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Donald Trump Now Presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee; Sanders Wins Indiana, Admits "Uphill" Battle; Top Dems Take Aim At Trump After Indiana. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired May 4, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:05] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Indiana, 2016, the end of the road for the Ted Cruz campaign. And a new beginning for Donald Trump. Today, he wears the party's banner presumptive nominee. Trump now stands less than 200 delegates away from officially clinching the nomination. He steamrolled in the Hoosier state, winning 53 percent of the vote, more than Cruz and John Kasich combined. Trump picked up all the delegates, and stumped out Cruz's last hopes. Trump dismissing Kasich and now focusing on the Democrats and the money needed for a general election fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will make a decision fairly soon as to that. I mean, do I want to sell a couple of buildings and self-fund? I don't know that I want to do that necessarily, but I really won't be asking money for myself. I'll be asking money for the party, and really it's something that we're going to start on right away.

I got a call last night from Reince Priebus and it is something that now that we're in this position we're going to start.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Among the Democrats, Hillary Clinton also focusing more on November even as Bernie Sanders wins Indiana and he reminds her that he will not be ignored.

Our correspondents are following all of the angles this morning as the presidential race sounds more clearly into focus. Let's begin, though, with CNN's Sara Murray, she's outside the Trump tower in New York City.

Good morning, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, look, Ted Cruz's decision to bow out of this race caught the Trump campaign by surprise last night. And that means today, they are kicking they're general election planning into over drive. A senior adviser tells me this means starting to coordinate with the RNC immediately. Staffing up, figuring out where to send your staff, what general election swing states to send them, and of course, ramping up those conversations about who the VP pick might be, and the vetting process, all as Trump pulled out what he called an amazing, unexpected victory.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The voters chose another path.

MURRAY (voice-over): Indiana marks the end of the road for Ted Cruz.

CRUZ: We are suspending our campaign.

MURRAY: And a major victory for Donald Trump, as he becomes the Republican Party's presumptive nominee.

TRUMP: What Ted did is really a very brave thing to do. We want to bring unity to the Republican Party.

MURRAY: After months of battling it out with the RNC.

TRUMP: It's all a rigged system. It is really a disgusting system.

MURRAY: The billionaire finally getting a message of support from the very top. Party chairman Reince Priebus tweeting, "Trump will be the presumptive nominee. We all need to unite and focus on defeating Hillary Clinton."

Now there's only one other candidate refusing to leave the race.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I love California.

MURRAY: John Kasich's chief strategist tweeting, "Until someone has 1237 bound delegates, there is no presumptive nominee. California, here we come."

But Trump is largely ignoring the Ohio governor and now focusing squarely on the general election.

TRUMP: We're going after Hillary Clinton. She will not be a great president. She will not be a good president. She will be a poor president.

MURRAY: Trump solidifying his position at the top just hours after this litany of attacks from Cruz.

CRUZ: This man is a pathological liar. Donald Trump is a serial philanderer. The man is utterly amoral. Donald is a bully.

MURRAY: After a rough and tumble day on the trail, Trump adopted a friendlier tone in his victory speech.

TRUMP: I don't know if he likes me or if he doesn't like me, but he is one hell of a competitor. He is a tough, smart guy.

MURRAY: But if Trump was hoping for an endorsement, he may have a long wait. CRUZ: I am not suspending our fight for liberty. Our movement will

continue.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: So Donald Trump and Ted Cruz may not be mending fences any time soon. But in the meantime, Trump has plenty to deal with. He was saying this morning that he is not ready to throw out any potential name for his VP pick yet. But he did say he wants someone with a little bit of government experience -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Sara Murray, stick around. You're going to be part of a panel very soon.

2016 will go down in history. A man with no political experience is the presumptive Republican nominee. And he's a man who can launch attacks, many that are patently untrue, and make them stick.

Donald Trump is someone that may have killed orthodox conservatism, and he's a likely nominee that has some Republicans parting ways with the GOP. Like this voter who burned his voter registration card, another voter tweeted, quote, "Hillary Clinton may well be the first Democrat I have ever voted for at the age of 62." Even a former top aide to Republican Senator John McCain says he will stand with Clinton.

So let's talk about this. With me now, CNN's Sunlen Serfaty, Mark Preston and Sara Murray.

Welcome to all of you.

Mark, let's start with you. Reince Priebus says it's now time for Republicans to heal. Is that possible?

[09:05:02] MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: You know, I think it is possible in many ways. It's probably still early enough in the contest for the Republicans to rally around Donald Trump and if there was ever a unifying factor, if there was ever one person that could be a unifying factor for Republicans, it has to be Hillary Clinton in many ways. They did eight years of her husband's administration. She was the secretary of state. A U.S. senator, and let's not forget, and we shouldn't discount this, Republicans haven't been in the White House for eight years now.

Now there are going to be Republicans, Carol, that decide not to do so, that they can't get behind a Trump candidacy, but I think over time, if Donald Trump specifically is able to moderate his rhetoric, tone things down a little bit then I do think you'll see Republicans start to come together.

COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about the Clinton factor, Sara, because some say Republicans will unite because of their hatred for Hillary Clinton, and a CNN/ORC poll shows, you know, those analysts may be right. 57 percent voted for Mr. Trump because of their opposition to Clinton. So will Clinton be the Republican's uniter, Sara? MURRAY: Well, I certainly think what Mark Preston is saying is

exactly right. There are a lot of months between now and November for Donald Trump to sort of moderate his tone and bring on people who do have this sort of antipathy toward Hillary Clinton, who maybe still has some reservations about Donald Trump, and we'll see if he adjusts his rhetoric to try to make them more comfortable.

But the one caveat, Carol, that I would offer is we also heard this argument four years ago with President Obama. We heard that it didn't really matter if voters didn't like Mitt Romney very much because they were so angry about President Obama and what he had done in the first four years of his term, that they would show up just to defeat him. And that ended up not being the case. President Obama won in a landslide.

So there's something to be said for the fact that it's not just enough to be running against someone and running to defeat someone. You need to give voters a reason to rally behind you. And I think Donald Trump is going to need to do that, not just for Republicans, but also for the broader general electorate.

COSTELLO: So, Sunlen, can Donald Trump give Ted Cruz something to rally around his candidacy?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, the big question, Carol, is whether Ted Cruz will throw his support behind Donald Trump. Now it's something that really haunted him in the final days of his campaign, and still hangs over him. And I asked him as he left his last campaign event here in Indianapolis last night, repeatedly, will you support Donald Trump, and he of course would not engage.

I think it's very clear that there are wounds here that are very real and very raw still from the bruising primary battle. Aides within the Cruz circle say that there is a sense that Donald Trump really crossed the line, is how they put it, in this primary battle specifically pointing to attacks that Donald Trump made on Ted Cruz's wife and in the last few days on his father. That really struck a chord aides tell me. So it will be interesting to see how Ted Cruz handles this going forward.

Aides say they expect him to play a role as a surrogate in down ballot races. So he certainly has every intention to be out there on the campaign trail. I am reminded of what he told me back in March, which is not too long ago, when all these attacks were happening on Heidi Cruz. I said, will you support Donald Trump as a nominee, and he said, I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my family, and so it certainly still haunts him to this day. We'll see how he approaches that going forward -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Interesting. On the other hand, Mark, does it really matter if establishment Republicans support Donald Trump? I mean, he's done without -- he's done just fine without them so far, right?

PRESTON: Well, yes, but they can only get you so far, Carol. Yes, he needs establishment Republicans. He needs everybody. He needs independents and in some ways, perhaps he probably needs some Democrats as well. This is going to be a tough road, a very narrow road for Donald Trump, if he is to win the nomination. If you look at the map right now, Donald Trump has to win in some states that Democrats have traditionally won in. So he needs establishment Republicans, not only their support, but he also needs their money. Because it still is unclear as of now whether Donald Trump is going to write a check for $1 billion for himself to fund this campaign or if he's going to go out and try to raise money from Republicans to help fund his campaign.

COSTELLO: Well, he said on the morning show, Sara, that he might sell a few buildings to fund his campaign and he also said that he will now accept small donations. What do you see in the future for fundraising for Donald Trump?

MURRAY: Carol, I think it's extremely likely or unlikely I would say that Donald Trump is going to show up and start selling buildings in order to fund a general election campaign. And in fact we broke this story a couple of months ago that Trump was already privately telling people, including potential donors, that he would fund-raise in a general election. I think that is the most likely course for him.

And I think what you started to hear from him on the morning shows today is how he is going to message this shift. Because during the entire primary, he was saying I'm self-funding my campaign, I won't be beholden to big donors, I won't be beholden to lobbyists. And now he's saying, well, even if I accept donations, it's not really for me, it's for the good of the party.

[09:10:03] But to be clear, Carol, if you give money to Donald Trump and the Republican Party together, it of course benefits Donald Trump. It helps build a ground game in these battle ground states that will not only benefit the top of the ticket, but could also potentially benefit down ballot races and I think that that is what we'll likely see Donald Trump do.

COSTELLO: Interesting, OK. So as Donald Trump focuses his attention on Hillary Clinton, I want to ask you this question, Sunlen, because Trump has a way of getting into a candidate's head. Both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio went a little nuts on Trump and then their candidacies imploded. Are there any lessons for Clinton in that?

SERFATY: Yes, I absolutely think there are lessons, Carol. And it was so remarkable to see that happen both to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in their final days. There was a sense that they're really unloading and being finally able -- unshackled to say everything they wanted to say. Of course intrinsic in that is that they had to hold that back for a duration of the campaign. And I certainly think the Clinton campaign has been watching that for many, many months now and taking clues from that.

I think one of the postmortems from the Ted Cruz's campaign is did he wait too long to engage in Donald Trump? For so long, he held back, taking on Trump. It was even in January, we were sending out tweets, I'm not going to get involved in a cage match with him. Basically he thinks the world of Donald Trump, and then to fast forward to just yesterday, where he was calling Donald Trump a narcissist and a pathological liar. I think there was a sense that there should have been some balancing of those arguments throughout the campaign. I certainly think the Clinton campaign is already giving big clues, telegraphing that they're ready to engage with Donald Trump, but of course it is a balancing act. You don't want to stray too far from your own campaign's message -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Mark Preston, Sara Murray, Sunlen Serfaty, thanks to all of you.

And today, Donald Trump will sit down with Wolf Blitzer for the first time since being named the presumptive Republican nominee. The entire interview will air on "THE SITUATION ROOM" 5:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a big win for Bernie Sanders in Indiana, but can he overcome a delegate deficit to be the next Democratic nominee? He says he can.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We've been fighting uphill from day one. We will continue to fight uphill, and I think we still have a narrow path toward victory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:17] COSTELLO: Bernie Sanders puts another notch in the win column, becoming the Democratic nominee is in his words an uphill battle. Still, the Vermont senator is vowing to fight on, saying his Indiana victory, where he edged Clinton by five points proves that reports of his political demise are greatly exaggerated.

CNN's Joe Johns is tracking all things Democrats. He joins us now from Washington.

Good morning.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

The Clinton buzz now is almost unavoidable, but the headline is it was a big night for Bernie Sanders, keeps his campaign on the trail, though the numbers in the race for the nomination continue to work against him. And for her part, Hillary Clinton's campaign was pledging to stump for votes in every state left on the primary calendar, though they're also gaming out her message for a general election campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I understand that secretary Clinton thinks that this campaign is over. I've got some bad news for her.

(CHEERS)

JOHNS (voice-over): Bernie Sanders pulling off a stunning upset victory in Indiana over Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

SANDERS: We understand, and I do not deny it for one second, that we have an uphill battle in front of us. But I think we have a path to victory, although it is a narrow path.

JOHNS: That path, mathematically impossible, without swaying some of Clinton's 513 super delegates to his side.

SANDERS: Super delegates are supporting Clinton in states that we have won landslide victories. I think that's wrong.

JOHNS: But Clinton is looking past Indiana.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm really focused on moving into the general election and I think that's where we have to be, because we're going to have a tough campaign against a candidate who will literally say or do anything.

JOHNS: Fundraising on the back of Trump's triumphant night, tweeting, "Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee. Chip in now if you agree we can't let him become president."

As some Democrats criticized Sanders, saying he is impeding the Democratic path to the White House by prolonging the Democratic primary, the senator making his case to CNN's Dana Bash last night.

SANDERS: Absolutely.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Staying in the race, aren't you effectively making it harder for the Democrats --

SANDERS: You've already conceded the race for me. I don't accept that concession. We are in this race to win.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: So a big night in Indiana, especially for Bernie Sanders. Both campaigns have events scheduled later in the day. Hillary Clinton expected to speak here in Washington, D.C. this evening at a reception marking Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Bernie Sanders continues to campaign swing through the state of Kentucky -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Joe Johns, reporting live from Washington -- thank you.

Hillary Clinton isn't the only high profile Democratic voicing her concerns about Donald Trump on social media. Massachusetts senator and progressive heavyweight, Elizabeth Warren, tweeting, quoting, "I'm going to fight my heart out make sure Donald Trump's toxic stew of hatred and insecurity never reaches the White House."

Now we should note, Warren has yet to endorse anyone for president and the only female Democratic senator who has not endorsed Hillary Clinton.

So, let's talk.

John Avlon is CNN political analyst and editor-in-chief of "The Daily Beast", and Errol Louis is a CNN political commentator and political anchor for New York 1 News.

Welcome.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: OK. So, John, if Elizabeth wants the Democrats to obliterate Donald Trump, why doesn't she endorse anyone?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, it's a good question. I mean, you know, she encouraged Hillary to run early on, but she notably has refused to officially get on board the train and I think it's in part because her base is in the progressive wing of the party.

But if she's really so concerned about that toxic stew, I think it's time to get off the sidelines.

Look, Bernie is not dead. Hillary lost an opportunity to put him away last night.

[09:20:02] He is the Jon Snow of American politics. But the fact is Donald Trump has secured his nomination, which he started against 17 competitors, instead of Hillary Clinton, who had the field essentially frozen out.

That should be reality check for folks right now, because no one would have predicted that a few months ago.

COSTELLO: OK, so Clinton says she is preparing, right. Donald Trump is definitely preparing for a general election, right?

AVLON: Oh, yes.

COSTELLO: He says he's going to use some of Bernie Sanders talking point to do that, namely should Hillary Clinton release her Wall Street speech transcripts, right? You know Donald Trump is going to use that line and Bernie Sanders is going to continue to use that line.

So, will Bernie Sanders hurt the Democratic Party if he stays in?

LOUIS: I think he could hurt the Democratic ticket, the Democratic chances in November, but not because of that. I mean, the speech, is you know, she'll counter with why hasn't Donald Trump released his taxes, right? And so round and round we go. We've heard it before.

On the other hand, where Bernie Sanders could Hillary Clinton is if h, forces her to spend money and time that she really would rather be spending preparing for a general election campaign, then it does create a certain amount of disunion and wasted resources. I mean, Hillary Clinton lost Indiana among other reasons, because she

didn't -- I think she campaigned one day there. She didn't spend a penny there, whereas Bernie Sanders spent $1 million. If she wanted to match him, if she wanted to beat him, if she wants to take this to West Virginia and to Kentucky, to all these other places, it could cost her millions, it could her staff time, this is not something she should be if she wants to pivot.

On the other hand, there is this question that's out there, as John mentions, that, you know, look, Bernie Sanders -- you can't count out. If he wants to take it to California, if he wants to take it all the way to the D.C., to the campaign convention, then -- you know, sure, it's entirely his choice.

COSTELLO: OK, but obviously, Hillary Clinton would like to pivot and here is why. Because Trump, as I said, is already preparing. In fact, he had lunch with a man named Ed Klein.

Ed Klein is a biographer, who according to "The Washington Post" is known for spreading rumors and innuendo. Klein likes to write about Clinton's health woes, alleged woes, and the Clinton sexual adventures.

I'm betting that Mr. Trump will use Klein's stuff, after all, Trump did express no regrets in using "The National Enquirer's" phony story about Ted Cruz's father. Listen to what he said on "GMA" this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: You went on a morning show, and suggested that Ted Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, may have somehow been involved in of all things, the JFK assassination. I guess my question to you is, why in the world you would do that?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, Savannah, I was on a show and they played a clip of Ted's father, who is very active in the campaign. It's not like he is an inactive person.

GUTHRIE: But there is no evidence of this.

TRUMP: Excuse me. He said very nasty things about me. And then I just asked about stories that were appearing all over the place, not just in "The National Enquirer", about the fact that a picture was taken of him and Lee Harvey Oswald, and they didn't deny the picture.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But they did deny that picture. So, obviously, Mr. Trump will use whatever is in Ed Klein's book whether it is true or not.

AVLON: Sure. We're in the fact free stage of the campaign. That's why it is up to us partly to actually enforce a fact-based debate. But, look, Ed Klein, the poet laureate of anti-Hillary fan fiction. This is what he does. It's sort of opposite of erotica, it's heavy breathing hatred and sort of wholly made up passages. They get blood up, but they're really based in very, very, very little.

COSTELLO: Yes, how will Hillary Clinton fight back against that? Because you heard, Ted Cruz imploded, right? Marco Rubio imploded and called Donald Trump all sorts of names. It didn't work for them.

LOUIS: Well, there's a whole series of falsehoods that have been associated with Donald Trump. To the extent that Hillary Clinton wants to revive or really point out the fact that he was the most prominent birther fan in the country, based on absolutely nothing. And he ran with that for months back in 2012.

She can point out this sort of garbage. This is garbage. It's swill. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't do in anything.

COSTELLO: But it works.

LOUIS: Well, I don't know if it works. Obviously, what it does is, if you ever listen to conservative radio, some of the fringe hosts, like to dabble in this stuff. You know, World Net Daily, some of these other sites. And they squeeze money out of people and it's a punch line to a joke and they spin it around.

I don't see any evidence that it has ever convinced any authentically genuinely independent voter that there is some sort of horrible conspiracy going on, and that's the reason to vote against the candidate. Didn't work in 2012.

AVLON: This is the key. I mean, there are a lot of conspiracy entrepreneurs who hang out a shingle, and, you know, hating the Clintons have been a cottage industry for a lot of folks for decades now, Ed Klein among them.

But, you know, what works for a Republican primary electorate at a time when the party's base has shrunk because they rhino hunted the center right out of existence, does not work for winning a general election, where it's about winning swing voters in swing states.

[09:25:03] That is a key difference in the election we're about to see going forward.

COSTELLO: I don't know. The usual rules don't work this time around.

AVLON: Listen, there is an epic weirdness about this election. Make no mistake about it. But there's certain laws of gravity.

COSTELLO: OK, remember, this is all on tape.

AVLON: Oh, yes.

COSTELLO: OK, John Avlon, Errol Louis, thanks so much.

Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: New details about the U.S. Navy SEAL killed by ISIS. A complex attack, the terror group carried out, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

After winning in Indiana, Donald Trump has all but locked up the nomination. Next challenge, get him to the White House.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told the GOP, it's time to fall in line, tweeting Donald Trump will be the presumptive GOP nominee, we all need to unite and focus on defeating Hillary Clinton.