Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Donald Trump with Huge Victory in Nevada; Rubio, Cruz Battling for Second Place; Clinton and Sanders Shift Strategies in CNN Town Hall; Deadly Storms in the South. Aired 3:30-4a ET

Aired February 24, 2016 - 03:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:30:16] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump with a huge victory in Nevada, dominating the caucuses in that state, winning almost every voter demographic. What is next for Donald Trump? Can he be stopped?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders shifting strategy for the voters on the CNN town hall stage, this crucial South Carolina primary just days away.

Welcome back to EARLY START. A very busy night, everybody. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: A very busy and early EARLY START. I'm John Berman. Thirty minutes past the hour. We are live this morning because of the breaking news this morning -- Donald Trump wins big in the Nevada Republican caucuses. You can look at the screen right there. It doesn't say how much of the vote is in, but you can see that Donald Trump is leading with 44.6 percent of the vote.

As we speak, there is a heated, close race for second. Ted Cruz barely ahead of Marco Rubio right now, about 190 votes by my crude math as they're counting. 52 percent of the vote in and only 200 votes separate Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. We will be watching that, those numbers come in, all morning. Behind them in single digits Ben Carson and John Kasich.

The big story, Donald Trump triumphing in nearly every county in the state. Entrance polls show Trump was hugely popular among voters who say they are angry at the federal government. And by the way, a lot of voters say they are angry at the federal government. Among those who say they want the next president to be an outsider, Donald Trump wins huge there as well.

In his victory speech overnight, Trump was ecstatic about the win, you know, across all these demographic groups.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We won the evangelicals, we won with young, we won with old, we won with highly educated, we won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated. With the smartest people, with the most loyal people. And you know what I really am happy about? Because I've been saying it

for a long time. Forty-six percent with Hispanics, 46 percent. Number one with Hispanics.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

I'm really happy about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He's right; the entrance by the way polls did show Trump leading among the Latino vote, though it was a small sample size. Now this win in Nevada puts Trump pretty far ahead in the delegate count. He now has twice as many pledged delegates as all the other candidates combined.

Now, the next stop for all these guys, the heap of delegates available on Super Tuesday just one week away.

ROMANS: Yes, Donald Trump riding high with just a week to go until Super Tuesday.

Let's break down these Nevada results with CNN politics reporter Tal Kopan in our Washington bureau. Good morning. A very busy night. You've been following all of it. And what we see here in our CNN headline is anger and yearning for change drive the electorate in Nevada and they think Donald Trump is their man.

TAL KOPAN, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Absolutely. You know, we did a lot of entrance polling to talk to the voters about what they were feeling, what they were deciding on. And once again we see Donald Trump sort of running away with it. We're talking about a close race for second place at about 20 points behind. That's the silly thing. And you've put up the delegate math a little bit ago. Not many delegates have been proportioned out yet, but you still see Trump with a huge lead. And it's clear the voters are responding to what he's talking about. I mean, just now, when you played that clip of him speaking, the roar from the crowd in my ear, it was quite loud. They're really, really pleased with Donald Trump. It didn't even matter that, by all accounts, he didn't have that great a ground game in Nevada; the voters came out for him.

BERMAN: I should tell you, we are watching the votes come in live. Just a few seconds ago while you were talking, Tal, a new heap of votes came in. We are now at 63 percent of the precincts reporting, and Marco Rubio has jumped ahead of Ted Cruz. Cruz had been leading for the last 30 minutes or so. Marco Rubio now in second place by about 400 votes.

You know, the battle for second is getting some attention, but the headline is the blowout, the blowout for first place by Donald Trump. Now he's won in moderate New Hampshire, now he's won in the evangelical south, in South Carolina, and now he's won in the wild west in Nevada. He's won in several different places with several different voting groups there. This has got to send a shiver of panic I think through the Republican establishment, Tal. KOPAN: Absolutely. You know, we keep hearing sort of victory

speeches for second place from the finishers.

[03:35:03] And there's his theory that if a second place challenger can simply hang in there long enough, they can eventually defeat Donald Trump because all the other votes will sort of coalesce behind them, and it's getting harder to believe that theory of the case. Yes, it is technically possible by the math, but so far Trump has only picked up steam. We haven't seen him lose any steam. And there's no reason to believe that all of a sudden the electorate is going to change their mind.

And, you know, Marco Rubio seems to have the best shot right now of defeating Trump. And even if, let's say, if Cruz and Kasich and Carson were to drop out of the race, it's quite possible that some of those voters would still go to Trump. And it's not at all clear if even if it were a two man race Marco Rubio would suddenly pull ahead. So it's definitely a huge, blowout win for Donald Trump that is causing the Republican establishment some fits.

ROMANS: And, you know, Donald Trump last night in his speech, he sort of rolled his eyes and he said, you know, tomorrow morning they're all going to be saying, oh you add up the rest of them and they have more than me. He said no, a lot of those people when they drop out, as you point out, Donald Trump says the voters are going to go and they're going to support Donald Trump.

You know, Marco Rubio not in the state. He left kind of early. He is moving forward. He is looking ahead to Super Tuesday. Ted Cruz, though, he did stick around. He gave some have said a kind of a tired speech last night. Let's listen to what Ted Cruz said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: At this point we've had four primaries. History teaches us that nobody has ever won the nomination without winning one of the first three primaries -- Donald Trump and us. And the undeniable reality that the first four states have shown is that the only campaign that has beaten Donald Trump, and the only campaign that can beat Donald Trump, is this campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Yet, Tal, we are watching these numbers come in, 63 percent of the vote counted, and it's a fight for second. It's not clear that Ted Cruz is going to be able to keep second place there. At least right now he doesn't have it.

KOPAN: Yes, and when he gave that speech, he didn't have it either. And I was live blogging all night as the results came in for CNN.com, and I said there, in some ways, Marco Rubio might have made a smart, calculated decision here. He went home. He's getting a good night of sleep. He's going to be on almost every morning show tomorrow morning starting at 7:00 a.m. well rested and that's when he gets to deliver his spinning sound bytes. And as you mentioned, Ted Cruz really did seem tired, which is absolutely understandable at this point in the campaign, but he came off as defeated as he's trying to fire up his supporters. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio tomorrow is going to give his spin of a second place victory on all the morning shows, and that's the sound byte that's going to be playing. So he left Nevada earlier in the day. He went to Minnesota and Michigan to campaign. He's moving on to Super Tuesday states. So, you know, Ted Cruz may wake up tomorrow and wish he did the same thing.

BERMAN: You know, you made a little joke about Marco Rubio and how much he loves second place. It's like great for the Rubio campaign. Every time they finish third or second, it seems like a big, giant victory. But looking ahead -- and actually, let's play some sound. Because Donald Trump has been asked repeatedly about why don't you talk about Marco Rubio? Marco Rubio has been asked repeatedly why don't you talk about Donald Trump? If the race is going to come down to those two, which the establishment would love to happen and projects will be the case, there's some big mysteries about how that will shake down.

Donald Trump actually spoke about that tonight. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Yes, Rubio. Who, by the way, I've been very nice to. I've been very nice. People say why are you so nice? Because he hasn't hit me. When he does, he will -- you will see what happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You will see what happens. You know, I was talking to Katie Packer, who runs a big super PAC going after Donald Trump and basically supporting Marco Rubio. She complains that no one is going after Trump, but her guy isn't doing it either. Rubio is not doing it; they're all scared to punch him. How does this look going forward, as we head into Super Tuesday, Tal?

KOPAN: Well, it looks like more Trump going into Super Tuesday. The polling isn't fantastic going into a lot of these states, and some of the polls are really out of date or unreliable, but by all accounts Donald Trump is leading almost everywhere. You know, we're going into a time where Ted Cruz has to win his home state. I saw a tweet tonight: It's never a good thing when your concession speech is all like we're finally going home so we can win a state. That's not a cry of victory or confidence.

And Marco Rubio has Florida looming on the horizon, and Donald Trump loves to talk about how he's been leading there. So it looks like we're going to have more of the same.

And to your point about hitting Trump, we've seen over and over candidates who do so kind of suffer for it, Jeb Bush perhaps being the best example. But there hasn't been a candidate yet who's figured out an effective way to go after Donald Trump. Everything seems to galvanize support for him. So I don't know that suddenly the strategy to bring him down is going to emerge.

[03:40:03] ROMANS: They have spent so much time and so much money and so much advertising, (INAUDIBLE) advertising dollars training their fire on each other. And in the end Donald Trump just continues to solidify his lead.

Tal Kopan, thank you so much. Thanks for staying up all night for us. A really exciting, exciting development.

BERMAN: You know, a lot of people think what we're showing you on the screen is the last best chance for any of these candidates to knock Donald Trump off his perch -- it's the Republican presidential debate tomorrow. That's Thursday night in Houston at 8:30 p.m. The five remaining candidates, Ben Carson still in this thing, they will debate on the stage there. Wolf Blitzer will moderate it. Again, 8:30 p.m. tomorrow only on CNN.

ROMANS: All right, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, shifting their strategies, shifting their tones, their messages, in this final pitch to voters in South Carolina. They're on stage in a CNN town hall. We're going to break down all the big moments for you about that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:45:00] BERMAN: All right, the breaking news -- we're following the election results from the Nevada caucuses and we are live. Right now, let's put up the board, with 68 percent of precincts in, Donald Trump ahead by a mile. That is a big win with big consequences.

And as we speak, there is a pitched battle for second place, not as important, but fairly important. Marco Rubio edging out Ted Cruz by 600 votes or so right now. And behind them, Ben Carson and John Kasich in single digits. We will be counting these live all night, particularly that race for second place, which could go down to the wire.

ROMANS: And Donald Trump winning almost every single category. The only category he didn't win of voters was those whho think he could win in the general election. That went to Marco Rubio.

BERMAN: And people younger than 30, and a lot of people younger than 30 didn't vote. But he won pretty much everywhere else.

ROMANS: All right, also breaking overnight, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton making their best case for the candidacies at a CNN Democratic town hall in Columbia, South Carolina. Both Clinton and Sanders confronting racial issues in a state where African-Americans will play a major, major role in the outcome of the Democratic primary. That's on Saturday. Right now, polls show Clinton with a strong lead in South Carolina, outpacing Sanders nearly two to one.

One tense moment at that town hall came when our very own Chris Cuomo asked Secretary Clinton asked why she has not heeded Sanders' call to release transcripts of the paid speeches she gave to Wall Street banks. Senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny has more on that from

South Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, Wall Street is one of the major issues of this Democratic presidential campaign, at least when it comes to some critics of Hillary Clinton.

Now, the topic of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms has been one of the issues throughout the course of this campaign. It was no exception that that Democratic town hall on Tuesday night here in South Carolina, major differences between how Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton address this.

Take a listen to what Bernie Sanders said about the paid speeches he has or hasn't given during his career.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, I've not had a paid speech. It's against the law to give paid speeches. I have given some speeches and money was donated to charity way, way back. I got a few dollars. If I can find the transcripts, I'm very, very happy to do it.

But what Secretary Clinton said, I will do it if other people do it. Well, I am very happy to release all of my paid speeches to Wall Street. Here it is, Chris. There ain't none.

ZELENY: Hillary Clinton said a different standard is being used for her. She said that she would onto give up her transcripts if Republicans did the same. Listen to how she explained.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All the more reason to move this as an issue. You know everybody is not going to bring up their transcripts. There will be --

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Why is there one standard for me and not for everybody else, Chris? I mean, you know, at some point, at some point -- you know, look, I'm on record. I have a record.

It certainly is far different from the Republicans because they think actually and have said the cause of the Great Recession was too much regulation on Wall Street, which is an absolute joke. I have been up fronted and strong on this issue for a long time, as strong I would argue as my esteemed opponent.

So, you know what? If people are going to ask for things, everybody should be on a level playing field and I'm happy if that were the case.

ZELENY: Now, this is just one of the issues driving this Democratic campaign. Of course, a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters are concerned about this, but overall Hillary Clinton has a commanding lead here in South Carolina. Issues of race also were front and center during the Democratic town

hall. It's hard to believe any minds might have been changed by this Democratic town hall. Bernie Sanders is going to be campaigning in Super Tuesday states. Hillary Clinton is going to stay in South Carolina looking for a strong finish on Saturday -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right, Jeff, thanks so much for that.

Let's talk more about this. We're going to bring back CNN politics reporter Tal Kopan. Tal, I think one of the most interesting things that happened in that town hall was Bernie Sanders trying to embrace Barack Obama. We've seen Hillary Clinton doing it for a number of weeks right now, including in commercials, in, you know, just in many of her speeches, and then past town hall meetings.

Tonight, it was Bernie Sanders who tried to, as I said, get close to Obama and talk about the battles the president has been fighting and where Bernie Sanders has been in those battles. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: Literally, literally, it turns out on the day that Obama was inaugurated, Republicans came together and said, what are we going do? And what they conclude is we're going to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, make it as difficult as he could to do anything.

Now, we have had to fight through that, and I've been at the president's side time and time again. And this is on top of this birther issue which we heard from Donald Trump and others, a racist effort to try to delegitimize the President of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[03:50:02] BERMAN: Now, it might seem obvious for someone running in a Democratic primary to replace President Obama to do this, but this is a change for Bernie Sanders, Tal. Why?

KOPAN: Yes, this -- this plays into a few things that are happening right now. First and foremost to your question, Hillary Clinton has been hitting Bernie Sanders every time she can about past not-support of Barack Obama, and there's evidence that in 2012 Bernie Sanders was part of a group who really wanted a challenge in the primary to Barack Obama from the left. And so that has caused some awkwardness and some friction. President Obama has also embraced Hillary to an extent that he hasn't quite embraced Bernie Sanders, although he hasn't he quite endorsed.

So all that is playing into this and Bernie Sanders has had to backpedal and say, no, I do support the president. He keeps referring to the fact that back in 2006, that Barack Obama came up and campaiagned for him. But of course that doesn't address the issue of 2012. And then of course the other factor that is at play here is that Hillary Clinton is leading by far in South Carolina, and her biggest strength against him is minority voters. And so we've seen the two of them, both competing for the African-American and minority vote. Bernie Sanders has really lagged there, so this is a bit of a transparent effort to address those two issues and I'm not quite sure that it fully resonated the way he played the race card there. It may be a feeling held by much of the Democratic electorate, but it comes across as exactly what he's trying to do.

ROMANS: Another sort of shift I think from Hillary Clinton last night, very specific. She was trying to connect very specifically with these town hall voters about their issues. And she was asked a question about student loans ,and she got very point by point about how she would help people with student loans, and she got pretty high marks for how she answered this question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I want you to be able to refinance your debt at much lower interest rates. It makes no sense at all that you're paying -- do you know what your interest rate is?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's between 7 percent and 9 percent; I know I'm already $75,000 in debt, and I'm only halfway through.

CLINTON: You know, I want everybody to understand this. She borrowed money for the principal, and to be able to pay her fees to go to law school. And I would bet a good percentage of what you now owe is because of the interest, a 7 percent to 9 percent interest rate, when we haven't had those interest rates for years. It makes absolutely no sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: She jumped right in there, asked what is your interest rate? Trying to show that she is connected, especially with this young voter.

KOPAN: Yes, and you know, this was a woman who was introduced as someone who was leaning towards Bernie Sanders and her question was, you know, why are young people supporting him so much more than you? And Clinton's response was, well, even if you don't support me, I'm going to support you. And she launched into this very analytical response on student debt, and it was a great split screen for her. I mean, the student was nodding along, really everything that Clinton said seemed to resonate with her and seemed to resonate with the audience. And she came across as warm and human, which is a really important thing for her in this campaign. It seems silly to be talking about a human as needing to come across as human, but that has something that has dogged her all along the way, that she's calculating, that she's not connecting. And I think especially since her win in Nevada, we've seen her really come across as warm, and that is something that continued tonight.

BERMAN: And of course Bernie Sanders is offering free college. And students love that.

ROMANS: Paid for by a tax on speculation. That's right.

BERMAN: The students love that. Tal Kopan, we'll talk to you again in a little bit.

Because there's a lot of news tonight. Donald Trump with a huge victory. Look at that, winning by a mile in Nevada. Look at the race for second place right now. Now a separation of about 800 votes with 71 percent is Marco Rubio extending that lead a little bit. We are counting live all morning long.

But first a deadly storm hits the South. We'll tell you about the damage done. We'll bring you new images from the scene, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:58:17] ROMANS: All right. Breaking news this morning. Donald Trump sweeping to victory in the Nevada caucuses. I want to show you the board right now. 72 percent of the precincts are reporting. 72 percent. Donald Trump clearly the winner. This is a rout, tromping the rest of the field. Look at that -- 45.1 percent for Donald Trump. He is dramatically ahead. The fight all night has been for second place and Marco Rubio pulling ahead here. Not by much.

BERMAN: 734 votes. I'm good at math.

ROMANS: But pulling ahead here -- I saw you using your calculator -- pulling ahead here, 23.5 percent. Ted Cruz, 22 percent. You got Ben Carson and John Kasich way back with only a single-digit support here. But again 72 percent of the precincts are now in and Donald Trump winning his third consecutive with a very big, wide margin.

BERMAN: It's a blowout.

All right, we also have some more breaking news now. Deadly storms tearing through the South. More than a dozen tornadoes reported in three states with one fatality confirmed fatality in Mississippi, two others in Louisiana.

Want to show you the destruction in Pensacola, Florida. A tornado ripped apart these homes in an apartment complex, leaving six people injured with reports of leaking gas overnight. Such a dangerous situation.

Now this RV park near New Orleans, you can see the devastation. More than 160 mobile homes mangled by an apparent tornado. Two fatalities reported with seven other people critically injured. Residents there enduring a night just horrifying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was lying down on the bed with my dog and, all of a sudden, I heard a big rumbling dog. The whole entire house started shaking and I just knew that it was a tornado. And so I ran to go to the bathroom, and my mom's fiance was already running into the bathroom, and his parents were.

[04:00:04] I got in the bathtub with my dog. And they were praying, and I was crying, and I was so scared. I mean, the house would not stop shaking the whole entire time. I mean, it was just -- it was terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)