Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Donald Trump Wins Indiana, Pushes Ted Cruz Out; Sanders Keeps Hopes Alive After Indiana Win; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 4, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Today he wears the party's banner "presumptive nominee." Trump now stands fewer than 200 delegates away from officially clinching the nomination. He steamrolled in the Hoosier state winning 53 percent of the vote. More than Ted Cruz and John Kasich combined. He picked up all the delegates and snuffed up Cruz's last hope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign. But hear me now, I am not suspending our fight for liberty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Trump ignoring Kasich and his last challenger and now focusing on November and the Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What Ted did is a -- really a very brave thing to do and a great thing to do. Because we want to bring unity to Republican Party. We have to bring unity. It's so much easier if we have it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Democrat Hillary Clinton also focusing more on November while getting a strong reminder that Bernie Sanders is still around. He narrowly wins indiana and vows that he is not stepping aside.

Let's begin with CNN's Sara Murray, though. She's outside the Trump Tower in New York. Good morning.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, look, now Donald Trump is a presumptive nominee, but his campaign was kind of taken by surprise to see Ted Cruz drop out last night. They sort of expected to be slogging out this primary for a little bit longer. But what that means is now the general election plan and goes into overdrive. It begins in earnest. So that means working with the RNC, it means staffing up, it means figuring out where to redeploy your staff to battle ground states, and, of course, it means figuring out how you're going to pay for a very expensive general election fight. So far Donald Trump has mostly been self-funding his campaign. But he's making some signals that that may change. Take a listen to what he had to say about that this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: 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)

MURRAY: Now Donald Trump and his advisers have argued that he has a unique appeal for Republican that he'll be able to put more states in play than any other Republican would in a general election. But if you look at our latest CNN-ORC poll it shows that Trump still has some work to do. In a head-to-head contest against Hillary Clinton she draws 54 percent support, he draws only 41 percent support. So we'll have to see if Donald Trump begins to change his tone or if his campaign starts to do more coordinated outreach perhaps to female voters to try to bring that number up.

And, Carol, there is always the X factor, too, of who could be the VP pick and whether that's something that can shake up this race as well. Back to you.

COSTELLO: All right. Sara Murray reporting live at the Trump Tower this morning.

Mr. Trump says he wants to unite the Republican Party, but why does he care? He's now the likely nominee and he did it without the establishment Republicans. Still, that united word is being bandied about. But is it being used in a sincere way?

Listen to Mr. Trump on the "Today" show this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I am confident that I can unite much of it. Some of it I don't want. I mean, there were statements made about me that those people can go away and maybe come back in eight years after we serve two terms, but honestly there are some people I really don't want. I don't think it's necessary. People will be voting for me. They're not voting for the party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: With me now to talk about this, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for the "Atlantic," Ron Brownstein. I'm also joined by New York City Councilman Joseph Borelli. He's also the co-chair of Trump's New York campaign. And CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash.

Welcome to all of you. DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Carol.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, good morning.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here.

Joe, you're a Trump supporter. Do you care if Mr. Trump unites the Republican Party?

JOSEPH BORELLI, CO-CHAIR, TRUMP NEW YORK CAMPAIGN: Well, I do and I think he will. And I think that this sort of never Trump thing and the fact that a lot of Republicans are saying now that they may not support him is something that happens every time we see a contested convention.

Look, your viewers should -- go in their computers, look at a CNN article from May 6th, 2008, which questioned and brought to the light that most Hillary Clinton voters were not going to support Barack Obama in the primary. In fact, one-third of them at that time said they were going to vote for John McCain so there's always sort of this unity when we come out of contested primary seasons.

But look, Trump is going to get a big bump from actually securing the nominee yesterday and he's going to get a big bump after the convention. So any polling right now and any talk about not uniting the party is really going to wean itself out as we get along in this general election process.

[10:05:08] COSTELLO: Interesting. So, Dana, I'll post the question this way to you. And Mr. Trump says people are voting for me and not the party. Does that signify that Donald Trump doesn't care if all Republicans unite behind him?

BASH: I don't think so. I definitely think he cares. He should care. He gets the importance of the party and the people who are in the never Trump movement supporting him.

But, Carol, look, we've seen this kind of dynamic in many, many campaigns before. People who were absolutely opposed to the person who ultimately became the nominee saying no, no, no. But this is obviously very different in a lot of ways. We didn't have a never Trump movement with, you know, billionaires who are fundraisers and donors and the party trying to do whatever they could to stop the guy who eventually became the nominee.

But, no, I mean, it does matter, and he does care, but he's got to do that while still not giving up his brand that made all of these Republicans like him in the first place, which is he's not like the other guys. He is different. He's not going to just kind of fall in line and be beholden to the donors and the lobbyists and the party machine, or whatever that maybe. So it's actually a more difficult line than I think people realize.

COSTELLO: Definitely. And Ron, along the money lines and the RNC, you know, the RNC could raise money for Mr. Trump, right. And Mr. Trump says he's willing also to accept small donations moving forward. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So far I've spent my own money. I've spent -- I think it's listed at $44 million. That's been my own money and also taken small contributions. We will probably take small contributions. We'll take the limits. I don't want big contributions now. People can contribute to the party, there will be a unification. There's no question about it. But I'm really looking at small contributions, really, not the big ones. I don't want to have anybody have any influence over me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So what is he really saying, Ron?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, first of all, I mean, you know, the underlying premise here is since George W. Bush candidates have not stayed within the public financing system on the general election on the presidential side which is, you know, as the case in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. So you're talking about an enormous amount of money that's going to have to be raised. And it's striking that he said he would have to sell some buildings, you know, if he wanted to self- finance, you know, raising questions about his liquidity which have been discussed all the way through.

But look, he's going to have to raise money. This is going to be very expensive. And the CNN poll today, I think, really underscores the challenge. I agree. I think there will be some very high profile Republican defections particularly on the national security side. But in the end he'll probably suffer less Republican defection than it appears today because that's the nature of modern politics. We're so polarized. The party has come together.

The problem is, is that even if Republicans hold together, if the Democratic coalition holds together, it has won the popular vote in five of the past six elections. If Hillary Clinton gets the turnout and the numbers she needs among millennials, minorities, and college- educated whites, especially women, it is very hard to overcome that. And you see those numbers very starkly in your news CNN-ORC poll.

COSTELLO: You absolutely do, Joe. So Mr. Trump has a lot of work to do. What might he say to win women over, to win minorities over?

BORELLI: Look, there's no question he has to start picking up votes in different demographics around the country. But look, the CNN poll today might be somewhat of an outlier because we saw a Rasmussen poll last week indicate that they're in almost tie and one this week indicate that he's slightly ahead. And we haven't even seen the polling needle shift as a result of his securing the nomination. What it comes down to -- look, I even teach my freshman political science class this is that it's better to be, at this stage in the game at least, trending up than someone like Hillary Clinton who seems to be trending down.

I still put my money on Donald Trump. I think he really needs to compete hard in the rust belt states. He needs to do a good job comparing his economic plan with that of the Clinton's and NAFTA and I think he has an opportunity to pick up some electoral votes there.

COSTELLO: Well, he is doing very well among those blue-collar voters. And the exit polls in Indiana, Dana, still show that Hillary Clinton does have major weaknesses with that bloc of voters.

BASH: Absolutely. So, you know, the blue curtain that Ron Brownstein coined, the idea that Democrats do have an electoral advantage for various reasons in the general election is true, and I think that if there is a candidate on the Republican side who contests that it is Donald Trump. Because he does appeal to voters in those states that Democrats have been successful in. In Michigan, in Pennsylvania, maybe less so in Wisconsin, but in the states -- maybe West Virginia, which has been more Republican lately.

[10:10:07] But the point is that the states that have -- had been maybe 20, 30 years ago swing states have been pretty securely Democratic because they have felt such job loss and they have sort of felt the pull towards the Democratic Party for that reason. But Donald Trump is speaking their language and he is the person who is saying look, all of these politicians for the past several decades, they haven't worked for you. And I'm different and I'm going to work for you. And that is a big plus for him. That's can maybe overcome some of the Republicans that he's going to lose. And as he has been saying, potentially bring some new voters into the party.

COSTELLO: Ron, something else that Donald Trump is doing. He tweeted out this morning that Bernie Sanders has been cheated because the system is rigged and that seems to be a ploy to convince maybe Bernie Sanders supporters that, hey, the Democratic Party is rigging the system, too. Vote for me. I can get it fixed.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. It's another example of I think what Dana was talking about. I mean, Donald Trump is a disrupter. He showed that in the primaries. He will show that in the general election. He will not go quietly, he will not accept the box that he's now locked into. But there are limits to what he can do particularly with Sanders supporters. Sanders supporters have two main components. Blue-collar whites who have been a big problem for Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders has beaten her among non-college whites in every state outside of the south except Ohio. And that does, I think, signals an opportunity for Trump to kind of poach among those voters, particularly in parts of the Midwest.

The other part of Bernie Sanders' coalition, though, are millennial voters. And they are growing as a share of the electorate. They will equal baby boomers this year as a share of eligible voters and right now Donald Trump is staring at terrible numbers among those voters. And it really goes to the underlying problem. If you look at his numbers among these three key elements of the Democratic coalition -- millennials, nonwhite voters, and socially liberal whites, particularly women, college-educated white women -- he is starting the race in a big ditch. And if he can't climb out of that ditch, I believe that what he does everywhere else will not be enough to overcome that. So that is where I think you've got to see some progress for him in which where the CNN and other -- most other polling, Rasmussen notwithstanding, shows him starting the race needing to do a lot of repair work.

COSTELLO: All right. Ron Brownstein, Joseph Borelli, and Dana Bash, thanks to all of you. Today --

BASH: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

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

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, think the Democrats battle for the 2016 nomination is over? Well, think again. Bernie Sanders scores an upset and lives to fight another day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:53] COSTELLO: Bernie Sanders is keeping his presidential hopes alive after upsetting Hillary Clinton in Indiana. Sanders taking the state's primary by five points and taking a little time to celebrate his victory.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I understand that Secretary Clinton thinks that this campaign is over. I got some bad news for her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Joe Johns has more on the Democratic battle. Good morning.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Bernie Sanders continues to insist he is in it to win it with what he calls a narrow path to victory, though the numbers and the race for the nomination continue to work against him, and we know he would need the help of superdelegates to pull it off at the convention. Sanders also making the argument that his continuing campaign keeps younger voters energized. That would be important for any Democratic nominee in a general election race. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: I think that while the path is narrow, and I do not deny that for a moment, I think we can pull off one of the great political upsets in the history of the United States. And in fact become the nominee for the Democratic Party, and then once we secure that position, I have absolute confidence that we are going to defeat Donald Trump in the general election.

(END VIDEO CLIP) JOHNS: The argument against Sanders staying in the race is that it forces the Clinton campaign to keep one eye on the remaining primary states at a time when Donald Trump can now claim he is the Republican Party's presumptive nominee.

And for her part, Hillary Clinton's campaign is trying to do that, focusing also on Donald at the same time, tweeting, "As he goes after women, he goes after literally every group I'm going to be their voice." But still the problem is, as long as Sanders stays in the race and remains at least arguable, she cannot ignore the primary states that are upcoming, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Joe Johns reporting live for us from Washington. Thank you.

So while the door seems to be closed on the Republican contested convention, is one being opened for the Democrats?

Let's talk about that. Bill Press is Bernie Sanders supporter and author of "Buyers' Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down," and Michael Nutter is the former mayor of Philadelphia and a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Welcome to both of you.

BILL PRESS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hi, Carol.

MICHAEL NUTTER, HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTER: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Hi. Bill, it's mathematically impossible for Sanders to catch Clinton with pledged delegates. He needs over 984 to win, only 933 are left. Is Bernie Sanders willing to take -- to risk a loss for the Democrats by forcing this idea of a contested convention?

PRESS: Well, I disagree with your premise entirely. First of all, I'd have to point out that neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders is going to be able to secure the nomination without some superdelegate support.

But this primary, Carol, is not bad for the Democratic Party. This primary is great for the Democratic Party because, first of all, it tells voters what Democrats stand for in state after state after state. It brings them -- it excites Democrats, gets people out to vote, brings in some independents, some new voters, and this is what we need.

[10:20:06] That's what the Democratic Party needs going forward to win the general. There will be plenty of time to win the general election. There's no need to pull the plug on this primary process especially when Bernie Sanders keeps winning state after state.

COSTELLO: Well, Hillary Clinton would probably like Bernie Sanders to step aside, but there are important reasons why she can't ask Sanders to suspend his campaign, Michael, because, one, she didn't suspend her 2008 campaign until June. And let's face it, she needs Bernie's cred. Take a look at the exit polls from indiana. Hillary Clinton tied with

Sanders among women but lost badly among men. Clinton suffered double-digit losses among Indiana voters between the ages of 17 and 29 as well as voters aged 30 through 44, and among white Americans Clinton faced a 16-point deficit.

So, Michael, she needs Bernie Sanders, doesn't she?

NUTTER: All Democrats need to be actively engaged and involved in this election process. And of course, Secretary Clinton would welcome the enthusiastic support of Senator Sanders when we get to that point. There are still contests, as mentioned earlier, and she's going to continue to be a great candidate in those contests. But at the same time, again, if you're going to be president of the United States of America, you really have to be able to do more than one thing at a time.

And it is appropriate for her now that the Republican train wreck has arrived in the station that Secretary Clinton must, also, as the leading candidate on the Democratic side, must spend some time and attention focused on the dangerous nature of the possibility of Donald Trump being president of the United States of America. That is a dangerous possibility. People are nervous across the country and around the world about that.

And it is her responsibility as the leading Democratic candidate at the moment to also spend some time focused on the dangerous and outrageous nature of a Trump candidacy. He's clearly going to be the Republican nominee.

COSTELLO: So the question is, how do you fight back against Donald Trump who will -- well, many say he'll play -- he'll pull every trick, right.

NUTTER: Sure .

COSTELLO: It'll be a very dirty campaign. He'll probably malign Hillary Clinton in all sorts of ways. But, Bill, I guess I'll ask this question to you. Should she do what Ted Cruz did as a last-ditch effort? And I just want to remind our viewers what he said right before the Indiana primary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. But he combines it with being a narcissist. A narcissist at a level I don't think this country has ever seen. The man is utterly amoral. Morality does not exist for him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So that didn't work for Ted Cruz. And some people, Bill, said that should have come earlier and it would have worked. So should Hillary Clinton try that? PRESS: Here is my opinion is, I don't think that will work for

anybody. It didn't work for Marco Rubio. Donald Trump is very clever. He was able to convince those other 16 people and bring them down and -- for several of them by getting them to sink as low as he did in their personal attacks, and when they tried it, it failed.

I have to agree with Mayor Nutter on this. We're going to see both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders I bet you in every campaign appearance with all the contrast with Donald Trump because he would take this country -- first of all, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, about any issue. But he would take this country in a very, very dangerous direction. They're going to draw that contrast. But they will not -- in my judgment, they will not sink to that personal level of attack. It would be a mistake for them to try to do so. It's not in Bernie Sanders' nature, it's not in Hillary Clinton's nature.

NUTTER: No.

PRESS: Stick to the issues and the policy, and they will crush Donald Trump.

COSTELLO: But, Michael, it's worked for Donald Trump.

NUTTER: Donald Trump is an idiot and a showman. And so Hillary Clinton and Senator Sanders are both adults. They are serious people. They're about serious business, and Secretary Clinton, as I know her, is not going to conduct herself in any way, shape, or form like some of the insanity we saw over on the Republican side. You know, my father --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: See, Michael, you just called Donald Trump an idiot.

NUTTER: Yes, well, he is.

COSTELLO: Sometimes it just slips right on out, right?

NUTTER: I've said it before. Right. But I'm not running for president of the United States of America. Hillary Clinton is going to talk about the issues. She's going talk about things that matter to Americans, you know, the truth is an affirmative defense. So you don't fight the other fighters' fight. She's not going to engage with him in that kind of -- as Bill said, race to the bottom and descend into the gutter.

[10:25:04] She has real things to talk about. He wants to be an entertainer and a showman spouting off all kinds of things. She's actually about trying to be the president of United States of America which is a serious job for a serious person not a reality TV star.

COSTELLO: All right. Michael Nutter and Bill Press, thanks to both of you.

PRESS: All right. Thanks, Carol. NUTTER: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Senator Ted Cruz may be out but John Kasich will not quit. The Ohio governor about to speak.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: At least three people are dead and more than a dozen wounded after a maternity hospital is hit by shelling in the Syrian city of Aleppo. It comes just days after the city's last pediatrician was killed in a separate hospital bombing. According to a human rights group, clashes between --