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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Super Tuesday: Fierce Battles Across the Country; Cease-Fire Holding in Syria. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired March 01, 2016 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:31:04] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Ask yourself this question: do you feel super?
Today, millions of voters across the country head to the polls to choose who should be their party's nominee. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, they hold the edge, but it has only just begun.
Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans on this Super Tuesday. Thirty-one minutes past the hour.
Starting in just hours, voters across the country head to their polls. It is Super Tuesday. The stakes are incredibly high.
On the Republican side, the latest CNN/ORC poll shows Donald Trump with by far his highest national number yet, 49 percent. So much for the ceiling of support for Donald Trump, folks.
Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz neck and neck, way behind him in the mid- teens. Here is what is as stake. Nearly half of the 1,237 delegates required for the nomination at the Republican convention, half are up for grabs today.
The tension on the campaign trail boiling over, a physical fight broke out at a Trump rally in Virginia, between a Secret Service agent and a "TIME" magazine photographer, trying to take pictures of the Black Lives Matter protest.
Now, the photographer said the Secret Service agent choked and threw him down as he tried to step out of a press pen, a press pen the Trump campaign requires media covering events to stay in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: You are just trying to cover the protest and --
CHRIS MORRIS, TIME MAGAZINE PHOTOGRAPHER: I stepped 18 inches out of the pen and he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and he slammed me to the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Trump had his confrontation with protesters, telling them to get out of his event.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Get them out of here, please. Get them out. Get them out.
Are you from Mexico? Are you from Mexico? Huh? Are you from Mexico?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: CNN's Sara Murray was at Trump's rally. She's got the latest for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, John and Christine.
It is just hours until voters hit the polls in the most pivotal day of this campaign so far, Super Tuesday.
And in the run-up to this, Donald Trump was not on the message he hoped to be. He was explaining why it took so long to disavow white supremacist groups that endorsed him, as well as the former leader of the KKK. He had an awkward run-in with a protester at one of his events, and he even had a photojournalist who got into a physical altercation with a Secret Service agent.
But last night here in Georgia, he rallied a crowd of thousands and he sought to look ahead.
TRUMP: We are going to win with health. We are going to win with education. We are going to win at the borders. We are going to win with our military.
We are going to win, win, win. We are going to make America great again, greater than ever before. I love you. Go out and vote. I love you all. Thank you, Georgia.
MURRAY: Not only telling them to get out and vote today Super Tuesday, but also looking ahead with his schedule. He has a jampacked plan today, three different stops, including a rally in Ohio and he will be watching those election results in Florida.
Now, you may notice these are two states that don't vote until March 15th. They are also the home of two candidates currently in this race, Ohio Governor John Kasich, as well as Florida Senator Marco Rubio. So, the Trump's campaign is not taking for anything for granted. They want to compete everywhere.
Back to you, guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: And already looking ahead past today.
All right. Trump's rivals, they are racing from rally to rally across the south and New England. They want to halt the Trump momentum.
Part of that message: Trump's failure to immediately disavow white supremacist on CNN. That makes him unqualified or disqualified to be president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You say David Duke to me and I say "racist" immediately. Why wouldn't he condemn the Ku Klux Klan?
(APPLAUSE)
[04:35:11] There is no room in the conservative movement and no room in the Republican Party for members of the Ku Klux Klan or for racists like David Duke.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, I joke there had are not many iron ruled in politics. But one that you can count on 100 percent of the time is the Klan is always bad. Nazis? Always bad.
You'll just, you'll never go wrong with that rule. Either the Klan or Nazis, bad, bad, bad. And it seems somehow that Donald missed that briefing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Trump says he was slow to repudiate the KKK leader because he couldn't hear Jake Tapper clearly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP (via telephone): I'm sitting in a house in Florida, with a very bad ear piece that they gave me. And you could hardly hear what he was saying. But what I heard was very various groups, and I don't mind disavowing anybody. And I disavow David Duke and I disavowed him the day before at a major news conference.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Marco Rubio's best chance to win a state today may be in Minnesota, according to a "New York Times" statistical analysis. But Rubio is doing his best to downplay expectations hoping to rack up enough second close finishes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUBIO: The truth is that today Donald Trump leads in many polls and has won already many delegates. If it is to believed, he will do very well tomorrow as well, according to the experts and the pundits. In the end, it's up to you. It's not up to them.
(APPLAUSE)
That won't change what I'm doing. I will go to all 50 states and every territory. I will continue to speak out until I literally have no voice left. I will go anywhere to speak to anyone before I let a con artist get a hold of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Ted Cruz spent his time on Super Tuesday eve in Texas. He is banking on a big win there so that he can roll out of Super Tuesday competitive with Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRUZ: Super Tuesday is going to be the most important day of the entire primary. We are doing very well in Texas.
I'll tell you, we are running neck and neck in states across Super Tuesday. We have been traveling across. We were in Oklahoma. We were in Arkansas. We're in Georgia. We're in Alabama.
We are seeing very competitive races for Super Tuesday. I think the likely outcome on Wednesday morning is that Donald Trump is going to have a big chunk of delegates. We're going will have a big chunk of delegates. There's going to be a huge drop off for everybody else.
What we're seeing is conservatives consolidating and uniting behind our campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Now, no matter how Super Tuesday turns out, Governor John Kasich of Ohio insists he will not drop out of the race. He predicts Trump will win everything today. Kasich's strategy then is to win Ohio later this month and he believes that will reset the election and kick-start his campaign. Kasich is also shooting down reports, including Romney that asked him to drop out of the race to unify the party.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Nobody's pressuring me to get out of the race. Frankly, we got some elections coming up. Marco Rubio is trailing in Florida by 17 points. You know? Why aren't they telling him to get out and get behind me? I have a better chance of winning in Ohio than he does in Florida. I mean, this is nonsense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Ben Carson says he is determined to remain in the field despite lagging poll numbers. He says he owes it to his still faithful supporters. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm listening to my donors. I'm listening to my supporters. And I have millions of them. And they are saying, please do not get out. We don't want to be left in a situation where we have to choose between the lesser of the evils. And I think they have a right to say that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: The new poll has Dr. Carson leading the field of potential vice presidential picks for Donald Trump.
ROMANS: All right. Let's turn now to the Democratic race. Hillary Clinton ahead of Bernie Sanders in polls across many Super Tuesday states, far ahead in some cases. That has her turning her eyes and her message toward a general election battle against Donald Trump.
But Sanders is still campaigning hard, really hard, with his aides expressing confidence about beating Clinton today in several states.
CNN's Jeff Zeleny has the latest for us this morning from Virginia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, it's Super Tuesday. That means Democrats are voting in some 11 states. Hillary Clinton is making a last minute trip to Minnesota. That's one state where Bernie Sanders hoped to plant his flag.
Now, the Sanders campaign is feeling confident about five states. Minnesota, Colorado, Oklahoma, Massachusetts and his home state of Vermont. The Clinton campaign is feeling very confident in about seven or eight states. So, we some overlap there.
But what happens tonight in these contests is going to give us a big clue in how long this Democratic nominating fight goes on.
[04:40:00] Already, as Hillary Clinton campaigning on Monday, she is turning one eye on the general election and one eye toward the Republican candidates specifically.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Because at some point, you can't just say whatever pops in your head if you want to be the president of the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
People around the world actually listen to what people running for president say.
ZELENY: Now, Hillary Clinton did not mention Donald Trump by name. She didn't have to. That was clear in her remarks as she campaigned here in Virginia on Monday.
Now, going forward, the Clinton campaign believes the next two weeks are a critical period. They believe that they can have an insurmountable lead by March 15th. That's when Florida, Ohio, and Illinois go.
But Bernie Sanders raised nearly $40 million in the month of February. That means he has plenty fuel in the tank to keep this race going as long as he would like -- John and Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: All right. Jeff Zeleny, thank you.
One state that is crucial for Bernie Sanders is Massachusetts, which shares a border with Vermont where Bernie Sanders is from. Sanders is polling better in Massachusetts than some Super Tuesday states, but he is still trailing Hillary Clinton by eight points there, 50 percent to 42 percent in this latest poll from Suffolk University.
Last night, Sanders was in Massachusetts campaigning late into the night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In 11 states, including Massachusetts, over 800 delegates are going to be elected to the Democratic convention. And we anticipate winning many of them and a majority of them right here in Massachusetts.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Bernie Sanders.
I know what you are thinking. Where can I watch results on Super Tuesday? Where I can see the excitement?
The answer is clear. CNN.
Stay with us for complete coverage of Super Tuesday. We will keep you up to date all day, late into the night and into the wee hours of the morning as the results come in. Don't forget, Alaska, one of the Super Tuesday states. It is possible that we get to call Alaska tomorrow at this time.
ROMANS: Polls close midnight Eastern Time. Can you hear how hard they've been campaigning?
Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders, all across the line, you can see how important Super Tuesday is.
All right. The key to winning the general election is gas prices. Moody's Analytics says the strong economy favors the Democratic candidates right now. It comes down to tangible things that make people feel confident that their personal economy is strong and gas prices, epitome of that. Many drivers fill up once a week and they remember how much they're paying. Moody's says keep an eye on prices in five critical swing states, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire and Colorado. Most of those states have prices close to the national average of just $1.75 a gallon. American families are expected to save $320 this year on cheaper gas. That's on top of a savings last year of about 660 bucks.
Moody's says if you strip out gas prices or voters, choose to ignore gas prices, the Republicans have the edge when it comes to the economy. The economy has been polling consistently as the top issue for voters. You know, in about an hour and 18 minutes, we're going to have new polls that will be fascinating to show what people are worried about and thinking about.
BERMAN: You know, the business guys and the economists, they always think they are always right and the political scientists say no. The opposite is true also. It's interesting to see who is right here.
Sports Erin Andrews gets very, very emotional in court talking about the video of her, a naked video secretly recorded by a stalker.
Stay with us.
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ROMANS: Welcome back.
Emotional testimony from sportscaster Erin Andrews about the impact of having secretly recorded nude videos of her released on the Internet. Andrews is suing the convicted stalker who took the peephole videos. She's also suing the hotel where it happened for $75 million. She broke down on the witness stand Monday talking about the ordeal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel grief about this?
ERIN ANDREWS, PLAINTIFF/SPORTS REPORTER: I do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel shame about this?
ANDREWS: I do. I feel so ashamed. I'm so embarrassed.
I come up here and I sit and hear and I start talking about my job and how much I love sports and then this happens every day of my life. Either I get a tweet or somebody makes a comment in the paper or somebody sends me a still of the video to my Twitter or somebody screams at me and I'm right back to this. I feel so embarrassed and so ashamed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Andrews told the court she suffers from depression, anxiety and panic attacks since the video went viral.
BERMAN: All right. The final batch of emails from Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state has now been released. That makes more than 30,000 work e-mails and attachments that have been made public, with nearly 2,100 of them containing information that is now classified, according to the State Department. The State Department says it wasn't classified at the time.
The FBI and the Justice Department are still investigating whether Clinton broke any laws by using a private server. They are offering no timetable for a decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FOX/MONDAY)
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Shouldn't American voters know Hillary Clinton's legal status as they get prepared to head to the polls?
LORETTA LYNCH, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, what they should know and I hope they do know, is that any case that the Department of Justice looks at is going to be handled efficiently, fairly, thoroughly without any intent of artificial deadline on it, because what's important is to follow the facts, follow the law and come to an independent conclusion as to what may or may not have happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: The State Department inspector general and at least two Republican-led congressional committees are also investigating the former secretary's e-mails.
ROMANS: A New York federal judge has sided with Apple, denying a Justice Department request for a court order that would force the company to help hack the iPhone of a criminal dependent in a drug case. It comes less than two weeks after a judge in California ordered Apple to assist the FBI in unlocking the phone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino terrorist. Apple is appealing the California ruling.
BERMAN: That decision also coming on the eve of congressional testimony by Apple and the FBI, concerning encryption, security and privacy. FBI Director James Comey and Apple's legal team appear before the House Judiciary Committee today. Government officials claim the order requiring Apple's help in the San Bernardino case is an isolated case.
The husband of one of the San Bernardino survivors says he thinks the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook is unlikely to contain any valuable information.
[04:50:07] ROMANS: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is suddenly speaking during oral arguments and that has Washington buzzing. Thomas made headlines for going ten t asking a single question. On Monday, he asked nine questions during a case involving a law that bars someone found guilty of domestic violence from owning a gun. Thomas questioned whether the measure suspends that individual's rights under the Second Amendment.
BERMAN: After a record breaking year in space, Scott Kelly, astronaut, returning to earth. Kelly and a Russian cosmonaut are scheduled to touch down tonight in Kazakhstan. Kelly spent 340 days aboard the International Space Station, longer than any America. Data collected is expected to help scientists plan for a future Mars mission.
You know, as a father of identical twins, I can tell you what's so exciting about this is they are going to examine Scott Kelly and compare all of his biometrics to that of his identical brother, Mark who was sort of, you know, the control group for Scott Kelly who has been in space for a year.
ROMANS: He has run on the treadmill hundreds of miles. For a year, he has been up there. The amount of working out will be interesting to see.
BERMAN: I hope he watches our show. A lot of people watch our show on the treadmill. Just saying, maybe Scott Kelly is --
ROMANS: Our viewers are space cases in general.
BERMAN: Well done.
ROMANS: All right. Stocks on a three-month losing streak. Will March be the month the market turns it around? We get an early start on your money, next.
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BERMAN: Syria seeing a sharp decline in airstrikes as Russian warplanes sit idle. The cease-fire holds for a fourth day. A CNN crew got rare access on the ground there over the past week. The drop in clashing, though, is making people who live there tense and suspicious.
[04:55:01] Senior international correspondent Matthew chance is live in Moscow for us with the latest.
Good morning, Matthew.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
That's right. This tenuous cease-fire, even though there have been some violations, and according to the Russian defense minister, and we have a statement right here for the past few minutes, there have been seven cease-fire violations according to the Russians in the past 24 hours.
The cessation of hostilities as it is formally called, is still holding for the most part. I mean , there is a massive downward movement in terms of the amount of violence being felt on the ground in Syria compared to the last several weeks and months or years, which is seeing so much violence, so much devastation in Syria. Nine -- seven cease-fire violations over the course of the past 24 hours.
The big point of concern is that some of U.S. allies say that Russia is still carrying out attacks against what they regard as moderate rebels, not just the Al Nusra Front, which is the al Qaeda affiliate and Islamic state, but other groups as well, some of which are backed by western governments, including the United States.
But -- I mean, that's something that has been categorically denied by the Russians. They are saying they are striking at the al Nusra front and in talks with other rebel groups to bring them into the cessation of hostilities as well. And so, there are violations on all sides, it seems, but for the most part, this cessation of hostilities is holding for the first time in five years of conflict in Syria.
BERMAN: Well, maybe some positive signs at last. Matthew Chance for us in Moscow -- thanks so much.
New developments this morning, the fight against ISIS. The Pentagon is preparing for a very big battle, turning its focus to Iraq's second largest city, Mosul. American-backed forces are laying the ground work by isolating the city from ISIS strongholds in Raqqa in Syria. The U.S. is also carrying out cyberattacks. The Iraqi prime minister said the full military operation could begin as early as this month.
ROMANS: All right. Let's get an early start on your Super Tuesday. It could be a nice start to March for the stock market. Dow futures are higher because of a rise in oil prices. Crude closing in on $35 a barrel. Slight gains in European stock markets right now. And Asian stocks rose overnight.
The Bernie Sanders campaign is well-funded heading into Super Tuesday. Sanders banked $42 million in February alone, $6 million of that was raised yesterday, $6 million raised yesterday. His campaign says that is the most raised in one month by any candidate this election cycle.
That cash came from 1.4 million individual contributions. The average donation, according to the campaign, $30. Before February, his totals contributions were just less than $100 million. So, last month's impressive haul is pretty impressive.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is concerned about ISIS, but not because of the propaganda video the group posted last week threatening him and threatening Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Speaking to German media yesterday, Zuckerberg said there have been worst threats, but the bigger issue is that ISIS is working against what Facebook stands for. Quote, "Giving people a voice and spreading ideas and rationalism." And he stressed working with governments to help stop the spread of ISIS propaganda and to stop hate speech online, a difficult task. The site has now 1.6 billion active users worldwide.
BERMAN: EARLY START continues right now.
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BERMAN: It is Super Tuesday. It is finally here, the biggest voting day of the primary season. Millions of voters head to the polls in an hour or so. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton leading right now, but are we in store for some surprises?
Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman. ROMANS: John Berman is super excited on this Super Tuesday.
BERMAN: Supah.
ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, March 1st. It is 5:00 a.m. in the east.
And starting in hours, voters head to the polls. Stakes are incredibly high.
On the Republican side, the latest CNN/ORC Poll shows Donald Trump with the highest national yet, 49 percent, up eight points since January. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are neck and neck way, way behind Trump in the mid teens.
Here is what is at stake: nearly half -- nearly half of the 1,237 delegates required for nomination at Republican convention.
The tension on the campaign trail boiling over. A physical fight broke out at a Trump rally in Virginia, not between people in the crowd, between a Secret Service agent and "TIME" magazine photographer. He was trying to take pictures of the Black Lives Matter protest.
The photographer says the Secret Service agent choked him and threw him to the ground when he tried to leave the press pen, the press pen that the Trump campaign requires media people to say inside.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: You are just trying to cover the protest and --
CHRIS MORRIS, TIME MAGAZINE PHOTOGRAPHER: I stepped 18 inches out of the pen and he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and he slammed me to the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Trump had his own confrontation with protesters at the event, telling them to get out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Get them out of here, please. Get them out. Get them out.
