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CNN NEWSROOM

Trump, Cruz Blitz Indiana Ahead of Tuesday Primary; Clinton, Sanders Battling For Indiana; Clinton: Obama Legacy On The Line With Trump. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired May 2, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[09:00:18] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in NEWSROOM.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If we win Indiana, it's over.

COSTELLO: Tell that to Ted Cruz.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have to tell you, I have faith in Hoosiers.

COSTELLO: The Texas senator blitzing the state in the last-minute battle for votes.

Plus, Hillary Clinton taking on Trump, too.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We cannot let Barack Obama's legacy fall into Donald Trump's hands.

COSTELLO: But rival Bernie Sanders says she's facing another fight first.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The convention will be a contested contest.

COSTELLO: And what's inside Prince's secret vault? The battle for the music icon's estate could get very, very ugly.

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

Battleground Indiana. Less than 24 hours until the polls open and Republican Ted Cruz is blitzing the state, greeting voters this hour in Osceola and his top surrogates are fanning out across the state as well.

In the meantime Donald Trump is ready to wrap the nomination tomorrow, telling our Chris Cuomo he won't just get Republicans, he'll pull Democrats as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think that a lot of these people are going to join my campaign. I think a lot of the Bernie Sanders' young people are going to join my campaign. And I see it all the time.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: What can you say to the --

TRUMP: Because nobody is stronger on trade than me. I mean, our country is being ripped off by China and every country on trade.

CUOMO: Why is nobody -- Mr. Trump, let me ask you to explain it for a second.

TRUMP: I mean, part of -- and I think Bernie Sanders' people are going to join my campaign.

CUOMO: Sanders --

TRUMP: Because, frankly, the Democrats have treated -- they have treated them very, very badly. The Democrats have really treated Bernie Sanders and all of his followers unbelievably badly. It's a rigged system. Just like the Republicans have a rigged system. I have a rigged system. I mean, I'm winning the votes. And every time you win a state you have to go fight for all these different things. It's a rigged system that's run by the bosses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Phil Mattingly joins me now with more on this. Good morning.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Donald Trump has made very, very clear, he expects to secure the Republican nomination on the first ballot. Stay away from the contested convention. And win in Indiana would push him very close to that . And it's a huge moment for Ted Cruz. Cruz has made clear that Indiana is the state where he will put in place the ability to block Donald Trump for that nomination. His team saying over the court of the last two weeks, they expected Trump's major victories there, but this is the state starting with Indiana, then Nebraska going forward that would keep Donald Trump from the nomination.

One problem. What happens if Donald Trump wins Indiana?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Time, running out on the stop Trump movement?

TRUMP: I mean, the two last ones, they're like hanging by their fingertips. They're choking, don't let me fall. Don't let me fall.

MATTINGLY: Donald Trump, confident that a big win in the Indiana primary tomorrow will cement his path to the GOP nomination. Effectively knock out Senator Ted Cruz and Governor John Kasich. TRUMP: If we win Indiana, it's over, OK? And then we can focus on

crooked Hillary. Please, let's focus on Hillary.

MATTINGLY: Trump, kicking off the week by ramping up against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

TRUMP: If she were not a woman, she wouldn't even be in this race.

MATTINGLY: And he's refusing to tone it down.

TRUMP: She is a strong person. She's going to have to be able to take it. The fact is the only card she has is the woman's card. She's done a lousy job in so many ways and even women don't like her.

MATTINGLY: Ted Cruz, pinning his hopes for besting Trump in Indiana, even though the latest poll in the state shows him trailing Trump by 15 points.

CRUZ: I have to tell you, I have faith in Hoosiers. In the common sense, good judgment of the men and women of this great state.

MATTINGLY: Over the weekend, Donald Trump saying he's being cheated of delegates he won in Arizona.

TRUMP: It's all a rigged system. For instance, I won in Arizona. I won everything. But these guys are trying to go in and get votes in the second ballot.

MATTINGLY: The Cruz campaign, trying to outmaneuver the frontrunner, courting delegates countrywide to come his way at a contested convention, all if Trump isn't able to lock up the nomination on the first ballot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Now Carol, as Arizona shows, the Cruz campaign has been better organized and really outmaneuvered the Trump campaign in these state-by-state delegate battles. But the important note on those, those are all contingent on a contested convention, second, third, fourth ballots where the Cruz team feels like they're in very good position. If Donald Trump wins Indiana tomorrow, the odds of that start to shrink exponentially.

[09:05:02] The Cruz team saying that the polling that they see is much closer than what we saw in that "Wall Street Journal" poll but still Cruz has a lot of ground to make up. As you noted, he will be blitzing the state today, he and his top surrogates hoping these last 24 hours are the moment where he closes that gap.

COSTELLO: We'll see. Phil Mattingly, thanks so much.

Thousands of people rallied in Los Angeles for May Day. The theme, build bridges not walls. The parade's inspiration well, it floated above it all, Donald Trump in balloon form holding a Ku Klux Klan hood in his right hand. Six thousand people rallied against Trump's immigration policies,

perhaps a sign of what's to come when California holds its primary on June 7th. But tomorrow it's Indiana's turn. And voters there will determine whether Ted Cruz is really the only Republican who can beat Donald Trump.

So let's talk about that. I'm joined by national spokesman for the Ted Cruz campaign, Ron Nehring, CNN political commentator and Donald Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord, and Rebecca Berg, national political reporter from Real Clear Politics.

Welcome to all of you.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good. Happy Monday, Carol.

RON NEHRING, TED CRUZ NATIONAL SPOKESMAN: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Happy Monday. So first of all, Jeffrey, I have to ask you about that balloon at the Los Angeles protest parade. What do you make of it?

LORD: Yes, I mean, for people on the far left, they can't stand Donald Trump as they couldn't stand the whole -- I hate to date myself. But I remember paper mache heads of Ronald Reagan that were used in nuclear freeze marches in the 1980s, implying that he wanted to kill the entire world. So there's really nothing new here. The personalities change, but the paper mache, the idea behind the paper mache targets never do.

COSTELLO: Well, Ron, Donald Trump actually addressed this balloon on "NEW DAY" early this morning. He said that he is going to be able to win people in those camps -- in that camp, those people protesting. He said he'll win them over by providing them jobs. Your thoughts?

NEHRING: Well, he's wrong on two counts. Number one, Donald Trump is the most unpopular person to run for the presidency since the Pugh has been engaged in this question, for example, he's deeply unpopular among even most Republicans. I mean, far -- you know, and that's far more generous than he is among Democrats. So that's, you know, completely delusional. Secondly, Donald Trump's crazy economic policies would result in a massive tax increase on American consumers in the form of a 40 percent tariff on important goods.

You know, if you want to see 2,000 iPhones and $4,000 laptops, imagine what that's going to do to people who were on the margin, they're in the middle class or aspiring to join the middle class. I mean, that's the crazy type of thing that Donald Trump's economic policies would do if he ever had a chance to implement them. So no, he's not going to be generating jobs for anyone.

COSTELLO: Well --

NEHRING: And number two, he has no ability to even consolidate the Republican base, much less appeal to people who are not Republican voters especially people who are on the Democratic side.

COSTELLO: Well --

NEHRING: I mean, I listened to his comments earlier that he was --

COSTELLO: Rebecca, I got to wrap you up here, Ron, and go to Rebecca.

NEHRING: That's nuts.

COSTELLO: OK. So whether Donald Trump's economic policies work or not they seem to be resonating in the state of Indiana because in the latest NBC-Marist poll, Donald Trump leads by double-digits. What do you make of it?

REBECCA BERG, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, REAL CLEAR POLITICS: I mean, it's very, very bad news for Ted Cruz, for John Kasich and of course for all of the anti-Trump forces that are out there at this point. I think it goes without saying that Indiana is a must-win for Ted Cruz. If he stands any chance of forcing an open convention at this stage. And of course his campaign has focused their resources on Indiana, it's the whole reason that they made this deal with John Kasich that John Kasich would move on to New Mexico and Oregon, give Ted Cruz a better chance of consolidating the anti-Trump vote in Indiana.

But one of the very interesting takeaways for me at least from this NBC News poll out of Indiana is that even when you take away John Kasich out of the equation entirely, no one can vote for him. When you take his second choice votes, Donald Trump still beats Ted Cruz in the state. Really not looking good for him.

COSTELLO: And Jeffrey, something else interesting in that poll. 58 percent of voters say the alliance between Ted Cruz and John Kasich, they didn't really like that. They thought of it negatively.

LORD: You know, Carol, I have to say, I never understood that. I -- I mean, number one, just -- Donald Trump used the word collusion. That's of course what it appeared to be. But beyond that, neither one of them, but particularly Governor Kasich, didn't even want to stick to it. I mean, when asked was he going to have his voters in Indiana vote for Senator Cruz he said no, he wanted them to vote for him. So I mean, it really sounded to me like this was something that was coming out of the skulls of two campaign managers and their principles didn't really agree to it. And the public certainly didn't like it. It backfired, as I thought it might.

COSTELLO: So, Ron, in hindsight, and you know, hindsight is always 20/20, does Senator Cruz regret doing that?

NEHRING: No. You know, ultimately John Kasich doesn't have a route to become the Republican nominee under any scenario. And so having his campaign focus elsewhere and not having a super PAC, you know, interfering in Indiana certainly is helpful to us at this point strategically. So that's an important thing.

[09:10:09] And then when you combine that with the fact that Governor Mike Pence has endorsed Senator Cruz and is campaigning with him today in the state, I think that those two things are certainly helpful. You know, concerning that NBC News-"Wall Street Journal" poll, there

was another poll out on Friday that had us up by 16, which is about the same margin. So it's a very competitive situation in Indiana right now, which is why Senator Cruz is there, so many of our surrogates are there. Carly Fiorina is there. We have the excitement of that endorsement that's added to the political dynamic in the state. So, you know, it is all hands on deck and working really hard to ensure that Donald Trump is not the Republican nominee because we just can't afford to have a wipeout in November.

COSTELLO: The polls have been quite erratic.

And Rebecca, I want to ask you about this. Evangelicals make up 31 percent of Indiana's population, yet Ted Cruz is losing badly in some polls. You know, the polls are really erratic but most polls show Donald Trump ahead. So is the economy more important to voters this time around, Rebecca, than social issues? Is that what that says?

BERG: It's interesting that you raise that point because this is one of the reasons that Indiana was supposed to be a state for Ted Cruz, much like Wisconsin. There's a high degree of social connectivity in the state, including church going, which is a great indicator of that. And you have people who tend to be more conservative, social conservative. You have a governor now who has endorsed Ted Cruz, a conservative governor, as has happened in Wisconsin.

But for some reason -- and maybe it's an indicator of the way that the race is going more broadly outside of Indiana, Ted Cruz hasn't been able to recapture that magic in Wisconsin. And so certainly it could be one factor that people are looking more to the economy as an issue, but Ted Cruz certainly hasn't shied away from talking about fiscal issues. He's just not capturing the imagination of voters in the state right now.

And Donald Trump is seeming to capture momentum at this stage in the race as he has not had to this point. He's winning delegates at a faster clip than earlier in the race. And really to lock up the nomination if he sweeps Indiana, he will now only need roughly 40 percent of the remaining delegate so the map is really in his favor at this point.

COSTELLO: All right. I'll have to leave it there.

LORD: Carol --

COSTELLO: Ron Nehring, Jeffrey Lord, Rebecca Berg, thanks to all of you.

LORD: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the -- you're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Ted Cruz isn't the only candidate pledging to take his fight all the way to the convention, Bernie Sanders is too.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:03] COSTELLO: Bernie Sanders sounds a lot like Ted Cruz. He is vowing to take his fight for the nomination all the way to the convention in Philadelphia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is virtually impossible for Secretary Clinton to reach the majority of convention delegates by June 14th with pledged delegates alone. The convention will be a contested contest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But that will be an uphill fight, Sanders is losing badly when it comes to pledged delegates and superdelegates and his campaign's cash flow has slowed.

Chris Frates is live in Indianapolis, where Clinton and Sanders are running neck and neck. Good morning.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIONS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. That's right. Bernie Sanders is campaigning hard here in Indiana. If you look at the math even he acknowledges that this will be an uphill fight. Bernie Sanders needs to get almost all the delegates left in this fight to clench that nomination.

Hillary Clinton needs just 20 percent of them. Bernie Sanders has started trying to convince superdelegates in the states that he has won, that they should, in fact, support him.

If you look at the numbers there, even if they did switch sides and those Democratic power brokers came over to the Bernie Sanders' camp, the math would still not work in his favor.

Also not working in Sanders' favor are the polls, as you point out, Carol, the latest NBC poll here in Indiana, showing him trailing Hillary Clinton 50-46.

That could be part of the reason that Hillary Clinton isn't even in Indiana today. She's campaigning elsewhere. In fact, she's turning her sights on Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This hateful talk about immigrants, about Muslims, about women, I mean, enough! Enough! That's not who we are!

He can say whatever he wants to say about me. I could really care less. I've laid it all out there and he can't or he won't. I can't tell which.

We cannot let Barack Obama's legacy fall into Donald Trump's hands.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FRATES: Now Donald Trump firing back, continuing to call Hillary Clinton cooked Hillary, and saying he's going to use some of the lines of attack that Bernie Sanders has used this primary season against Hillary Clinton in the general election, should Trump and Clinton be the general election nominees.

You know, that's really no surprise because Trump has been hitting Hillary Clinton. Now, Bernie Sanders saying Trump would have been hitting Hillary Clinton anyway. He will do anything possible that he can to stop Donald Trump or whomever the GOP nominee is in the fall.

It looks like he's doing anything possible other than getting out of this race early and clearing the field for Hillary Clinton, Carol. He's staying in this through June and taking his fight all the way to the convention floor -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Chris Frates, reporting live for us this morning. Thank you. Hillary Clinton may be turning her attention to Donald Trump, but she is not ignoring Bernie Sanders all together. She still needs his supporters to vote for her if she gets the nomination and her campaign has ripped a page from Sanders to do just that.

(VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, so that's Andre Day (ph) singing "We'll Walk It Out Together" recalls this Sanders ad from a few months back.

[09:20:05](VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: You know that ad "They All Come To Look For America," both ads touchy, feely, all about love and togetherness. With me now to discuss is Errol Louis, New York One anchor and CNN political analyst. Good morning.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So did Hillary Clinton rip a page from the Sanders' playbook?

LOUIS: Sure. None of this stuff is copyrighted. If you can evoke the same feeling, sure why not? In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she goes and tries to find the exact same team that did some of the more effective ads but Bernie Sanders or anybody else and see if she can sort of reproduce some of that magic.

COSTELLO: Is that effective?

LOUIS: You know, I'm assuming that these very highly paid consultants are not doing it because it doesn't work. It's in the same vain, Carol, as Bernie Sanders using fonts, colors and imagery that is strikingly reminiscent of Barack Obama's campaign in 2008. They borrow, they steal, they use whatever works. It's a very practical business.

COSTELLO: Interesting. You heard Hillary Clinton talk about President Obama's legacy and that Donald Trump couldn't destroy his legacy. I just wonder how effective that will be in a general election for all voters, not the just one demographic.

LOUIS: Well, I mean, it will be effective for the Obama base. I mean, what Hillary Clinton has to do is turn out as many black voters, especially black women, as she possibly can. She needs to turn out as many Latino voters.

She needs to sort of turn out the Obama coalition with as much help from him that she can get. This previews I think two things. One is that she's going to try to immobilize that coalition and second, she will have a devastating kind of group of surrogates that are out there.

If you think about it, she will have two former presidents, the sitting president, former President Bill Clinton. She'll have Joe Biden as a possible surrogate. She's going to be able to cover a lot of turf and a lot of territory.

We don't know -- let's say Donald Trump is the nominee. We don't know if he will be able to pull off anything comparable with sort of high wattage people.

She is going to absolutely push over and over again to sort of try and move -- especially the black vote somewhere in the range of the historic turnout that we saw for Barack Obama.

COSTELLO: So is it time for her to concentrate on such things? You heard what Bernie Sanders said. He wants to take it all the way to the Philadelphia convention.

LOUIS: You know, it's interesting how the politics are going to play out. A couple of things will play out. Aside from the actual delegate math and the drama and we'll all be there to cover all that stuff.

We have to keep in mind that Bernie Sanders, in addition to whatever legacy he wants to leave or whatever movement he wants to try and inspire for the future within the Democratic Party, he's also the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Budget Committee.

He's hoping for a Senate majority like every other Senator who is a Democrat. He is hoping to get some real power and clout and he has something to lose. It's not as if he's on the tail end of his career. He has a lot ahead of him.

He's going to have to make some hard choices about whether or not he wants to possibly squander or endanger that in order to sort of make what could be a largely symbolic showing.

COSTELLO: You think he may change his mind as we draw closer to the summertime?

LOUIS: Yes, exactly how this plays out, he has been through many, many elections. In any given election, you can hold out and wait until the last absentee ballot is counted. But professional politicians don't normally do that. When they see which way it's going, they try to move things forward as a favor to the process and themselves.

COSTELLO: Errol Louis, thanks for stopping by.

LOUIS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Prince's family heads to court to stakes their claims to the singer's estate including the contents of a secret vault.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:28:00]

COSTELLO: Checking some top stories for you at 27 minutes past. Five police officers are injured in Seattle as Mayday demonstrations turn violent. Nine protesters arrested for throwing rocks, bottles and even biting officers. Police had to use tear gas to control the crowd.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then all of a sudden he said get back and sprayed (inaudible) directly to my face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The protesters were there to support immigration and workers' rights.

A fire destroys a historic church in New York City. The Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava was 160 years old. It took three hours for nearly 200 firefighters to beat back the flames. No one hurt. Hours earlier, hundreds had attended Easter services inside. Officials don't know how the fire started.

Plus --

(VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That's half-inch sized hail coming down in Indiana as severe storms rip through the Midwest. Tornado warning went out in central Indiana yesterday. No tornadoes were reported, however. It was a close call. Spotters said they saw a tornado 40 minutes north of town. The severe storm threat shifts to the Mid-Atlantic today.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Prince's half-brother now confirming to CNN that a sealed vault does, in fact, exist inside the late singer's estate.

No one knows for sure what's inside the vault. It may be a while before we find out. Right now, Prince's sister, Tyka Nelson, is among the family members arriving at a courthouse near Minneapolis.

The probate judge will begin determining exactly how many people may be legally entitled to a slice of Paisley Park. Sara Sidner is live outside the courthouse. Good morning.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, we've seen several of Prince's siblings enter court, Tyka Nelson, his half- sister, Sharon Nelson and Alfred Jackson, saw them all enter court/