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Still Waiting On Results Out Of Iowa; Iowa Democratic Party Holding Call With Campaigns This Hour; Iowa Democrats Promise Majority Of Caucus Results At 5PM Eastern. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 04, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: --the Iowa Democratic Party says those delayed results should come later today. The campaigns were told to call in for more information right now. In the meantime frustration, anger and yes this is politics, after all, campaigns spinning the Iowa results even though they don't know the numbers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's clearly a victory for us even as we, along with the - I think the whole country impatiently wait for some official results from the Party. There was no question that for us it was an extraordinary.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We know that we did incredibly well. We won a bunch of precincts and delegates at places we didn't expect to win, and so we're feeling good.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When I left Iowa, I said it was too close to call, and it still is, but I feel good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Several candidates are making New Hampshire stops this hour. We'll try to keep an eye on them. Dip in if it seems newsworthy. But now let's bring in CNN's Leyla Santiago who is in Manchester, New Hampshire. Leyla, the candidates get they're sort of lined faulted. They don't know what happened really in Iowa last night but they hope to get some more information this hour.

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, and so they're very frustrated and some are becoming very much impatient, but at this hour a campaign aide tells me that they will be having a conference with the Iowa Democratic Party.

And when I specifically asked this campaign aide, okay what do you plan to ask in this conversation? They said we just want answers we want answers, this is infuriating that given that they spent millions of dollars and countless hours from volunteers, really investing in Iowa for their candidate and now they still feel that they don't have answers.

Now I thought this was interesting, that the same campaign aide told me as much as I want to be sympathetic to what they're going through, them being the Democratic Party in Iowa, I don't feel they're sympathetic to what we're going through.

And, again, called this infuriating and said that in the past, the last few phone calls that they've had with the Iowa Democratic Party, they have lasted about half an hour. Suspected that this phone call given that there is growing frustration may take a little built longer, but really hoping that they can get more clear answers as to exactly what happened in Iowa?

And how exactly Iowans are feeling so that they can continue to move forward in these early voting states and these candidates can continue to make their case and their pitches to the voters. John?

KING: Remarkable day, Leyla if you get any information on that call during the hour, please come back and share it with us. With me here in studio to share their reporting and their insights Seung Min Kim with "The Washington Post" Julie Pace with "The Associated Press" Julie Hirschfeld Davis with "The New York Times" and Rachel Bade also with "The Washington Post."

This is quicksand day in the sense that the day after Iowa is normally when we find out two or three candidates get a bounce. Two or three candidates, because this field is so crowded, get the boot. They - you know the fundraisers say sorry we're not going to give you any more money.

You're just back from Iowa. Chaos reigns at t the moment, what is the impact on this very important and very close campaign?

JULIE PACE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ASSOCIATED PRESS: It is total chaos, and total uncertainly I mean going in to the caucuses, there was a real feeling on the ground of in Iowa of anxiety. Voters were uncertain, campaigners were uncertain what was going to happen, and that's just heightened right now.

You have a lot of candidates that are spinning results. We don't actually have results. And I think it's very possible that either we don't have results before New Hampshire, despite what the party is saying, or we have results and no one is just really going to believe that. No one is really going to take them at face value. It puts a lot of pressure on New Hampshire and the states that come next.

KING: And you say no one is going to believe them which are interesting this morning. We don't have firm results. The campaigns have people at all these precincts. There are 17,000 precincts around the state. Campaigns are pretty well tuned in.

They have a rough idea, they probably can't do the total math but they have a rough idea which is why this is interesting from the Biden campaign. Kate Bedingfield Biden Deputy Campaign sent a tough letter to the Iowa party last night and then this is a top official in the Former Vice President's Campaign saying, maybe we can't trust this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KATE BEDINGFIELD, BIDEN DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well look, you know, you see in the letter we have real concerns about the integrity of the process. And I think there were some significant failures in the process last night that should give voters concern.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You could say this is horrible. You could say it's stronger than that, because it's appropriate to use stronger than that. But you could say we're going to wait and see. We trust the party to double count. They say they have a paper trial. You know this is a horrible thing but we'll get there. What is the point of saying we might not trust this in the end. There were problems questioning the integrity.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CONGRESSIONAL EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, as you said I mean, the campaigns are going to be spinning what they know about the results are what they think they know about the results, and I think we're seeing that start to take shape.

And one of the things, clearly because this is such a mess and the fact that there is no actual clear result yet, I think some of the campaigns, like the Biden campaign that don't expect to do as well, and this was going to be a big setback for Joe Biden if it turned out that he did come in third or fourth and other candidates had surged ahead of him, that he wants to set the expectation.

So that you know if that result does become clear that that is not taken as the be all, end all, that he can still stay in the race that he still has room potentially to go forward. But it's striking to me having being covering this impeachment and the fact that the integrity of the election, the idea that candidates might cheat or that the voting system can't be trusted in some way has been so front of mind for the public in this whole debacle.

[12:05:00]

DAVIS: I think that this really is going to just enhance that whether or not the campaigns lean into this message of you can't trust it, I think voters are really going to wonder, can we trust the results here and then what do we do with that information going forward?

KING: So just moments ago again nobody knows the results. They have some anecdotal evidence from their people some campaigns are stronger than others. They might have a better sense. This is Elizabeth Warren, Senator from Massachusetts, wanted to come out of Iowa strong to get back to her neighborhood where she knows Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont who was also a very strong moments ago saying, I think this is good but we're not sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: Yes, it's a tight three-way race at the top. We know that the three of us will be dividing up most of the delegates coming out of Iowa. I'm feeling good. We had a bumpy start to the Democratic process yesterday in Iowa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Their stake understatement of the day, a bumpy start. By three, she means Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg. Now that was what people were saying on the ground last night but we still don't know that.

And yet if you're a voter in New Hampshire if you're a Democratic donor around the country, normally if Warren had a great night last night, Sanders had a great night last night, their online fund raising would have - you see this after big debates you can raise millions of dollars overnight same for Klobuchar or Buttigieg Biden less so in that space. How is this going to impact the race?

RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: That's it has been so frustrating I think for these candidates who spent so much time, so much energy so much money. In Iowa, I mean coming out of Iowa, there were supposed to be clear winners, clear losers.

Usually after the Iowa caucuses, you see a bunch of people drop out. Their supporters go to another candidate perhaps the top three. Yet today we're hearing Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer, they're all saying we're moving forward. Sort of using this lack result to sort of continue their campaigns and so that's obviously frustrating for people like Warren who were hoping to get some sort of bump from lower tier candidates falling out.

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Exactly. And the momentum thing is so key I mean I think before the caucuses last night, we expected that if we were to project that Bernie Sanders probably have a very good night, but the mess that we're seeing here with the lack of results, whatever momentum, whatever the boost that a winner could have had, they're really robbed of that.

And I think that's why I think Pete Buttigieg, relying on the data that he says his campaign has, went out there and declared victory even though we are at 0 percent at basically at every precinct level to try to steal some of that momentum even if at the end he comes in second or third at the end of the day.

PACE: And there are some practical cal implications about this though. You know Iowa never offers enough delegates to give anybody a lead here. But if you're an Amy Klobuchar, if you're even a Joe Biden whose funding has not been particularly strong, if this race really heads into Super Tuesday and we expect this big crowded field to land there with Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire, waiting. You need money to get there.

And you need money to invest in those states. I think it's an open question right now about whether some of these candidates will be able to run really robust campaigns in those later states?

KING: Right, even if Senator Klobuchar for example was a surprise. Let's say she's in a tight race with Joe Biden. It might be at fourth or fourth and fifth, but if it was viewed as surprise something she could have spun last night, as I ran even with the Former Vice President you raise some money of that. We know we already know they did invest so much time and money in Iowa that - let's look at some cash on hand. This is as of December 31st, so a lot of money was spent in the last month contesting Iowa.

Tom Steyer could write his own cheques, but you see Bernie Sanders had 18 million on hand, Pete Buttigieg 14.5 Elizabeth Warren 13, Joe Biden 8.9 Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang less money there and now everyone you're looking at right there is qualified for the debate Friday night.

So they're not going to get either raised or going to give it one more shot in New Hampshire but if you're Joe Biden, especially, and you rely on these bigger donor events because you don't have an online funding operation, what do you going to tell the donors today?

DAVIS: Its real concern and I think it's an open question to how donors are going to react. He has - obviously he has to figure out what his message is to those people. But what are they going to do with this result?

Are they going to sit and wait and say, we're going to see what the final count is and whenever that may come along or are they going to say, you know what it feels like another candidate is the person to invest in right now because this is not the result we were hoping for.

KING: This and - you this is a question, a long term question here will the Iowa Caucuses survive this and we'll deal with that more as we go through the hour. The process has always been criticized. The plus side is the candidates do get to do a ton of town halls.

They do spend months there. They do get asked really tough questions by everyday Americans in the tunnels. That is the plus side of it. The Caucus environment if you watch to anymore covers last night and now the math issues after is a problem.

This is David Plouffe who was the Senior Advisor to Barack Obama who used a narrow victory, was a narrow victory in 2008 in Iowa, but Barack Obama used that as a springboard to the Democratic nomination and in the Presidency.

Iowa is about the momentum you gain or lose much more than the delegates. Likely the winner and the surprisingly strong showing skiff mooted. And those that are it poorly do not pay the full price. It is what it is, but it could materially affect the race.

That's the interesting part there. Would Buttigieg, if he comes in first or second, gotten more? If when he said in last night I won people knew that, it was actually true.

[12:10:00]

KING: Would Biden be paying more of a price today if he was fourth?

PACE: Absolutely. I mean, this day after the Iowa Caucuses is really this rail sorting that starts happens with the field. You see some candidates having to consider dropping out you see others with a surge of momentum.

Certainly I remember that '08 race and the Obama Campaign came out of there with a head of steam. We're just frozen right now. There is really no movement within the field because no one actually knows what happened last night.

KING: And the anger last night. You know I was expecting after an hour or so, you get some results, later you get more results. Iowa said they were going to dump them all we're going to get big results, nothing on that long.

The campaigns are livid, but the question is when we get to the end today when there is a call going on right now. Hopefully we'll get more information, will we by tonight be able to trust this process, trust the numbers?

BADE: I mean who knows? We still know what they're turning up today. I mean, but especially this year it seems like the Democrats really needed Iowa more than in previous years where they just had Hillary Clinton versus Bernie Sanders.

I mean the field, you know there were so many candidates, and Democrats were really looking at this opportunity to sort of narrow that which would help them find you know the right candidate to challenge Trump and this has failed so far.

KING: Day one and a very important that is a great point you make. This is that was - last night was the starting gate of the process for the Democrats to pick a nominee to go up against President Trump. We'll see what happens that phone call is underway with campaigns right now.

This programming note CNN will have Presidential Town Halls in New Hampshire throughout the week eight Democratic Candidates over two nights. That's Wednesday and Thursday night starting at 8:00 pm eastern right here on CNN.

One scene from last night's chaos, a coin tosses deciding an apparent delegate between the Bernie Sanders and the Pete Buttigieg campaigns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tails.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There you go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You get to delegate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

KING: This hour the Iowa Democratic Party holding a call with very angry Presidential campaigns the purpose? To try to get a timeline of when we might finally get results from last night's Iowa Caucuses. In a statement early this morning, the state party blaming a coding issue for the chaos.

It would not publicly say when we'll know who won. From pages across Iowa this morning, muddled, snagged, late. Those are the buzz words in big bold print. Now the drudge report less charitable, "Iowa blows it" the top line there.

Let's go straight to CNN's Jeff Zeleny in Des Moines. Jeff a long night for you into a long day I appreciate the reporting. What do we know about this call from candidates in any sense of when the party A will tell us when, and then B, give us the results?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John I'm told the call was delayed a little bit, actually. So it was now supposed to start at about 15 after the hour so 11:15 here in Iowa, 12:15 in the east.

We will see what comes out of that phone call. Certainly when they last left things it was a very contentious phone call. Think about the evening. This was shortly after midnight between 12:00 and 1:00. Certainly a lot of those candidates were expecting to be on a plane to New Hampshire, a lot of those candidates were expecting to have a victory or be able to spin a victory, well, they were left in confusion.

So it was a very contentious phone call. The Chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party Troy Price I'm told did not have many satisfactory answers for Presidential advisers who were on that phone call.

We'll see what we learn from the latest round. But I've been talking to advisers for Presidential campaigns all morning long, and they've said that they simply do not have much information, entirely being sort of shut out of this, which is not necessarily unusual.

I mean this is not a campaign or election that they are running, it's a party function here, but they're working hand in glove so John a couple things going on here. How could this have happened?

Iowa has done caucuses before. Yes, there was a new mathematical equation including the popular vote if you will the raw total as you talked about it all last evening as well as the state delegates. But they still know how to do this?

But the application the app on people's iphones did not work in many respects. We've heard that directly from some precinct chairs and we're also hearing that it was not part of the training. There was extensive training to be a precinct leader.

You have to welcome people you have to sort of keep order. I was at a precinct last night and you can see why they're sort of put through their paces on this. But I was told the app wasn't ready by last week so there was not enough practice rounds on this.

So they thought they could resort to the phones, the phones were jammed, and that's led to the most of this. I was talking to a precinct chair in Council Bluffs, Iowa on the western edge of city. She said she got a call at 1:23 am from party officials looking for her number. She said she provided them.

Of course many did not because they were sleeping. So we'll see if this comes this afternoon and a question will all of them be released or just a sliver of them? We don't know at this hour, John.

KING: Training without the app. That's like driving school without the steering wheel. Okay. Thanks, Jeff Zeleny. I appreciate the reporting. Come back to us if you get anything on that call please jump back as soon as you can.

I don't mean to make fun of it, but it is just t-ball when you hear they had training but they didn't involve the app that they were going to be use to report what matters the results which is why this is interesting.

This is from "The New York Times" Shaun who was Polk County, the largest county in the state, the Democratic Party Chair I don't know if they know what they don't know.

PACE: That sums it up. Some of our reporting from on the ground about this app also though is that one of the reasons once the app was ready that they weren't rolling it out in the days ahead of the Caucus. Is that they were worried about hacking. They didn't want to be available for hackers knowing that there would be people trying to get into the system.

They wanted to wait until the last possible moment to make that available, and that certainly seems to have backfired because you had people who couldn't figure it out. You have some people - you have some of these precincts are in very rural areas. You don't have great "Wi-Fi" there you don't have great cell phones where you're trying to download app update information to the app in some of these places it clearly backfired.

KING: And this is all volunteer.

PACE: All volunteers.

KING: Especially for people watching around the world, number one the caucuses are quirky. I haven't done it in a long time.

[12:20:00]

KING: But this is not where you walk in and the Secretary of State or local official is organizing it. It is a party event that is run through the central committee in Des Moines, but those are volunteers at 17,000 places around the country. If you're asking them to use the technology, you should train them on it.

DAVIS: Well, and the whole point of having, the whole point of the app and then having this new system this time around was supposed to be that it was got to be less vulnerable to potential interference, to potential hacking, to potential outside people foresters disrupting you know it because this system is so quirky the way that Iowa has done it for many, many years.

This was the point of having this new system. So the fact that they established it, they had it ready to go but they didn't train anyone on it is doubly mystifying.

KING: Right and so this feeds into in the last election cycle there was Russian meddling. In the impeachment drama, there is the President trying to push a conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia that interfered.

The Iowa Democratic Party says it's certain it was not hacked. It says it is certain it has a paper trail and by the end of the day when they finally have these results, they'll be trustworthy and they'll be able to back that up and chill us that it's trustworthy.

But look at the internet. In the age we live in, this is a conspiracy theory. This is Mark Warner here he is the Co-Chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee. They spent a couple of years looking at Russia meddling. His point is, if we want to give people confidence in American elections, we've got to be better than this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): This does reinforce the desire, I think, as we get into a primary season of paper ballot backups, and it does also reinforce the fact, as we started to see over the internet, conspiracy theories pop up, that whether domestic or foreign, efforts to try to undermine confidence in our elections, that those threats are out there. They remain out there. And there are particularly foreign forces that want to undermine American's confidence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Again, every piece of information we have today was that this was a screw-up in Iowa. Incompetence that not another word for it not interference. However, in the age we live in people are going to do this and when the Co-Chairman or Deputy Ranking Member Warner there was talking about conspiracy theories call it which you will but the President's son was saying it's rigged.

The President's Campaign Manager was they were withholding the results because they were rigging the system the Democrats in Iowa. A different spin on it and this is T-Ball for the Trump Campaign. This is Kellyanne Conway the President's Senior Adviser at the White House Counselor can't run a Caucus, can't run a country.

Brad Parscale the President's the Campaign Manager, Democratic Party meltdown. They can't run a Caucus and they want to run the government. No, thank you. Is any voter in November is going to make their decision for the Democrat or President Trump based on what happened last night in Iowa? I think not or I think maybe you could count them on one hand but it's T-Ball on this day.

KIM: Exactly. And when the failure of the caucus last night is bringing up bad memories for the Democrats such as the Obamacare websites screw-up. It's not a good place for Democrats to be in, and unfairly or not or with or without evidence or not, this is giving the Trump Campaign something to cease on, and so in this kind of distrust in the election process and that's why you know Senator Warner is saying what he's saying.

KING: All right hang on, just one second. I want to hold that thought. I want to go back immediately back to CNN's Jeff Zeleny who is live in Des Moines as we said is the phone call right now the Iowa State Democratic Party trying to explain to their campaigns where it is in the process. Jeff, what are we learning?

ZELENY: John, we're learning just a few moments ago that Chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party Troy Price telling Presidential Campaigns and some other Iowa Democratic Officials on the call that they plan to release the results by 4:00 pm central time here in Des Moines, 5:00 pm on the east, but we should note this.

He told him that they planned to release the majority of the results. We do not know what majority of the results means. Of course that's 50 plus 1. The issue here is, the expectations would be that it's more than that, of course, but he says that they will release the majority of the results which indicates there is still some work being done to try to reach some of those precinct leaders and captains here as well as to reconcile some of the - difference in the data.

But as of now just a few moments ago on a conference call, the Chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party Troy Price saying that the majority of the results will be released by 5:00 pm in the east, just a few hours before the "State of the Union" Address, and 4:00 pm here in Des Moines. John?

KING: And so Jeff I want to keep you. I don't want to put you in a bad spot. I know you don't have a ton of information after this phone call which is this is a big deal for people in the country obviously for these candidates, for the voters in New Hampshire and around the country, and for people watching around the world saying, what the hell is going on in America?

Out of the start engages in the Presidential process. So it's the Chairman of the Party on with 11 Presidential Campaigns. You say also some officials of the Democratic Party in Iowa who are deeply concerned not only just about last night but about the future of their Caucuses.

The majority of the results any other information about how or why or assurances about how they're going to back this up? So that when they do release those results they can give - are we going to see any transparency of how they got there?

[12:25:00]

ZELENY: That is a great question and I assume that those questions are being asked right now to the Party Chairman because this I'm told let's say at the very near the top of the call which happened about 15 or so after the hour, maybe 20 minutes after the hour.

So I can assure you that those questions being asked by various campaigns about the scope of this. Of course, they all have their own interest in this. They've been releasing selected pieces of information from different precincts where they were doing well, but we have not yet gotten a full picture of the results.

John, there is also so many discussion here in Des Moines, is there going to be legal action? Could this be slowed down by something like that? So we're keeping an eye on all of that. It just so happened my first beat happened to be in the Polk County District Court House here in Des Moines.

So we'll keep an eye on that. We do not know if there will be a legal action but when we get into a situation likes like you can't help but think of the of course the Puerto Rico recount. It's different in most every way. But this is something that campaigns at so important to them if the numbers are released how they're released?

So this is going to be a tense afternoon here for some campaigns who have been trying to spin this in a positive light. We may find out the answers this afternoon, we should find out the answers this afternoon, so we'll see what the reality is here. But we'll get back to you if we learn more from this call which I'm told is still underway, John.

KING: Raise your hand any second you do. I don't know that was smart or unwise to tell your bosses where the courthouse is Jeff.

ZELENY: It's just down the street.

KING: Grab a cup of coffee on the way. We'll circle back with you Jeff as soon as you get the new information. This is a big deal. So today, middle of the afternoon or early in the evening here on the East Coast, 4:00 out there, they have to understand the pressure on that.

They have the campaign shouting at them, complaining. Their own state County Chairman and the like in anxiety but looks like three and a half, four hours to go.

PACE: There's a lot of pressure on the Iowa Democratic Party because the only thing worse than what happened last night would be to put out results and have those results be wrong. And we have seen in past Iowa Caucuses in 2012 with the Republicans there were a lot of issues with those results.

I think it will be really interesting to just see how many results they put out? If they put out partial results are they putting out results from big counties from small rural counties the sampling that they put out will give different pictures. You have candidates that have strengths in different areas of the state.

BADE: And that's why this is particularly problematic too, because I mean if it's a majority of the results but not the full picture, I mean this is already going to be a close race and that people were already expecting the numbers to be between Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg could be very close.

And that might not tell us who has the leg up and who doesn't, and people, again, are going to be saying, oh well, which counties did you count? I mean, this is not my area of strength. Potentially I could come back and win this. It's just going - it's also going to create again this uncertainty.

KING: All right, they understand that from the incomings from the campaigns as they made this decision will be interesting. We're going to take a very quick break. We have people reaching out in the campaigns reaching out to other sources as well.

Again if you're just joining us, the Iowa Democratic Party says it will have at least a majority of the results several hours from now. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:00]