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Crucial Primary Day in Florida for Rubio; 4 Things to Watch in Primaries Tonight; Jerry Springer Talks Ohio Race. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 15, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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


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[14:32:50] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Just past the bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Super Tuesday, three, crucial primary day for Florida Senator Marco Rubio. A lot of eyes obviously watching the returns in his home state of Florida tonight. Will voters give him enough staying power to continue his White House run?

Ed O'Keefe is back with me today. He's a political reporter for "The Washington Post."

Nice to see you, sir.

Let's begin with how you phrase the mood on the Rubio trail, "a funeral mood." Why do you think that? What has he said?

ED O'KEEFE, POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, it's because I think they realize that, you know, after poll in this state continues to show Donald Trump ahead. While the Rubio campaign thinks they're going to somehow catch him, we haven't seen enough evidence of that. If he loses, it's simply because the Trump phenomenon was something they couldn't overcome. So you've seen him talking about the whole promise of why he ran, the arc of his career, and talking last night, quite hopefully, I think, about the future not only for his state but for the country and the concerns the conservative movement is about to be hijacked by Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: You even talked to a woman, Ed, whose mother is dying of Alzheimer's, saying "I'm here", and is dying. Here as in voting. But we have to help Marco. Where are his supporters? Where are the folks who voted yes for him as a Senator?

O'KEEFE: They're all across the Miami-Dade region where I am now. The campaign is confident they will turn out an overwhelming amount here in south Florida. The question is, how will they do in places like Jacksonville, Pensacola, along the I-95 corridor on the east coast. That's where he spent most of his time in the last few days, bouncing between Tampa, Orlando, up to Jacksonville, out to Pensacola. Yesterday, he did a bus tour from Jacksonville back to his west Miami neighborhood and there he was greeted by a few hundred supporters, the people who have been voting for him in one way or another since he was 26, whether it was for commissioner or the statehouse or the U.S. Senate. If you see numbers tonight in Miami-Dade County putting him at 70 percent-plus, they may be just on the verge of catching Trump. They'll have to make up that margin in other parts of the state because the early voting that went off at historic levels in the state is believed to have cut to Trump and it's been ongoing for several weeks.

[14:35:23] BALDWIN: How do you think -- final question, if he loses Florida, what does he have, not even another year in the Senate, and maybe he has gubernatorial wishes, is that just dashed?

O'KEEFE: We'll see. It depends on how big a loss there is if he loses. Certainly, if he wins, he continues on. If it's close, I think his campaign might find a way to continue on. We'll see. But talking to people in the last few days, they say sure, two years, I'm with him. Whether it's for governor or some other position, you know, remains to be seen. I think the other problem he will face here in the state is there are other state-wide officials who will like that job, to run for governor.

BALDWIN: There are.

O'KEEFE: If he really wants it, he'll have to spend his time cultivating his political network, something a lot people told us he didn't spend a lot of time doing in recent years. So we'll see.

BALDWIN: Ed O'Keefe, thank you very much. Chat soon, I'm sure.

Meantime, coming up, could Ted Cruz win the nomination even without victories in all-important winner-take-all states like Ohio and Florida? We'll talk about the four big things to watch for tonight.

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[14:40:56] BALDWIN: All right, tonight, date night with us here at CNN. You got your popcorn, choice of beverage, your pajamas, and me and David Chalian, CNN political director.

David Chalian, the four things you are watching for tonight, starting with Mr. Trump.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Starting with Mr. Trump. Trump's path. This is going to become clear tonight. Either he emerges from tonight with a very clear path of needing only about half the remaining delegates to get to that magic number of 1237 and that he's going to get that nomination before the convention, or if he loses Ohio, where he's most competitive right now Kasich, then indeed I think we're going to learn this is going to a contested convention, and we're going to be going to Cleveland not knowing who the nominee is for the Republican party.

BALDWIN: Speaking of Ohio, what are you watching in Ohio for both Dems and Republicans?

CHALIAN: Yeah, it's the critical state. As you know, it's the mother of all battleground states for the general election and it is tonight too on this Super Tuesday three. So John Kasich, obviously, the home state governor there, he really should win. He won there twice. But the fact that Trump is having such a successful time has made it competitive. That will be determined, as we were just discussing on the Republican side.

On the Democratic side, listen, it's a similar state to Michigan, where Hillary Clinton was sort of up-ended by Bernie Sanders last week in that surprise victory for him. And so we're looking to see might -- although Hillary Clinton has had a slight lead in the poll, might the makeup be like Michigan and is the economic argument really winner the day? That's something to watch for in Ohio on the Democratic side.

BALDWIN: Number three, Marco Rubio?

CHALIAN: Rubio's response to results tonight, Brooke, this is going to be a later in the evening response to watch for. Watch how he responds to the results. If Marco Rubio loses his home state of Florida tonight, he'll have one of two options. Either he'll bow out of this race and say there's not a path forward, or he'll acknowledge there's not a path forward to winning the nomination outright but he's going to stay in this race to be part of this stop Trump movement. There are varying opinions in his camp of what he should do there. He still thinks he's got a chance to win Florida, the polls have not shown that. That is what to watch for, his response to those results.

BALDWIN: OK, and number four, what is it?

CHALIAN: Clinton's fate. I don't mean the fate of whether or not she'll be the nominee. But Hillary Clinton is going to learn whether or not she's going to spend rest of this spring leading into the Democratic convention in the summer as the all-but-certain nominee and already focusing on the general election, or she's going to learn tonight she is going to have a Democratic nomination fight that she's going to need to pay attention to, engage in, and fight through, all the way through June, not being able to turn her sights on to the general election in the fall. That will come down to whether or not she is winning four or five states tonight. She could probably move on and start focusing on the general a little more, even if Bernie Sanders stays in. If she wins two of five states tonight, even though the delegates are on her side and she is still the likely nominee, she is going to have a spring full of a fully engaged Democratic nomination race.

BALDWIN: All right, David Chalian, I'm excited for my date tonight, watching you and the rest of the gang on CNN.

Thank you very much as always.

Coming up next, my next guest, Jerry Springer. Listen, he is someone who has been in TV for decades, someone who has seen it all.

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[14:44:37] BALDWIN: But has he ever seen anything quite like this presidential race? We will talk politics with the former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, next.

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BALDWIN: All right, let me just again underscore the significance of state of Ohio. We're closely watching the state of Ohio where Governor Kasich -- you see here -- was voting this morning in Westerville. He's hoping to snatch a win, take all victory from Donald Trump. Ohio, massively important.

It is a bellwether that was once home to Jerry Springer. You know Jerry Springer as the host of one of TV's most combustible shows, "The Jerry Springer Show." But did you know he was also once the mayor of Cincinnati, a Democrat, who now fully supports Hillary Clinton for president?

Jerry Springer, nice to see you.

JERRY SPRINGER, (D), TV HOST, THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW & FORMER CINCINNATI MAYOR: Brooke, thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: I know that you sort of straddled two important states today. Your home's in Florida. This is where you cast your ballot. You used to serve as mayor of Cincinnati. Let's begin there with Ohio. This is really John Kasich's state to lose. He says if he does lose it, he's out. Do you think he will beat Trump?

SPRINGER: I do. It also will have an effect on the Democratic race. It may not be as important for the Democrats as people are saying right now. And the reason for that is in Ohio you can vote in either party's primary.

BALDWIN: It's an open primary.

[14:50:05] SPRINGER: Right. So the fear that people have of having Trump, there are a lot of independents or even some moderate Democrats who are convinced that Hillary's going to be the candidate anyway, that they're going to vote in the Republican party to have Kasich beat Trump. So I'm not sure that you can just look at Ohio in the primaries and make a determination of how strong Hillary's going to be or even how strong Trump's going to be. I think a Kasich victory tonight will come with a lot of Independent and Democratic votes, which will affect the race on the Democratic side.

BALDWIN: On the Republican side, and specifically with regard to Mr. Trump, we were just reporting that the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, apparently, was on the phone with Donald Trump today. Apparently, was a good conversation. Essentially, said to Donald Trump, lien, we really think you should publicly denounce the violence at your rallies. Why do you think this is happening? Have you ever seen anything quite like this? Apparently, he's looking to pay the legal fees of the 78-year-old who sucker punched that protester last week. SPRINGER: Well, we need to put it in perspective. First of all,

those of us old enough to remember, this year doesn't --

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BALDWIN: '68.

SPRINGER: compare at all with 1968. 1968, you had the whole country in turmoil. What happened at the conventions where you had fights -- Martin Luther King was assassinated. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. Cities were burning down. There were riots at the conventions. It was way more than what is happening now.

What is different about this race is never before has the candidate himself been the one to instigate whatever the problems are. So, yes, that has created a problem. Frankly, I don't think there's anyway -- and you're going to run this tape back if I'm wrong -- but don't think there's any way Donald Trump gets elected president of the United States. He may win the Republican nomination, but America's not going to vote for him. Once you get the whole electorate voting, Hispanics, African-Americans, women, young people, once you get everybody in that picture, they're not going to vote for Donald Trump because they're not going to want his finger on the button.

BALDWIN: Scary.

SPRINGER: The symbol of America is the Statue of Liberty, not a wall.

BALDWIN: Jerry, it may strike some watching us right now that you are talking about all this bad behavior at these rallies when your show is famous for this.

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SPRINGER: Right.

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BALDWIN: How do you respond to that?

SPRINGER: What a great show that was.

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No, but here's the point. Screen, you won't find one person there running for president. That's the difference. The show is entertainment. The show's a circus. The show is stupid. I've said that for 25 years. The show is what it is. But my gosh, when you're talking about running the free world, running America, what kind of nation we ought to be, you don't go to a television show. This is real. This is real, what's happening in this country.

BALDWIN: Do you think though that's part of what is dividing --

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SPRINGER: I don't want someone who has been on my show to be president of the United States.

BALDWIN: I hear you. I don't disagree with you. But do you think that is creating some of the divisiveness in this culture and some of the fighting and some of the anger, and also, you know, factor in celebrity here and that role in politics.

SPRINGER: Well, celebrity and politics was inevitable. After the last 30 years, 35 years, since Ronald Reagan, when President Reagan said government can't solve problems, government is the problem, for the last 35 years, we have raised a generation of Americans to believe that government is terrible, hate Washington, distrust anyone in politics, they're all corrupt. Every political commercial we all see is how terrible the other person is. So people grow up in America believing that government is horrible. It was inevitable that at some point someone would run for president who is not a part of government, who has never been in government, who hates the government. Now, there are only two fields they could come from, this outsider, to be well enough known. You'd either have to be an athlete, and an athlete is too young to run for president, or you'd have to be with the social media today in the entertainment field. So it is not surprising that someone in the world of entertainment would ultimately run for president. Did we know it would be Donald Trump? Of course not. But certainly it was inevitable that we get outside -- someone from the entertainment field to run against the government.

BALDWIN: Final question just quickly. If you were to invite Trump to your circus, what's the one question you'd want to ask him?

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[14:55:14] SPRINGER: Have you ever been a woman? No, I don't know. He could never be on -- he could never be on the show because he's known. You can't be on our show if you're known.

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BALDWIN: Jerry Springer, you have rendered me speechless. Thank you for squeezing me in, in between two of your show tapings.

A man who has been in TV for 35 years, Jerry Springer, thank you so, so much.

SPRINGER: Sure. Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Straight ahead here, I mentioned this a second ago. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, revealing he and Trump talked today by phone. He was offering the Republican front-runner some advice about his rallies and the violence there. We'll discuss

Also, a Super Tuesday takedown. President Obama calling out Republican candidates and offering a blunt and sobering assessment of the 2016 election. Stay right here.

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