted Cruz vs. Trump, because they're vying to win this thing. And then there is really going to be this sort of fight for the second runner-up.

(CROSSTALK)

SEXTON: It will be Rubio, Bush. Kasich doesn't really have a shot. Ben Carson is a lovely man. He doesn't really have a shot either at this point.

(CROSSTALK) SEXTON: Lovely man, but it's really a three-person race, but that third slot is not yet entirely decided. If you look at the numbers that are spread out between Bush, Kasich, Carson and Rubio, you add all those together and you basically have Trump numbers.

So I think that's the case that's being made here is, look, if the others drop out, whoever gets those votes will be in the top spot and that's the hope for the establishment right now.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Dana. Go ahead.

BASH: No, I was just going to say, I think that's true. I think many of these candidates, though, are fighting a multifront war.

For example, Ted Cruz, he's going after Donald Trump, but he's also going after Marco Rubio. That was the whole ad they ended up having to pull because -- or at least they decided to pull because one of the actors they hired was in a soft-core porn film.

But that aside, I think that that's why this debate and the situation is going to be so combustible because so many of these candidates are having to kind of try to, you know, punch left, punch right, if you will.

One thing I just want to add on the Trump threatening to sue issue is that, yes, it could be his go-to because that is what you do if you're a real estate mogul, you try to tie things up in court, but in this case, it's also that the whole concept of Ted Cruz being or not being eligible to be president hasn't been tested in the courts.

So his threat to sue is also saying, I'm going to try to test it. I'm going to try to get it into the courts to try to push it up so it can be something that is litigated. It's kind of -- he's got a political angle there, as well as a legal one.

SEXTON: I just want to say with fewer candidates, by the way, and also in South Carolina, Donald Trump's shtick, such as it is, may not play as well in South Carolina. There's going to be a lot time for Ted Cruz to go after him on substance.

I think he may expose Donald in a way in South Carolina that he hasn't been before.

BALDWIN: OK. Thank you for my segue.

SEXTON: Oh.

BALDWIN: Let me look at you and ask you this. So, Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck, listen, South Carolina, I'm from the South, it's a group of prayerful people. And you had Glenn Beck yesterday really emotional, I think he was in tears, talking about his own faith. We know he's a supporter of Cruz. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GLENN BECK, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: This week, I turned 52. During the Constitutional Convention, George Washington was 55.

[15:25:00]

I heard that this week and I thought, my gosh, you have wasted your life. You have wasted so much time in your -- and not doing the right thing for so long. George Washington, 55, was a man that was so honorable, that people would just sit, no matter the disagreement between themselves, they would sit together because he was in the room.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I should point out, full disclosure, that is your boss.

SEXTON: It is indeed.

BALDWIN: That said, you know, how does Donald Trump play to that same kind of crowd?

SEXTON: I think what Donald hasn't really proven yet and what actually most of the polls show he will have a lot of difficulty with are real conservatives, ideological conservatives.

He's built this sort of coalition that includes independents, people that are kind of new to voting, people that even might have been Democrats in the past, as well as the segment of disaffected, generally speaking, lower middle class white males.

That's kind of the Trump coalition. It's not people who are conservatives in the Deep South, in places like South Carolina, and so I think someone like Ted Cruz is going to have a much easier time appealing to people that are ideologically conservative, that aren't just voting for a candidate because they're angry at the establishment or they feel like they have been left out of the political process in some way.

So, again, if Trumpism plays in South Carolina, it's a huge message that in fact enough conservatives support him that maybe the Trump coalition is in fact what wins at the end on the GOP side of this race. That's why I think South Carolina is so big.

BALDWIN: Ms. Bash, final thoughts?

BASH: He can't say this because it will look like he's sucking up to his boss, but I can, because I don't work for The Blaze or any conservative media.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: You can't overestimate the power of conservative radio still and of somebody like Glenn Beck.

I watched Glenn Beck on the stump with Ted Cruz in Iowa and I watched the way the audience reacted with the same kind of speech. I believe he was still holding -- it was the same book, George Washington's copy of "Don Quixote." And he goes into this whole long story about how he decided to go home and read "Don Quixote" because he was done.

And then he realized that he had the calling. I mean, he has a very dramatic flair to him. And it works. And it matters. Support like that for conservatives, you cannot buy that.

BALDWIN: Dana Bash, Buck Sexton, thank you both.

SEXTON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Next here, we are taking you to Flint, Michigan, investigating the failures in Flint. Could the health crisis stretch far beyond the effects of lead poisoning in children?

Scientists now trying to determine if there's a link between women and miscarriages in this area, this as we learned Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder will now face a congressional hearing.

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