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MARIA BARTIROMO, FBN ANCHOR: (HEADLINES) Here this morning to break it down, Fox Business Network Dagen McDowell; Recon Capital's Kevin Kelley; and, former Republican National Committee Communications Director Doug Heye. Good to see everybody. Happy Monday to you.
KEVIN KELLEY, CIO, RECON CAPITAL: Good morning.
DAGEN MCDOWELL, FBN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
BARTIROMO: Thank you for being here, Doug.
DOUG HEYE, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Of course; thank you.
BARTIROMO: We have a can't miss lineup this morning. Judge Andrew Napolitano with us; former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich; Democratic National Convention Chairwoman, Congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz will be here in the studio; and, Alan Gross, a former U.S. government subcontract and ex-Cuba prisoner. You don't want to miss all of these interviews, coming up. So do stay with us.
First, though, the top story of the morning: Donald Trump headed to Washington today, reportedly to meet with nearly two dozen top republican leaders and fundraisers in an effort to improve his relations with the party's establishment. The meeting coming as more than 100 delegates are up for grabs in both the Arizona primary and Utah caucuses tomorrow.
Joining us now is the "Washington Times" reporter, Kelly Riddell. Kelly, it is good to see you; thanks for joining us.
KELLY RIDDELL, "WASHINGTON TIMES": Thank you.
BARTIROMO: How important are Arizona and Utah, and who has the most to gain here? Let's talk about tomorrow's big contests.
RIDDELL: Well I think you have Ted Cruz with the most to gain and the most to lose here. He really needs to pull off victory in Utah and he needs to get about the 50-percent threshold so he gets all the delegates. What you could see is John Kasich being a spoiler.
Ted Cruz is really betting his money on Utah. He also - you saw him change his schedule yesterday and take a surprise trip to Arizona. What that might mean is that internal polling there puts him a little closer, within striking distance to Donald Trump, who is expected to take that state.
BARTIROMO: Yes, that's interesting. Doug Heye, these contests become increasingly important, every single contest, for Ted Cruz at this point.
HEYE: No doubt about that. One of the things (inaudible) with the Cruz campaign, if you talk to them, they're confident they will win Arizona on election day with election day voting. That speaks to the real advantage Donald Trump has because early voting has been massive for him. If Cruz is able to, not just win on election day but eke out even a one vote victory in Arizona, it builds his case moving forward so much more.
BARTIROMO: And even though, Dagen McDowell, you know, Donald Trump has been victorious with most republicans, the Cruz campaign tells me that they feel they have a clear path, if he does well with the remaining contests.
MCDOWELL: So Cruz's path is to take it to a contested convention -
BARTIROMO: Right.
MCDOWELL: -- because he's got to win more than 80-percent of the remaining delegates - 83-percent of the remaining delegates to get to 1237, which is highly unlikely, compared to 57-percent for Trump. Over the weekend you heard Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican Party, essentially saying that they are preparing -
BARTIROMO: Right.
MCDOWELL: -- for a contested convention.
BARTIROMO: Let me bring some of that to you because Reince Priebus joined me yesterday, on "Sunday Morning Futures", and he basically said exactly that, that he's prepared to run an historically transparent convention. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: We've got candidates that have a pathway to getting to the majority of delegates before Cleveland, but if that doesn't happen, obviously we will be prepared to run the most open and transparent open convention in the history of our party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: There you go. I mean, they are taking steps to actually expect this.
MCDOWELL: And that's a shift from his tone -
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCDOWELL: -- of earlier this month, when he was talking about it being highly, highly unlikely, I think, was one of the phrases that he used. I just don't know how that goes over with voters. There is such a divide with the Republican Party, that doesn't mean the fissures in the party -
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCDOWELL: -- if it goes to a convention.
BARTIROMO: Kelly, what do you think about that?
RIDDELL: Well I think that Donald Trump still has the possibility of winning this thing outright, and that we shouldn't count him out; and in the contest tomorrow we will see what his path is forward. But, if there is a contested convention, listen, he can go -- Donald Trump is preparing for that as well. He is going to all of these delegates that are uncommitted; there's about 322 of them. He can win this on the first ballot. If it goes to the second ballot, and the RNC and the party insiders start shenanigans, in terms of naming it a party or somebody who hasn't even run in these primaries on the ticket, I think the Republican Party has some real problems going forward then.
BARTIROMO: Have you ever seen this kind backlash to a candidate? I know you're on that side. You're among those pushing back.
HEYE: There's many reasons why Donald Trump is a unique candidate. The backlash he faces within his own party speaks to that.
We were talking about Utah earlier. Polling has showed from yesterday, that Donald Trump, as a nominee, could lose Utah, the most republican state in the union. It's another reason why so many Republican party leaders, and certainly our Senate candidates and House candidates are nervous about what his candidacy would mean.
KELLEY: Well, certainly you're seeing the establishment label Donald Trump as a RINO, right? Republican in name only. They're going after his past policies, which are very liberal. One of the things we haven't talked about is where is Kasich going to get another win? Can he take another state? He is hoping on an open convention; correct? I mean, there is no path for him. He's mathematically eliminated.
HEYE: Right.
KELLEY: So, isn't he really -
HEYE: You talked about 83-percent for Cruz. 112-percent of remaining delegates, which is obviously impossible.
RIDDELL: And he's also banking on a rule change; right? I mean, you have to win at least eight states in order to be on the first ballot. So he's hoping that before it even goes to a convention there's a rule change that qualifies him. I mean, it's a long, long, long shot.
BARTIROMO: You think he's basically just saying, look, I'm in this to be vice president.
RIDDELL: You know, right now -- he says no and that's -
KELLEY: Of course he's going to say no.
RIDDLE: We've got to take him at his word right now, but, who knows. He'd be smarter if he got out if he wanted that job.
BARTIROMO: Let's talk about this violence for a second. Donald Trump's sister now getting targeted over the weekend, receiving a threatening letter, one day after Trump's son, Eric Trump, received a suspicious letter with white powder inside. Remember, that happened last week? All of this coming as more violence broke out in Arizona during one of Trump's events over the weekend.
Things are just continuing to escalate, Kelly. How does this change the situation?
RIDDELL: I don't think it changes it much for core supporters. The more Trump rises, the more he becomes a threat, the more threats, I'm afraid he's going to receive. He's testing the parties bound. He's testing the American populace. He's a very polarizing figure.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
RIDDELL: It's a terrible situation, but for his core supporters I think you're going to see them rally around him some more and not flake off.
MCDOWELL: In terms that the eruptions at these protests, at his event, not his fault. I'm sorry; I don't care how many times people point fingers at him. But one thing he can do, and it speaks to what Ivanka, what he was saying his daughter, Ivanka, was saying -
RIDDELL: Yes.
MCDOWELL: He can change how he acts -
BARTIROMO: Change the tone.
MCDOWELL: -- on Twitter. You know, he can change how he particularly acts on Twitter. Like, step back.
BARTIROMO: Good point.
MCDOWELL: Stop taking shots at people who, frankly, don't matter that much to his presidential campaign. He can't help himself.
KELLEY: Not only on Twitter, but also at the events he can say "please remove this person" or be like "we can hear your voice or objections later."
BARTIROMO: Instead of go home to mommy.
KELLEY: Yes; exactly. So he could actually do that.
RIDDELL: You know, at the events, they do start - and I've been at several of these events, they do start saying, if you do see a protester, if someone starts yelling, just point. We'll peaceably remove them. Do not hit. Do not -- so there is that. He is making those inroads in those areas.
HEYE: Kelly, I would ask, how are those being perceived at those events? Is it a bit like getting on the airplane and not listening to the safety announcements, or before a baseball game not paying attention to the code of conduct? Are people listening to those because we haven't seen that?
RIDDELL: No, people are actually listening to those. This just started happening last week, after the Chicago protest, where they say, you know, everyone should calm down. Just point them out, point and say "Trump, Trump. U.S.A. U.S.A." and we will get the security officials to remove them.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
RIDDELL: But please don't they hand on them. That is going on, but these - you know, a lot of these protesters want to be forcibly removed. They want to be - they want to sneak in, take their shirts off, start protesting and then they have to be removed from these events.
So, this is not Donald Trump's fault, as much as it is protesters. Everyone has a First Amendment right, and we have to respect both sides.
BARTIROMO: Kelly, stay right there. I want to get your take on this upcoming story as well, because President Obama making an historic three- day trip to Cuba, landing in the island nation yesterday; but, the trip is not coming without controversy. Just hours before the president actually touched and landed, Cuban authorities arrested more than 50 protesters. They were marching to demand better human rights. Critics are also calling our Cuban leader, Raul Castro for not greeting the President upon his arrival.
Your thoughts about the Cuban trip? Do you view this as a big step for U.S. relations with Cuba or what? What's the point?
RIDDELL: Well, it can be, but, I mean, first there needs to be some more economic transparency and provisions for U.S. companies. I mean, it's very hard to change Cuba if a U.S. company can't go down and invest in property there or have to enter a JV where they don't have majority stakeholdership. These things have to change in order for real progress to be made.
This looks great on the surface, but as you know, the more dissidents are being jailed in Cuba, changes aren't coming; and then Raul Castro wasn't there to meet the President. On the face of that, that was an insult. So a lot more needs to be done here.
BARTIROMO: What you think about this, Doug?
HEYE: Well, what we've seen from the President, and what's troubling, I think, for a lot of Republicans, isn't necessarily just the opening to Cuba, it's that we've -- and this speaks to what Donald Trump's candidacy is about. It's been a weakness by the President to try and extract anything from Cuba. Essentially the President has called Raul Castro and says we're going to give you everything you want. We don't need much in return, except for good headlines.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KELLEY: Seems like the Iran deal; right? I mean, this is a precedent. I mean, he has continuously done this in relations with nations that we've - that have been aggressive towards us. I understand taking a small step to try to make some change. We know there is going to be a regime change over there. The Castro's are getting older. We have seen a baton passed --
MCDOWELL: Is that the excuse for him not showing up to the airport to greet him?
KELLEY: Possibly; I'm sure they're intimidated and you're seeing protestors. But, it is unfortunate but it is a small step so hopefully there can be big leagues after the administration leaves.
BARTIROMO: That's interesting. I mean, what is the point of him not showing up to greet him? Does he not want to have better relations?
MCDOWELL: I think Raul -
BARTIROMO: Is this just Obama's plan?
MCDOWELL: I think Raul Castro showed up to greet the Pope -
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCDOWELL: -- when he arrived in the nation. He didn't show up to greet our own president. I think that's --
KELLEY: He's trying to show a sign of strength; right. I mean, that's what he's trying to do.
MCDOWELL: So why are we there?
BARTIROMO: Why are we there; exactly.
MCDOWELL: Why the concessions? Why normalizing of relations, so to speak, and we didn't get anything in return; plus, I guarantee you, they want to give Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba.
BARTIROMO: So from that regard it does sound like Iran.
KELLEY: Yes, it does.
BARTIROMO: I mean it, the Iran Deal and getting nothing back.
MCDOWELL: Right, without the potential nuclear weapons.
BARTIROMO: Right.
HEYE: And if you look at what Obama has done so far, just in Cuba, tweeting to Cuba, "what's up Cuba?"; he was on a Cuban comedian show. So what's interesting is, he's campaigning in Cuba the way he campaigns in the United States. Instead of hard-hitting interviews with journalists, obviously not a lot of hard-hitting journalists in Cuba, but not getting to the tough issues, trying to be the cool president, the popular guy; as always.
BARTIROMO: Yes, it's true.
KELLEY: It goes back to his legacy. He's done that time and time again. I mean, when he had cart blanche, after he was elected in 2008, instead of addressing the economy he did the Affordable Care Act. He wanted to label Obamacare right; so --
BARTIROMO: Very similar; very similar. Kelly, thank you.
RIDDELL: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: We'll see you soon; Kelly Riddell there.
RIDDELL: Okay.
BARTIROMO: As the President continues this historic trip to Cuba, the communist government is cracking down on protesters. The latest backlash from this trip, coming up next; and then, speaking of backlash, amazon closing its door on one single customer. I want to tell you why the online retailer's saying no thanks to one man's business; stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back; North Korea firing short-range projectiles overnight, for the second time in less than a week. Cheryl Casone with the details of that story and the other headlines right now; Cheryl, good morning.
CHERYL CASONE, FBN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Maria; good morning everyone. (HEADLINES) And, finally, this: an amazon customer returning 37 items over the span of 15 years has now been banned from the site and his gift card balance taken away. Greg Nelson describing himself as a "self- confessed amazon nut" claims to have purchased 340 items from the site says he's "completely loyal, a fervently loyal fan" before all this guys.
Amazon, when asked to comment by multiple media outlets, said we reviewed the case carefully. We stand by our decision. And we don't have to tell you how many times you make a return before we ban you from amazon.
BARTIROMO: Yes, and 37 items; okay, so it's 37 items. It doesn't seem like that much that you would ban somebody.
CASONE: 9-percent of his purchases.
BARTIROMO: What do you think?
KELLEY: Yes, and for a big fan.
BARTIROMO: You have an amazon -
KELLEY: Yes, I'm a huge amazon -- if they did this to me, I would be freaking right now. I would be getting on the first flight to Seattle and be in front of their corporate headquarters.
BARTIROMO: I want to talk to -
KELLEY: But it's a big push to get more amazon prime members. They are trying to get everybody into the ecosystem. So this sends a strong message to people, actually.
MCDOWELL: You wouldn't be a pain in the backside though and returning 37 items.
KELLEY: Yeah, I'd bet these items were small things that he used -
HEYE: What were these items?
KELLEY: Yeah, exactly. They do have a good return policy.
BARTIROMO: How expensive were they?
KELLEY: I mean, they're pretty upfront and honest about their return policy and when you can return things and it's convenient --
MCDOWELL: This gentleman needs to get a hobby. Take up --
BARTIROMO: He has one, he buys stuff on amazon.
KELLEY: He's a shopaholic.
BARTIROMO: Go to Ebay. That works better.
MCDOWELL: Plant a spring garden, that's my advice.
BARTIROMO: All right, Cheryl; thank you so much.
Happy birthday, Twitter; the social network turning 10-years-old today. CEO, Jack Dorsey, kicking off a worldwide celebration on the blog Sunday afternoon, and tweeting, "starting in London on 3/21 and moving across the world. We thank you for 10 incredible years. Love Twitter." Inviting people to celebrate the first decade with the #loveTwitter.
Dagen, Jack sent out that treat 10 years ago. That was the first tweet that was ever sent out. Now the people on this set use it every day. I'm tweeting, literally, when we're live, during an interview.
[Laughter]
MCDOWELL: You need -- love isn't going to grow your business, Jack.
BARTIROMO: True; good point.
MCDOWELL: That's all I've got to say. The people -- at least the people who are loyal to it, but he's got to figure out a way to grow the business and keep the 140 characters in place.
BARTIROMO: Okay; yes, because that was the debate, are they going to make that bigger.
KELLEY: Yes, and I think one of the reasons why they are deciding to do that is because this is a real-time news tool that people are going to do.
BARTIROMO: It's true.
KELLEY: It's not really a big social media platform. It's a place you go to get news. People use Instagram for different reasons; people use Facebook for different reasons. This is real-time news, so they've got to figure out how to do that.
BARTIROMO: You're on Twitter as Doug Heye?
HEYE: Yes, and -
BARTIROMO: Good, because I'm putting you in -
HEYE: -- and Twitter, please verify my account. One of the things that's interesting in politics right now, on election night, the communication professionals are just hitting refresh on their Twitter feed to see where the results are coming in. Usually the political teams are in the background, in the formerly smoke-filled rooms. That still happens, but the (inaudible) folks are just on their Twitter account hitting refresh over and over again.
BARTIROMO: And they like that efficiency.
CASONE: Why news people love it, though, so much is because I can find out -- if there's, like, a bombing in Turkey, I can get information on Twitter instantaneously. Sometimes faster than, say, our bureau can. I mean, that's where, I think, that Twitter has become so amazing. At the same time, it can be dangerous because there is a lot of misinformation. You may be verified, I know we are, but there's a lot of -
KELLEY: It's know what's actually pretty interesting -
BARTIROMO: You're right. It's true.
KELLEY: -- that we haven't brought up, is actually Twitter is being used as a market tool. I mean, a lot of firms are starting to figure out investor sentiment that's happening at Twitter, to make investment decisions, and that's a big deal, when you think about how Twitter is affecting investment decisions across the board.
MCDOWELL: Instagram's targeted ads are much better than what Twitter delivers. If Twitter could figure out how to target ads the way Instagram does, it would produce profits.
CASONE: Facebook is doing a good job with that.
BARTIROMO: Facebook is doing a really good job with that.
MCDOWELL: But Facebook is like -
KELLEY: Facebook has all of your information. They can pinpoint exactly who you know and they're like follow this person, and I'm like, how did you know? I just crossed that person on the street.
BARTIROMO: Twitter does that too because sometimes you know, you'll get an e-mail saying do you want to follow xyz? And I'm thinking, how did you know I knew that person; it's weird.
HEYE: And on the news side, Twitter, right now, has a lot of -- not Twitter as a company, but a lot of political journalists are in Cuba right now tweeting pictures of Obama, tweeting what they're seeing on the street. Obviously, no Cubans have access to that news, but if you want to follow news on Cuba right now, Twitter is where it's at.
BARTIROMO: I like that; that's a really good point.
KELLEY: Think about the Arab spring that happened, and that was a couple years ago but Twitter was a big tool to get the group together and actually lead a revolution.
CASONE: We love Twitter but we're just not going to invest in it.
BARTIROMO: Yes, unless maybe it's -
KELLEY: Here's the problem: Jack doesn't love Twitter enough where he's going to be their full-time and dedicated his entire energy to it. He's splitting time -
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KELLEY: -- as Square as well.
BARTIROMO: Hold on, ready? There you go; I just tweeted. Up next, Apple might be in the middle of a legal fight with the government, but today it is business as usual as the company gears up to unveil a whole flurry of new products. Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back; big news from Apple today. The company holding an event to announce it is going to make a smaller iPhone. The new phone will reportedly have a four-inch display. I like the big phone; Dagen McDowell, would you prefer a smaller found?
MCDOWELL: No, because I'm losing my vision, because I'm old. So -
BARTIROMO: Tell me about it.
MCDOWELL: My mom actually has the 5S, this is going to be an upgrade of the 5S. It's going to have a faster processor, which has got a better camera, and it's going to use -- this is according to reports of course. It is going to be able to use ApplePay, but it's still going to be the small version.
My mother has it and it's incredibly difficult to see it, and you get spoiled. I have the 6. I don't even have the Plus, which is bent, by the way, because you can slam your phone in the car door, and it actually doesn't break, but it does bend. But once you get used to it, you're addicted. You don't want the smaller screen.
BARTIROMO: It's true. I got used to the big one. This is the S.
KELLEY: The good thing about the big one is the battery, and that is one of the reasons why I bought the bigger phone, because the battery life is a lot better.
BARTIROMO: The charge stinks on this.
KELLEY: Yes, exactly; but getting to the smaller phone, this is addressing a price conscious market because as we are talking about some of the older phones have bad battery life, so people don't want to purchase them, right, the used phones. So this is addressing that price conscious market.
BARTIROMO: But this is really an issue, in terms of the charge. I mean, constantly this is on, like, 18-percent.
KELLEY: Yes.
BARTIROMO: 17-percent, it never charges properly.
KELLEY: It's draining. Exactly.
BARTIROMO: I think it just drains really quickly. What's the problem? I was thinking about taking it back, actually.
HEYE: You are not just doing one thing with it, you are doing 20 different things simultaneously with it. You're on your twitter account, your Facebook account, you're taking pictures.
BARTIROMO: But it should charge properly.
HEYE: It should; but that doesn't hold a charge, and that's, for tech consumers, that's one of the biggest issues out there.
MCDOWELL: I have a tip: so you close all your -- you have to close all your programs -
BARTIROMO: I do. I do.
MCDOWELL: -- and also reduce your screen brightness. If your screen is too bright, it will drain your battery like that. If you reduce screen brightness just a little bit - see, I'm just full of tips.
BARTIROMO: You are. You're good. Okay, screen brightness. I'll check it out.
Apple's big event coming today, and we are going to be there live for you, and, of course this is just added the court date in the fight against the FBI. Expectations for the FBI court date tomorrow.
MCDOWELL: Do you have any?
KELLEY: Yes, I don't think there's any expectations.
MCDOWELL: This ugliness?
KELLEY: Yes -
MCDOWELL: Basically ugliness and uncomfortable courtrooms?
KELLEY: A lot of sabre rattling from both sides. I mean, it is a shame that both of the - both sides haven't been able to get into a room and figure this out, especially because they're using a very, very old law, right? The old Writs Act, which is - that's why everyone's pushing back because it's trying to set a precedent.
You're seeing former intelligence people say, they're an Apple side which is pretty tough -
BARTIROMO: General Hayden -
KELLEY: Exactly. Exactly.
BARTIROMO: -- is on Apple's.
KELLEY: Even General Petraeus.
BARTIROMO: Yes, General Petraeus as well. All right; we'll take a short break. Still to come, "Barron's" Magazine out with its pick of the week. Why it thinks FedEx has more room to grow in 2016. Then President Obama makes a historic trip to Cuba. Not everybody is pleased with the trip or his lukewarm reception on the tarmac. We've got the details, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARIA BARTIROMO, "MORNING WITH MARIA" HOST: Welcome back, happy Monday everybody. I'm Maria Bartiromo. It is Monday March 21st, your first full day of spring.
Your stop story is right now, 6:30 a.m. on the East Coast. And historic trip for President Obama becoming the first president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years. It is not without controversy not without protest.
Fox News Senior Managing Health Editor and Cuban immigrant Dr. Manny Alvarez is with us with his take.
Donald Trump looking to make peace. See his reporting on a meeting with Republican Party leaders.
For the first time in months today, more protest and violent erupted over the weekend at events and Trump, will he blame the other shiv (ph).
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it's very unfair that these really, in many cases, professional, in many cases, sick, protesters can put cars in a road blocking thousands of -- of great Americans from coming to a speech and nobody says anything about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: All this coming ahead. Of the next round, Primaries and caucuses tomorrow, the key states watched Arizona, and Utah.
The top suspect in the Paris terrorist attack was planning new terrorist attacks out of Brussels. He was captured in a police raid over the weekend. His lawyer now, saying that the suspect plans to sue a French prosecutor.
