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Super Night for Clinton and Trump; Marco Rubio Suspends Campaign After Florida Loss; Is Clinton the Inevitable Democratic Nominee?. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired March 16, 2016 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton win big on Super Tuesday, each coming closer to their party's nomination, but upset victory in one state with races still too close to be called. The race for president is far from over.
Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman. It is Wednesday now. It is March 16th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East. I want to welcome our friends in from the United States and all around the world.
Wow, what an election night it was. Super Tuesday -- big, huge for the front runners. So, the four states with final results overnight, Donald Trump, he took three of them. He lost Ohio to Ohio's Governor John Kasich and he may end up with a fourth win, too, in Missouri.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, she won four states including Ohio. Ohio, Illinois, Missouri were all in question.
Now, Missouri is still too close to call this morning. Missouri with 100 percent of the precincts in, Hillary Clinton is leading Bernie Sanders, but it's less than 1 percent. We're still waiting for some provisional and absentee ballots. But Hillary is ahead right now. It could be sometime before we make it official.
The same is true on the Republican side. Donald Trump, he is leading Ted Cruz right now by 1,700 votes. We're not officially calling it because it's going to take some time to get the numbers in, but he is leading there.
Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton understandably and deservedly celebrating their victories.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To win the states that we won, and to win by the margins and especially -- look, this is my second home, Florida. To win by that kind of a number is incredible.
(APPLAUSE) HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We know we will add to our delegate lead to roughly 300 with over 2 million votes nationwide. We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right. Let's talk about this big election day.
Joining us now, CNN politics reporter Eric Bradner, live for us this morning from Columbus, Ohio.
Eric, big wins for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, in some ways bigger than people thought.
ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Absolutely, John. It was definitely the night of the front-runner. Donald Trump was going for the double knockout. And he didn't quite get there, but he did drive Marco Rubio out of the race with a massive win in Florida. Rubio conceded the state and left the race minutes after CNN called it.
Now, in Ohio, the governor, John Kasich, picked up his first win of the race. That will keep him going. That's 66 delegates in a winner- take-all. That sort of gives his campaign boost, but nowhere near enough to catch Trump, who also won in Illinois and North Carolina.
Now, on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton also had a big night, bigger than expected after she lost Michigan a week ago. We expected her to win Florida and North Carolina, two states that sort of complete her southern sweep.
But after the Michigan loss, it looks like the industrial Midwest could be a problem, yet she won in Ohio and Illinois. By doing this, she really racked up the delegate lead.
But another takeaway of the night is that neither of these races is going to end any time soon despite the big win from the front-runners.
For Trump, that's because Ohio's 66 delegates going to Kasich means he needs to win something closer to 60 percent of the remaining delegates. For Clinton it's more about message. Bernie Sanders is committed to going on and driving his anti-trade, and economic inequality message in the west, states that are likely to be more friendly to him. So, neither race is going to end any time soon, but Trump and Clinton now have formidable delegate leads after tonight.
ROMANS: All right. Eric Bradner, stay with us.
We have the rest of this esteemed panel of political analysts here this morning to break all of this down. Senior correspondent for CNNPolitics.com, Chris Moody, CNN senior reporter for media and politics, Dylan Byers, and CNN political analyst and "Bloomberg View" columnist, Josh Rogin.
Josh, I want to stay in the so-called Rust Belt here. What a different a week makes. So, put Michigan behind us. When you look at the Ohio exit polls, it's pretty clear here that Hillary Clinton did well on people who are worried about the economy, she did well on people who think trade is a problem -- free trade is a problem, she's the one who can fix it. It's almost a flip from last week.
Is it her campaigning or is it a fluke?
JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think there's two things going on. One here is that winning has a momentum all its own. So, as voters get more accustomed to the probability that Clinton is going to be the nominee, they're coming around to sort of giving her a second chance, even if they're skeptical of her recent position, changes on things like the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Keystone XL Pipeline, for example, you know?
[04:05:11] So, I think that's a lot of what's going on here.
Also, Clinton has made an effort to shore up people she was not being well supported by. We're talking about younger voters, more blue collar voters. The numbers don't all say that's all moving in the right direction, but some of them do. And her wins in Ohio and Illinois enforce that idea that she's at least an acceptable candidate to economically liberal voters and voters disadvantaged by trade if not the preferred candidate.
BERMAN: So, Chris Moody, Hillary Clinton, perhaps five for five, Donald Trump, could as well four for five, perhaps meeting expectations himself. But the one loss was in Ohio to John Kasich. John Kasich won his home state and he had this to say to his fans, his adoring fans of the state he loves about his victory.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To have people believe in you and to believe that you can bring people together, I have to say to the great people of the state of Ohio, I love you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Now, he loves them, Chris Moody, because Ohio gave him his first win in this election season. There are people in the Never Trump, the Stop Trump movement who say that taking those delegates away from Donald Trump was crucial, but there are just as many people saying John Kasich is standing in the way now of Ted Cruz beating Donald Trump. The only possible person, Ted Cruz told me, who could beat Donald Trump is Ted Cruz and John Kasich is in the way. Does he have a point, Chris?
CHRIS MOODY, CNN SENIOR DIGITAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: This is the fascinating paradox of the Never Trump strategy. They needed John Kasich to win tonight. They needed him in there so he can stop Trump at least for now from getting to that magic number, or close enough. Now, a lot of people will say they need him out, and in a way they are right, is having it as a two-man race can shore up more support for Ted Cruz, although that's a weird thing because Ted Cruz has made no friends in the Republican establishment, or at least very few, especially on Capitol Hill, especially among the leadership on Capitol Hill.
And so, now, now the Republicans have to get behind a guy who they've been saying they can't stand him over the year, especially since he engineered the shut down.
So, this whole anti-Trump movement has a plan, but it has to tie itself in knots in order to execute it. And there's no clear absolute strategy they know will win.
ROMANS: You know, Dylan, when I look at the ad spending numbers, the spending numbers heading into these races here, the TV spending, millions spent -- half of it spent on anti-Trump ads. When we talk to the state GOP officials, they tell us unbelievable turnout. Donald Trump has energized the discussion, bringing in new Republican voters. That's the story of this election.
DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: Yes, absolutely. He's created a lot like they didn't have a voice, who felt like Washington wasn't speaking to them and like no one was addressing the issues that they care about. We've talked time and again how many things, how many issues we're discussing in this campaign because Donald Trump brought them up and if he hadn't brought them up, we wouldn't be discussing them.
But, you know, this question about the enthusiasm for Donald Trump, that is a true phenomenon. But it also remains true that more people have voted for Hillary Clinton than any other candidate, Republican or Democratic, so far in this campaign. And all of this, this question about enthusiasm turnout, it raises really significant questions for the general election.
You know, Josh Rogin mentioned earlier that there are some questions about Hillary Clinton's enthusiasm gap, does Donald Trump's broad base of support, does that give him the edge in the general election or does the fact that so many people fear a Trump presidency give Hillary Clinton the edge. It's a fascinating question and one I think people will be exploring more as we roll towards the general election.
BERMAN: Eric Bradner, you know, John Kasich cannot get 1,237 delegates before the win. You have to win like 125 percent of the contest between now and Cleveland to do it. Ted Cruz claims he can, but the math is really not in his favor.
So, just to be clear to put a fine point on it, the one thing we know from last night is that in order to beat Donald Trump, this will almost definitely have to go to a contested convention. That's an extraordinary -- that's an extraordinary development.
BRADNER: It absolutely is. Ted Cruz is still making argument that he can reach the delegate count that he needs, but it's very hard to imagine at this stage anything stopping Trump but a contested convention.
[04:10:04] And for Kasich, that's part of his strategy here. It's in Cleveland, after all, his home state of Ohio. The idea is he would have to cannibalize Marco Rubio's delegate on the second round to get even Trump and Cruz, and from there, he's hoping his friends and families who would be surrounding all of these delegates could really catapult him forward.
But both candidates -- non-Trump strategists are strategizing for a contested convention. It's an amazing thing. It could be a fantastic story to cover.
ROMANS: All right, guys. Stick with us. We're going to keep talking about this big night. Donald Trump winning big, John Kasich victory, Marco Rubio dropping out, complicates the path to the nomination. More on that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: America needs a vibrant conservative movement, but one that's built on principles and on ideas, not on fear, not on anger, not on preying on people's frustrations.
[04:15:03] While it is not God's plan that I be president in 2016 or maybe ever, and while today my campaign is suspended, the fact that I've even come this far is evidence of how special America truly is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Well, the Republican race has gone from four men to three. Marco Rubio suspending his campaign after a disappointing loss in his home state of Florida. Meantime, John Kasich is celebrating his first win in his home state of Ohio.
But is it mathematically possible for the governor there to pick up enough delegates in the remaining states to beat Donald Trump or at least to deny him the nomination?
Let's discuss with our panel -- Chris Moody, Dylan Byers, Josh Rogin and Eric Bradner.
Josh, I want to talk about Marco Rubio, the look of disappointment on his face. He has to take a beat before he can finish his sentence about dropping out of the race. He won Puerto Rico, he won Washington, D.C., he won Minnesota. And his hometown, this was not a national candidate.
ROGIN: Yes. I mean it's so interesting to hear Marco Rubio give his own campaign autopsy in his speech tonight. And he said very clearly why he thinks he lost. He identified two main things. One, what he called a political tsunami. That's another way to say Donald Trump. And he said that we should have predicted it and nobody saw that coming.
And the second thing that he mentioned is that this sort of anti- establishment movement, actually the Tea Party movement, he called out specifically, which brought him to power only six years ago, failed to deliver on its promises to the Republican electorate, and that's why, according to Marco Rubio, the Republican electorate no longer has any faith in the Republican establishment.
So, there's one short-term and one long-term reason, according to Rubio, why his campaign failed. I would add one more thing Rubio didn't mention, which is that he never had what we call a base, right? If we look at Cruz's voters or Trump's voters or even Kasich's voters, you can see who those people are. But Marco Rubio, a relatively young candidate without a lot of experience and offices held, never had a real Rubio establishment amongst the regular people, so the Rubio supporters were just as likely to go to someone else once it became clear that Rubio was likely to lose.
BERMAN: You commented on the expression on his face, the look of sadness on his face as he was suspending his campaign. It pales in comparison to a look of sadness I think amongst, you know, dozens and hundreds of Republican insiders who really looked to Marco Rubio as the future of the party right now. If you asked them two months ago who would be not only nominee but president, nine out of ten would have said Marco Rubio, and last night, he dropped out of the race.
It poses a question for Republicans right now voting in this election. You know, what do you do if Donald Trump is a nominee? What do you do if it's Trump versus Hillary Clinton campaign?
We actually asked that in our exit polls in Ohio and Illinois. Would you be satisfied or would you consider a third party? And there are sizeable percentages in Ohio and Illinois who would consider a third party candidate. In Ohio, it was 43 percent, or 43 percent right now, the numbers keep on changing. In Illinois, 42 percent, again these numbers keep on getting updated throughout the night.
You know, Dylan Byers here, there's clearly some concern about the potential Trump-Clinton matchup among some of these voters.
BYERS: Yes, absolutely. Look, in terms of the ratings for Donald Trump, that's why we're talking about a brokered convention, and that's why it is a real a very real possibility. I think the question you have to ask yourself there is, who do the Republicans bet on if not one of the candidates that's in the race now? Is it Paul Ryan who, of course, has not ruled out that he would step up and face off against Donald Trump at a brokered convention?
But looking ahead to the general election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, you know, there's a very smart essay and it was written before Donald Trump ever got in the race by Jonathan Chait of "New York Magazine". And it highlighted this study from Emory University called negative partisan ship. The theory being that whereas people used to vote for candidates, now people are voting against candidates, against the sort of America that they don't want.
I think if we get into a Trump versus Hillary general election, given all the fear of Donald Trump among the Republican establishment and certainly among the Democrats, and given all the sort of hatred and vitriol directed towards Hillary Clinton from the far right, we're going to see an election that's going to play out -- that's going to turn out voters not because they necessarily love their candidate, but because they really don't like what they see on the other side. BERMAN: All right. Guys, stand by. A lot more to discuss coming up.
ROMANS: Happening right now, a manhunt for two terrorists linked to the Paris attack. We've got information in that case. We'll bring that to you, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:24:22] ROMANS: Breaking news this morning, North Korea sentencing a 21-year-old American student to 15 years of hard labor. Otto Warmbier, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia was convicted of subversion in a one-hour trial earlier this morning. He was arrested in January. He broke down last month at a press conference, apologizing for allegedly stealing a political banner. Warmbier is one of three North Americans currently being held by Pyongyang.
BERMAN: A manhunt underway right now in Brussels. Authorities are searching for two suspects who fired on police during a raid in an apartment that was tied to last year's Paris terror attacks. One suspect was killed and four officers wounded when the operation was interrupted by gunfire. Now, police are not saying just how the raid was connected to the Paris attacks.
[04:25:04] ROMANS: Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Russia next week to press for an end to the civil war in Syria. Kerry says Russia's decision to withdraw most of the forces from Syria along with the peace talks in Geneva provided the best opportunity to end the conflict since it began five years ago. The secretary will leave for Moscow after returning from a trip to Cuba on Tuesday.
BERMAN: A lot of finger-pointing in the Flint water contamination hearing on Capitol Hill, when lawmakers asked former EPA official Susan Headman why she did not act more forcefully last year after learning a crucial protective chemical was added to the drinking water. She insisted the agency did nothing wrong and blamed limited enforcement options.
The House Oversight Committee hearing continues on Thursday with Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder scheduled to testify.
ROMANS: Nearly $55 million was spent by candidates and super PACs on TV ads in the five states that voted Tuesday. More than half of that was spent on attack ads slamming Donald Trump. The biggest overall spender, pro-Marco Rubio's Conservative Solutions super PAC. It unloaded a staggering $13 million total among the five states, including $9 million in Florida alone. The American Future Fund, which supports John Kasich, was the second highest spending group.
Of all the money spent, Florida topped the list on Super Tuesday three, $22 million, the fourth highest state total this primary season. Illinois came in next at $14.9 million and then Ohio and Missouri.
Democrats have the biggest ad buy, more than $9 million by Bernie Sanders followed by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. BERMAN: All right. Big wins for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The race for president, though, a lot new developments overnight. We'll cover them all, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:30:53] BERMAN: Breaking news: Big wins for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, both moving closer to their party's nominations. The big wins in key states, but because of some big developments overnight, the race far from over.
ROMANS: Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
BERMAN: I'm John Berman. Thirty-one minutes past the hour right now. I want to welcome in our viewers here in the United States and all around the world.
ROMANS: All right. Super Tuesday turns into a super night for the front-runners, for the four states with final results overnight, Donald Trump took three, losing just one state, Ohio, to the Ohio Governor John Kasich. Trump may pick up a fourth state, Missouri, where he's barely edging out Ted Cruz, but which is still too close for us to call this morning.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is the declared winner in four states, including Ohio, which had been in question. Missouri, again, still close to call for the Democrats, too, with Clinton locked in an incredibly tight race there with Bernie Sanders. A final declaration may be days away but that didn't stop the front winners from celebrating last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: To win the states that we won, and to win by the margins and especially -- look, this is my second home, Florida. To win by that kind of a number is incredible.
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: We know we will add to our delegate lead to roughly 300 with over 2 million votes nationwide. We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: All right. Joining us now to help break down the winners and the losers, CNN politics reporter Eric Bradner live this morning from Columbus, Ohio.
And reading the papers this morning, I've seen the word "landslide" in just about every paper for both of the frontrunners.
BRADNER: That's right. It was a big night for both front-runners. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton picked several big wins. For Donald Trump, he didn't quite get the double knockout that he
wanted, but he did win three states, Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina. In Florida, he managed to drive Marco Rubio out of the race by blowing out the Florida senator, who was sort of the last hope for the establishment.
In Ohio, John Kasich managed to win on his home turf, the governor picking up all 66 of the state's winner-take-all delegates.
So, let's look at the delegate math now. Trump has the lead with 640 delegates, with Cruz in second place with 405, and Kasich has 138, making a contested convention look possible since Trump now needs to win about 60 percent of the delegates remaining to lock it up before Republicans get to Cleveland.
Now, in the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton seems to have run the table. She won in Florida and North Carolina, finishing up her sweep of the South and she also won in Ohio and Illinois. That sort of picks up after a loss in Michigan last week and shows that Clinton can compete in the industrial Midwest despite Bernie Sanders really hammering her on issues like international trade.
So, of a big night for Clinton, a big night for Trump, and now it looks more likely than ever that both will be their party's nominees.
BERMAN: All right. Eric Bradner, stick around.
I want to bring in the rest of our political analysts to discuss. Senior correspondent for CNNPolitics.com, Chris Moody, CNN senior reporter for media and politics, Dylan Byers, and CNN political analyst and "Bloomberg View" columnist, Josh Rogin.
Josh, let's start with the Republican side right now. John Kasich won his home state. He won Ohio. That's 66 delegates in is pocket.
But Donald Trump won at least three if not four out of the other five states. Missouri is still to be determined but he is leading there. And he picked up such delegate hauls in Illinois and Missouri that he may have emerged fine after losing in Ohio right there and inching closer to that nomination.
ROGIN: Right. I think what political insiders look at is the number that Eric mentioned, which is what percentage of delegates does Trump need in order to lock up the nomination outright?
[04:35:08] And that percentage actually went down last night. He actually made progress, and his chances are actually better than they were yesterday, although, far from assured, right?
The Kasich narrative has always been wait until Ohio. After Ohio, after I win Ohio, the whole race will change and money and support and media attention will come to me. Well, that doesn't look likely to be the case.
And as we look at the next three primaries, we're talking about Arizona, Utah, and Wisconsin, those are really spread out. They're spread out over the next three weeks. Trump has a very big lead in Arizona. Utah and Wisconsin are even going to be tough to challenge him. So, even if we look forward under the best-case scenario for Ted Cruz or John Kasich, all the cards are really stacked in Trump's favor moving forward.
ROMANS: Let's talk about the other front-runner story, and that is on the Democratic side. Chris Moody, you're there in Boynton Beach, Florida. You know, Hillary Clinton gave her victory speech and moved on. She's back home in New York.
What was different for her this time? She did beautifully in some of these states, and in Ohio, she did not have a repeat of what happened. A big disappointment for Michigan. Instead in Ohio, exit polls, they trust her on economy, they trust her on trade. Not at all what we heard last week.
MOODY: Well, after Michigan, all eyes were on Bernie Sanders for him to prove that he could do it again in another similar kind of state and last night, he showed that he at least this time could not do it. We saw a real shift in attitudes on the Democratic side in the way they voted and what they told exit pollsters.
And we saw this reflected. We saw this shift reflected in Hillary Clinton's speech here in West Palm Beach last night in mentioned Bernie Sanders very briefly, the thrust of her remarks were more toward the general election and whom she thinks she might face. She believes, it was clear from her remarks it might be Donald Trump, and she really laid the groundwork for how she would make a contrast not between her and Bernie Sanders in the past but between herself and Donald Trump in the future.
ROMANS: Hey, Chris. Let's listen to a little bit of that speech from her last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November! You know, because of all of you and our supporters across the country, our campaign has earned more votes than any other candidate, Democrat or Republican.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Dylan Byers, it's interesting. Bernie Sanders is going to stay in as folks say he's going to stay in. Hillary Clinton, she stained in when she was running against that guy -- what's his name --
BERMAN: President Obama.
ROMANS: -- Barack Obama.
BYERS: Yes. It's an apt comparison, but, you know, I don't think that the Sanders campaign can make the same argument for staying in that she made back in 2008.
You know, look. Winning Ohio, winning Florida, doing it on the same night is a big deal. You couple that with basically stopping the momentum he had coming out of Michigan, stopping him from winning states like Ohio, like Illinois. Missouri will effectively be a tie. You know, it's really hard to see what his case is for going forward.
That said, he is likely to stay in the race, and the reason that he'll do it is perhaps the reason why he got in to this contest in the first place. It's to advance his issues, advance the sort of anti-Wall Street message that he's been talking about since he got into the race, make that Hillary Clinton's message, make that the Democratic Party's platform heading into their convention in July.
And, you know, look, I think there are a lo of Sanders supporters coming to terms with that and, frankly, are OK with that. He didn't have a shot when they started out. He might have thought he had a shot a few weeks ago, but now I think Sanders can declare victory insofar as he has changed the tone and the discussion of the Democratic primary.
BERMAN: Eric Bradner, on the subject of coming to terms with things right now, on the Republican side, if you don't want Donald Trump to be president, it seems that Republicans are coming to terms with the fact that they're going to have to take this to the convention.
BRADNER: Right. Ted Cruz has a very steep uphill battle to get the delegates required to beat Donald Trump before the convention.
For John Kasich, it seems all but impossible. So, Republicans are really settling in for a long slog at this point. For Kasich in particular, it looks like the strategy is to go to the convention in Cleveland, pick up all of Rubio's delegates on the second round of balloting and try to turn it into a three-way race.
[04:40:05] For Ted Cruz, he's still racking up delegates. He's still winning some congressional districts, keeping it competitive. But these anti-Trump forces are going have to sort of refocus and find a way to support Cruz in certain places, Kasich in other places, and try to get this to the convention.
Now that their favorite candidate Marco Rubio is out of the race, that's going to be tough to inspire donors and hit Donald Trump on the waves, especially when we get to the bigger states, New York, California and places like that. So, it's a long fight. It looks like it can only be settled at the convention if Trump is going to be stopped at this point.
ROMANS: All right. Everyone stick with us. So much to chew over.
Hillary Clinton winning big overnight. Bernie Sanders isn't going down with a fight. We're breaking down what's next in the race. We're going to zero in on the Democrats. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[04:45:11] CLINTON: Our commander-in-chief has to be able to defend our country, not embarrass it. Engage our allies, not alienate them, defeat our adversaries, not embolden them. When we hear a candidate for president call for rounding up 12 million immigrants, banning all Muslims from entering the United States, when he embraces torture, that doesn't make him strong, it makes him wrong.
(CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right. That's Hillary Clinton there talking not about Bernie Sanders, the person she's running against in the Democratic primaries, but talking about Donald Trump. This comes after she won at least four if not five of the primaries last night.
So, is she now pivoting in this race? Is she now running in a general election? And what does that mean if the answer is yes.
Let's bring back our panel, Chris Moody, Dylan Byers, Josh Rogin and Eric Bradner.
Chris, let's look ahead, shall we, because Hillary Clinton is certainly looking ahead right now. What does the math say about the Democratic primary race right now? If Bernie Sanders is going to come from behind and make up the 300 plus delegates that he needs to make up right now, that's in the -- by the way, that's in the pledge delegates, not in the super delegates, where does he do it on this map?
MOODY: If you take out the super delegates, Bernie Sanders was emboldened by Michigan, and that was supposed to carry him to the states we saw last night, and Hillary Clinton took the wind right out of those sails. Now, coming up later this month, we're going to contest out west in caucus states where Bernie Sanders may do pretty well.
But that's not going to do him well to seriously challenge her on the delegates. So, as we get closer and closer further into the spring, it's looking more and more difficult for Bernie Sanders to actually pull this off just by winning delegates.
Now, there was a story in politico, just, I believe, an hour or so ago, talking about how Bernie Sanders strategy would be try to pick all the super delegates formally making pitch to them to convince to coming over to his side. That's going to be a really tough pitch for him to make. And if that's what they're looking at, it shows that they're looking at the map, too, and saying that it's going to be a tough slog to go the traditional route of winning caucuses and primaries.
ROMANS: OK. Josh Rogin, I want to go to some of the exit polls. You know, because we ask people as they're leaving the polling place, what they're thinking about, about their ideology. We're trying to get a sense of who these people are who are voting for these candidates.
And in Florida, among the exit polls, among black voters, 79 percent broke for Hillary Clinton. No surprise there. You've see a lot of that support throughout many of these states. When you look at Latino voter, 72 percent broke for Hillary Clinton.
And then up in Ohio, we asked if the next president should continue Obama's policies. Fifty percent said they said she should continue Obama's policies and she did quite well in Ohio. You know, I guess putting to rest some of the concerns her campaign had had post- Michigan.
So, what does this mean for Hillary Clinton as she tries to get some of that Sanders enthusiasm, some of the Sanders energy about young people. She -- we know the core base here. They have been good to her.
What does she have to do to get the Sanders people or does she have to, Josh, because when it comes down to one or the other, they're going to go to her team?
ROGIN: Yes, she has to. She needs the Sanders people. You know, those are some positive figures for Hillary Clinton and there's a lot of good news in the exit polls for her campaign tonight. There's also a couple of cautionary tales, right? She still lost heavily to Bernie Sanders amongst white men. She lost heavily to Bernie Sanders amongst independents. She lost heavily to Bernie Sanders against young people, right?
So, she's going to need all of those people to vote for her more in greater proportions than now in order for her to be successful in the general election, and she knows it. I mean, another poll out of Florida show that Donald Trump does very poorly -- did very poorly with minorities last night.
So, there is a coalition that the Hillary Clinton campaign can build in a general election to sort of counter the coalition that Trump is building but she's got to shore up the weak spots and that again is independents, young voters, white men and some of these voters in more of these rural areas.
BERMAN: Dylan Byers, you are bearish on the Bernie Sanders campaign going forward. I don't want to label you necessarily, but you're grumpy cat when it comes to Bernie Sanders going forward right now, saying that he's losing legitimacy in making the case that he should stay in this campaign as he is.
[04:50:04] But what are the complications for the Hillary Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton herself and how she chooses to talk about Bernie Sanders and his campaign going forward?
BYERS: Well, look. She -- Josh is absolutely right when he says that she needs to win over the Bernie sander coalition. Let me say one of the reasons that I am sort of bearish on the Bernie Sanders campaign. You know, Hillary Clinton -- of the states that have voted so far, she's won the six most populist states. We still have California, we still have New York. She looks poised do very well in both of those states.
So, back to Josh's point -- yes, she needs to pick up those Bernie Sanders voter, yes, there are red flags in her campaign in the sort of what we call the enthusiasm gap. It's also true that once you get to a general election, that whole scenario shifts because a lot of those Sanders voters will come to Hillary Clinton.
And they won't necessarily do it because they love Hillary Clinton or they're enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton. They'll do it because they fear a Donald Trump presidency or because they fear a Ted Cruz presidency.
BERMAN: All right, guys. Stand by. A lot more to discuss. A lot to chew on about this race going forward.
But there is other news. Happening right now, a manhunt for two terrorists linked possibly to a terrorist attacks. This comes after a raid in Belgium. We have new information on this case and this raid, next.
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[04:55:43] BERMAN: All right. Back to our election coverage in just a few minutes.
But, first, breaking news, North Korea sentencing a 21-year-old American student to 15 years hard labor. Otto Warmbier, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, was convicted of subversion in a one-hour trial earlier this morning. He was arrested in January. He broke down last month at a press conference, apologizing for allegedly stealing a political banner. Warmbier is one of three North Americans currently being held by Pyongyang.
ROMANS: A manhunt underway right now in Brussels. Authorities are searching for two suspects who fired on police during a raid in an apartment that was tied to last year's Paris terror attacks. One suspect was killed and four officers wounded when the operation was interrupted by gunfire. Now, police are not saying just how the raid was connected to the Paris attacks.
BERMAN: Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Russia next week to press for an end to the civil war in Syria. The secretary says Russia's decision to withdraw most of its forces from Syria along with the peace talks in Geneva provided the best opportunity to end the conflict since it began five years ago. The secretary will leave for Moscow after returning from a trip to Cuba on Tuesday.
ROMANS: Breaking overnight, the city council in Ferguson, Missouri, voting to accept a Justice Department plan calling for an of your haul of its police force and court system. At first, council members attempted to revise the deal but they backed off when the federal government filed lawsuit that is still pending. The father of Michael Brown attended last night. He did not speak publicly.
BERMAN: A lot of finger-pointing in the Flint water contamination hearing on Capitol Hill, when lawmakers asked former EPA official Susan Headman why she did not act more forcefully last year after learning a crucial protective chemical was added to the drinking water. She insisted the agency did nothing wrong and blamed limited enforcement options. The House Oversight Committee hearing continues on Thursday with Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder scheduled to testify.
ROMANS: All right. Time for an early start on your money this morning. Stock futures pointing higher. Oil is rebounding from losses earlier in the week. Look at stock markets in Europe. They're rising. Asian markets finished mostly lower overnight.
Federal Reserve wraps up a two-day policy meeting this afternoon. We do not expect an interest rate hike but investors will be looking closely at what the Fed chief Janet Yellen and company may or may not say about future hikes. The initial plan was for rate hike this year. That's probably unlikely after oil crashed and stocks sank, but the rebound in those markets over the past few weeks suggest a rate increase later in the year is still possible. At least that's the conventional wisdom on Wall Street.
BERMAN: EARLY START continues right now.
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BERMAN: All right. The breaking news this morning: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton with big wins on final after Super Tuesday, truly super for both of them, putting them much closer to their party's nominations, but there were some key developments, which means that there is a long way to go.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman.
ROMANS: All I heard was long way to go. I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, March 16th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East. We welcome all of our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world.
The big night, folks, Super Tuesday turns into a super night for the front runners of the four states with the final results overnight, Donald Trump took three of them, losing just one, Ohio, to its governor, John Kasich. Trump may pick up a fourth state in Missouri where he's barely $, edging out Ted Cruz, not even 2,000 votes ahead. Still far too close to call this morning.
For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton is the declared winner four states including Ohio, which had been in question. Missouri is still too close to Democrats. Clinton locked in an incredibly tight race there with Bernie Sanders. The final results in Missouri may be days away.
That did not stop the front-runners from celebrating their big victories last night.
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TRUMP: To win the states that we won, and to win by the margins and especially -- look, this is my second home, Florida. To win by that kind of a number is incredible.
(APPLAUSE) CLINTON: We know we will add to our delegate lead to roughly 300 with over 2 million votes nationwide. We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November.
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