Top Republicans are going at it tonight on stage in North Charleston; Fake Carrots Stuffed With Marijuana. 8-9p ET
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening and get ready. The top Republicans are going at it tonight on stage in North Charleston South Carolina. And almost without a doubt, there will be blood, campaign blood, at the very least. How could there not be with Jeb Bush calling Donald Trump a jerk. Donald Trump questioning Ted Cruz's citizenship and claim born in the U.S.A. in his campaign rally, similarly just to spite him and Cruz slamming Trump's New York values and Bush since polling single digits running campaign ads designed to spoil the chances of his old friend and protege Marco Rubio. With Rubio, Chris Christie, January Kasich and Carson all struggling to break through in time for Iowa, New Hampshire and, of course, South Carolina. It's hard to imagine there won't be blood on stage tonight. Joining us from the hall in North Charleston chief political correspondent Dana Bash. Dana, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, I mean, the gloves, do you expect them to come off? Because in previous debates they have been going after each other, once they are face-to-face, not so much.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. In our debate last month in Las Vegas, they had started to do it. I actually asked each of them a question about those particular topics and they both pulled back. Remember at the time Donald Trump was calling Ted Cruz a maniac and he said, never mind. So they didn't. This is very different. This is -- the feel here is very different according to the sources I'm talking to particularly in the Cruz camp. They have shifted their mind set. They have a lot to lose now. We are just two-and-a -half weeks away from the caucuses in Iowa. They are neck and neck the two men in that state, even though Donald Trump is really very much the front runner nationally, that is the first place they are going to vote and Ted Cruz realizes if he doesn't -- and the words of one aid stand up for himself, it could be game over.</s>COOPER: And in terms of South Carolina, which is not only where the debate is held, it is obviously, as you said, the third state to hold its primary, how much do you think the candidates are going to be trying to play to South Carolina voters tonight?</s>BASH: I think a bit, no question about it. You know, all of the candidates pretty much have used the fact that they are in this person in the south primary state to kind of build campaign events around the debate. But this is an incredibly important place because you do have Iowa, let's say Cruz or Trump if things are then the way they are now and then there is the big battle in New Hampshire to see if any of the more main stream candidates do well or if Donald Trump takes it, this is going to be the next in line. This is going to be the place that will determine for example, if Marco Rubio goes on. This one I think we should really watch tonight. These will be your questions, South Carolina. Rubio campaign aides believe this is the place where he probably should win, needs to win. He spent more time here than any candidate. He has got a big operation here. So he is probably going to play to the crowd more than the others.</s>COOPER: All right, Dana. Thanks very much. A lot to look forward to tonight. Keeping me company throughout the evening, the A-team. We have a lot of political correspondents and analysts. Our chief political analyst Gloria Borger is here, chief national correspondent John King, senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, also political commentators Ana Navarro, Jeffrey Lord, Amanda Carpenter and Kevin Madden. Ana is Bush supporter, Rubio's friend. Jeffrey is a Trump supporter and former Reagan advisor. Amanda is former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz. Kevin is a former senior 2012 Mitt Romney advisor -- John.</s>ANA NAVARRO, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: All right. Now, say that all again.</s>COOPER: Yes, I got a teleprompter. John, in terms of what you expect to see on the broadcast tonight and I should point out we are going to be broadcasting afterward for post analysis so I hope everybody joins us after the debate. Do you expect - I mean, can you imagine a scenario where Cruz and Trump do not go head-to-head?</s>JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I can imagine a scenario where they go head-to-head and they don't go thermo nuclear. But I cannot imagine a scenario where they don't go head-to-head. The question is once they get started, each will come in knowing. Trump wants to make the point he is going to raise the citizenship question or he knows he is going to be asked about it. Why would he do it tonight? Because it's working. Because Cruz in a sense has stopped in Iowa so why not keep doing it, right? Try to stop --. Cruz knows as Dana's point number one, you have to answer the attack. Number two, you have to show fight. Your supporters want to see you have fight come up. This man is questioning your very eligibility to be in the race. You have to manned up and go after him. Now, they could have an exchange and decide I have done what want to do. I have done what I've wanted to do and stop or it could escalate. That's the big question. Fight night is usually you have the under card and then a main event. They are all on the same stage tonight. And this Cruz-Trump is the main event without a doubt because they are the leaders right now and they are far away from everybody else if you look at Iowa and then Trump in New Hampshire right ahead. But the under card, who is the establishment fight? That's going to be fascinating as well because there are questions of the survival of the just about everybody. Rubio is third. Everyone says he's doing great right now. Third is not great. You know, he is got to do better than that, but you can be sure Jeb Bush who is fighting for his life is going to go after Rubio again. So Trump-Cruz, Bush,-Rubio, strapped in.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, Rubio really has a lot at stake here tonight as John was saying. This is an opportunity for him to move his numbers. He is the candidate who has got one foot in the establishment and one foot in the tea party conservative lane and he has been plateaued kind of because of Cruz's rise. And he's a great debater and we've seen that in Republicans.</s>COOPER: But nationally given a bump to the poll.</s>BORGER: Exactly. So tonight he has to find a way to distinguish himself so he can take advantage of the organization Dana was talking about in South Carolina.</s>COOPER: Amanda, you worked for Cruz as spokesperson. Do you think these attacks by Trump on the eligibility question have damaged him?</s>AMANDA CARPENTER, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR SEN. TED CRUZ: I think some people -- listen, Republicans want to win the White House more than anything. The fact that Donald Trump is questioning his eligibility to be president does need to be answered. I think it very likely that Donald Trump makes the decision what I'm doing is working, I don't need to bring it up, but the challenge for Cruz.</s>COOPER: He still going to be asked about it.</s>CARPENTER: Yes. But the challenge for Cruz is a way to build Donald into having that conversation on stage, I think. They need to settle it. I would like to see Cruz have a man to man moment. We are going to talk about this. We are going to resolve it because we as a party need to win. But we shall see what happens.</s>KEVIN MADDEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: The main damage is it got Cruz off the message.</s>COOPER: In critical days.</s>MADDEN: I mean, we got 17 days until voters start to make their decision in Iowa. And here he is talking about birth - he is talking about his whether or not he is eligible for the presidency. He wants to be talking about health care -- I'm sorry, he wants to talk about immigration. He want to be talking about national security. And getting off that message has been at a crucial time has been a problem.</s>NAVARRO: And I think one of his problems is that, you know, Ted Cruz has been approaching this question and answering it from a legal perspective. He is a lawyer. He is a very good lawyer, but he hasn't answered it and addressed it from a political perspective. He has got to shut it down. That he has not been able to do.</s>JEFFREY LORD, FORMER REAGAN WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: And now we have this Goldman Sachs story, the loan, et cetera, and "The New York Times."</s>COOPER: Which Cruz is fighting back hard on.</s>LORD: Right. But again, to Kevin's point, it takes him off message. And he doesn't want to be answering this kind of stuff, either. We got to get into the weeds on this and there will be people saying well he should have done this and you should have done that, all of this as his time begins to ooze away from.</s>BORGER: All he has to take on "The New York Times", honestly.</s>NAVARRO: I think he did that all right.</s>LORD: Yes.</s>COOPER: He's already - I mean, that's what his thing -- in fact, he's trying to raise money on it saying this is a last-ditch attempt by "The New York Times" to derail this campaign.</s>KING: But every breath of this counts. Because Cruz was pulling away in Iowa. And now Trump in here, a dead heat. Trump's big challenge is to turn out new voters from the polls. If Trump can get non-past participants to show up, then he is going to have a descent caucus night and have a chance to win. But right now you're in a dead heat. And Cruz was starting to pull away. It looked much more like a traditional like the Santorum coming behind against Romney. Mike Huckabee pulling away in 2008. It looked like Cruz was going to get that and get the space to almost guarantee.</s>NAVARRO: I'm very interested in seeing what happens between Christie, Kasich and Jeb Bush.</s>NAVARRO: Because you got those three big dogs eating out of the same bowl, the mainstream Republican bowl in New Hampshire. And who comes out first out of the three of them is very important and Cruz -- I think Marco needs to define himself tonight because this is a party that wants definition. And he is being very subtle and he wants, and somehow wants to be the candidate that bridges the gap. But I'm not sure that the Republican party of 2016 is ready.</s>NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes. And I think Christie has been wanting to really take Marco Rubio on a debate stage. He I think is probably the second best, maybe the first best debater on the stage. He always looks like he is having fun on stage. And he has been essentially saying Marco Rubio isn't ready. Marco Rubio is weak. And I think that's going to be a really interesting --</s>CARPENTER: There is Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio here. So he needs to find a way to get into those conversations but also save off all these other attacks. I think Marco Rubio in many ways is the big man in the middle because he has much more --</s>BORGER: And you know what? There will be attack against Chris Christie too because he is moving up in New Hampshire. And all those governors who would like to move up in New Hampshire and the governor lane are going to be looking out and attacking Cruz.</s>LORD: We need not to get too carried away,</s>NAVARRO: Yes, but you know, Trump has been leading for so long in Iowa and by so much now that if Ted Cruz somehow manages to knock him off that mantle, it's all of a sudden David versus Goliath.</s>COOPER: But I mean, to Kevin's point about Cruz is now talking about the eligibility issue at a time when he wants to talk about others and now this Goldman Sachs issue, he may be fundraising on it. He may be able to use it as an attack on "The New York Times", which he will no doubt try to do in front of crowd which will be, obviously, very popular. But is it, Dana, I mean, he's been going after Donald Trump as having New York values. Goldman Sachs is the heart --</s>BORGER: Well, and he is the populace - well, he's an anti- elite. Let me put it that way. The graduate of Princeton. The graduate of Harvard law. The Supreme Court law clerk. Somebody who worked for George W. Bush. He has been portraying himself as anti- elite. That's a pretty elite resume. And so, I think more than anything else, the loan from Goldman Sachs, wife works at Goldman Sachs, not that he was shown favorability in this loan or anything else, but I do think that that plays against the type that he is trying to portray on the campaign trail and that could damage him.</s>CARPENTER: -- and I have seen this in people really adores Ted Cruz. They know all this about him, but they like him because he still has conservative principles even going through all those circles. He has a very fine pedigree. But he has remained true to conservative --.</s>MADDEN: I would disagree that. I think for a lot of voters in Iowa this is new information and that's the big risk is that for those voters looking that are looking for a tea party purest, the idea of an association with Goldman Sachs --</s>LORD: The bailout. Right.</s>LORD: It is one thing to talk about New York values which is kind of big. It is another think to put an exact name on it and a big Wall Street firm. Then you have a problem.</s>NAVARRO: And I think the challenge here is not to get into the weeds, not to get into legally when he answers this question about Goldman Sachs. But to somehow be able to portray himself as consistent with the persona he has created. If he comes across as a hypocrite, he has a problem.</s>KING: Anything that costs you a point or half a point matters. This is -- I don't think this is a huge deal for Ted Cruz. It does points to the biography a little bit, what makes it harder and again, any time he is not talking about, you know, I will investigate Planned Parenthood on day one. I'm the consecutive you want. As president, I will stand up. And any second he's not doing that is a second --</s>COOPER: Amanda?</s>CARPENTER: To put a bow on story about the loan, this is actually I think could be a positive for him. He had no wealthy campaign donors. He and his wife bet on his candidacy by taking a loan against their assets. He got himself when no one else would. And he paid it back in full. And you look at the loan problems that Hillary Clinton had, bankruptcy problem that Donald Trump has had and Marco Rubio has, nobody else --.</s>COOPER: But talking about getting money from Goldman Sachs. I mean, Hillary Clinton, it gets a little more directly.</s>MADDEN: And Amanda is right. He needs to simplify. I mean, having work from the 2012 campaign was trying to explain private equity in vain. It can get very difficult. When you get into the weeds you have a difficult problem. So he needs to - he absolutely needs to simplify.</s>MADDEN: This is --</s>BORGER: Flip it right back.</s>MADDEN: Seventeen days away, this is closing argument time. You do not want your closing argument to be about whether or not you're a natural born citizen and you are eligible for the presidency or loans that you took two to three years ago.</s>COOPER: So to John's point about, you know, where I at the stage where this could be the make or break point obviously after Iowa, soon in New Hampshire where people start dropping off, if those lower tier candidates do drop off, do we know yet where those voters go, who that benefits? Because the gamble by Rubio, the hope certainly of the Bush is that, you know, as the field dwindles down, the more middle of the road candidates get those people.</s>BORGER: Well, if you look at some of these polls, some of them will show that Cruz like 25 percent, he is their second choice. Some of them will show Rubio is their second choice at this point. So I think that those two candidates would have the most benefit if the field kind of starts to shift a little bit because they seem to be the least objectionable to the most people who are either undecided or committed to somebody who might not win.</s>KING: As complicated as we try to make this sometimes so we can cash our paychecks, politics is pretty simple. It's about arithmetic, pluses and minus. So I think number one, some we haven't talked to Dr. Ben Carson whose campaign is still in a free fall from his staff perspective. He is holding nine or ten percent of the vote in Iowa. If that starts to go away, you assume Cruz is the first choice for some of those people. Maybe Trump, because of the outsider. But that is a basket of eggs or the basket of votes that's important to watch because again, with 12 candidates on the ballot, that piece matters. When it comes to the establishment guys, I think Rubio and Bush because of the animosity, even though they are friends, the animosity pairing off from the past debate and new Jeb Bush super pact ads including there is whether ad that said Marco Rubio flip-flops, there were a number of calls last night into the Bush campaign saying stop, you're going too far. That's too much. That shows you how desperate you are into his campaign. The Bush campaign says go away, this is right, we'll continue to do it. But there is a sense in the establishment that, you know, that the Bush campaign in the view of many, even Bush friends have crossed the line with that. And so there is blow back. And one more quick point, Bush right now is in very sensitive negotiations trying to get the endorsement of Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who dropped out. And the fact that the negotiations continue tell you something. Lindsey Graham hasn't said yes. And so there is an interesting moment here and I would say that, you know, Bush is going to stay in at least through New Hampshire.</s>COOPER: You think Bush is on the curve?</s>KING: His name is Bush. He raised $100 million. He is running, I think, fifth in Iowa and right now he is running fourth or fifth in New Hampshire.</s>NAVARRO: Out of everybody, you know, in those three names that we have talked about, Bush, Kasich, Christie, the only one who has a team on the ground in South Carolina whose got resources whose been working it hard out of those three, the only one that can survive to go on there is Jeb. If Chris Christie does not come on top in New Hampshire, he doesn't have the momentum to go to South Carolina.</s>COOPER: Jeffrey, and then we got to go.</s>LORD: There has to be some passion here. The Trump supporters have fashion. I think The Cruz supporters have passion. The question is these other folks, how much passion is there if they get out of the race, are these other folks --</s>NAVARRO: I can tell you when these other folks, i.e., Kevin and me, when you know, what we see Trump or Cruz win Iowa, we're going to be passionately running with our head on fire.</s>MADDEN: I'll be sitting on the curb clapping.</s>COOPER: All right. We are going to return to our campaign coverage shortly. There is some breaking news tonight including conflicting reports about a possible Powerball lottery winner. Also, stunning revelations about texts between El Chapo and the Mexican actress and the secret surgery he had. Plus, another ISIS attack, the third this week. What we are learning about their global reach and new details about the suspected planner. We will have the latest from the scene when we continue.