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Voters Head to the Polls for Super Tuesday; Clinton Looks to Pull Away from Sanders. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 01, 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: I will never allow a con artist to take control of the party of Lincoln and Reagan.

[05:58:39] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This guy couldn't be elected dog catcher right now.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You cannot be a president of the United States and insulting all of our neighbors.

TRUMP: Are you from Mexico?

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're not electing class president or class clown.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They've been after me for 25 years, and I'm still standing.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't want the general election to be two rich New York liberals.

TRUMP: Ted Cruz has never done anything for the people of Texas.

RUBIO: What he's trying to carry out is a scam to take control of the presidency of the United States.

TRUMP: They're never going to get you to the promised land, folks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, March 1, 6 a.m. in the East.

Enough talk. It is time to vote in a big way. Super Tuesday is here, my friends. Voters in a dozen states heading to the polls this morning. So much at stake.

Take a look at the map: Republicans awarding 595 delegates today, nearly half what you need to be the nominee. Democrats awarding 1,015. Why the difference? Well, that number includes super delegates, where Clinton has a big advantage. That's more than a third, however, needed to clinch the nomination.

Meantime, a new CNN/ORC poll shows both Democratic rivals beating the GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, in head-to-head match-ups in November. Hillary Clinton tops Trump 52-44; Bernie Sanders beats Trump even wider: 55-43.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So there's this interesting twist in the numbers. Though Trump is trouncing his competition, Rubio and Cruz actually do better against Hillary Clinton. All the candidates making a final push on this high-stakes election day. Will Trump and Clinton sweep most of the contests as they are predicted to do by the polls? And could this be the last stand for any of the candidates?

We have it covered from every angle, so let's begin with CNN's Jim Acosta. He's live in Columbus, Ohio, on the Republican race.

Good morning, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Donald Trump has all the momentum heading into Super Tuesday. His nearest rivals are showing no signs they can stop him. And more top Republicans are rejecting him, pointing to the daily firestorms ignited by his campaign and warning he will be a disaster for the party come November.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: Trump, 49 percent. Little lightweight Marco Rubio, 16 percent. Lying Ted Cruz, 15 percent.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Donald Trump is poised for a sweeping Super Tuesday victory tonight amid a swirling campaign controversy over the issue of race.

TRUMP: Are you from Mexico?

ACOSTA: Chaos erupted at this Virginia event as protesters disrupted the rally. Just moments before a violent encounter, a Secret Service agent choke-slammed a photographer to the ground. The incident came as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz blasted Trump in a last- ditch effort to gain ground before Super Tuesday.

RUBIO: We will not lose conservatism to a con artist.

CRUZ: If we nominate Donald Trump, in all likelihood, Hillary Clinton wins. We lose the future.

RUBIO: Pouncing on the GOP front-runner after he refused to disavow support from a former Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, in a CNN interview.

RUBIO: There is no place for bigotry, for prejudice, for hatred for David Duke or the Ku Klux Klan in the Republican Party or the conservative movement. ACOSTA: Trump later rejected that support, blaming the matter on

a bad earpiece. But 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney isn't buying it, tweeting that Trump's response is disqualifying and disgusting, as two Republican senators are voicing their concerns over Trump as the nominee. Even though Ohio Governor John Kasich is still in last place, he says he'll continue to refrain from mudslinging.

KASICH: I would rather not win than lower the bar. I don't think that you beat Donald Trump by attacking him personally.

ACOSTA: While Cruz is optimistic about winning the 155 delegates in his home state in Texas tonight, failure could put his campaign on thin ice.

CRUZ: Donald Trump will have a whole bunch of delegates. And we will have a whole bunch of delegates. And then there will be a big, big drop off between us and everybody else in the field.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Now, Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, tells me it would be tough to beat Cruz in Texas, saying it will be like beating the New England Patriots on their home turf. The GOP frontrunner is already looking ahead beyond Super Tuesday with a rally in Ohio later this morning, and his watch party tonight in Florida, where he hopes to beat Marco Rubio in his home state later this month. That's the strategy to put those contenders away, Chris.

CUOMO: As everybody knows, Jim Acosta, unless you're the New York Jets, it's almost impossible to beat the Patriots on their home field. Good men. Good men.

Super Tuesday voting is just getting under way. The time for talk is over. Forget the pundits: It's all about the votes now. Hillary Clinton is hoping to win big tonight, pull away from Bernie Sanders. She's now focusing her attacks on Trump and the rest of the Republican field.

Let's get to CNN political correspondent Brianna Keilar, live in Burlington, Vermont, where Senator Sanders will vote this morning. What do we know?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Chris, good morning.

It's significant. Bernie Sanders last night in his final event in Massachusetts, taking aim at Hillary Clinton but also Donald Trump. While Hillary Clinton noticeably laid off of Bernie Sanders in her stump speech, both of them now, though, positioning themselves as the alternative to Donald Trump. This is Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: At some point you can't just say whatever pops into your head if you want to be the president of the United States of America. People around the world actually listen to what people running for president say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now pay attention to where the candidates are tonight. Hillary Clinton in Florida, not a Super Tuesday state, signaling that she is looking ahead. Bernie Sanders here in Vermont, where he is expected to win by a sizeable margin. He certainly does want that backdrop in what's expected to really be an uphill battle here on Super Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton leading in the polls, and certainly in a number -- number of more states than Bernie Sanders is, Alisyn. It's really something to note.

[06:05:04] CAMEROTA: That is interesting. And we'll be looking at the numbers all morning long. Brianna, thanks so much.

So Virginia is one of the first Super Tuesday votes to open its polls this morning. It's considered a battleground state, and that's where we find CNN's Brian Todd in Ashburn.

Brian, how's it looking?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, the assistant precinct chief just called out "Hear ye, hear ye, the polls are now open" just a few moments ago. That was our cue to come in here and take a sampling of all these voters that have shown up.

Nearly two dozen have shown up in the early -- just at the early bell. They're checking in here. We're at the Dominion Trails Elementary School in Ashburn, Virginia. This is a key instinct here in Loudon County, which is going to be a crucial county, especially on the Republican side. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz came through this county not long ago campaigning. They know it's a crucial battleground for them as they try to catch Donald Trump in the polls. And this is going to be one of the places they do it. This is where voters are checking in here.

Everything is as simple as can be, Alisyn. This is a sample ballot. It's all done by paper. There are 13 Republican candidates. But of course, we're paying attention to the top three here: Trump, Cruz, Rubio. And we're going to see how they do. People check in here. Then they go and vote behind these partitions here in the voting stations. And these are scanned in here with the ballot scanner. We're going to keep tabs on this all day and talking about turnout. We expect heavy voter turnout here, guys, and it's going to be a very charged atmosphere all day for about 13 hours -- Chris, Alisyn.

CUOMO: Brian Todd, making me dizzy, working that room, every corner of the polling booth covered there. Thank you very much, Brian. We'll check back with you in a little bit.

So the big question is how big will Trump win today? Is it going to be a sweep of Super Tuesday? Let's discuss. David Gregory, author and journalist of "Meet the Press" fame; CNN political commentator and senior contributor to "The Daily Caller," Matt Lewis; and CNN national political reporter Maeve Reston.

All right, my brother, David Gregory. When we're looking at the map, this is Trump's big day. This is his chance to really spread it out. Victory is often defined. What is victory for Trump today?

DAVID GREGORY, FORMER MODERATOR, NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": I think it's breadth. It's how many states he actually captures. Looking at the map and saying, on a big day for voting, that he is running the table. And I think he has a real opportunity to do that.

We're obviously going to look at a state like Texas to see if Cruz has any life left. But again, this is where we start to count the numbers. And Trump is in a position to start wrapping up these totals. You know, the that the RNC, the Republican Party changed the rules allows for Trump to start racking up delegate numbers more quickly. So if he can come out of Super Tuesday with a dominant position moving into those -- those winner-take-all.

CUOMO: That 155 in Texas looms large, but that's not a winner- take-all-state. It's not if Trump wins.

GREGORY: Right. And it's proportional. But you still look at -- you look at where Trump has been, at least at 30 percent. We did the math recently here on the big board, getting up to as high as 45 percent. He can run up a total lead in that delegate count that could be daunting if you're Rubio trying to coalesce the rest of the party around him.

CAMEROTA: So let's talk about that, Maeve. So what if the polls are right this time, and Donald Trump wins everything except, say, Texas? Let's say Ted Cruz wins there. Then what happens tomorrow?

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that what that allows is for these other guys to go forward, maybe for a few weeks, potentially. That's sort of the scenario that a lot of party elders were laying out from yesterday.

If Ted Cruz wins Texas, obviously, he gets a reprieve. But Marco Rubio is really looking to put up a bunch of strong second-place finishes tonight. And so this race actually could go on for a little while. Obviously, the game plan for all of these other candidates is to try to win their home states and then make it a one-on-one race with Trump. So we'll see how successful they are in that tonight. Obviously just trying to stack up the delegate count. But if Trump blows it out, then, you know, a lot of folks are saying this whole thing could just be over tomorrow.

CUOMO: Matt Lewis, what are you hearing from the party faithful inside? Are they seeing this as about growth still, or is this a war of attrition? How close are they to saying Trump is going to be the guy?

MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think there's -- we're getting to the acceptance stage. You know, you talk to people in private, in green rooms, or on the phone, you know, with talking to sources, there's really acceptance. People are starting to basically say Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. And, you know, they're still holding out a sliver of hope, especially when they talk publicly.

But more and more there is a sense that he is going to be the nominee. And certainly after tonight, that could even, you know, go to another level, where it's all over, basically, but the details. You know, maybe there's the hope of preventing him from getting the 1,237. That's sort of the last-ditch effort, is just to stop him from, you know, forcing a contested primary -- or a contested convention.

CAMEROTA: Look, in terms of the five stages of grief that Matt is referring to, I don't know that they're yet at acceptance. I mean, some are still at anger. Some are still at denial. In fact, with KKK -- with Donald Trump's refusal to reject David Duke and the KKK, Republicans -- Republicans have come out to criticize Donald Trump about this. So let's listen to what they said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. NIKKI HALEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK. That is not a part of our party. That's not who we want as president. We will not allow that in our country.

REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R), TENNESSEE: To me that would not be an acceptable answer. I think that should have been an easy answer for him to give.

REP. PETE KING (R), NEW YORK: This is a vicious anti-American organization. And by him not denouncing it, first of all, it's a reflection on him. Either he's dumb or he's a liar, one or the other. And also what it does to the Republican Party. If we get branded as the party of the Klan, we're going to be destroyed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: It doesn't seem like they're at acceptance yet.

GREGORY: No, they're not. And look, this is a disqualifying fact, that...

CUOMO: That's the word of the day.

GREGORY: Yes. Well, it is. But it is disqualifying for a legitimate reason. That at the very most generous you can be that Donald Trump is playing a little loose here, is playing footsie with white supremacists who he knows are among his ranks of supporters out there, perhaps throughout the South and maybe he doesn't want to completely disavow it until he gets through Super Tuesday. So these are big issues.

But let's be honest about the fact that these people in the establishment, the Nikki Haleys, other senators and that who say, "I'm not going to vote for Donald Trump if he's the nominee," that only strengthens his support right now. We look at all these polls, these exit polls, people who are the party faithful in the Republican Party feel betrayed by the Republican Party elders. That's who they're mad at. That's who Trump is...

CUOMO: This feels like a smear on some level. The idea that Trump doesn't come out and say, "I don't want anything to do with the KKK" is almost zero. Did he botch the answer with Jake? Yes. Did Jake do a very professional job in giving an opening to give a different answer? Yes. He botched it. He just did. But I wonder how much that issue is really going to resonate. People who support him don't think he supports the KKK.

GREGORY: No, I think that's -- and yes, did he disavow it when the Duke thing come up last Friday. But there was no reason to botch this answer like this. You have an obligation as somebody in the public life to say, "By the way, if there's any kind of support, I don't want it." He chose not to do that.

CUOMO: Romney saying it's disqualifying. You just heard it from another congressman, and his buddy on another morning show who's been giving him safe harbor for months, he said it's disqualifying. So it did raise some...

GREGORY: It did. And there's another point about the numbers here that we look at. If you're Marco Rubio, you want to keep the gap close enough so that, if you can win Ohio, if you can win Florida, that you have a chance to narrow that. That's what Matt Lewis was talking about. As you think about perhaps a brokered convention. The real problem is Cruz and Kasich, what's the rationale for them to get out, even beyond tonight? That will be a big question.

CAMEROTA: But here's what's interesting about the numbers. Maeve, let's look at some of our new CNN/ORC polls, and it shows the head to -- if we go further past Super Tuesday, and we look at the general election in the head-to-head matchup, what's interesting is let's look at it against Hillary Clinton. OK?

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz beat Hillary Clinton. Trump does not. Clinton beats him, 52-44. If you look at Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, narrowly they beat her. But what is so interesting is that, you know, he's winning every state; yet in the general, he can't win.

RESTON: I think that these numbers actually are really big and really important in the sense that, not that they would matter much to people that are the very loyal Trump supporters, but they will matter. Believe it or not, there are many Republicans out there who are still undecided, and those people who are making their decisions this late in the process are looking at electability numbers.

And I think these are very striking poll numbers for Donald Trump that might give a lot of Republicans pause, because what we're seeing here is the effect of his rhetoric, the kind of divisive rhetoric and looking at whether or not voters will turn out, actually, to vote against him, as opposed to a Marco Rubio or a Cruz.

So I actually think that that could knock his support down a notch. It certainly gives Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio a good argument going forward over the next couple of weeks if they can hang on tonight.

CUOMO: Matt Lewis, so how much of these poll numbers do you think are a function of their strength versus just the stink factor? That when you have more negatives on you, the way Trump does, the way Clinton does -- remember, remember Bernie Sanders does better than she does in head-to-head matchups against the GOP rivals also -- how much of it is just about the stink being known and having negatives?

LEWIS: I think it's the stink. I think that, you know, people have strong feelings about Donald Trump. They love him or they hate him. They're either going to vote for him no matter what or they'll vote against him no matter what.

The problem is I think a few things are playing into Trump's favor here. One, he's made what I would call the transitive property fallacy. In other words, he's arguing that, "Because I'm beating you, Marco Rubio, ergo, I have a better chance than you to beat Hillary Clinton."

[06:15:11] To use the football metaphor, it would be like saying, you know, "The Redskins beat the Jets, and the Jets beat the Patriots. Therefore, the Redskins will always beat the Patriots." We know that's false, but Trump has made that argument multiple times in debates.

I also think there's a perception, a very naive perception that Hillary Clinton is vulnerable and weak, and therefore, we don't need to worry about electability. So I think there are a lot of -- Trump has been a master at playing this chess game.

GREGORY: You can't use the transitive property and talk about football in the same sentence.

CAMEROTA: And to use some Latin.

GREGORY: That is disqualifying.

CAMEROTA: He snuck in some Latin, "ergo."

Panel, stick around. We do have to talk about what's happening on the Democratic side and look at the numbers for Super Tuesday there.

Coming up also on NEW DAY, you'll hear from Donald Trump's wife, Melania. She spoke to Anderson Cooper about her husband's unconventional cad controversial campaign. Hear what she has to say later this hour.

CUOMO: All right. Our comprehensive coverage of Super Tuesday is just getting started. We're going to have the latest throughout the day. Special coverage begins tonight at 6. That's when the votes start to be counted. Tomorrow morning, we're going to have all the analysis of what happened, what didn't happen, and what it means going forward, right here on...

CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton appears to be looking past Super Tuesday, turning her attention instead to Donald Trump and the other Republican rivals. Can Bernie Sanders win a state tonight? How does Clinton's plan to defeat Trump in November look? We look at all that when we come right back.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:30] CLINTON: Well, we're going to start by working together, with more love and kindness in our hearts and more respect for each other even when we disagree. Despite what you hear, we don't need to make America great again. America has never stopped being great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was Hillary Clinton looking to pull way ahead of Bernie Sanders in the delegate count after tonight. Targeting focusing less on Sanders, though, targeting Trump in the GOP. What are her prospects tonight?

Let's bring back our panel: David Gregory, Matt Lewis and Maeve Reston.

David, working together, respect, love, kindness. Her words make no sense to me in this election. She has really shifted the -- you know, her tone to draw a contrast.

GREGORY: Have we become that cynical?

CAMEROTA: Yes, we have. We haven't heard these words for a long time in this race.

GREGORY: Look, I think Hillary Clinton wants to do two things, right? She's got very high negatives. We were just talking about that. She wants to try to lower those a little bit. She's talking about love and compassion in the public square, talking about that and kind of core values of public life. What a contrast to what we're hearing from Donald Trump.

She wants to be able to show that and project that. But she also makes it clear that she will drop a hammer on him really hard, much harder than any of his Republican opponents. If she can try to do both at the same thing -- time, maybe she can drop her negatives and bring up his negatives.

But she's got to show her party faithful. And people who might be wavering about her. Even if people in the Democratic Party don't love her, don't totally trust her, they've got to be worried that Donald Trump is going to be the nominee and maybe president.

CUOMO: And let's show that. Let's show how people feel about her. Among all registered voters, Clinton and Sanders favorable and unfavorable. Here you have it right here.

Now, Maeve Reston, when you look at these numbers, how much of this do you believe is earned versus simply reputation? Right? There's a theory that Hillary has been around so long; there's been so many scandals; you know, she's been involved in so much, that this is just residue, A opposed to her being responsible for these numbers. What's your take?

RESTON: Well, I mean, I think that's hard to say. But in the end, does it really matter? I mean, when the voters out there have these trust issues, as David was just talking about, that's a big problem that she's going to have to overcome.

It's caused a lot of issues with her with an enthusiasm gap with Sanders. Obviously, we're seeing so many young voters flock to his campaign. And if she ultimately does win the nomination, she's got a lot of problems to address there that we're seeing in her polling.

You know, she's going to have a strong -- a strong turnout tonight. But certainly, talking about the love and all the happy things that we were just talking about is maybe something that she's trying to come to a more refined message than she's had. Because what she's been doing over the last couple of months clearly hasn't been working as well for her as her campaign would like.

CAMEROTA: Matt, let's look at the numbers for tonight on the Democratic side. There's a lot at stake. These numbers add up really quickly. So here are the numbers, and it adds up to a hundred -- sorry, 1,015 delegates.

CUOMO: With super delegates.

CAMEROTA: With super delegates at stake here for her. So where -- where could Bernie Sanders peel some away?

LEWIS: Well, the key to understanding Bernie Sanders and his viability is race, I believe. If you look at states that are more white -- if you're a white liberal, you probably like Bernie Sanders. And so that's why everybody said after, you know, Iowa and after New Hampshire, once we go to places like South Carolina, Bernie Sanders is in trouble. That seems to be the predictor.

And so I think Bernie needs to go to, obviously, Vermont. And then, I think, places like Minnesota and Colorado are where he has to hang his hope tonight. That's the key to understanding this race.

CUOMO: What about Massachusetts? What about Massachusetts? Let's look at that. Massachusetts, 116. So it's at the top echelon of this. It's seen as being a big battleground, and they're worried about low turnout there. We had the secretary of state for there saying what they are seeing in their canvassing is they think it's going to be low turnout.

What is the dynamic there, David, and why does it matter in terms of pushing Sanders to stay in this race?

GREGORY: Well, because, again, that's a state that you think would naturally favor him with a number of liberals in a wider state. But again, this is going to be a bit of a test to what coalition he's able to put together.

But I think Matt is white. If you're a white liberal, you tend to favor him. I think you have to be pretty progressive, even on that -- on that Democratic scale, to support him.

[06:25:06] And to overcome this fear that I say, again, which is what are you worried about? You may distrust Hillary Clinton. You may like his passion against Wall Street even more. But if you start thinking about electability, how you do against Trump, I think that starts to seep into the Democratic electorate, as well, in addition to the fact that I think, even after losing Nevada, the idea that he was really viable really lost a lot of ground.

CAMEROTA: But Maeve, something really interesting is also at play in Massachusetts. And that is Secretary of State Bill Galvin there has said that nearly 20,000 Massachusetts voters have shifted from Democrat to other parties; 3,500 of them have shifted to Republican; and the rest have shifted to independent. What's that? Is that the Trump factor?

RESTON: Well, I mean, it could be the Trump factor. And you know, Massachusetts is such an interesting state, because they're so plugged in to the presidential race with neighboring -- with neighboring New Hampshire.

But, I mean, I think that those northeast states are really a big test for Bernie Sanders tonight. Obviously, we have seen him lose a lot of his momentum. You see Hillary Clinton just feeling more comfortable on the trail, pivoting to Trump, Alisyn, as you mentioned.

And it's a big test tonight. Can he pull out, you know, at least a strong finish in some of these states like Colorado, Minnesota, where he's really organized his people? Will he be able to turn out Latinos in Texas, as you know, the exit polling? The entrance polls in Nevada show that he actually led Hillary Clinton among Latino voters. Her campaign fought back very hard. But there are a lot of tests tonight of Bernie Sanders' viability. And I do think that he's lost so much steam going into these contests tonight.

GREGORY: Working-class Democrats, these could be Trump supporters even in the fall, or they could be people who just want to be in a race that's a little bit more interesting than the Democratic race.

CUOMO: Got to watch Oklahoma also. It's only 42 delegates, but he's doing well there, Bernie Sanders. And that gets a little examination, as well.

But the big gift they got, the Democrats, going into today is this Trump scandal about what he said with the KKK. It is a great launch for her to go positive, for Sanders to go positive. That's what the Democrats need to get any traction. So we'll see how it plays out.

CAMEROTA: Maeve, Matt, David, thank you. CUOMO: Appreciate it. Other big news this morning: we've been

following this trial with Erin Andrews. Remember her, the sportscaster. A peephole was involved. She was in tears on the witness stand, reliving the moments when she learned a stalker secretly videotaped her naked inside a hotel room. Wait until you hear what she claims ESPN forced her to do once this story went public.

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