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CNN NEWSROOM

Voting Underway in Wisconsin; China Censors Reporting on Panama Papers; Donald Trump Details Plan to Force Mexico to Pay for Border Wall; The Art of Lying. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired April 5, 2016 - 10:30   ET

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


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[10:01:03] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Voting now underway in Wisconsin where 42 delegates are at stake on the Republican side. So, right now Ted Cruz is trying to seal the deal in the badger state. Donald Trump is staying positive, though. And John Kasich, well he's staying in the race.

My next guest says this primary could be the most important one that Wisconsin has ever seen, well since Kennedy versus Humphrey, anyway. And, that it certainly will be one of the wildest ever. Craig Gilbert is the Washington Bureau Chief of the Milwaukee General Sentinel. He's covered the last eight primaries in the state. Good morning.

CRAIG GILBERT, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So, you say that this primary is in a league of its own. Why?

GILBERT: Well, yes. And the Wisconsin primary is actually 104 years old. I don't go back that far, but in the 28 years I've been covering the Wisconsin primary, most of the action has been on the democratic side, for one reason or another. You mentioned the famous Kennedy- Humphrey, but John Kerry had a big victory here in '04, Barack Obama in '08. But this is the biggest republican primary we've had, by far in anybody's memory. And it's also unusual to have contests in both parties that are this hard-brought, and this meaningful.

COSTELLO: So on the republican side, do you sense that voters have made up their minds in Wisconsin?

GILBERT: Well, all the polls are pointing to Ted Cruz. I think the concerning thing for Donald Trump is not just that he had a -- I think most people consider it a bad week -- last week. And he sort of stepped into a lot of controversy here. But, his numbers have been kind of soft for months, and months in Wisconsin. Some people think that's because his personality doesn't really fit the culture here.

He's also -- there's a big North-South split in republican vote. There is a party establishment in Wisconsin, particularly in the South. And the demographics there don't favor Donald Trump, that's where the big republican votes come from. In a primary, he does better up North. He's got some things working against him here, but it's not just a matter of the Governor Walker's endorsement, Ted Cruz, or all the controversy. His numbers have been consistently soft here, going back to last Fall.

COSTELLO: Interesting. I want to talk about demographics because you mentioned them. Demographically, Wisconsin is kind of all over the map, isn't it?

GILBERT: Yes, I mean it's -- you could argue both sides of this. There's a big white-blue collar vote. That's a pretty broad slice of the electorate, and Donald Trump has been doing well with white voters who don't have a college degree. We've seen that also elsewhere in the Midwest, and places like Michigan.

But, the rate of high school graduation's really high in Wisconsin. There's -- culturally it doesn't look like a great state for him if you look at the rest of the upper Midwest, where he hasn't done very well.

So it's kind of a mixed bag for him, demographically. It's not a great state for him, politically. And then if you look at all of the events of the past week, in Southeastern Wisconsin where talk-radio is influential, they're lined up uniformly against him. And it's just kind of a pivotal, dicey point in the calendar for him.

COSTELLO: Well let me ask you this, the Milwaukee General Sentinel's editorial board supports John Kasich. I spoke to a number of conservatives on my program today who says John Kasich is basically a democrat. What do you think?

GILBERT: It does tell you how much the republican party has moved to the right, that John Kasich, who has a pretty conservative history, and in a battleground state of Ohio, won an overwhelming reelection, he is considered by a lot of republicans to be insufficiently conservative. And maybe even like a democrat to some.

You know it was interesting, Donald Trump complained here, over the weekend, that John Kasich was taking his votes and should be out of the race. Ted Cruz had said something similar. But if you look at the Kasich voters in our polling, and the polling that's been done in Wisconsin, and look closely at it, Kasick voters really don't like either Ted Cruz, or Donald Trump.

They are more moderate, but they're probably less uncomfortable with Ted Cruz than Donald Trump. So, Donald Trump, they're not taking votes away from Donald Trump, if anything, he could be taking some votes away from Ted Cruz.

COSTELLO: OK, so, last question -- I'm from the Midwest and it irritates me when people say things like, "Wisconsin nice." Because what exactly does that mean?

GILBERT: Yes, that's probably been overstated. If you look at Wisconsin, we've gone through the wars, politically. Over Scott Walker, the state has been on fire. Going back to the Bush elections of 2000, 2004, this has just been a political hothouse, and a fierce battleground.

So, it's -- there's a lot of civility here, but there's also a lot of political brawling. I think it's more stylistically that Donald Trump's kind of flamboyance, his ego, maybe a little bit of the name- calling, doesn't go over so well here. But people here are used to political combat, there's no question about that.

COSTELLO: No question, but I think that when you say things like, "Wisconsin nice," you get the sense that Midwesterners don't fight back in any way. And like you said, we certainly do, we just have a different way of doing it. Maybe a less combative way, but hopefully, I don't know, a more constructive way, perhaps. That's what I like to think, anyway.

GILBERT: I don't think there's any part of American that's been more warred over, in the last decade-and-a-half. Where you've seen more high-level conflict between the two parties, and competition. So, I think the stereotype that you're complaining about is a little bit overdone.

COSTELLO: Craig Gilbert, thanks for joining me this morning. Still to come, protesters jam the streets in Iceland, after the Panama papers leak. They want their Prime Minister to resign, like now.

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COSTELLO: Censors in China now blocking coverage of the Panama Papers. Watch this.

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COSTELLO (voice-over): Screens showing CNN's coverage of the scandal, well they cut to black when the story hits the air, goodbye Phil Black. In the meantime, Iceland's Prime Minister has requested that the President dissolve Parliament. That follows his announcement that he will step down if he doesn't have the support of his government. All of it is shift in tone from earlier, when he said he would not resign.

Protesters have been jamming the streets of Iceland's capital demanding that the Prime Minister step down. He's one of the many world leaders, business executives, and celebrities named in that massive document leak. It alleges that public figures are using offshore accounts to evade taxes, and hide wealth. Frederik Pleitgen has more from London, good morning.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. And yes, he is one of the many leaders who are implicated in these, what people call the Panama Papers, saying that he was part of an offshore company -- or, he owned a stake in an offshore company -- but he could be the first one in the world, Carol, to actually lose his job because of all of it.

Now as you've noted, there were these mass demonstrations in Iceland, and you know, there were about 10,000 to 15,000 people to have showed up to those demonstrations. That doesn't sound like a lot on the face of it, but we have to keep in mind that Iceland is a country with only 300,000 people. So that is a substantial part of the population that went out on the streets and said, they think that their Prime Minister needs to resign.

Now you said it, in the end -- at the beginning he said he's not going to do that, he believes that he's done nothing wrong. He says yes, he did own a stake in a shell company together with his wife. But he also said that he sold that stake to his wife before any of it became relevant to his political career.

Now the big problem that many people in Iceland have, is that they believe that it's not only about what's legal and illegal, they believe it's also about what's ethical. And they think that behavior like that is unethical, that's why they want their Prime Minister to resign. It certainly looks like he's in big trouble at this point, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Frederik Pleitgen reporting live for us this morning. Thank you.

Still to come on the NEWSROOM, he's promised to force Mexico to pay for a wall at the border. But now Donald Trump is revealing new details about where exactly that money will come from.

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COSTELLO: He's promised to force Mexico to pay for a 1,000 mile-long wall at the border. Now we're getting more details about how Donald Trump says he will make Mexico pay for that wall. In a memo to the Washington Post, Trump says he threatened to cut off crucial money transfers from immigrants in the United States, unless Mexico agrees to make a large lump-payment. Trump addressed that earlier today, during a stop in Milwaukee.

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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... Pretty self- explanatory. The wall is a fraction of the kind of money, in many different ways, that Mexico takes in from the United States. The wall is a fraction.

You know, you're talking about a $10 billion wall. You're talking about a trade deficit with Mexico of $58 billion, and probably going to get worse if they run it. If I run it, there won't be a trade deficit. So, one of the ways that I just issued that -- and I guess the Washington Post picked it up, and they picked it up, I think, fairly accurately.

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COSTELLO: Jim Acosta has more from Wisconsin.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi Carol, yes, you've been hearing for months now from critics of Donald Trump, saying, "well how are you going to force Mexico to pay for this wall on the US-Mexican border?" Well, today the Trump campaign is outlining its plan.

What it's saying is that it is essentially going to threaten Mexico, that if it does not pay the $8 billion to $10 billion that is estimated to pay for the wall on the Mexican border, the US government would essentially halt remittances -- money transfers, essentially, wiring money -- from Mexican citizens who are living in the United States, people who might be here illegally. It's stopping those people from wiring money to their relatives in Mexico.

Trump campaign estimates that, that would total somewhere in the neighborhood of $24 billion. The Trump campaign is saying that, that is essentially an economic lifeline to Mexico. And so if Mexico does not pay for the cost of that wall, essentially, that money is going to stop. Now obviously, the Mexican government has not had a chance to respond to all of this.

But there are other proposals in there, that I assume will raise eyebrows down in Mexico City. There's another proposal in there, Carol, that says that the US government would essentially crackdown on VISAs. From tourists, from business travelers, and so forth, coming from Mexico into the United States, if Mexico does not pay for this wall on the US border.

So there is a whole series of steps here laid out in this proposal. There's a memo that's up on the Trump website right now, that essentially says that bad things will happen, when it comes to US policy towards Mexico, if they don't pay for the cost of this wall.

Now, Trump was asked about this at one of the stops that he made this morning -- campaign stops that he made outside of Milwaukee this morning -- and he is maintaining that this is 100 percent doable. And it's interesting to know, Carol, according to the Trump campaign, if you look at this memo, this is not something that they would try to get through Congress.

This would be an executive action, and you've heard a lot of republicans take aim at President Obama's executive actions. Well here's one that Donald Trump would take on very early on in his administration, to have Mexico pay for that wall on the border. Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Jim Acosta reporting live from Wisconsin, thank you.

Still to come on the NEWSROOM, can someone literally lie their way to the White House? Listening to how the candidates describe each other, you might be tempted to say, "yes."

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COSTELLO: All officiants are known to stretch the truth, and play fast and loose with the facts. But as our Jeanne Moos explains, this year's political campaigns have raised lying to an artform.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEANNE MOOS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Remember when the "L-word" was all about lesbians? Well in campaign 2016, this is the L-word on everyone's lips.

TRUMP: ... and then he lies. I never saw a guy lie like this guy.

MOOS (voice-over): Trump says it about Ted Cruz, and Hillary Clinton.

TRUMP (voice-over): She lies like crazy about everything.

MOOS (voice-over): Hillary says it about the Sanders campaign.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I'm sick of it!

MOOS (voice-over): Sanders says it about Trump.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... well, Donald Trump is a pathological liar.

MOOS (voice-over): And Trump has turned it into a nickname.

TRUMP: I call him lying Ted, he's lying Ted Cruz.

MOOS (voice-over): A name even a pro-Kasich superpac has jumped on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Many just call him "Lyin' Ted."

MOOS (voice-over): Making his nose grow.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): ... lied about Ted Carson, to steal and win in Iowa.

MOOS (voice-over): Slithering around his neck like a python trying to strangle him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): If Ted Cruz's mouth is moving, he's lying.

MOOS: But I tell you no lie when I say the award for most accusations of lying uttered in a single paragraph, goes to Ben Shapiro.

MOOS (voice-over): The conservative commentator trashed Trump, after that female reporter was grabbed by The Donald's campaign manager.

BEN SHAPIRO, EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE DAILY WIRE: ... I mean look, lying liars lie. And this is the Trump campaign, where lies are told, and then lies are told to cover up the lies, and then finally, new lies are told in order to cover up the lies that were told about the lies.

MOOS (voice-over): Nine L-words sort of makes the measly one shouted at President Obama by a republican Congressman --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You lie!

MOOS (voice-over): -- seem quaint. But when it comes to the most egregious untruths --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... pants on fire. The 2015 politifact (ph) lie of the year goes to the collective misstatements of Donald Trump.

MOOS (voice-over): For a campaign song of 2016, we nominate the Castaways hit from 1965 --

(MUSIC PLAYS)

MOOS (voice-over): Looks like we're going to need a bigger hose. Jeanne Moos, CNN.

SANDERS: Pathological liar.

TRUMP: Biggest liar.

(MUSIC PLAYS)

MOOS (voice-over): New York.

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(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And just think, we haven't even gotten to the general election, yet. See what you have to look forward to?

Thank you so much for joining me today, I'm Carol Costello. "AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan, starts now.