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S.E. Cupp Unfiltered

Moderate Democrats Voice Concerns About A Sanders Nomination; Powerful Nevada Union Declines To Endorse In Democratic Primary; Buttigieg To Be Tested In Majority-Minority State, Biden Hopes To Revive Campaign With Latino Support; Increased Scrutiny Of Former Mayor Bloomberg Ahead Of Nevada Debate; Facebook And Twitter Leave Up Trump's Misleading Video Of Pelosi. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired February 15, 2020 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

S.E., CNN HOST: Welcome to UNFILTERED. I'm S.E. Cupp.

Here's tonight's headline, feeling the burn or heartburn? I couldn't help but laugh this week as countless pundit, headline writers and Bernie Sanders rivals in the 2020 election tried to spin his win in New Hampshire as somehow not good news for Bernie. He didn't win by enough, they said.

He didn't bring in new voters, they said. New Hampshire doesn't really count, they said, look, whatever makes you feel better. But after a strong finish behind Pete Buttigieg in Iowa, Sanders is the frontrunner whether Democrats like it or not and many, it turns out, really do not.

New Hampshire Senator Shaheen was quick to point out Bernie didn't win big in her state. Moderate Democrats in particular are sounding alarms on a Sanders nomination. Congressman Scott Peters from a purple California district told The Hill, Sanders is about the worst candidate we can put up. He not only won't likely win the presidency, he puts the House majority at risk.

Congressman Dean Phillips, who flipped a Republican district in Minnesota in 2018 said, while I respect Bernie Sanders as a senator, as a candidate, his candidacy is very challenging for people who come from districts like mine.

Max Rose, a Congressman from Staten Island said, I'm not a socialist. I'm thinking about printing T-shirts saying as much. I think socialist economic policies fail inevitably.

And just listen to the emotional pleas over on MSNBC for Democratic voters to beware of Sanders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: I have my own views on the word, socialist. I have an attitude about them. I remember the Cold War. I have an attitude towards Castro. I believe if Castro and the reds had won the Cold War, there would be executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed and certain other people would be there cheering.

JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: The only thing between the United States and the abyss is the Democratic Party. That's it. And if we go the way of the British Labor Party, if we nominate Jeremy Corbyn, it's going to be the end of days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUPP: The end of days, you guys. This all feels very familiar to me. In fact, this was me four years ago melting down at the thought of Trump becoming the Republican nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUPP: Most Republicans find what Donald Trump said to be repulsive. It's repulsive morally. It's repulsive if you cherish the Constitution. It's repulsive if you're a good conservative. It's repulsive if you like freedom of religion. It's repulsive on so many levels.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUPP: You could almost hear me lighting my hair on fire. Of course, it turns out I was worried for nothing. Everything is great. This is all fine. Trump is the least popular president to run for re-election history in the history of polls. He's added more than $3 trillion to the debt, started a trade war, failed on major campaign promises, got himself for goating a foreign country to interfere in our election and gave Democrats back the House. Good job, GOP.

Look, there are parallels between the never-Trump concerns and the growing concerns of never-Sanders Democrats. He's too extreme, he'll hurt the down ballot, he won't be able to get his agenda passed. We said those same things of Trump and we were mostly right. These are good warnings to heed. Sanders is an extreme candidate. He will transform the Democratic Party in ways that likely very few will support. He will not be able to get a lot of his agenda passed.

But when It comes to Sanders' electability, well, a word of caution there too.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUPP: Frankly, I don't know how Trump surrogates like Luke can sleep at night peddling this inconstitutional, unconservative and un- American garbage for a guy who, let's face it, will never be president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUPP: I mean, we were obviously -- we were wrong about Trump's electability. True, he didn't win the popular vote. True, he didn't even win the majority Republican voters in the primary and true, Hillary Clinton was a very flawed candidate, but Trump won. Here's the deal. Bernie is electable in ways that Trump electable in 2016. Bernie, like Trump, is counting not on the support of a majority of Democrats to win the nomination but on just enough of his very loyal base to carry him over the line.

[18:05:00]

Just like Trump, he's relying on a big field and a divided field to give him the most votes. But he's also electable because Trump is a very flawed candidate. In virtually every national poll, Trump ties or loses to every leading Democratic candidate. And if you zoom in on six battleground state, Trump was trailing Biden, Sanders and Warren were barely ahead, a trend that's continued in a couple of swing state polls since that also included Pete Buttigieg. That's good news for all of the Democratic contenders but particularly Bernie.

So to Democrat, I say, learn from us never-Trumpers. We were wrong about the kind of candidate Trump was, but we were right about the kind of president he would become.

Here to discuss is former Obama Senior Adviser, CNN Senior Political Commentator David Axelrod. Axe, look, Bernie and Trump are obviously very different. I stipulate this. Bernie doesn't bring all of the personal ethical scandals that Trump did that we know of anyway. But Bernie seems, for one thing, equally disinterested in earning the affection of the Democratic Party, as Trump did, right, of the GOP. You remember, Reince Priebus like flying down -- flying up to New York to beg Trump to sign this loyalty pledge. Is that going to pose a problem for the DNC?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Look, let me just -- first of all, let me say I was sitting right next to you when you said many of those things and I was probably nodding my head.

CUPP: I know.

AXELROD: So we were all there together. And you're right in much of what you say here. And the fact is that Bernie Sanders is an anti- establishment candidate in much the way Donald Trump was when he talks about the economy being rigged against everyday people. That's a very familiar theme. They have different causes. He's not pointing at immigrants and he's not pointing at some of the targets that Trump pointed to. He's pointing more at Wall Street and our economic system.

But he does speak to a sense of alienation that a lot of Americans feel and he speaks with authenticity, which was -- nobody said -- whether you like Trump or not, nobody said, gee, I wish he'd speak his mind, okay? He is authentic and Bernie Sanders is authentic and he's a much better candidate on T.V. than people give him credit for. I mean, he's very, very good. I mean, all those things are true.

You know, the one place where I disagree with you is that it's a little bit different because I don't think -- I think these people who said he underperformed in the first two states are right. I mean, he won New Hampshire by 60 percent. He barely squeaked a win out in an 18 percent higher turnout which you think he'd favor him. He barely squeaked win out over Pete Buttigieg even though Amy Klobuchar was a very strong third, taking votes from Pete Buttigieg. Without Amy Klobuchar, he would have gotten beaten badly in New Hampshire.

Now, the fact is that there are three or four center-left candidates competing into the Super Tuesday states, he's going to start mounting up a delegate lead. And he may not be able to get to -- the Democratic Party is not like the Republican Party.

Our mutual friend, Mike Murphy, likes to say the Republican Party is social Darwinism. It's winner take all. In the Democratic Party, we give out participation ribbons. So if you get 15 percent, you get delegates. And for that reason, it would be hard for Sanders, I think, to get to get to a majority of delegates but he could be a delegate leader if the center-left is splintered.

There are more center-left votes than left votes. But if the center- left continues to be splintered, if Biden and Buttigieg and Klobuchar all go into the Super Tuesday states along with Michael Bloomberg, that could be a big day for Bernie Sanders.

So the process is working against him in terms of getting the kind of momentum that Trump got, but he still could become the delegate leader. And that poses a problem for the Democratic Party because you're going to say to the delegate leader, even if he is not close to getting what he needs, you're not going to be the nominee. And if you do that, where do all of the Sanders voters go?

Trump is working this already. He keeps saying, they're trying to rig it against Bernie. He has all this solicitude for Bernie. If Bernie becomes a candidate, you'd better believe he's going to try and kick his butt with socialism and all of that. But right now, he's trying to plant the seed with Sanders voters that they're cheating Bernie, they're going to take it away from Bernie. There are a lot of problems ahead for the Democratic Party if that is the scenario.

CUPP: One of them will be Donald Trump, whoever the eventual nominee is. And in another way, I want to ask you to compare 2016 versus 2020 is this. Was Hillary 2016 a stronger or weaker candidate than Trump 2020?

[18:10:03]

AXELROD: Was Hillary 2016 a stronger or weaker candidate? I think she was a weaker candidate only because Trump is -- he is an authentic character. He does have an incredibly strong hold on his base. Hillary had a fractured base. And Trump had something else.

He had something else which is he is willing to do anything. There are no boundaries. There are no limits and that creates a kind of asymmetric warfare if you're running against a candidate who's willing to do anything and you're not and most Democrats won't and be, that gives him a perverse advantage in an election campaign.

CUPP: As you know, never-Trumpers like me ended up either being marginalized within the party or pushed out completely. Should never- Sanders people kind of prepare for a similar fate? AXELROD: No. Well, certainly the Sanders supporters can be brutal if you -- if they feel like you are straying from Bernie. The leaders of the Culinary Union in Nevada just learned that when they took off after Bernie and, you know, they were publishing the names of the -- or threatening to pass around the home addresses of the labor leaders so the Bernie people knew where they lived and so on. I mean, there is some of that. Bernie disavowed that.

But I think in the main -- this is -- Democrats should make an assessment no matter who the nominee is, that nominee versus the prospect of four more years of President Trump. And it's hard for me to believe that large numbers of Democrats would say, well, given that choice I'm just not going to participate. I think that Trump may organize the Democrats better than the Democrats appear to be organizing themselves right now.

CUPP: David Axelrod, my friend, always good to see you. Thanks for coming on.

AXELROD: Great to see you, S.E. Thank you.

CUPP: OK. Up next, a powerful Nevada union says it found itself on the wrong side of the Bernie Bros. Does that complicate things for the Vermont senator just a week before the first in the west caucus? And we're in the thick of it now, so make sure to tune into the CNN original series Race for the White House, which returns tomorrow night at 9:00 on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:15:00]

CUPP: Democrats this week were eagerly awaiting the coveted endorsement from Nevada's Culinary Union. It's one of the largest, most politically active unions in the nation, but it never came. The union announced it isn't endorsing a specific candidate ahead of next week's caucus.

The non-endorsement came just days after the union criticized Bernie Sanders' Medicare-for-all plan. This drew the uniquely retaliatory ire of Sanders supporters who apparently flooded the Union's Twitter feed and phone lines to the point where the union released a statement saying it was being viciously attacked by Sanders' fans.

Sanders himself condemned the behavior on Thursday. Harassment of all forms is unacceptable to me and we urge supporters of all campaigns to not engage in bullying or ugly personal attacks. Our campaign is building a multi-generational, multi-racial movement of love, compassion and justice. We could certainly disagree on issues but we must do it in a respectful manner.

CUPP: Now, when he was asked about the ordeal on PBS, Sanders echoed that message himself but has questioned the nature of reality.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Obviously, that is not acceptable to me. I don't know who these so-called supporters are. You know, we're living in a strange world on the internet and sometimes people attack people in somebody else's name. But let me be very clear, anybody making personal attacks against anybody else in my name is not part of our movement. We don't want them. And I'm not so sure, to be honest with you, that they are necessarily part of our movement. You understand, the nature of the internet. It's a strange world out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUPP: Doesn't even know if they really exist.

Now, let me get this out of the way. A candidate can't always be held responsible for everything their supporters do or say, but Sanders supporters have been notorious for this kind of thing for five years now, so there is a legitimate question here about whether Sanders has done or said enough to curb this behavior.

Joining me to discuss, are Assistant Editor at "Washington Post," David Swerdlick, and Republican strategist, Shermichael Singleton.

David, Sanders has condemned this stuff repeatedly, but it keeps happening. Is there anything else he should be doing to call off the attack Dogs or is it really out of his hands at this point?

DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, yes, in that clip you just played, he did disavow those supporters but it has been, as you said, widely reported since 2016 that there are a lot of Sanders supporters, including and especially online who have an edge to them. And so for him to have portrayed it as like I don't know who these people are is --

CUPP: Right, putting them in quotes like this.

SWERDLICK: That's a nudge too far. I mean, like you said, he doesn't control everyone.

CUPP: Of course.

SWERDLICK: And there are people who are going to support him who are not going to do what he wants, and that's not his fault, but, yes.

CUPP: Well, as you just said, the stuff is happening primarily online. It's primarily on Twitter and Facebook. It's a not miss (ph).

SWERDLICK: Yes.

CUPP: Does Bernie raise a valid point that this could be Russian bots, this could be -- or even Trump supporters?

SWERDLICK: It could be. I would just say though that it happens to journalists. It has happened to me in a less threatening and light- hearted way. I was once called a Hillary Clinton boot licker for saying something on air that was critical Senator Sanders. I was kind of like, wow, they care about the boot lickers. That's fine.

But the reality here is that I think Senator Sanders can lean in a little more to making clear that he wants his movement to be a competition, not an attack on all comers and he didn't do it in that interview.

CUPP: Trust me, they're real. Shermichael, we can't talk about whether candidates are responsible for the worst of their supporters without bringing up the elephant in the room, Donald Trump. Unlike Sanders, Trump openly encourages bad behavior at his rallies.

[18:20:02]

He's praised a congressman who beat up a journalist. He promised to pay the legal fees of people who beat up opponents of his. He personally attacks people on Twitter. There's no comparison.

Is Bernie, therefore, getting a bit of a pass because Trump is worse?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I mean, I think so. But to me, he sort of had a Kellyanne Conway moment of alternative truths. Bernie Sanders would say, oh, I don't know if some of those people were really my supporters. This isn't a new thing, S.E. We saw this in 2015 and 2016 --

CUPP: Yes.

SINGLETON: -- with some of Bernie Sanders' supporters. And I think if the whole argument --

CUPP: To get a better story.

SINGLETON: Right. But I think the argument from Bernie is we're better than Trump, we're going to do things differently, then don't you think you should encourage some of your followers, including those online to behave in a way that your arguing is representative of your value, beliefs and your candidacy? And he really isn't by not saying anything aggressively strong by condemning it. From my perspective, he's sort of softly saying, if you do it, I'm not going to really say much about it, and that's a problem.

CUPP: Well, David, to that point, The Daily Beast's Sam Stein recently tweeted, lots of people at Warren and Pete town halls I talked were weighing a Sanders vote but said they were turned off by the culture and the crowds. I mean, this could just be the perception of the culture and the crowds, but could that perception be a problem?

SWERDLICK: The culture and the crowds of the Sanders supporters?

CUPP: Yes.

SWERDLICK: Yes. No, there is an edge to them, and here is the thing. What benefit Senator Sanders is that his supporters are more enthusiastic about their candidate than the supporters of the other candidates are about their candidates.

CUPP: Yes.

SWERDLICK: That is one of the reasons he's leading this race right now, the enthusiasm, the numbers of small dollar donors.

The flipside of a coin is is that anytime someone criticizes Senator Sanders or anytime someone says, hey, but I like this other candidate's plan, Buttigieg, Warren, Biden, someone's, you do get a flurry of criticism out there saying, oh, you're establishment, yes.

SINGLETON: He's Trump on the left. In many ways, he's sort moved by populist-esque movement on the left.

CUPP: Well, listen, and I think as the woman at the table, I also just want to point out there's a particular brand of Bernie Bro criticism that women are getting and it's gross.

OK. David and Shermichael, you guys are staying right there because I want your take on Nevada as well.

And a little later, there is a debate next week. Voters may get their first real look at surging billionaire candidate Mike Bloomberg then. Will they like what they see?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:25:00]

CUPP: Early voting for next week's caucus in Nevada starts today and the first in the west contest is also the first opportunity a majority-minority state will cast ballots. For Pete Buttigieg, he needs to show that he can appeal to more diverse and representative pool of Democratic voters than those who handed him strong finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. Joe Biden also needs a strong performance, period. Here's what he told CNN's Arlette Saenz at an event in Las Vegas just this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: How well do you need to do here in Nevada?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: I just got to do well.

SAENZ: Do you think you need to win? Do you need to be first place?

BIDEN: No, I don't think I have to, but I think we have a shot at doing that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUPP: He also told donors at a New York City fundraiser this week that he's confident he'll win South Carolina two weeks from now.

Okay. Back with me is Assistant Editor at The Washington Post, David Swerdlick, and Republican strategist, Shermichael Singleton. Also joining me is the former Nevada State Director for Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign, Emmy Ruiz, who also served as a Senior Adviser to Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.

So let me start with you, Emmy. First, there are, I'm sure you know, no minority frontrunner candidates left in this Democratic primary. The top tier of candidates is now all white. How does that affect the Nevada primary?

EMMY RUIZ, FORMER NEVADA STATE DIRECTOR, CLINTON 2016 CAMPAIGN: Thank you so much for having me. I am very painfully aware of that reality. I think Nevada is an incredible state. It is the first contest of the first four that is truly reflective of this country. It is 30 percent Latino, 10 percent African-American and has the fastest growing API population in the nation.

And so it's incredibly important that every single candidate work hard, show their record that they have a proven record of working and fighting for these communities and these families that also has a significant union household population in Nevada.

CUPP: Yes.

RUIZ: So I think it's the first -- it's going to be the first real test for any of these candidates to truly gauge how they can perform in the rest of the country.

CUPP: and talk to me about the controversy with the Nevada Culinary Union. Latinos make up more than half of the 60,000 members there. So who does the decision not to endorse any candidate, who does that hurt the most?

RUIZ: Well, you know, I think -- let me start by saying the Culinary Union Local 226 is incredibly powerful and strong. And part of the reason that that is the case is, one, they have more than 60,000 members, as you mentioned, but two, they have worked really hard to provide direct services, benefits, have fought tirelessly on behalf of their members. And so I would say that I am sure they're going to do everything they can to also turn out their members and to create opportunities for those members who hear from a different --

CUPP: But for whom, Emmy? I mean, by not endorsing anyone, right, who are they turning their members out to?

[18:30:01]

RUIZ: You know, I think that they're going to be, you know, making the case over the next few weeks.

I saw that Vice President Biden had an event with culinary members, it was at the back of the House just earlier today, and there was a lot of energy and excitement. He also got a big endorsement from Congressman Steven Horsford, who used to work for the culinary. He is also the only African-American congressman in Nevada.

And so it's really going to be incumbent on all of the candidates to make sure that, you know, they're going to the at-large caucus sites, that they're going to the training center, that they're knocking on those doors across Clark County and throughout Nevada work culinary members are found and taking the case directly to them.

CUPP: David, Pete Buttigieg has upped his ground game in Nevada. He has begun airing Spanish language ads in the state. Do you think that could pay off for him?

SWERDLICK: Maybe a little bit, I think what could pay off for him potentially more is that his position lines up with culinary workers 226 that he wants to give people you know, sort of a public option, not Medicare-for-All and take away the union negotiated benefits. That was what this controversy with Wednesday's flyer was all about.

But now you wonder if the union has taken away a little of their dues by not, as you said endorsing. Maybe they see the writing on the wall and think maybe Senator Sanders is too risky to go against them, because he's got all the MO right now.

CUPP: Shermichael, you saw what Joe Biden just said about Nevada. Does that inspire confidence for his finish there among his supporters?

SINGLETON: I mean, not really. But I think as long as he gets at least second place and gets first in South Carolina, I think he could make --

CUPP: He is alive.

SINGLETON: Absolutely. I think he can make an argument to donors that hey, now this race is really open. Now, it is competitive. Now, I have a shot going into Super Tuesday for you guys to pump cash into my campaign. And that's been his argument all along.

CUPP: Right. And David, what about Elizabeth Warren? Could she make a comeback here in Nevada?

SWERDLICK: Anything is possible. I think there's so many things that are going on with her campaign. I'm not going to write her off until Super Tuesday, but I think her campaign is struggling to distinguish --

CUPP: In Nevada in particular. I mean, a number of --

SWERDLICK: Right. She is not far enough --

CUPP: I mean, a number of I think half a dozen of her staffers of color left the Nevada office because of the way they thought they were being treated.

SWERDLICK: There was a controversy. But I think the bigger problem for her -- that is absolutely an issue in Nevada -- is that she is far enough to Sanders's right on healthcare for the Culinary Workers Union. She is not far enough to the right of Pete Buttigieg. And so she's kind of caught in this no man's land.

And I think her campaign has not quite found the right way to come back from their downsides starting in October. SINGLETON: But I think this is the end of the road for a lot of these

candidates. Elizabeth Warren, absolutely. Amy Klobuchar, they have not resonated with minorities.

I think Mayor Pete arguably may do perform better than the two of them, but I think come South Carolina, I'm not exactly sure that those candidates will have enough money to be able to compete as well as they would like to Super Tuesday.

CUPP: Yes, that's right. Yes. Sure.

SWERDLICK: I think that they are going to go on to Super Tuesday, but it's going to be tougher.

SINGLETON: I think that would be the end of the road.

CUPP: Emmy, finally, back to you, there are jitters in the Democratic Party after the last caucus. You know, the one I'm talking about. What are you hearing about the Nevada caucus about how this one will go?

RUIZ: Yes, well, let me start by telling you, the Nevada Democratic Party and the DNC have a strong partnership. The Nevada Democratic Party is known for being the strongest in the nation.

They have put in some new reforms that are actually making the caucus process more accessible and more transparent. Today, as you mentioned earlier is the first day of early voting.

CUPP: Will it just work? Will it just work?

RUIZ: It will work. I have faith that it will work. They had trained thousands of volunteers.

CUPP: Okay, good.

RUIZ: They have an incredibly strong team. Everyone is working together to ensure that it is a success. And honestly, it's on all of us to make sure that that that's the case. And so, I hope that if people haven't voted, go out and vote in Nevada. If you haven't volunteered yet, go out and volunteer because it's going to be on all of us.

CUPP: Emmy, David, Shermichael, thank you all for joining me. It'll be an important next contest well all will be watching.

Okay, Bloomberg had -- well, he had a big week, the good, the bad and the ugly when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:38:42]

CUPP: In The Red File tonight, Michael Bloomberg has had quite a week. CNN's most recent poll of polls, has him sitting in fourth place with eight percent support. And after the DNC changed a rule to accommodate his self-funded campaign, he is on the cusp of making the debate in Las Vegas next week. He needs just one more qualifying poll to appear on the stage.

Not surprisingly, there's been increased scrutiny of the former mayor. First, there's his support and expansion of New York's stop and frisk policy during his time as Mayor, which disproportionately targeted minorities.

He is again on defense after these comments he made in 2015 resurfaced.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that's true. Why do we do it? Because that's where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids' hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CUPP: Also coming back to haunt him or comments he made about the housing crisis in 2008, saying, "It all probably started when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone." Bloomberg bemoaned, ending the practice of redlining in which banks discriminated against poor and minority neighborhoods.

Finally, there are the less than flattering headlines appearing in "GQ" and "The Washington Post" outlining the sexual harassment lawsuits Bloomberg and/or his companies have faced, allegations he has denied.

[18:40:09]

CUPP: But during a January appearance on "The View," he did admit to making an occasional "body joke" in the past which he regrets.

Now, that may be baggage but there are also Bloomberg's bags -- bags of money. Can he buy his way into Democrats' hearts and minds? With me now is veteran political anchor with Spectrum News and CNN Political Commentator, Errol Louis.

Errol, my friend you cover the city of New York. You and I write for New York media outlets. We know Bloomberg very well. But the rest of the country is kind of just getting to know him better now. How was this week for him?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This was not a great week for him and I guess, you could summarize it, S.E., as welcome to the top ranks, welcome to the front runners club.

The way you know you're a front runner or considered to be a front runner in the Democratic primary is, you start feeling darts in your back and kicks in your butt and he got plenty of both, meaning he is getting serious scrutiny now. He is getting an evaluation of his record as mayor, his time as a public leader of a kind that he's never received before.

And it's coming from people who have the resources and the credibility to make some of those charges stick.

CUPP: So do you think he can move some of these -- move past some of these problems with Democratic voters who, you know, care about things like race and criminal justice and class warfare and equality in the workplace? Can he move past all that with a voting base that, you know for whom that really matters?

LOUIS: Well, look that is the question, and I think it's going to be a matter of the ex-mayor, not only answering questions, and that's really what campaigns are about, you know, you encounter a setback, you encounter a test, you encounter a challenge, how you meet, it really, really matters.

I think what he will likely do is try and broaden people's perception of what his 12 years as mayor really meant. He's got a record to run on. He's got a record that is not simply stop and frisk, you know.

So for example, he'll talk about education and about school choice and about the initiatives that he championed as mayor. And they account for the reason that he has got respected educators like Geoffrey Canada and Dennis Walcott, who are very much in his corner because as you remember, he first got mayoral control of the schools for the first time in a couple of generations. That in itself was an important change.

And, you know, he led School Choice, he was pro charter. Most students -- most charter students in New York City to this day happen to be African-American, and you're talking about tens of thousands of families who kind of like what he did in supporting charters and supporting School Choice.

So if he can get people to look at his entire record, they'll have a much more solid case. If he lets himself get cornered on that debate stage and to simply defending stop and frisk, he is going to have a very hard time.

CUPP: Well, and I think he tried to move past one of the issues again today. He tweeted just earlier, "I would not be where I am today without the talented women around me. I've depended on their leadership, their advice and their contributions. As I've demonstrated throughout my career, I will always be a champion for women in the workplace."

I know what he's referring to, you know what he was referring to there. Will that be enough?

LOUIS: Well, listen, most of what was talked about, about his sexist comments, his inexcusably sexist comments in the workplace predate his time as mayor, meaning they are prior to 2001 when he was elected and in 2002 when he was sworn in.

If you want to go back 20 years and say this defines you. This is what we're going to choose our next President based on. I don't think that's what voters are really looking for.

So he has got a case to make. You know, he did an event, Women for Bloomberg and he got 300 or 400 women in some ballroom, including a number of noted feminists with impeccable political credentials, who were saying, we like the guy. We like what he's done. We think that he can move forward and that this is not indicative of how he would lead if he is elected President.

CUPP: Yes, we'll see. We'll see about that. He and Trump have traded jabs this week about everything from how tall they both are down much money they have. Democrats seem to rejoice in Bloomberg's barbs. But is that going to be real currency?

LOUIS: I don't think so, to be honest with you. I mean, you know, as you said at the top of the show you and other sort of never Trumpers from the Republican side warned everybody years ago, you don't want to get into a fight with this guy at that level.

He excels in it. It cheapens the entire dialogue and if the case to be made against the President is that the frivolity, the obscenity, the childish nicknames -- all of that is something that's unworthy of the presidency, I don't think you make that point by acting that way.

[18:45:04

LOUIS: On the other hand, there's a fine line there. You don't necessarily want to be bullied either. Mike Bloomberg hits back and he kind of hits him where it hurts. You know, he makes these comments about how -- I know all the rich people in New York, Donald Trump and they're all laughing at you behind your back.

You know, it's very cutting. It's very personal. It's very unfortunate.

If Donald Trump doesn't like it, he's got nobody to blame except the guy in the mirror. He brought us to this point. And it's a shame that that's what politics is turning into.

CUPP: Errol Louis, thanks so much, my friend. Appreciate you.

LOUIS: Thank you.

CUPP: Okay, one of the places Bloomberg is spending some of his billions is on Facebook, where the President's campaign has created an alternate reality designed to mislead you. I'll tell you what you should know after the break.

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[18:50:31]

CUPP: As you know President Trump loves disinformation. He and his campaign frequently use misleading, heavily edited or completely doctored videos and pictures to agitate his base, especially on social media.

In the past few weeks alone, there were 200 misleading Facebook ads about how the "fake news media" would try to block the President's Super Bowl ad. He's run ads full of Joe Biden conspiracy theories, and the President himself showed a clip of Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up the State of the Union speech edited in a way that was yes, misleading. Twitter and Facebook refuse to take it down.

It's getting harder and harder to tell what's real from fake and when it comes from the President or even his campaign, people are inclined to believe it.

Here to discuss is staff writer at "The Atlantic," McKay Coppins who wrote the piece "The Billion Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President." McKay, you got a firsthand look at the disinformation campaign deployed to reelect Trump. What were you most alarmed by?

MCKAY COPPINS, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Yes, so while I was reporting this story, I kind of engaged in a little exercise.

Last fall, I created a Facebook account that was separate from the one that I normally used and subscribes to various conservative pages, pro-Trump pages, the President's campaign, his own page, and various fan pages like that.

And then throughout the impeachment proceedings, I kind of watched and followed along as the campaign and the President's other partisan allies were pumping out content at a pretty alarming rate, frankly, that was kind of designed to take out of context what was happening day to day in the impeachment proceedings, and recast it almost to make it look like the exact opposite had happened.

So there were days when I would watch the impeachment hearings live on TV, come to my own conclusions about the evidence that have been presented and then look at these Facebook ads. And I would find a video for example, that took clips out of context, sewed them together in a creative way.

And I would think that I may have actually misunderstood what happened in the hearing. I came to doubt my own two eyes, which I think was probably the most alarming.

CUPP: Right. Well, look, we, as journalists have to be super aware of these techniques and even we can be susceptible to them as you say. And I know just how susceptible people are to them because after you know, a day of impeachment, I would talk to someone and they'd hear or have heard or seen a completely different thing. I mean, how can we expect voters to find out what's real and what's fake when some of this is really, really convincing?

COPPINS: It's not only convincing, it's running in tandem with a strategy to undermine the press. I mean, by now your viewers know about this, but there are all kinds of efforts, some very deliberate, some more underhanded to weaken the institution of the press.

And when you have this volume of content that's being put out to mislead and distort what's happening, combined with the fact that there was a CBS poll last year that's had only nine percent -- actually, I think it was 11 percent of strong Trump supporters believe the mainstream media. Well, 91 percent turned to the President himself for credible information. When you have a dynamic like that, it's almost impossible for the

President to actually be held accountable by reporters or accountability journalism because his base just won't believe it.

CUPP: Well, and look, I don't want websites like Twitter and Facebook to become political thought police. I think that's really dangerous, too. So at the same time, it can't be a good thing, that there's so much content out there. That's pure Agitprop. So how do we find the line?

COPPINS: Well, there's a lot of scholarship around this, a lot of debate, there are regulatory options that are on the table that would basically -- you know, the Communications Decency Act, for example, shields these platforms from liability for what's posted on their platforms. And I think that, for the most part, that's a good thing. I think they shouldn't be held liable.

But I do think that they should be expected to at least do some basic monitoring to keep disinformation and, you know, extremely toxic or abusive content off their platforms. And they've done a little bit, but probably not enough.

CUPP: Yes, I mean, and then it gets to the question of who decides what's toxic? Who decides what's misleading? I mean, that's tough, too.

Quickly before we go, does this, do you think encourage other candidates including Democrats running in this election cycle to do the same things?

COPPINS: This is an open debate among Democratic strategists I talk to. A lot of them believe that to win in 2020, they're going to have to co-op some of the President's tactics. I won't weigh in on that, but I do think that if that happens, the entire information ecosystem that we have now is going to be basically unusable and I worry about the long term consequences of that.

[18:55:19]

CUPP: McKay Coppins, thanks so much for that piece and thanks for coming on to talk about it. Appreciate it.

COPPINS: Thank you.

CUPP: All right, the election year has just begun and it's going to be a bitter campaign, so prepare yourself by looking back at some of the most hard fought presidential races in history on "Race for the White House," the CNN Original Series returns tomorrow night at nine. Ana Cabrera is back with CNN NEWSROOM. That's next.

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