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Florida Primary Biggest Prize Today; Group in Ohio Trying to Block Trump Nomination with Ads; A Look Inside Syria. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 15, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The state has the biggest prize of the day. And Democratic candidates are working hard to connect with voters there. But it's Jeb Bush who may grab headlines on this day. We have details. Stand by for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Polls are open in Florida right now. Here's the stakes in the Sunshine State. They are serious right now for Democrats, 214 delegates to be given out proportionally based on the final result. For Republicans, it is winner-take-all with 99 delegates up for grabs. That makes Florida the biggest prize of the day.

Boris Sanchez is joining us live from Winter Park, Florida.

As you know, Jeb Bush dropped out of the race, the former Florida governor, but still on the ballot. Could that have any significant or meaningful impact on today's outcome?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Likely not, Wolf. He's on the ballot along with Chris Christie and Ben Carson. However, it is unlikely it will have an impact on the decision here in Winter Park. This is an area that is truly a Trump stronghold. It fits demographically with voters that support him. 85 percent white here. He's going up against Rubio. I spoke to one voter who said she was a supporter of John Kasich but she was voting for Rubio because she felt he had a stronger chance to win Florida. Rubio will need more voters like that if he hopes to win. Polls show Trump with a significant advantage, from five points to double digits over the Florida Senator. We will have to wait and see how things turn out tonight -- Wolf?

[13:35:] BLITZER: Boris Sanchez reporting. Thank you.

Millions of Americans are at polls today, including Ohio Governor John Kasich, who cast his ballot earlier today. Kasich and Donald Trump are locked in a tight contest in Ohio. Coming up, how one Republican group is looking to block Donald Trump from the nomination.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:40:14] BLITZER: Check it out. Polling station in North Olmstead, Ohio. Donald Trump is in a tight race with John Kasich for the state's 66 delegates. That brought out the anti-Trump campaigners who are now hoping to keep him from a huge win in Ohio including the Our Principles PAC, which has been unleashing anti-Trump ads, including one showing women quoting Trump's own words about women.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, it really doesn't matter what they write as long as you have a young, beautiful piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN's senior media correspondent, Brian Stelter, is joining us from New York.

Brian, that was only small part of that ad that goes on and on and on. You can see it wasn't pulling any punches there. I suppose this PAC is spending a lot of money getting it out there.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: Yes, a half million dollars in cable time to air the ad. Of course, it is aired here on CNN and other channels, as well as YouTube where it has almost a million views.

It has had a real impact. One of the first anti Trump ads that has really broken through. This morning, on the morning shows, Trump was asked about it. Here's what he said on "The Today Show" and on "Good Morning, America."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ANCHOR, GOOD MORNING, AMERICA: Have you seen that and what did you make of it?

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION (voice-over): Well, you know, I have seen it. It was A Romney deal. Who ran one of the worst races in the history of presidential politics.

I have not seen the ad so I would have to see it. I have heard about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: What is strange about that, Wolf, he told George Stephanopoulos he had seen the ad. Then he told Matt Lauer that he had not seen the ad. But the Stephanopoulos interview came first. So clearly has seen the ad and everyone has seen it. It has been saturated by buying ad time and then having free coverage here on television news. It has broken through in an impactful way.

I will tell you something amazing about the anti Trump ad thing, in the first week of March, there were 10,000 anti-Trump ads across state ad. Yesterday, there were 4,000. More than half of all of the ads on TV yesterday, Super Tuesday, were anti-Trump ads. There is a belated effort in these states to take down Trump and we will see tonight how it did.

BLITZER: We'll see how it impacts. So far, a lot of this has not had a huge impact so far. We will see what happens later today.

Brian, thanks very much.

Let's talk about Ohio and the other races. Joining us is, Kayleigh McEnany, the CNN political commentator, a Donald Trump supporter; Amanda Carpenter, former communications director for Ted Cruz, a CNN political commentator; and Donna Brazile, our CNN political commentator and vice chair of the Democratic National Convention.

Kayleigh, that's a disturbing ad. You are a woman. Men will be disturbed when they see that, as well. What's your reaction?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It was a tough ad and those are awful statements that I don't condone. Most of those statements came from the 1990s interviews that Donald Trump did on "The Howard Stern Show." I think he's a different person today. We saw Ben Carson speak to his Christian values. Likewise Huckabee's daughter has been a part of his campaign. These are strong Christian women and men. The American people are forgiving. We had a president that did awful things in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton, and the American people forgave him. We are a forgiving country. If Donald Trump owns this and says I'm not the same person as I was then, the American people will forgive him.

BLITZER: Has he said that? Has he apologized?

MCENANY: He has not said that yet. I think he will. I think he needs to. And I think it is important.

BLITZER: What do you think, Amanda?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think that Trump is a person that asks forgiveness. He said that at one the Iowa forums last year.

Here's think the thing, he can't answer for it. He can't say it wasn't me or I changed my thinking. One of those was made about Megyn Kelly in front of the national media. If he takes it back, the supporters that say I support him because he doesn't take things back, will perceive it as weak. He's in a bind and I'm curious to see how he answers for it.

BLITZER: What do you think?

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I would hope the Republicans and others, who are now saying that Donald Trump should seek forgiveness for that, will say that when Hillary Clinton, when she is the nominee. He says mean things about everybody. He is running for president, a front runner. And I saw your interview with Sean Spicer earlier today. I have a message to Sean. Look, it's Republicans who are spending millions of dollars to defeat Donald Trump, not Democrats. Democrats may go to those rallies but, honestly, and I think they want to see this and there are those that believe Donald Trump is running the kind of campaign they want to stand up against. But I believe Republicans are spending millions to take out their front runner.

BLITZER: That's a Republican-based super PAC that put up that ad, not a Democratic super PAC, as you know.

MCENANY: Absolutely, because there is a concerted take-down effort in the Republican Party, mostly among the leadership, not the voters. The voters are showing enormous support for Donald Trump. He hit 49 percent in one poll and 53 percent among Republicans. Republicans like Donald Trump. It's the Republican leadership that sees him as a threat to their interest and platform. He's shaking up the party in a way that voters like. They are trying to take him down and will do whatever it takes, even if it means --

(CROSSTALK)

[13:45:25] BLITZER: So far, over all these months, he said a lot of stuff people said was outrageous and it doesn't seem to have hurt him among Republicans going to the polls.

CARPENTER: Most Republicans find it objectionable. I count myself among those. There is not concerted Republican effort. Republican leadership is defined as RNC, Mitch McConnell that runs the Senate and Paul Ryan.

(CROSSTALK)

CARPENTER: None of those people are involved in that.

(CROSSTALK)

CARPENTER: The former people who worked for previous campaigns are involved, but no leadership effort against Donald Trump.

MCENANY: There is. Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell.

(CROSSTALK)

CARPENTER: There's no direct involvement by Paul Ryan.

(CROSSTALK)

MCENANY: Not with this ad but he has criticized Donald Trump.

(CROSSTALK)

MCENANY: He has. He has. He did it last week. There's an effort among party leadership to take him down. The Republican voters are sick of it and tired of the establishment picking their candidate --

(CROSSTALK)

MCENANY: -- and would like to finally have a voice.

CARPENTER: Donald Trump would like to pretend that it's so. Many people, including myself, people who worked in the movement for a number of years, trying to advance the conservative agenda, see Donald Trump as a threat to that, and those are the people working to stop it.

BLITZER: I want to play a clip. Sarah Palin, who endorsed Donald Trump, said this at an event. And let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN, (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR & FORMER VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What we don't have time for is all of that petty, punk-ass little thuggery stuff going on --

(CHEERING)

PALIN: -- with these, quote, unquote, "protesters," who are doing nothing but wasting your time, and trying to take away your First Amendment rights, your rights to assemble peacefully.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: I want Donna to react.

BRAZILE: First of all, I hope Todd is doing much better. I heard he was in the hospital, and that goes without saying.

BLITZER: Her husband. A very bad accident.

BRAZILE: Bad snowmobile accident. I will be respectful.

She's the first woman on the Republican side to be the vice presidential nominee. Her language is so coarse and offensive and out the ordinary you have to look at Sarah Palin and take a deep breath and say, thank you, God, she is not running again.

BLITZER: Amanda, your reaction?

CARPENTER: I don't think that Sarah Palin has been an effective surrogate for Donald Trump. He rolled her out before the Iowa caucus. He didn't win that state. I don't see anything she has done that has been effective. It's the same old thing. Hard to follow. Not a coherent argument. It's good for grabbing headlines because it's -- you don't know what she will say, like Donald Trump. I don't think it is a win.

BLITZER: Has that been a help for him, the Sarah Palin endorsement?

MCENANY: It helped with evangelicals. We've seen him win evangelicals in certain states. It plays into the image of Donald Trump being for everyday Americans. Sarah Palin may not speak like an Ivy League professor in the most flourished rhetoric we would like but she is real and authentic and she resonates with voters because of that.

BLITZER: You went to Harvard, right. You speak Ivy League.

MCENANY: I did.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: So you speak like an Ivy Leaguer.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Guys, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Coming up, CNN's journey down a rebel-held route in Syria known as death road. An exclusive look inside the once thriving but now decimated city of Aleppo in Syria. This is a heart-breaking story. You will want to see this exclusive report when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:52:41] BLITZER: The first group of Russian warplanes departed from Syria this morning. Russian President Vladimir Putin made the sudden announcement Monday that Russian forces would begin withdrawing from Syria.

Our senior international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, went undercover into rebel-held Syria where virtually no Western journalists have gone for more than a year. They gave Clarissa and her team a firsthand look at the devastating effect the Russian air strikes have had on Aleppo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You can tell when you're getting closer to Aleppo. The streets are pock marked with the aftermath of fresh air strikes, burning the earth to protect the way from enemy fire. It's a dangerous journey to a city few dare to visit.

(on camera): We now have to drive extremely quickly along this portion of the road, because, on one side, you have the regime and, on the other side, you have Kurdish fighters who are fighting against rebel forces and snipers all around, but this is the only road to get into Aleppo.

(voice-over): As you arrive in the city, the scale of the destruction is breathtaking, stretching on and on entire residential neighborhoods reduced to rubble.

Aleppo was once Syria's largest city, a bustling economic hub, now an apocalyptic landscape.

(SIREN)

WARD: Russian war planes have bombed these areas relentlessly, allowing government ground forces to encircle the rebel-held eastern part of the city. Still, we found pockets of life among the devastation. The fruit

market huddled in the shadow of a bombed-out building, a line of people waiting patiently to collect water a precious resource here.

(on camera): This is what is left of rebel-held Aleppo after months and months of thousands of Russian bombs reigning down. The streets are largely deserted. The buildings have been destroyed. And the people who once lived here have been pushed out. And the very few who are still here, who we've spoken to, have told us that they don't expect the situation to get any better. In fact, they're convinced it will only get worse.

[13:55:14] (voice-over): 70-year-old Siad (ph) has lived here for 40 years. Her grandson, Farouk, is a fighter with an Islamist rebel group. In all, nine members of her family have been killed in the fighting, including two of her three sons.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translation): They all died on the frontline. They weighed our head high for them. God willing they are in paradise.

WARD (on camera): What would it take for you to leave Aleppo?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): It's enough for us to express our religion and faith as free people without anyone stopping us. It is enough to for us to defend our honor and our women.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): Should we leave our country and go to another country? No, this is our country and we will remain in this until we die.

WARD (voice-over): The people clinging to life here feel that the world has abandoned them, leaving them only with God. Their existence becomes more precarious with every passing day. But surrender is unthinkable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Clarissa Ward is joining us now from New York.

Clarissa, brilliant reporting. Very courageous reporting.

Do the people in Aleppo, for example, do they feel any sense of hope at all?

WARD: Well, it's interesting, Wolf, you heard me say in the piece they're convinced the situation is only going to get worse so I think everybody was a little bit surprised by yesterday's announcement from Russian President Putin that it would begin to withdraw its military.

Of course, the people that I've spoken to inside rebel-held areas of Syria welcome this decision but they're also incredibly skeptical. What will this withdrawal look like, how long will it take, will it mean a complete end to the bombardment they've been subjected to for six months? There's a lot of skepticism. Also, people say, listen, the damage is already done. Under the cover of that Russian air bombardment, the regime of Bashar al Assad was essentially able to encircle most of eastern Aleppo, what was under rebel-held control. Now there's potentially 325,000 people still trapped in there with one road in and out. And if regime forces decide they are going to take that road, you are going to have a desperate humanitarian situation -- Wolf?

BLITZER: You mentioned Aleppo. It was one of the most thriving cities in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of people lived there. You say 350,000 are still there. They're trapped in Aleppo. What do they say? How can the city begin to rebuild after so much aerial and ground devastation?

WARD: It's really hard to imagine. Even with our cameras, you can't convey the true sense the 360-degree scale of the devastation. Estimates before the Russian intervention are believed that it would take hundreds of billions of dollar, nearly $300 billion, to try to rebuild Syria. You can imagine now after the Russian intervention and all the bombardment that entailed that you'd be talking astronomically high figures.

But beyond that, beyond the infrastructure that would have to be rebuilt, there's the question of the social fabric of Syria as a contiguous multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian state. After five years of civil war, tomorrow, entering its sixth year, Wolf, it's just hard to imagine how that can be repaired.

BLITZER: We know Russia's starting to withdraw its ground forces, some of its warplanes from Syria. What do you think this means as far as the Russian/Syrian relationship, the relationship between President Putin and Bashar al Assad, the dictator of Syria?

WARD: Assad is trying very much to spin this as, yes, we were part of this decision, we knew all about it, we were very much on board with it. But there's a lot of skepticism about that and a lot of speculation that perhaps, behind the scenes, the Russians were becoming irritated with the regime, that they had become too big for their boots, in a sense. You heard the regime contingency in Geneva over the weekend saying Bashar al Assad, leaving is a red line, presidential elections are a red line. That rhetoric really divergent from the rhetoric the Russians have embraced. It is certainly possible Russia decided to try to contain the ambitions of the Syrian regime but at this stage, it's anybody's guess -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Amazing reporting, very courageous reporting.

Clarissa, thanks very much.

Clarissa Ward, doing an excellent job for all of us. Appreciate it.

For more of her exclusive look, "Behind Rebel Lines," visit CNN.com/Syria.

That's it for me. I'll be back, 5:00 p.m. eastern, in "The Situation Room."

The start of our special coverage of Super Tuesday here in the United States, the news continues next on CNN.