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CNN NEWSROOM

Iowa Cast First Votes in Presidential Race; Interview with Adam Vandall. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 1, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:00] JANE SANDERS, WIFE OF BERNIE SANDERS: We'll see what happens. But we'll be OK. And we're moving on to New Hampshire and we're staying on through the convention.

CUOMO: Jane Sanders, it's good to see you.

SANDERS: Nice to see you.

CAMEROTA: Great to listen to your story. I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much.

OK. We have a big day today and tomorrow.

CUOMO: Got a reminder for you. After the Iowa caucuses, what becomes the big deal? New Hampshire. So NEW DAY will go to Manchester, New Hampshire, and you can see us at the Waterworks Cafe because we're all about the Granite State after today. Today is the big deal.

Also Wednesday, we're trying to help this process as much as we can so there's another town hall. Three Democratic presidential candidates, all going to be there moderated by our man Anderson Cooper 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Hear them deal with the questions from the voters.

CAMEROTA: OK. We want to thank the Mars Cafe where we've been all morning. CNN's coverage of the Iowa caucuses continues. "NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow starts right now.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. And good morning, everyone. What a morning. What a day. Monday all eyes on Iowa. NEWSROOM starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to win in Iowa. If we do we're going to run the table, folks, and we're going to make this country so great, you're going to have victories all over the place.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The man is not serious. And it's not a sign of strength to show a total disregard about how the world works.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will unite the conservative movement. SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What this campaign

is about is a political revolution.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I hope you will vote for me. I hope you will fight for me and I promise you I will stand up and fight for you.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We will win the Iowa caucuses. We will win the nomination and we will win the general election. We will defeat Hillary Clinton and turn this country around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Good Monday morning to you all. I'm Poppy Harlow in today for my friend Carol Costello. So glad you're with us.

What a day, all eyes on Iowa. It is countdown to decision time in the nation's first vote of the presidential elections. Just hours from now Iowa voters will gather for their caucuses across the state providing a springboard for the big winners and a potential end to some of the struggling campaigns at the start of this critical day. Both races far too close to call. For Democrats the CNN poll of polls showing a mere 3 percentage points separating Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

But just this morning a new poll out from Quinnipiac shows Bernie Sanders with a three-point edge over Clinton there, 49 percent to 46 percent in the Hawkeye State. And among Republicans Donald Trump has a slight edge in that poll over Ted Cruz. So it is no surprise that the four frontrunners are blitzing across the state trying to win over the undecided.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: For those of you still thinking about this, weighing your options I hope I'll be able to persuade you.

TRUMP: We have to win in Iowa. You know, a lot of people say, Donald, just say do well in Iowa. I say I can't do that. I really want to win.

SANDERS: But I think the excitement and the energy is with our campaign.

CRUZ: If every man and woman here make sure that nine other people come and caucus tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. together we will win the Iowa caucuses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: They all want to win tonight. CNN's Erin Burnett live in Des Moines for us this morning.

Good morning, Erin. ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Poppy, and it is a chilly day

but a beautiful day here. It's supposed to stay clear and nice through the voting tonight and then a blizzard is coming in. We'll see who this is going to be good luck for. Months of campaign speeches. Iowa voters finally getting ready, they're going to work. It's weird. You can't go vote during the day. You're just going to sit around and wait. And then go tonight.

They're going to be gathering for the caucuses in just a few hours. Once their votes are cast that blizzard is going to sweep across much of the state. They're saying now an inch an hour with heavy winds.

By any political measure, though, things are heating up for both parties. It's got to be kind of weird to watch the show. That cold breath. You can see the people running, shooting into the shot.

Mark Preston is here with me. All right, Mark, here we are in the Republican side of things. Things are getting nasty in these final hours.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: They are. And you know, Donald Trump really has redefined what nasty is in politics. We've heard him attack Ted Cruz saying that he's from Canada in these closing days trying to discredit Ted Cruz. Let's listen to what he said last night about the Texas senator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Ted Cruz is a total liar. I am so against Obamacare. I have been saying it for two years in my speeches. I'm going to repeal and replace Obamacare. I don't know where he gets this. But he's a liar.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON: And I got to tell you what, though, Erin, on top of that.

BURNETT: Yes.

PRESTON: Not only is Ted Cruz out there trying to discredit Donald Trump but he has used Glenn Beck very effectively to try to discredit the businessman from New York.

[09:05:06] BURNETT: I mean, it is incredible what we're watching on all of this. But this is all going to come down to the ground game. Right? You heard Ted Cruz there in that sound bite saying bring nine of your friends. Right? This all comes down to turnout.

PRESTON: It totally does. And it's so unconventional right now. Let me just give you a couple of bits of information late last night.

talking to one of the top Trump operatives. They said they used two pieces of direct mail in the past few months. One was a Christmas card, two was a letter from Donald Trump saying, please, vote for me. The reason why, Christmas card humanizes him, the piece of paper gets put up on to the refrigerator.

But the Cruz people said 1800 door knocks on Saturday alone, 27,000 telephone calls. Can you imagine getting all those calls?

BURNETT: No. And also when you think about it in this issue of turnout Donald Trump, of course, you know, his daughter did a video showing people how you're supposed to caucus. And you have all this on Twitter. But a lot of the traditional caucus-goers obviously aren't on those mediums. This is new caucus-goers.

We haven't seen a surge in voter registration. But you can register today.

PRESTON: Right.

BURNETT: You can register when you show up at the caucus sites. So is it really true that the fact that we haven't seen a surge means nothing?

PRESTON: Well, I don't know. I mean, we will have to see what happens tonight. You know, Donald Trump is getting these rallies of 1,000, 2,000 people. You know all the candidates are starting to get big rallies.

BURNETT: Yes.

PRESTON: But can Trump turn it out? Here is one interesting thing about Trump. We're not talking enough about it. The person who's running the state for him, his name is Chuck Laudner. He's the former executive director of the Republican Party here in Iowa. The guy understands ground games. So I think quietly they are doing more stuff than we actually know.

BURNETT: Right. And Chuck Laudner, am I correct, also was the sort of the force behind Rick Santorum's surprise win in the state?

PRESTON: Right on. Because he's the one who took Rick Santorum from zero to winner.

BURNETT: Yes. That's just pretty incredible.

PRESTON: Amazing.

BURNETT: All right. Mark Preston, thank you. Going to be with us. As this day goes on, and I want to turn now to the Democratic side of things. Here's the bottom line on that. The latest polls are out. Dead heat. You have Bernie Sanders a little ahead. You have Hillary Clinton a little ahead. Just depends on the poll you're looking at.

Maeve Reston, our political reporter, is with me now.

And Maeve, I mean, it is incredible that this is simply too close to call, dueling polls, nobody would have predicted this six months ago.

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Absolutely not, Erin. And you just look at the staggering amount of money that these two candidates have raised over the last year. We had a lot of those numbers coming in over the weekend. Bernie Sanders raising $20 million just in January. His campaign told us yesterday. And Hillary Clinton, of course, raising $112 million in 2015. That's allowed her to have a really sophisticated ground game here in Iowa to ensure that she doesn't make the same mistakes that she did in 2008 when Barack Obama snatched that victory away from her.

And you feel it out there. And she talked to us this morning about the energy around her campaign. Let's take a listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I am feeling great. I am so proud of the campaign we've run here in Iowa. I've got the most dedicated campaign team, the organizers who have been on the ground, the thousands of volunteers. We actually knocked on 125,000 doors this weekend. So there is just a lot of excitement and energy and I am urging everybody to come out and caucus tonight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RESTON: What we know, though, is that there is a lot of energy on the Bernie Sanders side. The big question tonight is whether he can turn out all of these enthusiastic college students who have been showing up at his rallies in droves and whether his ground game to turn them out can really match what Hillary Clinton has on the ground here. So it is going to be a long night potentially and a very close race, but clearly one of them will get a good boost going into New Hampshire.

BURNETT: All right. Maeve, thank you very much. Maeve will be with us. And, you know, for the last few days, you know, you've heard Iowa is all about one thing -- turnout. And there's -- you know, you hear them say OK, I'm going to just keep saying that. No. I mean, it is certainly true when you look at these polls.

Also, though, about anger and the nastiness that we have seen in these final hours before people go to the polls. For Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, this has been crucial. A CBS-"New York Times" poll last month found the backers of both candidates are the likeliest to be angry at Washington. 52 percent of Trump supporters, 30 percent of Sanders supporters say that they are angry.

Joining me now John Avlon, "Daily Beast" editor-in-chief and CNN political analyst, Margaret Hoover, Republican strategist and CNN political commentator and Ron Brownstein, editorial director for the "National Journal" and our senior political analyst.

OK. I mean, this is pretty stunning. And you know, Ron, I was on a conversation this morning with a young woman.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BURNETT: Cambodian Vietnamese community in the state is very tight knit.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Right.

BURNETT: A lot of people look at Iowa, they say it's all white.

BROWNSTEIN:

BURNETT: That there are pockets of other communities. She is in her early 30s. Everyone of her friends, they're all going out and they are voting -- and they're voting for Bernie Sanders.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BURNETT: They are not college kids. They are in their 30s.

BROWNSTEIN: Right. Right.

BURNETT: And this is their first time caucus going.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, clearly -- I think the clearest fissure in the Democratic race this time is age. Generation gap is huge. Hillary Clinton much stronger among older voters who respond to her argument that she is the best prepared to move achievable change through a very clogged system.

[09:10:05] Sanders really dominating among younger voters here. Also in New Hampshire. Even in South Carolina. You have the white voters in particular who are responding to this argument, we're going to transform the system.

It's -- you know, in the long run I think Clinton's coalition even evident here is in a stronger position until Sanders shows that he can break into the minority community. But this enthusiasm gap among young people is an issue all the way through the primaries and going into the general if she is the nominee.

BURNETT: It's pretty incredible. Get John on this, I mean, you know, you're talking these particular communities, Vietnamese, Cambodian, it's small. It's not going to turn the whole thing. But you do see the minority communities is coming out for Bernie Sanders which is an area where Hillary Clinton had thought she was particularly strong.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And it absolutely has been. And you know, that age divide that Ron was talking about is actually around 45 is the divide in the campaign. So there are older Bernie supporters.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

AVLON: What's clear from outsider candidates like Trump and particularly Sanders is they've succeeded in turning their campaign into a cause. And that's been the most difficult threshold for Hillary Clinton to hit. And so you've got tonight especially on the Democratic side just that race as tight as a tick, and you're talking about turnout that's going to be around 125,000, 150,000. Si a couple of thousand in either way changes the narrative of this race completely going into New Hampshire.

BROWNSTEIN: Are you channeling Dan Rather?

(LAUGHTER)

BROWNSTEIN: I just had this flashback. Right? OK. Sorry, guys.

BURNETT: It is incredible, though, Margaret, when you talk about the numbers that John is talking about. You're talking about 100,000, like a thousand or two can turn this. A state of a few million. And sure, the whole country is going to vote, and, you know, you're just starting the delegate count. But the influence of Iowa is so much more, frankly, than it should be.

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, you're talking to somebody who is an Iowa homeowner. So I think Iowans are probably the best suited people to start the presidential process. But part of me is to be objective. Look, it is an outsized and disproportionate influence that they have on the beginning of the presidential election process. There's no question about that. Iowans wouldn't argue about that. And it doesn't set -- cast the dye but you definitely have to win Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina otherwise you're not -- your name is not going to be in the game.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

AVLON: And one fascinating thing about the politics, the anger that we're seeing. Nationally perhaps it's understandable, right? Not only inequality growing, which is filling a lot of the Sanders support. But anxiety about immigration, anxiety about American climate. But here in Iowa unemployment rate is 3.8 percent.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Right.

BURNETT: Right.

AVLON: You know, things are pretty good in Iowa and still you have that outsider anger fueling the --

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: I believe you have a fundamental frustration on both sides of the realities of divided government. You know, one party has had unified control of the White House and Congress only 12 of the past 48 years. We have Democrats in the Sanders orbiter who are saying they wish Obama could have gotten more done. You have Republicans certainly motivated by the belief that they wish the Republican Congress could have undone more of what Obama did. And the common frustration is that neither side is fully willing to accept the realities of governing in a closely divided country. And you see kind of a rebellion against that in both parties. It is somewhat untethered from the underlying -- political reality.

BURNETT: There is such a great irony, though, that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are tapping into the same thing. And they're both relying on the same thing.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BURNETT: And they could not be saying in terms of their solution to the anger more different things, although they believe everybody should have health care, though, yet in very different ways. But they do both believe everyone should have -- I mean, that's not insignificant.

AVLON: No, no, no. but I mean, you know, what Ron is speaking to is fascinating, right? Because you do have a lot of anger at Washington based on divided and dysfunctional government.

BROWNSTEIN: Right. Right.

AVLON: But the prescription these candidates are offering --

BROWNSTEIN: These are all (INAUDIBLE).

AVLON: Absolutely right. Exactly. It's actually doubling down on the dysfunction.

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

AVLON: Because there is no prescription to actually bring people together in Washington. That's seen as an establishment right now, but that is actually the outsider message, frankly.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

HOOVER: The other piece is the single issue that's motivating Republican caucus-goers more than anything else is immigration.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

HOOVER: And in Iowa -- Iowa is not a border state. Iowa doesn't have a massive immigration problem. It's not even just immigration like your standard immigration, it's about Syrian refugees and it's about national security and it's about terrorist attacks. And this is -- seriously on the wake of a terrorist attack.

BROWNSTEIN: You know, look, Iowa is actually emblematic of the change the country is going through. A majority of public school students in Des Moines are now kids of color. OK.

AVLON: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: It's true nationwide. And --

BURNETT: It's a fascinating --

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

BURNETT: And again, it goes against the grain. Most people in Iowa is all white.

BROWNSTEIN: And, you know, all of America is living through profound demographic change at a time of sustained economic stagnation. That is a very volatile combination. And you see what Trump has done is trying to divide the electorate along a cultural line. Sanders tries to do it along an economic line. I mean, but they are both speaking through the sense of unease about living through profound change.

AVLON: Right. And what's so significant, the character of the state, Robert Ray, Republican governor invited Vietnamese refugees in.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Right.

AVLON: And you've seen -- so that's the real character of the state.

BURNETT: Right.

AVLON: But one thing is driving Trump is a real anxiety about white minority politics. There is a racial aspect to the anxiety that people are feeling and the anger.

BURNETT: Right.

AVLON: That I think we need to confront as driving some of this.

BURNETT: All right. Well, thank you all very much.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks.

BURNETT: And again, that community, you know, who knows? At least the member I spoke to, so they're all going out.

AVLON: Yes.

BURNETT: Going out for Bernie Sanders tonight. Thank you so much.

And still to come, who says nobody likes Ted Cruz? Glenn Beck says it's time to stop saying that now because Glenn Beck likes him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[09:15:01] GLENN BECK: This is a false narrative that is going on that he's unlikable. He is liked by an awful lot of people, just not the people who want to make deals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: What he supports for health care is Bernie Sanders style full on socialized medicine.

TRUMP: Ted Cruz is a total liar. I am so against Obamacare. I've been saying it for two years in my speeches.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: All right. It got very ugly here at the end in these final hours. Trump and Cruz are neck and neck in Iowa today. Ted Cruz's campaign deploying 12,000 volunteers to gain support. Right? They just have these hours until you've got to get in at 6:30. And at 7:00 the caucuses start.

Our Washington correspondent Joe Johns is nearby with more, with the Cruz campaign.

And, Joe, so you've got 12,000 volunteers going out. How do they actually get people to go? I mean are they offering rides? Are they offering food? I mean, what's the way that you get people to show up?

[09:20:02] JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It's a little bit of everything. I think the answer is yes, quite frankly. They do work hard and I can tell you in some instances there are individuals out there planning to caucus who have seen volunteers two and three and four times over the last several months. There are calls, there's personal visits. There's the do you need any help getting out. So a lot of different ways that people try to do this -- Erin.

BURNETT: And so what's their feeling right now in terms of how optimistic they are? I mean, you know, we talked about the weather. There is a big blizzard coming short. It's not supposed to come until after midnight. But is there concern that that could affect turnout?

JOHNS: Yes. I don't think at this stage there is a lot of concern about that. There is a lot of hope that the weather is going to hold out at least until we get through the caucuses.

The Cruz closing argument has been about a number of things, I think. The first thing has been he is saying he needs to win in Iowa in order to keep Trump from running the table because he is looking strong in New Hampshire, concern that he'll be able to do very well in some of the other early voting states. And they've also been pushing really hard on religious conservatives -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Joe Johns. And now back to Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, Erin, talking about those religious conservatives, evangelical votes, so big especially for the GOP. 56 percent of GOP caucus-goers in 2012 considering themselves evangelicals.

Let's talk more about that with one of the voters. And let's look at Ted Cruz, he is facing off in Iowa today head-to-head with Donald Trump. The Texas senator supporters are calling for another meeting on stage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL ROBERTSON, TED CRUZ SUPPORTER: So how many out here have duck calls? So let's try one more time to get Trump. Let's call Donald Duck to come meet with Cruz and debate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: With me now another Cruz supporter, Iowa voter Adam Vandall. Thank you for being with me, Adam.

ADAM VANDALL, IOWA VOTER: Thank you for having me.

HARLOW: All jokes aside, all right, Cruz is taking a lot of heat right now especially from Iowa secretary of state over this mailer. Let's show it. It was sent out over the weekend. It shows basically people with failing voter records. I have it here if we can't pull it up on the screen. There it is. All right. If you send it out -- they sent it out and it told people how they rank, an F grade there or a C grade or a D grade compared to their neighbors in terms of showing up to caucus.

All right? It says it's official, et cetera. Well, it's not. The secretary of state there in Iowa called it misleading. He wrote in a statement, "It misrepresents the role of my office and worse misrepresents Iowa election law. Accusing citizens of Iowa of a voting violation based on Iowa caucus participation or lack thereof is false representation of an official act. There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting." It goes on.

So what is your take? Do you think, Adam, even as a Cruz supporter, does this go too far?

VANDALL: Campaigns have done this over several of the last cycles. I mean, this is nothing new. I believe Marco Rubio actually sent out a very similar mailer, as well. Joni Ernst two years, in her run for the Senate -- for the U.S. Senate, she sent out a similar mailer as well. These are just all tactics that all campaigns use. This is really nothing more. I mean, it's a mailer. You get it and you end up throwing it out anyways. I have seen this 100 times before.

HARLOW: All right. So in your opinion all is fair in love, war and politics, I suppose, especially on caucus day. I want to move on to the evangelical vote. You consider yourself an evangelical when we look at the latest "Des Moines Register" polling. What it shows us is that Cruz has actually seen a 12 percent decline from early January until now. 37 percent then. 25 percent now. That critical evangelical support.

Over the weekend an evangelical group, Americans United for Values, released this radio ad, they slammed Cruz on his tithing record. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I also heard he gives less than 1 percent to charity and church.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He doesn't tithe? But isn't he a millionaire? His wife worked for a big Wall Street bank, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Goldman Sachs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right. So, Adam, you're an evangelical voter. What's your take?

VANDALL: Look, evangelicals do their homework. All right. Not every single tithing offer that I do, I report on my taxes. Why? Because Christ told us he wants a cheerful giver. A cheerful giver is not one that gives just to get a kickback from the government. So to say that he only gives 1 percent he obviously -- he gives more than that. That's all he reports on his taxes. Quite frankly, if they are going after that, that's because they can't really go after him on any real issue of substance.

[09:25:09] HARLOW: All right. Let's talk about one of those key issues of substance. Immigration. Right? You've got critics who point to Cruz and they say he flip-flopped, he's flip-flopped on immigration. They dispute his past record in terms of his amendment that he put forth to that Rubio bill a few years ago, granting legal status to illegal immigrants. Cruz says not the case at all telling our Jake Tapper that it's wrong.

Is it clear you, Adam, where Ted Cruz stands on immigration and amnesty and allowing some of the illegal undocumented immigrants to stay in this country?

VANDALL: Look, he's always been against blanket amnesty. What he does after that may be another story. But even Megyn Kelly came out after the FOX News debate and actually said no, he was right, even though she slammed him with all those video clips of taking them out of context. So he will secure our border. He will, you know, take care of the illegals in this country.

I'm not sure of all the particulars on that particular subject, but -- with him. But he's always been against blanket amnesty.

HARLOW: Right. Adam Vandall, we know you're going to be out caucusing tonight, a very engaged voter there in Iowa. Thank you for your time.

VANDALL: Thank you.

HARLOW: Still to come here in the NEWSROOM, how can Hillary Clinton hold off an opponent who is surging in the polls especially that Quinnipiac poll just out this morning, giving Sanders a slight edge over Clinton in Iowa? Clinton's key strategist with us next.

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