Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump Blames Sanders for Chicago Clashes; Athlete Beats Bone Cancer; Sanders Slams Clinton Over Wall Street Speeches; Salesforce CEO Works to Close Pay Gap Aired 4-5p ET

Aired March 12, 2016 - 16:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:00:03] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the "CNN NEWSROOM." I'm Poppy Harlow. 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Thank you for being with us. Just three days before the crucial winner take all primary in Ohio, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are hurling insults back and forth over who they claim is responsible for the violence on the campaign trail that we saw in Chicago last night.

Trump wrapped up a rally in Ohio this afternoon, he blasted what he calls a planned attack at last night's scheduled Trump rally in Chicago. Trump supporters, well, they claim that they were taunted and harassed in Chicago and Trump blames backers of democrat Bernie Sanders, calling Sanders, "our communist friend." Chicago event was cancelled after chaos prior to it. Also Trump blames Sanders' supporters for interrupting today's rally in Cleveland. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, it's a Bernie person. It's a Bernie -- hello, Bernie. Hey, Bernie, get your people in line, Bernie. Get your people in line.

Can you imagine Bernie saying that Trump should get his people under control and they put in these people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Sanders' camp responded with this quote. "As is the case virtually every day Donald Trump is showing the American people that he is a pathological liar, obviously while I appreciate that we have supporters at Trump's rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize a protest. Let's talk about this.

Sara Murray is inside the Trump event happening today in Cleveland, Ohio. Jim Acosta is in Kansas City, Missouri where Ted Cruz just spoke. And a Trump rally will happen later today. Jeff Zeleny is in Chicago. Sara, to you. This back and forth between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump over and over again today about sort of who incited this -- who is a proponent of the violence, who is not. What are people saying where you are at the rally today?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was interesting at the rally today, Poppy. Because we did not see the same kind of large scale coordinated protest, of course, that we saw in Chicago or even that we've seen in the last couple weeks leading up to this event.

We saw a protest break out here and there and a couple of them were Bernie Sanders' supporters. We didn't see any Bernie Sanders' supporters inciting violence and I only witnessed one event in which both a protester and a Trump supporter started throwing punches. These things were pretty quickly wrapped up.

I think what Bernie Sanders is sort of trying to get at here is this idea that when Donald Trump holds these event, he is (INAUDIBLE) to violence in certain instances but he hasn't come right out and taken responsibility for the climate at these and in fact, today he said that his people are not the ones that are violent but it's the protesters who are violent. Poppy.

HARLOW: And to you, Jeff, you were there last night as this all happened. I'm interested in your perspective about this violence breaking out in Chicago. As someone who has covered Chicago so closely. And how much this comes down to race.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, I think all of the events leading up to the rally last night and Donald Trump sort of to a boiling point. He has been talking for months about building a wall of course, he's been talking for months about not allowing Muslims to come into the U.S..

So Donald Trump brought that message into liberal urban Chicago. It simply was not welcome there. Most of the places he campaigns across the country have loud adoring supporters, we've seen him across the south and other places. But this is like coming into the belly of the beast, the liberal beast. They simply did not want Donald Trump's message here.

So I think that a lot of the response was just the chance for Chicago and the democrats here, there is a democratic primary going on to just say no, we don't want Donald Trump. So in a sense it was a preview of what could be a general election contest. I mean, if Donald Trump thinks that he can make Illinois competitive, if he thinks he can make Michigan competitive should he become the nominee this is what we could see.

[16:05:06]

But I was struck just the earnestness of the protest. We talked to one demonstrator, one man who lived in the neighborhood where this rally was supposed to be going on. And this is why he said he came out to protest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFED MALE: We were not going to let a bigot come into my neighborhood and disparage my people or my race or my ethnicity. I felt I needed to leave my home, come here and say enough, quit the bullying, we stop the bullying in Chicago and this is historic. Because when you stop a bully once, you can then stop him again because guess what, people will lose fear and Chicago showed how to deal with a bully.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Of course there were many supporters of Donald Trump here in Illinois who wanted to hear from him as well. He could well win this Illinois primary next week in this three days' time. Poppy. But again this sort of a preview of what could be a general election argument, you know, really a cauldron of divisive views on immigration and other things we saw last night boiling over on the streets of Chicago. HARLOW: And I want to show people, Jeff, what you tweeted last night.

This is one image but a very powerful image. Someone walking down the street and holding a sign that says this isn't us. What struck you about that?

ZELENY: Well, Poppy, I was just struck by the fact a lot of protesters we've seen at Donald Trump rallies have been Black Lives Matter protesters and organized protesters. There was some of that last night but it was also black and white, Hispanic and Asian. This diverse tapestry that makes up Chicago, was outside his rally. That scene, that one younger white man walking down West Harrison Street in Chicago on just west of down town, really struck me. Because he was not an organized protester, he was not a thug that Donald Trump said was coming out last night.

So, it was a diverse set of people saying no to Donald Trump. Of course again, he has many supporters and we'll see if he gets closer to winning the nomination in just three days' time if he does well in these five states, including Illinois here. But it sets up quite a general election fight, Poppy.

HARLOW: It does. Jim Acosta, you're in Kansas, you're outside of where Ted Cruz spoke and Donald Trump is going to come hold a rally there in a few hours. Let's talk about just the bigger picture, this whole mentality of us versus them, this thinking by some that you know, they, the establishment, or the media or what have you, can silence us. And our voices will not be silenced. I hear some of the chanting behind you now.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy. We're in Kansas City, the Donald Trump rally is going to start here in a couple of hours, to give you a sense of what's happening here, let me have you pan over and show we have Donald Trump supporters on one side of the street chanting "USA, USA," and then Donald Trump protesters on the other side of the street, Poppy, I can't quite make out what they are chanting because it's just so loud.

And then along the street here, running through the middle of the street we have these traffic barricades essentially to keep both sides apart from one another. I was inside that arena yesterday in Chicago when it exploded into chaos. I can tell you that from what we're seeing now these are some of the same ingredients that we saw yesterday in Chicago, Poppy, where you have very vocal people on one side on the Donald Trump side of supporters, and on the other side these protesters on the other side of the street. What made the Chicago situation so volatile is that many of these

protesters decided to go to the rally. We saw an entire section inside that arena, hundreds of protesters ready to disrupt that event for Donald Trump and they were able to pull that off. The question is, we'll only get a sense of this once we go inside, Poppy, is whether or not the same thing is going to happen here. Do we have scores and scores of protesters getting inside this arena, getting inside this auditorium to set up for what's happening later on this evening.

I will tell that you though the mayor of Kansas City, he is trying to avoid a repeat of what happened in Chicago, he put out several tweets, one of his latest tweets that says "hey folks, I know that there are concerns regarding Trump. Please avoid situations that incite violence, be careful and be Kansas citians."

So obviously, the city of Kansas is very aware of the potential for chaos here and they're trying to avoid a repeat of what happened in Chicago last night. Poppy.

HARLOW: Kind of amazing when you step back and just think wow, we're talking about violence at political rallies, you know. Something we certainly haven't seen recently before in terms of a race like this. All right. Thank you very much.

ACOSTA: That's right.

HARLOW: Jim Acosta, Jeff Zeleny, Sara Murray, appreciate it.

I want you now to listen to Ted Cruz speaking just moments ago in Kansas City, Missouri, talking about the violence that broke out last night in Chicago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am running not to be the president just of Republicans. I am running to be the president of Republicans, of democrats, of independents, of libertarians, I'm running to be the president of all Americans.

[16:10:03]

You know as we campaign we have protesters. But unlike Donald Trump I don't ask people in the audience to punch them in the face. I don't ask them to engage in physical violence against the protesters. Now if the protesters are disruptive, they're just shouting things out, then law enforcement will remove them. They don't have the right to infringe on the free speech rights of others.

But more than once I had protesters who get up and raise a point and if they are being civil and courteous, I'll actually engage in a conversation with them. And treat them with civility and respect. And I think the way you interact with the citizens expresses what kind of president you would be.

You know, I've been very troubled by Donald Trump's practice, at some of these rallies of demanding that the citizens raise their hands and pledge support of Donald Trump. Listen, this is America. We don't pledge allegiance to any man. We pledge allegiance to a flag, we pledge allegiance to defend the Constitution. But it is kings and queens that demand of their subjects they pledge allegiance to them personally and I got to say I think that he gets it exactly backwards. This is a job interview. The president especially is meant not to be above the law. The only pledge of allegiance that I'm interested in is that I am

pledging allegiance to each of you that if you elect me your president I will fight for the hard working taxpayers, I will fight for the men and women of this country, each and every day, against the Washington cartel, against the bipartisan corruption of Washington.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: Last question, you said yesterday that Donald Trump is encouraging violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Joining me now to discuss Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord and CNN political commentator and conservative commentator, Buck Sexton. Thank you both for being here.

Jeffrey, let me just get your reaction to what -- good to have you on. Let me just get your reaction to what Ted Cruz just said. "This is a job interview, no one is above the law."

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, no one is above the law. I should start by saying that I like Senator Cruz or as I call him hopefully vice president Cruz. But I'm a little taken aback by his stance here.

I mean, what has been going on here at these rallies with violence, the American left has a very, very, very long history of inciting violence, of provoking violence. This goes back --

HARLOW: Jeffrey, hold on. Hold on. You just said the American left. That's a very broad based statement. Who are you talking about?

LORD: I'm talking about the anti-war protesters in the 1960s, I'm talking about Occupy Wall Street in this decade. I'm talking about Black Lives Matters that forcibly took over a podium from Bernie Sanders and said they were going to shut down his rally. I mean, I'm talking about the people that invaded the so-called People's Park in California.

HARLOW: But I'm asking you about Ted Cruz's response pointing the finger at Donald Trump.

LORD: I am answering you. I'm answering you, Poppy. What I'm saying to you is this is a problem that is generic to -- genetic to the American left and instead of Senator Cruz criticizing Donald Trump he should be going after the American left. This is where the responsibility for this lies, and I'm a little taken aback that Senator Cruz of all people doesn't understand that.

HARLOW: So Buck, what's also interesting and what comes up here, just so -- hits you in the face is the fact that now you have so many on the Republican side, you have Senator Ted Cruz, you got Marco Rubio, you've got the Republican establishment coming out and condemning Donald Trump for what is happening at these rallies, but standing by some silently for years as Donald Trump among others called out the president's citizenship for example, brought up things about him, false claims about him. They stood by. Now they are pointing at Donald Trump saying how could this happen.

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Trump obviously wasn't a political candidate when he was going through the birther phase.

HARLOW: Mitt Romney -- he -- wanted his endorsement (INAUDIBLE) he was running.

SEXTON: I'm not a Trump supporter like Jeffrey is, but I have to say I'm taken aback by the fact that we're now having a national conversation about how Donald Trump has said mean things, therefore it's kind of OK, the insinuation here is it's not such a big deal that you have mobs of people who think that they have a right to silence the free speech of others.

You do not see this happening at Hillary Clinton rallies. You do not see this happening at Bernie Sanders' rallies or for that matter at any of the other Republicans. There is obviously an effort under way here to silence Donald Trump's supporters, to silence Donald Trump himself and I must say that if another candidate for the presidency of the United States had just had an incident where somebody tried to rush him on stage and Secret Service had to actually engage, I know it wasn't a serious incident in the sense of nothing happened thankfully.

If that had been the case with Hillary Clinton, with any other candidate, all we would be talking about is the threat to that candidate and that things have gotten out of control and people need to stop this mad babyish conduct of thinking that they can shut people down, tell them what they can and cannot say. They either believe in the first amendment or do not.

[16:15:00]

They don't get to have it both ways, and say well, I believe in it but you're saying really mean things so I'm going to scream a shout you down. And even apparently throw things at you, throw punches, there were curses leveled at people last night in Chicago who are just attending the rally. I'm sure there are people there with their children. Maybe they wanted to see what Donald Trump had to say.

They have these protesters acting like they're all members of some sort of hate group. It's completely out of control and even for a non-Trump supporter it is unacceptable what happened last night and it makes people who aren't Trump supporters, by the way, say maybe I should take a second look at this guy because there is a big problem.

HARLOW: Stay with me. We have to get a break in. Buck and Jeffrey, a lot more to talk about ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Back with me. Buck Sexton and Jeffrey Lord, both CNN conservative commentators. Jeffrey Lord is a Trump supported. Buck Sexton is not. We're just talking about what happened in Chicago last night. And I want you both to take a moment and listen to some of the comments that Trump has made in the past about some of these protesters. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So, if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato knock the crap out of them, would you. Seriously.

I will pay for the legal fees, I promise.

You know, what they used to do with guys like that when they are in a place like this, they'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks.

He is walking out like big high fives smiling, laughing. Like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you.

In the old days, which isn't so long ago when we were less -- that wouldn't have happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right. Those are from the past. Jeffrey Lord, if you could just weigh in on people that point to those and say some of Trump's rhetoric is contributing to this, or perhaps he's not saying enough to stop it. I want your take.

[16:20:15]

LORD: Sure. Poppy, what you're hearing there is what we call free speech. People are responsible for their own actions. You know, I was watching TV here with you a few seconds ago before I turned it off to be on with you. And you showed the clip of the young man being dragged off the podium in Chicago last night. And he gets close enough to somebody and takes a swing at him.

Now, we spent a lot of time in the media in general going after this guy who frankly, I mean, he assaulted this other -- an African- American young man, and we spent a lot of time as we should, there is no place for violence in any of this, period. Period.

But yet, you know, that kind of media attention hasn't been given to this guy who assaulted somebody. And I refer to him as an African- American but that's actually incorrect. He is an American. He doesn't do what he does because he is black, he does because what he does because he is left. This is what they do.

And it's wrong. There should be no violence, period at these things. And this is what the American left brings to this all of the time. It happens repeatedly over the decades. We're seeing it's Donald Trump now but it used to be Hubert Humphrey, for heaven's sake, who was a liberal. And they would shout him down at his rallies. Hubert Humphries finally had the Secret Service drag them out. You know, there is nothing peculiar here to Donald Trump. This is peculiar to the American left.

HARLOW: All right. Jeffrey keeps pointing his finger at the American left. He pointed out a few examples in the last block. Let's take a moment and listen to how President Obama addressed this last night, he was in Austin at south by southwest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, U.S. PRESIDENT: How can you be shocked? This is the guy, remember, who was sure that I was born in Kenya. Who wouldn't let it go. And all this same Republican establishment, they weren't saying nothing. As long as it was directed at me, they were fine with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Buck, to you. Your take especially given what the president said. What's your reaction?

SEXTON: What the president said is not true about the republican establishment being totally fine with Donald Trump's birtherism.

HARLOW: No, he is saying people like Mitt Romney didn't speak up and condemn it and instead sought the endorsement of Donald Trump at that time.

SEXTON: If there is such a thing as the Republican establishment -- the Republican establishment repudiated Donald Trump's birtherism at the time.

HARLOW: Who?

SEXTON: Everybody. "National Review," "The Weekly Standard," every beltway insider I mean they were talking about years ago by the way.

HARLOW: In terms of some of the candidates who are running.

SEXTON: In terms of candidates how?

HARLOW: In terms of candidates, for example, Marco Rubio --

SEXTON: We haven't talked about birtherism in years. I don't understand why all of a sudden talking about birtherism again. Look, I think that Donald Trump says things that are stupid, that are wrong, that are vulgar, that's not at issue when you're talking about an auditorium full of people who are only there to make sure that people are actually in fear of their safety and we did see police officers with bloody faces, we saw reports, you can believe them or not on social media of people screaming epithets at the Trump supporters, telling them that they are coming for them, throwing things at them.

That's not OK. I don't care what Donald Trump said in the past, I don't care that he was a birther. And anybody else who claims to be a supporter of free speech also should not care about those things, because these are not equivalency. It's not Donald Trump has said moronicthings, yes of course, he said a ton of moronic things. So have a lot of politicians by the way. I don't hear every time we talk about democratic candidates well, have they repudiated Al Sharpton. You want to talk about inciting people, we should talk about Al Sharpton and some of his past behaviour. The fact of the matter is the debate right now is about free speech. It's about whether a candidate for office shouldn't be allowed to dress his supporters.

Without those supporters being attacked or in fear of attack and there's no two ways about this. I don't care -- people can trot out all the history they want, they can make it back five years, 50 years, it does not matter. They should not have done what they did last night. It was babyish conduct, it looks terrible for Bernie Sanders supporters, whether that is who they were or not. Everybody should just repudiate this. There shouldn't be any violence and there shouldn't be any threats of violence at political rallies. You're not seeing this at Bernie Sanders' or Hillary Clinton rallies.

HARLOW: I need a one word answer from both of you. Has Donald Trump done enough to repudiate the violence. Buck? Jeffrey? Beck, yes or no.

SEXTON: I'd like to see him say more.

HARLOW: OK.

SEXTON: I don't put the onus on him.

LORD: Yes.

HARLOW: Yes. You think yes. All right. Jeffrey Lord, Buck Sexton, thank you very much. We have a lot ahead.

Tomorrow morning, I want to point you to this because you're going to hear from a lot of the candidates on "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper. John Kasich, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Bernie Sanders, all live on "State of the Union," tomorrow morning, 9:00 a.m. Eastern, right here. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:28:40]

HARLOW: Florida voters heading to the polls on Tuesday, the stakes in this winner take all state are huge on the GOP side, 99 delegates for the winner, on the democratic side 214 delegates up for grabs. Here's where the candidates stand right now, according to the latest CNN ORC. Donald Trump leading Senator Marco Rubio by 16 points there, Senator Ted Cruz, Governor John Kasich in third and fourth place.

And on the democratic side Hillary Clinton has a huge margin over Bernie Sanders. 61 percent to 34 percent. Senior political writer Mark Caputo joins me now from beautiful Miami, Florida. Although I don't see any palm trees behind you, my friend. Thank you for being with me. Lets talk about Rubio. I mean, I think look, he has said that this is make or break. He needs this state, he is home state senator. He should have some advantage here. We got a 16-point spread in the CNN poll. All the other polling does show Trump ahead. What happened? Why isn't he doing better there?

MARK CAPUTO, SENIOR WRITER, POLITICO: Well, they say elections are about choices. You look across the country at the results, Florida is a mini United States, voters are choosing Donald Trump. They just seem to like him better in the Republican primary. But yes, this is Rubio's home state. In the end I think if you look on balance at everything, Rubio probably didn't do enough care and feeding of his electorate back here at home over a period of time.

And also, I don't think his campaign got started soon enough on organizing, getting a ground game going, and really getting the word out.

[16:30:05] You know, he started to go for broke at one of the last Super Tuesdays, there have been so many I can't remember. But it just seemed to be a few days too late. That's not according to me. That's according to Republican consultants, people who know the business, the business of running an election, winning an election. They just didn't see enough urgency, enough effort out of the Rubio campaign soon enough.

Now, you look at polls that tracked Rubio over time or tracked the Florida electorate over time, you'll see that Rubio appears to be narrowing the gap but the problem that he's having he might not narrow it enough to make a difference even if he has big day on election day.

HARLOW: Right.

And if you look at how it's divided here, Rubio does better, he's ahead of Trump when you look at college graduates, voters in Florida, and as women. He does a lot better with women. Anything he can do here to sort of get that trend to carry on to other groups, because that's what seems to be propping him up right now.

CAPUTO: Yes, research and people familiar with the way in which the campaign has targeted voters say it really is looking for voters who look a lot like him. That is, middle-aged or younger, married couples who live in the suburbs. If he can get that demographic to turn out in strong numbers, sure, he would do a lot better.

There's also a demographic or geographic component to this. Miami- Dade is the largest county in Florida. About 350,000 registered Republicans. Rubio is from Miami-Dade. Seventy-three percent of these Republicans are Hispanic.

If he can get a large turnout in Miami-Dade, hold Donald Trump in the north of Florida which is like the Deep South, and take one of the two major media markets in the central Florida region, called the I-4 corridor, Tampa Bay area or the Orlando area, you could see an upset by Marco Rubio here. But those are a lot of steps to really make a difference. Closely watching or get blown out. HARLOW: I need to pull one tweet for you from Donald Trump, voicing

concerns about the early voting in Florida that is a big part of the vote in that state. He just tweeted this. "We're asking law enforcement to check for dishonest early voting in Florida on behalf of little Marco Rubio. No way to run a country."

What is he pointing to? Any idea what's behind this?

CAPUTO: That's a great question. Donald Trump won't say what he's pointing to and his campaign won't say what he's pointing to, and I talked to law enforcement, and the governor's office, and I e-mailed all 67 county election supervisors. No one has any idea what these complaints about voter fraud are, dishonesty, as he phrases it.

There are a lot of people who speculate Donald Trump is showing what a lot are seeing that Marco Rubio might be narrowing the gap a little too close for comfort. Internally, the numbers, more than a million Florida Republicans have voted already. We're looking at an electorate of about 2 million, so at least half of the GOP vote is probably in. Again, if your poll is right all of the other polling are right, Rubio is losing to Donald Trump. So, it's going to be a huge election day turnout to turn things around.

HARLOW: All right. Nice to have you on. Marc Caputo, thank you very much. A beat from what's going on in Florida. Thank you so much. We'll see what happens Tuesday.

You're taking a look at Bernie Sanders, speaking live in Illinois.

We're waiting for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland, Ohio. We'll bring you those in a moment. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:36:23] HARLOW: All right. Now to "Turning Points", an athlete coming face-to-face with his toughest opponents, his toughest opponent being cancer. The college lacrosse player lost his leg but he certainly won the game.

Here is CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta with this week's "Turning Points".

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sports have always been a huge part of Sean Dever's life.

SEAN DEVER, CANCER SURVIVOR: I started playing soccer before kindergarten and started playing lacrosse in fourth grade, basketball in third grade.

GUPTA: In 2007, when he was 11 years old, a fall at lacrosse camp changed his life.

DEVER: My mom was very concerned that I was not walking along the way. So, she took me to the doctor and they suggested an MRI. GUPTA (on camera): The tests revealed that Sean had a type of bone cancer known as osteosarcoma. That means the tumor that was located in his lower femur, the distal part of his thigh bone right there.

DEVER: I had to grow up very fast.

GUPTA (voice-over): After three months of chemotherapy, surgeons removed the cancerous part of his leg, including the knee, an approach that gave him the best chance of getting back in the game.

DEVER: That summer was just me learning to walk again. All the physical therapy, all the pain and everything I went through was to get back on a lacrosse field.

GUPTA: And he did.

JOHN WELLFORD, BLESSED TRINITY H.S. LACROSSE COACH: Every day was a gift, and he played like it and he was one of the best players I've ever had.

GUPTA: Today, Sean is captain of the lacrosse team at Young Harris College. He's been cancer-free for eight years and volunteers with the Childhood Cancer Charity to show others what is possible.

DEVER: It's worth pushing through things, the pain that you go through is temporary and the happiness will last a lot longer.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:41:51] HARLOW: All right. You are looking at live pictures of Bernie Sanders speaking there in Champaign, Illinois, fresh off quite an upset in Michigan, looking to do the same thing in Illinois.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now, every politician, whether they are Democratic or Republican, they always say, "Well, yes, I'm getting huge amounts of money, but it doesn't impact me." Really? Then why would Wall Street be giving you $15 million?

(APPLAUSE)

Furthermore, as many of you may know, Secretary Clinton has given a number of speeches behind closed doors to Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs. And for those speeches, she is paid $225,000 a speech.

Now, the way I see it, is if you're going to give a speech and get $225,000 it must be an extraordinarily brilliant speech. You know, it must be really opening new vistas of human thought. And I think that it is appropriate for Secretary Clinton to share those transcripts with the rest of the country.

(CHEERS) Now, Secretary Clinton says she is prepared to do that if other candidates do the same. So, let me make a dramatic announcement to you all today. I am prepared at this moment to release all of the transcripts of the speeches that I gave to Wall Street. Are you ready for them?

Here they are.

(CHEERS)

No transcripts, no speeches. And I just cannot imagine why Wall Street did not invite me in to pay me $225,000 for a speech. And you know what I would have told Wall Street --

HARLOW: Bernie Sanders speaking live in Champaign, Illinois, talking about his rival Hillary Clinton giving those paid speeches to a number of Wall Street banks before she decided to run for president. We'll keep monitoring this.

Coming up next American opportunity and a technology giant from Silicon Valley, admitting there was a broad pay gap between some men and women at their community. I sat down with the man at the helm wishes he thought about this when he started the company. What he is doing now to fix it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:48:53] HARLOW: In this week's "American Opportunity", closing the pay gap for real, really doing something about it.

What McKenzie and Company, a big consulting firm, just found is that if women played an identical role in the work force as men, global economic growth would skyrocket $28 billion in the next 10 years, that is roughly the size of the U.S. and the Chinese economy combined.

But at the end of the day, it comes down to corporations, ensuring that there is not only equality in hiring but a quality in those paychecks.

Silicon Valley tech giant Salesforce made a disturbing discovery. They found that income disparity between some men and women doing the same job was broad, so they set out to fix it.

And this week, I asked the man at the helm, Marc Benioff, what has changed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: When we sat down last, Marc, in June, you told me, look, we found pay disparity between some men and women at the company. We are going to change that. And you gave me a 12-month marker. You said, a year out from now, it's going to be different.

You just released statistics on what you found and how much Salesforce has paid to close the gap.

What is it?

MARC BENIOFF, CHAIRMAN & CEO, SALESFORCE: We corrected about 1,000 worker salaries or about 6 percent of our work force.

[16:50:04] As you know, Poppy, we have about 20,000 employees at Salesforce, and we did find quite a few women who are being paid less than men. And we made that change. It's about $3 million.

HARLOW: When you say quite a few, what surprised you the most, Mark, when you looked at the books, you looked at the numbers, you looked at the people.

BENIOFF: Well, what surprise me is how easy it is to do this. I mean, of course, we use human resource management system, we know every employee's name, their address, we know how much they are paid, we know their title. Every company does. That's the modern world.

And with a push of one button, I was able to know exactly what the discrepancy was, and how I need to fix it which I have now done.

HARLOW: Is that a call to other CEOs, sounds like that to me that hey, this is not that hard, you need to get on it?

BENIOFF: This is really easy. This is so easy to do, with just the push of one button. Every CEO in the world can know exactly what is their pay discrepancy between men and women.

HARLOW: I looked at the recent numbers, 70 percent of Salesforce is male, 77 percent of tech jobs are occupied by men, 81 percent of leadership positions are still men. You told me five years out you want those numbers to be 50-50.

How are you going to do that?

BENIOFF: And I think you can see that all the numbers for women have improved since we last spoke, Poppy, which is exciting for us. You know, where we were five years ago is we realized we had a problem in our company where we just didn't have enough women in leadership positions, we weren't hiring enough women. And little did we know we were paying women less than men.

And we're working to correct all three of those things. We started five years ago with this idea of a women's surge, this idea that we will surge women at our company, we'll make sure that they know about every opportunity, we'll give them incredible opportunities for advancement. And we will work to hire more women as well.

HARLOW: You run in the CEO circle, executives of the Fortune 500 are a lot of who you spend time with. What are they saying to you about this? Are they doing it? Are they asking you how to do it? Are they telling you come on, Marc, you're setting these goals and now we have to reach them?

BENIOFF: I will tell that you this weekend I received a call from one of my very good friends, is a CEO, very large Fortune 500 company, told me I was wrong on this issue. HARLOW: Really.

BENIOFF: And the reason -- absolutely.

HARLOW: What sector? I know you can't name the company. What sector?

BENIOFF: In the technology industry.

I'll tell you that this person went on to tell me that the reason that I was wrong is because companies always do what's in their best interest. And if indeed women are being paid less than men, that we would be hiring all women into our company because we'd want to lower our costs. And I really had to work to explain to that executive that it's just not true that you have to be proactive.

I mean I think we all understand that we have these kind of subconscious biases and those things just get put into the work force.

HARLOW: When you look at broader diversity you put numbers out there online, 2 percent of Salesforce employees are African-American, 4 percent are Hispanic. How does tech in general open its doors more to more minorities?

BENIOFF: These numbers just are not high enough and we have to focus on it. And we're going to have a diversity surge like we had a women's surge. We have no choice. We have to focus this next generation on culture as well and that's a culture of equality.

HARLOW: Does that mean there needs to be for instance quotas or something akin to affirmative action getting enough minorities in the door? I mean, where is that line, right?

BENIOFF: Well, that's worked for us with women. We have set those quotas. And I'm deeply committed to it and you know what, all of my employees and executives are committed to it.

HARLOW: Let's talk about Georgia. Senate bill in Georgia right now dubbed the First Amendment Defense Act. This is sort of akin to similar to what we saw in Indiana that Salesforce fought so hard. Some view it as a bill that discriminates against LGBT individual, some call at religious freedom bill.

You said if necessary, if this passes, if the governor signs it, you will bring, quote, "a rolling thunder of economic sanctions against the state." What could we see?

BENIOFF: Well, I think that what you see in Georgia is what we saw exactly one year ago in Indiana, which is very discreet legislatures or individual senators, pushing for discriminatory legislation against a class of what we call a class of one of our employees and in this case it's LGBT, where LGBT is not allowed the same kinds of rights and freedoms with the same level equality as all other classes.

And to us, that's unacceptable. Georgia wants us to bring a 15,000 person conference to Georgia in May, which is called our Connections Conference.

[16:55:07] Something they have been advocating for and that we agreed to. Now, they are saying that we have to bring our LGBT employees and customers to Georgia to face that discrimination, we say no way. And that's why we've asked Governor Deal to veto that legislation which is heading to his desk.

HARLOW: You reached out to the CEOs of Home Depot based there, Coca- Cola based there. What are -- what are they saying to you?

BENIOFF: Well, I'll tell you what they are saying and hundreds of other companies are saying, that they agree with us. We have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies that have signed up and said that if the governor accepts this legislation and passes this law and signs it, they will stop the economic development in Georgia that they are proceeding with.

And you saw this in Indiana as well. Major CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, making public statements on Twitter and other places, saying that they will not accept this law. That's very powerful.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Marc Benioff, thank you so much for that.

I want to know what you all think. Tweet me at @PoppyHarlowCNN. Let me know what you think using the hashtag American opportunity. Also go to CNNMoney.com/AmericanOpportunities to see a lot more of our reporting on that.

Coming up, straight ahead, back to politics, live pictures from outside Donald Trump's rally in Kansas City, Missouri. Lines are already long. They are forming hours and hours in advance of his rally planned there, a lot of tight security. We'll take you there live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)