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Huge Winner-take All Primaries In Ohio And Florida; Michigan Governor Will Testify On Capitol Hill. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired March 13, 2016 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:12] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. 5:00 p.m. Eastern this Sunday evening. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. Thank you for being with us.

First up, the Democratic presidential candidates just a few hours away from a critical town hall event live tonight here on CNN. Take a look at this. This is a live look at the campus of the Ohio State University. What Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders say there tonight could change this entire race especially ahead of Tuesday's primary now dubbed Super Tuesday 3.

Huge winner-take-all primary scheduled not only in Ohio but also in Florida as well. Three other states set to vote on Tuesday, a total of 691 delegates up to for grabs for the Democrats. We expect Bernie Sanders to speak in Columbus, later this hour. The big question, could Hillary Clinton and Tuesday with an insurmountable delegate lead or could Bernie Sanders prove him to be our prize win just like he showed us in Michigan. This is the beginning of a rock-felt revolt, if you will.

We have every angle of this covered. CNN politics executive Mark Preston is live for us at the site of tonight's town hall. Also with us, CNN political commentator and Washington correspondent for the "New Yorker," Ryan Lizza and CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He is on the trail with Bernie Sanders.

Jeff, let me begin with you. When you look at this, Sanders is in the middle of this face-off, who would have thought frankly a face-off with Donald Trump right now both of them going at each other on the state of the union. The Republican front-runner placing the blame squarely on Sanders supporters for the violence and the uprisings we have seen at the recent protests. Trump tweeted this morning.

Sanders is lying when he said his disruptors aren't told to good to my events, be careful Bernie or my supporters will go to yours. Jeff Zeleny, what now?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, I mean, this campaign has not followed any of the conventional lines. So this is just another example here. We have sort after cross party cross talk here going on. But we are at a rally on the campus of the Ohio State University. You can see behind me here hundreds of students and other supporters of Bernie Sanders are on hand. He will be taking the stage in the next half hour or so. And organizers are on edge a little bit wondering if some of Donald Trump supporters are going to take him up on the suggestion that they should come to Bernie Sanders rallies. There is no sign of that yet. So far most of the people here, you know, appear to be Bernie Sanders supporters.

But it was an extraordinary back and forth this morning on "STATE OF THE UNION." Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A lot of them are, you know, I don't even call them protesters. I call them disrupters. A lot of them come from Bernie Sanders, whether he wants to say it or not. And if he says no, then he is lying.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We should take Mr. Trump's words with a grain of salt. Because I think as almost everybody knows, this man cannot stop lying about anything. Some of them with supporters of mine, but certainly, absolutely, we had nothing to do -- our campaign had nothing to do with disrupting his meeting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Poppy, there is no doubt that some supporters at least and some liberal groups like moveon.org and others were playing a role and were leading some of the protests that we saw in Chicago. But I mean, the reality is who else would protest Donald Trump. Of course, there are going to be Liberal protesters. But it is clear that Bernie Sanders campaign is saying that look we are not organizing this.

But I think it is clear the Sanders campaign has its hands full running their own race on the Democratic side of things with Hillary Clinton let alone trying to organize disrupters for Donald Trump. But a short time ago a statement was released from the Sanders campaign and Bernie Sanders said this. Donald Trump should not be condoning violence by paying the legal fees of a supporters who viciously attacked a supporters at one of his rallies. He should tone down his rhetoric and condemn the violence to his supporters.

So again, back and forth here between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, right. And we are not even in the general election yet, but you know what, nothing has really been normal this entire election cycle. Let's see what happens there in Columbus. Thank you so much.

I do want to bring in Mark Preston and Ryan Lizza now.

Mark to you first. Let's talk about the town hall. You're there. You've got sort of your finger on the pulse. Give us your cheat sheet. What should people watch for tonight because it is so important, especially heading into the Ohio voting we are going to see on Tuesday.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: It certainly is, Poppy. Let me just give you four quick things to look forward to tonight.

The first thing is the battle over trade. We have seen Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders starting with Michigan fighting over her supported for trade deals. That he says has hurt jobs, back in Michigan before the Michigan primary. We held a debate where she criticized Bernie Sanders saying that his opposition to a bailout hurt the auto industry in Michigan. It was her counter force to what Bernie Sanders was saying about trade. It didn't work in Michigan. However, they are still running those ads here where we set in Ohio. So the battle over trade right now, look for that tonight.

The second thing is cording minority voters specifically for Bernie Sanders. He is looking for younger (INAUDIBLE) with that segment of the African-American community. The third thing that we are looking for right now, is the reality versus inspirational. And where we talk about that is that Hillary Clinton saying that Bernie Sanders is not smart enough to get things done in the sense that he is more inspirational and aspirational than he is realistic at getting things done. Bernie Sanders says that he can get things done. And fourth thing is they have a common bond where they criticize Donald Trump. So I think we will see that tonight.

[17:06:01] HARLOW: No question.

And Ryan, to you, I mean, when we look at Bernie Sanders, and I want to get specifically to something Mark brought up that is the auto bailout, right. This has been a contention -- a point of contention. And in Ohio it matters a lot. I spent a lot of time in Ohio (INAUDIBLE). A lot of those factory jobs so critical. But the reality is, folks are saying Sanders could have done a better job at explaining how he actually voted on the auto bailout. And making that more clear than he did in the debate when she went after him.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. She really parsed the language there, accusation very carefully. What Hillary Clinton said is that Bernie Sanders voted against the money that eventually was used to pay for the auto bailout. At the time of that vote remember the big tarp vote that was not known at that point that that money would be used for the auto bailout. Later on, the Obama administration made that decision to use those funds that had a lot of flexibility. So frankly, I think she was playing a little fast and loose with language there hitting Bernie Sanders for a vote when at the time of that vote his knowledge was that that was mostly going to Wall Street banks. Not the autos. He has said that on another vote separate vote for auto bailout funds, he voted affirmatively and supported it.

HARLOW: Right.

LIZZA: But surprisingly, he didn't actually react quick in the debate and explain all that. It took him a few days after. I like Mark's list a lot. I think that's good list. Trade is the big issue. I mean, we are looking at two wings of the Democratic Party here. And it is really interesting to me to see how Clinton wing has come in the direction of the Bernie Sanders wing.

HARLOW: Well, sure.

LIZZA: Remember, the Clinton administration passed NAFTA against the wishes of a lot of Democrats and most Democrats had rethought that over the years.

HARLOW: But here is the thing, Mark, when you talk about NAFTA, right, signed by then President Clinton in 1994, two things. A, how much can voters hold Hillary Clinton responsible for it? Yes, she was one of the last Democrats to come out and oppose TTP last year. But a, how much can you hold her responsible for NAFTA? And b, when you look at the numbers, CNN money did a great job of breaking this down. Factory jobs in this country did not start to decline those manufacturing jobs for until six years after NAFTA was signed. It is a combination of things. Yes, in part free trade. Yes, technological advancements as well.

PRESTON: Right, Poppy. But going back to the Clinton administration, Hillary Clinton is very much involved in the policy decisions her husband was taking. Was it every policy decision? I mean, we could re-litigate that. Of course, she was very much involved in healthcare. But was very much a hands on first lady, was very vocal in support of her husband. When she joined the Obama administration, she was, you know, always promoting the trade agenda that the Obama administration was putting forward. And then of course, Bernie Sanders has seized upon that.

So is it fear in some respect? It is fear. And in another respect you have to say, at least, to the workers here in Ohio, and elsewhere in Illinois as well, there are, you know, there are several other of these industrialized states that are voting on Tuesday, least she did vote against the trade deals or, of course, at least she opposed them, I should say. At least she opposed them. But the fact of the matter is, it has been a good argument for Bernie Sanders.

HARLOW: It's amazing to see on both sides. Really quickly, Ryan, good ahead.

LIZZA: Just to add, look. You know, the two things that Sanders people will point to as first lady. She said something that endorsed NAFTA. And then in her memoir after she left the White House, she also endorsed NAFTA. Over time, she has been much more skeptical.

But I think you're right, Poppy. You can't blame everything on NAFTA, but it is a symbol for a certain set of economic policies.

HARLOW: Yes. Mark Preston, Ryan Lizza thanks so much. Stay with us. A lot more ahead this hour.

For everyone watching, join us tonight. We have the CNN TV One presidential town hall in advance of the political primaries with. This is the night when voters in Ohio can directly ask questions of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Tonight right here 8:00 p.m. eastern here on CNN.

Coming up a lot this hour. Protesters furious that Donald Trump is trying to shut down his rallies, but could their action actually back fire and energize the electorate behind the GOP front runner they are trying to beat? Trump felt that anger firsthand when a man rushed the stage yesterday. That happened in Ohio. Well now, CNN, our very own Martin Savidge sat down with that protester who rushed the stage. This is a CNN exclusive. You will hear directly from him, why he did that? What was his mission?

Also, the people of Flint, Michigan, still demanding answers and solutions about why their water was poisoned with lead. They could get some answers on Thursday. That's when Michigan governor, Rick Snyder, heads it Capitol Hill. He will testify. I will speak with top-ranking Democrat on that house oversight committee about what he wants to hear from the governor, all ahead on this hour.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:14:07] HARLOW: Welcome back. Donald Trump wavered for a few seconds before he booted protesters interrupting his Illinois event today. Initially, Trump appeared to be OK with the protesters presence there then decided they should be removed. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: That's OK. Leave them alone. Got no voice. Fellows, leave them alone. Look at that person, that foolish person. All right, get him out of here. Get him out. Send him back to Bernie. Send him back. Remember when they took over the microphone for Bernie? Right? They took over the microphone. All right, get them out of here. Go ahead. Get them out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's talk about this in some historical context. Douglas Brinkley is with me. He is a presidential historian. He is also the author of that new book, "Rightful heritage, Franklin V. Roosevelt in the land of America."

Congrats on the book. Thank you for being here.

[17:15:07] DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: I appreciate it.

Let's talk about this because this follows what happened, the violence at his planned rally in Chicago on Friday night. It follows what happened on our show live last night which was about 20 minutes of protesters interrupting him in Kansas City, Missouri. You know, that's what took up a bulk of his rally there. Can you put this into historical perspective for us in terms of other campaigns?

BRINKLEY: It remind me a lot of George Wallace in 1968 who was starting to you have rings that southern racist bell. But also Wallace got a lot of voters up in Detroit and in Michigan and in the Midwest dissatisfied white lunch bucket blue collar Democrats. They later be called Reagan Democrats. But Wallace created quite an organization, one in many states. Add that to Trump's establishment sides, kind of Richard Nixon silent majority. So he is kind of reminds me of '6. And everything went high-wire. Protests everywhere.

HARLOW: But let's listen to this because this was a moment that stood out to me so much last night in Kansas City, Missouri, of how he reacted to some of these protesters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You know, it is really amazing. You know, when you think about it, you see this, just disrupters, bad people, so bad for our country. So bad for our country. People have no idea what's going on. So, so bad. So bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: He also went on to call the protesters garbage. But they are exercising their first amendment right which is exactly what he is standing for. Is there any irony in that?

BRINKLEY: There is a lot of irony. But that's what Richard Nixon did. He had all these hippies and protesters and not real Americans. Nixon went after them, red meat. Spiro Agnew, the vice president would just regularly land bus the press. Go after him like Trump's doing.

HARLOW: Was it effective?

BRINKLEY: It was effective that they won. But what happened to Agnew? He ended up, you know, getting busted for bribery and Nixon got impeached because so many people ended up hating that style of politics. But low gutter, the worst common denominator kind of politics.

HARLOW: Did you think that there is a lesson in history from all of this? For example, that administration?

BRINKLEY: Well, the one thing, Poppy, I always reminds students is that history reminds us that our own times aren't uniquely oppressive. As much as we say, my God, look at what this -- this is nothing what we saw the last few days compared to say the Chicago Democratic convention when Mayor Daily's police forces had Billy clubs and were hammering on anybody or look what happened to African-Americans in the '60s with the mad dogs of Birmingham and firehouses and all this.

But this is simmering right now. And I can see this summer, the Black Life Matters movement and others coming, descending on Cleveland for the GOP convention having massive, hundreds of thousands of protesters, like Chicago '68.

HARLOW: Let me quickly ask you same thing I did David Gergen yesterday in the program and that, as difficult for someone this maybe to watch the tension to boiling over, is this good eventually for our country? Because clearly there is this anger. There is this unrest. There is something that needs to be talked about and it is being talked about.

BRINKLEY: It is OK if the violence doesn't escalate. We have the sucker punch of last week. What happens if there is people could have get in there with guns? I mean, when I saw that footage of Donald Trump having to bend over and immediately it rings your bell about Bobby Kennedy in Los Angeles. And so and Frank Roosevelt was shot at in Miami. And they ended up killing the mayor of Chicago. I mean, this -- so the question is now maybe after Tuesday, this will calm down. But if this keeps escalating, we are in for quite perhaps an ugly season here.

HARLOW: All right. Douglas Brinkley, thank you for putting it in historical perspective. Appreciate it. Nice to see you.

BRINKLEY: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: Coming up this week, Michigan's governor Rick Snyder will testify on Capitol Hill. He will be pressed by lawmakers on how the water in Flint became poisoned by lead on his watch. Why people weren't notified sooner. I will speak one on one with the congressman who will grill Rick Snyder, the man at the helm of this committee.

Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:23:04] HARLOW: On Thursday, the governor OF Michigan, Rick Snyder will testify on Capitol Hill about the contaminated drinking water in the city of Flint. He along with the head of the EPA will testify before the House oversight committee. Both will be pressed on what they and other government leaders knew about dangerously high levels of lead in the water there months ago and why so little was done to address it right away or to warn the residents of Flint about it soon enough. Both democratic presidential candidates addressed the water crisis during the CNN debate there just last weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What is more important than the health and well-being of the people, particularly children? It is raining lead in Flint.

SANDERS: If local government does not have the resources, if state government for whatever reason refuses to act, children in America should not be poisoned. Federal government comes in. Federal government acts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Representative Elijah Cummings from the ranking Democrat on house oversight committee. Earlier this month, he tweeted quote "Flint children need our help. Feds providing emergency money. What is one tough nerd doing?," referring there to the governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder's twitter handle. He joins me now from Baltimore.

Thank you very much for being with me.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Glad to be here.

HARLOW: This is obviously a tragedy. Something that should have never ever happened. That's what the governor said to me in my interview with him. I want to know what is question number one for you when you press the governor on Thursday.

CUMMINGS: First of all, I want to know when did he know and when did he know it? And why is it that even after finding out and even after his chief of staff knew it, did they wait for more than a year to correct this fiasco.

This is a man-made disaster. Water was poison that goes to a hundred thousand of our fellow citizens. I just want to know what he was doing. Did he fall asleep at the switch? Was he negligent? Did he care? What kind of operation was he running?

[17:25:08] HARLOW: So he told me in our interview in January that, you know, the moment he found anything out, he addressed it. Here is another part of our interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Talk directly to the parents of Flint right now who is a child that is going to live with this.

GOV. RICK SNYDER (R), MICHIGAN: Yes. This is awful. And again, our goal is to do - the damage. To help support them through that. This shouldn't happen.

Again, this is where there was a failure in government in terms of people not using common sense enough to prevent this from happening and identifying it soon enough. I went through all that last week in great detail and I reaffirm that. And the people that did this work for me. So I am responsible. My focus now though is how do we address it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: So he took responsible in that interview. What else do you want to see? What action do you want?

CUMMINGS: Well, first of all we need to know exactly what happened and how it happened so we can make sure it never happens again. Then I think they need to move much faster in replacing pipes and making these people whole. In our country, Poppy, we have a jurisprudence philosophy that says if you break it then you must fix it. And what happened here, of course, we have a governor who believes in this emergency manager system, but it basically strip the local elected officials of all their power and they have been take over. And the elected officials, they have no power. And in this situation they messed up the water.

So we have to make sure that these children are taking care of, that they are monitored very carefully. We got to make sure that they have the kind of services that they need education wise and developmental wise to grow and to be the best that they can be.

Much of this damage will never be corrected with regards to these children, unfortunately. There should be some type of fund where similar to the 9/11 fund, where these people can be compensated. It wasn't their fault.

And then the other thing is that we have to come up with a system whereby these folks don't have to be paying for water that they in fact cannot use. And so, I know they made steps in that direction but they can do better.

HARLOW: They have -- the governor had asked for $30 million from the budget to pay for prior and future water bills because it is absurd that anyone should have to pay for poison water that they cannot drink.

Let me ask you this. The argument that some have made and you have seen in at the headline of the "New York Times" article, I heard it from people in Flint, some have said that this wouldn't happen in a wealthy white town. That you've got Flint, 40 percent of the residents live in poverty, majority African-American. The governor said to me, absolutely not. That is not the case at all. Look at all of that has been done to help the city of Detroit.

Do you believe raised anything to do with this? Or is that not what it is about? Is that distracting from fixing the problem?

CUMMINGS: I'm not so much sure about race. But I am sure about poverty. I do believe that when you have a poverty-stricken area, this what happened. You would never convince me that more wealthier sections of Michigan would be treated that way. So, you know, and I don't want to get distracted on the race thing, but I do know that poverty and then a lot of people who are in poverty in Flint are African-American. That's about as close as can I come to that.

But Poppy, in America, safe drinking water and water to bathe in should not be a privilege. It must be a right. I mean, it is about survival. This is the United States of America. This is 2016. And we are better than this. I do not want it to become the norm that government jut walks away from problems and don't address them the way we are supposed to.

HARLOW: I think everyone is on the same page. Let's get this fixed for the people of Flint.

Thank you congressman. I appreciate your time today.

CUMMINGS: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up next, you will want to see this, the CNN exclusive, the man caught on tape yesterday trying to rush the stage at Donald Trump. You remember that moment? Our very own Martin Savidge sat down with him one-on-one today in a CNN exclusive. What he said about those tense moments. What motivated him to act and that tweet from Trump accusing him of being a sympathizer with terrorists? What happened after he was dragged off stage? We will talk about it next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:32:54] HARLOW: Now to a CNN exclusive. The man arrested after rushing the stage at a Donald Trump rally in Ohio yesterday speaking out for the first time. This video capturing the moment that 22-year- old Tommy Demasimo tried to confront the Republican runt-runner. The secret service stepping in fast to stop him. He is now charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic. Trump fired back at (INAUDIBLE) on twitter. He accused him of having ties to ISIS. He tweeted USS, the secret service did an excellent job stopping this maniac rushing to the stage. He has ties to ISIS. Should be in jail.

Our own Martin Savidge sat down with hi today. What did he say, Marty?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Poppy, there have been, obviously, protests that have taken place within the Donald Trump rallies. But this is the first person we have known to actually sort of charge the stage. And it seemed to raise protest to a new level here. And that's what I wanted to find out about.

22-year-old Thomas Dimassimo is a college senior. He goes to school here in Ohio. He is bright. He seems intelligent. But he is obviously very politically active. And what he wanted to do was to deny Trump the stage. But I asked him, what were you really trying to do? Listen to the response.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: What were you thinking?

THOMAS DIMASSIMO, RUSHED STAGE AT TRUMP'S RALLY: I was thinking that Donald Trump is bully. And he is nothing more than that. He is somebody who is just saying a lot of bold things. He is making bold claims. But I can see right through that. And I can see that he is truly just a coward. And he is opportunistic. And he is willing to destroy this country for power for himself.

SAVIDGE: Well, that's your motivation. But what were you thinking at that moment? Why did you do what you did?

DIMASSIMO: I was thinking that I could get up on stage and take his podium away from him and take his mic away from him and send a message to all people out in the country who wouldn't consider themselves racist, who wouldn't consider themselves approving of what type of violence Donald Trump is allowing in his rallies, and send them a message that we can be strong. We can find our strength and we can stand up against Donald Trump and against this new wave he is ushering in of truly just violent white supremist ideas.

[17:35:14] SAVIDGE: If you had made it to that stage, were you going to attack him?

DIMASSIMO: No, not at all. There would have been no point. Donald Trump is 6'3". I'm 5'9", maybe, you know. He is a giant man surrounded by thousands of followers, 12 secret service, and a former Ohio state office alignment that would have accomplished nothing.

SAVIDGE: Can you see how people might have perceived that you were?

DIMASSIMO: Of course. And I wasn't expecting there to be as much secret service as there was there that day. From what I had sort of seen, there hadn't that much or hadn't that not much in a contained area. So I thought my chances of getting up to the stage and getting to the podium would have been better. But again, it was more important for me to show that there are people out there who aren't afraid of Donald Trump. He says scary thing. He lets his people do scary things. He has threatened Mexico, Islam, you name it, and yet I'm unafraid. And if I can be unafraid enough to go take his podium away from him, then we all can be afraid enough to not let this man walk into the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Dimassimo stresses he was never ever intending to do harm to the candidate. He also says that he had been thinking about this for a while. This wasn't a spur of the moment action. He actually started thinking about doing this, Poppy, last November. But he thought the Trump phenomena would fade away. It never did. That's why he felt he today make a protest and this was the way of doing it - Poppy.

HARLOW: He certainly made his voice heard. And it is important to actually hear from him after seeing those actions.

But Marty, Donald Trump, that tweet I showed at the beginning tying him to ISIS, what did Dimassimo say about that?

SAVIDGE: He says that - first of all, he emphatically denies that he has anything to do with ISIS. And that in fact what happened here was that there had been video online. Somebody took the video of him that had been posted on-line previously and doctored it. Added Arabic writing. And put in music that sounded very much like the music you hear under ISIS videos and put that out there. In other words, somebody visually tried to frame him. Here is how he talks about his thoughts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIMASSIMO: I am no way harmed anyone, intended to harm anyone. I'm not a member of ISIS. I have no known ties to ISIS. I've never been out of the country. I only speak English.

SAVIDGE: Christian?

DIMASSIMO: Christian, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: So you know, there you have it. He says that he believes this was orchestrated by Trump supporters but he cannot believe that Donald Trump himself in some tweet would make the association of linking him to ISIS. Something that he, like almost every other American, detests and hates -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Martin Savidge, fascinating interview. I know there is a lot more of it. We will bring more to our viewers later. And, of course, I will point to you CNN.com where you will be able to see a lot more of Marty's interview tonight.

Thank you so much, Martin.

I do want to bring in CNN political commentator Ryan Lizza just to gets thought on this.

I mean, Ryan, look. It is fascinating that the fact that Marty was able to get a protester to talk, often you don't hear from them, especially after this guy is charge with multiple charges. What do you think we have learned about a little bit more of what sort of behind some of these protesters' thinking?

LIZZA: They are really repulsed obviously by Donald Trump. I was looking at this gentleman's twitter feed today and he was clearly celebrating what he did. If you go back through his tweets over the last few weeks, it seems like he was preparing this as he made clear in the interview for white a while. Getting increasingly work had up about Trump's dominants in the polls.

Look. We have all been on TV the last few days trying to -- talking about Trump. Trying to frankly getting limb to tone down the rhetoric. And you know, a lot of us have been critical about Trump setting the tone from the top.

HARLOW: Right.

LIZZA: And you know, I think is worth pointing out that you know, people shouldn't be rushing the stage at political events like this. It is dangerous for the person who is doing it. And it is dangerous for the candidate. And look, if you want to stop Donald Trump or any other candidate, the way to do it is not to jump a barrier and grab the microphone or do whatever this young man thought he was going to do.

But obviously, there is a passionate, especially among millennials, people in their 20s, opposition to Trump, and it is bringing out the worse net a lot of people. And you know, on the bizarre ISIS part of this, it does remind me that sometimes Trump is a little too quick with his twitter trigger finger. And sees something that you know, supporters pass on and then he tweets it to everyone and it becomes sort of a set of alternate facts even if it is debunked, right?

[17:40:04] HARLOW: Right.

LIZZA: So, you know, not to -- I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who rushes a candidate on stage. But I suppose he should not be smeared -- he should not be smeared with additional is when clearly that was fabricated and Trump should know better than to say that unless he is a hundred percent certain.

HARLOW: Ryan Lizza, thank you. LIZZA: What a bizarre twist in a campaign though.

HARLOW: Yes. I know. What a bizarre twist. But again, so good to hear from him directly, responding to all of it, from our Marty Savidge.

Ryan, thank you. Appreciate it.

LIZZA: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: Coming up next, it is a top issue this campaign, unemployment is down. Stock mark set rallying. So why are so many voters angry about the economy? What's behind the numbers? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:44:31] HARLOW: You're looking at live pictures of Ohio state university there in beautiful Columbus, Ohio. A big night ahead. Our Jake Tapper, moderating the CNN Democratic town hall tonight, 8:00 p.m. eastern only right here.

Meantime, this election season, anger over the U.S. economy has voters turning out in droves to support populous candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. But President Obama has a very different outlook when it comes to the economy. Here was what he said in Dallas over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: America is pretty darn great right now. America is making strides right now. America is better off than it was right now. The American people should be proud about what we have achieved together over the last eight years since the recession hit we're great right now!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:45:22] HARLOW: One of the things that president pointed to is this, lower unemployment. Unemployment below five percent right now. It was about eight percent when he took office. Not to mention gas is really cheap. It is around two bucks. U.S. economy is growing. And yet look at these exit polls from the primary in Michigan, 92 percent of Republican voters worried about the economy. Among Democrats, it was 80 percent.

Where is the divide? There is no question the middle class shrunk in America. We know that. Less than half of Americans are now middle class. It was 61 percent back in 1971. But what else is it?

Let's talk about it with CNN global economics analyst, assisting managing editors for "Time" Rona Foroohar. He is author of a new book, "makers and takers of rise and" well, you can finish the rest. It is sitting on my bedside table.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Congrats on the new book.

RONA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Thank you.

HARLOW: Let's just break this down where the divide is because this is so much the driver of the support for Bernie Sanders and also for Donald Trump. And that is the fact that there is big divide here especially when it comes to what were white middle class men.

FOROOHAR: Yes, for sure. So the thing that was left out of all of the charts that we just saw is the wage line. And if you look at the wage line, it has been flat for a long time and for working class white men actually working people in general it has been flat since the '70s. So we are not talking about a quarter of good news. We are not even talking about as the president points out, eight years of things getting better. We are talking about a long term trend, about 20 years of wages being flat for a lot of people in this country or longer than 20 years and that's what all this pent up anger is about.

HARLOW: When you look at the stock market, let's pull it up, from inauguration day, OK? There you have it. It should say 17,949 to Friday, closing at 17,213. Here's the difference.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

HARLOW: Fifty percent of people have not a penny in this market. And there's the divide. Are those the voters that are rushing to Sanders and Donald Trump?

FOROOHAR: Some of them. I mean, it is actually interesting. Because if you look at who owns stocks, it tends to be the people that are better off. If you look at who has most of their money in housing, it tends to be working people, African-Americans. I mean, if you look at kind of, you know, who is really angry, it is the people that didn't have money in stocks. The people that lost a lot more in the last eight years during the housing plunge and have not gained that back in recovery.

HARLOW: But here is the thing and I misspoke. You know, the market gain about 10,000 points during this president's term. And yes it doesn't help people directly that don't have a 401(k) and IRA and money invested in the market. But it does give corporations much more confidence to hire. It does help them to some extent.

FOROOHAR: Well, given that -- it may have given them more confidence. But hiring is another question. You know, a lot of companies are doing more with less. They are outsourcing jobs. Not only abroad but using technology to do jobs that would have taken a lot more people in the past. You know, I spent a lot of time in high-tech factories, companies like GE or GM. They can just do more with fewer workers than they had in the past.

HARLOW: Absolutely. We both been in these factories. It is astonishing it see.

So let's talk about candidates specifically. Hillary Clinton, right, she is running on President Obama's economic policies. FOROOHAR: Right.

HARLOW: She even said that senator Sanders shouldn't criticize them. There are two ways you could go here and I wonder what you think a better strategy would be for her. A, try to convince voters that Trump and Sanders are wrong that Obama economy and policies should be continued that they are working for people or tap into voter frustration like Sanders and Trump are doing. Promise to be a candidate for change while trying not to insult current administration.

FOROOHAR: I think 40 percent of the former and 60 percent of the latter. I think that what voters really want to hear is the truth which is that, yes, free trade, for example, is good at creating wealth at a global level but it creates some inequalities within countries and rust belt which, you know, you and I spent a lot of time there. These are areas that there is a lot of concentrated pain. And I think voters feel like, hey, we have been told that this is all good all the time for 20 years. We want to hear more about who is going to be helped.

HARLOW: Can give us reality check on free trade? Let's just talk NAFTA signed in 1994. The fact is that yes we lost factory jobs after. But not just because of that. We also lost them because of technology. And CNN money looked back at it and factory employment did not decline until six years after until 2001.

FOROOHAR: Yes. It's not just NAFTA. It is basically, you know, going for 20 years of a lot of globalization. If you look at the time between 2000 and 2010, in that decade America lost about a third of its manufacturing base, so six million jobs. Some of it was jobs going to China, jobs going to Mexico. Some of it was just falling demand after the financial is we didn't buy as much stuff. Some of it is technology. So it's a mixed story.

But I think that voters really want to hear hey, the candidates know that trade hasn't been good for everybody. We are going to figure out ways to help the losers help people who have been hurt by this. Retrain them. Give them some support.

[17:50:21] HARLOW: The reality is that those exact jobs aren't coming back because technology has taken them over.

FOROOHAR: No, but there are ways the government can support smart manufacturing to bring back even better jobs.

HARLOW: There are.

Rana, thank you.

FOROOHAR: Thank you. ]

HARLOW: Congrats on the book. I appreciate it.

FOROOHAR: Thanks. HARLOW: Coming up in the next hour, the billionaire head of tech

giant sales force gives his take on the 2016 race, who he is backing and why.

Also another live look at the stage all set up for tonight's CNN Democratic town hall. What is at stake before five major states go to the polls on Tuesday?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:54:49] HARLOW: The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine has virtually disappeared from many headlines. Many people there still suffering though. In this "impact your world" we take a look at how the Jewish community has come together to take on poverty in the struggling nation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[17:55:06] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Political unrest and economic decline have sit Ukraine's poor hard. Residents struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy, but thousands of elderly, young, and displaced families can't afford the basics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They really do not have any other chance and it's really challenging.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Winter presents the biggest challenge.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During the winter, the cost of the utilities is going up, the biggest part of the pension goes to cover utilities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The American Jewish joint distribution committee is trying to support the poor of Ukraine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is help which can be very basic, like food, medications, very basic supplies. We provide them with (INAUDIBLE). In addition, we provide them with blankets, with the warm clothing. We do our best in order to support them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For 96-year-old Liza Kestleman, the support is a godsend.

LIZA KESTLEMAN, UKRAINE RESIDENT (through translator): If it was not for them I can't imagine what my life would be like.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Coming up in the next hour, more special coverage ahead of the high stakes CNN Democratic town hall tonight in Ohio. The Democratic candidates set to make their final pitch to voters ahead of them going to the polls on Tuesday, and that huge winner-take-all primary ahead. Stay with us.

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