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CNN NEWSROOM

Latest on US Presidential Election; GOP Candidates Square Off in Detroit, Michigan; Mitt Romney Joins Fight Against Donald Trump. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired March 4, 2016 - 01:00   ET

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


[01:00:06] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this Sunday I'll be moderating the Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan. 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Hope you joins us.

Now "CNN NEWSROOM."

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. Thanks for being with us. I'm John Vause in Los Angeles. It has just gone 10:00 p.m. here on the West Coast. And we will begin with the showdown in Motown.

The 11th Republican presidential debate in Detroit, Michigan. Four candidates were on stage. But there was just one very big target. Frontrunner Donald Trump. Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz went after Trump's business record, his temperament, his lack of policy detail, and the failed Trump University, which is at the center of an ongoing fraud case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's trying to do to the American voter what he did to the people that signed up for this course. He's making promises he has no intentions of keeping. And it won't just be $36,000 that they lose. It's our country that's at stake here. The future of the United States and the most important election in a generation. And he's trying to con people into giving him their vote just like he conned these people into giving them their money.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let me tell you the real con artist. Excuse me. Excuse me. The real con artist is Senator Marco Rubio, who was elected in Florida and who has the worst voting record in the United States Senate.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Megyn, let me just ask the voters at home. Is this the debate you want playing out in the general election? And if we nominate Donald, we're going to spend the -- the fall and the summer with a Republican nominee facing a fraud trial.

TRUMP: Stop it.

CRUZ: If Hillary Clinton saying --

TRUMP: It's a minor civil case.

CRUZ: Why did you give my campaign and my foundation $100,000 and --

TRUMP: It's a minor civil case.

CRUZ: And with Hillary Clinton, pointing out that he supported her four times in a presidential race.

TRUMP: It's a minor civil case.

CRUZ: Donald, learn not to interrupt.

TRUMP: There are many, many civil cases.

TRUMP: It's not complicated. Count to 10, Donald. Count to 10. Count to 10.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: There is a lot to get to with our panel. Mike Slater is a conservative radio host and Cruz supporter in San Diego. CNN's senior reporter for media and politics, Dylan Byers is in Detroit. Here in Los Angeles, Ron Brownstein, our senior political analyst and senior editor for the "Atlantic," and John Phillips, KABC talk radio host, political columnist for the Orange County Register and Trump supporter.

Guys, thanks for being with us. This was WWE Wrestling. Rubio was especially teaming up with Cruz to go after Donald Trump.

Ron Brownstein, they really tried. They tried and they tried and they tried to pin Donald Trump down on policy. They wanted to get some details. Were they effective? Would it have made any difference?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He didn't really go there.

VAUSE: He didn't really?

BROWNSTEIN: I mean, we don't really know much about where -- more about where he stands on issues. In fact, the one thing he said he changed on, in terms of being more open -- they put out a statement after the debate saying he didn't mean h1b visa. He's not in fact open to h1b visas being increased.

Look, you know, Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss wrote a great book called "Once in a Great City" about Detroit. He will not need to add another chapter after tonight. This was the kind of debate you get as the debate season goes on. You know, as the primary season goes on. And they -- you know, the invective -- the ratio of kind of invective to information which is way out of whack. And that's what you see often as we go forward.

VAUSE: We'll get to that in a minute, but, John Philips, Trump supporter, how did your guy go? JOHN PHILIPS, POLITICAL COLUMNIST, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER: I think he

did fine. Look, I think that if Princess Diana were still alive, she'd be protesting outside. There were so many landmines for Donald Trump tonight. And what you saw was you saw a shift in strategy from the Cruz and Rubio camps, where they were attacking each other in previous debates. And now, whether they're admitting it or not, they're both playing for a brokered convention, which means they've turned all of the guns on to Donald Trump. And they're looking to make this thing as messy as humanly possible. And from that perspective, I think they had a pretty good night. John Kasich I thought did well tonight because no one was attacking him.

VAUSE: Yes. I want to pick up on the point about Rubio and Cruz and collusion.

Mike Slater, you're a Ted Cruz guy. Do you think there was some collusion going on here between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz?

MIKE SLATER, CONSERVATIVE RADIO HOST: Most certainly. I think the best attack that has ever stuck on Donald Trump, and none of them have, but the one that has the most is going to be Trump University. We're a forgiving people in America. But there's one type of person that we don't like. And it's people who prey on the vulnerable. And Trump University is going to be framed like that. If not by Rubio and Cruz, most certainly by Hillary Clinton. She's going to point out 100 people who were scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars.

And Donald Trump is going to be seen as the rich fat cat who preyed on vulnerable people. And that's not going to play well in the general election.

VAUSE: Dylan Byers, there in Detroit, they've had two debate now where's they've aggressively gone after Donald Trump. Didn't really work last debate. Do you think it's going to work this time?

DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR MEDIA AND POLITICAL REPORTER: No, I don't think it's going to work. I mean, look, I -- you know, I had more high-minded and civil fight when I was in second grade.

[01:05:02] I mean, this was really vicious. It was nasty. And it didn't look good for the Republican Party. I think there are probably a lot of Democrats who were popping champagne corks tonight.

There was an adult in the room. The adult in the room, of course, was Governor John Kasich. The problem is that's not -- probably not going to matter because despite Kasich's efforts, despite, you know, Mitt Romney's appeal to a more civil, more high-minded Republican Party, there's really not a demand for that among the voters. You look at the voters who turned out in every state from New Hampshire to Nevada to South Carolina, and all the Super Tuesday states. They like this.

They like this side of Donald Trump. And no one can play Donald Trump's game as well as Donald Trump can. Marco Rubio certainly can't do it. Ted Cruz can't do it. So, look, they might have chipped into his support. So look, they might have been chipped into his support. Certainly these questions about Trump University were huge and serious. And I think they're ones that will continue to dog him for some time. But no one stopped Donald Trump's sprint towards the nomination tonight.

VAUSE: OK. You mentioned the schoolyard antics, the taunts and some of the -- you know, I guess the gutter blows here. You know, mostly this was between Rubio and Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: You ever heard of Trump Steaks?

TRUMP: You know what? You know what? Take a look at Trump Steaks.

RUBIO: All of these companies he's ruined.

TRUMP: By the way, that's the other thing.

RUBIO: Trump Steaks is gone. You've ruined these companies.

TRUMP: Mitt Romney came up with things that were false.

RUBIO: He's not going to make America great.

TRUMP: Totally false. And now, the funny thing is, he didn't talk about the hundreds of really successful jobs the buildings all over the world that I made a fortune at.

RUBIO: He doesn't even --

TRUMP: He doesn't talk about that.

(CROSSTALK)

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS DEBATE MODERATOR: I have a policy question for you, sir.

RUBIO: Yes. Let's see if he answers it.

WALLACE: Your --

TRUMP: I will. Don't worry about it, Marco. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about, Little Marco, I will.

RUBIO: All right. Well, let's hear it, big Don. Big Donald.

TRUMP: Don't worry about it, Little Marco.

WALLACE: All right. Wait.

TRUMP: Don't worry about it, Little Marco.

WALLACE: Gentlemen.

TRUMP: Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands if they're small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee you. (END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Ron Brownstein, you've been in politics for a long time. You ever seen a debate like this?

BROWNSTEIN: Possibly the single lowest moment in the history of presidential primaries. Really. I mean, not exactly great. No, no. There's never been anything quite like this. I mean, Trump's use of kind of -- you know, personal attack on the other candidates from the beginning now, then turning it around on him, the issues that you usually see deciding a Republican presidential primary, you can't even really describe it.

Who here can describe the difference between the Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump tax plan? I mean, the kinds of things that -- you know, in the past, we have seen central to these races have really been pushed aside to some extent by this battle over kind of American identity, centered on the Muslim -- temporary Muslim ban and the wall and deportation, but to a large extent, by these personal attack.

But to go back to John's point from before is the important one. Have Cruz and Rubio and Kasich, however informally, accepted a strategy where they're essentially partitioning the country and each trying not so much to surpass Donald Trump but simply to prevent him from getting a first ballot majority. That's what Mitt Romney called for today. That's what more Republicans are talking about. Fragmentation, not consolidation, have the candidates bought into it, the Rubio campaign is sending signals they have by focusing on Florida. Kasich in Ohio. How about Cruz?

VAUSE: Yes. Well, we are going to get to that actually a little later this hour. But I just want to ask John this question here. Before the debate, Trump apparently promised his wife that he was going to act presidential.

PHILIPS: Yes.

VAUSE: It seems he didn't keep that promise.

PHILIPS: I think he was very presidential. In fact in that clip, he reminded me of Teddy Roosevelt, where he walked softly and carries a big stick. And I think that people -- people give Donald Trump a pass for a lot of these things because if you read the "Art of the Deal," if you know Donald Trump's style of negotiations, he asks for so much more than what he expects to get. And then if you accept 50 percent or 60 percent of what you ask for, then you can declare victory.

I think Donald Trump supporters whether it's tacit or explicit, I don't know. But Donald Trump supporters know that that's how he plays the negotiation game. So they forgive some of the bluster. They forgive some of the hyperbole. And I think they're going to forgive that, as well.

VAUSE: It seems that Rubio and Cruz had a hard time landing blows on Donald Trump. In fact one of the most effective, I guess, people in that room this evening was the moderator, Megyn Kelly. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Excuse me. The lead plaintiff signed a letter saying how great it was and is on tape saying how great it was.

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS DEBATE MODERATOR: OK. But what -- no. But stand by. But what happened in that case was you countersued her. The court threw out your countersuit and made you pay almost $800,000 in legal fees of hers. And you made the same argument about 98 percent of the people being happy with Trump University. And that woman in particular signing a survey saying she liked it while someone was standing over her shoulder.

TRUMP: She's getting out of the case.

KELLY: And this --

TRUMP: She is trying to get out of the case because her case didn't hold up.

KELLY: Stand by. This is what the Court of Appeals found. They said that the plaintiffs against you are like the Madoff victims.

TRUMP: Give me a break.

KELLY: This is what the Court of Appeals said. They found that victims of con artists often sing the praises of their victimizers until they realize they have been fleeced.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[01:10:06] VAUSE: Dylan Byers, this was round two between Trump and Kelly. And boy, you know, that she -- she's a lawyer and she kind of nailed him a few times.

BYERS: Yes. And she did a far better job of sticking it to him than either Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz did. I mean, she was his toughest adversary in the room tonight. And if you look at how she performed, she didn't take any cheap shots. She didn't do anything that could give Donald Trump grounds to say, like he did back in August, and like he's been saying for several months, Megyn Kelly is unfair to me. She's really unfair to me. She's biased against me. No, she did what a reporter is supposed to do. And I think she showed her savvy as a former lawyer in terms of sort of bringing the case against him tonight. And it proved to be very effective. And I think if I were Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz or either one of their campaigns and I were looking for ways to sort of effectively dent Donald Trump, I would be looking, you know, not the campaign strategists but probably to Megyn Kelly.

VAUSE: Hey, Mike Slater, as a Ted Cruz supporter, do you take heart from that moment with Megyn Kelly, and you know, it does go into that narrative that Marco Rubio is trying to spin out here that -- you know, that Donald Trump is a snake oil salesman? SLATER: Well, yes. The other attacks that you played a second ago

about him having failed businesses here and there, those will never land. A lot of Trump supporters say, listen, when you have a bunch of businesses, some of them are going to fail, if anything it proves that Donald Trump is a man with perseverance, which we admire. So the Trump University I think is the one thing that's going to stick.

I want to say one thing about Mitt Romney's speech. It was incredible today how much that backfired. I had many people call on my radio show today say that they used to support Ted Cruz but they're switching to Donald Trump because of Mitt Romney.

VAUSE: Yes.

SLATER: Mitt Romney is now the face of the establishment. And he reminded people why they hate the establishment and why they considered Donald Trump in the first place. I think Donald Trump with this debate and with Mitt Romney attacking him, is going to gain in the polls.

VAUSE: Yes. Hold that thoughts because we're going to get into the Romney moment after the break. So we're going to have you guys back so just hold that thought for a moment.

We were talking about John Kasich having a good night. He tried to stay above the fray. He really was kind of, I guess, the sunshine and happiness guy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)