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Make-or-Break Super Tuesday; CNN Exclusive: Inside Rebel-Held Syria. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired March 14, 2016 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: How much they loved the town halls.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

BERMAN: They say they would rather do those -

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, HOST, CNN'S "SMERCONISH": I'll bet.

BERMAN: Because they get to talk at length.

CAMEROTA: Yes. It is fascinating to hear the questions from the voters as well.

Michael, thank you. Great to see you.

SMERCONISH: You too.

Check out "Smerconish" Saturdays 9:00 a.m. Eastern here on CNN.

BERMAN: All right, tomorrow, a huge day. Winner take all primaries in Florida and Ohio. Other states voting, as well. This could be the last chance for Republicans to slow Donald Trump. So, can John Kasich seize on it? Is this Marco Rubio's moment in his home state? We're going to ask party leaders from both states, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Marco Rubio and John Kasich facing winner take all primaries tomorrow in their home states of Florida and Ohio. Those contests are make or break for their chances at the Oval Office.

Joining us now is Republican Party chairman for both of those states. We have Matt Borges of Ohio and Blaise Ingoglia of Florida.

Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here.

MATT BORGES, CHAIRMAN, OHIO REPUBLICAN PARTY: Good morning, Alisyn.

BLAISE INGOGLIA, CHAIRMAN, FLORIDA REPUBLICAN PARTY: Thanks for having us.

CAMEROTA: OK, Matt, I know that you are all endorsing hometown favorite John Kasich, yet, Blaze, you're from Florida, why are you not endorsing the hometown candidate, Marco Rubio? [08:35:10] INGOGLIA: Well, the Republican Party of Florida has

historically stayed out of these contests. It's just a decision that we've made and we are going to support the eventual Republican nominee. It's just a decision that we've made.

CAMEROTA: OK, so let's look at the latest poll numbers, because these are just out this morning and they're very telling. Let's start in Florida, Blaise, because this is very striking. Donald Trump has 46 percent in this Quinnipiac poll. Marco Rubio has less than half that at 22 percent. Ted Cruz, 14. John Kasich, 10 percent.

As you know, Blaise, I mean Marco Rubio has said Florida is make or break for him. I don't know that he has said that there's a path for him if he doesn't win Florida. What do you think of these latest poll numbers?

INGOGLIA: Well, what we do know about the polls is that the polls this election cycle have been all over the place. If you remember the polling heading into Virginia had Marco Rubio down 15 and he eventually was down 3 points. And look at the polling in Michigan for the Democrat primary. Hillary Clinton was up 20 points in that and eventually lost.

But what I will tell you about the polling is, I think the race is a lot closer than some of these polling have suggested because some of these polls are going -

CAMEROTA: And why do you think that?

INGOGLIA: Because some of these polls are calling - calling people and asking themselves to self-identify as Republicans. Other polls that we have seen would show a much tighter race are calling off of the voter rolls. So we think that the race is a lot tighter than what the polls are saying.

CAMEROTA: OK. Matt, let's look at the latest polling out this morning for Ohio. It is neck and neck. Also a really interesting snapshot here. John Kasich has always said he's going to win. He's very confident and very bullish on Ohio. He said that is his path forward. He thinks that if he wins Ohio, he'll have new momentum and that will propel him to the convention. But at 38 percent/38 percent, what do you think's going to happen in Ohio tomorrow?

BORGES: I think John Kasich win tomorrow. I think we've done a better job tactically on the ground and chasing absentee voters. We've been voting here in Ohio for about four weeks. So we have 28 days of early voting here in Ohio thanks to Republican leadership. And I think that we've done well in that part of the voting. And then John Kasich has surged. We saw him surge at the end in Michigan. We saw it in New Hampshire. We'll see it again here when the final results come in tomorrow and I think at the end of the night John Kasich will carry Ohio and then set the election on an entirely different course.

CAMEROTA: Donald Trump had not said much about John Kasich. He is the one candidate that Donald Trump had sort of glossed over and hadn't gone after, but it's starting because they are so close in Ohio. Trump had tweeted this. "Because Governor Kasich cannot run in the state of Pennsylvania, he cannot win the nomination and should not be allowed to compete in Ohio on Tuesday."

Matt, what do you think of that reasoning?

BORGES: It's not the first thing Donald Trump's been wrong about in this campaign. He doesn't like to lose. He's going to lose here in the buckeye state tomorrow. He's completely wrong about what he's saying about Governor Kasich. He's tried to exclude lots of other people from running again him and now he's saying that John Kasich shouldn't even be allowed to run in his home state? What an idiotic statement that is.

And, of course, John Kasich will be on the ballot in Pennsylvania. So all this is much ado about nothing. And, again, John Kasich wins Ohio tomorrow and so we're very excited about the prospect of him having those 66 delegates go to the convention for John Kasich.

CAMEROTA: Just for a little background, the chairman of Pennsylvania Students for Rubio had filed a petition saying that John Kasich had failed to get the 2,000 signatures required for Pennsylvania. As you know, the Kasich campaign had said that's ludicrous. They turned in 2,184 signatures above the 2,000.

Blaise, given that that was a Rubio supporting group, are you comfortable that Kasich is on the - will be on the ballot in Pennsylvania?

INGOGLIA: Yes. Yes. I think so. Look, what we've seen is that a lot of these lawsuits are being filed. It's political theater. But at the end of the day, we fully expect that all of these candidates are going to be on the ballot in these remaining states.

CAMEROTA: Gentlemen, I want to ask both of you about the violence.

BORGES: And, Alisyn -

CAMEROTA: Let me just move on to the violence that we've seen at the Trump rallies where various protesters have been hurt one way or another. Trump has said it's not his responsibility if protesters come and sort of sew unrest and then get hurt in the melee. That's not his responsibility.

Matt, what do you think about the violence that we've seen and whether or not John Kasich has said enough about it?

BORGES: Well, I think the governor came out very strongly and said that this is the end result of the type of division that we've been saying in Ohio has been the wrong kind of message Donald Trump's been carrying for months. We've not been silent on that at all. You know, and we've got the bullying left who doesn't want folks to be able to express their opinions and - and the natural clash they've then had. It was provoked in a lot of ways, unfortunately, and we need some calm. That this is not something that our process, our system should be proud of. [08:40:32] And so I think we need - we need some more civility and

it's the kind of campaign that John Kasich has run from the very beginning. He's talked - he said he's not going to get down into the mud with these folks. And it is in such stark contrast to the way Donald Trump had ginned up this kind of sentiment. And it's been really unfortunate. It won't help us carry the state in November. Everyone knows we have to win Ohio if we want to win a general election. And Donald Trump's just got the wrong message this year.

CAMEROTA: Matt, Blaise, thank you. We appreciate you helping us preview all of the big races tomorrow. Thank you, gentlemen.

John.

BERMAN: All right, thanks, Alisyn.

A deadly airstrike kills so many civilians in a rebel-held territory in Syria. CNN, the only network to get on the ground there to cover this story. An exclusive look inside Syria, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:45:16] BERMAN: Time now for the five things to know for your NEW DAY.

Donald Trump under fire from Republican and Democratic rivals for violence at his rallies. Trump is defending his supporters, even saying he will look into paying legal bills for him.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton making final pitches to voters ahead of tomorrow's critical primaries. They pointed out their policy differences and went after Donald Trump at a CNN town hall in Ohio.

28-year-old police officer Jacai Colson shot and killed in an ambush attack right outside his Maryland precinct house. The suspect was wounded in a shootout with other officers.

An American turned himself into Kurdish authorities after emerging from ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. It is not clear what he was doing in that ISIS-controlled space.

And the NCAA field is set with Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Oregon earning top seeds. An investigation is now underway to determine who leaked the final brackets online during the two-hour live selection show.

For more on five things to know, go to newdayCNN.com for the very latest.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right. You have to see this next story. The grave situation inside war-torn Syria. CNN brings you exclusive video from one of the only news crews to go behind rebel lines.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: Officer-held territory in Syria is just being torn apart by indiscriminate attacks on civilians. In an CNN exclusive, senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward and producer Salma Abdelaziz went under cover in a rebel-held Syria, where virtually no Western journalists have gone for more than a year. They worked with Syria- based filmmaker Bilal Abdul Kareem on this exclusive report. We need to warn you, some of the images here are graphic.

Clarissa is here with us in New York and this is really just a remarkable report.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And it took months and months of planning to make it happen. But we really wanted to see the reality of the situation on the ground. We had seen the grainy YouTube videos. It has been more than a year since any Western journalists have been inside Syria. We wanted to see specifically how the Russian intervention, which began last September, has affected the situation. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (voice-over): Moving through rebel-held northern Syria is difficult and dangerous. As foreign journalists in areas with a strong jihadist presence, we had to travel under cover to see a war few outsiders have witnessed.

The city of Idlib is the only provincial capital under rebel control. This was its courthouse until it was hit by an airstrike in December. Dozens were killed.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

40-year-old lawyer Tala al-Jaway told us he was inside the building when it was hit. His arm was smashed but he was lucky to survive.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

TALA AL-JAWAY, VICTIM OF BOMBING (through translator): The Russian planes target anything that works in the interest of the people. The goal is that people here live a destroyed life, that people never see any good, that they never taste life. This is the tax of living in a liberated area.

WARD: An hour later we saw that tax for ourselves while filming in a town nearby. We heard the scream of fighter jets wheeling overhead.

Moments later, a hit.

WARD (on camera): There was just an airstrike here in the town of Ariha. So we are now driving very quickly. It's not clear yet what was hit, but we are hearing that there are still planes in the sky.

WARD (voice-over): Arriving on the scene our team found chaos and carnage. Volunteers shouted for an ambulance as they tried to ferry out the wounded. For many, it was too late. A woman lay dead on the ground, a jacket draped over her, an attempt to preserve her dignity. Russia has repeatedly claimed it is only hitting terrorist targets.

This strike hit a busy fruit market.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

TRANSLATOR: This is just a civilian market. This is not a military area.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

TRANSLATOR: There are no military installations here or anything. It's a market. Look. It's a market. A fruit market. Is this what you want, Bashar (ph)?

WARD: We couldn't stay long. Often jets circle back to hit the same place twice. It's called a double tap.

(SIRENS)

WARD (on camera): We've just arrived at the hospital where they are bringing the dead and the wounded from those three strikes in Ariha which hit a park and a fruit market. We don't know the exact number of casualties there, but the scenes of devastation, blood on the ground, dismembered body parts and the injured and dead that we have seen arriving here indicate that this was a very bad strike indeed.

WARD (voice-over): Among the injured brought in, a young boy moaning in pain. He died moments later.

The strikes on Ariha that day killed 11 people. Among them, a woman and two children. Rescue workers wasted no time in clearing away the rubble. In this ugly war, massacres have become routine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Fruit market there. Tough to see, but also very important to see, Clarissa. What have the Russians said right now about this attack? Are they accepting responsibility?

WARD: No, they are not. We reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry, they gave us this statement which simply said, "The Russian Defense Ministry has always been saying that we don't hit civilians nor do we hit civilian targets inside Syria." But as you'll see during the course of our series throughout this week, that simply doesn't gel with what we saw on the ground.

BERMAN: Yeah. But it seems to contradict that. All right, Clarissa. Thanks for doing this. We are glad you are back.

[08:54:58] All right. "The Good Stuff" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Time now for "The Good Stuff." We have a miraculous story of survival for you and the heroes behind it. There was a Jeep and it flipped on its side in a ditch, as you can see, but it also caught fire within view of a nearby home. And that is when the home's owner, Chuckie Hayes, decided to take action along with his son, Dakota.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAKOTA HAYES, SAVED MAN TRAPPED IN BURNING CAR: Get him out and help him any way I could, really.

CHUCKIE HAYES, SAVED MAN TRAPPED IN BURNING CAR: We seen the fire and, you know, definitely didn't want someone (inaudible) to be caught in a fire or something like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well Dakota used a fire extinguisher while his father used a knife to cut open the roof.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

C. HAYES: Wiped his face off with a wet towel and kept trying to wake him up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well the driver was rushed to the hospital and is expected to be okay. I want those guys to be my next door neighbors.

BERMAN: Yeah. Good for them. I mean, they cut open the roof and then they go in with a wet towel.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: All right. Well done.

CAMEROTA: Brave. Fantastic.

BERMAN: Chuckie and Dakota, congratulations on that.

CAMEROTA: There you go. Thanks so much, John, for being here.

BERMAN: It's nice to be here.

CAMEROTA: It's been great.

BERMAN: Right.

CAMEROTA: I don't believe you suddenly.

BERMAN: It's time for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello. Hey, Carol.