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Angry Tone Dominates Dems Debate; Obama Looms Large in Dems Debate; New York Post Endorses Trump; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 15, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[10:00:46] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's great to be here in New York.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do question her judgment. I question a judgment which voted for the war in Iraq.

CLINTON: His core issue, breaking up the banks. When asked, he could not explain how that would be done.

SANDERS: I will do it. I am going to release all of the transcripts. There were no speeches.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's great to be back in New York.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: God bless the great state of New York.

TRUMP: The people in the towers who helped rescue each other, those are those of New York values.

CRUZ: I will admit to you, I haven't built any buildings in New York City, but I have spent my entire life fighting to defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Another busy political day. Good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Anger boils over and accusations fly fast and furious at the CNN Democratic debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: You know, wait a minute, wait a minute.

SANDERS: That's just not accurate.

CLINTON: Wait. Wait. Come on.

SANDERS: Well, can I --

CLINTON: I have stood on the debate stage with Senator Sanders the entire time. I've said the exact same thing.

SANDERS: Excuse me, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN DEBATE MODERATOR: Secretary, Senator please.

CLINTON: If we can raise it to $15 in New York or Los Angeles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Remember the civility and graciousness of their earlier showdowns? Well, it's trampled underfoot as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders race towards Tuesday's all-important primary in New York. More of the fireworks now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: If we can raise it to $15 in New York or Los Angeles or Seattle, let's do it.

BLITZER: If you're both screaming at each other, the viewers won't be able to hear either of you.

SANDERS: Does Secretary Clinton have the experience and the intelligence president? Of course she does, but I do question her judgment.

CLINTON: President Obama trusted my judgment enough to ask me to be secretary of state.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN DEBATE MODERATOR: Do you regret your advocacy for the crime bill?

CLINTON: My husband has apologized. He was the president who actually signed it. Senator Sanders voted for it.

LOUIS: But what about you, Senator?

SANDERS: Secretary Clinton called them out. Oh, my goodness. They must have been really crushed by this.

DANA BASH, CNN DEBATE MODERATOR: My question was about the transcript of the speeches to Goldman Sachs.

CLINTON: When everybody does it, OK, I will do it.

SANDERS: Secretary Clinton, you just heard her. Everybody else does it, she'll do it. We will release our taxes. Jane does our taxes. We've been a little bit busy lately. You'll excuse us.

CLINTON: Well, you know, there are a lot of copy machines around.

SANDERS: Unfortunately I remain one of the poorer members of the United States Senate, and that's what that will show.

CLINTON: If Senator Sanders doesn't agree with how you are approaching something, then you are a member of the establishment. SANDERS: Interesting comment, but you didn't answer the question.

CLINTON: I did. If that's the way --

SANDERS: No, you didn't. My --

CLINTON: Yes, I did.

SANDERS: I think we're going to win this nomination, to tell you the truth.

CLINTON: I love being in Brooklyn. It's great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: It was just that kind of night. CNN's Joe Johns had a front row seat. He's in Washington with more. Good morning.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. One of the other flash points you didn't see there was about the 1994 crime bill. One of those issues that causes problems for both of these Democratic candidates because it's seen as contributing to increased incarceration of African-American men. Activist groups have been hammering the issue. A problem for Clinton because she supported it. Her husband signed the crime bill as president.

She also in 1996 was caught on camera buying into now a debunked theory about so-called super predators. That doesn't hurt her -- help her, I should say. And it's a problem for Bernie Sanders, too, because he voted for it while he was a member of the House. So this all came up in the debate last night and Sanders was on the attack. But he didn't get asked about his vote until after the debate when CNN's Jeff Zeleny raised it. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I supported the crime bill. My husband has apologized. He was the president who actually signed it. Senator Sanders voted for it.

LOUIS: What about you, Senator?

CLINTON: I'm sorry for the consequences that were unintended and that have had a very unfortunate impact on people's lives. I've seen the results of what has happened in families and in communities.

[10:05:08] LOUIS: Senator Sanders, earlier this week at the Apollo Theater in Harlem you called out President Clinton for defending Secretary Clinton's use of the term super predator back in the '90s when she supported the crime bill. Why did you call him out?

SANDERS: Because it was a racist term and everybody knew it was a racist term.

In retrospect, it was a vote that led to a lot of awful things. But here's the difficult, you can't see in retrospect. If I had voted the other way, I know Secretary Clinton would say Bernie Sanders, you had an opportunity to vote against to ban assault weapons, you didn't do that. You had an opportunity to calm down a deal with domestic violence and vote for the Violence Against Women Act. I don't think you can look at it like that.

What I do know is that bill has caused disastrous problems in mass incarceration and we need to radically reform a broken criminal justice system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: So unraveling all of that, the bulk of the criticism about the crime bill has been directed at the Clintons, Carol, but it is also true that Bernie Sanders voted for it, too.

COSTELLO: All right. Joe Johns, thank you so much. Joe Johns reporting live.

We're going to take you out to Vatican City again because Bernie Sanders is speaking before a conference there in Vatican City. He's hoping to meet with Pope Francis. But that appears unlikely at the moment, but with Pope Francis, you never know. Right? So we're awaiting Bernie Sanders to speak. He does have supporters standing outside waiting for him to pop out, and they're wearing T-shirts that say "Rome Feels the Bern."

All right. Let's go back to the debate right now and talk some more about that. It was interesting how many other people were on that stage besides Sanders and Clinton, not physically but in spirit. Barack Obama's name was invoked 45 times. We counted. Here's an example.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: The people of New York voted for me twice to be their senator from New York, and President Obama trusted my judgment enough to ask me to be secretary of state.

SANDERS: The idea that I'm bringing forth, I have to admit it, you know, it wasn't my idea. It was Barack Obama's idea in 2008.

CLINTON: I have laid out a set of actions that build on what President Obama was able to accomplish.

SANDERS: I know you keep referring to Barack Obama all night here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So you get the picture. With me now, Bernard Whitman, a Hillary Clinton supporter, and Harry Jaffe, author of the book "Why Bernie Sanders Matters" and editor-at-large at "Washingtonian" magazine.

Welcome to both of you.

BERNARD WHITMAN, HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTER: Good to see you. HARRY JAFFE, AUTHOR, "WHY BERNIE SANDERS MATTERS": Good morning.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. So, Bernard, why invoke President Obama so many times on that stage?

WHITMAN: Well, I mean, he's incredibly popular. Why not? I mean, New York is a Barack Obama town. I think Hillary Clinton is absolutely right. When Bernie Sanders questions Hillary's judgment, you question Barack Obama's judgment, and you also frankly question the judgment of voters who 55 percent voted for her when she ran the first time around and when they got a second look at her in 2006, she got the support of 67 percent.

WHITMAN: I think that the debate last night really had an incredibly sharp contrast between Bernie and Hillary. I think it's one of substance over style, one of reality over rhetoric and one of doing over actually just talking about stuff, and each and every time when it comes to Bernie Sanders, he's great on hurling out platitudes and sarcasm, but when it comes to specifics, actual policies, actual proposals, actual actions, whether those are to back up his claims against Hillary Clinton or to back up the actions he plans on taking as president, they're just devoid, they're just not there.

COSTELLO: OK. So --

WHITMAN: And Hillary Clinton came out as very presidential.

COSTELLO: So, Harry, do you agree with that? Because some analysts out there do agree that Bernie Sanders was too sarcastic because he has to broaden his base. He has to bring people in and sarcasm often doesn't work.

JAFFE: Well, Bernie went full Brooklyn on her last night. And Bernie Sanders can't help himself. I mean, he is who he is, and one of the lovable things about Sanders is he really doesn't change. Everybody might want him to be a little more softer and smile more, but that's not who Bernie is. Bernie has reach that is far beyond Brooklyn, and I think that's one of the things we're going to see in this election is that he has a lot of roots and connections in the farming community in upstate New York, in the manufacturing community, and I think it's -- that the vote on Tuesday which really is totally up in the air, is going to surprise a lot of people.

And the one who really has a lot to lose is Hillary Clinton because if Sanders prevails on Tuesday, then she's really in trouble.

COSTELLO: So do you believe that, Bernard, that the race is getting ever closer here in New York state even though every poll kind of doesn't show that?

WHITMAN: I don't think so. I think, you know, Bernie Sanders, frankly from my perspective, is becoming increasingly desperate, increasingly negative. I mean, look, I think he's brought an important voice to this, but I think that the more time has gone on, he realizes the nomination is really out of reach. He's got 40 percent of the vote, but Hillary Clinton has 60 percent of the vote. And this idea that he can somehow win in New York and claim the

nomination is basically fantasy, and I think with that in hand, he is becoming incredibly divisive, incredibly derisive and very negative which frankly I think does not really do him well or his movement well, and I think ultimately can harm the party.

So I feel like while he's done a great job bringing critical issues to the fore, I think he needs to tone down the rhetoric and I think he needs to recognize --

COSTELLO: Well, I think --

WHITMAN: -- that Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee.

COSTELLO: I think that both sides have become quite nasty frankly. I think Hillary Clinton has thrown a few bombs herself at Bernie Sanders so he's not alone in his nasty attacks. Perhaps a tweet from former Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer said it best, though. Someone said Bernie Sanders is annoyed he is losing the campaign. Hillary Clinton is annoyed he hasn't lost yet.

Harry, is that -- is there some truth to that?

JAFFE: Absolutely. I think that the entire political establishment in Washington, D.C. and across the country is just shocked that Sanders is still in the game. I think Bernie Sanders himself is still shocked that Sanders is still in the game. I think Bernie Sanders himself is still shocked that he's still in the game.

Look, I'm not a Sanders supporter. I am his biographer. And I can tell you that his entire career he has surprised opponents, and I think that nobody knows what's going to happen on Tuesday. I think that he has a whole lot of momentum. I mean, he has won, what, six of the last seven contests. I mean, he's not, you know, kind of a fluke at this point. He's real competition.

COSTELLO: He is real competition, Bernard, and you know, he could pull a Michigan surprise in New York state. You never know.

WHITMAN: I doubt that's going to happen. I think he will get a number of votes, but I think Hillary Clinton is going to prevail and I think increasingly as we get toward May, we're going to need to focus on the ultimate nominee. Likely Donald Trump. And I think Hillary can draw some very sharp contrast with the dangerous, divisive rhetoric coming out of the Trump campaign versus someone who can actually reach across the aisle and bring people together.

I mean, one of my problems with Bernie Sanders is he's so far outside and he positions himself as wanting to tear down everything and blow up the entire organization. That how is he going to work across the aisle to put this back together? We need someone with the demonstrated ability to reach across the aisle and work together in common to solve problems.

COSTELLO: Let me ask you both about this because you're seeing that little square there. That's Vatican City, and Bernie Sanders is going to speak before this Vatican conference. Right? He's hoping to meet with Pope Francis. Those are actually Bernie Sanders supporters. See them? Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. He may be coming out right now. So let's just watch for a second. OK. So Bernie is just arriving. Take the banner down, please.

OK, you see people even in Rome, some people are excited to see Bernie Sanders going into Vatican City to deliver his speech. He's hoping to meet with Pope Francis. Don't know if he will.

Harry, why did Bernie Sanders take a break from the campaign trail just a few days before the primary here in New York to go to Vatican City?

JAFFE: That's a great question. I think that Sanders, honestly, feels a kinship and a camaraderie with the Pope, and they're speaking the same language, except that, you know, the Pope is talking about global matters of income inequality and climate change, and that's in Bernie Sanders' wheel house. So he sees a true comrade, and I don't know, you're invited to the Vatican. You say, OK, I'll show up, and I think that it plays well in this country. I think that if Hillary Clinton had been invited, I think she would have gone to Rome. It just shows very, very well. It shows his strength and it shows that he can be frankly above politics some of the time.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Bernard Whitman, Harry Jaffe, thanks to both of you.

JAFFE: Pleasure to be with you.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here.

Coming up this afternoon Wolf Blitzer will talk to the heads of both the Democratic and Republican National Committees. Right here on CNN 1:00 p.m. Eastern.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, is Trump changing his tune? The new endorsement calling on him to act more presidential.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:18:28] COSTELLO: This morning the "New York Post" is giving its presidential seal of approval to Donald Trump. The paper says Trump can live up to his vow to make America great again, but only if he becomes, in the "Post's" words, more presidential as a nominee.

And that endorsement comes as his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski speaks out after a Florida state attorney said he will not prosecute Lewandowski for battery charges against a former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields.

CNN's Phil Mattingly is here with more that. Good morning.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Good morning, Carol. Well, Corey Lewandowski has made clear with the legal cloud lifted from above his head, he is ready to move on and that means no apology.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Apologize or no?

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR DONALD TRUMP: Look, again, I reached out to Michelle and I provided my phone records to show that, and never once at any time in this incident has she ever contacted the campaign directly. And that's the disappointing part because she had the opportunity to clear this up. And if she wanted to have a conversation, she could have reached out to me directly or the office. That never took place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, Carol, I think one of the interesting things is if you look at the endorsement from the "New York Post," if you look at the "Wall Street Journal" op-ed that Donald Trump wrote today, really attacking the delegate system, trying to pin himself against the establishment, and then you look at this, the legal cloud leaving the head of his campaign manager. It has been a positive few days for Donald Trump and obviously he's in a state now where he is expected to do very well. Just a couple of days away. 95 potential delegates on the table.

He and his team have kind of turned a corner, potentially, or at least if you talk to them, that's what they say , and they believe they're heading now into an area where not only where they'll do well in the state of New York but they also have a very good map in the weeks ahead to pick up a lot of delegates, perhaps turn around the narrative that their campaign is in trouble and really set themselves on course to reach the necessary delegates, that 1237 we keep talking about before they actually get to the convention in Cleveland.

[10:20:19] COSTELLO: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks to much.

All right. I want to dig a little deeper on that "New York Post" endorsement of Donald Trump because the paper writes in part, "should he win the nomination, we expect Trump to pivot not just on the issues but in his manner. He needs to be more presidential, better informed on policy, more self-disciplined and less thin skinned."

Here to talk about that and more, Jeffrey Lord, Trump supporter and CNN political commentator, and Brent Bozell, supporter of Ted Cruz and chairman of For America.

Welcome to both of you.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

Jeffrey, so the "Post" endorses Trump but says all that stuff about him? That's kind of odd.

LORD: Well, you know, the "New York Post" is in a lot better place with Donald Trump than they were when Rupert Murdoch tweeted out that Donald Trump should stop embarrassing himself and his country and get out of the race. We're now at a point where the "New York Post" led by Rupert Murdoch has endorsed Donald Trump. So I think it's quite a change.

COSTELLO: But how do you endorse a guy who needs to be more presidential and better informed on policy?

LORD: You know, I really do think Donald Trump has grown a lot as a candidate. I think he will get better. But you know basically it's his message that's resonating with people, and that's what's given him this rocket fuel in the polls and I think will continue to do so.

COSTELLO: And Brent, here's the thing. I think the "New York Post" couldn't endorse Senator Cruz because Senator Cruz said that about, you know, New York values, and I don't think that would have been smart of the "Post" to put on their front page.

BRENT BOZELL, TED CRUZ SUPPORTER: Well, the first thing I want to say is hi to my good friend Jeffrey Lord and to invite him to come back from the dark side.

(LAUGHTER)

BOZELL: No, look, you would expect a local paper to endorse, you know, a citizen of New York. That doesn't surprise me. But it did come with a qualifier because I think people do sense this -- I used to think that one of these days we were going to see that presidential Donald Trump emerge. I don't think we're going to anymore because I see that his happy place is always to whine about every little thing, including those things which do in the exist, like Colorado, where he will not stop whining about the fact that Ted Cruz followed the rules and he chose not to.

COSTELLO: But here's the thing about Mr. Trump appearing more presidential because he appears to be doing just that. He wrote an op-ed in the "Wall Street Journal" that was very well thought out. Even the statement that he released regarding campaign manager Corey Lewandowski didn't have any slams against Michelle Fields. In fact, it says Corey Lewandowski is gratified by the decision to drop the misdemeanor charge and appreciates the thoughtful consideration and professionalism by the Palm Beach state attorney.

Jeffrey, that's not very Trump like, really.

LORD: Well, you know, I do think in a sense there's two Donald Trumps. There's the showman and there's the thoughtful guy that built this globe straddling empire which requires a lot of thought, a lot of discipline, a lot of patience, a lot of executive ability. And I think he really is an exceptional executive. I mean he's got more executive experience I think than some governors. So I think that there's nothing unusual about this. This is the side of Donald Trump that I've seen as long as I've known him.

COSTELLO: So, Brent, how do you feel about that?

BOZELL: Well, I think it's calculated. I think that he is what he thinks he needs to be at the moment. Everything he's been in this campaign is different than what he was a year ago, including what party he belonged to. So that he would come out with a very good, professional, you know -- you're shocked about the fact that he came out with a reasonable press release. This is my point. Because all you see is him just whining and snapping and belly aching and complaining. So one time he acts presidential, we're all shocked.

COSTELLO: Well, the thing is, Jeffrey, all that stuff from when Mr. Trump was perhaps not acting presidential is on tape. And it can be used at any time. You can't really erase what happened in the past because words do matter.

LORD: Well, that's right. And I was just going to say, if his opponent winds up being Hillary Clinton, there's plenty of videotape there to go around from the 1990s, I must say. So I'm looking forward to it, and I'm sure he'll be as presidential as Ted Cruz will be vice presidential.

COSTELLO: Would Ted Cruz really be Donald Trump's --

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Why did Jeffrey throw that in there, Brent?

BOZELL: No. That's a cheap shot.

Jeffrey, that's a cheap shot. How dare you?

COSTELLO: OK. We'll leave it there. Jeffrey Lord, Brent Bozell, thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, two candidates --

BOZELL: Thanks so much.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Two candidates come out swinging in last night's Brooklyn brawl.

[10:25:01] But was New York the winner?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

It was a New York state of mind in the CNN debate hall last night as the "Daily Beast" so aptly put it. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton turn up the volume to 11 in Brooklyn. Wolf tried to tone it down -- or tone it down, rather, but you'd be forgiven for thinking the knob was broken with cheers and boos ringing out as candidates talked about issues New Yorkers are passionate about like Israel, gun control and more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: You have a right to defend yourself. That does not mean -- that does not mean that you don't take appropriate precautions.