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Senator Bernie Sanders Campaign Releases Documents Outlining How His Policy Proposals Would Be Funded; Seven Democrats To Face Off In South Carolina Debate Tonight; Senator Bernie Sanders Stand By His Comments Defending Fidel Castro; Donald Trump Downplays Virus Threats It Is Well Under Control In U.S.; Senator Wary Of Coronavirus Threat Despite More Disaster Funding. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 25, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: --reports of the mass detention of Muslims in Xinjiang fake news. Ivan Watson, CNN.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Ivan thank you so much for staying on top of this. Thank you all so much for joining me today. "Inside Politics" with John King starts right now.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Thank you, Kate, and welcome to "Inside Politics." I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us.

President Trump brushes off both the public health and the economic threat posed by the Coronavirus, and he gets angry at Democrats who say the President is asleep at the wheel and has no plan for ending the pandemic.

Plus debate night for the 2020 Democrats and the stakes are enormous. It is the final showdown before South Carolina votes Saturday and then 14 states next Tuesday. Front-runner Bernie Sanders will be the target, but others also have a ton riding on their performance.

And the other billionaire's big moment Michael Bloomberg is not on the ballot until next week, but Tom Steyer has spent heavily in South Carolina and is third in the polls there. Though listen here at least one voter questions the wisdom of some of that spending.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You claim to be pro-environment and raising significant alarms about climate change. Yet we have been receiving so many mailings from your campaign, literally three to five times per week for months now. How do you justify this unnecessary overkill of mailings and printed material in a digital world that would certainly be much more environmentally friendly?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Voters ask the dandiest things. We begin right there with the Democrats' big debate night and big is an understatement seven candidates on stage in Charleston Bernie Sanders in the middle to raise the curtain on an incredibly consequential week in the 2020 campaign.

South Carolina votes on Saturday, and then one state at a time in February gives way to the politics version of March madness. 14 states plus American Samoa and Democrats living abroad vote one week from today, Super Tuesday.

After South Carolina on Saturday, 155 Democratic delegates would have been advocated, just 4 percent. But 130,044 are at stake next Tuesday more than a third of the Democrats' delegate pool settled in just one primary night.

February is about momentum. March is about math. And tonight's debate is the last national stage before the biggest day of the primary season. Senator Sanders will be in the middle and he will be the primary target as his rivals try to stop him from pulling away. One attack is the price tag of all his plans and debate prep clearly evident at a CNN Town Hall last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I thought that question might come up. All right, here it is this is a list which will be on our website tonight of how we pay for every program that we have developed? I also believe we should cancel all student debt in America.

Now, you're smiling and you're saying, well, that's a great idea. How does he pay for it, right? Did he read your mind on that one? Okay. And the answer is - I'll tell you exactly how we pay for it. We pay for it through a rather modest tax on Wall Street speculation. That is how we pay for that, all right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Abby Phillip and Jeff Zeleny are in Charleston for the debate tonight. Abby, let me start with you. What are you looking for?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have for the first time now all the candidates on the stage, and last week Bloomberg was in the line of fire. We know that Sanders is going to be in the line of fire, too. The question is what is going to be the balance of attacks between these two men?

Bloomberg is still a threat to all these candidates going into Super Tuesday, and last week's debate saw Pete Buttigieg doing these double barreled attacks. Will he do that again and will others join him?

The second thing I'm looking for is how much scrutiny does Bernie Sanders' foreign policy philosophy come under? This is something that we have not talked a whole lot about, and it's gotten more attention as his comments about Fidel Castro have come up in the last couple of days, but there is more to this. And how deep will we go and how will Bernie Sanders explain that to the public? Then finally Elizabeth Warren this is a big debate for her. Last week she had a standout moment attacking Michael Bloomberg, but now the question that I have for her campaign is how does she expand that?

How does she show strength and dexterity on that debate stage outside of attacking Michael Bloomberg? I think that will be important to her as she makes her case that it's not just attacking Bloomberg that is the reason that she should continue to be in this race, there's got to be something more there that can push her into the first or second tier as we go into Super Tuesday states so that she can actually get delegates, which is what this is all about.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Abby, I think there's no question. I mean, Bernie Sanders of course he has been the frontrunner before, but never like this at this moment. So I think the scrutiny on Bernie Sanders is going to be something that his team is preparing for.

But that conversation last night in our Town Hall here is just the beginning of conversations about how he will pay for his plans? Look for Amy Klobuchar and others to really puncture that and do a reality check. So far that's not worked. I mean this is not a new argument for Bernie Sanders.

He's been making the Medicare for all argument for a long time. But look for more scrutiny for Sanders see how he stands up to that?

[12:05:00]

ZELENY: The second thing, I'm looking for again take 2 for Bloomberg and Warren. As you said no doubt Elizabeth Warren wants to use Michael Bloomberg as a foil to get her to the next step. She's already advertising against Bloomberg in Super Tuesday states. She is looking not to necessarily make an argument to South Carolina voters she's looking to her donors.

And she wants the debate here tonight to launch her into Super Tuesday for the next week to put more money on television in all those states. But finally, perhaps the most important thing of all, Joe Biden he is trying to resonate to African-American voters here are some 60 percent of the electorate African-American here in South Carolina.

The question is can he hold those who he has and convince some younger black voters to support him? Because that is what I'm hearing as I'm traveling across South Carolina and other things. He and there's definitely an age breakdown here.

Some people don't remember the Obama legacy in the administration and they didn't vote for him. So Joe Biden needs to make a commanding case here. If there is going to be a stop Bernie movement, which is a lot of skepticism for that, Joe Biden has to lead it. That depends how he does tonight. John?

KING: Jeff Zeleny and Abby Phillip, I appreciate it from the debate site of Charleston. With me here in studio to share their reporting and their insights Lisa Lerer with "The New York Times" excuse me former employer look at that it came out of head. Toluse Olorunnipa with "The Washington Post" Heather Caygle with "POLITICO" and Molly Ball with "Times".

Man that was a flash back I don't know where that came from. My head is struck in my cold. You cannot understate this moment. South Carolina's primary is almost always pivotal in Democratic contest, anyway, and then 72 hours later we get what I call the blur. 14 states, American Samoa Democrats are abroad start voting.

The candidates, if they blow the debate tonight, don't have much time to recover. On the flip side if they have a great debate tonight may be it is sling shots for them.

MOLLY BALL, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, TIME: Or may be that it's already too late I think that is what a lot of these candidates are looking at right now given that in a lot of Super Tuesday states.

They're already voting and have been for a while, given that this race has been so muddled and so fluid already, is there really a possibility for anyone to break out and move to the front of the pack given that the trend we've seen so far has been everybody but Bernie sort of treading water and not even able to break 20 percent in most cases.

And it's Bernie Sanders who continues to consolidate more and more and more support to the point that, you know, in the last contest in Nevada, he got nearly half the support, which really makes it more difficult for his rivals to make the argument that he's somehow divisive or doesn't have a majority of the party, that he's somehow a factional candidate. This guy is getting more than half or more of the vote harder to make that argument.

KING: If he getting half or more the vote, it will be game over. It can't be over mathematically Tuesday but that is the challenge for these candidates. Sanders has the momentum, Sanders is better organized than them across the breadth of these 14 states.

Only Bloomberg can spend more money I guess Steyer then Bernie Sanders can. It's an enormous test for him. I found it striking when he has usually resisted the answer, he'll say, we'll pay for it, we'll pay for it, or he says, I don't know to some answers.

That he walked with a piece of paper last night in the other campaigns were already criticizing it. Biden's campaign says it is fuzzy accounting, the other people say it's not known it doesn't add up. But the fact that he adapted and said, okay, this is going to come up in the debate, here. It shows you that he understands he's in the lead and he's trying to protect it.

LISA LERER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I think he definitely understands he's in the lead and he also definitely knows the knives are going to be out for him. We've seen debate after debate where each candidate who has ticked up in the polls has had time in the barrel, and that time has now come for Bernie Sanders. And the reason that is happening is that if the candidates are going to stop Bernie Sanders and prevent him from becoming the nominee, this is the week when that needs to happen. After that it just becomes a question of whether he can get a majority of pledge delegates, or it remains more divided and you go to a convention, there's a second ballot and everything gets really crazy.

If he is - if they're going to stop if someone else is going to have the opportunity to overtake him and to get 50 percent of those pledged delegates whenever that moment may come, that groundwork, we need to see that movement happening now. And Super Tuesday will be the big tell on whether anyone else is able to do that.

KING: And the others have struggled with how to get it in the sense that Sanders is familiar, his band of supporters are very loyal, he's shown evidence that to Molly's point he's expanding his coalition and actually growing. So maybe his ceiling is a little higher than people thought it was.

So you have had Joe Biden saying, the Democrats will get crushed. The Democratic Socialist at the top of the ticket will ruin the party. Sanders, he sticks by his views which is one of his appeals. Is it also potentially a liability? In a 60-minute interview with Anderson Cooper, he said, you know what? Castro is bad. The Castro regime has been terrible in Cuba. They jail political opponents.

Communism is bad. But he says he has a great literacy program, when he started. He doesn't back down other rivals like Pete Buttigieg says do you really want that guy at top the ticket?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In our one shot to defeat Donald Trump, we should think carefully about the consequences of nominating Senator Sanders.

[12:10:00]

BUTTIGIEG: I don't want - as a Democrat, I don't want to be explaining why our nominee is encouraging people to look on the bright side of the Castro regime when we're going into the election of our lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Have they found the magic issue here, or is that sort of distraction into silly season?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: This is so reminiscent of 2016, Donald Trump speaking positively about Vladimir Putin, talking negatively about some top Republican issues, talking about planned parenthood in a positive way. These were seen as third rail issues that would have sunk his campaign.

All the other Republican candidates, there were a lot of them as well saying, we don't want this guy to be the leader of our party and he's going to get crushed in November. They were never able to coalesce around a single message. It was the scandal or the topic of the day and then it faded into the background, as President Trump then- candidate now President Trump continued to make news and lead the field and soak up all the oxygen.

Bernie sanders is continuing to do that. He's doubling down, he is not apologizing, he's not backing down from his controversial opinions, but the fact that the field is so large and the moderates are splitting up the vote means that he can continue to coalesce a large portion of the voting population.

And continue to be at the top of the field, and unless some of these other moderates drop out, they can continue to attack him on various issues, but they're not going to be able to break through unless they can get other people who share that same lane out of the field.

KING: And so a major sub plot tonight is also Michael Bloomberg who had a pretty horrible first debate. I think that's fair to statement, right a pretty horrible first debate. As he goes on the stage again and tries to show more energy, lo and behold, a little tape of Michael Bloomberg talking in 2016 about Elizabeth Warren and banks. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Part of my first campaign plat would be to defend the banks. You know how well that's going to sell in this country. But seriously, somebody's got to stand up and do what we need. A healthy banking system that's going to take risks because that's what creates the jobs for everybody. And nobody's willing to say that. The trouble is, these campaigns in this day and age, really are about slogans and not about issues anymore.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now his spokesmen too low as he says the opening line was a joke. For a Democratic candidate to say my first campaign platform would be to defend the banks. He goes on in that conversation to call Elizabeth Warren scary. I guess that's coming at him tonight.

HEATHER CAYGLE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes, I mean this was something we saw Warren capitalizing on last night, and we fully expect her to do that again, double down in the debate.

Most of these other candidates will be attacking Sanders, and I think Warren has made it pretty clear she's putting her money on Bloomberg. She was asked about Sanders and whether he's a concern as a nominee over the weekend, and she wouldn't answer that question. She went and pivoted again to Bloomberg.

She had a standout moment last week attacking Bloomberg, so I think she hopes that this can help her by attacking him break away from the pack. But the question is I think Bloomberg will be a lot better prepared for questions about the NDA, may be his taxes returns things like that. So will she be able to catch him flat footed again and I'm not sure. KING: Right. So there is two parts of that will Bloomberg have better answers? Will he have better energy and will he be able to speak as a Democrat if you will to the issues? And number two will this Warren strategy work? There was evidence in Nevada that that debate helped her. The early voting it didn't translate as much into voting in the Nevada Caucuses because so many people had already voted.

The question is, if you keep coming in third or if you keep coming fourth or worse, can you say you're making progress. She has clearly decided she believes this will help. She was on TV in Super Tuesday states with this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mike Bloomberg.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mike Bloomberg.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You've probably seen more ads on Michael Bloomberg than the rest of us running for President put together. Big money is powerful, but it doesn't always win. I know that firsthand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It's an interesting sort of pool shot, if you will. Can it work, will it work? It has to work fast, right?

BALL: Well, listen to what she's saying, because she's making an electability argument. This is the same thing she did in the debate. She's not just saying his positions are wrong and out of sync with what Democrats believer.

She's saying that he would be a risky nominee because of these positions. She was saying big money doesn't always win and in the debate she said we would take a risk if we nominate someone with these kinds of views. So I expect here to continue to hammer on that because she, like literally everyone else in this field, knows that that's what Democratic voters are fixated on.

KING: That's what they want. The challenge for her is she needs to find a win as we get into again Saturday and then 14 on Tuesday, one week from today. 14. Up next for us a reality check. Is the Coronavirus well under control as the President says?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

KING: President Trump very much downplaying the threat of the Coronavirus today, just as administration officials were up on Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers on their assessment and their response plans. At a press conference in New Delhi, the President said the virus is, "Going to go away", and he predicted minimal impact here in the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The Coronavirus, which is, you know, very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it. The people are getting better, they're all getting better. And I think that whole situation will start working out.

A lot of talent, a lot of brain power is being put behind it. $2.5 billion we're putting in. There's a very good chance you're not going to die. Now they have studied it, they know very much. In fact, we're very close to a vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The latest numbers here in the United States, 53 Americans have confirmed cases of the Coronavirus. That's a small portion of the more than 80,000 confirmed cases, 2700 deaths so far around the world.

Our Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now. Sanjay, you just heard the President downplaying this, almost dismissive. Do public health professionals share that attitude, or are they more worried?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I would say I think they're little bit more worried than that. I should point out as well just for clarification at the end of the President's commentary he said we're very close to a vaccine. We're more than a year out probably still from a vaccine. I just want to make sure that to clarify. He may have been talking about a different vaccine I don't know.

[12:20:00]

GUPTA: But I think there is a level of concern the numbers as you showed, John, are correct. We're about two months into this, and these are the numbers the vast majority of people who have been diagnosed with the Coronavirus in this country were repatriated, many of them from that cruise ship, for example.

There have been 12 travel related and only two person-to-person transmissions. That's all good news obviously John. But when you talk to public officials, you talk to folks at the CDC, and I want to put up some language that we just got from the CDC from a news conference they just gave regarding this, they're basically saying, look, the data over the last week and the spread in other countries has raised our level of concern and raised our expectation that we are going to have community spread here.

Two points, John. One is that this is a very contagious virus. It seems to be able to spread even when someone does not have symptoms. That obviously is of concern. But the countermanding point to that, and I think this is an important one is that, it seems in that vast majority of people, eight out of ten people, 80 percent they either have no symptoms or minimal symptoms.

So it's concerning in terms of spread, just how problematic in terms of sickness and death. We still don't know yet, John. I think the number are going to be smaller obviously in the United States versus other countries around the world, but we have to make sure that we're ready in this country. I think that's what we're hearing public health officials say over and over again.

KING: So I want you to stay with me on that very point again, ready. People look to their leaders and look to people they trust influences in the community to try to get clues. What should the average American do?

You heard the President there. He says it's going to go away. He has said on several occasions it's getting warmer soon, and when the spring comes, it's going to magically go away. I want you to hear to Rush Limbaugh's tape on the Coronavirus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, HOST, "THE RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW": It looks like the Coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. Now, I want to tell you the truth about the Coronavirus. The Coronavirus is the common cold, folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Dr. Gupta, is the Coronavirus the common cold?

GUPTA: This is a brand new virus. It's a novel virus. We don't know exactly how this virus is going to behave, and I think that would unfortunately be minimizing it. I think what Rush Limbaugh sort of referring to is the idea that it is from a family of Coronavirus, that is the family name of these viruses, and some of them in the past have caused symptoms that were more consistent with the common cold.

But it's also been the same family of viruses that caused Sars that caused MERS, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. I think minimizing it is not going to do any favors because look you seen what it takes to isolate and to deal with the 50 some patients in this country right now that have the Coronavirus.

See the amount of resources that goes into that. Are we capable, as a public health system, to deal with thousands of patients if the numbers get that high?

KING: Something to look for as we go ahead, and again responsible reporting responsible conversations would help the most. Dr. Gupta, I appreciate your comments and helping us today.

Let's bring it into the room and as we do I just want to look at the big board on Wall Street, the markets were down a thousand points yesterday in part because of the fear of the global economic impact as well as the public health challenge.

You see it just shy of 400 points down today. That is one of the President's concerns, one of the reasons the President doesn't want to be an alarmist about this is because he's in a reelection year. The strong economy is his greatest strength and he doesn't want turmoil in the markets.

However, it's also his responsibility to talk clearly and plainly and factually about something that has people nervous.

BALL: Well, I think that is the political issue here, right, beyond the medical issue, which is obviously the most important. Politically the President just has so little credibility. I don't think anybody here is talking about what goes on with this and says, oh, well he must have read a briefing book and gotten a really detailed download from his officials about what's going on.

No, I mean he's talking from the top of his head like he always does. Is it true or not? Everybody hopes that Russia is right and this is no more serious than the common cold, and even if lots of people get it, it isn't as deadly.

We just don't know where at this point as Dr. Gupta was saying but I think there is the potential for a situation where there is mass confusion because nobody knows what to believe because this President has such a track record of not necessarily being truthful that you could have a panic, you could have all kinds of consequences of that.

KING: And sorry go ahead.

LERER: That's exactly right. The key in these kinds of situations is clear information. The public needs to know what they're supposed to do. Are they supposed to stay inside, wear masks, what? Not only are they not getting that from the President, they're not getting that from the federal government, right?

There is a real question about the government's response. Not only are they requesting enough money to deal with this from Congress, but who is going to give the information, where is it coming from, what's that look like?

[12:25:00]

LERER: You just don't see that kind of leadership coming out of the White House.

KING: Right, there were briefings on Capitol Hill today, and everybody came out of and they were classified, and everybody came out and saying they didn't need to be and they shouldn't have been.

But it is important to give lawmakers some information. I think the public deserves more information as well. The administration has asked for $2.5 billion. A lot of Democrats say even some Republican say they're not sure that will be enough. But what was interesting is for the most part coming out of the briefings you have relative bipartisan agreement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): I think the President is to be given some appreciation because that was the right thing to do.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): I think that is a wise allocation of funds and it may not even be enough.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): So I don't think this is 2.5 million, period end of story. It is like let's out of valves and we can easily put more dollars in OMB specifically said that.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): The approach right now seems to be taking two aspirin and call us in the morning.

SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-TN): A year and a half would be the quickest that a vaccine has ever been developed for something like this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will see if it's enough, it is $2.5 billion. If it's not enough, we'll appropriate more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It does seem, again, Senator Blumenthal a harsh critic of the administration. He's the outlier in that conversation. Everyone else did seem to come out and say, okay, it was good to finally get some information. They have a plan, we may need to add to it, but at least I took that as a rare Washington moment where there seemed to be some actual conversation.

CAYGLE: Yes, but that's kind of where the bipartisanship ends. We saw Nancy Pelosi skewer the administration's request last night. She said it's not nearly enough. Experts say you would need 3 billion alone to develop a vaccine the administrations are only requesting for 2.5 for the whole.

You know the reaction right now and so Pelosi said the House is going to prepare its own package. Also they do not want the administration to be able to move money around from other pods because of the border wall and how they've done that.

So will the Senate Republicans agree to what the House proposes and will they be able to get the money to the administration to address what's coming next? And that's the big question this week.

KING: So you're telling me my little dream of bipartisanship is going to be very brief?

CAYGLE: Minimal.

KING: Minimal, okay, I'll take what I can get. Coming up for us President Trump avoids giving direct answers when asked a pretty important question about Russian meddling in American elections.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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