Return to Transcripts main page
New Day
CNN Poll: Trump & Clinton Expected to be Nominees; Bernie Sanders Faces Test on Super Tuesday; Chris Rock Takes on Diversity at Academy Awards. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired February 29, 2016 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald is not going to make America great. He's going to make America orange.
[05:58:32] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's not cool. He sweats too much. And I don't want him negotiating for us.
RUBIO: Donald Trump refused, refused to criticize the Ku Klux Klan.
TRUMP: You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't need to make America great again. America has never stopped being great.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're looking to the future, not looking back.
CLINTON: I will stand up and fight for you.
CHRIS ROCK, COMEDIAN: I'm here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the white People's Choice Awards.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The glitz, the glamour, the controversy.
ROCK: We want the black actors to get the same opportunities. That's it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. We do have a lot of news for you. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, February 29, 6 a.m. in the East. Chris is off this morning. John Berman joins me here. Great to have you.
And Michaela is in L.A., covering all of the Oscar excitement for us. Mick, we'll be back with you in a minute.
But we begin with breaking news in the 2016 race. A new CNN national poll shows Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton pulling way ahead of their challengers heading into Super Tuesday tomorrow. Trump and Clinton widely expected to become their party's nominees.
Donald Trump continues to expand his commanding lead, with roughly half of Republican voters supporting him. Marco Rubio is second with 16 percent. That's more than 30 points behind Trump and Ted Cruz with 15 percent. If you add up all of Trump's competitors, they still cannot match him.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, that is the key point. So much for a winnowed field and consolidation.
Now, on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton opening up a wider margin against Bernie Sanders. She now has a 17-point lead. Both front- runners at this point with big momentum as they head into Super Tuesday. Voters in 11 states head to the polls tomorrow. This is the biggest week of this campaign.
Let's begin our coverage with Chris Frates in Alabama, where Donald Trump picked up a big endorsement overnight -- Chris.
CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John.
The GOP campaign starting to look more like a middle-school spat than a race for the highest office in the land, with Marco Rubio and Donald Trump trading personal insults over each other's looks. And with only hours to go until voting starts on Super Tuesday, Marco Rubio arguing that Donald Trump is a con man and Donald Trump saying Marco Rubio is a choker.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RUBIO: He doesn't sweat, because his pores are clogged from the spray tan that he uses.
FRATES: Marco Rubio unleashing an onslaught of insults and put-downs Sunday night in his latest string of personal attacks on Donald Trump.
RUBIO: Donald is not going to make America great. He's going to make America orange.
FRATES: Only hours after Trump took jabs at the freshman senator at a rally in Alabama.
TRUMP: Little Marco Rubio. A total, total featherweight.
RUBIO: He's always calling me "Little Marco." And I'll admit, he's taller than me. He's, like, 6'2", which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who's 5'2". Have you seen his hands? They're like this.
And you know what they say about men with small hands. You can't trust them.
FRATES: This as Trump stirs up controversy for what he didn't say.
RUBIO: Donald Trump refused, refused to criticize the Ku Klux Klan.
FRATES: The billionaire refusing to disavow support from former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.
TRUMP: I don't know anything about David Duke. OK?
FRATES: Trump deflecting questions by CNN's Jake Tapper.
TRUMP: I don't know anything about what you're even talking about, with white supremacy or white supremacists. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Did he endorse me? Or what's going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke.
FRATES: But on Friday...
TRUMP: Did David Duke endorse me? All right. I disavow. OK?
FRATES: And Trump does know of the Klansman. Back in 2000, the billionaire ended his brief flirtation with a presidential bid with the Reform Party, who had ties to the former KKK leader, saying in a statement reported by "The New York Times," "This is not company I wish to keep."
And Trump took to Twitter Sunday to once again disavow Duke's support, but only after he was attacked by some rivals.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRATES: Now, Donald Trump got another establishment support when Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions endorsed him at a rally here in Alabama yesterday. The hardliner on immigration is the first sitting senator to endorse Trump's candidacy. And it comes as the billionaire continues to coalesce establishment support about -- around his run.
John, Alisyn, back to you guys.
CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, thanks so much for that.
So voters in 11 states head to the polls tomorrow. And here this morning to dissect how the new polls and the latest headlines could impact this vote, we have senior politics editor for "The Daily Beast" and fellow at Georgetown's Institute of Politics and Public Service, Jackie Kucinich; CNN political commentator and political anchor at Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis; and CNN political director, David Chalian. Great to have all of you here for the big news.
These polls were just released three and a half minutes ago. David, let me show everyone what the big news is just one more time; it bears repeating. Trump has 49 percent. Marco Rubio is his closest competitor at 16 percent. Trump and Rubio have gone up since last month. Trump now has more than all of his competitors combined.
David, what does this mean for Super Tuesday? What does this mean for the nomination?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: And as Donald Trump points out, Alisyn, if those competitors were to drop out of this race, clearly, some of that vote would go to him, as we're seeing the case when other competitors have dropped out of the race. So all that talk about Donald Trump's ceiling can now be put to an
end. Obviously, this is now -- we've got a two-pronged story going on right now. Donald Trump is likely going to be the Republican nominee for president. He is in such a dominant position across every category in our poll: you know, can handle the responsibilities of commander in chief; can solve the problems of the country; cares about people like you, even though he's a billionaire. People give him that score. Honest and trustworthiness, he wins on, as well. So across the board, he is dominant in this poll. He's likely to be the Republican nominee.
And what we are now seeing, as you saw Chris mention there in his piece, is we are seeing Republican Party leadership, Republican Party establishment really starting to become more concerned than I have seen before about the party's very own existence going forward if Donald Trump is the nominee.
[06:05:06] BERMAN: "More concerned than I've ever seen before." Another word for that is "panic," David. You're starting to see, I think, the first signs of panic within the Republican Party. There was a piece from "The New York Times" over the weekend which talks about how the Republicans are beginning to deal with it. There are these attacks coming from every candidate. It's the kitchen sink out there on the campaign trail.
And it's why, Errol, perhaps every time Donald Trump does something controversial, they jump on it as best they can. And the latest controversial thing he did were these comments about the -- or the refusal, really, to answer Jake Tapper's questions about the Ku Klux Klan.
Let's just listen again to that exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?
TRUMP: Well, just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke. OK?
TAPPER: Would you just say unequivocally you condemn them and you don't want their support?
TRUMP: Well, I have to look at the group. I mean, I don't know what group you're talking about.
TAPPER: I mean, I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here, but...
TRUMP: I don't know any -- honestly, I don't know David Duke. I don't believe I've ever met him. I'm pretty sure I didn't meet him. And I just don't know anything about him.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: Errol, I think it's safe to say that almost any politician from either side of the aisle would just say, "Yes, you know, I denounce him. I don't want his -- I don't want his endorsement at all." That's an easy question to answer for most questions.
Donald Trump later said that he did denounce David Duke. But the fact -- and I think the vehemence with which everyone pounced on this is instructive. It speaks to what David is speaking about, about the state of the race.
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The vehemence is a few months late, actually. Because what Donald Trump is doing with this is something he's done on a number of other issues on Obamacare, on abortion, on, indeed, his party registration, which is to sort of take both sides of the issue and then, in any given conversation, just pick whichever statement is the position that he wants to have at that time.
So yes, he has a tweet saying he disavows, but we just saw him on national television refusing to just come out and say, "I don't want anything to do with the Ku Klux Klan."
So you can pick whatever you want. And this is, in part, I think, why some of the extremists have said, "You know what? Out of all of these candidates who are out here, Trump is our guy.
CAMEROTA: Jackie, so this and other things are making the GOP establishment freak out about the possibility that Trump will now be the nominee.
Here's what Karl Rove wrote. This was about 10 days ago. "If Republican voters hand such an unstable individual their party's nomination, they will do immeasurable harm to it. Fortunately, there is still time to stop him." Now, that was about 10 days ago. Is it too late, does the party think, to stop him now?
JACKIE KUCINICH, SENIOR POLITICS EDITOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": It certainly seems to be. They seem to be running out of time here. I think that there was this -- there was this conventional wisdom that Trump was going to flame out on his own and that -- you know, the rest would just happen naturally. Well, that hasn't happened. He's been able to consolidate all the support. There was a hashtag over the weekend, that was #NeverTrump. And you saw a lot of GOP establishment types using it. They're going to need a lot more than a hashtag and some op-eds by Karl Rove to fix this problem at this point.
I think it's why you start -- you started to see Rubio's super PAC really go after Trump. You see Rubio going after Trump, and Kasich has been going after Trump for a while. But it certainly seems that at least the Republican base has their mind made up.
BERMAN: You know, David, it's really interesting. And again, I don't want to lose sight of what our poll is saying. It's saying that, essentially, you know, Donald Trump now has a near majority of all Republican voters. I mean, the idea that he had a ceiling is caput, is gone. You add up every other Republican in the race, it doesn't equal Donald Trump. You know, he is very close to 50 percent.
Ben Sasse, Republican senator from Nebraska, overnight basically said he will not vote for Donald Trump, no matter what. Not now, not ever, not in the general election, not if he is the nominee. This is a very highly respected new, young Republican senator making that statement. This speaks, David, I think to the internal struggles right now within the party.
CHALIAN: Without a doubt it does. In any other election cycle, John, we would have looked at that Ben Sasse statement as a complete bombshell that would sort of upend something. And yet, it's not too surprising if you've been watching what's happening with the Republican establishment side of this equation. We should say Ben Sasse is a Rubio supporter.
But nonetheless, you're right. That is astonishing. A sitting United States senator from the Republican Party already sort of rejecting who is likely to be the party's nominee.
There are a couple of things to look at here that I think are important. One, this moment of sort of last throes and thrashing about that will continue for some time because of the way the delegates are allocated. A Rubio or a Cruz can still stay in this, assuming they're able to put some wins on the board and still show donors and supporters that, "Hey, we can try to take this to the convention." I would imagine that dynamic still may continue. But I don't see it as anything other than sort of this last-ditch effort and thrashing about.
But what is important to note in our poll is how enthusiastic and how committed Trump voters are compared to the others. So that whole kitchen sink strategy that we're seeing right now, I don't know where, if you look inside our numbers, they think that's going to work. Because 78 percent, I think, of Trump voters are completely committed to him. That is much higher than Rubio or Cruz voters. And nearly 8 in 10 are more enthusiastic to vote for him than they were in the previous presidential election. That is a committed base of support. And as you noted, John, it's a base of support that now is registering 49 percent.
[06:10:27] CAMEROTA: All right, panel, stick around, because we want to look at individual state polls leading into Super Tuesday, as well.
Also, coming up in our 8 a.m. hour, we'll speak with Republican presidential candidate, Governor John Kasich, about what he makes of the state of the race.
And the interview you don't want to miss. Melania Trump speaks with Anderson Cooper. What does she think of her husband's controversial campaign? That's tonight on "AC 360" at 8 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.
BERMAN: All right. Senator Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, vowing to fight on until the Democratic convention in July. This despite CNN's new poll, showing Hillary Clinton with a commanding lead nationally. This after her big South Carolina win over the weekend. CNN senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns is live in Minneapolis
where Bernie Sanders, Joe, campaigns today -- Joe.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. Bernie Sanders is going to be appearing here at the Minneapolis Convention Center later today, pushing again, across a handful of states where he hopes to do well and get a lot of delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
Hillary Clinton, for her part, is attempting to create an air of inevitability, at the same time using just a little bit of caution. Her campaign does not see any way to land a knockout punch on Bernie Sanders on Super Tuesday. But they would like to rack up a big lead over the next 14 days and through the month of March.
Hillary Clinton also sounding more and more like a general election candidate over the weekend, repeating her riff on the Donald Trump campaign slogan. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I believe that America is great right now. What we need is to be whole. We need to be whole, where all of us have a place, where everybody feels like we're all in this together. That is what I want to do in this campaign. And it is what I want to do as your president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: A lot of travel for both of these candidates over the next 24 hours or so. Hillary Clinton in the northeast in Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts. Then on to Fairfax, Virginia, as well as Norfolk.
Bernie Sanders here in Minnesota, then Milton, Massachusetts, himself. And he's going to end up in Vermont, where he will spend Super Tuesday night.
John, back to you.
BERMAN: This is a real campaign schedule, crisscrossing the country. All right. Thanks Joe Johns in Minnesota, thanks so much.
Big, big day. CNN is your home for the most comprehensive Super Tuesday coverage anywhere. Join us tomorrow as voters head to the polls and for results late into the night and into the wee hours of the morning, because I think a lot of these races, we may not get the final numbers till the wee hours of the morning.
CAMEROTA: It was quite a day tomorrow, and it was quite a night last night. Let's get out to Michaela. She is in Hollywood for our big Oscar coverage.
Girl, you looked so great last night. Just beautiful.
PEREIRA: Not too bleary-eyed. Not too bleary-eyed right now. It's so fun sitting here in the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, because there's people coming in from the various parties. We're taking in all the post-Oscar vibe right here in the Montage lobby.
"Spotlight" may have won big picture, but the big buzz after the Academy Awards, Chris Rock. He took on diversity with laser focus. The awards show was filled with politics last night. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROCK: Well, I'm here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the white People's Choice Awards.
PEREIRA (voice-over): Chris Rock's highly anticipated monologue took the Oscars so white controversy head on.
ROCK: No black nominees, you know? And people are like, "Chris, you should boycott. Chris, you should quit. You should quit." You know, how come it's only unemployed people that tell you to quit something. You know?
PEREIRA: Rock holding nothing back.
ROCK: It's the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole "no black nominees" thing has happened at least 71 other times. Black people did not protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time. You know? We had other things to protest. Too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won Best Cinematographer.
PEREIRA: Dedicating his entire open to this year's lack of diversity, Rock this moment to put it all into perspective.
ROCK: It's not about boycott anything. It's just we want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities. And that's it.
PEREIRA: Vice President Joe Biden was met with a standing ovation for taking a stand against sexual assault.
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Take the pledge. A pledge that says "I will intervene in situations when consent has not or cannot be given." Let's change the culture.
PEREIRA: Presenting Lady Gaga's performance of "Til It Happens to You," nominated for Best Song. Dozens of survivors joining Gaga on stage for her emotional tribute.
JULIANNE MOORE, ACTRESS: Leonardo DiCaprio.
PEREIRA: And Leonardo DiCaprio, winning his first Academy Award for his leading role in "The Revenant," using his acceptance speech to address climate change.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO, ACTOR: Climate change is real. It is happening now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much. (END VIDEOTAPE)
PEREIRA: It was his moment last night, for sure.
In terms of the awards, not a lot of shockers last night. One big upset: "Spotlight" took the top prize, not "The Revenant," which had been highly favored to win Best Picture.
The film's subject matter brought an impassioned acceptance speech, which one of the film's producers urging Pope Francis to protect children and restore faith.
One of the other things that I thought was really interesting, John and Alisyn, "Mad Max" cleaned up. They got six awards of the eight nominations they had. Surprised a lot of people.
What did you guys think of the show? Did you have a good time? Did you enjoy it? Did you have a viewing party?
CAMEROTA: Well, I watched your preshow, and then I had to go to bed.
PEREIRA: And then you went to bed.
CAMEROTA: You and Don were fantastic. That was really fun. And "Spotlight," it's the one movie I saw, so I was so excited.
BERMAN: I say it was a great night for journalists. It was a bad night for bears. You know, if you were into "The Revenant."
CAMEROTA: There you go.
PEREIRA: A bad night for bears. Yes. There were some great memes going around about how bad the bear was. Yes.
CAMEROTA: All right, Michaela. We will check back in with you throughout the program.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton pulling away from Bernie Sanders in the national polls. But voter turnout is down for Democrats. Is the party suffering from an enthusiasm gap? We'll talk about that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:21:08] BERMAN: Big warning signs this morning for the Democratic Party. Yes, Hillary Clinton won big in South Carolina. But voter turnout there was way down, down 30 percent compared to 2008. It has been down across the board in all the early voting states for Democrats. For Republicans, it's been up across the board.
CNN political analyst and Democratic strategist, Paul Begala, says this keeps him up at night.
Here with us to discuss, Jackie Kucinich, Errol Louis, David Chalian. David, you know, let me start at you. You look at the turnout numbers in all of the early voting states, up for Republicans, down for Democrats. In our new poll you ask voters, are they more enthusiastic than previous elections? Republicans, 58 percent say yes, they're more enthusiastic; 46 percent of Democrats say, yes, they're more enthusiastic. I mean, there is a palpable, measurable gap in enthusiasm between the two parties right now.
CHALIAN: There's no doubt about it, John. And listen, I don't think anybody in the Democratic Party was looking to have turnout at the levels of 2008. That was sort of a record year for Democrats.
But I certainly know, in talking to Democrats, nobody expected this kind of drop off from 2008 in terms of voter participation in these early contests. Remember, those early contests get sort of the most candidate activity on the ground campaigning. Seeing that there is a great concern to many Democrats I talked to. There's no doubt about it.
But John, if Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the nominees of the parties, as now looks likely, it seems to me that they are base motivating candidates for the opposition. And so I would imagine that, although this is a warning sign that Democrats should clearly worry about, I have a feeling, if it is Trump versus Clinton, that we may see that dissipate over time.
CAMEROTA: Errol, people who say they are most enthusiastic, more than they have been ever, in fact, are Trump supporters. Look at this new poll. It shows that people who support Trump, 78 percent say that they are more enthusiastic than they have been in previous elections. Thirty-nine percent for the others. So what does this mean for Hillary Clinton?
LOUIS: Well, it means, among other things, that she's going to have to sort of reverse what normally goes on. The conventional wisdom is that Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line. Right?
And so that was the reverse this time. Everything the Democratic Party did, from putting the debates on Sunday night and all this sort of thing, to lining up all of the support of the super delegates and other establishment figures behind Hillary Clinton has worked against her, in the sense that it has put the electorate to sleep. I think that's what those numbers represent, as opposed to the hard-fought contest in 2008, when lots of new people came into the process.
So she has to decide either she's going to stick with the existing strategy for a little longer and get herself into the primary process, or start looking ahead to the general election and do whatever it takes to get new people into the process, to get young people enthusiastic about her campaign and her candidacy.
CAMEROTA: You make it sound like that's easy. I mean, isn't she trying to get young people enthusiastic?
LOUIS: No, I'm not so sure she is. I mean, she's trying to win primaries. That's what she's trying to do. She's going right to her base, which happens to be in the current phase of the campaign. Black voters and especially black women, so she's focusing like a laser. That's why she has the blowout victory in South Carolina. That's very different from trying to make real -- real inroads into the power and strength that Bernie Sanders has shown with young voters, with millennials and even with some young women voters.
BERMAN: Can we play some Super Tuesday games here, Jackie? Can we look ahead to the polls for tomorrow's dates? We'll talk about the Republicans here, 11 states voting. You know, in Virginia, Donald Trump is ahead. In Tennessee, Donald Trump is ahead. In Texas, Ted Cruz is ahead. And in Georgia, Donald Trump is ahead.
I suppose let's talk about Texas right now. That is the one state where Donald Trump trails right now in polls. Ted Cruz needs to win Texas. But if he does win, what does that mean for the race?
KUCINICH: It just means that Cruz can go forward, has more of a reason to go forward. If he doesn't win Texas, it's sort of hard to see where else Ted Cruz wins, which is why you see someone like Marco Rubio focusing on places like Colorado, Minnesota, more suburban areas where he thinks he's voters are.
[06:25:17] But, you know, these other candidates challenging Trump do need to start racking up wins here. Or you have to -- they're going to have trouble answering the question: why are you still in this?
CAMEROTA: David, Marco Rubio has taken a new tack, and that is to just launch personal attacks, many of them funny, at Donald Trump. Let's play for you a montage of his latest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUBIO: He doesn't sweat, because his pores are clogged from the spray tan that he uses.
Donald is not going to make America great. He's going to make America orange.
He's always calling me "Little Marco." And I'll admit, he's taller than me. He's, like, 6'2", which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who's 5'2". Have you seen his hands? They're like this. And you know what they say about men with small hands. You can't trust them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: I don't think -- I'm not sure, but I don't think he was talking about his hands.
CAMEROTA: They do say small hands, small gloves.
David, this is entertaining.
CHALIAN: Very elevated presidential talk, right?
BERMAN: The Lincoln-Douglass debates.
CHALIAN: That's where we are now, is a very elevated debate about the future of the country.
CAMEROTA: Is it effective for Rubio? CHALIAN: Listen, I think Marco Rubio took a page out of the Donald
Trump playbook. I think he understood that the way that he was going to get coverage and attention, and to be mano-a-mano with Donald Trump was sort of to play Donald Trump's game and do that with provocative, controversial remarks, insults, and get television coverage and get into the conversation with Donald Trump. Because Trump has proven an ability to just dominate the conversation and keep all the other candidates sort of out of the mix.
So I think, in one way, I understand what Marco Rubio was doing. In another way, it's confounding a bit, because it is so against the brand that Marco Rubio has been building for himself throughout the better part of the last year.
CAMEROTA: All right. David, Jackie, Errol, thank you very much. We'll rely on you heavily tomorrow. Thanks, guys.
KUCINICH: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: And another story to tell you about. There was this heart- breaking tragedy in Virginia. A female police officer shot and killed during her very first day on the job. The suspected gunman stationed at the Pentagon. Late-breaking developments for you when NEW DAY continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
