Return to Transcripts main page
Inside Politics
Senator Bernie Sanders: My Campaign Is The Campaign To Beat Donald Trump; Fourteen States Vote In Today's Critical Super Tuesday Contest; Democrats Face Critical Test As Voters Hit Polls For Super Tuesday; Fed Cuts Interest Rates Amid Coronavirus Market Fears; Twenty-Two Dead, Dozens Hurt After Tornadoes Rip Through Tennessee. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired March 03, 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]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us. The Federal Reserve slashes interest rates in a bid to juice the economy through the coronavirus crisis.
Congress also nears approval on a million-dollar emergency response plan that as the number of confirmed cases in the United States passes 100 across 12 states. Plus 14 states and American Samoa cast ballots in the biggest day on the Presidential Primary Calendar, several former rivals now back Joe Biden but Bernie Sanders hopes it is too late to stop him from opening a big delegate lead.
And it is proven day for Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren the Former New York Mayor was on the ballot for the first time today. The Massachusetts Senator voted at home, and hoe Super Tuesday finally brings her a primary win.
(BEGIN VIDOE CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would a third place finish be good?
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know if there are only three candidates. We can't do worse than that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, there is Elizabeth Warren also.
BLOOMBERG: I didn't realize she was still in. Is she?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: And we begin there with Super Tuesday and its crucial math 14 states, more than 1300 delegates. That's one third of the delegates chase determined in the biggest day on the primary calendar.
Let's take a look we enter here, only a modest number of delegates allocated so far, Bernie Sanders with a narrow lead over the Former Vice President Joe Biden. Pete Buttigieg is third he dropped out of the race. Elizabeth Warren, a distant fourth. You see the modest number there 1344 delegates will be decided tonight in the 12 states. You've seen them in the later grey on your map California, Maine it is a coast to coast essentially national 14 state Democratic Primary. America Samoa also votes today.
So what are we looking for? Number one, what about the regions? Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both from the northeast both of their home states Vermont and Massachusetts on the ballot, can Warren finally get a win or will Sanders sweep the northeast?
Joe Biden just won South Carolina. Can he put something together down here with the African-American vote in the southern states? Absolutely critical to him the two biggest prizes when we go west, Carolina and Texas the Latino vote a key part of Bernie Sanders support there.
Another question mark, what happens in Minnesota now that Amy Klobuchar is out of the race? Bernie Sanders thinks he can take that one, Joe Biden making a late push. What other way I want to take look at this, if you think about the race so far and what we have seen, I just want to pop this up on the map for you.
This is the population of African-Americans and Latinos, the heavier concentration. The deeper you see the orange colors here, the higher their percentage of African-American votes. The deeper you see the green as we go west, the higher percentage of Latino votes. So think about the Super Tuesday states.
Virginia and North Carolina here Alabama down here on the ballot today Tennessee as well all the states where Joe Biden hopes he gets a bounce out of Super Tuesday and that the African-American community turns out and votes for him.
Joe Biden better do well in the east, because as we go west in Texas, you see all that green Bernie Sanders thinks he will perform well if Latino voters. Out in California, Bernie Sanders thinks he'll perform very well with Latino voters. So as we go west Bernie Sanders hopes to stretch out that delegate lead.
The expectation is we'll wake up tomorrow and Sanders will have a delegate lead. The big question this Super Tuesday is, how big?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Today is obviously a very, very important day. And we look forward to doing well. If we're going to defeat Donald Trump, our campaign is the campaign to do that. We have the grassroots movement all over this country to beat Donald Trump. We are going to need to have the largest voter turnout in the history of this country. We need energy, we need excitement. I think our campaign is that campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: One of the battlegrounds within the battlegrounds this Super Tuesday are the fast-growing communities in and around Houston. CNN's Ed Lavandera is right there keeping track of the voting today in Missouri and Texas. Ed? ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey John, we're in Ft. Bend County, Texas just of which is just Southwest of Houston. And this is significant because as you look around here, this is all the voting hustle going on outside of this voting precinct here but all eyes are on areas like this in Texas.
This is an area that for decades had been a Republican stronghold and now seems to be very much possibly up in the air. Republicans here in Texas are concerned about women voters in counties like the suburban counties of the major cities in Dallas and Houston, and whether or not they will turn away from President Trump in droves, and that's why so many people are paying attention to what voters in counties like this are going to be doing here on this Election Day.
It's also interesting the Republican Congressman who represents this area is retiring after only having won the last election by about five points.
[12:05:00]
LAVANDERA: And again, you're seeing on the Republican side that battle between moderates and right wing Trump supporters. You have the Grandson of President George H.W. Bush running for Congress here, but the turnout here is really focused on what the Democratic Primary voters are going to do and which lane of those Democratic candidates they're going to support here at the end of the day. John?
KING: Ed Lavandera on the ground for us in Texas. An important reminder not just the Presidential Primaries at stake today, Ed I appreciate that. With me here in studio to share their reporting and their insights Julie Hirschfeld Davis with "The New York Times" Ron Brownstein with "The Atlantic" Laura Barron-Lopez with "POLITICO" and Jackie Kucinich with "The Daily Beast."
Let's start with the threshold expectation and people are voting. So we let them vote, we often get surprised that's one of the great things about election days. But I don't know anybody who does not think we would wake up tomorrow and Bernie Sanders will have the lead in delegates. The question is, will it be a modest lead and we carry on, or will it be a big lead and everybody goes wow?
RON BROWNSTEIN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: Yes. Ten days ago it looked like he would come out of today with an insurmountable lead. I mean, today you know I believe that the most important thing Sanders has done since 2016 is the diligent organizing it has allowed him to expand his support among Latino voters.
Today is the biggest single payoff for that with Texas and California. So it looked like he was in position to kind of open up a lot of space with everybody else. But what we've seen you and I have covered - probably the most extraordinary 48 hours in a primary in a very long time, and the question is how much does that signaling, as well as momentum in South Carolina, allows Biden to break some of the demographic patterns that have emerged in the first four states that favors Sanders? KING: And he has got to do it based on word of mouth television and momentum because it was too late when it all happened, really. Even if he had the money he is raising money now, he didn't have a lot of money, but to get on television do your business there. What Ron is talking about Joe Biden gets a blowout win in South Carolina.
How many people thought he would win by 30 points? He gets a blowout win there. Now he has the rally around Biden, Amy Klobuchar out, endorses Biden. Pete Buttigieg out, endorses Biden. And Beto O'Rourke long gone from the race showing up in Texas saying let's vote for Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): If you feel tired of the noise and the nonsense in our politics and if you are tired of the extremes, you have a home with me. And I think you know you have a home with Joe Biden.
PETE BUTTIGIEG, FORMER MAYOR OF SOUTH BEND: I'm looking for a President who will draw out what is best in each of us. We have found that leader in Vice President, soon to be President, Joe Biden.
BETO O'ROURKE (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need somebody who can beat Donald Trump. In Joe Biden, we have that man. We have someone who, in fact, is the antithesis of Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: You missed the arms, didn't you? I'm having fun because this fun and you see the theatrics of this but this is a big moment. This is a big, big moment for Joe Biden. In his third run for the Presidency he wins a state big then he has got this consolidation around him. Here is my question.
I think this could have a very significant impact by the time we get to next Tuesday and the Tuesday after that. Can it have a quick impact or how big of a quick impact, A, because it just happened, and B because if you look at this map, early voting is the norm. Only one of the 14 states up today, Alabama, doesn't have early or in-person absentee ballot voting.
California second biggest prize has it, Texas biggest prize has it. North Carolina the third biggest prize has it. We don't have all of the numbers but we do know in six of these states more than 3.2 Democratic ballots have already been cast.
JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE DAILY BEAST: We also know though a lot of Democrats talked to them in various states has been as nervous as to whom to cast their vote for? Because they just wanted most of them just want to beat President Trump and they want to pick the right horse to do that.
Those are the voters that Joe Biden really, people who weren't automatically Biden fans, those are the voters that Joe Biden might have a little bit of a leg up on. If these people haven't decided that they wanted to with Sanders at this point, perhaps Biden's strong showing in South Carolina will change their mind and that will help them today.
But he certainly is playing catch-up in all of these states where early voting was going on when he wasn't doing so.
KING: I'm sorry.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: I was going to say in California, a number of voters did hold onto their ballots, so they haven't even sent them in because they wanted to see if the field would winnow ahead of that. And also on the issue of Texas, which is where Biden was last night with all those moderates consolidating behind him.
His campaign members told me that they're really thinking that they can catch up to Sanders there. It may be a long shot, but they see more of a chance in Texas for them to win over those delegates that they need as opposed to California.
BROWNSTEIN: Latino vote in Texas historically is not nearly as liberal as California where it's shaped by the Union Movement similar to Nevada. So he - if you combine with the African-American population and the potential that some of those suburban counties like Ft. Bend that have been moving towards the Democrats, neither Biden nor Sanders has been a particularly good candidate for those white collared suburbanites.
[12:10:00]
BROWNSTEIN: A lot of them have part with Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Warren through the first three contests. They have for counted of their vote or more it is going to be really interesting to see where they go now that their choice is may be consolidating it to two people who didn't have a natural purchase with them to begin with?
KING: Texas would be a huge surprise. And Biden, you could see it. He got his first win in South Carolina. Now he has these endorsements. He's looser, he's more energized on the trail, and he says voters don't want a revolution.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Democrats want a nominee who is a Democrat, a lifelong Democrat, a proud Democrat, an Obama- Biden Democrat! Then join us! This time I got to bring around everybody, every race, ethnicity, gender, disabilities or economic situation Democrats, Republicans, Independent of every stripe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: He has a moment. The question is how much can he seize of it in the short term as he then tries to restructure, raise money and get ready to carry on?
JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CONGRESSIONAL EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Right and this is a message that he has always wanted to be the message of his campaign right? This is how he got into the race in the first place that he is person who can go up against Trump.
And now that people are consolidating behind him, he has the opportunity to make that case you just heard him make against Sanders saying, you know we don't need something radical, what we need is somebody who can bring together the party?
The question as you said is, whether it is too late for him to really have the kind of momentum that he needs to keep going and keep on contesting Sanders what has already emerged has a lead and after today maybe an even more difficult lead to surmount.
And the other issue is you know you hear Bernie Sanders talking about how the establishment has after him and trying to crush him. And you know all of these people coming out and endorsing Joe Biden in manifestation of that.
How much does that intensify people's determination to go out and make sure that they show their support for Bernie Sanders? And how much does that take away from what has been an extraordinary 48 hours?
KING: To that point, extraordinary. You cannot find the right word for it. You cannot find a right word for it and what has happened here. To the point that even though what is very late at the last second, Joe Biden decides, Bernie Sanders is probably going to win Minnesota today. Let me try to cut the margins. Hey, turn on your TV. Here's Amy Klobuchar.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KLOBUCHAR: What I want all of you to do is vote for Joe. It is time to turn back the division and the hate and the exclusion and the bitterness. And it is time to work together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: It's nimble I don't know how much it can work in one day? People are voting today. But it at least shows a nimble effort by a Biden Campaign. Again Minnesota is probably going to go for Sanders. We'll see. But a nimble effort to say all right, let's gets - we have a new advantage we have a new asset, let's get in the mix.
KUCINICH: And a campaign that has not been nimble this entire time. It's been kind of like an aircraft carrier. So seeing that, perhaps down the line we're seeing a campaign that is newly energized, that has money, we'll see if it pays off. That you're right it is kind of hard to turn people's mind just particularly as Julie said, Sanders functions very well as an underdog and his people really want to get in there.
KING: But, but--
LOPEZ: He has a bigger ground game. That's another thing that Biden is battling in these states also in Texas. He is battling this massive ground game. He - Sanders has like eight long-term offices, 80 mini smaller offices. Biden can't compete with that in the closing days. But he is starting to do new things last night Beto O'Rourke was Facebook living that at meeting what-a-burger. I have never seen Biden's Campaign do that before.
KING: Well, maybe they can learn a little something from the new friends that they have on board. Hold on the other thoughts because we're going to continue this conversation but before we go to break, a flashback to a time when Joe Biden's endorsers weren't exactly singing his praises.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Joe Biden a return to the past?
O'ROURKE: He is, and that cannot be who we are going forward. We have to be bigger, we have to be bolder.
KLOBUCHAR: I am the author of the bill to "Close a boyfriend loophole" that says that domestic abusers can't go out and get an AK-47. That bill along with--
BIDEN: I wrote that bill.
KLOBUCHAR: You didn't write that bill. I wrote that bill.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Former Vice President Biden replied, "This guy is not a Barack Obama". What do you think of that?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, he's right, I'm not. And neither is he.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:15:00]
KING: To the Coronavirus crisis now, 106 is the new number of infected Americans, according to the CDC. Six people, sadly, have died. Vice President Mike Pence is on Capitol Hill this hour with top health officials as lawmakers are nearing agreement on a $7 billion to $8 billion deal to fund the government response. That's a lot more money than the President initially wanted, but last hour he says he doesn't mind.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Six weeks ago, eight weeks ago, you never heard of this. All of a sudden it's got the world aflutter, but it will work out. I asked for 2.5, they asked me 8.5, I sad I'll take it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Also this morning the President getting a giant gift from his Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell a half point emergency interest rate cut the largest since the 2008 financial collapse. The President apparently though not satisfied. Also saying at that event last hour do it more. CNN's Alison Kosik is at the Stock Exchange. Alison the Fed Chair says the fundamentals of the economy are strong, so then why this rate cut?
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John, we did see the Fed make its emergency rate cut just early this morning, and this is a way for the Fed to go ahead and try to make an impact to lower borrowing costs for businesses and consumers just in case the Coronavirus impacts the economy or causes the economy to deteriorate.
J. Powell also said in a news conference about an hour ago that the Coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity and said that we're already seeing strains on industries like tourism, travel and supply chains. So he did acknowledge that. Having this rate cut of half a percent is also a signal to traders, to investors and to the markets, that the Fed has their backs.
[12:20:00]
KOSIK: And although the markets were hoping for this, were expecting it were really wanting it there is also a realization that it is going to have little immediate effect on the real economy because the reality is the Fed can't cure a health crisis. The Fed can't fix supply chain issues the companies are enduring as we speak and that's why we're seeing the market fluctuate widely going from positive to negative to deep losses in the span of a couple of minutes, John.
KING: Alison Kosik live on the floor for us. I appreciate it very much. You see the DOW down despite the rate cut because of that continued uncertainty. CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins our conversation.
I want to start, and I'll come to Julie in a second. Mike Pence is up there. We've had a political debate about this, but it does seem that there is about to be a meeting of the minds, somewhere in the ball park of 7 to $8 billion, somewhere in there. What is the most pressing need right now that the Federal Government can help with?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Preparation. I mean, you know the vaccine is getting all the attention. First of all as you know that's a year and a half away and it has a certain cost, probably about a billion to a billion and a half dollars. There is a larger need in terms to how to take care of these sick patients right now?
And that is something that we've known about for some time. Let me show you some numbers real quick because we did some reporting on this. If you look at the federal government's own projections in terms of what a moderate pandemic might look like versus severe pandemic, you can look at how many hospitalizations are anticipated? How many people will need to be in the ICU?
Take a look there, and so on the lower side, 200,000 people. We also know that about 64,000 people will need to be on breathing machines, and we have about 62,000 breathing machines in the country and another 10,000 in the stockpile. We're in flu season many of those are in use. So that's a pressing concern, it's an acute concern, sort of a triage concern. It's going to cost money not only for the machines but space, isolation, all the stuff to take care of these patients.
KING: I want to come back to that for a minute because I want to look at the very severe scenario, and let's all hope it does not turn out this way. But 38 million needing medical care, 9.6 million hospitalizations, 2.9 million needing Intensive Care.
Washington State today just said it was buying a hotel or an old hotel because it doesn't have the beds. If we have the severe scenario what kind of stress and over load that we are talking about?
GUPTA: I mean, it's significant, and obviously that severe scenario is frightening in this regard and that's a worst case scenario. I think most of the experts are saying it's not likely to get to that point but I would add on top of that just more a functional stand point about three quarter of a million ventilators then are necessary.
This is the real sort of brass tacks in terms of how to care for these patients? And again keep in mind, there are patients who are currently on ventilators. Doctors and nurses they're going to may have to make some tough decisions about how to care for these patients if they have limited resources?
So when you're talking about billions of dollars like they're now talking about - by the way, on part with what the Ebola response was, what H1N1 response was, same sort of ballpark in terms of dollars. That's what a lot that money is probably going to be necessary for because that's how you know you take care of these patients in the immediate term.
There is going to be longer term care as well, but right now we're talking about taking care of patients as they're getting sick.
KING: And in the midst of this there have been questions about who can we trust? You saw the President there saying "aflutter" again he minimizes it frequently the severity of this. He had a disagreement, you mentioned a vaccine, well, again we talked to Dr. Fauci yesterday about what he met with pharmaceutical executives about how quickly you could this done?
I want to read you this quote in "POLITICO" from Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been at this since the late Regan Administration if my facts are straight on that one. "You should never destroy your own credibility and you don't want to go to war with a President. But you've got to walk the fine balance of making sure you continue to tell the truth".
He's been around a long time, so I guess he understands politics. But essentially saying, I'm going to tell the truth about this, and sometimes I might be rubbing with the President a little bit.
DAVIS: Right and we've seen this unfold in real time. I think you were at that briefing the other day when Dr. Fauci and other public health officials were saying that, you know it's almost inevitable, it is inevitable that this is going to spread, and then you know the President got up and said, well I don't think it's inevitable, I think the cases are going down.
And we've just seen this back and forth time and again. And I think people like Dr. Fauci are now resigned to the fact that they're going to continue to give the facts and in some cases be at odds with what the President is saying.
We've heard these reports and my colleague at the times confirmed that people like Dr. Fauci are being asked to clear their statements with Vice President Pence's office before speaking out. We don't have any evidence that anyone is being muzzled or told not to say what they want to say, but they do have to put out these statements.
And I think it really does lead a crisis of confidence what people who are rightly afraid of what this might mean for the general population? Don't know whether they can trust the information they're getting out of the White House and out of the administration? That's also the case in Congress. I think a lot of lawmakers are confused about that as well.
[12:25:00]
KING: Hopefully that situation improves itself as they get their footing then we'll see. Dr. Gupta I appreciate you coming in. Julie is going to stay with us to a very deadly disaster in Tennessee now. At least 22 people are dead after a severe storm and tornados tore through the state overnight and into this morning.
The path of destruction, you see those horrific pictures there it goes through national and beyond. Dozens of homes and buildings flattened, cars and trucks overturned, trees and power lines down.
President Trump just announced he will visit Tennessee on Friday. CNN's Amara Walker is in Nashville now. Amara, I've been watching you throughout the day. The pictures are just devastatingly sad. What can you tell us?
AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I can tell you we've seen extensive damage here in East Nashville, John. The people I've been speaking with throughout the day, they've been coming here to just survey all the damage and they're in complete shock.
Right now we're in Five Points District. This is a business area where there are lots of restaurants and bars and coffee shops, and people say this is a social hub of East Nashville, and they're coming to see that some of their favorite spots are gone.
There is an Ice Cream Shop in here, there is a Juicery, there was apparently an Architectural Firm on the second floor. If you look inside these broken windows, the businesses are completely hollowed out, the ceilings have caved in. Also if you look across the street, you can see the power lines entangled with mangled metal there.
That used to be a building, that used to be an in-skate shop obviously that is no more. And then to the left of that building, this was some kind of disability office, but you can see the shingles on the roof have flown off because of this tornado.
The numbers are going up in terms of the death toll. The confirmed number of deaths so far from this deadly tornado is now at 22. Multiple injuries we're hearing about. We know that at least 156 people in the greater Nashville area were transported to local hospitals with extensive injuries.
Right now the focus is on finding the survivors because this tornado hit in the middle of the night, around 12:30 in the morning, and as you know, a lot of people are sleeping at that time. There are firefighters, there are search and rescue team members on the ground here now in East Nashville, and other neighborhoods going door to door with what's left of these buildings, hoping to find some survivors John back to you.
KING: Amara Walker, I greatly appreciate the live reporting on the ground to understand the depths of this devastation. Certainly our thoughts and prayers to the families affected. Amara thank you very much. After the break, we turn back to Super Tuesday and the stakes of Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
