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Super Saturday Wins for Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders; Looking Forward to March 15; CNN to Host Democratic Debate in Flint. Aired 2- 2:15a ET
Aired March 06, 2016 - 02:00 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, HOST: On Super Saturday, primary voting in four U.S. states ends with close results. On the Republican side, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz go toe-to-toe. While Democrat Bernie Sanders keeps pace behind Hillary Clinton.
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ALLEN: It's all ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you for joining us, we're live in Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen.
Well candidates are jockeying for position in a wild election cycle that added another chapter on Saturday and that is our top story.
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ALLEN: Republican frontrunner Donald Trump did not get a clean sweep, as his opponents feared. But he did score both Louisiana and Kentucky, adding to his lead over the field. Ted Cruz also had a strong showing, winning Kansas and Maine. He may be emerging as the Trump challenger with the most staying power. Saturday, helped Cruz close in on Trump's delegate lead with Marco Rubio a distant third.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton took home her main target, Louisiana. But for opponent Bernie Sanders earned wins in both Kansas and Nebraska, to keep his campaign alive. Sanders has been uphill climb for the nomination but Saturday proved he has no intention of bowing out yet either.
The next major contest for Republicans are Florida and Ohio. Home to Marco Rubio and John Kasich and must-wins for those two candidates. But Trump says one of them should give up now.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think Marco Rubio had a very, very bad night. And personally, I'd call for him to drop out of the race. I think it's time now that he drop out of the race, I really think so. I think it's probably time. You know I don't think tonight he can get up and rant and rave and oh he did great, he comes in third, he comes in fourth, every time he comes in third or fourth, he says, you've got to be able to win. And he has not been able to win and I think it's time that he drops out. I would love to take on Ted one-on-one. That would be so much fun. Because Ted can't win New York. He can't win New Jersey. He can't win Pennsylvania. He can't win California. I want Ted, one-on-one. OK?
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ALLEN: Well meantime, even though Hillary Clinton could not pull away from Bernie Sanders Saturday, she still focused a lot of attention on Trump, who could become her opponent in a general election. She even repurposed his now infamous slogan "Make America Great Again" to fit her own message.
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HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And you know, we've got work to do. But not to make America great again. America never stopped being great. We've got to make America whole. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness.
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ALLEN: March 15th is the next big day with primaries in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina. For more on Saturday's results, let's go to Scott Lucas. He's a Professor of International Politics at the University of Birmingham in England.
Scott, thank you for joining us. It must be interesting watching it across the pond. Now let's look at the results of the latest voting in the U.S. Ted Cruz takes two. Donald Trump takes two. This wasn't a slam dunk night for Donald Trump. Your reaction.
SCOTT LUCAS, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM: No it wasn't but Trump has still got the inside position. I think there are three things to look at last night.
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LUCAS: One answer and two questions. The answer is that Marco Rubio is pretty much gone from this race, unless he can pull out an amazing comeback in Florida on March 15th. Now putting Rubio aside, first question -- can Ted Cruz actually win this nomination? And I think the answer is no. I think although he's doing well in the Mid-west in caucuses and he's done well in the South-west, near his home state of Texas, he needs to win primaries outside of that area. And so far, he's shown he can't do it. And as you just mentioned, we've got five big contests on March 15th. Many of them winner-take-all, which are outside of that area.
Second question then, can anyone stop Donald Trump? The only way to stop Trump is going to be a brokered convention. And that actually is the strategy that Mitt Romney called for this past week. But to do that you've got to stop Trump in the next two weeks.
ALLEN: Do you think that -
LUCAS: You've got to - ALLEN: Do you think any part of Cruz's win tonight was the fact that
Romney came out and warned America, or tried to, away from Donald Trump?
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LUCAS: Well, I think, you know, you can make that general call. But there's a problem there still for the Republican accomplishment. And Mitt Romney, and that is, they don't like Ted Cruz that much.
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LUCAS: They like him a little bit better than Donald Trump. But the fact is, you have got two what you might would call insurgent candidates both running against that establishment. So the establishment doesn't want a Cruz victory and they don't want a Trump victory. And so, although he might have got a slight bump from Romney, the strategy is, let's take it to the convention and find some alternative, pull it out of the hat by the time this summer.
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ALLEN: So, what's happening here? What do you think's going on with this race, as far as the Republican side?
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ALLEN: Some Republicans are saying that the party is imploding right before our eyes.
LUCAS: I mean, I think the Republican party has been - has been divided for a generation. I mean you've got more centrist Republicans on economic issues, on social issues. And then what you might call the red meat Republicans. The type of people that Cruz plays to, the evangelicals, the people who want very hard lines on social issues. Sometimes hard lines on immigration. And Trump plays to the red meat Republican, as well despite his supposed moderate tag.
The beauty of Ronald Reagan and to an extent, George W. Bush, was that their teams could hold the Republican party together. But you've got no figure like a Reagan now to put up against Trump and Cruz. Rubio didn't do it. I don't think John Kasich could do it.
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LUCAS: And so the Republican party is facing not just a short-term but a long-term division going into November's election.
ALLEN: One more question for you. Let's talk about the Democrats and the fact that Bernie Sanders had two victories in caucus states.
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LUCAS: Still that feel-good moment for progressive Democrats that Bernie can not only do well but he can do well outside of his base in the Northeast. But to be realistic this is in caucuses. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LUCAS: He hasn't been able to win big in primaries. And I think the Clinton camp knows and the Democratic Party knows that when we get into next week in Michigan, and then, the five contests on March 15th, she's got large leads in all of them. And it's really hard to see Sanders building on that feel-good moment to make this a real challenge. I think you're going to see a unified Democratic Party by the end of the month behind Hillary with Sanders being able to make his voice heard to get some of his policies put up front.
And I even think you saw a hint of that in both Sanders' and Clinton's speech last night.
ALLEN: Professor Scott Lucas talking with us from Birmingham, England. Thank you, we appreciate your analysis.
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LUCAS: Thank you.
ALLEN: Well out on the campaign trail, Donald Trump has been referring to captive army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl as a traitor. Here's a sample.
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TRUMP: Six beautiful, young people were killed looking for Sergeant Bergdahl right? So -- and we knew that he was a traitor because we had a General and a Colonel, interviewing all of the people that he worked with.
ALLEN: Well now, Bergdahl's attorney is asking to meet with Donald Trump. The lawyer says the interview would allow the soldier's defense team to determine whether or not Trump should be deposed. Bergdahl is currently facing court-martial on charges of desertion.
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ALLEN: We turn to Flint, Michigan, where service crews have begun to replace pipes contaminated with lead that has been leeching into the city's drinking water.
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ALLEN: Corrosive water had been eating away at the pipes after the city switched its water source in 2014. Much of the city suffered degrees of lead poisoning because of the contaminated water. Families have been relying on bottle water as the city works to fix the problem. And that right there was our Martin Savage, CNN help distribute 500,000 bottles of water Saturday.
Certainly all kinds of people need to be pitching in to help Flint, Michigan. Flint will host Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, as they face off once again in the next CNN Democratic debate. Anderson Cooper will moderate at 1:00 a.m. Monday, London time. 8:00 p.m. here on the East Coast of the U.S. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: Well much needed rain and snow will blanket California this week. Derek is here to talk about that. But will it be enough to break the drought?
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's no surprise that we've been talking about the storm because it just gets more impressive as time goes on. And full disclosure, Natalie, I'm a skier and a snowboarder so I like to see the snow in the mountains OK. Let me show some of this snow, how about that? Cue the video.
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VAN DAM: You can see some of the first flakes falling in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. This is the California mountain range that runs from north to south. It is extremely beautiful. But that is fresh, fresh snow. We like to see that.
Now we've got a drought in California. That has been a well-advertised drought that's for sure, it's been ongoing for five years. And look at all of the rainfall on our radar at the moment. It is lighting up like a Christmas tree. Of course the white shading being snowfall.
Now it's all because of the "Pineapple Express". Let me try and explain this to you. We have these large area of low pressure across the Aleutian Islands near Alaska, and we have a strong Polar Jet, and this is actually tapping into moisture all the way from Hawaii. That is why it's called this "Pineapple Express" or "Pineapple Connection" and it drives that moisture to the western half of the United States.
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VAN DAM: That's where we get the rainfall and the cold air behind it and that causes our snowfall for mountains as well. Impressive rainfall totals especially across the coastal areas. And unreal snowfall totals in the mountains, three feet or more for those locations.
Here's our rainfall forecast for San Francisco. Through the next seven days, they could get over three inches of rain, which is good news, because they have been very, very dry especially to the south. Now we have much above average rainfall over the Western U.S. And look what's showing up over the Eastern U.S. as well, that's the other side of this story, we're starting to notice some of the long-range computer models picking up on the potential flooding from Arkansas to Missouri.
We have strong winds associated with this system. Big waves, surf's up, dude, in Southern California, if you get the opportunity to head out to Los Angeles and check out some of the pro surfers there.
And we'll end with this, some very interesting phenomenon taking place here over Western Mexico, where we have snowfall in the forecast for the country. And because I'm a skier and snowboarder, Natalie, I'm going to leave you with this. Take a look at the video coming out of Vail, this is the U.S. Burton Snowboard Championship and Shaun White takes the cake once again, gets gold on the half pipe and there's why.
ALLEN: Well yes.
VAN DAM: Love it.
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ALLEN: Yes, we like to go to Vail as well.
Alright we we're going to end on something under the sea.
A new species of octopod likely has been found. A U.S. scientist say they spotted this one by chance near Hawaii.
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ALLEN: It is not muscular and doesn't have much color as you can see. So people on social media have named it "Casper the friendly ghost." It was found around four kilometers under water. Biologists said they've never found an unfinned octopod this deep below the surface.
VAN DAM: I showed my wife this image and she said "he's really cute."
ALLEN: Stay safe down there little octopod.
Thanks for watching, Marketplace Africa is next.
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("MARKETPLACE AFRICA" AIRS)
