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Iowa Dems Promise Majority of Caucus Results at 5 P.M. ET; Trump Campaign Charts A Path to 2020; GOP Senators Urge Trump to Avoid Impeachment at State of the Union. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 04, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Back now to the hour's big breaking news. The Iowa Democratic Party telling the presidential campaigns, the angry presidential campaigns, that by 5:00 this evening here on the East Coast, four and a half hours from now, it will release a majority or more than 50 percent of the results of last night's Iowa caucuses. That, in and of itself, A, the delay, now B, normally they promised last night the results would come out in total, now they're saying they'll have more than 50 percent of the results released later.

So they will answer some questions by releasing some of these results, and I'm guessing, raise some questions. If they release 50 percent of the results, a campaign that doesn't fare well is going to say, well, this is not fair to me.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, they're going to really have to detail once they released the majority of the caucus or the caucus results, how that majority was built. I mean, did they get a fair sampling from the rural, the suburban, the more urban areas? You know, where -- you know, how are these counties picked. And so there's a potential that just releasing, you know, majority of the results could raise more questions than have answers. But they're also clearly under a lot of pressure to release something right now.

I mean, we are -- you know, the fact that we have zero results from the caucus at this point, the morning after, is stunning. And I see the Iowa Democratic Party trying to balance those two needs right now, but they are under a lot of pressure to get something out but also to make it accurate.

JULIE PACE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And certainly under pressure from some campaigns, the Biden campaign most notably to not to release partial results. The Biden campaign is responding to this by saying, you know, this would be a mistake to do this. Part of the reason they don't want that is because they think that they did as well as some of the other candidates. And if you do end up in a situation where you have, you know, some of these big areas with university students who tend to favor a Bernie Sanders, that would look even worse for a Joe Biden. Some of these rural areas where Pete Buttigieg has really put a lot of emphasis, they are really worried about the messaging coming out not only from the full results, but definitely from partial results.

KING: And so as Jeff noted, there's a courthouse down the street and there -- some of the other campaigns, I'm looking at messages, if I'm looking down, I apologize, in the middle of a breaking news situation. I'm looking at messages from aides to other campaigns who said they are hearing that the Biden campaign is going to file an injunction. And so we don't if that's true. There's a lot -- when these things happen, buzz goes around among the candidates. But you heard Jeff talking about the courthouse possibility.

[12:35:06]

We do know when a campaign call this morning with donors, this scheduled, every campaign talks to his donors the day after big events whether it's a debate or a caucus or primary. The Biden campaign had a call with its donors saying he spoke last night because he wanted to say something. He didn't claim victory because he didn't know the results.

They're saying on this call -- again, he's a former vice president, serving eight years at Barack Obama side, it was the state that launched Barack Obama, Iowa. Listen, they said they expect to come out with delegates, didn't say how many, and the fundamental narrative of the campaign doesn't change. That could be very wishful thinking.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, yes. And as we said earlier, this is about delegates, of course, but it's also about momentum. And so if it is the case that they're going to try to put the brakes on here and say we don't have partial results and even potentially challenge those results, part of the reason is going to because they want to leave the door open for themselves to actually maintain some momentum going into New Hampshire and this contest beyond. If in fact we are in a situation where we don't learn the full results of the caucuses for many days or even longer than that, they want to preserve sort of the possibility that he actually has done either better than people are assuming that he did or at least well enough to keep on going.

KING: And this is uncharted territory in many ways. We had a different kind of example of this but back in 2012 when on caucus night, it appeared that Mitt Romney was the narrow winner, and then it turned out several days later Rick Santorum was actually the winner. And Senator Rick Santorum who handles this gracefully, you know, says who knows. He thinks if he had gotten the bounce out of Iowa at least he would have had a shot at taking on the juggernaut. He was -- Rick Santorum didn't have much money, Mitt Romney did. You never know.

You never know. And to an earlier point, if he had come out of that night as the declared winner, maybe that financial situation would have changed. He was never able to keep the money going long enough to see what happened when the party had to change its mind. The only thing we did see is just significant upheaval in the Iowa Republican Party after that huge mistake. It's still something that party officials in both parties talk about a lot on the ground and you're likely to see something similar from that (INAUDIBLE). KING: I'm fascinated by this decision in the sense that the party last night knew it was under fire. The party last night knew it had a problem, and they pulled back and said, look, what is most important is the integrity of the process, what is most important is that when we do this, we do this right. That would seem to lead you to full comprehensive results and then some kind of a briefing were they could document us on how they went back in the process and double checked and triple checked and verified. Now they're going to release in four and a half hours little -- maybe a little sooner than that partial results. It's risky.

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, not only that they're going to release partial results, but officials are actually going to various precincts and getting those paper copies of, you know, the voting to make sure that they are counting this right. And you bring up the possibility of different people declaring victory at different times. I mean, Pete Buttigieg already out there saying, you know, we think Iowa is victorious.

I mean, you could have Bernie Sanders saying something like that later today, and then Elizabeth Warren coming out, you know, five days from now after everything is counted and then saying that she was the winner. So I mean, it's just confusion after confusion, and it really puts a spotlight on, you know, the Iowa caucuses and the whole, you know, should they be the first in the nation voting state.

KING: All right, confusion at a very critical moment. We're going to continue to report. Again, there's a lot flying around. We'll try to sort the rumor and the gossip from the truth.

Moments ago in Concord, New Hampshire, Amy Klobuchar in New Hampshire now looking back on last night's turmoil.

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SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are still awaiting the results from Iowa, but I can tell you that we feel very good about where we are. And we won so many precincts and delegates that I don't think people gave us a chance to win. And it had this grassroots feeling that New Hampshire would be proud about.

And --

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KING: Again the hour's big news. We are told we should be able to start of fill in this map a few hours from now when the Iowa Democratic Party finally releases what we're told will be partial results.

This Iowa mess, one of several giant political stories today. The final vote in the Trump impeachment trial is tomorrow. The president's annual state of the union address is tonight. That's a huge event, anyway, but a larger than life moment for this president who is asking, of course, for four more years and who sees his political standing improving right now despite all the attention on impeachment.

I want to switch maps and show you something and come up here to the race to 270. That's how we elect a president, right? 270 electoral votes. This map right now is where most strategists see the race. This based on an excellent analysis of new NBC/Wall Street Journal data by Public Opinion Strategies. That's the Republican firm that's part of the NBC/Wall Street Journal firm -- poll. What does it show you?

Right now, the best guess is the president starts the campaign with 204 electoral votes, the Democrats with 200 votes. How do they get there? Let me break this down for you and bring this up. General election match up, this is analysis of the polling data.

If you look at the national polling, Joe Biden beats the president on average by about six points, Bernie Sanders by four, Elizabeth Warren by three, Mayor Buttigieg by one. So you look at that if you're a Democrat you think we're beating the president nationally. Remember 2016, Hillary Clinton in the popular vote, that's how not how it works.

In the states that are viewed as reliably Republican, Trump states we'll call them now, the president runs very strong, well ahead of the Democrats. In the states, let me move this over a little bit, that we view as reliably Democratic, the Democratic candidates run even stronger against the president. It is the swing states as always, and, look, Biden runs strong, Sanders runs OK, the other two Democrats on this chart in essentially a dead heat down with the president which makes you show this one is up for grabs.

In this scenario, watch this, of these swing states, North Carolina leads red in presidential elections, but let's move that over there.

[12:45:03]

Florida leans red in presidential elections, let's lean that over there. Arizona, Democrats say they're going to get just marked down as skeptical. It might happen but its history is to vote red in presidential elections.

If the president just picked that up there, bang, he's at 259. That would get the president within striking distance, right? Even if he won -- if he could win Wisconsin again, that would get him within one.

In the last election, the president won one of these electoral votes up in Maine. If he won just one of them, it would get him to the finish line. If he won the whole state, it would get him there. Even if Maine went blue, the president could get it anywhere else.

Look at this map, that doesn't mean the president is going to win, it just means he's much stronger than a lot of Democrats think, and his numbers at the moment are getting better, something at his rallies he likes to celebrate.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He cannot get to 270, remember, 270 Electoral College. He cannot get to 270. Everyone said, they kept getting me -- maybe if I have a great night, 269, but 269 loses, right? But we got 306 to 223. 306-223.So then we're right. You cannot get to 270, you can get to 306.

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KING: That's the president in Iowa, of all places, earlier in the week making light of this. But if you look at the numbers, the NBC/Wall Street Journal analysis there, the Gallup poll of the numbers, the president's numbers aren't great, but they are stronger than they have been in a very long time.

BADE: Yes. And I mean, we just saw a Gallup poll --I mean, he's almost at 50 percent in terms of approval rating. I mean, the president has certainly used impeachment to rally his base and sort of gin up people and get them excited to come out and vote for him. But, you know, he's also out there sort of claiming victory on the economy. People are feeling pretty good in their pocket books and clearly that's helping him in -- and that could help him in those swing states that are really critical for him to win the 270.

KING: And so then what does he do with this giant platform tonight? Any president, it's the envy of, you know, any politician, you get to speak to the country, you get to speak to the world. In this case heading into your election campaign, unemployment is low. He's in the middle of an impeachment trial, right. His press secretary went on Fox News this morning and say, I don't think so. I don't think you want to talk about -- trying to push the boss. I don't think he want to talk about it.

I love this from Republican senators here. Roy Blunt of Missouri tells CNN, I'd avoid that subject. It's time to move on. Senator Kevin Cramer tells the Washington Post, I wouldn't include it, but Donald Trump has been a very successful being Donald Trump. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Republican senator again to the Washington Post, people want to have bipartisanship. Does anybody imagine that they know what President Trump is going to do? Not me.

KIM: And not anyone else either. That's always the question whether you're going to get Twitter Trump or teleprompter Trump. May Stephanie Grisham is right, we do get more of that teleprompter Trump tonight where he touts the economy, he touts the recent trade ones that he's at in particular. And create sort of lays out a platform and perhaps even nods at bipartisanship.

There is one point in White House Counsel Pat Cipollone's closing argument yesterday where he said the president wants to get back to the business of people, get back to a bipartisan agenda. I talked to a lot of Democrats about this yesterday and they said, look, we can't even get stuff done in a normal election year. So in an election, after impeachment, there's not a lot of hope for cooperation on Capitol Hill. I mean, I think Democrats and Republicans expect the president to kind of tout the upcoming impeachment acquittal tonight. But, you know, maybe he sticks on -- stays on script and we'll see in a couple of hours.

KING: You just dashed everybody's hope with the return of infrastructure week. Everybody that was -- but look, we're having a little fun here, but this is an interesting moment for the president. He's angry and raw about impeachment. Whatever your views at home, he's angry and raw about it.

Will he divert from his script when he looks out and sees Adam Schiff? When he looks over his shoulder and sees Nancy Pelosi? We shall see.

Here's what a staff wants him to talk about. An expanding economy, low unemployment, just signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, the China trade deal. That's what they want him to talk about. And Rachael touched on this, this is a president whose approval rating has hovered around 40 pretty much from day one. The new Gallup poll number is out, approved 49, disapproved 50.

Again, that's not fantastic, but for this president, those are the best numbers of his presidency.

DAVIS: Right. And I mean, I do think he is going to talk about those things. He will have the teleprompter, and they have made it very clear that this speech is about resurgence, that he talks about, you know, his blue collar resurgence that he will argue that he is responsible for, and if it weren't for him, it wouldn't be happening. He will I think make some overtures about bipartisanship and how much he would like to work to get things done.

What I don't think we will see which we saw the last time, 21 years ago, we had a president delivering a state of the union address during his impeachment trial, it's real outreach. A real sort of (INAUDIBLE). We need to come together now because that is not the mode that he's in.

You had Bill Clinton back then saying, I know I did something wrong, now let's move past it. You had a lot members of his party saying, yes, you did something wrong. We're not seeing that with President Trump. He has not admitted he did anything wrong, and so I think what we're going to see is much more of a, yes, you should work with me, but not a whole lot of let's move past this as a partisan moment and do something together.

[12:50:04]

KING: It's fascinating on top of everything else that's happening today and this week. When we come back, some new details on that phone call, Iowa after a debacle last night, the Democratic Party now telling the campaigns it will release a majority of the results in a few hours.

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KING: Some more information now on this hour's big breaking news, the Iowa Democratic Party says it will finally have some results from last night's Democratic presidential caucuses later today. Jeff Zeleny is live in Des Moines for us with more information. Jeff, more than half the results? Explain.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: More than half the results, they said at least 50 percent. So we'll see how much more than a 50 percent it is, John. It all depends on what they find this afternoon and what they verify.

But interestingly, we are learning from some of the conversations on that phone call the questions that some of the presidential campaign's advisers were asking of the Democratic Party. Take a look a listen to this. One said, if you put out 50 percent of the results, people are going to take that as final. So that perhaps is someone who feels pretty good about their performance, perhaps a campaign that feels pretty good about their performance.

They clearly do not want only half of this to be learned as opposed to, you know, forgetting about the second half. We're in a busy news environment this week, the state of the union, the end of the impeachment, so the question is when is the other half? So this -- whoever won Iowa still, you know, going to miss out of this traditional bounce and flight out of here.

But one other interesting exchange I'm told was from Bernie Sanders adviser Jeff Weaver, he had a very contentious exchange last evening, actually earlier this morning with the officials from the Democratic Party. He said, look, I was giving you a hard time, I'm sorry about that, but he accused or suggested that some rival campaigns are trying to slow this down. And he (INAUDIBLE) disingenuous here. So you can almost imagine who he is talking about, probably the Biden campaign.

[12:55:10]

So some interesting the dynamics here, but as of now we think by about 4 p.m. here in Des Moines, 5 p.m. in Washington, we'll see at least half of those results.

John?

KING: A lot of anger, not a lot of trust as we await partial results we expect in few hours. Jeff Zeleny, appreciate your very long night into the next day here. Appreciate ladies coming on the table in this busy day as well.

Thanks for joining us on INSIDE POLITICS. Our special coverage of the Iowa caucuses continues after a very quick break. Have a good afternoon.

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