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Deadly Nashville Tornado; Nine Coronavirus Deaths Now Confirmed in Washington State; Super Tuesday. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired March 03, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:30:00]

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I have always told people that what we know is absolutely nothing, and this is going to go to the convention.

Like, so, let's just kind of just -- just relax. I think that Joe Biden is going to do extremely well throughout the South. South Carolina was an indicator.

If you're looking at Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, Joe Biden's going to do extremely well there. The other things that I'm looking at are Elizabeth Warren. She's running kind of neck and neck in the polls in her home state of Massachusetts with Bernie Sanders.

If she loses in Massachusetts, if you lose your home state, what do you do?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Plus -- lose your home state, but she's got a lot of money. I mean, she's raised a lot of money.

(CROSSTALK)

SELLERS: Well, in theory, but that money on Super Tuesday, it goes really quickly. And that well will dry up.

I mean, you want to pay your staff for the next month, that well will dry up.

The last thing is, I have said it since he got in the race. I think Michael Bloomberg is a half-a-billion-dollar spoiler. I think tonight he plays ball in maybe Utah and maybe Maine. He's relegated to those two states in actually doing well, I believe.

We will see how that plays out. But if that's the case, I mean, if Michael Bloomberg comes out with maybe one victory, I mean, tomorrow, is Barack Obama on the phone with him, or even Jennifer Granholm calling Michael Bloomberg?

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Get out. Get out.

SELLERS: Can you find something else to do with your money? Maybe even turn into a Joe Biden super PAC, which I think a lot of people are kind of pushing him around the edges to do, keep your operation open, spend the money, and maybe get Joe Biden over the hump.

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Which he had said he would do, by the way, Bakari. He said he would keep spending money.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Well, Governor, Andrew Yang was on the program on Saturday night saying that Mike Bloomberg is a rational actor. He's going to look at -- and make a calculation based on what the path ahead is, what his actual mission is.

And...

(CROSSTALK)

GRANHOLM: He's the guy who says, in God we trust. All others bring data.

So tonight is going to bring a trove of data that he can evaluate to determine whether he stays in or not. I think Michael Bloomberg did a huge favor to the Democratic Party, assuming that he gets out, in spending on the digital realm, which is something that the Democrats need to catch up with for Trump.

If you were writing a story, if you were writing a movie, think about the arc of this, because you have got a guy like Joe Biden comes in, you know, as the V.P., falls to fifth, and all of a sudden he has no money. He's like been written off.

One state, one endorsement almost, Jim Clyburn, pulls him back. And he's up against, as one reporter, said the Death Star of campaigns, which is Bloomberg's, the money. So this story about money vs. momentum, little guy coming back, it's just a beautiful story arc.

We will see how it culminates, at least on this first Super Tuesday.

COOPER: Mayor Gillum, what's the story to you for tonight?

ANDREW GILLUM (D), FORMER FLORIDA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, without a doubt -- and I will join my colleagues in this -- Michael Bloomberg has an all-in Super Tuesday strategy.

And since he is a man of numbers, they will show tonight whether that strategy works or it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, what are the appropriate steps that you need to take if you're serious about making sure that a candidate who he might consider to be a moderate candidate is the actual nominee and competes against Donald Trump?

The second thing I'd be interested in is, as these states come in, what happens if at the end of the night we see Joe Biden pick up basically Southern states, but these are states that Democrats don't have the ability to win in a general election? And then you have Bernie Sanders or maybe another candidate picking off states that are actually critically, electorally important to us when it comes to the Electoral College? I'd be interested whether those numbers are vast differences, or if some gap has been closed here, and offers us a little bit more information about maybe what a candidate looks like going into some of these states where we actually have to win in order to win the presidency.

Mayor Landrieu?

MITCH LANDRIEU (D), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA: I was going to start cuing the "Rocky" music.

(CROSSTALK)

GRANHOLM: Right. Right.

(CROSSTALK)

LANDRIEU: But I think that -- a couple things.

First of all, I believe Biden is going to do well in the South, but there's no indication that anything that has happened in the last three days that would move African-Americans in the South and other folks in that area of the state away from Biden.

He's had the best three days of his campaign. So I'm interested to see whether or not that holds. But I'm interested in two other things, whether or not Mayor Bloomberg, given all the money that he spent, can crack 15 percent and what states he cracks them in.

And then, secondly, how close Biden and Bernie stay together. If you look at all of those things, by the end of the night, I don't know that this race is going to be a two-person race before the end of the night, but we will know whether it's going to turn into one.

I do think this is like rolling thunder, though, because the polls are going to be closing from the East Coast to the West Coast, and California is going to come in very late.

And we may not even know what the full effect of it's going to be until tomorrow morning.

COOPER: Yes.

We're going to -- we're about to get an early sense of what voters are thinking as they cast ballots on this Super Tuesday. We will unveil our first exit polls at the top of the hour, about 25 minutes from now.

Stay with us. A lot more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:39:08]

COOPER: And you're looking at live pictures of folks voting in Missouri City, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee. And Tennessee polls close at 8:00 Eastern time. In Texas, they close at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time.

So a lot of votes still to be cast. And we're expecting our first look at some exit polls in about 20 minutes from now. We will bring that to you.

Back now with our political team here.

There's a lot we won't know by the end of the night. What do you think we will know? What will be settled?

SELLERS: I think we're going to have some states come in early enough, Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, to determine whether or not Michael Bloomberg is this phenomenon or Michael Bloomberg is Tom Steyer.

(CROSSTALK)

SELLERS: So we know Tom Steyer, great guy, spent $15 million in Nevada, and got like 6,000 or 8,000, 9,000 votes, spent $22 million just on ads in South Carolina. Didn't get a single delegate.

[16:40:03]

And so -- and he actually worked it. Like, Tom Steyer campaigned. He spent time in states. He debated. He didn't have any debates that were just that god-awful that Mike Bloomberg had.

And so the question we will be able to learn, hopefully, before I go to bed tonight, like, between -- before 11:00, is, will you be able to -- will Bloomberg have any impact?

CILLIZZA: And you know what's interesting about that, too, is those states presumably -- and the mayor was talking about -- presumably, those states should be good Biden states, based on -- you're talking about somewhere between a third and a half of the electorate in a Democratic primary and most of those states we just ran through being African-Americans.

I mean, if he approximates anything like he did in South Carolina, those are going to be Biden states. So, that would suggest that that earlier narrative when -- and I always remind people my parents live in Connecticut. They go to bed about 10:15.

When some people are going to bed, you will see Biden. Now, the question is, California is going to be a process, always is, congressional level and presidential level. Does that change things?

Because if Bernie is the only person to get over 15 percent in California, he is going to have a substantial 150-, 200-delegate lead. The question is, does that happen? And the early night will I think, to Bakari's point, be for Joe Biden, because while Sanders, he won in Vermont.

Well, we all expect that. But if Joe Biden can continue what he did in South Carolina, that's a nice start of a night for him. COOPER: It is extraordinary, 1,344 pledged delegates at stake today

alone, given the kinds of numbers of delegates we have been talking about. I mean, this is obviously a huge, huge day.

(CROSSTALK)

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN COMMENTATOR: Right. No, no, no, this is huge, and it has the potential to change things, depending on how people do.

Now, I think the expectations of most people is that we won't probably have a declared winner coming out of this, but certainly it could happen theoretically, because there's so much in play.

If, for example, Bernie Sanders was the only one to hit the 15 percent threshold or something like that, though the polls are looking like that's probably not the case.

But I think, even looking at the earlier -- earlier in the night, there's other information that we will have in terms of the margin, for example. Is Biden running away with it? What's it look like with African-American voters where, in South Carolina, they're a little older?

What happens when you go to another state where you have a more diverse age group?

COOPER: Also, white, non-college-educated voters. Is it -- Bernie Sanders did well in South Carolina among them. I think he was leading them, last time I saw, though Joe Biden was not -- within the margins.

(CROSSTALK)

POWERS: Yes.

So I think there's a lot of information that we're going to be able to get from -- just from those early states.

(CROSSTALK)

GILLUM: I also think Texas is going to be pretty instructive.

I mean, a lot of us drew the conclusion coming out of Nevada that Bernie Sanders sort of had the movement momentum with Latino voters. Now, the Latino voters, obviously, in Texas are probably -- got a lot more in common with those -- with Latinos in Nevada.

But I would hope no one draws the conclusion that that would be indicative of how Latinos, when you come further East, say, for instance, in Florida, will conduct themselves.

It is a completely different Latino electorate as you get further along. But I'd be interested to see, given last night's basically avalanche of establishment Democratic Party converging on Texas last night, whether or not we see a real bounce coming out of that for Biden, or do these folks stay pretty competitive between each other coming out of the state of Texas? MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Can I say, I'm not convinced that that it will be as stark a contrast, Bakari, that Mike Bloomberg gets blown a la Tom Steyer or there's another extreme.

It could be somewhere in between. I'm mindful of having just read a book about the impact of Facebook on the 2016 cycle that was a reminder of what goes on beyond the scenes of a debate.

This Bloomberg campaign is very sophisticated, relative to their social media. They think they can turn out their vote based on things we're not seeing in those commercials. At the end of the night, we're going to know whether it's there, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did better than expected.

(CROSSTALK)

SELLERS: I just wanted to throw one thing out there.

One of the things that we will be able to see is something that I laid out with a few of our colleagues on Saturday when we were talking about South Carolina. Will this barrage of money and will this technology and will how good they are at social media, will it be able to chip away at what Joe Biden's advantage is with these voters, which is trust?

You can have all the ads in the world, but when you're in Little Rock, when you're in Montgomery, when you're in Mobile, when you are in Birmingham, at the end of the day, after seeing this phoenix, as you have kind of created this character, rise up from the ashes or Rocky or whomever, and now you go back to what you know.

You go back to this trust. So we will be able to see if that money is able to break through.

SMERCONISH: But we know the answer to that question, because folks of color hung with Joe Biden through a disastrous Iowa caucus, New Hampshire primary and Nevada.

But they were coming out for sure in South Carolina, because they thought they owed him one. I think that will continue tonight in all the Southern states.

[16:45:00]

GRANHOLM: And all of these candidates, especially Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, have to -- and tonight we will get some data about this -- have to expand where they have been.

So we're going to learn the pockets of where the surging occurs. So, if Bernie Sanders' theory of the case is correct, then we should see a huge turnout among youth voters.

SELLERS: Which we haven't seen.

(CROSSTALK) GILLUM: Governor, if I could add just to that point, because it's an important one, and I mentioned it to a staffer on one of the campaigns.

What got you to this point will not get you to the next point.

GRANHOLM: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

GILLUM: Everybody thinks that the 30 or so percent of people that have been carrying you and they champion you, and they are your great defenders on social media, but you cannot win the presidency that way.

You may get a nomination, but you have absolutely got to grow further out.

COOPER: I got to get a break in, but I want to hear from Mayor Landrieu.

(CROSSTALK)

LANDRIEU: This is just a complicated field of play.

I agree with Bakari completely on the lower Southern states, but I'm interested in to see how Bloomberg participates in North Carolina and Virginia, which is a little bit of a different crowd.

(CROSSTALK)

LANDRIEU: The second thing is, we have five candidates, but we really only have two theories of the case. We have the moderates vs. the progressives.

And which one of these candidates is going to emerge? I think, if Biden does well really, really early, and Bloomberg does not do well, I think that's going to presage maybe how close it's going to be, because I think Biden is going to do a little bit better in Texas than people expect.

But California will be...

GRANHOLM: The big...

(CROSSTALK)

LANDRIEU: ... the big.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: We're waiting...

(CROSSTALK)

LANDRIEU: Go ahead. Sorry.

COOPER: The big.

LANDRIEU: The big.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

SELLERS: Go to commercial.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: We're awaiting our first clues about the outcome tonight from our exit polls. That is coming up.

We're also keeping an eye on polling places across the country, like in the big Texas, looking for any potential logjams.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: Our coverage continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:50:51]

BLITZER: On this Super Tuesday, Central Tennessee is reeling from severe storms and a tornado. At least 22 people have been killed, and extensive damage is reported in Nashville.

That's affecting voting stations in this city.

Let's go to CNN's Amara Walker. She's in Nashville for us.

Amara, what's happening at your location?

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, I don't have to tell you the lines are very long here at the Cleveland Community Center in East Nashville.

Some of the voters that have been talking to a standing in this line tell me that they have been waiting for about two hours just to cast their ballot. And just a few minutes ago, the lights went out. There was this loud groan here in the auditorium.

And then the volunteers said, hold on, no one needs to worry. We may have no power for the moment, but our computers, the voting computers, are doing just fine. They're fully charged.

Now, let me tell you more about these long lines and why it's happening. And that's because five polling stations basically are converging on to this one. So this is one of three super sites that have been designated by the Davidson County officials.

And it's -- we know of at least 18 polling stations which were damaged in some way because of the tornado. And that's why you see some voters, many of the voters being redirected to this particular super site or the two other super sites to cast their votes, and hence the long lines.

I want to talk now to a voter who was here for -- come on over, Carolyn Monroe (ph).

You were in line for also two hours to cast your vote?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And I have not cast my vote just yet.

WALKER: And you haven't cast your vote yet?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I have not.

WALKER: OK.

And I have to ask you how people have been waiting in this line, despite the trauma of the tornado, people feeling down. And it's hot and muggy in here, yet people are waiting in line to cast their vote.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People have been so pleasant. They have really been polite. We have learned a lot about our neighbors.

We have asked where they live, whether their power was on or out. But there's a lot of devastation here in East Nashville.

WALKER: Thank you for talking with us, Carolyn Monroe.

Obviously, people still in decent spirits, despite the trauma that they have experienced from the tornado -- back to you.

BLITZER: All right, Amara, thanks very much -- Jake, over to you.

TAPPER: Let's start doing urgent concern for people all over the world and Americans across the country.

It's also having an impact on the presidential race. That, of course, is the novel coronavirus. The death toll in the U.S. has climbed to nine now. Federal health officials are now being deployed to Washington state, the state where all those fatalities happened. At least 117 cases of the novel coronavirus have been reported across the nation.

Tonight, a Centers for Disease Control official says that the United States may be seeing the beginning of the rapid spread of the virus that has been playing out in other countries throughout the world.

Let's bring in CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

And, Sanjay, I guess, to start with, because people are alarmed by this, put this in perspective, if you would.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, back on January 20, the first patient in the United States was diagnosed, so about six weeks ago roughly.

One patient, one state at that at that point. Now we have 13 states and, as you say, 117 patients. We don't really have a great handle on this in the United States because we haven't been doing significant testing. Some of the public health officials will say that there's a lot of people out there who have basically either asymptomatic virus infection or minimal symptoms, which would mean there's a lot of people, hundreds of people out there, that may have this and not know it.

That would not be surprising. But these numbers, they're likely to continue to go up, because I think there's evidence of community spread, Jake, probably in many cities around the country.

We're documenting a few, but I think many of them probably already have community spread.

TAPPER: And what was your reaction when you heard the CDC official saying that the U.S. might be seeing the rapid spread of the virus that we have seen in other countries?

You -- people might remember, Italy had like three or four cases, and then a weekend passed, and they had 100 or 200 cases.

GUPTA: I think there's two things that really strike me about this.

First of all, our public health system in so many ways is excellent. And it continues to be excellent, but we have not been doing surveillance, and that is a big problem.

As we start to do the surveillance here in this country, I think we may suddenly see a dramatic uptick in numbers, not because there's suddenly many more patients who are contracting the virus. I think they already have it, and we're just going to find it.

[16:55:00]

That's going to sound like bad news, because people are going to see huge numbers. But there's also the good news in this, in that most of those people didn't get tested because they didn't feel sick enough to get tested. They wouldn't have gone to the hospital.

So I think that's going to be how this plays out, I think, over the next several days.

TAPPER: All right, Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.

We're just minutes away from getting an early read on what Super Tuesday voters are thinking and what that might mean for the candidates running.

Our first exit polls are straight ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:00]