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Iowa Democratic Officials Promise Partial Results; Confusion And Chaos At Iowa Caucuses; Bloomberg To Double Ad Spending After Iowa Debacle. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 04, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:12]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Hello, I'm Jake Tapper and you are watching CNN's special coverage of the Iowa Caucuses or the Iowa imbroglio and by now in a typical election year we would have known for hours who came out on top in the first major contest of the presidential primary and caucus season, but as we have seen over the last few weeks, 2020 politics or anything but typical.

In just a few hours, nearly a full day after the Iowa caucuses began, we are expected to get at least some partial results possibly after the Iowa Democratic Party says a major coding issue with a mobile app designed to report vote totals caused delays.

In a letter to the campaigns -- a letter obtained by CNN -- the Iowa Democratic Party Chair TROY price wrote in part, "We have every indication that our systems were secure, and there was not a cybersecurity intrusion."

Price went on to say, "As part of our investigation, we determined with certainty that the underlying data collected via the app was sound."

Well, as long as you tell us that, I guess, it's true. And as for the Democratic candidates, several attempted to rally their supporters despite the lingering uncertainty.

CNN is covering --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: 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.

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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: CNN is covering all angles of this fiasco. Let's right to CNN Senior Washington Correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, who is in Des Moines where we are about to get some of those results -- theoretically. Jeff, tell us more.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Jake, the question is how many of those results, where will they be from and one thing we know almost for certain, we will not know the winner of the Iowa caucuses 24 hours after they took place.

They're going to release a majority they said of Iowa caucus results, but that is just -- and we don't know what that means -- is it 50 plus one, is at 75 percent? The Chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party was unable to say with any specificity when he was on a phone call earlier this afternoon with the representatives of each presidential campaign.

He said that they do plan to begin releasing it at five o'clock Eastern, four o'clock here in Des Moines, but it was a combative phone call we're told as well.

Several campaign advisers, representatives of these campaign were asking, you know, when is the rest going to come? When is the full results going to come? And he didn't have an answer for that.

So Jake, that is what they're dealing with here. It's hard to spin a victory or explain a loss if you're not exactly sure who did what.

So there's a bit of variety of conversations here about why this happened. It was a software error it seemed. It was an error because of an app that's on everyone's iPhone, iPad, and it apparently was not ever given a test drive, if you will.

These precinct caucus chairs were told, we've talked to several of them throughout the day. They received pretty significant schooling and training and rules for how to organize these. One thing that was not included was the app.

I am told by several of them, they said it just simply wasn't too ready. So it finally was ready late last week. They had problems downloading it, et cetera. So the backup plan of the phones didn't work and the rest is sort of history.

But right now, as we speak, they're still trying to find more of those written results to hand count them and compare them and reconcile them and the results at least some of them will come today.

But Jake, it is unlikely that this answers any questions, it will likely raise more of them in terms of what else is lingering out there in the other batch that's not released.

TAPPER: And Jeff, you spoke specifically with one precinct chair who said that she had had problems with the app, and also with calling in the results after the app failed.

We heard from a number of precinct secretaries and chairs who said that they were on hold for an hour or more.

ZELENY: We did and that was one of the problems, and there are some reports here in Iowa that the hotlines were flooded by some prank calls and some other matters.

So I've checked with Iowa Democratic Party officials, and they did not dispute that, but the reality here is they were not ready for the volume of phone calls, but the app simply didn't work.

And it's -- you know, I heard a lot or maybe it's just an older people who didn't know how to use it. I actually heard from a precinct Captain who's a senior in high school. She's 18 years old, who can also be a precinct captain, pretty familiar with technology also didn't work.

So it wasn't about the user. It clearly was about something on the front end. So, certainly going forward to Nevada caucuses, which are coming up in just a couple of weeks, we are also expected to use the same software that I'm guessing will change, Jake.

[14:05:12]

ZELENY: But it certainly is tarnishing the reputation of the Iowa caucuses, which in the eyes of some people were suspect anyway.

But the question is, when will the result be known? And will it be valid or credible?

Of course, we'll see what that is -- Jake.

ZELENY: And Jeff, for our viewers who aren't familiar, before were you were a TV reporter, you were a print reporter and you were with "The Des Moines Register," you know Iowa politics. Do they understand how poorly they are handling this crisis?

How they are not answering questions from the campaigns, how they are not answering questions from reporters?

They have not come before the cameras to explain to everybody that they have paper ballots, they have a paper trail, everything's going to be okay and that they're handling this pretty much in the exact opposite way, any crisis communication expert would tell you to handle a crisis.

ZELENY: They certainly didn't last evening, Jake. I mean, you were sitting on this very stage. Look behind me here, there is a podium where the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party could have come out and said, people, we have some issues here. We're, you know, concerned about a transparency. They could have explained it.

It was nothing until the middle of the night really, in a very brief phone call with a reporter. So, you know, this is -- the people I'm talking to here, sources of mine for a very long time, Democrats and Republicans are all alarmed by this, because of course, they love the Iowa caucuses. But it's unclear that they were sort of, you know, the officials were

grappling with this in real time, how serious this was, Jake. You and I met on the Iowa caucuses back in the 2000 campaign, and so much has changed since then, in terms of technology.

But amazing, they were able to get the count right because they did it the old-fashioned way, by calling it in.

TAPPER: That's right.

ZELENY: In an app, there's a lot of software experts who say apps shouldn't be used for election accounting and things. So there's going to be a lot of autopsy results done on this and we'll see if other states change how they do it.

But Jake, the first matter of business is finding the winner and we don't know when that's going to happen.

TAPPER: All right, it's not a big deal. They're just Democrats.

ZELENY: Just remarkable.

TAPPER: Pick a President, no big deal. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much. So, as the waiting game goes on, we're hearing from the Democratic candidates themselves about the chaos and confusion that has rocked the first major political contest of the year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am disappointed. I suspect I could speak for all the candidates, all of their supporters and the people of Iowa that the Iowa Democratic Party has not been able to come up with timely election results.

I can't understand why that happens, but it has happened.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We had a good night last night in Iowa, and I know you think that's silly, but everything we can feel is good. Here's the deal, we think we're going to come out of there really doing well.

But you know, we're -- you know, be careful what you say because it's not done yet.

BUTTIGIEG: We are still waiting on some math. One thing we know is that we are arriving with the momentum in the 2020 presidential campaign right now, and we had a big glorious night in Iowa that's knocked upon us and will compel us to advance.

WARREN: So we're back from Iowa. Wow. But here's what we know, it's a tight three-way race at the top.

We had a bumpy start to the democratic process yesterday in Iowa.

KLOBUCHAR: I'm someone that thrives in chaos. You want a steady hand in chaos. Right? 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: All the candidates you just heard are in or were headed to New Hampshire, which will hold the next primary contest for Democrats. That's next week, Tuesday, and that's where CNN's Leyla Santiago is standing by. She is in Manchester with more on candidate reaction -- Leyla.

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, and also just in the last hour, I'll add to what Senator Elizabeth Warren said when she was asked about the Iowa Democratic Party's announcement saying that they were going to be releasing more than 50 percent of the results at 5:00 p.m. Eastern today.

And she expressed that she had some confusion about it and went on to say, I think they ought to get it together and release all of the data, that's what we need.

So we've now heard from her on the that latest announcement coming out of Iowa, you know, what's going to be interesting is that when that time comes at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time comes, there will still be candidates that will have some events coming up.

So how they manage those results as they speak to the voters here in New Hampshire will be interesting to see. You have Sanders at 6:30, Klobuchar at 6:45-ish and then you have Buttigieg speaking to voters making their pitch. He'll be speaking around seven o'clock.

So it'll be interesting to see how they manage the messages that they will put out there when those results come in.

Some campaigns not as happy as others on how the Iowa Democratic Party has decided to do this. You know, we were there this morning, very early in the morning, as these candidates were coming in.

[14:10:25]

SANTIAGO: It was a very, very long night for them, many of them expressing frustration, but what was clear was every single one I talked to said, now it's time to focus on New Hampshire.

So clearly, they are moving forward. We just have to wait and see how they make a push for electability and some of the issues that are important to voters here in New Hampshire given that we are one week away from that primary -- Jake.

TAPPER: That's right, Leyla Santiago in the beautiful Granite State. Thank you so much. So what exactly was the problem behind Iowa's monster delay?

For more on that, I'm going to turn out to CNN Senior political analyst Mark Preston and Mark, you're getting some new reporting about what went wrong. What have you learned?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Jake, you know, as we're talking about how we got to this place right now, where we would be focusing entirely on New Hampshire, Iowa would be in our rearview mirror, it all comes down to technology.

It appears that this app that the Iowa Democratic Party had a requisition to be used in order to collect the data from all these caucus sites all across the state just failed. It failed terribly.

Now, we're told by the Iowa Democratic Party and we'll find out within the next couple of hours, that in fact that the results though were not tainted, in that there was no problems with them, the results specifically -- no problems with the counting.

However, when that information was fed into the system, into here in Des Moines that the system did not spit it out correctly. They found that out, probably about an hour into caucuses already underway. That's when they started to troubleshoot it. It took them a bit of time to figure it out because they didn't know what was happening.

It eventually did come around, and of course, this is where we stand right now. But Jake, what does this mean, though when we talk about the short term and the long term problems?

In the short term problems, look, we talk about how this is going to affect the candidates, such as Pete Buttigieg or Bernie Sanders, or anybody who thinks that they did well last night in Iowa. They're not going to get that fundraising advantage, or certainly not to the extent that we have traditionally seen.

They are also not going to have that blow of support coming in from behind them like a big gust of wind that we would normally have. That doesn't mean we're not going to see some of it, but that could be the case.

We should note though, right now, and I think this is important, it doesn't appear that there's anything nefarious, and I think that that is a point to make, given what we've seen in past years.

Back in 2016, the Bernie Sanders campaign had a legitimate concern that the election was called for Hillary Clinton in the dead of night without there a proper accounting for what happened. He had a legitimate concern.

We saw that in 2012 with the other party in Iowa with the Republicans, Jake, where Rick Santorum was robbed of his wind from the Iowa Republican Party. We don't seem to see that here.

The long term, though, is what does this mean for Iowa? What does this mean for the Iowa caucuses? What does this mean for their future? What does this mean for the state that has come to be defined by the Iowa caucuses, including some parts, its economy? We'll see how that shakes out in the next couple of days, if not the next couple of weeks, Jake.

But really, if there was ever a time the Iowa caucuses could go away, this could be the final straw that broke the camel's back.

TAPPER: Yes, they are certainly paving the way to that, Mark. When the results come in, and we're expecting them at 5:00 p.m. Eastern, at least a majority of the results according to the Iowa Democratic Party, although who knows.

But when the results come in, what are you going to be looking for in terms of the key items in the results?

PRESTON: So a couple of things. I want to see who the winner is and how far ahead that the winner comes? So we don't know. It appears that everybody is bunched together at this point.

But looking at the entrance polls, these were surveys that were given to caucus goers as they were entering into their caucus, to give us an idea of who they were supporting. It really looked like Pete Buttigieg across the board, and all across the state seemed to do well with every demographic. Bernie Sanders did well with liberals.

The real big question is who is really not going to be -- I think we have an idea who is going to be one or two, perhaps out of those two. Question is, who is going to be four and five? And that is going to be the big problem for some of these candidates come five, six o'clock this evening.

TAPPER: All right, Mark Preston, thanks so much, and let me bring in Dana Bash.

Dana, as Leyla reported, Elizabeth Warren just complained that she doesn't understand why only some of the results, half or majority or whatever is going to be are being released. It seems like a fair gripe for me.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Totally fair.

TAPPER: Yes.

BASH: I mean, we don't have any answer to that. It's a really good question. If we've been waiting 17 hours, excuse member, and they say that everything is complete and legit, why aren't we seeing all of it?

TAPPER: And they're not even explaining it. This is one of the things that I don't understand. So you have all these Republicans trying to sow seeds of mistrust and conspiracy theories.

Senator Lindsey Graham and Trump's campaign manager and others --

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: And Joe Biden.

TAPPER: Joe Biden himself as well, also doing it. But meanwhile, it's not like the Iowa Democratic Party is like saying, no, no, no, here we're being completely transparent. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what happened wrong. They're just hiding behind closed doors.

[14:15:20]

BORGER: It's absurd. It's totally absurd. Crisis management 101, first of all, tell your story. Get out the facts. Tell the truth.

TAPPER: As soon as possible on your own terms, yes.

BORGER: Sometimes, even by the way, if it makes you look bad, and it's going to make them look bad. I get it. They're not going to be happy with what they have to say. But mistakes were made. You have to own up to it.

The app wasn't road tested enough or whatever the problem was, and say, here is why we're giving you 50 percent because we're not sure about the rest or just tell us and then the voters can have some confidence in the system.

TAPPER: Yes, they're not -- they're not being -- they're not talking to us at all. And when I say us, I mean, the American people.

The one Democrat in the race who may have benefited the most from this fiasco is the candidate who stayed out of the Iowa contest, the former New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. His campaign manager is going to join us next.

Plus, President Trump and his reelection campaign also jumping all over this. How they're trying to capitalize on the chaos ahead of tonight's State of the Union address. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:20:37]

TAPPER: One Democratic candidate who could largely benefit from the pandemonium in Iowa is former New York City mayor and multi- billionaire, Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg made an early decision to sit out the first four races and spend his money and his time devoted to Super Tuesday states and beyond. Bloomberg has reportedly told aides to double his ad spending in all markets where he's currently advertising in the wake of what's unfolding in Iowa, according to "The Washington Post".

With me now, Bloomberg campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey. Kevin, thanks so much for joining us. Can you confirm that "Washington Post" report about doubling the ad spending? What's the strategy here?

KEVIN SHEEKEY, MICHAEL BLOOMBERG CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well, the strategy all along has been to run a national campaign to build a campaign not only in Super Tuesday states, but in March states and beyond the battleground states.

Mike is the only candidate who has actually started running against Donald Trump today, because we don't think the party or quite frankly, the country can wait.

I think that theory, which we launched eight weeks ago now has proven out to be true. Mike has talked about obviously upping what he is spending in terms of advertising. But we also announced that as of next week, we'll have about 2,078 folks in the field, all around the country building up a campaign network to ultimately take on the President.

TAPPER: Obviously, the African-American vote is very, very important and in fact, pivotal to winning the Democratic presidential nomination and it's an area where Mr. Bloomberg -- Mayor Bloomberg -- has a lot of critics, especially when it comes to his position on stop and frisk in New York City, as well as his position when it came to trying to make right what happened with the Central Park Five.

How is he going to reach out to this community that has such serious questions about decisions he made as Mayor of New York?

SHEEKEY: You know, he'll tell the story of what it was like when he was Mayor in New York.

Listen, Mike was the one mayor who really wanted to take on the issue of gun violence. It was an issue that greatly affected young men of color. The rest of the city was safe, but there were large parts of the city that were not safe.

Mike Bloomberg took on the NRA in ways that no one around this country has. In fact, he leads on that issue around the country, and while he cut the number of murders in New York City in half, he also reduce the prison population by half, because he knew keeping people out of prison was the right thing to do.

He reduce recidivism by a third and juvenile detention by our quarter. He started the only municipal program in the country focused on addressing the discrimination of young men of color had experienced. That program was ultimately adopted by Barack Obama.

And President Obama and Mike Bloomberg stood on the stage and launched that program nationally. So I think when people find out Mike's message, it will resonate.

TAPPER: Hillary Clinton had a similar record in terms of outreach to African-Americans, to the Civil Rights community, but there were questions when she ran in '16 about comments she had made years before about super predators comments, and just her association with her husband who signed the Crime Bill into law in 1994.

By not taking on the issue head on, there were seeds of doubt planted in the African-American community and a lot of blacks didn't vote in 2016. It doesn't sound like you are necessarily talking about taking it on head on the way I'm asking about.

SHEEKEY: Hey, listen, if there's ever been a problem with Mike Bloomberg, it is that he takes issues head on. He never turns away for him. He took on the issue of guns. He took on the issue of the NRA. He was in a fight that quite frankly, I thought he could win, and I'd see him winning it from coast to coast now, states all across this country.

He took on the issue of the environment when people weren't, and Mike led a campaign to close half the coal plants in this country.

He is closing coal plants in this country, the same clip that he was closing to when Barack Obama was President when they worked alongside of each other.

So if there's ever a criticism of Mike Bloomberg, it's certainly not that he shies away from a problem. He leans into things he cares about. And yes, it's tough to do things.

But Mike Bloomberg has been a doer and as we say, Mike gets things done.

TAPPER: How is he responding to what happened in Iowa last night, and is continuing to happen today -- what was his response?

SHEEKEY: I think he's amazed like everyone else. Now, I think he saw it coming. Mike wrote an op-ed on CNN's website about a month ago, where he said we should end the early state primaries, said the caucuses didn't make sense. They weaken the party and they made it more difficult for us to run against the President.

There were a lot of critics of Mike Bloomberg when he said that about a month ago on CNN, but today, everyone seems to agree that it's a process that we have to move past.

TAPPER: Nina Turner who works for the Sanders campaign said that Bloomberg is an oligarch. What do you think of that?

[14:25:07]

SHEEKEY: I don't really get this Russia thing. I mean the Sanders campaign seems to talk about Russia about as much as the President does. When people throw down terms like that, it makes me nervous about their motives.

I will say that Mike is running a positive campaign. And he has urged all Democrats to unite behind running a campaign against the President. Mike Bloomberg has even gone so far as to say if he is not the nominee, he'll support Senator Sanders because Donald Trump is an existential threat to this country.

And I would encourage people all across the country to take that same attitude.

TAPPER: Kevin Sheekey, thanks so much. I hope we can get your boss on State of the Union sometime soon.

SHEEKEY: We'll get him.

TAPPER: All right, thanks so much. Coming up. Was this disaster entirely avoidable? Some tech experts say, yes. The warning signs that telegraphed this fiasco, ahead.

Plus, the Trump reelection campaign appears to be basking in the Democrats' agony. How they're trying to benefit from all of this. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:30:00]