Return to Transcripts main page

WOLF

Democrats Prepare for N.Y. Battle; Trump Meeting with National Security Advisors; ISIS, Nuclear Security Topics at Nuclear Security Summit; Angry Voters Driving Election; Trump Riding Angry Voter Wave. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 31, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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


[13:30:00] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Just look at the map. This is a big fat prize of a state, almost 300 delegates. And Bernie Sanders is trailing Clinton by about 200 deletes. He needs to do well in New York. In the meantime, you were looking at that poll, he's trying to give Hillary Clinton a run for her money here. But what he's also trying to do, in Wisconsin, hoping to get a little bit of a bump, hoping to do well there. But he faces a lot of challenges. Hillary Clinton gets a lot of support from a diverse electorate in New York, especially in New York City. Bernie Sanders is talking to unions. He's trying to chip away at some of that labor support, some of those white Democrat who have been more friendly to him than to Hillary. That's why you see Bill Clinton today, Wolf, talking to four different union groups, he's trying to shore up that support for his wife. And even if the margin is tight, even if she wins here, if the margin is too tight, that is something that could be embarrassing for her. So she certainly wants to maintain a large lead over Bernie Sanders. April 19th, a few weeks away here in New York.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: She's at the State University in New York and a congresswoman is about to introduce her.

We're going to monitor this, Brianna, and get back to you. Thanks very much.

Coming up, President Obama kicks off a major very critical summit of world leaders right here in Washington, D.C. How they're working together to prevent the unthinkable, ISIS madmen, terrorists in possession of nuclear weapons.

And live pictures also here in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump is meeting with his national security team in the nation's capital. He's been quiet so far today. No campaign events. We expect him to make a statement. We'll have coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:35:00] BLITZER: Live pictures from the old post office building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. You can see the scaffolding. It's being converted into a hotel. Not just regular hotel, a Trump hotel. And inside that building right now is Donald Trump. We're told by his aides that he's been meeting with his national security team, his national security advisors. He's expected to emerge fairly soon, make some sort of statement, maybe answer some reporters' questions. We'll have live coverage of that. That's the image you're seeing right there.

In the meantime, there's other major news unfolding in Washington. Right now, President Obama is hosting his fourth and final nuclear security summit here in Washington. Representatives from more than 50 nations, they're discussing what the White House calls the greatest threat to security in the world today, nuclear security and ISIS.

Last hour, the president spoke more about the issue during a meeting with leaders from Japan and South Korea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are committed to working together on combating ISIL. And at the end of this nuclear security summit, there's going to be an international focus on what additional steps need to be taken in light of the terrible tragedy that took place in Brussels. Both the Republic of South Korea and Japan have been stalwart allies in that process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN's global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, has more now on the potential nuclear threat that ISIS poses.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SIREN)

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Raiding the home of a suspected planner of last November's Paris attacks, Belgian authorities found surveillance video of a top Belgian nuclear scientist. That suspect, part of the same ISIS cell accused of last week's attacks in Belgium.

The shocking discovery turned the heads of counterterrorism experts, who fear Belgium, with several previous nuclear breaches, could be at risk for terrorists to obtain radiological materials for a so-called dirty bomb.

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, PRESIDENT, PLOUGHSHARES FUND: A small dirty bomb would not just cause panic, not just cause people to flee the city, it would contaminate tens of square blocks for years.

LABOTT: Those fears now top the agenda at this week's nuclear summit. President Obama first convened the gathering of world leaders six years ago, issuing a call to action.

OBAMA: It's increasingly clear that the danger of nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to global security.

LABOTT: Since that warning, 12 countries have eliminated nuclear material. But tons of unsecured weapons-grade materials remain in 25 countries.

(SHOUTING)

LABOTT: And ISIS, barely on the radar at the time of the first summit, is now a global network, already using chemical weapons on the battlefield.

A recent what a Harvard University report warned that despite modest improvements in nuclear security, the capability of groups, especially ISIS, has, quote, "grown dramatically," suggesting overall the risk of nuclear terrorism may have increased.

MATTHEW BUNN, HARVARD UNIVERSITY'S BELFER CENTER: We don't know what the terrorist threat is going to look like two years, five years, 10 years from now, and to me that's even stronger reason to lock down all the ingredients of a potential nuclear recipe.

LABOTT: Elise Labott, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: I spoke about the threat with Brett McGirk. He's the Obama administration's special envoy to the anti ISIS collation. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT MCGIRK, SPECIAL ENVOY, ANTI ISIS COALITION: It's an aspiration of ISIL. They are a global terrorist network. They don't only want to expand their territory in Iraq and Syria, they want to attack us here at home, they want to attack our partners. It's something they have talked about for years. And if they could get hands on munitions like that they wouldn't hesitate to use them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Joining us now is CNN global affairs analyst, Bobby Ghosh. He's the managing editor of "Quartz."

Bobby, thanks for joining us.

Where is ISIS most likely, from your analysis, all your reporting, where are they most likely to be able to acquire nuclear materials to build some sort of dirty bomb, if you will?

[13:40:00] BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, for years, counter terrorism experts have worried about the "stans," the former Soviet states that are independent countries that have had a lot of fissile materials, missiles. And a lot of Obama's efforts over the last six years have been basically to lock that down, get it expose, get it secured. But as we have seen, if Western Europe, if Belgium, if the headquarters of NATO cannot 100 percent secure its nuclear materials, then it could happen almost anywhere. So this gathering of world leaders, this is an important moment for, I think, the Obama administration to make the point that the threat can come from almost anywhere and almost any time and so that -- and so everybody has to be vigilant. You can't simply pay attention to one part of the world over the others. BLITZER: One of the concerns is ISIS may have money. They have oil.

They have stolen a lot of money in Mosul. They took over banks in Iraq. There was a lot of valuable stuff. Could they purchase some radiological material from some place to build that so-called dirty bomb that could call enormous death and destruction?

GHOSH: The people that gain these things, the scenario is whether they could buy it from crumpet Eastern European mafias that have access to former Soviet caches of nuclear materials and if they could find somebody within a nuclear capable country like Pakistan, somebody who supports their cause. The Pakistani military says they routinely look very closely at the people who work in their establishment and make sure that won't happen. But that is something that they need to be afraid of.

And you rightly point out, Wolf, that ISIS, unlike al Qaeda, control parts of fairly large countries. They can build under ground facilities, they have access to laboratories, so physical infrastructure that could be used to make at least a dirty bomb, if not a full-fledged nuke. So this is something you don't want to be alarmist about it but, at the same time, I think for the past six years, the president and the administration have been making the point that this is probably the most dangerous threat to the world.

BLITZER: Yeah, and especially, you drop one of those dirty bombs in a heavily populated urban area, who knows the result or what would happen. And I know it's the nightmare scenario of these top leaders, who are gathered here in Washington from 50 nations right now, that's what they're worried about the most, at least right now.

Bobby Ghosh, thanks very much.

GHOSH: Any time.

BLITZER: Coming up, stocks rising, unemployment falling, but still voters are voicing anger. We're going to discuss.

Also this. We wanted to take a moment to congratulate the founder of CNN, Ted Turner. Last night, he received a global philanthropist award from UNICEF for his amazing work with the United Nations foundation and for bettering the lives of countless children and their families. Congratulations to Ted Turner. A job well done.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:47:22] BLITZER: There seems to be one big issue driving this election. We're talking about anger, anger at the establishment, anger at the Washington gridlock, anger at the economy.

"CNN Money's" chief business correspondent, Christine Romans, introduces us to this angry voter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN MONEY CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, economists give the American economy right now a solid "B." Primary voters give an "F." And polls show they are angry, angry in spite of a jobless rate at 9.4 percent, approaching a level many economists consider full employment. Another big jobs report tomorrow expected to show further improvement in the jobs market.

Plus, home prices jumped 11 percent last year. Mortgage rates are down. The stock market is up 200 percent since its low seven years ago. Gas prices remain pretty cheap.

That's not the economy discussed around American kitchen tables. Their talk is of closed factories, stagnant wages, student loan debt, and declining opportunity for anyone without a college degree.

And this chart, I think really speaks volumes. Look at household income, down $3,700 since 2007. At $53,657, median income is back down to 1995 levels. In 2001, there was 362,600 factories in the U.S. employing almost 16 million workers. By the year 2013, that number had dwindled to 11.3 million workers in 292,000 factories. And American voters feel it. They feel left behind by a 21st century economy that they believe benefits investors and shareholders and bosses and party leaders, the superrich, and status-quo politicians, not the middle class.

Essentially, Wolf, their economic self esteem is in the dumps this election year. But here is a curious wrinkle. When asked about their personal economy, roughly six out of 10 primary voters in exit polls say they're holding steady. It is a remarkable disconnect -- Wolf?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Christine Romans, thank you.

Our chief national correspondent, the anchor of "Inside Politics," John King, is with me.

It's fueled so much of the support, this anger, for Donald Trump, shall we say, and we're about to hear from him.

[13:49:30] JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT & CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Right. Donald Trump is riding a wave we've seen before. Remember Ross Perot, in 1992, that giant sucking sound. That was jobs going to Mexico. Donald Trump, to a lesser degree, Bernie Sanders, tapping into that, saying, where is the economy going, where are my jobs, what is globalization doing not only my job and my kitchen-table conversation, but to my community. You've seen that playing out. We've seen this in the Republican Party, in the Tea Party election, both 2010 and 2014. And the Republican establishment tried to snuff those voters out, tried to raise money to beat those voters, get candidates those voters didn't like, as opposed to finding a way to embrace them and bring them into the coalition. And now we see it, the genie's out of the bottle. That is what Donald Trump is tapping into in this election, anger at trade, anger at the establishment, anger at Washington dysfunction. It's bipartisan, the dynamic that Trump is tapping. The question is, can he ride it to the nomination? He's got a ways to

go to get there. If he's the nominee, how does he carry that into a general election in a Republican/Democrat race? When Ross Perot rode it to almost 20 million votes, almost 19 percent of the vote in 1992, he was the third-party candidate. We haven't seen a major party candidate trying to hug this anger and keep it within an existing party coalition.

[13:50:38] BLITZER: Sort of the anger, generating the support for Trump, a lot is generating support for Bernie Sanders as well.

KING: It is. If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, how does she keep the Sanders voters who are mad about the economy, who are uncertain about the direction of the economy, uncertain whether they're going to have a job or their kids or grandkids are going to have a job in their community? How does she embrace them and keep them in to the Democratic coalition? Or if Trump is the nominee, do those voters who are angry go over to him because he's so anti establishment. It's a different calculation when you're in a general election because each candidate -- assuming there is only two. We could have a -- if Trump is the Republican nominee, there could be a conservative third-party candidate and then the Libertarians and the Green Party candidates might try to take some of those voters, too, if there's anger at Trump. But if it's a two-way race, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, if they are the nominees, will look at the map and say, how do I get to 270 electoral votes? Ohio would be key to any strategy. You have that Rust Belt economy, those kind of angry about the economy voters there. North Carolina, another big former mill and industry state, that now has become more of a high-tech medical community. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be fighting over that.

So then in a general election, we go swing state to swing state and see how the anger plays out on a state-by-state level. But there's no question, the biggest national dynamic right now is what I call the "stew of negative emotions." Some of it's anxiety, some of it's anger, some of it's --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: How unusual is it? We've covered a lot of these campaigns. How unusual is the anger level this time?

KING: I think it's higher than it was, even in the 1990s. The highest we've seen in a presidential election was in a Perot dynamic in 1992, which faded a little bit, because Perot made it more about him and less about the anger. Next, was 1996. But 20 percent of the vote in 1992, that was a game-changing election. Again, now we're seeing it play out not in a third-party structure but within two existing parties at least at the moment.

I think this has been bubbling and bubbling from Perot to the Tea Party and now it is a defining moment in our presidential campaign.

BLITZER: John King anchor "Inside Politics," Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. An excellent hour for all of us political junkies. KING: I'm on the treadmill watching.

BLITZER: I'm watching every Sunday.

Thanks very much.

We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:56:52] BLITZER: You're looking at some live pictures, right outside the Republican National Committee headquarters here in Washington, D.C., up on Capitol Hill. We expect Donald Trump to be walking through that area momentarily, maybe make a statement. He's been meeting earlier today with his national security advisers. We're about to get a list, we're told, of those national security advisor he's been meeting with.

John King is with me.

We have a partial list of advisers he says are helping him. Supposedly, we're going to get more today.

KING: This has been one of the questions from the beginning, who do you listen to, who do you get advice? When we see tragedies, whether San Bernardino here in the United States, Paris, Brussels, the bombing in Pakistan in recent days, who does Trump talk to for advice? For a long time, he wouldn't say at all. Then he released a small list. He's had to face questions when he said, you know, I talk to myself or I watch the shows and I see the generals on the shows, but I talk to the guy in the mirror because I trust my own judgment. Some voters like that. Some are a little bit scared by that.

Going to the Republican National Committee headquarters is interesting because we're at this fascinating moment, what will happen in Wisconsin, what will happen beyond then? Will Donald Trump get to the convention with enough delegates to clinch or will we have an open convention where you have to master the rules of being on the floor. Well, the people who help set the rules, the Republican National Committee, with whom he's had a hot-and-cold relationship.

BLITZER: And I assume he's going to meet with Reince Priebus, the chairman of the RNC. I know there's been some concern that all of the remaining presidential candidates, they've walked away from their earlier so-called loyalty pledge that they would support whoever emerges as the Republican nominee?

KING: And the chairman has attributed that to the heat of battle, if you will, and said he's confident, by the time we get to the Republicans will calm down and lick their wounds, if you will, if you lose, and say I'm ready to support the nominee. But that is by no means a certainty. You've seen personal tension between Trump and Cruz in recent days. You've seen John Kasich trying to position himself as the alternative. If you get to an open convention, all three of them saying I don't know, ask me later, it's premature to ask me about that now. That tells you there's the heat, if you will, the boiling water in this contest for the nomination right now. So Donald Trump's the front runner, the faraway front-runner. Donald Trump needs his people to understand and master those rules if you do have an open convention. Reince Priebus would also like Trump to stop saying things that are controversial, whether it's about the KKK or some issues of violence at some of his rallies. They've had some tension in recent weeks behind the scenes. But overall, Trump and Priebus say they have a respectful relationship where they communicate with each other. But it could, between now and Cleveland, be more of an issue.

BLITZER: In Cleveland, that's where the Republican convention will take place in July.

And a little while ago, the Trump campaign released what they called the Make America Great Congressional U.S. House Leadership Committee, chaired by two members of Congress, Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins, both Republicans, who support Trump. More of this is supposedly on the way.

All right, we'll stand by to hear what Trump has to say.

John King, thanks very much.

KING: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

In the meantime, the news continues next, right here on CNN.

[14:00:14] PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. Great to have you --