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CNN NEWSROOM

Wisconsin Primary Numbers; Democrats Prepare for a Fight; Interview with Tina Brown; Judge Garland Meets with Top Democrats on Capitol Hill. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired April 6, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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


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[09:31:10] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Ted Cruz's strong showing in Wisconsin may have less to do with him and more to do with Donald Trump. Exit polls reveal some interesting things about why Republicans voted the way they did. Nearly four in 10 say they voted for Ted Cruz because they were scared of Trump becoming president. That might not serve Cruz well if he gets the nomination. Our chief business correspondent Christine Romans has more of the numbers for you this morning.

Good morning.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

The exit polling very revealing. They show us that Wisconsin Republicans are afraid of their frontrunner. We asked votes how they would feel if Trump is elected president. Thirty-eight percent said they would be scared, 20 percent said they would be concerned. Those sentiments definitely a factor in Cruz's win there.

Fear prevails this primary season as you know. When it comes to the economy, 94 percent of GOP voters in Wisconsin say they're worried. Just 6 percent said they are not. Of those fearful of the economy, voters broke decisively for Cruz. And that's a big win for him since Trump has until now done very well with voters worried about money.

Another storyline, more than half of all Republican voters say international trade kills American jobs. Trump won those voters. He has in most states. But look at this, Trump's victory over Cruz, very small, 43-42. That's a big change, Carol. Trump usually dominates that group.

Now, Democrats, 37 percent ranked the economy and jobs at the top of their list, followed by government spending, income inequality, health care, terrorism. You can see, of those voters who said economy and jobs, 54 percent voted for Senator Sanders. Clinton, eight points behind. Interesting win for Bernie Sanders also among women. Hillary Clinton has done very well with women throughout the primary states. But in Wisconsin, Bernie Sanders edged her out by one percentage point. She did -- still did very well, Carol, with minorities and with older voters. Something her team says will be incredibly important in the states ahead.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, especially New York and Pennsylvania.

ROMANS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Yes, yes, yes. Much more diverse states.

ROMANS: Yes.

COSTELLO: All right, Christine Romans, thanks for sharing the numbers with us. Very interesting.

With me now, Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch.

Welcome.

LT. GOV. REBECCA KLEEFISCH (R), WISCONSIN: Thank you so much, Carol.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. You heard what Christine just said, four in 10 Republicans in your state fear a Trump presidency. But is that a good reason to vote for someone else? Namely Ted Cruz?

KLEEFISCH: Well, I think the survey probably chose some of the most vitriolic moods that they could have picked. But I will say this, Wisconsin voters are smart and independent, but last night also pragmatic. I think one of the things that we have seen country wide is the great unsung song of the fact that Donald Trump actually has fewer primary and caucus voters than the rest of the candidates. I think we hear a lot about delegate numbers. But when you look at the idea of consolidating all of the votes that did not go for Trump, well, there's the vast majority for you right there. And what Wisconsin voters did yesterday was they saw this as a two man race and they self-consolidated this race and they voted for Ted Cruz.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So you yourself, you made your mind up late. You voted for Ted Cruz. You tweeted, as a matter of fact, quote, "I voted for jobs, freedom and security. See you at the victory party." My question to you is, why did it take you so long to embrace Ted Cruz?

KLEEFISCH: Well, it didn't take me so long to embrace Ted Cruz. It took me so long to tweet that vote of my "I Voted" sticker because you have wait till April 5th here in Wisconsin. Ted Cruz has always had the best tax plan and I've e-mailed him that from the very beginning. I like what he does on dynamic scoring. I like what he does on the earned income tax credit. But, ultimately, I do believe the same thing Wisconsin voters said yesterday, that Ted Cruz can be a uniter of this party, especially because Wisconsin is a great example of how the Republican Party has united in the past.

[09:35:12] We took our libertarian leaning folks and our Tea Party folks, our establishment folks and your GOP-leaning moderates and independents and formed an unbeatable coalition in 2010, in the governor's recall and my recall in 2012, and then again in 2014. Ted Cruz put it back together in a unique way last night. I think that's special and I also think that that's going to lend him tremendous momentum going into the next races.

COSTELLO: OK, so, needless to say, Donald Trump has a very big problem with your state. Your government (ph) in your state --

KLEEFISCH: Did indeed.

COSTELLO: Governor (ph) in particular. His campaign sent out this statement and I'll -- I'll --

KLEEFISCH: Well, you can't pick on Wisconsin.

COSTELLO: Well, let me read you what the Trump campaign sent out about the state of Wisconsin. "Donald J. Trump withstood the onslaught of the establishment yet again. Lyin' Ted Cruz had the governor of Wisconsin, many conservative talk radio show hosts and the entire party apparatus behind him. Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet. He's a Trojan horse being used by the party bosses, attempting to steal the nomination for Mr. Trump." And I'll add one thing, anti-Trump forces were at work and they spent a lot of money to defeat Mr. Trump in the state of Wisconsin. As of the end of March, they spent between $20 million and $30 million just to defeat Donald Trump, not to support any other candidate.

KLEEFISCH: Well, this is a primary election. Right now we're winnowing the field in order to determine who represents the GOP when we go into the national election this fall. And so it's unsurprising to me that you had primary candidate versus primary candidate.

But at the end of the day there were two other things that I think made --

COSTELLO: Yes, but, historically -- historically, when -- when can you remember another race where so much money was spent simply to defeat one candidate? And it didn't really matter who anyone else voted for. It was simply to devote (ph) Donald Trump. $30 million in one month.

KLEEFISCH: Well, Carol, let me tell you about these two other things that I think made the difference yesterday. I told you, first of all, that Wisconsin voters were independent and very pragmatic yesterday. But the two other things that made the difference I think for Ted Cruz were talk radio. We have a really unique situation in Wisconsin where local and regional talk radio -- I'm not talking about Rush Limbaugh. Local and regional talk radio are huge electoral motivator, especially where the vast majority of primary votes come from in the highly populous, the dense areas of our state. Talk radio went all in for Ted Cruz about six weeks ago. And so that was a big motivator, having the steady drum beat of these influential talkers day after day.

And the second part of that is, Donald Trump took a very different strategy in Wisconsin than Ted Cruz and ultimately John Kasich too. Donald Trump chose to come in negative on Wisconsin. And he kind of stuck to his guns. Something that he had done very early on while the governor was still a candidate for president of the United States, using numbers that were put out by Democrats that have been disproven time and time again. And I don't know if it was poor preparation or if he felt that it was working for him early on in Iowa, but he brought back a set of numbers that were just downright false. And it really felt like he was just ripping on Wisconsin and he didn't know about our success story.

The other thing was, you know, he ripped on Governor Scott Walker. Governor Scott Walker is a pretty popular guy. If you remember Act Ten, what brought all those protesters to Madison a few years back and led to the governor's recall and my recall election, the ones that we won with that big coalition, well, that's now saved Wisconsin taxpayers $5.24 billion. We've had a lot of success here. And Donald Trump basically didn't acknowledge that and didn't acknowledge Scott Walker as the architect of it. There are a lot of Wisconsin voters who, you know, took offense to that. And I think they took it out on Donald Trump at the ballot box.

COSTELLO: Fascinating. Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, thank you so much for being with me this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the Democrats prepare for a New York brawl. But when the gloves come off, who really gets hurt? Media giant Tina Brown weighs in, next.

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[09:43:52] COSTELLO: Thirteen days until the next big contest, New York. And make no mistake, it will be pretty ugly. And not just on the Republican side. The Democrats, namely Hillary Clinton, are about to take the gloves off. But whether nasty will make a difference is another story. Clinton suffers from an enthusiasm gap which will be difficult to overcome if negativity becomes the name of her game.

With me now to talk about that and more, founder of Women in the World, "The Daily Beast" and author of the upcoming memoir "Media Beast," Tina Brown.

TINA BROWN, FOUNDER, "THE DAILY BEAST": Hi, Carol.

You've done so many awesome things.

BROWN: Thank you. We've got the summit starting tonight.

COSTELLO: I know and it's very exciting --

BROWN: So exciting.

COSTELLO: Because among your guests, Laura Bush, Meryl Streep, Megyn Kelly, Christine Lagarde.

BROWN: Yes.

COSTELLO: I would presume the American election will come up.

BROWN: I suspect it might.

COSTELLO: I suspect it might.

BROWN: Yes, we have a lot of discussion in this summit, actually on the subject of misogyny, which has been something of a topic in this race that we've seen. It came out and reared its ugly head.

COSTELLO: So have you seen misogyny in the race so far?

BROWN: I certainly have. The way women have been talked about up till now has just been really stunning. I mean stunning.

COSTELLO: Who has been the worst offender?

[09:44:58] BROWN: We'll clearly Trump has been the worst offender in that he's overt. But what he's done is he's let the ugly trolls of misogyny out of the bag and suddenly, you know, get empowered people, his supporters, to basically say, you know what, I kind of like the way he talks about women. I kind of like what he says. He tells it like it is.

Really? That's very scary.

COSTELLO: He does have a certain amount of support from women which some women say they don't quite get. So what do they see in Donald Trump, do you think?

BROWN: Well, the women who support him I think see -- they're obsessed with, you know, he can fix things. Because women are practical. Women like to see things done. And so the women I think who support Trump have bought into his narrative, which is, I know how to get things done. You know, I'm not a guy who lets red tape stop me. I can bowl through the red tape and get stuff down. Unfortunately he's also a fantasist so the things he thinks he can get done, he can't get done.

COSTELLO: Do you think Wisconsin is a sign of things to come for Donald Trump?

BROWN: It's not a good sign for Donald Trump. I mean, the interesting thing about Wisconsin is how he almost kind of willfully blew himself up. He just willfully almost did it. It's like he -- part of me wonders whether psychologically he doesn't really want to be president and that it actually scares him. Because otherwise why doesn't he just do a very easy thing, which is to reign it back just a bit, keep his enthusiasts but also not give himself these boomerang sound bites that at this point are now dismantling his candidacy?

COSTELLO: Interesting. Let's talk about Hillary Clinton because she does suffer from this enthusiasm gap. So why? Especially among young people aren't more voters enthusiastic about a Hillary Clinton candidacy.

BROWN: Well, unfortunately we sort of live in an era in which experience and having been there a long time is not considered anything exciting and is actually considered instead a new word, which is baggage. You know, you don't have experience anymore. You have baggage. Actually sometimes it is pretty great to have some baggage. When you're in the middle of a crisis where everything is coming at you, where, you know, foreign policy issues of enormous complexity.

That, quote, "baggage" is pretty handy because you actually know something. You know, people who come in absolutely as a sort of clean slate, that's great in the new ideas department. But guess what? These problems actually require some knowledge. And if you don't have any knowledge and you haven't had any experience, you are a dangerous person in the Oval Office.

COSTELLO: I think part of Hillary Clinton's baggage, though, is her lack of trustworthiness. Only 16 percent of voters in Wisconsin find her trustworthy. Why is that?

BROWN: Well, it's been pounded, hasn't it? That narrative of Hillary being untrustworthy has been pounded and pounded by Republicans for many, many decades and it has stuck I think. Frankly I find it pretty untrustworthy to be promising the electorate crazy stuff, like the fact that you can block the banks and get -- you know, and give everybody free college tuition and give everybody free healthcare. That to me sounds about as trustworthy as, you know, the kind of fair and offer at Trump University. I mean, ultimately, you have to be able to do the things that you're saying. And very often, I think Hillary has been unwilling at times to say stuff she can't deliver.

COSTELLO: So what -- well, she's going to fight back against Bernie Sanders on that very thing. She's going to say to his young supporters, look, he's selling you a bill of goods. He says these things and he doesn't know how to accomplish them. I can. But I'm not going to worry about how you feel me about right now, I'm going to worry about that later and I'm going to attack the candidate that you revere as a revolutionary. Will that really work?

BROWN: Well, I think it may eventually. I mean, it's because it hasn't worked up to now. A lot of what Bernie Sanders said is wildly appealing. I mean I agree with most of what he wants. It is just that we also know how difficult it is to get done. It's like somebody walking into a meeting and saying, I have an idea. Let's totally reinvent this company and let's -- yes, well, OK. Now tell me how you're going to do it. And what's the plan? And how is it really going to play out?

One of the -- you know, one of the -- what's the fallout from the plan? And I think that what we're seeing right now is the beginning of that moment where voters are saying OK, we've heard it all but actually how is he going to do it? We saw the revelation in that "Daily News" interview with Sanders yesterday, which is pretty much of a shocker where he was asked questions about how he would break up the banks and so on, and he just, you know, flailed and blathered. He had no clue.

And I actually think that New York, for instance, is -- it is, you know, a tough-minded state. And I think it's not going to be enough just go in there singing the song of a -- you know, of the beautiful revolution. I just don't thinks it's going to be enough.

COSTELLO: And just a last question about Hillary Clinton's appeal. Especially to young women. Young women like this 70-year-old guy.

BROWN: I know, it's great. COSTELLO: They are not -- they're not attracted to, like, a woman who

could make history. Why do you think that is? What is it about Hillary Clinton that turns off young women.

BROWN: I don't so much think it's turns her off. But I think that when you are young, rightly so, you want to change the world and you want to believe that all these things are possible. That there will be, you know, no more big banks being greedy, that there will be, you know, health care for everybody, all colleges will be free.

[09:50:02] It's what you want when you're young. And you haven't yet had the experience or should I say the baggage to know that actually these things are very hard to achieve. And so it's not really very appealing to be looking at someone going, look, I've been there, I know this is really difficult. I can offer you this. It may not be exactly your dream but I think I can improve your life by X percent. That is a very exciting message if you're young. So I don't really think it's so much as a gender thing. I think it's a young thing and I do understand it. I really do. The question is, how it's going to play out when it really comes down to the numbers that come out.

COSTELLO: Tina Brown, thanks for stopping by.

BROWN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: I appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, is back on Capitol Hill this morning to meet with a trio of top Democrats. Right now he's holding talks with Senator Dick Durbin. Later in the day he'll meet with Senators Dianne Feinstein and Sheldon Whitehouse. But it's not looking anymore likely that Republicans will drop their opposition to hearing for the lone vote on a Garland's nomination.

CNN's senior political reporter Manu Raju on Capitol Hill with more for you. Good morning.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Now the White House announced yesterday there will also be meetings with vulnerable Republican senators including Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Rob Portman of Ohio but those senators actually do not support moving forward with confirmation proceedings. They are actually happy just to have those courtesy visits. What you're seeing here is a pretty intense pressure campaign actually coming from the right.

Jerry Moran of Kansas who's up to reelection suggested that there should be confirmation hearings. He got criticized substantially from the right. He backtracked and he still may face a primary challenge just by making those comments. Mike Pompeo, congressman of Kansas, is considering a run against him so really what you're seeing here is a pretty intense pressure campaign from the right which is one reason why -- a big reason it would be very hard to see Merrick Garland confirmed this year -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Manu Raju reporting live for us this morning.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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