Make Final Push Before Caucuses
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: As we said, Donald Trump says he made the right call boycotting last night's Republican debate, holding his own event instead, to benefit veterans. He also insists, what he did is nothing like what happened in 2011 when Mr. Trump cried foul. Here is what he told CBS News.</s>JOHN DICKERSON, "FACE THE NATION" HOST: In 2011 you were going to participate in a Newsmax debate. And you said of the Republicans who weren't going to show, you said, "We're not seeing a lot of courage here, are we? And a lot of courage. These Republicans, they're supposed to be brave." Why can't that be said about you?</s>DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, they should have showed because there was no reason. I was doing the moderation. I mean it was very Newsmax thing. And I just said, you know, if they asked me -- the owner is a friend of mine, Chris Ruddy, a very good guy. And he said, "Would you do it?" I said, "I've never done it before." I just said, "Do it." I wasn't even ...</s>DICKERSON: What about the bravery charge?</s>TRUMP: No, no, but here's the difference. I was treated very unfairly by Fox. I was treated very -- but they weren't treated badly. I was treated very, very badly by Fox. They issued a statement that was an inappropriate statement. Now what happened is since then they've been nice and they tried very much to get me to do the debate. By that time, the event, my counter event had taken off. And, you know, you saw a thousands and thousands of people standing outside the building. It was amazing.</s>DICKERSON: What about this charge, though? I mean, it's a press release, like, he can't -- and you know ...</s>TRUMP: It's OK. It's OK. No.</s>DICKERSON: ... you know, but you were offended. But, isn't that -- are you being a little too politically correct?</s>TRUMP: You know what I did? I went out and I raised $6 million for the vets.</s>COOPER: And Mr. Trump had released a list of 22 veterans groups that will share the money raised last night. As we said, he spent today campaigning in New Hampshire, slamming Ted Cruz's debate performance. Back now with our panel. It's interesting hearing Donald Trump's on being accused of being too politically correct essentially by Dickerson there. And this is the guy who prides himself on not being politically correct.</s>JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR, "INSIDE POLITICS": And he prides himself on being the strength in this campaign. The reason he has skyrocketed is we don't have an ideological Republican primary like we often do. It's not a fight about who's going to cut taxes more, who's going to shrink government more. It's become a fight about who's stronger, who's tougher, who's the anti-Obama, if you will. Suddenly, there's no gray there's no nuances. Boom, I'm going to make decisions and people are going to listen to me. And so with that regard, this was a big turn-about. The tough guy walked away. You can make the case. Now, he's saying he did it for the right reasons. His opponents are trying to say he's not so tough after all. But, again, well every time Trump has done things that we find contrarian, they have worked to his benefits.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>KING: Well, see if this one does.</s>COOPER: I mean, again, I just think his instincts are pretty extraordinary. Whether, again, as he said, whether it was by design or instinct not to go to that thing but to have everybody ganging up on Cruz essentially and it was very effective in hurting Cruz.</s>KEVIN MADDEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yeah, and in the modern age too, often times, in these debates, you can judge the winners and losers based on what the atomized, sort of, sound bites they come out of it are. And what the headlines look like the next day. And if you looked all across Iowa this morning, the headlines were very bad for Ted Cruz at a very crucial time. And Donald Trump had equal billing. He's sitting there on the front pages of all the newspapers across Iowa saying that Trump raises money for veterans. So in that sense, it really did play to his advantage.</s>MARIA CARDONA, 2008 SENIOR CLINTON CAMPAIGN ADVISER: You're right, Anderson. He is an instinctual guttural animal for these times. And so far, has been incredibly successful. And the reason why I don't think the charge of his being afraid or, you know, his not wanting to go because he was afraid of tough questions is going to stick is because who has done more interviews ...</s>COOPER: Right.</s>CARDONA: ... with more media outlets, right?</s>MADDEN: It's harder to land that punch.</s>CARDONA: ... that -- exactly. Is there anybody else? And also, I think he can also make the point that, look, Fox News thinks that they can do whatever they want. They've now become part of the establishment because of what he's done? It's pretty incredible. And I think supporters are responding to that.</s>MIECHAEL GERSON, PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH FORMER SPEECHWRITER: This is, kind of, his superpower as a candidate, the ability to drill the exposed nerve on his opponents in a way that dominates the next on new cycle. It's a tremendous talent. But he is proposing a fundamental revision at the heart of Republican Party. Like, you know, the force expulsion of 11 million people, the exclusion by religious belief. This is a major reorientation of the Republican Party in a way that would cause a crisis of identity.</s>CARDONA: Yeah.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: But instead ...</s>CARDONA: That's very true.</s>GERSON: That could cause people to split off of the party. This in fact, has huge content to it.</s>BORGER: But he's doing that, at the same time he's saying that Ted Cruz is an anchor baby, right? So there is this kind of great dichotomy ...</s>CADORNA: Yeah.</s>BORGER: ... because on the one hand, he is splitting up the Republican Party. He's dividing a Republican Party. There is this civil war in the Republican Party.</s>CADORNA: Yes.</s>BORGER: He's leading one faction of it, we think, although I'm not quite sure which one it is. And on the other hand, he's calling Ted Cruz names because he's a fighter and he understands that Cruz needs to win Iowa.</s>GERSON: I know which side it is. And it's in fact, much more comparable to a European right wing anti-immigrant populism of UKIP (ph) or the National Front. It does not come out of the Republican ...</s>COOPER: But let me ask you, because ...</s>GERSON: This is this something different and ....</s>COOPER: ... so, all of you have worked with presidential candidates or Michael, with President Bush. Donald Trump and I again, I go back to this "Wall Street Journal" article that I just found it fascinating. Because the reporter spent three days with him, watching him as he made decisions. And she was with him and he decided in his plane sitting by himself, his adviser is in the other room, after reading polls and looking at television coverage to, he said, you know what, Cruz has been doing riding up high in the polls too long in Iowa. We're going to take him down and came up with this Canada thing. And it was this instinctual gut level thing. It wasn't after a big meeting. Is that rare for a presidential candidate or a president ...</s>MADDEN: Right. It's incredibly rare.</s>COOPER: ... to make those decisions with the gut?</s>MADDEN: It's incredibly rare and the question that we're going to the test that this is going to undergo is whether or not, you can actually win the presidency with it.</s>CADORNA: Right.</s>COOPER: ... and can you be president doing that?</s>MADDEN: John used the analogy last night. You know, a scrambling quarterback, every once in a while can make some amazing plays and shows up on ESPN the next day, you know, with the highlights. But is that how you want to run a country? Is that how you can run a party? Well, particularly, when parties at the heart of organizations, but their organizations of that are designed around ideas. This is a candidacy that is only organized around an individual and his ego. And that is where I think as Michael is right, the danger for the party is in the danger for the country lies.</s>BORGER: Right.</s>COOPER: But the other interesting thing to me is if he does become president, let's say, I mean, I don't know of any other candidate who watches as much television. I mean, you'll be doing an interview on this show or any other and he will start Tweeting you about what's going on.</s>GERSON: He doesn't care about Megyn Kelly and then tweets about her at 3:00 in the morning. You know like, that's theory.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>GERSON: So, I mean, he's constantly on top of this. If he wins this way, it will be an entirely new way to win the presidency.</s>COOPER: But then, as president, can he do that? I mean, can he be watching television and reading the polls and tweeting like this, or does ...</s>GERSON: Well, Lyndon Johnson did. Watched a bunch of televisions and then, you know, I don't know if it leads good decision through out ...</s>CADORNA: Look, I...</s>BORGER: Yeah, I think ...</s>CADORNA: ... I think we would have to relearn I think ...</s>CARDONA: He had certainly rewritten the rules, but I think these rules right now only apply to him. I don't think anybody that we know right now could get away with what he's done.</s>UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: And he talks about this in the art of the deal, right. This is his way. You have to be fast and loose. You can't have a whole lot of structure and he doesn't pack his day with a lot of meetings. I think the question is could he unlearn that as president or if he could be effective as president, sort of being this improvisational president.</s>COOPER: We got to take a quick break. We're going to have more from our panel. It is just fascinating times, a very busy night, three campaign events either under way or just wrapping up. As we speak, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, the entire Clinton family. Donald Trump in time as we have been discussing has been lining up support from all corners of Iowa. The question there, will his strategy actually bring people out on caucus night. We'll take a look. Now, Trump is rewriting the rules of the ground game, next.