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CNN NEWSROOM

President Obama Arrives in Cuba; Donald Trump to Privately Meet with Republican Insiders; Clinton Addresses Pro-Israel Conference; Trump To Meet With Influential Republicans Today; Source: Anti-Trump Group To Track Meeting Attendees. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 21, 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] GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: People hope that America can be a better place. That matters, too. The message matters very, very much to people. Many of whom have lost hope, who when they leave our town halls say, you know what, thank you for what you've done for me and what you have had to say today for our children. And you know what, that's extremely valuable in the United States of America, I believe.

CAMEROTA: There you go, Governor. Perfect way to end our show. That's it for NEW DAY today. We appreciate you being on, Governor.

KASICH: Thank you, Alisyn. Always good to be with you. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: You too.

Thanks so much. Thanks for watching. Time now for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello. Hey, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Alisyn. Have a great day.

NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is wonderful to be here.

COSTELLO: History in Havana. President Obama promising change before sitting down with Raul Castro this morning.

Plus the outsider meets with insiders. Donald Trump hours away from trying to make nice with top Republicans. But what about the protesters?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't condone violence.

COSTELLO: Does this man sucker-punched at a Trump rally buy it? I'll ask him.

And a hunt for a new terror suspect in connection with the Paris terrorist attacks. Where is this man? 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.

History is made but the past is not easily ignored. President Obama faces a busy morning in Cuba as he works to bridge the Cold War chasm that has separated the two countries for more than half a century. The visit riling some Cuban Americans at home and causing this communist crackdown on protesters in Havana. Dozens are arrested underscoring the president's vow to discuss human rights abuses with President Raul Castro. They will meet in just a couple of hours.

President Obama on ABC this morning says it's the first step in a long journey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Our intention has always been to get a ball rolling knowing that change wasn't going to happen overnight. But what we've already seen is the reopening of the embassy and, although we still have significant differences around human rights and individual liberties inside of Cuba, we felt that coming now would maximize our ability to prompt more change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: I want to bring in senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta. He's traveling with the president. He's live in Havana. Hi, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Good morning. You know, President Obama has a diplomatic dance to pull off over the next couple of days here in Havana. He is going to meet with Cuban president Raul Castro later on this morning after he lays a wreath at a memorial for the pre-Castro Cuban Revolutionary Jose Marti.

But the big question today, Carol, is this. Does President Raul Castro take questions from the American press when he meets with President Obama later today? They're going to make some statements both to the American people and to the Cuban people.

Cuban television, we should point out, Cuban state TV is carrying much of the president's visit live and some rolling coverage. But does Cuban President Raul Castro take questions from the U.S. press? That is one of the big questions here and it's all part of what President Obama is trying to accomplish here. Yes, he's bringing U.S. businesses here. He has major CEOs with him, president of Marriott, president of Starwood Hotels, PayPal and so on.

He is trying to bring in U.S. businesses to show the Cubans look, this is what you can get if you expand human rights, if you expand freedom of the press, freedom of speech. All of these American dollars are going to come in. And at the same time the Castro government here is being tested. Will they expand human rights? Will they expand press freedoms and freedoms of speech?

President Obama, according to the White House, is going to be pushing those issues not only with President Castro directly but also in an address to the Cuban people tomorrow. So a lot to watch. A lot of words to parse here on the ground here in Cuba. And we'll start to do that later on this morning -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jim Acosta reporting live from Havana, Cuba this morning.

Hours from now CNN goes one-on-one with the final five presidential hopefuls. It will be one of the last chances for the candidates to make their case to voters ahead of tomorrow's critical Western Tuesday primaries.

And just hours from now Donald Trump will try to make his case to AIPAC. That's a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. But not before Mr. Trump meets with nearly two dozen influential Republicans in Washington, D.C. Those GOP-ers, though, may have some extra and unwelcomed company. A source now telling CNN's Dana Bash that an anti-Trump super PAC will actually send a tracker to stake out that meeting in the hopes of getting video of who is coming and going to potentially use those pictures against attendees at some point in the future.

[09:05:06] A lot of political intrigue this morning. CNN's Dana Bash joins us by phone. CNN's Sunlen Serfaty live in D.C. '

Sunlen, I want to start with you. What will Donald Trump be saying before AIPAC later today?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This will be an interesting moment for him, Carol, potentially a moment in front -- making a policy speech to potentially come off as presidential, really potentially rise above campaign trail rhetoric.

We do expect him to likely touch and try to clarify those comments that he said recently that he would remain neutral in the Israeli- Palestinian. This is something that his opponents on the trail, especially Senator Ted Cruz have really been hitting him on and we expect to see Senator Cruz, when he expects there later tonight, too, to really hammer down on this issue, really bring that to the forefront of his speech.

But certainly Trump's speech tonight is not without controversy. We know that a group of rabbis will protest and boycott the speech. Many of them say they anticipate to walk out in the middle of Trump's address. So this will be an interesting moment, how he handles that, what he says to this very important group going forward -- Carol.

COSTELLO: OK. So Sunlen Serfaty, thanks so much.

So Donald Trump will speak before AIPAC later this afternoon. But before he does that, he will be in Washington, D.C. And he's going to talk to a group of Republican insiders that include lawmakers and lobbyists and political operatives. Nobody knows exactly who will attend that meeting but some other GOP-ers desperately want to know because they want to use the information against those attendees and Donald Trump.

Dana Bash has the skinny on that. Tell us more, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Good morning, Carol. Well, you know, just when you thought that it was possible for the Republican Party to, you know, think long term about coming together, forget about it because this is something. This is a tactic that campaigns usually use and parties usually use against opposing parties, meaning you send a young person with a phone at this point or a camera to try to trip up an opposing politician on the campaign trail or what have you, and then hold on to that video to use at a later date.

Well, this is being done by Republican groups, people who simply do not want Donald Trump to be their nominee. They are going to send somebody to this event that is happening this afternoon. As you mentioned, Donald Trump is going to meet with some, you know, Washington insiders and members of Congress. It's particularly for the members of Congress they're going to try to nail and hold on to the video to use at a later date.

And, you know, I was talking to a source who's involved in this, who said remember there are now a lot of money people, people who have very deep pockets who are into this anti-Trump movement who might be so angry ultimately that they might use their money to try to fund a primary opponent on some of these -- excuse me, on some of these Republican lawmakers. So it is really -- it is a typical political war going on and it shows absolutely no sign of healing within the Republican Party right now.

COSTELLO: I'm not sure it's so typical, Dana. The irony here is Trump is meeting with these Washington insiders to bring the Republican Party together when in actuality he may be tearing the Republican Party apart even further.

BASH: Yes. I mean, certainly he has started to talk more and more about, you know, find the Republican Party and getting people together. You know, he's got to try if he wants to be the nominee, if he wants to be the titular head of the Republican Party which is what he would be if he is the Republican nominee. But it is not going to be easy and this is case in point of that and the fact that they are going to steak him out.

And it's not just that. You also have Erick Erickson, an influential conservative who just wrote this morning on his blog, tearing apart any conservative who would dare to meet with Trump since he does not believe that Trump is one. So it is -- basically for anybody who supports Donald Trump, who is going to meet with Donald Trump, they have basically a political bounty on their head from these very well- funded, very upset anti-Trump forces.

COSTELLO: All right. Dana Bash, reporting, thanks so much. Interesting, right?

I want to bring in CNN's Brianna Keilar now. She's inside the Verizon Center. And that's the site of that big AIPAC conference that's now going on. Not only will Donald Trump speak there but of course the Democrats will speak, too. Hillary Clinton in particular but not Bernie Sanders.

Brianna, why?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Bernie Sanders is out west campaigning, Carol, and he is not going to be coming back to the East Coast clearly prioritizing campaigning out there on the West Coast.

[09:10:03] It is interesting, though. He is the only Jewish candidate in the race but instead today he'll be giving a foreign policy speech in Utah.

I do want to tell you something that I thought was pretty interesting as this conference kicked off. One of the leaders of AIPAC came out and spoke to the crowd and said that the group had invited candidates, that they don't necessarily agree with on substance or on tone so I don't really need to tell you who he was talking about. But he implored the audience not really to -- not to make any sort of signs of disapproval.

He said if you like what you hear clap, if you don't, don't clap. So clearly there's going to be, I guess, an understatement to say, a mixed response we would expect later today when Donald Trump is here.

We are expecting Hillary Clinton to be speaking this hour. And we're learning some very significant information about what she is going to say, Carol. We expect it's going to be a bit of a prebuttal of Donald Trump that she is going to make the case that the next commander-in- chief must have a steady hand, the next commander-in-chief must not be unpredictable and then some very pointed words for Donald Trump.

One campaign official telling us she will say that the U.S. must never be neutral when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or consider the relationship negotiable. This is a direct response to some comments Donald Trump made in February where he said he would like to remain neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict later clarifying saying that would be -- that he could remain somewhat neutral to the Palestinians so that he can negotiate a deal.

So I think this is going to be comments certainly from Hillary Clinton that you want to listen to as she tries to make a case that Donald Trump is unfit on substance and also on tone on this issue.

COSTELLO: Interesting. I want to go back to what you said about Donald Trump's speech and how the audience is expected to react. I talked to a rabbi who's going to walk out in protest. And I think they're going to make a ruckus because he was very passionate why in the reasons why the rabbis were going to walk about, and it was because he said it was because of Donald Trump's hate speech, those were his words.

KEILAR: Yes. And this is something that certainly -- when you heard what Donald Trump said back in February where he said he would like to make a deal and so he is going to try to remain neutral so that he can negotiate. Well, that is not something that certainly the crowd who is here for this AIPAC conference agrees with. In fact they're vehemently opposed to it and that's part of the reason why you heard a leader from AIPAC come out at the very beginning of this and saying, we don't need this to be disrupted and trying to say that that will look badly when it comes to the folks who are here watching.

We're going to see if they heed his warning, if that is just a silent walkout or if it is going to be something raucous like you mentioned -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Brianna Keilar, reporting live from the AIPAC conference. And by the way, we expect Hillary Clinton to begin her speech in just about 25 to 30 minutes. Donald Trump won't speak before AIPAC until later this afternoon.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump reaches out to Republicans to try and unify but there are signs this morning, it ain't working. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In a few hours, Donald Trump will try to make nice with a group of sitting Republican lawmakers. We know nearly two dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and political operatives will sit down with Mr. Trump later this afternoon. I wish I could give you a list of names.

But reports are flooding the names of only two lawmakers so far, Senators Tom Cotton and Jeff Sessions. Sessions has endorsed Trump. Cotton has not. Trump hopes the meeting will repair relations with establishment Republicans and perhaps pave the way to a more peaceful Republican convention.

You know, one that's not contested, but there is trouble on the horizon, an anti-Trump GOP group will try to infiltrate this meeting to take names.

With me now, A.B. Stoddard, associate editor for "The Hill," Angela Rye, political strategist and former executive direction of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill and CNN political commentator. Welcome to all of you.

This is like heavy duty intrigue. A source telling CNN's Dana Bash that this anti-Trump super PAC group will send a tracker to stake out that meeting in the hopes of getting video of who is coming or going to potentially use that video against those attendees at some point in the future. So Tara, how does that bode for a GOP reconciliation?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, doesn't sound very great. It doesn't sound like it is something smooth sailing. I mean, look -- I was just in Washington for a couple of days. I was back on the hill and talking to some of my folks and people are really perplexed about Donald Trump and what he would mean for the Republican Party and what it would mean for our general election prospects.

Folks in Washington are unhappy with the direction things are going in, and very concerned about the rhetoric coming out of his mouth, the demagoguery, the violence at his rallies. So I can understand why Trump's folks would start to reach out to some establishment people.

Because if he has any hope whatsoever of unifying, which I'm very skeptical of, he has demonstrated nothing up to this point to indicate to us that he can tone this down and act presidential.

If there is any hope of that he will have to get some of the people who know how things work in his corner to try to guide him, get him -- advise him on how to tone this down and get people to believe what he is going to do.

I'm skeptical of that and I think that this is all just another game because of the violence and what's happening in rallies that he has to make it look optically like he is cooperating.

COSTELLO: Well, A.B., is this a sign Donald Trump is getting nervous?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "THE HILL": Well, I don't know that he gets nervous. I think that people have told him if you want to come around and unify like he said a few times in his victory press conferences after elections recently.

[09:20:08]If you want to convince Republicans that you will be unifying force and a strong general election candidate against Hillary, you have to act like it. So people are advising him of this.

I think he is doing it because people are saying it's the right thing to do. What the people who are going there today and you're right people have not -- members don't want to admit that they are going so we are not clear yet who is going to actually show up.

But they are not there to tell Donald Trump how to be presidential or how to be a leader or how to prepare for the serious national security threats that we face and he would face as commander-in-chief.

I think they are there to listen. They want to hear what is his plan to get to a convention, that is contested, to be the nominee, and to unite the party.

And it will be an interesting meeting because it is really his move and they are not seeing a candidate who is taking this sort of nominee to be role seriously enough.

They are worried that he is not changing his rhetoric about what is happening at the rallies. He has said he doesn't condone violence, but what is happening with his campaign manager and security detail in the crowds is happening and obviously makes them very nervous.

Not to mention obviously everything that he has done to isolate different groups, Muslims, Mexicans, women, et cetera. So I think the onus is on him today to show a different Donald Trump.

COSTELLO: OK, so maybe he will show a different Donald Trump before APAC today, that's this powerful group of Jewish lobbyists and he is going to speak before their group today.

And Angela, what is interesting about that is according to "Politico," Mr. Trump will use prepared remarks. He won't talk off the cuff as he usually does. I don't know if he will use a teleprompter or not.

But he will have a piece of paper and a script and supposedly he will stick to that. What do you make of that?

ANGELA RYE, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: Well, I think they're trying to demonstrate the importance of being disciplined and on message. Donald Trump has demonstrated consistently that he can't stay on one message at all.

He flip flops on every single issue including whether or not. He's in support of Israel, but then he'll be neutral when it comes to Israeli- Palestinian issues.

So I think that they want to ensure that he does not use the wrong buzz phrase with his comments today. It is a very powerful pro-Israel lobby and being anything but relatively sound and clear on your support of Israel won't get you very far.

So I think it is very important that he is on message. I would be interested to see if he would be disciplined enough to do that. This is the same guy who said I don't need foreign policy advisers. I have a brain. My brain is very good on anything. It is interesting to see what he does.

COSTELLO: Interestingly enough, his son, Donald Jr., gave an interview over the weekend, Tara, saying that there really are two Mr. Trumps and that we will see a different Mr. Trump going forward and that Mr. Trump will be more presidential.

SETMAYER: How many times have we heard this? This is their new talking point, right? We heard Ben Carson say that and his son say that. He is quite measured when he is off camera. That should bother people.

Will the real Donald Trump please stand up? We've never seen it. He is a character. He's been playing one for 20, 30 years on television. We don't need a reality show character in the White House, which is what conservatives like me and many other Americans are very concerned about and object to.

This is about the presidency of the United States. It's a very serious business. This isn't scandal. So the fact that he is going into this very powerful group, foreign policy is not his forte.

He is all over the place, incoherent foreign policy, which is really the main role of the president of the United States. So that should be concerning. If he is going to give a decent speech and try to demonstrate half of what is going on here, I guess, APAC would be the place to do, but I'm not confident at that.

COSTELLO: All right, I have to leave it there. A.B. Stoddard, Angela Rye, Tara Setmayer, thanks to all of you.

Be sure to watch tonight starting at 8:00 p.m. Eastern as five remaining candidates for president sit down for interviews ahead of the western primaries only on CNN.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, sucker punched at a Trump event, but Trump says this protester shares the blame. What is the protester's message for Mr. Trump? I'll ask him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. In just a little bit Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, will take this stage for the 2016 APAC conference. The pro- Israel event is underway right now inside the Verizon Center in Washington. Of course, we are monitoring this event and will bring you the very latest.

Donald Trump will speak at APAC later this afternoon and he won't exactly be warmly welcomed. Dozens of rabbis vowed to walk out to protest what they call Trump's hate speech. They are not alone in protesting Trump's fiery rhetoric.

Brian Sanders suffered a bruised jaw and bruised rib cage after a Trump supporter landed a series of blows at a political rally in Arizona over the weekend.

This is Sanders. He is wearing the American flag shirt and being escorted out of the rally by security. You see his alleged attacker, Tony Petway, throw some brutal punches to Sanders jaw and then he begins kicking him in the ribs.

Petway appears to be stomping on Sanders eventually. You will see it in just a minute. This is in slow motion. Petway, by the way, is now charged with assault. The attack on Sanders was the culmination of a very tense day filled with protest against Mr. Trump.