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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Huge Victories for Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton; Trump University Fraud Case Will Go To Trial; iPhones Sales Drop for First Time; Trump Wins All 5 States, Clinton 4, Sanders 1; Sentencing for Dennis Hastert; Will Tennessee Governor Veto Therapist Bill?. Aired 4- 5a ET
Aired April 27, 2016 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[04:00:22] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I just want to thank everybody. This is a far bigger win than we even expected. All five, and that's something --
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's go forward. Let's win the nomination, and in July, let's return as a unified party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Huge victories for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The presidential frontrunners front running even more now, getting closer to clinching their party's nominations and taking a turn toward the general election.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this special edition of EARY START. I'm John Berman.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, April 27th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East.
And it's a big morning, folks. The Acela primary, a big night for the frontrunners, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
But it was a huge night for Trump, who swept a victory in all five states voting Tuesday and by big margins. In Rhode Island, almost 64 percent. In Delaware, another wide margin, 60 percent. In Connecticut, 57.7 percent. In Pennsylvania, almost 57 percent. In Maryland, he had a margin of victory 54.4 percent.
BERMAN: Those are big, big wins.
Also a big night for Hillary Clinton. She won Pennsylvania nearly 56 percent of the vote there. In Maryland, Hillary Clinton hit 63 percent. In Delaware, she won there as well with just about 60 percent. And in Connecticut, Hillary Clinton got 51 percent. That was a little closer. Bernie Sanders, he won Rhode Island. He got 55 percent of the vote in Rhode Island.
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, they held late-night rallies. Both called for party unity. Both tried to pivot toward the general election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I consider myself the presumptive nominee, absolutely.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Senator Cruz and Governor Kasich should really get out of the race now. They have no path to victory.
(APPLAUSE)
Honestly, they should get out of the race and we should heal the Republican Party, bring the Republican Party together.
CLINTON: I applaud Senator Sanders and his millions of supporters for challenging us to get unaccountable money out of our politics and giving --
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
-- greater emphasis to closing the gap of inequality. And I know together we will get that done.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Because whether you support Senator Sanders or you support me, there's much more that unites us than divides us.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Let's talk about last night's results with our early morning panel. Joining us, senior media correspondent at CNN, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES", Brian Stelter, senior reporter for media and politics, Dylan Byers, and CNN politics reporter, Eric Bradner, who is in Indianapolis.
ROMANS: Look at those handsome devils.
BERMAN: Which matters a lot. We'll talk about that coming up.
Dylan, I want to start with you, because you have a big take on this big night, which you consider essentially decisive.
DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: Put a fork in it. It's done. But now, I mean, look, we spend so much time in this election cycle, you know, hedging our bets because the conventional wisdom has always been upended. But, you know, after election night, we talk about who has the momentum and who looks promising, right now, we're dealing with cold, hard math.
And I know we don't want to be dealing with math at 4:00 in the morning, but Hillary Clinton is almost to the finish line. It's very hard to see -- I mean, look, it's effectively impossible for Bernie Sanders to do anything about it.
His campaign has even acknowledged it. He's even acknowledged it in his statements, talking about how he's going to go to the convention. He wants to talk about the issues, but he's going to be sort of pushing a progressive party platform.
And you look at Ted Cruz on the Republican side, what path does he have? Give him Indiana, fine. Trump is way up in California. If we look at tonight as any guide, he's going to win New Jersey. So, you know, again, where is that path? It doesn't seem to exist for Cruz or for Sanders.
ROMANS: Brian Stelter, all these players are still in the game. It's done. We now know what we think the general election is going to look like, but we've still have the same number of players today as we did yesterday.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, whether it's over or not is a political calculation, but the math is not. The math is not a calculation and it is clear from the math where things stand. But it was really striking last night Donald Trump was at the time 100 gala.
He went over to this media elite gathering before his big press conference, and he barely knew the results. He knew he had won, but he didn't know by how much. He kept asking for me updates.
[04:05:01] I was looking at CNN.com telling him over 60 percent.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: You're hanging with Donald Trump before the results come in.
STELTER: Only for a few minutes, but -- only for a few minutes. His message he was trying to convey was, we're not just over 50 percent, which people said I couldn't do, we're over 60 percent, and this is with three people in the race.
So, he was trying to make the point again and again that he is defying conventional wisdom when it comes to these races. He was also speaking repeatedly with the RNC chairman. They finished up their night by saying, I'll talk to you tomorrow.
So, maybe we are seeing some reconciliation with the party on some levels at least, on some degrees. We also heard him say kind words about the RNC at his press conference last night.
BERMAN: Less kind words about Hillary Clinton, though. During this speech, you could see Donald Trump really trying to turn his focus to the general election, trying to turn the focus to Hillary. And listen to how he responded to the issue of Hillary Clinton and the
possibility that Hillary Clinton would use her gender or would run as an historic candidate, being the first woman to be a nominee. Listen to what Donald Trump said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, I think the only card she has is the woman card. She's got nothing else going. Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she'd get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she's got going is the woman's card, and the beautiful thing is women don't like her, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: If she were running as a man, Eric Bradner, she won't even get 5 percent. Donald Trump said it last night. And now as he does the rounds on the morning shows this morning, that's the question he's going to be asked. That felt more like the old Donald Trump than perhaps the new, more restrained Donald Trump, who doesn't exist, frankly.
ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Absolutely. He said repeatedly last night. He's not planning on changing his tone, changing his approach. And frankly, to lock up the nomination, all he needs to do is keep doing what he's been doing.
You did see both candidates start to pivot toward the general election last night. Hillary Clinton extended an olive branch to Bernie Sanders supporters in a big way, sort of reaching out and taking the first step of what could be several over the coming days if Sanders starts to dial back his attacks on Clinton. We'll be watching that today in Indiana, where he's campaigning on two big university campuses.
But with Trump, yes, he's said over and over and over for weeks that he just hasn't started talking about Hillary Clinton yet. When he does, you're going to start to see the poll numbers that show him with dramatic, unfavorable ratings, especially among women in the general electorate start to change. Well, this was sort of an opening salvo. It's going to be a really nasty general election campaign.
And after last night, it's tough to disagree with Dylan. It looks like these are two candidates on a collision course right now.
BYERS: It's always tough to disagree.
ROMANS: Yes, with a t-shirt, I always agree with Dylan.
Look, Hillary Clinton -- Team Clinton, though, sort of honing its own message on the woman card and if this is going to be an issue. And this is something that Hillary Clinton said not directly I response to the 5 percent comment from Donald Trump --
STELTER: No, but it seemed like she was expecting it. She brought it up a few minutes before he did. ROMANS: Exactly, exactly. Let's listen to what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Now the other day, Mr. Trump accused me of playing the, quote, "woman card".
(BOOS)
Well, if fighting for women's health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: So, Brian, we had a Democrat on the last hour who said I can see the --
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[04:15:17] SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do we want to the support a campaign that is based on yelling and screaming and cursing and insults? Or do we want to unite behind a positive, optimistic, forward-looking, conservative campaign?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What we are seeing on national polls, which have us 15, 20 points ahead of Donald Trump, far more than Secretary Clinton.
(CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right. Two guys who did not win much last night. Ted Cruz won nothing, finished third in four out of five states. Bernie Sanders, he won only Rhode Island. It was a big night for Donald Trump, a big night for Hillary Clinton.
What do the exit polls say about how they got there?
Let's bring back our panel to discuss -- Brian Stelter, Dylan Byers, Eric Bradner.
Eric, the exit polls in the Republican side, we asked an interesting question, a pertinent question, giving the thought this might be a contested convention. We essentially asked voters, if no one gets to 1,237, if no one hits the magic number, who should the Republican nominee be?
And look at what they said. In Pennsylvania, they said essentially the primary winner, the person who wins the most votes. They said the same thing in Connecticut, 66 percent. They said the same thing in Maryland as well, 67 percent. Two-thirds or more, Eric, saying that's who should get the nomination, not some delegate game.
You begin to see maybe why Donald Trump has been hitting this so hard over the last few weeks. It may not be because he thinks the Republican Party will change the rules, but he thinks the discussion about the rules might be helping him with voters.
BRADNER: That's absolutely right. It seems like across the board last night, the Republican electorate was getting more comfortable with the idea of Donald Trump as its nominee. And, yes, Trump has been hitting this argument about fairness, and after a series of big wins in New York and five in a row, it is sort of hard to argue that he's not becoming the consensus nominee.
So, yes, those numbers were really eye popping because they suggest his argument that the only way he can be denied is if the democratic process is denied is really sinking in. You know, Ted Cruz and John Kasich aren't backing off this plan to sort of divide and conquer and deny him delegates here and there, but it's a lot more difficult today than it was yesterday because they didn't really had any strong areas.
They were hoping to at least pick off some congressional districts. Cruz would maybe win in rural Maryland and Kasich would be able to do well in some suburbs. That just didn't happen. It doesn't bode well for suburban Indianapolis, for example, or Oregon or California. There's no real indication that the latest machination of this Stop Trump movement has had any success in identifying pockets of resistance and really turning them out and winning delegates in those areas.
And so, yes, Trump is going to keep hammering this point because exit polls show more and more and more Republicans say the winner of the most delegates should be the nominee, and he's running away with the most delegates.
ROMANS: Another interesting question exit polls to Democrats and Republicans that showed a very different picture for the two parties. They were asked, you know, the primary campaign, is it helping or healing your party? The Democrats said they were energized, mostly energized by the primary campaign.
And the Republicans felt it had divided the party. Look at the Pennsylvania numbers there. Has the Republican campaign mostly energized or divided the party, divided the party -- you see, guys -- and, Brian Stelter, you really see a different picture here when you look at the Democrats, who seem energized by this process, compared with the Republicans who seem to feel as though the Stop Trump movement or the divisions have been hurtful.
STELTER: Which is critical because early on in this cycle, we've seen less turnout on the Democratic side. We've seen less enthusiasm by some measures. We've even seen lower television rates with the debates. So, as we see a more energized Democratic electorate, that is important for the party.
I wonder if two things are possibly going on at the same time here. Yes, we're seeing acceptance about Trump. These five stages of grief process we've talked about all winter and spring. There is a point of acceptance.
We have to kind in mind, of course, Trump supporters aren't grieving at all. They have nothing to grieve about. They've been happy this whole time. While there's some acceptance, is there not a deepening of that divide or that resistance to Trump among people who are so- called never Trump, who are believers in the Stop Trump movement.
What I saw online and the reactions last night though these results are the people wary of Trump that are resistant to Trump doubling down, tripling down, resisting him more fiercely than ever even as the rest of the party accepts him and I wonder if that's the dynamic here.
[04:20:07] BYERS: I would say, though, that exit poll question to me is the most salient point in terms of what happened last night. And the reason for that is this: Donald -- Hillary Clinton has many areas growth.
We talk about her enthusiasm gap, for instance. But if you look at young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 and you say, well, look, if it is a match up between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, where do you go? And they say, we'll go to Hillary Clinton, I mean, many of them do say that.
There are a lot of areas where she has growth. Even more members of African-Americans, Latinos, Asians.
Donald Trump has basically told the Republican establishment to go to hell. I mean, you've got even the Koch brothers saying they might support Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
ROMANS: Pigs are flying.
BYERS: He has this core base of disenfranchised white Americans, primarily men. How far can that base expand to take on the broad network Hillary Clinton will have in the general election?
BERMAN: We will discuss, coming up. Stick around, guys.
ROMANS: All right. Donald Trump winning big tonight. Trump University being taken to court, accusing of scamming students. We've got details on that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:25:38] BERMAN: The Trump University fraud lawsuit will go to trial, and it could lead to Donald Trump taking the stand. A New York judge ruled that the $40 million suit brought by the state attorney general against Trump University and its former president will move forward. The attorney general alleges that Trump appeared in ads that falsely claimed Trump University would use hand-picked experts to teach get-rich real estate schemes. The attorney general says that this fleeced students out of millions.
ROMANS: Time for an early start on your money. Dow futures slipping this morning after some bad corporate results last night. Oil prices are up. Stock markets in Europe this hour in Asia mostly lower. Two well-known tech companies could suffer big losses in the stock market today.
Apple posted its worst quarterly results in 13 years. Here's what that looks like: profits sinking 22 percent during the three months of the year -- first three months of the year. Revenue falling 13 percent, iPhone sales dropping for the first time ever, down 16 percent compared with a year ago. That's 10 million fewer iPhones.
Apple shares down 8 percent in premarket trading. This is a widely held stock. You probably have it in your 401(k). It has been down some 20 percent over the past 12 months.
We're also tracking shares of Twitter. Its stock is down 13 percent ahead of the opening bell. A bad miss on sales. Twitter is also giving a lower outlook for the rest of the year. Over the past 12 months, the stock has lost more than half its value.
BERMAN: Twitter loses, but one of its biggest users wins, right? Donald Trump with big wins overnight in this Super Tuesday. Hillary Clinton also. How close are they now to clinching their nominations? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[04:31:24] TRUMP: I started all 17 (ph). I'm down -- now, I'm winning it. It's over. As far as I'm concerned, it's over. These two guys cannot win. There's no path.
CLINTON: With your help, we're going to come back to Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Big wins for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. They are getting closer to clinching their party's nominations. We will discuss how they got there and what comes next.
Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman.
ROMANS: Special edition of EARLY START this Wednesday. I'm Christine Romans. It's 31 minutes past the hour.
BERMAN: So, the Acela primary, a very big night for the front runners, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump especially, he went five for five. He swept all the states that voted overnight and by really big margins.
Look at that -- 63 percent in Rhode Island. In Delaware, he took 60 percent, nearly 61 percent. Connecticut, that was closer, still 57 percent. Pennsylvania, the biggest state at stake, 56 percent. And in Maryland, 54 percent. Wow.
ROMANS: And an important night for Clinton, who picked up Pennsylvania with 55 percent. In Maryland, 63 percent. To Delaware now, where she picked up almost 60 percent there. And in Connecticut, 51 percent.
Bernie Sanders won just one state, Rhode Island, 55 percent.
Trump and Clinton held late-night rallies, both calling for party unity, both pivoting toward the general election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I consider myself the presumptive nominee, absolutely.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Senator Cruz and Governor Kasich should really get out of the race now. They have no path to victory.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Honestly, they should get out of the race and we should heal the Republican Party, bring the Republican Party together.
CLINTON: I applaud Senator Sanders and his millions of supporters for challenging us to get unaccountable money out of our politics and giving --
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Greater emphasis to closing the gap of inequality. And I know together we will get that done.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Because whether you support Senator Sanders or you support me, there's much more that unites us than divides us.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: All right. Let's break down last night's results with our panel.
Senior media correspondent Brian Stelter, host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES", senior reporter for media and politics, Dylan Byers, and CNN politics reporter, Eric Bradner.
Thanks for being here this morning.
I guess, Dylan, let's start with you. Your headline from last night -- I mean, how many ways -- how many languages can you say the word finished? You said it's finished. We're done here.
BYERS: I have to learn how to say finished in German. I really do again think this has changed from a conversation about momentum to math. And Bernie Sanders has even effectively acknowledged that he's going to be going to the convention, trying to push his progressive platform but that he's not going to win his party's nomination.
Ted Cruz is -- you know, call it denial, call it hope against hope, he still believes that he has a shot and that shot runs through Indiana. But again, you give him Indiana, look at Trump's margin, his lead in the big states like California and New Jersey.
[04:35:02] So, look, Cruz can't get to 1,237. And one of the key exit poll questions was, if Donald Trump can't get to 1,237, who should be the nominee? And the majority of people who answered that question said it should be the guy with the most votes. And that is Donald Trump.
It's going to be very hard for the Republican Party to tell a plurality of majority of voters that they're not going to get what they want. I just don't see it happening.
BERMAN: Eric Bradner, there's something very interesting at the tactical level that we saw last night as well, which maybe shows the Trump campaign is getting its act together.
In Pennsylvania, which Donald lot, outright, and he won all 17 of the statewide delegates there, he also apparently, we believe, picked up the support of many, the majority of the 54 unbound delegates. Those are delegates who are directly elected. At least 29, probably more than that, tell CNN they will vote for Donald Trump.
That's a key organizational victory. It makes his sweep last night all the more impressive.
BRADNER: Yes, that sort of thing is key at this point. The only way Trump can be defeated -- and Dylan is right. It's next to impossible at this point. Ted Cruz has to win Indiana, and a bunch of things have to break against Donald Trump and bleeding delegates in states like Pennsylvania was one of them.
Yet, his campaign really has got its act together. We do expect at least 29 delegates in Pennsylvania to support Trump.
So, part of the problem for Trump, part of what really bolstered this never Trump movement was that you could go sort of from state convention to congressional district convention weekend after weekend after weekend and watch Ted Cruz and John Kasich beat him, have recruited delegates who were legally bound to Trump on the first ballot but would definitely switch to someone else on the second ballot.
And what we saw in Pennsylvania last night was an indication that's sort of stopping. Now, Trump obviously needs to replicate that in other states. West Virginia, for example, is going to be another example, but it's big for Trump to stop bleeding those delegates because it means that all of the sudden, the other candidates are truly facing the demography of the electorate. They're facing this limited, narrow map that's left. If there's no way to sort of trick it, to work outside that map, then they don't really have a path to the nomination. ROMANS: Brian, there was a moment last night in Donald Trump's
victory speech when he talked about Hillary Clinton in very disparaging terms, and about how if she were a man, she wouldn't even get 5 percent of the vote. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, I think the only card she has is the woman card. She's got nothing else going. Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she'd get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she's got going is the woman's card, and the beautiful thing is women don't like her, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Now, just moments before this, Hillary Clinton almost anticipating I think this line of attack. She had a comment about playing the women's card. Listen to what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Now the other day, Mr. Trump accused me of playing the, quote, "woman card".
(BOOS)
Well, if fighting for women's health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: What do you think of that, Brian Stelter?
STELTER: You know, factually speaking, first of all, obviously, she would have more than 5 percent of the vote if she were a man. She was a secretary of state. And she was in the Senate and had many other roles.
But there's a deeper underlying comment there by Trump, right, which is that she's only gotten where she is because of her husband, because of her man. That's not the kind of thing that a lot of women are going to appreciate hearing. I'm sure some men are going to be offended by it as well. I'm sure Trump is going to be asked about it again and again on the morning shows today about this victories.
Whether he wanted to or not, he's created another story on top of his victory, another controversy. I suppose what we would call this is Trump being Trump, as Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager has said for months, that's the strategy for this campaign, let Trump be Trump.
And that's what we saw in this press conference. We didn't see a more restrained Donald Trump. He talked for 40 minutes in primetime. He took advantage of the broadcast time, but he said a number of things that were -- at one point, remember Mary Pat Christie right behind Trump, seemingly rolling her eyes about the comment about the woman's card, a number of kind of controversies coming out of this press conference, whether Donald Trump wanted that or not.
ROMANS: You can see there. Watch carefully. This is when he's talking about how she wouldn't have 5 percent of the vote. You can see her kind of look to the side and almost roll her eyes.
STELTER: You know, we know that she represents many people in the viewing audience who thought that comment was not quite right. I think that's going to drive a new narrative for Trump in the coming days.
[04:40:01] As we all talk about, Trump saying this as a presumptive nominee and I think it's correct to say he's the presumptive nominee. What does it mean as he tries to broaden out his base?
BERMAN: Go ahead, Dylan?
BYERS: Can I just add to that? Go back and look at 2012 -- 53 percent of the people who voted in the general election in 2012 were women, and 55 percent of them voted for Barack Obama, voted for the Democrat.
If Donald Trump being Trump means making the general election about gender and introducing a gender debate, I think Hillary Clinton welcomes that. I think that's what she meant when she said deal me in. And, you know, we've talked about "deal me in" is going to become a slogan. It is a boon I think to everyone except for those disenfranchised white males who support Trump.
STELTER: I think no matter, this is a gender election, right? It's a gender debate. It's going to be because there's a female nominee. Certainly it appears there will be.
I do have to keep in mind Trump and many of his supporters would say, we don't take everything he says exactly the way the media takes it. That some of this is -- you know t there's sort of a literal meaning of his words and a psychological meaning of his words. We have to keep in mind the way his supporters will read things might be different than what, you know, media elites would read them at.
BERMAN: All right, guys. Stand by. A lot more to talk about on this front. Donald Trump, as we've been saying, going five for five. Expect he will be doing some celebrating this morning on "NEW DAY." Also having to answer questions about what he meant by that Hillary Clinton wouldn't get more than 5 percent if she were a man. That's "NEW DAY" at 6:00 a.m. Eastern.
ROMANS: But wait, there's more. Also on "NEW DAY," Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who's warning the GOP not to wait until the convention to get their acts together, it will be, quote, "too late". You'll see him in the 8:00 hour.
BERMAN: All right. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, they win big, still short though of clinching their nomination. What are they going to do to get over the top? That's next.
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[04:16:13] BERMAN: All right. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, they both won big last night. Still, the math. They need to get more delegates to secure the nomination.
So, let's take a look ahead at the next few contests and who the other candidates blame for their losses.
Let's bring back our panel -- Brian Stelter, Dylan Byers, Eric Bradner.
You know, Brian and Dylan, this is right in your wheelhouse. Ted Cruz, you know, when the going gets tough, what does a political candidate do? Blame the media.
Listen to how he explained Donald Trump's success last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRUZ: If you find yourself wondering why the media is so eager to have Donald as the Republican nominee, you don't have to look any further than today's "USA Today" front page. Forty percent of GOP doubt they vote for Trump.
Now, I want you to think for a second. The network executives, are they Democrats or are they Republicans? Every one of them are ready for Hillary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: You know, Dylan, that same "USA Today" poll he held up showed him with a 16-point lead nationally, Donald Trump with a 16-point lead nationally over Ted Cruz, although, he didn't talk about that.
It does make sense, I suppose, particularly in the Republican primary, media is wildly unpopular for Ted Cruz to attack. But does that explain all of his problems?
BYERS: Well, look, our colleague David Axelrod said it far better than I could say it. Attacking the media is a loser's lament. And it is.
If you attack the media, if you say the media is going to hem and haw about this is the end of the Republican primary and Ted Cruz doesn't stand a chance, then Ted Cruz's core base of supporters are likely either not going to watch or they're going to watch and criticize everything we have to say.
But the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, attacking the media, it's great, it's red meat for the conservative base. They don't trust the media anyway. I mean, the majority of Americans don't trust the media.
But at the end of the day, it fundamentally doesn't help. You can blame the media. You can blame whatever you want. At the end of the day, you have to put numbers on the board. Ted Cruz hasn't put those numbers on the board.
And that doesn't have anything to do with the media. The media never said -- you know, they never said he didn't stand any chance against Donald Trump. I mean, in fact, for a long time, they've been carrying this narrative of a contested convention. That's what we've been doing.
STELTER: Interesting how in the last few hours here, the contested convention idea has faded a little bit because the numbers are so on Trump's side here. Mathematically impossible, essentially, for Cruz, definitely for Kasich, perhaps for Cruz as well, depending on what happens in Indiana going forward. It's interesting how that narrative is changing a little bit.
I think bottom line, media types love a good story. Cruz versus Clinton would be a good story in the same way Trump versus Clinton would be a good story. It would be really interesting to cover. I saw David Plouffe, a former Obama adviser tweeting overnight, the first Trump/Clinton debate will be a global phenomenon.
And the idea that that's already being thought about, right, five months before, speaks to what happen in these results last night.
ROMANS: Some could argue the media underestimated the rise of Donald Trump, you know? Or was overly critical early on, by not -- which is not even a possibility.
STELTER: There's a lot of hostility toward him I think among commentators and perhaps some journalists previously as well, a lot of shock that he's gotten as far as he has.
These really are extraordinary times. We've never seen a presumptive nominee like Donald Trump before. That's the real media bias, which is toward a good story line.
ROMANS: I want to get in a statement we got last night from Bernie Sanders. I want to read it to you guys, and tell me what you think here. The people in every state in this country should have the right to determine who they want as president and what the agenda of the Democratic Party should be.
[04:50:05] That's why we are in this race until the last vote is cast. That's why this campaign is going to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia with as many delegates as possible.
Eric Bradner, he's not talking about winning the nomination anymore but he's talking about sticking it out.
BRADNER: That's right. The statement last night was an obvious indication he's in this through the California primary on June 7th and actually the D.C. contest the week after that.
But Hillary Clinton supporters are going to be quite hopeful that this means Bernie Sanders is going to really dial back his personal attacks and focus on the issues that have been central to his campaign all along. Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver did tell CNN afterward that he is still trying to win the nomination. That's still the goal.
But that statement was a really sort of eye-popping indicator that Sanders is sort of dealing with the reality of the math at this point. There's no real way for him to catch Hillary Clinton in pledge delegates, in total vote count, in delegates overall, including super delegates, any sort of measurement, which is why you actually heard him talking about polls last night that show him head to head against Donald Trump, actually reaching out to super delegates, trying to get them to change their minds. It's kind of all he has left at this point.
So, Clinton extended a big olive branch in her speech last night. Sort of reaching out to Sanders' supporters, praising the issues he's raised. Hillary Clinton is going to be watching closely to see if Bernie Sanders does dial it back a bit. If he does, that olive branch extension is going to be a trend that we're going to be noticing in the days ahead.
BERMAN: Now, the language today will be key to see, because that statement that Bernie Sanders put out says he looks forward to an issue-based campaign over the coming months. Those words jumped out as something that maybe he is going to tone it back. We will pay attention today.
Guys, stand by.
ROMANS: All right. Primary voters had their money on their minds last night. The economy and jobs the top issues yet again the top issue.
Let's turn to Pennsylvania, the voters say the economy is most important. Sixty percent think Donald Trump is their guy. John Kasich and Ted Cruz well behind that.
Another signature Trump issue, trade. We asked if trade with other countries takes away U.S. jobs. More than half the electorate said yes and overwhelmingly broke for Trump.
Southern Connecticut has big ties to Wall Street, money ties to Wall Street. We asked the statewide electorate if Wall Street helps or hurts the economy. Look at that. 50 percent said it helps, 41 percent said it hurts.
BERMAN: You're talking about them.
ROMANS: And Trump won both categories, by the way.
Over on the Democratic side, same question, different breakdown. Just 29 percent of Democrats in Connecticut say Wall Street helps the economy. Clinton won nearly 80 percent of those voters, 63 percent said Wall Street hurts the economy. Those voters sided with Bernie Sanders.
But again, that's in Wall Street's backyard. Big hedge fund money there, a lot of jobs in Connecticut tied directly to Wall Street banking money.
BERMAN: Very interesting.
All right. Donald Trump obviously the big winner overnight. There was a lawsuit, though, against Trump and Trump University. It is now moving forward. A big development in that case. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:57:28] ROMANS: The Trump University fraud lawsuit will go to trial, and it could lead to Donald Trump taking the stand. A New York judge ruling that the $40 million suit brought by the state's attorney general against Trump, the university, and its former president will move forward. The attorney general alleging Trump appeared in ads that falsely claimed Trump University would use hand-picked experts to teach get-rich real estate schemes. The attorney general says that fleeced students out of millions of dollars.
BERMAN: This morning, former House Speaker Denny Hastert learns his fate for paying hush money to cover up alleged sex abuse. Hastert already pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators and orchestrating illegal bank withdrawals in the 1970s as part of the plea deal. A judge is expected to hear testimony from at least one of Hastert's accusers at today's sentencing before deciding whether the 74-year-old should serve jail time.
ROMANS: Tennessee's governor must decide by tonight whether to sign or veto a so-called therapist bill. The legislation would allow psychotherapists to refuse service to LGBT patients for religious reasons. Last week, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam convinced lawmakers to withdraw a similar bill which would require transgender students to use restrooms according to the gender on their birth certificate, not the gender with which they identified.
BERMAN: Prince's sister wants a special administrator appointed to find out how much the late singer was worth and what to do with his assets. Tyka Nelson told a Minnesota court that Prince did not have a will and though one really knows the value of his estate, which includes the Paisley Park property, a record label, and thousands of songs. It is believed he was worth at least $300 million. Prince was not married. He had no living parents or children.
ROMANS: Bill Cosby faces an uphill legal battle in his attempt to get sex abuse allegations against him dismissed. A California judge denied the comedian's second attempt to kill a lawsuit by a woman who claims Cosby sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion when she was 15 years old.
Meantime in New York, a federal judge denied Cosby's bid urging a New York magazine publisher to hand over unedited interviews of six women, also suing him for sexual abuse.
BERMAN: All right. Big night in politics. Big results for the frontrunners.
EARLY START continues now. (MUSIC)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I just want to thank everybody. This is a far bigger win than we even expected. All five. That's something --
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Let's go forward. Let's win the nomination, and in July, let's return as a unified party.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Huge victories for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The presidential front runners getting closer to clinching their party's nomination.
