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Hillary Clinton Wins Big in South Carolina; Trump and Rubio Continue to Exchange Insults; First Major Election in Iran Since Nuclear Deal; Tentative Syria Truce Holding; Hollywood Gears Up for the Oscars; Wounded Vets Fight New Battle to Protect Children. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired February 28, 2016 - 03:00   ET

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


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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hillary Clinton proves her power among minority voters as she sweeps to victory in the South Carolina presidential primary. We'll look at what happens next.

Sporadic violence in Syria but a cease-fire between the government and rebels appears to be largely holding.

And Sly spies his first-ever Oscar at the age of 69. We have a preview of Hollywood's biggest night. And it is just hours away until the red carpet for the Oscars.

Hello, everyone. We're live in Atlanta. This is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen.

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ALLEN: And we begin with the U.S. presidential race. South Carolina voters boosted Hillary Clinton to a huge win in the Southern state's primary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you so much, South Carolina.

Thank you.

ALLEN (voice-over): The Democratic front-runner beat rival Bernie Sanders Saturday by almost 50 points. Despite his loss, Sanders said his campaign is just getting started. Clinton has won three of four Democratic nominating contests so far.

CLINTON: Today, you sent a message: in America when we stand together --

( APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: -- when we stand together, there is no barrier too big to break.

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: We've now gone through four early states and I want to congratulate Senator Sanders on running a great race. And...

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: -- and tomorrow, this campaign goes national.

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CLINTON: We are going to compete for every vote in every state. We're not taking anything and we're not taking anyone for granted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Clinton's campaign, as she said, now full steam ahead to Super Tuesday. While celebrating her win there in South Carolina she did take a shot at Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Here's senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The Clinton campaign just relishing their big win here in South Carolina. Hillary Clinton's communications director, Jen Palmieri, is saying they did better than they expected they would. Campaign sources have been telling us they think Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee.

It was significant that in Clinton's speech, she outlined what her argument in a general election would be against Donald Trump.

CLINTON: Despite what you hear, we don't need to make America great again. America has never stopped being great.

But we do need to make America whole again. Instead of building walls, need to be tearing down barriers.

KEILAR: Publicly, Clinton aides are striking a cautious tone, saying they still have 46 states ahead of them. They have a long way to go. But, privately, they're not as cautious. One aide telling me they think they'll have this wrapped up by March 15th. We'll see a series of contests then following those series of contests that we're going to see on Tuesday for Super Tuesday.

By mid-March, almost 60 percent of delegates will have been awarded. By then, aides think it will be clear there is no pathway to the nomination for Bernie Sanders -- Brianna Keilar, CNN, Columbia, South Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: Yes, is there any hope for Bernie at this point? Well, earlier I spoke with Josh Kraushaar, political editor for "National Journal" about Hillary Clinton's big win there in South Carolina and her support among minority voters.

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JOSH KRAUSHAAR, POLITICAL EDITOR, NATIONAL JOURNAL: Boy, a 45-plus point margin of victory in South Carolina. And not only was the victory huge, but she won African Americans by over 80 percent of the vote according to exit polls. She even tied Sanders with white voters in South Carolina.

This was a decisive victory. It's going to give her crucial momentum heading next week into the big Super Tuesday states.

ALLEN: I was going to ask you, was it an issue primarily of geography, since he dominated in New Hampshire, but perhaps not then?

KRAUSHAAR: The big challenge for Hillary Clinton was showing and proving that she could dominate, not just win, but dominate among African Americans and among Hispanics. And she showed that she thoroughly won --

[03:05:00]

KRAUSHAAR: -- the African American vote in both Nevada and South Carolina. And she won Hispanics.

If you look at the precinct data out of Nevada, she did very well with the Hispanic voters, too.

For a Democratic candidate and a Democratic primary, if you're doing well with non-white voters as well as Hillary Clinton has done, it's a pretty sure path to winning the Democratic nomination.

ALLEN: Well, she said in her acceptance speech, "We go national from here."

So what must she achieve on the national stage come Super Tuesday?

KRAUSHAAR: She's got a win the vast majority of delegates in states on Super Tuesday. And, frankly, most are concentrated in the South. They have similar demographics to South Carolina. States like that -- and also Texas with its sizable Hispanic population.

So, there's an opportunity for Clinton to do, again, very well with Hispanic and African American voters and do well with the overall delegate count.

Now Bernie Sanders is going to make a showing in the caucuses next week, Minnesota, Colorado and Massachusetts primary, three of the big states that the Sanders campaign is counting on.

But when you just look at the likely delegate count if the momentum continue for Clinton, she's going to start to build what's looking like an insurmountable lead for the Clinton campaign. ALLEN: What happened to the "Feel the Bern"?

Where did that go?

What turned it for Hillary?

KRAUSHAAR: Well, look, Iowa and New Hampshire were about as favorable states as you can draw for the Sanders campaign. They're very liberal and they have very young and white Democratic electorates.

Once we get to the South and the more diverse Democratic states, it was a bigger challenge for Sanders.

Sanders always had to prove he could expand his own coalition to winning more non-white voters, to doing well with African Americans, at least making some inroads with that constituency.

As we are seeing right now in South Carolina, not only that he did not make inroads, but he got wiped out. If he doesn't make any inroads by next week, the game is over for the Bernie Sanders campaign.

ALLEN: Well, there are certainly those that would want to trip up Hillary Clinton. I mean, from the emails, to Benghazi and now the speech transcripts, he still talked about that.

Is there anything that he can say or that can happen that could trip her up at this point on her way to getting more delegates?

KRAUSHAAR: Well, look, Hillary Clinton is her own worst enemy. She's certainly improved her stump speech. She sounded more empathetic in her victory speech tonight in South Carolina.

But it's really -- her issue is in the general election. I mean, she has poor favorability numbers in the general election. A lot of people in the country still don't trust her outside of the Democratic base. So her big challenge looking forward is to think about the general election.

But she hinted at some lines preparing for a match-up again Donald Trump in her victory speech tonight. But this is someone who's going to be focused primarily on November and less toward Bernie Sanders and the Democratic primary.

ALLEN: Well, it is Donald Trump and Hillary, she might need practice from Marco Rubio, maybe train with him, since he finally got his speed up there late in the game against The Donald this week.

But we appreciate your thoughts. We'll talk with you again. Josh Kraushaar, political editor for "National Journal," thank you.

KRAUSHAAR: Thanks, Natalie.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: While Clinton extends her lead over Sanders with the victory, the Republicans are slugging it out, as always, on the campaign trail. And Marco Rubio and Donald Trump have definitely taken the gloves off.

Well, Donald's always had them off but they've been going at each other non-stop since Thursday's debate, name-calling, insults, accusations. It seems like everything is fair game now and it's really getting personal. Here's what Rubio said about Trump Saturday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLA., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's flying around on "hair force one" and tweeting. Here's the one tweet he put out, a pictures of me having makeup put on me at the debate, which is amazing to me that a guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on make-up.

(APPLAUSE)

RUBIO: Donald Trump likes to sue people. He should sue whatever did that to his face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

All right. Like we said, Trump wasn't holding back either as he campaigned with New Jersey governor and former rival Chris Christie. Here's what he had to say about Rubio --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But I will address little Rubio. This guy has a fresh mouth. He's a very nasty guy.

But I actually thought that Ted Cruz was a liar. But Rubio is worse. I mean, he's worse.

This lightweight Rubio, total lightweight. And little mouth on him, bing, bing, bing. Bing, bing, bing, bing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: We'll keep you posted on any more Rubio-Trump squabbles. There's sure to be a few more.

[03:10:00]

ALLEN: We turn now to Ireland. Exit polls show Ireland's ruling coalition is not likely to be in power much longer. According to broadcaster RTE's polling (ph), the coalition made up of Fine Gael- Labour got 32 percent of the vote in the national elections, that is far less than the 41 percent they need to be re-elected.

Sinn Fein -- can you tell I have trouble with these -- could form a new coalition with a rival party, Fianna Fail, which would give them a majority or else a new election could be called.

Iran's interior ministry says reformists are set to take over parliament perhaps even taking all 30 available seats in the country's first major election since last year's nuclear deal. The votes are still being counted. Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and current president Hassan Rouhani are leading in the race for the powerful assembly of experts.

Senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen has more on the early results.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If the early elections in Iran hold true then this could be a resounding victory for the moderates and the reform candidates here in this country.

Now remember, there were two elections that took place, one of them was for the council of experts, which is a religious body that will vote for and elect the next supreme leader. So that election's very important.

Here for the Tehran area, the votes have been counted. And of the 15 seats available, 12 have apparently gone to moderate and reformist candidates and only three have gone to conservatives.

The picture looks fairly similar in the parliamentary elections, where, after about a third of the votes were counted in the Tehran area, it seems as though Mohammad Reza Aref, the head of the reformist movement, is on top.

And of the 30 candidates for the seats available here in Tehran, at this point, the vast majority would also be moderates and reformers as well.

However, the authorities here have warned that these results at this point are preliminary and it will take another three days for final results to come out.

However, many people saw this election as a referendum on the policies of Hassan Rouhani and the centerpiece of those policies was, of course, the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers that, on the one hand, put significant curbs on Iran's nuclear program but also gave Iran sign sanctions relief in return.

Many Iranians hope that that will lead to big economic growth in this country. And while many Iranians haven't seen that economic growth yet if the results for this election holds true, it seems as though Iranians are giving Hassan Rouhani a mandate to accelerate those reforms in the future -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.

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ALLEN: An uneasy calm is stretching across most of Syria. Ahead here, we'll have the latest in a live report on the truce that's now in its second straight day.

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ALLEN: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM.

A cease-fire appears to be holding for now throughout most of Syria. That's despite sporadic violence in the hours after the agreement first went into effect Saturday morning.

But ISIS has not signed onto the truce and, on Saturday, militants attacked a Kurdish town near the border with Turkey.

CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson joins me now live from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He's watching this story closely.

And it's maybe an uneasy calm, Nic, but, for the most part, it is somewhat calm nonetheless.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It is and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which studies very closely and has done for the past five years all the incidents on the ground, they have their own teams of independent monitors who could go out, see the damage, find out the casualty totals.

It's impossible to verify these numbers, of course, but they've become a relatively reliable source of information over the past five years. This morning, they're saying there's been a number of airstrikes in the country.

Two different places inside Aleppo, governorate in the north of the country, airstrikes in the governorate of Hama. There have been airstrikes against ISIS targets in Raqqah in the east of the country. This is part of the very complex picture that's emerging from Syria right now.

It is much calmer. But ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria are not part of the cease-fire. They are not signed up to it; they're not allowed to sign up to it. They continue to be legitimate targets of both the government, for Russian airstrikes, for U.S. coalition airstrikes as well inside the country.

So it's hard, if you will, to try to figure out what is sort of a break in the cease-fire and what is the sort of legitimate continuation of battles against ISIS. But we have heard of sniper gunfire around Damascus, the suburbs of Damascus. That would be of concern as well.

And what the United States is -- an account, a Twitter account based on the U.S. embassy in Damascus, no longer staffed but their Twitter account is saying that anyone in Syria who sees a violation of the cease-fire -- and it gives several ways to register that information.

And this has been a key demand of the high negotiating committee based here in Riyadh, the grouping, 97 different groups of the Syrian opposition, they said, look, we must have clear, independent monitoring of this cease-fire. That doesn't exist, an independent monitoring of the cease-fire.

So it's really being done on an ad hoc basis. But that's how the high negotiating committee is going to judge whether or not they think that the cease-fire is holding.

Of course, they have a lot of people on the ground in Syria. And this is what they're waiting for, to see which way it goes. But for right now, yes, for the most part, it does seem to be holding -- Natalie.

ALLEN: Oh, that's good news. And hopefully this humanitarian aid so desperately needed will continue to get through to the people who are suffering so much.

Thank you, Nic Robertson, for the latest there, reporting from Riyadh.

We want to turn now to a storm that Karen Maginnis has her eye on. Wind, rain, snow, all part of what's going on across Europe.

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KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And we'll see some gale force winds, possibly near tropical storm force as we go into the next several days -- Natalie.

ALLEN: All right, still to look out for, thank you, Karen.

We're going to talk Oscars in a minute, Karen, so stick around.

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ALLEN (voice-over): Odds are in Leonardo DiCaprio's favor to take home his first Oscar.

Could the fifth time -- yes, he's been nominated five times -- be the charm for Leonardo?

We'll have a preview of Sunday's Oscars, next.

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ALLEN: We are just hours away from Hollywood's biggest night, the 88th annual Academy Awards will be held in, duh, L.A. Sunday with comedian Chris Rock doing the hosting duties.

Many say this could be the year Leonardo DiCaprio finally takes home the coveted Best Actor award.

Earlier, I spoke with Kim Serafin, senior editor at "In Touch" weekly magazine. She told me who she thinks will bring home Oscar gold.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Today, the big winner was spotlight. Spotlight is one of the ones in the Oscar race people are watching. This makes her pretty much a lock for best actress.

Yes, Brie Larson and Leonardo DiCaprio, those names are said tomorrow night, no one will be surprised.

No, if anything is a definite, it's Leo getting his first Oscar. This went back to 1994 when he was nominated for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." I think this is the one thing that everyone agrees will definitely happen at the Oscars, Leo gets --

KIM SERAFIN, SR. EDITOR, "IN TOUCH": The Independent Spirit Awards often predict some Oscar winners and today the big winner was "Spotlight." And "Spotlight" is one of the ones that people are watching.

There's three to watch in the Oscars race. "Spotlight" is one of them. "Spotlight" was a big winner at the Independent Spirit Awards, so this could potentially predict that "Spotlight" could be a big winner.

Brie Larson also was a winner at the Independent Spirit Awards today. So I think this makes her pretty much a lock for Best Actress.

ALLEN: Yes, Brie Larson and Leonardo DiCaprio, those names are said tomorrow night, no one will go, right?

SERAFIN: No, this is Leo's big nomination. I think if anything is a definite at the Oscars, it's Leo getting --

[03:25:00]

SERAFIN: -- his first Oscar. This went back to 1994, when he was nominated for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." It's pretty amazing that he's been nominated this many times and has not won..

But I think this is one thing that everyone agrees will definitely happen at the Oscars, Leo gets his first Oscar.

ALLEN: Yes, that's fantastic and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," that was one of my Leo favorites (INAUDIBLE), right?

Well, let's talk about supporting actor. What would it mean if Sylvester Stallone got to go up on stage and take an Oscar home?

SERAFIN: Pretty amazing. This would be another fantastic Hollywood story to have Sylvester Stallone to finally win that Oscar. He was nominated for two things in 1977, for Best Actor, and for screenplay. He did not win.

But for him to come back and win this many years later for playing Rocky, just kind of the older version of Rocky, it would just be such a sweet Hollywood ending. And I think so many people want to see that. And a lot of times you see the supporting actor award go to somebody

who just kind of deserved it over a lifetime of work. And I think this for Sylvester Stallone, it's pretty much a lock if you saw him win at the Golden Globes, he got a standing ovation in the room.

And I think that's definitely predictive of what is going to happen at the Oscars when he potentially wins Best Supporting Actor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: There he is, Sly Stallone. We'll wait and see what happened.

That was Kim Serafin talking with us, giving us some scoop. So enjoy the Oscars and CNN is the place you may turn before and after the Academy Awards for all the glamor from the red carpet. Tune in to our show, "Hollywood's Biggest Night," at 7:00 am Monday in Hong Kong, 8:00 in Tokyo in the morning.

Before I leave you this hour, another quick programming note. CNN's Freedom Project is introducing you to a different type of hero.

Wounded military veterans, the elite of the elite, fighting a new battle. They are working with a nonprofit called Protect. Their mission: to track online predators who target children. And as our Kyung Lah found out, these men once again are very much on the front lines.

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KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Protect says the United States is the world's largest producer of child pornography. The images, too hard to look at, often too horrible even to describe. But for these heroes, the idea of not taking action is not an option.

J. CHRISTIAN, CEO, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION TO PROTECT CHILDREN: But what we're dealing with is actual capturing of crime scenes. It gives you that sense of urgency to make sure that you're able to get there as fast as you can.

When they go out into the field, the main objective for the hero is to aid and assist in child rescue.

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ALLEN: You will hear their stories, learn of their successes and what more needs to be done to fight this horror. It's all part of our Freedom Project and that starts Monday only on CNN.

Thank you for watching. I'm Natalie Allen. Erin Burnett's "OUTFRONT" is coming up here on CNN. And I'll be right back with our top stories.