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Donald Trump Cements Lead on GOP Super Tuesday; Clinton Wins 7 Big States over Sanders' Four; Texas Abortion Battle; Breaking Down Super Tuesday Exit Polls; Aired 10-10:30a ET
Aired March 02, 2016 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[10:00:42] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM. Trump and Clinton tightened their grips.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There is nobody, nobody that's going to beat us.
COSTELLO: The rest of the Republican candidates not letting go.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There will never come a time in this race where our supporters are asking us to get out and rally around Donald Trump.
COSTELLO: How long until the GOP field narrows?
SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So long as the field remains divided, Donald Trump's path to the nomination remains more likely.
COSTELLO: Meantime the frontrunner is looking to November.
TRUMP: I'm going to go after one person. That's Hillary Clinton.
COSTELLO: Who's got the edge?
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to make America whole.
TRUMP: Make America great again is going to be much better than making America whole again.
COSTELLO: Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
Super Tuesday becomes surging Wednesday at least for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. They win big, bolstering their leads and making a November showdown seemed all but inevitable. Trump running a wave of voter anger and record turnout from Arkansas to Vermont. The New York billionaire winning seven states and erasing the traditional boundaries of geography. Senator Ted Cruz wins captures his must-win home state of Texas. He also seizes Oklahoma and Alaska, making the case that he's now the only Republican who can beat Trump.
So-called establishment candidate Marco Rubio notches his first victory by claiming Minnesota. He now looks ahead to his home state of Florida. His only hope for survival may be a windfall of delegates in the winner-take-all state.
Turning to the Democrats now, Hillary Clinton builds on her momentum, winning seven states including a hard-fought battle in Massachusetts. Bernie Sanders wins at home in Vermont. He also nabs Oklahoma and Minnesota as expected. But Colorado was a surprise victory for him.
Regardless of how they finished the night, though, all of them are pushing ahead.
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CLINTON: What a Super Tuesday.
TRUMP: We're taking from the Democrats, we're taking from the independents. We have a lot more people. I hope to be able to get along with everybody.
CLINTON: America never stopped being great. We have to make America whole. We have to fill in.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is good to be home. We have come a very long way in 10 months.
CRUZ: We have seen that our campaign is the only campaign that has beaten, that can beat and that will beat Donald Trump.
RUBIO: The pundits we're underdogs, I'll accept that. We've all been underdogs.
TRUMP: And when we unify, there's nobody, nobody that is going to beat us. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you.
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COSTELLO: All right. We're following all of the campaigns with our team of political reporters. CNN's Jim Acosta is following the Republicans. Joe Johns the Republicans.
I want to begin with you, Jim. Good morning.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Sure. Good morning, Carol. It was undoubtedly a big night for Donald Trump, who was sounding like a frontrunner, sounding like a presumptive nominee. Well on his way to capturing the Republican nomination. The billionaire businessman, as we all know, he racked up big wins in seven states including delegate rich Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, but he could not deliver that knockout blow he was looking for against Ted Cruz who won his home state of Texas, neighboring Oklahoma and Alaska.
Ted Cruz has a new argument this morning. He's now saying that he is the best hope of the Republican Party of keeping Trump out of the White House noting he's essentially the only candidate who has beaten Donald Trump on multiple occasions and that is the argument he made last night here on CNN. Here's what he had to say.
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CRUZ: Listen, if we remain divided, then in all likelihood, Donald Trump becomes the nominee. That result was made clear tonight.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: If he's the nominee, will you support him?
CRUZ: I will support the Republican nominee, period, the end. But I don't believe he's going to be the Republican nominee. I think we're going to unite to prevent him from being the nominee because if he's the nominee --
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BLITZER: Including -- including a brokered convention?
CRUZ: He may be the one person on the planet that Hillary Clinton can beat.
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[10:05:03] ACOSTA: Now Ted Cruz is calling on Marco Rubio, the other contenders, to drop out of this race and get behind him. Marco Rubio had a disappointing night only picking up Minnesota even after launching that series of personal attacks against Donald Trump to no avail. But Rubio is vowing to fight on. Here's what he had to say.
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm just wondering if there's a certain amount of denial that you're in about this race.
RUBIO: No, Jake. Look, again, we're in the winner-take-all phase of this. You know this is about delegate account. This is not a traditional race. Usually in a race like this you'd have a frontrunner and at this point people would be saying you need to drop out and rally around the frontrunner for the sake of the party. They're saying the opposite now. There will never come a time in this race where our supporters are asking us to get out and rally around Donald Trump.
What people are saying is fight as hard as you can to save the party of Lincoln and Reagan from a con artist who refuses to criticize the KKK. If we nominate Donald Trump as our nominee for the Republican Party, it will be the end of the moderate Republican Party.
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ACOSTA: Now Donald Trump is trying to strike a more diplomatic tone saying he could unite the Republican Party, unite the country. But he did in almost the same breath warned what would happen if Republican leaders did not get behind him, saying to Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, essentially that he would pay a price if those two leaders could not get along.
Carol, we are living in unprecedented times when the GOP -- potential GOP nominee is warning the speaker to back off -- Carol.
COSTELLO: You got that right, Jim Acosta. Thanks so much.
All right. Joe Johns is in Minneapolis. Good morning.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Bernie Sanders pulled off a huge win here in the caucuses in Minnesota and he did it with ground game and organization, Democratic insiders tell me. Also picking the right state, a state with a strong tradition of electing progressives.
Now what Bernie Sanders is saying is the important thing he needs to do is to continue to rack up delegates to the Democratic National Convention, even though Hillary Clinton is winning more states than he has. Listen.
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SANDERS: This is not a general election. It's not winner-take-all. If you get 52 percent, you 48 percent, you roughly end up with the same amount of delegates. At the end of tonight, 15 states will have voted, 35 states remain. And let me assure you, that we are going to take our fight for economic justice, for social justice, for environmental sanity, for a world of peace for every one of those states.
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JOHNS: But there really is not any denying that Hillary Clinton was the big winner last night, especially for her performance in southern states. Her campaign has told me they're looking forward to the 15th of this month and beyond hoping at some point they will be able to deliver that knockout punch to Bernie Sanders. Essentially, what she's saying is right now she's focusing just a little bit less on Sanders and a little bit more on the Republicans. Listen.
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CLINTON: It's clear tonight that the stakes in this election have never been higher. And the rhetoric we're hearing on the other side has never been lower.
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JOHNS: Hillary Clinton is in New York today and Bernie Sanders is in the state of Main -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Joe Johns reporting live from Minneapolis, thank you. It looks like it will be an epic battle between Hillary Clinton and
Donald Trump when all is said and done in the general election unless establishment Republicans can defy voters and kick Trump to the curb.
It could happen. Establishment Republicans say they are fighting for the future of the Republican Party while Democrats have fully embraced their liberalism.
With me now to talk about all of this, CNN political commentator and "Daily Beast" columnist Sally Kohn, and CNN political commentator and Donald Trump supporter, Kayleigh McEnany.
Welcome to both of you.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thanks, Carol.
SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Nice to see you both.
COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So, Kayleigh, the voters have spoken, at least on Super Tuesday. So I'm wondering, who does the Republican establishment Party represent exactly?
MCENANY: The Republican establishment doesn't really represent anyone, as we're finding. And if they do, they represent a very small minority that's rallying or trying to rally behind Marco Rubio. You know, the Republican establishment has betrayed the Republican voter time and time again. They promised to lower spending and then they vote on raising it by $1.3 trillion. They promised to defund Planned Parenthood and then they don't.
[10:10:01] They have repeatedly lied to the Republican voters and the Republican voters are finally having their retaliation and it's coming in the form of Donald Trump, into a certain extent, Ted Cruz. And at the end of the day, voters will rally behind whoever the nominee is. The political class might not. But take my word, the voters will.
COSTELLO: Well, Sally, I want to talk about Trump's win and the breadth of his wins. He won in Massachusetts, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama, among other states. As the "Washington Post" points out, doesn't that make Trump a candidate not limited by geography or ideology?
KOHN: I mean, it seems that wherever there are angry voters he has a potential base. Look, I think a lot of America -- I hope a lot of America is waking up in a cold sweat this morning. That what we once thought was a joke and a long shot is now really a possibility and the most dangerous thing at this point are people thinking that, you know, if we just keep wishing it will happen, Donald Trump will go away. This -- people need to pay attention now.
This isn't a drill anymore, folks. He could actually become president. A man who is afraid to or refuses to denounce the KKK, who has built up his campaign on hating against Muslims, against Mexicans, against basically anyone who isn't the -- his fan base who are rah- rah-rahing in the background, a man who came to prominence by questioning the very citizenship and faith of America's president. This isn't the guy who could become president. This isn't funny anymore. This is frightening. It's terrifying.
COSTELLO: Well --
KOHN: People need to wake up and --
COSTELLO: Let -- Kayleigh, I do want to talk about the minority votes because when you look at the exit polls, Donald Trump didn't attract many nonwhite voters. In fact Cruz won the nonwhite voters in Texas, Rubio won nonwhite voters in Georgia, and Alabama, there were so few blacks or Latinos, they didn't even register in the Republican election. So Donald Trump doesn't have support, it's seemingly, among minorities, and many analysts say he can't win in a general election against Hillary Clinton if he doesn't have any minority support.
MCENANY: I think he will get minority support because here is the thing. Black unemployment has never been worse in this country in the last decade. It's way worse now than it has been really since the beginning of the Obama presidency. It's horrible. It's in double digits. Black unemployment is terrible. A lot of blacks, black pastors who have rallied around Donald Trump, and support him, support him because of his message of economic growth.
COSTELLO: Like who?
MCENANY: And they know -- they know that this --
COSTELLO: Who?
MCENANY: They know that Donald Trump --
COSTELLO: Who are these --
KOHN: Louis Farrakhan. I think Louis Farrakhan.
MCENANY: No, not -
KOHN: I think Louis Farrakhan might be the example here.
MCENANY: No. There have been many who black pastors on this network supporting Trump.
KOHN: He seems to like that Donald Trump is --
MCENANY: And Sally Kohn, I want to refute something that you said. You said Donald Trump refuses to disavow the KKK. That is a false statement. He -- he disavowed them on Friday, he disavowed them Thursday. In 2000, he called David Duke a racist, a bigot, a problem. He has repeatedly disavowed this group. And it is disingenuous and wrong to insinuate anything less than that. It is wrong.
KOHN: You know I'm not the only one saying it.
MCENANY: He never refused to --
KOHN: And you know that he -- you know I'm not the only one saying it and you know that he -- and you know that he has made some pretty wishy-washy statements in that regard when given many clear opportunities to denounce it.
But, you know, Carol, the larger issue here is, you know, this wall Donald Trump talks about building? He's not going to be able to build a wall. He's not going to be able to make Mexico pay for a wall. That's horrible foreign policy. It's horrible domestic policy.
The wall is a metaphor. The wall is a metaphor for angry, mostly white voters who fear this country is changing in ways that are the -- that are cause of their unsettlement. So they're not going to blame, you know, Republican tax policy for decades that has given more money and power to the rich and the big business, instead they're going to blame Mexican immigrants. You know, they're not going to blame any other number of things. They are going to just keep trying to find scapegoats for their problems and here comes Donald Trump saying, yes, I'll wall you off from all of this change.
MCENANY: No. The wall is not a metaphor.
KOHN: It is scary and frightening.
MCENANY: The wall is not a metaphor.
KOHN: And horrible. And instead of -- which violates the values on which this country was founded.
MCENANY: Sally --
KOHN: And I pray that Americans are better than this. We have to be better than this.
MCENANY: Sally, the wall is not a metaphor. It has nothing to do with racism or bigotry. Nothing. It has to do with national security. When you look at Europe, 60 ISIS fighters made it into Europe because it lacks immigration policies and they killed 153 Parisians. I do not want to see a terrorist attack of that extent on this country.
KOHN: No one wants to see a terrorist attack.
MCENANY: You have to stop it at the border. It has nothing to do with race.
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COSTELLO: OK. I have to leave it there.
KOHN: Look, no one is building a wall against Canada, Kayleigh.
COSTELLO: OK. I have to leave it there.
MCENANY: Thanks, Carol.
COSTELLO: But I think we're getting a taste of the general election to come.
MCENANY: We are. COSTELLO: Sally Kohn and Kayleigh McEnany, thanks so much.
KOHN: An important one. Thank you.
COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, crowds swarming outside as a high-stakes abortion case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court. These are live pictures outside of the court right now. We'll talk about the case, next.
[10:15:02]
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COSTELLO: The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the most important abortion case in almost a decade. It involves Texas but could affect the clinics across the country. This is what it looks like outside the U.S. Supreme Court right now. Huge groups of abortion rights activists. They oppose this Texas law because it requires abortion clinics to upgrade their facilities to hospital-like standards. It also requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.
Comedian Samantha Bee sat down with the co-writer of this Texas law. Listen.
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SAMANTHA BEE, COMEDIAN: How does removing access to health care increase health care?
