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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Calirfornia Results Thus Far; Clinton First Woman Nominee of Major Party; Trump Remarks Examined. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired June 08, 2016 - 03:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, EARLY START SHOW HOST: Good morning, and welcome to a special morning after the final Super Tuesday edition of Early Start. I'm John Berman.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, EARLY START SHOW CO-HOST: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, June 8th, 3 a.m. in the east and midnight in California, where they are still, still counting the votes.

BERMAN: Let's take a look at where the vote stands right now in California. Forty six percent now in, Hillary Clinton at 58 percent, about a 400,000-vote lead.

Now this margin, it is shrinking. It has been shrinking over time. Bernie Sanders getting closer. Can he close enough? Just don't know yet. No call to make just yet.

Now even without California, history has been made overnight in this election. Hillary Clinton, the first woman to be the presumptive nominee of a major party, the Democratic Party. In last night in Brooklyn, she spoke to supporters and talked about the path ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be president and commander-in-chief.

(CROWD CHEERING)

And he's -- he's not just trying to build a wall between America and Mexico. He's trying to wall-off Americans from each other. When he says let's make America great again, that is code for, let's take America backwards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, six states voted in the final Super Tuesday. Hillary Clinton won in New Jersey, pretty big, New Mexico and South Dakota which is a little bit of surprise. Bernie Sanders won in North Dakota and Montana.

And again, they are still counting votes in California there. Hillary Clinton, you can see with this lead, although that includes the early vote which typically she does very, very well in.

ROMANS: All right. We'll continue to watch those as they come in.

Meantime, Donald Trump is striking a presidential tone, sticking to -- sticking to the script and sticking to a teleprompter, making no mention of the controversy over his remarks about a judge's Mexican heritage. His speech loaded with attack lines aimed at Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves.

(APPLAUSE)

They've made hundreds of millions of dollars selling access, selling favors, selling government contracts, and, I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars. Secretary Clinton even did all of the work on a totally illegal private server, something that how she's getting away with, folks, nobody understands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So much to talk about. I'll start talking about it right now. We're joined now by our array of people. I want to first go CNN politics reporter Tal Kopan, again, we've been talking about this all day, since Hillary Clinton became the presumptive nominee 24 hours ago. But it was history, history she finally acknowledged tonight, as she spoke to reporters in Brooklyn.

TAL KOPAN, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Yes, that's right. You know, we wrote yesterday about how it was sort of an odd historical moment really muted when all of a sudden the Associated Press and then us and some of the major networks decided to call it for her based on our count of delegates. And she couldn't quite declare victory yet, because you still had all these votes today.

Well, today, she finally got her moment and she had the sort of triumphant moment on stage to the cheering crowds and she, you know, returned to the glass ceiling that she had spoken about eight years ago, as she conceded to Barack Obama.

And this time, had that sort of triumphant return to the stage to talk about beginning to break that glass ceiling. So, it was a really great night for her and she also handled the speech very well.

It really seemed like she had her footing, she sort of seamlessly transitioned from talking about the historic nature of the moment to thanking Senator Sanders for his campaign to then attacking Donald Trump. And she really had her marks in her regard.

ROMANS: OK. Tal, stay with us. We got a pre-dawned dream team here. M.J., CNN political -- politics political reporter Josh Rogin is here, CNN political analyst and Washington Post columnist, Andy Dean, CNN political commentator, former president of Trump Productions and a Donald Trump supporter, and Dan Pfeiffer, former senior advisor to President Obama.

Dan, I wanted to look at this image that the Clinton campaign tweeted out. This image of Hillary Clinton looks like backstage they are in the hallway with this little girl sort of dancing at her feet. Kind of a visual image, if you will, of what the history is here tonight.

To every little girl who dreams big, yes, you can be anything you want, even president, tonight is for you, signed H., meaning that she sent it out herself.

[03:05:05] Is this the imagery that the campaign is going to dwell on here, this imagery of the first woman to get the nomination, and will they sustain that with at the same time, an attack against Donald Trump and his policies?

DAN PFEIFFER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think this will be obviously part of the backdrop of narrative of the election. And tonight was a very important moment, history was made, they acknowledged it, she's certainly savored it. Women around the country and frankly around the world savored it.

It will be -- it will be there, I think it will be a very motivating factor for a lot of women, including some who I think voted for Mitt Romney, who had concerns about Donald Trump who may come to Hillary Clinton as part of that with the idea of the first woman president.

So, it will be part of it. I don't think it will be the main part of her message, it won't be part of her contrast with Donald Trump, but it will be part of the election, as it should be.

BERMAN: Now I was struck by the fact that even they were tweeting out these images with Hillary Clinton, they were with children with Hillary Clinton making history, M.J., that the speech was very much equally focused on Donald Trump.

To me, it was a signal that, you know, whatever history, whatever inspirational message, you know, I may try to give during this election. You know, this election is going to be about negatives, big time on both candidates.

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICS & CNN MONEY REPORTER: Right. And I think when she decided to tweet out an image like this of her standing with a little girl, you know, this isn't just about making an appeal as a woman, or to women.

I thin, you're absolutely right that this is about drawing a contrast between herself and Donald Trump. And you notice that in her speech in Brooklyn last night, when she went after Trump, it was not over disagreements over policy. You know, she didn't say, you know, Donald Trump and I don't see eye to eye on trade policy or tax policy.

She went after him on character issues. She went after him on his comments about Judge Curiel. He went -- she went after him for comments that he has made about women.

So, this is something that we are going to certainly see continue to play out over the next of couple months. I think she wants to make sure that she is the nominee that presents a hopeful message. And that is actually acting presidential when Donald Trump is very much sort of, you know, being attacked and being criticized for a whole number of different scandals and controversies.

ROMANS: Right. You know, Josh, it's interesting you talk about an imagery for Hillary Clinton with the little girl, that the history being made, the first woman to win a major party's nomination, and then you think of the imagery of the Donald Trump speech, by the way, where he was flanked by his wife and his daughter.

When you see the speech on television of Donald Trump, you see Donald Trump with two women behind him. What does Hillary Clinton need to do in terms of the general election on this front?

You know, Bernie Sanders, young women, millennial women in particular, by and large preferred Bernie Sanders, which is so interesting. They don't seem to be moved by the history-making aspect of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that's right. As my wife, a millennial feminist herself constantly reminds me, young feminists don't want to be told to vote for women just because they're women. They want to vote on merit.

But I think when you get down to it, there's very little substantive arguments that Donald Trump can make to those young millennial feminist himself. And in the end, on the merit, they'll largely support Hillary Clinton. I think that's what you're going to see.

I think when you look at the two speeches and the two images being put forth, well, the speeches are the same. The details are not, OK. Hillary Clinton what she needs to do, in my opinion, is point out her record of supporting women and policies that support women that includes when she was a senator when she was a Secretary of State.

There's a lot there if she can get into the details if she can get the people to focus on those details. She needs to continue to point out that while Donald Trump professes to be for women and not just for women, but for lots of different groups, including several minorities groups.

Sometimes there's no meat on those bones and he has a hard time articulating what exactly that means in the context of his campaign and his presidency.

So, we've got the big images. We've got the two top line speeches. We'll now have a chance to fill in the details. And I think there Hillary Clinton, so far has a substantial advantage.

BERMAN: Andy Dean, Donald Trump supporter, do you care to respond to Josh Rogin there? And I would ask you only to additionally focus on Donald Trump tonight, and whether or not you thought it was a good move for him to take that teleprompter up on stage with him, something he is loath to do, only done I think four other times in this campaign so far. ANDY DEAN, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Yes. I think there are going to be a

couple teleprompter speeches, but not too many of them. I mean, his strength is on the stump. But I think the one thing he did that was nice in this speech, is he focused right back on Hillary Clinton and talking about the fact that she traded hundreds of millions of dollars for access.

And on to this point of, you know, Hillary Clinton being the first woman, you know, her gender is not in question. That's a wonderful thing. It's her judgment that is in question. And nobody in their right mind believes that Hillary Clinton is some feminist or, you know, some freedom fighter like Susan B. Anthony.

[03:10:06] I mean, this is a person who has a very checkered past when it comes to women's rights and issues. And we just have to look at what Bill and Hillary did to many women in the '80s and '90s, whose lives were destroyed.

So, you know, if Hillary really wants to play up the Susan B. Anthony thing, then it's only fair that the other part of her record is covered, in which she really hurt a lot of women in the '80s and '90s.

ROMANS: Dan, I'm going to give you the last word here, because that's what the campaign is really going to have to be ready for from team Trump. They're going to try to turn the woman thing around on her.

PFEIFFER: Yes, I would just say here...

ROMANS: Dan Pfeiffer, go ahead.

PFEIFFER: Sorry. They'll be prepared. This is a battle that the Clintons have been fighting for 30 years now. The challenge for Trump is not to tear down Hillary Clinton. If he has any chance of winning this election, he has to dramatically improve his standing with core groups, including women, Latinos, African-Americans and young people, who will decide this election.

And right now, he's historically unpopular with them. So, tearing down Hillary Clinton is good for, you know, cable news. It's not -- it's not a great way to win the election.

BERMAN: All right, guys, stick around. A lot to discuss going forward. There was celebration, there was attacking, all at once on two stages. We just talked a lot about Hillary.

We're going to focus more on Donald Trump, coming up. The speech he gave, what he said about the speech he'll do next week, will the speech completely devoted to the Clintons. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMARA WALKER, CNN NEWSROOM SHOW HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Amara Walker. This is CNN news now.

Voter turn-out is expected to be high as the U.K. prepares for a referendum on staying in or quitting the European Union. On a TV show, British Prime Minister David Cameron made the case for

staying, while independent party leader Nigel Farage argued Britain should leave.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: The British thing to do is to fight for a Great Britain inside the European Union and don't take the Nigel Farage little England option.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can you have the audacity to use such (Inaudible) gambling scare tactics for the leave campaign?

NIGEL FARAGE, UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY LEADER: I'm used to being demonized because I've taken on the establishment.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you're demonizing mind...

FARAGE: And I have -- just let me finish. What's happened is, a very large number of young single males have settled in Germany and Sweden, who come from cultures where attitudes towards women are different. I haven't scare mongered in any way at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: British voters will cast their ballots on June 23rd. The Turkish President is calling a deadly attack in Istanbul unforgivable. State media report that the car bombing killed 11 people, including 7 police officers. The blast targeted a police bus in the historical district of the Turkish City. Thirty six people were wounded.

[03:15:00] Police in Papua, New Guinea opened fire on student protesters Wednesday, wounding at least nine and possibly killing one. The demonstrators have been demanding the prime minister resign over corruption allegation.

A lawyer there says riots are popping up in Port Moresby in solidarity with the students.

And angry protesters in Venezuela want President Nicolas Maduro out of office. They clashed with police Tuesday, demanding the electoral board verify a petition for referendum.

Polls show up to 70 percent of Venezuelan wants Mr. Maduro out. The country has been plagued by food, medicine, and electricity shortages.

That is your CNN news now. Early Start continues next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Now I know some people say I'm too much of a fighter. My preference is always peace, however. And I've shown that. I've shown that for a long time. I've built an extraordinary business on relationships and deals that benefit all parties involved, always. My goal is always, again, to bring people together. But if I'm forced

to fight for something I really care about, I will never, ever back down, and our country will never, ever back down.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. I've fought for my family, I've fought for my business, I've fought for my employees, and now I'm going to fight for you, the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

Like nobody has ever fought before. And I'm not a politician fighting. I'm me. You're going to see some real good things happen.

(APPLAUSE)

Just remember this, I'm going to be your champion, I'm going to be America's champion. Because, you see, this election isn't about republican or democrat. It's about who runs this country, the special interests or the people -- and I mean, the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. You hear Donald Trump there speaking to a group of supporters at one of his golf clubs here outside New York City. What was interesting about that speech, it was on teleprompter. Also interesting about that speech, a tone that was more measured than we'd heard before.

Also interesting about that speech, we're encourage during this campaign at a time when he has been in the middle of a lot of turmoil because of comments that Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, a republican says are pretty much racist. The textbook definition of racist comments.

So did he cross that divide he needed to cross tonight? Back with us our panel right now.

Josh Rogin, let me start with you. Reince Priebus said he liked the speech. He said "great victory speech by real Donald Trump tonight, exactly the right approach and perfectly delivered." That's what Reince Priebus said. What do you think?

ROGIN: I think, you know, there are two types of establishment republicans, though, now. Those who are bending over backwards to find tiny bits of the Donald Trump campaign that they can latch onto to justify their continued support.

And those who are looking for the exit ramp, and looking for a way to say, hey, I tried, but this guy is just going to be doom for the future of our party and our conservative movement.

Reince Priebus has a job to do. His job is to make Donald Trump palatable to republicans. It's a tough job. He's struggling at it, he's trying hard. But Donald Trump made it a tiny bit easier with that speech. But again, the proof is in what he will do from here on out, when he's not reading off the teleprompter, when he's talking off the cuff. We'll have to wait and see.

ROMANS: Tal, you've been live blogging all night, you've been watching all of the -- all of these candidates and telling us what, you know, the play by play, if you will. And let me ask you about when this speech -- this speech comes in a week when he has seen some of the party's leaders really, really upset about his controversy over the heritage of the judge who is presiding over the Trump University matter.

He didn't mention Trump University, he didn't mention judges. He's trying to look forward. But the timing is interesting, he's saying, "I'm going to fight for you, I will never let you down," at a time when there many in the party who he did let down this week.

KOPAN: Absolutely. I thought that Reince Priebus treat was really telling tonight and I had a slightly different read on it than Josh. Which is when Reince Priebus is 100 percent happy with how Donald Trump comported himself tonight, something is a little off.

And, you know, there's a cardinal rule in politics and sports and any sort of game like this. You want to be fighting on your turf. And here we are, the last night of the primary, that sort of Donald Trump's victory moment going into the convention that he can claim, and he's reading off a teleprompter, which just yesterday, he was making fun of Hillary Clinton for doing, and he's muted and he's exactly what the sort of establishment republicans want him to be.

[03:19:57] It's a very unusual place for him to be. And you know, I think that he had a decent speech and he showed that he can read from a teleprompter and follow a script, but it definitely wasn't the Donald Trump that has energized all his supporters and gotten him here.

And so, it will be interesting to see in the coming days and weeks when he isn't coming off these brutal five days or so of criticism from inside his own party, which Donald Trump we get.

But I'm not sure the Republican Party actually wants the Donald Trump that makes them 100 percent happy.

BERMAN: Andy Dean, you know, Andy your face.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: I'm looking to Tal, I'm looking to Andy Dean's face.

BERMAN: You know, do you agree with Tal? This is sort of a capitulation and tactics from Donald Trump?

DEAN: No. She makes some good points. I mean, personally, I like the non-teleprompter Trump. I mean, that's the Trump that I knew for seven years when I worked for him. And I think that's the candidate the Republican Party and republican voters fell in love with. I mean, this guy who got more votes than any republican nominee in

history. So, we like that guy. But at the same time, you know, he has to expand the base. And I think the teleprompter here and there can help him do that.

Now, I don't think he's going to do that all the time. But I'll tell you this, though. You know, the media says to Donald, hey, you need to play it straight, you need to calm a little and, you know, that's what the teleprompter is.

But then all of a sudden when he does that and he's calm and measured and he has a teleprompter, they're like, hey, where's the fun, non- teleprompter Trump? So, sometimes he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. But I think you're going to see a mixture of both trumps. And I think it's going to take both of them to win. And that's fine. He's going to do what it takes to win. he knows how to win.

ROMANS: It's so interesting, though, because he just said, I'm not changing, I'm not changing. You know, he just very famously this week -- I think it was this week. He said, this is who I am, I'm not changing.

But then you see sort of the demeanor last night and you wonder if he's trying to make that pivot to being more presidential. But you're still right, Andy, it is the other Trump that everyone really fell in love with.

Dan Pfeiffer, if you -- if Trump can manage to get his republican leadership behind him, can he make in-roads, do you think, with those republican voters who are still concerned that Trump doesn't speak for the mainstream of the Republican Party?

PFEIFFER: Sure. He can -- he has opportunity to make some in-roads there to help more unify the Republican Party. He has that opportunity. It's challenging for him this week. It was really devastating on that regard.

Hillary Clinton is a pretty good motivator of republican voters, given the long history there. But just winning Romney's voters isn't -- it means that he will lose in a huge electoral landslide. He has to do much more than that.

So, he is in a massive deficit to actually winning the election. Because he's going to unify his voters just to get to Romney's, you know, 47 percent, ironically, and then to get the 54 that won...

[03:25:00] (TECHNICAL PROBLEM)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:30:00] (TECHNICAL PROBLEM)

LEE: ... Trump. And to be honest, I think she has done that, and she is moving in that direction. Her speech tonight was really about sort of the moment in history of her clinching the nomination, and then really pivoting to the general election and going after Donald Trump and drawing contrast between herself and Donald Trump, the republican presumptive nominee.

So, I don't think, you know, from her perspective it really matters that she is in -- that he is remaining in this race, as long as he handles himself in such a way that he can help her as she takes on Donald Trump in the fall.

ROMANS: You know, Dan Pfeiffer, helping her as she takes on Donald Trump in the fall. It's interesting to me when I listened to Bernie Sanders tonight. He talked about how he looks forward to working with President Obama to unify his party. He didn't say her.

The White House putting out a statement saying that, "At the request of Bernie Sanders," he would be meeting with the President at the White House, I think on Thursday. Notable that it was Bernie Sanders request to meet with the president.

How much influence will Bernie Sanders have in the platform of the party, and what happens in Philadelphia, the choice as a V.P.? Does he really have the influence it seems like he has the influence he's trying to hold on to?

PFEIFFER: Well, I think that he'll certainly have influence at the convention in terms of policy, the party platform, you know, whatever reform process just go in place about how our nominees are picked.

I don't think he will have any influence on Hillary Clinton's nominee, nor should he or the V.P. nominee, nor should he. Hillary Clinton had none on Barack Obama in 2008; it was a much closer race. That's really the decision of the party nominee.

But he has turned himself from a back-bench, unknown senator to a very powerful force in the Democratic Party, and progressive politics in the country. And he can leverage that not just in this country to help to defeat Donald Trump, but to push for the issues he spent his whole career on going forward.

And there is real opportunity for him if he handles himself in the right way in the next several weeks. That is an if. I believe he will do the right thing. I was comforted by the tone of his speech. I was comforted by the fact that he did not go after Hillary Clinton.

This is a hard process. Sniffing the White House is intoxicating. It is very hard to come down from a presidential campaign, but when you think you might have -- there's a moment when you can picture yourself in the Oval Office on Air Force One, losing is that much harder.

And Bernie Sanders is in that position. So, there is going to be a process where himself and his campaign staff and his supporters to get there, I'm confident they'll get there but it's going to take a little bit of time. But I think the president can help bring this to closure sooner rather than later.

BERMAN: You know, Tal Kopan, there's a juicy article in Politico, you know, tonight, which talks about Bernie Sanders really driving the ship and being the one to keep the pressure on Hillary Clinton over the last few months. It was Bernie Sanders who wanted to make the statement after the

Nevada convention, according to this article that didn't, you know, didn't apologize for the violence there, et cetera, et cetera.

Do you think it's in his heart to back off and get in line with the Democratic Party right now?

KOPAN: It certainly seemed to be tonight. You know, you could be a bit pessimistic about it and think that perhaps he wanted to give Hillary Clinton and, you know, women who may feel that this night is extremely historic, just give that space. We'll see what comes tomorrow.

He, as she delivered her remarks, his campaign sent out a reminder to his supporters about the rally that he is planning in D.C. on Thursday. And you know, we could really parse his words. Tonight also, it was a very uncharacteristically short speech from Bernie Sanders tonight.

We're used to him going about an hour, sometimes closer to 90 minutes and he spoke for close to 15 tonight. But he said he pledged to continue the fight, but what we didn't hear from him tonight is a promise to actually secure the nomination.

[03:35:04] And that's something he said throughout this campaign, even when the math was tough he was pledging to turn super delegates to take the fight and get the nomination and we didn't hear from him tonight.

BERMAN: All right, guys. Thank you so much. Dan Pfeiffer, Andy Dean, I think we have to say goodnight to you, guys.

ROMANS: Lucky you, you get to get some sleep.

BERMAN: It's a beauty sleep.

ROMANS: Thanks, guys.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: I appreciate it. Thank you

DEAN: Thank you. I appreciate it.

BERMAN: All right. Obviously we are in for quite a few months here. Based on what we saw last night with these victory speeches for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. They're going to go after each other hard for the next few months. So, what will that look like? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALKER: Hello, everyone. I'm Amara Walker. This is CNN news now.

The White House is condemning a bombing in Istanbul's tourist district that killed 11 people, including seven police officers. According to Turkish state media, four people connected to Tuesday's attack have been detained.

Turkey's president said the bombings which targeted at police bus is unforgivable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RECEP TAYYIP ERDO?AN, TURKEY PRESIDENT (TRANSLATED): Let me tell you this very clearly, that the terrorist organization distinguishing between the police and civilians, or between the soldiers and civilians does not make any difference for us.

After all, they are all humans. What they have done is against humans. And what is the duty of our police, army, and village guards? To protect the safety of the whole nation and security of our people and their lives and property.

These steps, the terror actions are being taken against these people. So, there's nothing forgivable about what they have done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: People in Papua, New Guinea opened fire on student protestors, wounding at least nine and possibly killing one. Now the demonstrators have been demanding that prime minister resign over corruption allegations.

A lawyer there says riots are popping up in Port Moresby in solidarity with the students.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he will work to sign the Paris climate change agreement by the end of the year. The announcement came after Modi's meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama.

India is one of the world's largest greenhouse gas producers along with China and the U.S.

The U.S. Air Force says the Chinese jet intercepted one of its reconnaissance aircraft in an unsafe manner over the East China Sea. An official says the fighter jet was never closer than 30 meters, but it was flying very fast. This comes as the U.S. presses China to lower barriers to foreign business.

And that is your CNN news now. Early Start continues next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Together, we accomplished what nobody thought was absolutely possible.

CLINTON: It may be hard to see tonight, but we are all standing under a glass ceiling right now.

(CROWD CHEERING)

[03:40:04] Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be president. TRUMP: We will make America great again.

CLINTON: That is code for, let's take America backwards.

TRUMP: The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves.

CLINTON: He's not just trying to build a wall between America and Mexico. He's trying to wall-off Americans from each other.

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton turned the State Department into her private hedge fund.

CLINTON: Whether you supported me or Senator Sanders or one of the republicans, we all need to keep working for a better, fairer, stronger America.

TRUMP: All of those Bernie Sanders voters, who have been left out in the cold by a rigged system of super delegates, we welcome you with open arms.

CLINTON: I know, it never feels good to put your heart into a cause or a candidate you believe in, and to come up short. I know that feeling well.

TRUMP: The last thing we need is Hillary Clinton in the White House or an extension of the Obama disaster.

CLINTON: The stakes in this election are high and the choice is clear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Oh, just one night. That was one night. That was last night. How many nights are there left until November 8th? Wow, this is going to be some election. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton giving their projected victory speeches last night.

ROMANS: You won't have a California every night. I mean, let's be honest. No, it's important as the big deal.

BERMAN: Of course, you got debates, you got conventions, you got a whole lot to discuss.

ROMANS: It is true.

BERMAN: And joining us to discuss, we have some new members on our panel. Brian Stelter, CNN senior media correspondent and host to Reliable Sources, and Eugene Scott, CNN politics reporter; and of course, M.J. Lee still here, Tal Kopan still here, Josh Rogin, they are still with us as well.

Brian Stelter as a new addition we will start with you right now.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: Those are new guys.

BERMAN: Both candidates of on an election night like this, you seek to inspire, you seek to look ahead, you seek to lift up. Both candidates chose last night to knock down and hit each other hard.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This was the Hillary Clinton we recognize because this was a culmination in some ways over campaign speeches. It was not the Donald Trump that we recognize, right? This was a prompter Donald Trump. It was uncomfortable at times. I thought he was only having fun when he was al-libbing, and sort of be very curious to see for how long he can stick with this prompter.

ROMANS: Interesting. You know, M.J., it's true, the two -- the attacks against each other really kind of frame, I think, what's going to happen between now and November 8th, doesn't it?

LEE: The two attacks between...

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: Yes, just the kind of the imagery we saw last night, the way that each...

LEE: Right.

ROMANS: ... you know, going after the other one. I mean, we have -- we've entered the general election essentially.

LEE: Yes. And it shows that even though Bernie Sanders has decided to stay in the race, Hillary Clinton has moved on and she actually moved on a while ago, and I think Donald Trump, by focusing on Hillary Clinton and promising a speech that is going to be largely focus on Clinton next week.

He's trying to also move away from the recent wave of controversies, including his comments about Judge Curiel. Really noticeably not addressing issue at all tonight in his speech, not picking questions, and it's by instead sticking to the teleprompter.

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: Yes. One thing about Trump that Trump did not acknowledge the history-making moment of Clinton being the presumptive nominee the first time a woman is a nominee of a major party. The fact that he didn't brand up, he didn't talk about I thought was curious. It would have been an easy thing from the duty to actually shows not to.

BERMAN: And Eugene Scott, back to the Hillary Clinton side, I mean, there was zero subtle about her attacks on Donald Trump. She said Donald Trump does not have the temperament to be president.

Her message is that she doesn't think Donald Trump has the temperament to be president. Correct? It was interesting to see him placed in such dark terms. EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Very much so. One thing I

thought was very interesting. You see, when she acknowledged Sanders supporters who were obviously did not vote for her. She also mentioned other republicans, other republicans who did not support Donald Trump and who don't believe that he is the best person to lead this country forward. Appealing to them, trying to get them to come on board. I thought that was a new approach that I had not seen recently.

ROMANS: Josh, I want to -- first, I want to talk about the history making aspect of this campaign. I start with you, Josh, because there is the obvious history that the Hillary Clinton campaign made.

And they even tweeted out a picture of Hillary Clinton with this little girl, you know, backstage or in a hallway, where you could sort of see the imagery of Hillary Clinton as a role model to every girl who dreams big. Yes, you can be anything you want.

Even president tonight is for you, H. You know, and then Donald Trump's history-making too. He beat out like 16 other people for her -- for his job, for this role here. And quite frankly, a lot of them were very well qualified.

Josh, talk to me a little bit about what that means for us in the next, in the weeks ahead, just both campaigns have a degree of history here.

[03:44:59] ROGIN: Sure. I think what you're seeing is that both campaigns realize the basic truth about presidential elections and you hear this every four years.

When people are put to a binary choice of, would you like the status quo, or would you like something different, most will go with something different. It's just something about our politics that keeps presenting itself.

So, what you see is Hillary Clinton presenting herself and her campaign and her vision as something different. She talked about progressive change, she talks about the evolution of big issues over generations and how about Donald Trump's platform represents a turn to the past. A turn to things that we already know.

And Donald Trump presents a very different and totally incongruous vision of what something different means. For him, something different it means anti-establishment, anti-system. So, they're both making the same argument totally different ways. And that's what you're going to see.

ROMANS: All right. We'll go to the California boards. We'll take a quick break, but I want to look at the California boards on the way out here.

Hillary Clinton 396,000 votes ahead. I mean, she's holding on to just almost 400,000 vote lead.

BERMAN: Yes. ROMANS: Fifty seven and a half percent to Bernie Sanders 47.5, 52 percent of the precinct voting. We're going to continue to follow that.

[03:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: All right, there you can see the counting in California is still ongoing. And Hillary Clinton now has a 400,085 vote lead.

BERMAN: It's actually climbing by the numbers at least a little bit.

ROMANS: It is. Bernie Sanders with 41, just about 42 percent of the vote there. So, the final Super Tuesday is in the books. Again, they're still counting these votes in California. Bernie Sanders said he's staying in so where does the race go from here?

Let's bring our panel back again. I want to start with M.J. Lee first. You know, Hillary Clinton with 400,000 vote lead in California. Give us a little bit, you know, pull the curtain back on the operation in California on just how much work and how much focus they had on this really big, important, blue state?

LEE: Yes, and really important to keep in mind, is that the Clinton campaign never even expected California to be a close race or race that they would have to pay attention to coming so late in the five goal.

But Sanders, of course, decided to essentially camped out in the state and put all of the stakes in the State of California. He has been spending a lot of time there, campaigning there really criss-crossing the state.

And so, the Clinton campaign really went in all in the last couple of days, making sure that this would not end up being a really an embarrassing loss, even if it just symbolic coming at the end of the primary season.

I think the California primary was a seat where we really saw the advantages that the Clinton campaign had, in terms of having a ground game, having surrogates, all across the state that the campaign for her. And the surrogates were especially important in the campaign's outreach to non-white voters.

They had surrogates of color doing phone bangs, making sure that they were speaking at rallies and walking in marches. So, really an all-out get up the vote effort. But I think Sanders was not able to pull off.

I remember Sanders didn't even have a single significant political endorsement in the State of California. So, if he were to somehow win in California, that would be huge, and a huge loss for Hillary Clinton, not something that we are expecting to happen in the polling.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: And again, just to be clear where we are right now, Hillary Clinton leads by 400,000 votes. About half the vote counted, a little more than half the vote counted, 54 percent. She leads by 400,000 votes. Still a long way to go.

However, look, if it were to finish like this or even close a little, this would be a very big victory for Hillary Clinton, bigger than any of the polls had suggested. Perhaps indicating that something she has done over the last three says has swung that state more to her side, maybe that big speech on Friday.

Tal, I want to shift gears just a little bit and talk about the next week of this campaign. Because we heard a lot of interesting details about what all three current candidates are doing.

You know, we talked about Bernie Sanders he's going to the White House to meet with President Obama and Harry Reid. Hillary Clinton, though, on the week, she is going to swing states, Ohio and Pennsylvania, right? And I suppose you could say Donald Trump is going to Hillary Clinton, I mean, he's got a big speech plan on just the Clintons.

Interesting trajectory for all three of them.

KOPAN: Yes, it's sort of like tonight or last night based on how long you've been up, it's sort of the first night of the rest of our lives, right. Like this was the general election kickoff that we saw tonight.

And you see the two presumptive nominees are right there. They are focusing on those battleground states. And you know, Bernie Sanders has pledge to fight on and continue through the D.C. primary next week which we're not giving a ton of attention because it's a very small delegate total, compared to California tonight which had almost 500 delegates up for grab.

You know, we're talking low double digits here next week. But that's going to be more of a symbolic thing for him to continue and to continue to try to get some leverage as he pushes some of these policy positions.

We have the presumptive nominees on the other hand. They're on an all- out battle for that squishy middle for those people who are going to decide the election this November.

ROMANS: You know, Brian, if she wins California, and again, she's got a 400,000 vote lead right now. If she wins California she'll have 116 of 20 largest state, right?

That's -- and you know, and made history, made history tonight the first woman to be a presumptive nominee of either party. Yet, Bernie's staying in and the challenge from Bernie has been so much of the story line...

STELTER: Right.

ROMANS: ... over the past few days. Does last night, if she wins California, does that story line go away?

STELTER: Well, for one thing we see strong voter turn-out in California. There was concern that the Associated Press and CNN and other outlets calling the race essentially, calling Hillary Clinton the presumptive nominee one day before the primary were to hear voter turn-out.

I don't see evidence of that in the results so far. Many, many millions who went to the polls in California and elsewhere. It does seem for next Tuesday in D.C. that could be Sanders' chance to have an opportunity there to get out of the race if he chooses then.

BERMAN: Josh Rogin, 30-second, last word on these three candidates in the next week.

ROGIN: Well, you're going to find Donald Trump trying to go after Hillary Clinton for public corruption, he's going to bring in the Clinton Foundation, he's going to bring in everything that he can think, the paid speeches.

[03:55:05] The question is whether or not he's in fact to back up those claims. He's good at hurling bombs, he's not really good at explaining them.

BERMAN: All right, guys. Stick around. A lot more to discuss at the top of the hour, including how this election really look different as of this morning.

ROMANS: Early Start continues next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: First time in our nation's history that a woman will be a major party's nominee.

(CROWD CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MAX FOSTER, CNN NEWSROOM SHOW HOST: Hillary Clinton declares victory, but her democratic opponent says for him the fight is not over.

[03:59:58] Thanks for joining us. I'm Max Foster in London. This is CNN Newsroom.

Well, even before this last Super Tuesday, Hillary Clinton had already won in --