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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Second Super Tuesday Results: Big Wins for Donald Trump; Stunning Upset for Bernie Sanders in Michigan. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 09, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Of course, how moody is it? Is it moody like a teenager, this bull market?

[05:00:03] We shall see.

EARLY START continues right now.

(MUSIC)

BERMAN: Breaking news this morning: it is the Wednesday after the second Super Tuesday. Big win for Donald Trump, big wins for Donald Trump, stunning upset for Bernie Sanders. So many people casting their states on that Tuesday, looking ahead to a huge Tuesday, just six days from now. The entire race shaken up.

We'll break down the winners and losers ahead.

ROMANS: All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. Great to see you. It is Wednesday, March 9th. It is 5:00 a.m. on the East.

We've been on TV for 76 straight hours. I want to welcome our viewer the in the United States and around the world.

Breaking overnight, this was a stunning result, an upset victory for Bernie Sanders in Michigan. I don't think the Sanders campaign saw it coming, the Clinton campaign didn't see it coming and the polls didn't show it likely to happen, not at all. So, that big win for Bernie Sanders.

Now, Hillary Clinton won decisively in Mississippi. Look at that margin right there. And as a result, Hillary Clinton actually won the most delegates on this Super Tuesday. And she extended her delegate lead. That is the margin now, that includes superdelegates, but even with just pledge delegates, not super delegates, Hillary Clinton more than 200 ahead and again it grew yesterday.

BERMAN: On the Republican side, Donald Trump, he picked up three strong wins, Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii. That happened just a couple hours ago. Ted Cruz won in Idaho. It was an awful night for Marco Rubio. No state wins. He didn't pick

up any delegates. He mate get one or two in Hawaii. That's still to be determined, but blanked everywhere else.

The net result is Donald Trump extended his already wide delicate lead. Ted Cruz picked up a lead over Marco Rubio as well. And this all leads up to the huge winner take all primaries next states in the Republican side. And delegates-rich primaries in the Democratic side. Both Trump and Bernie Sanders are already looking ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, we are going to do something, I think we're going to clean the slate. I think we're going to do really well in Florida. It's my second home, I love Florida. I love Florida, a special place. I think we're going to do really well.

I think we're going to do really well in Ohio, now that I have Paul O'Neill's endorsement, I know I'm going to win Ohio. But I love Ohio. I have so many friends in Ohio. It's an amazing place.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What tonight means is that the Bernie Sanders campaign, the people's revolution that we are talking about, the political revolution that we are talking about, is strong in every part of the country. And, frankly, we believe that our strongest areas are yet to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: You heard Trump talking about Paul O'Neill, for a hot second I thought it was the former treasury secretary, but no.

BERMAN: No, it was former Yankee, Paul O'Neill, Cincinnati Red, Paul O'Neill, who apparently is from Ohio, and he was there at that crowd event last night, apparently a big fan of Donald Trump. So, he's got Paul O'Neill on his side.

ROMANS: There you go.

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN politics reporter, Jeremy Diamond, live from Florida, where I got to say, it is all going to happen starting right now.

Good morning, Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: That's right, John and Christine. Last night, in an election filled with these constant twists and turns, Bernie Sanders capturing lightning in a bottle in Michigan where he won an upset victory over Hillary Clinton, a real shocker to the political world -- even a shocker probably to the Clinton and Sanders campaigns who both expected Hillary Clinton to capture the win last night. But, of course she did not.

That's a worrying sign for Clinton going into the Rust Belt states. You have several other states where you have the same issues of trade and economic anxiety that may play to Sanders advantage going forward.

On the Republican side, though, Donald Trump with those three out of four wins last night. That, of course, is going to extend his momentum. You know, there had been some questions lately about whether or not Donald Trump could continue to propel forward despite the onslaught of attacks that he's faced. He's faced millions of dollars in attack ads, featuring the #NeverTrump movement.

You saw a lot of big donors, and you saw Mitt Romney as well, some key party elite establishment figures coming out against Donald Trump but still he pressed forward with that, and that is going to continue to propel him forward.

Ted Cruz last night also making his argument that he's the only Republican in the field who can truly compete with Donald Trump who can potentially beat him. Ted Cruz coming out with the only win last night other than Donald Trump's three. And for Marco Rubio, of course, he didn't win any delegates last night at all. That's going to raise serious questions about his viability, just as we head into this home stretch in Florida, where he faces his most crucial test yet of the campaign.

ROMANS: Excellent. All right. Jeremy, thanks for that. Stick with us. I want to look at the winners and losers and what it means to the golden delegate numbers.

Turning now to our esteemed panel of experts, Jeremy Diamond, of course, staying with us.

Joining us also is CNN political analyst and columnist for "Bloomberg View", Josh Rogin, CNN senior reporter for media and politics, Dylan Byers. And CNN politics digital reporter, Eric Bradner.

BERMAN: Dylan and Josh are on overtime, by the way. Yes, it's expensive right now.

ROMANS: Yes, in fact, we don't know what they're saying actually. That's what makes it so exciting.

Eric, let me start with you. The headlines for you this morning on CNN politics, is it #feelthebern and that lives, but #nevertrump dies?

ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICS, DIGITAL REPORTER: That's right. Bernie Sanders turned the Midwest into a battleground by winning Michigan. Keep in mind next week, there are five big contests coming up, Florida and Carolina are two of them, but Ohio, Illinois and Missouri are the other three.

Hillary Clinton was hoping that would be the day she could put this race behind her. Now, all of a sudden, it looks like Bernie Sanders can compete in all three of those states, Ohio, Illinois and Missouri.

So, this was a bit of game changer. It was a psychological boost. Sure, Bernie Sanders didn't come out in front it terms of delegates because of Mississippi, but it proves he could compete in a bigger, more diverse states, showing something that he absolutely needed to show at this point in the race. So, now, he can survive through next Tuesday and move on as the race gets more friendly to him as all the southern states have voted.

Now, for Donald Trump, meanwhile, as you say, his opponents, the establishment Republicans, Mitt Romney, et cetera, threw everything at him that they had. It just didn't work. The question now is what anti-Trump strategy can be effective? Rubio and Kasich are ready for their home stands, and perhaps they could win there. But Trump is just doing better and better, winning by bigger and bigger margins.

And it still looks like Ted Cruz with wins here and there is the only one who can knock him off.

BERMAN: You know, Dylan Byers, back to the huge upset for Bernie Sanders in Michigan. I'm sure all of us are having our e-mail inbox in text burning up from Clinton world, pointing out correctly that Hillary Clinton did win more delegates last night. Still, they thought they were going to win Michigan. Bernie Sanders even said he thought Hillary Clinton would win.

So, Dylan, the question is, you know, what went wrong?

DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: Yes, you know, and look, as far as Hillary Clinton coming out with more delegates, you know, you and I have been covering this race, we've been all cover this race long enough to know it's not just about delegates. It's about the story you tell for better or worse.

The story that Hillary Clinton and her campaign were hoping to tell was that Bernie Sanders is limited. He wasn't able to pick up support from African-Americans, he wasn't able to win Nevada, win over Latinos. So, he was really a regional candidate.

Well, that narrative doesn't work if he starts picking up the Midwest and the Rust Belt. What went wrong? They focused -- Hillary Clinton focused heavily on the African-American vote. She focused on Detroit. She didn't pay as much attention to the rest of the state. She didn't make a hard-fought concerted effort that Bernie Sanders did in Michigan.

And this speaks to the larger issue with her campaign. She was ready to pivot towards the general election and put this thing away, as Eric just said, and it's not -- we have not quite reached that time yet. Of course, heading into states like Ohio and Illinois, this could become more complicated than the Clinton campaign was hoping it would be.

ROMANS: All right, guys. The other big headline is this never Trump train not getting out of the station. Listen to Trump last night saying he's the only winner there is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Every single person that's attacked me has gone down, OK? I don't want to mention names. Let's not mention names. They're out. They're gone. But you can take look at virtually every single person, we started out

with 17, we're down to four, of the four, they're pretty much all gone, OK? Pretty much. They didn't do so well tonight folks. I'm not going to say anybody didn't do well, they didn't do well, because only one person did well tonight, Donald Trump. I will tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: I'm not going name names here, Josh, but is the stop Trump, is it over? He moves forward here.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: What the stop Trump people tell me today and yesterday is that they're just getting ramped up. Now, why they waited so long, nobody can figure it out.

They also say a couple other things. Listen, John Kasich said, wait for the Midwest.

[05:10:03] Well, we waited for the Midwest, we didn't see much. He underperformed.

Ted Cruz, if you look at the March 15th states, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, which one of those does Ted Cruz win? It's not clear he has any states coming up that he can finish first in.

So, what they say the only chance is to stop Trump in Florida. The only man to do that is Marco Rubio. That argument gets weaker and weaker as more and more results come in. Nevertheless, that is their play. We're going to see a bunch of new ads coming out starting today.

BERMAN: You can see the tension that that a large part of this so- called never Trump movement, unless the money, the establishment campaign isn't about never Trump, unless in so far as it's -- they want Ted Cruz to be part of the never Trump thing. Never Trump really means Marco Rubio, and it's the last resort, John Kasich, and that's going to be some tension in the never Trump movement going forward.

Guys, stick around.

A lot more to discuss, and there's a lot going on today here at CNN. We have a debate tonight, the Univision Democratic presidential debate, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. This is from Miami.

Think about how important this is, all of a sudden after Bernie Sanders' stunning upset in Michigan. What will Hillary Clinton say to reverse, to take the sting out of that defeat on that stage tonight?

This debate followed by a special edition of "AC360" at 11:00.

Then, tomorrow, CNN has the Republican debate at the University of Miami starting at 8:30 eastern time. Again, this is it. If you want to stop Donald Trump, that debate tomorrow night, that's it.

ROMANS: I've got two more. We've got Donald Trump on at 6:30 a.m. Eastern on "NEW DAY" and new polls coming out at 6:00 a.m. So, a lot going on this morning.

All right. Marco Rubio holding out for a win in his home state of Florida. Can he really do it? Would it be too little too late? We're going to dig into that part of the story, next.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[05:16:04] SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want you to know you believed in me once. I am asking you to believe again. We can win this election, and we will. I need your help next Tuesday because we're not just going to win the Florida primary, we are going to win Florida in November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Establishment hopeful Marco Rubio suffered a poor showing last night. Even so, he plans to hold on until his home state primary in Florida next Tuesday.

I want to bring back our political panel to discuss. Guys, kind of lightning round here.

Dylan Byers, what happens to Marco Rubio, what does he have to do next?

BYERS: Well, he has to win Florida. Even if he wins Florida, you know, the question as Eric said earlier this morning is how much does fundamentals of the race?

I mean, look, we've been saying for several weeks that in any other election year, someone who achieved what Donald Trump achieved would be the presumptive nominee. If anyone else achieved what Ted Cruz achieved, he would be considered the only alternative.

You know, I mean, the problem is the Republican establishment doesn't want to get behind either one of those candidates so we're talking about Rubio in Florida and we're still talking about Kasich in Ohio. But I'm not thoroughly convince that wins in your home states is enough to justify being the alternative candidate going all the way up until the convention.

BERMAN: Eric Bradner, 10 seconds or less right now, there has been some talk that Marco Rubio should drop out before Florida to avoid possible embarrassment. No chance of that. Do you see that?

BRADNER: No, I don't see that happening. There is talk of him running for governor in 2018, or something like that. So, he's interested in preserving his political future if this doesn't go well. But there's no chance he will dropout before Florida.

ROMANS: Josh?

ROGIN: Marco Rubio has to stay in, especially since that CNN story that revealed that some people wanted to get out. Kasich has to stay in.

But the real problem is what are they running for? They can't win. They're just contributing to Trump winning elections at this point. They're fighting against themselves. It's a really sad state of affairs for the establishment.

BERMAN: All right, guy, stand by. We're covering the breaking news in this race for president, stunning news in the race for president all morning long.

But, first, North Korea with a new nuclear threat. That's next.

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[05:22:21] BERMAN: All right. New this morning, North Korea claims they now have miniaturized nuclear warheads that fit on ballistic missiles in their military arsenal. The government just released pictures of leader Kim Jong-un meeting with scientists at a nuclear facility where the warheads were allegedly made.

Now, CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of the photos. The North has been threatening to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S. and South Korea, now conducting joint military exercises.

ROMANS: An American graduate student and combat veteran has been killed by a Palestinian man in a stabbing rampage near Tel Aviv. The victim has been identified is 28-year-old Taylor Force, a first year MBA student at Vanderbilt University. He served five years as an army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. The attack took place about a mile from where Vice President Biden was meeting with former Israel President Shimon Peres.

BERMAN: Breaking news: the manhunt has ended for a heavily armed suspect charged with four counts of first degree murder.

Police announced they captured 36 year old Pablo Serrano-Vitorino earlier this morning in Missouri. He is the prime suspect in a quadruple murder in the Kansas City area Tuesday. Serrano-Vitorino is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who was deported 12 years ago. He managed to return to the U.S. and he slipped from the grasp of the authorities last year because of a paperwork error apparently by ICE officials.

ROMANS: You can take Attorney General Loretta Lynch's name off the list of potential Supreme Court nominees. She does not want to be considered and it had a lot to do with the nominating process. Republicans will not even consider holding a hearing for the eventual nominee and Lynch's spokeswoman says the attorney general fears she would be limited in her current role if she had to endure the nominating process.

BERMAN: The public has a chance to say farewell to former First Lady Nancy Reagan today. Security will be tight this afternoon and again tomorrow morning with thousands of people expected to pay their final respects at two schedule viewings. Secret Service agents will serve as pallbearers when the casket is moved from the funeral home to the Reagan Library tomorrow. A private funeral scheduled for Friday.

ROMANS: All right. Candidates and super PACs spent a total of 8.4 million bucks in television ads in the four states that held primaries and caucuses Tuesday. The bulk of the money was spent in Michigan, more than $7 million in Michigan. The next highest, Idaho, at nearly $240,000, that was GOP only, same with Hawaii. The lowest amount was spent in Mississippi.

The biggest individual spender? Bernie Sanders. He spent more than $3.2 million, almost all of that spent on Michigan, ahead of his big win there. Hillary Clinton was second at $2.5 million, then followed Donald Trump and John Kasich.

The focus now shifts to Florida and Ohio. Total spending in Florida among candidates and political action committees already topping $16 million.

[05:25:04] In Ohio, $5 million. Those primaries are next Tuesday. Six days left to spend and those dollar signs show you how much is at stake, John Berman.

BERMAN: Oh to be an ad man. Something is getting rich.

All right. Breaking news this morning, big night for Donald Trump and a stunning night for Bernie Sanders. An upset victory, Super Tuesday election shaking up the race for president, next.

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