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Donald Trump Wins Big In Nevada Caucuses; Rubio And Cruz Battle For Second In Nevada Caucuses; Record Voter Turnout Caused Issues In Nevada; Reports Of Ballot Shortages Amid Huge Turnout. Aired 2:30-3a ET

Aired February 24, 2016 - 02:30   ET

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


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[02:00:00] ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and of course all around the world. This is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Rosemary Church. And we begin this hour in the state of Nevada, where Donald Trump has won his third presidential contest in a row.

CNN projects Trump will win the Nevada Republican caucuses by a wide margin. The only real question right now is who will finish in second. You can see the numbers there. Rubio at 24.5 percent and Cruz at 22.7.

Now turnout was extremely high. Some caucus sites actually reportedly running out of ballots. Entrance polls show caucus goers are dissatisfied or angry with the federal government and strongly favor a candidate from outside the establishment.

Trump spoke with his supporters in Las Vegas, just about an hour after the polls closed. He says he's especially proud in winning in every category of voters including more than 40 percent of Latinos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We won the Evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated. We're the smartest people, the most loyal people and you know what I really am happy about, 46 percent were the Hispanics. Number one with Hispanics.

I'm really happy about that. Of course, if you listen to the pundits, we weren't expected to win too much and now we're winning, winning the country. And soon the country is going to start winning, winning, winning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And right now Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are battling for second place, as we pointed out, just like in South Carolina's primary. Cruz congratulated Trump on his victory but assured his supporters he is the only candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you are one of the 65 percent of Republicans across this country who doesn't think Donald is the best candidate to go head-to-head with Hillary, who believes we do better in elections when we actually nominate a conservative, then the first four states that performed a vital function of narrowing this race and presenting a clear choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Now a high voter turnout worked well for Donald Trump, but it caused some issues at the polls as Reed Vinion (ph) tells us that included reports of some irregularities.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REED VINION, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump road to victory in the Nevada caucuses Tuesday with CNN projecting a first place win for the real estate mogul. Trump taking a swipe at rival, Ted Cruz, ahead of the win.

TRUMP: This guy Cruz lies more than any human being I've ever dealt with. This guy is sick. There is something wrong with this guy.

VINION: Tuesday's caucuses got off to a rocky start after a higher than expected turnout led to problems at caucus sites across the state like volunteers, including a member of the Rubio campaign checking in caucus goers without checking ids.

And a Trump lawyer sending a letter warning the state GOP to keep a close eye on the Cruz campaign after the "Wall Street Journal" reported that Cruz staffers instructed supporters to film the caucuses, which would be a rule violation.

The high turnout also led to reports of the ballot shortage at least at one location. With Trump widely favored even before results started coming in, the real battle was between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

CRUZ: I frankly don't care what position Donald decides to support today or tomorrow or the next day. They change every day.

VINION: Rubio and Cruz fighting for second place in the silver state.

SENATOR MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm a conservative that can unite this party. We can't win if we're divided.

VINION: That fight, a critical one in a rapidly narrowing GOP presidential field. Reed Vinion reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: All right, we want to bring in CNN politics reporter, Tal Kopan, who joins us now from Washington and Dylan Byers, CNN senior reporter for media and politics. He joins us now live from Las Vegas. Thanks to both of you joining us. And Dylan, want to start with you. Donald Trump embolden now with a huge win in Nevada. He's looking unstoppable at this point. How is the anti-Trump Republican establishment likely to be dealing with what appears to be the inevitably of a Trump nominee?

DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: Well, what they are doing is they are finally coalescing behind a single candidate and that candidate is Florida Senator Marco Rubio. The question is, are they doing it in time?

And then the second question is how aggressive are they going to be in terms of combatting Donald Trump? And really is it too little, too late?

Rubio, of course, looking like he's going to come in second in the state of Nevada. He's trying to create and portray himself as this sort of anti-Trump candidate and Trump is trying to portray himself as the antiestablishment candidate.

Both of those candidates are successful in doing so. It could move Ted Cruz out of the picture and then we'll be looking at a two-man race.

[02:35:03]CHURCH: And Tal, I want to go to you because when you look at Marco Rubio, he didn't speak in the aftermath. We heard the victory speech from Trump. Ted Cruz got up and pretty much said he is the man to beat Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Why wouldn't Marco Rubio at that point come out and at least speak to those people. They want to hear and see perhaps that he might be in the running here. He's shown that he might be taking the second place, but why be silent at a critical time like this?

TAL KOPAN, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, it's interesting. He wasn't even in Nevada at all today. He left this morning. He went to Minnesota and Michigan to campaign. He's looking ahead to Super Tuesday to some of these winner-take-all states that happened on the road.

So he by all accounts was already in bed by the time Donald Trump was called as the winner. What's interesting about that decision, yes, he doesn't get to give his second place victory speech like he's done in the past -- in Iowa and again in South Carolina.

But he is going to be on almost every morning show tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. well rested. We saw Ted Cruz tonight, but he seemed tired. He seemed deflated.

Marco Rubio gets to get up tomorrow morning, set the agenda for the day with a good night of sleep behind him. It won't bring him more delegates, but it might help him in the media spin aftermath.

CHURCH: Dylan, a lot of observers are saying either Rubio or Cruz need to drop out and make this a two-man contest, of course, ignoring Ben Carson and John Kasich, who are still hanging in. But if one of them needs to go, should it be Rubio or Cruz? Which one might stop this dominance of Trump going forward?

BYERS: Well, the first objective certainly for the GOP establishment is getting Kasich to drop out. We'll see if he is going to do that. He looks pretty invested to go through at least through March 1st, but we'll see.

Now the question between Rubio and Cruz, look, there are three lanes right now in the GOP primary. There is the Trump lane, which he has defined for himself, which is a broad swath of Republican voters who are really angry with Washington.

There is the Cruz lane, which is the conservative values lane, and there's the Rubio lane, which is the establishment lane. Obviously the Republican establishment has a ton of money, has a lot of fear and trepidation about either a Trump or a Cruz nomination. Let alone a Trump or Cruz presidency.

So, it seems to me like there's going to be a lot of pressure from the establishment to get Cruz to drop out, but of course, Cruz himself is an antiestablishment candidate. I don't think he cares what the GOP establishment thinks.

I do think that he's going to be looking at how dominant Trump has been in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. It's going to be very hard for him after time goes on to really see what his path towards the nomination is given that Trump is taking up so much oxygen.

CHURCH: Yes, and Tal, of course, all the focus now a week from now, it's Tuesday, 11 states --

(VIDEO OUT)

KOPAN: -- delegate count.

CHURCH: Dylan, what do you think? How did you think Super Tuesday is going to play out?

BYERS: There's no question that Super Tuesday is crucial for everyone involved. That said, we're in uncharted territory here. No one saw Donald Trump pulling off what he's pulled off yet.

And, look, if he were any other candidate who had achieved the victories that he's achieved, we'd be calling that candidate the presumptive nominee and calling them unstoppable, inevitable, what have you.

It's different because he is so antiestablishment and because the establishment has so much to fear from him winning the nomination. So even if Trump were to be dominant on Super Tuesday, there's still going to be a lot of money behind Rubio to let him go the distance.

[02:40:00]So, Super Tuesday is crucial, but I wouldn't make too much of Trump being dominant there because I do think given all those southern states like Tal was saying, he will do very well on March 1st. CHURCH: All right, let's just for a moment bring out those numbers because there has been a change. Look at this second place. You can see Marco Rubio, 23.9 percent and Ted Cruz, 23.3 percent. This is very close.

And of course, Trump the big winner at 43 percent, the numbers have changed again. Of course, this is going to happen as we're talking.

But just going back to you both, Tal, if I can talk to you now on Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz fighting over this second place. Does it matter when you nearly combine the support for both of them, it's pretty close to Trump, isn't it?

KOPAN: And once again I keep coming back to this for a reason. It's all about delegates. The percentages are important. The ability to claim a second place versus third place victory is important for momentum.

But at the end of day, if they're this close, if they're only a few percentage points apart, depending on either way it goes, they're probably going to end up with the same number of delegates and both of them are going to have far fewer than Donald Trump.

So it's all about spin. It's about them being able to say I was in the top two. I was in the top three. I was really close to my main competitor. But it's not necessarily going to help them in the overall race for the nomination. It's all about momentum at this point.

CHURCH: And Dylan, just very quickly, back to you. If this does end up being Hillary Clinton face to face, toe to toe with Donald Trump, who's going to come out on top?

BYERS: Well, that's a great question. I think if there's one thing we've learned from this primary process, both on the Republican side and the Democratic side, it's sort of foolish to make predictions.

Now that said, I think there's lot of anticipation certainly among members of the media for a Trump versus Hillary Clinton general election.

I don't there's, you know -- look, I think Trump would spend a lot of time going after Hillary Clinton on this baggage that she's been unable to drop off, this FBI investigation, a lot of suspicion among the conservative base over her handling of Benghazi. Things like that.

I think Hillary Clinton would really use Donald Trump to sort of rally the liberal base, the progressive base, that she hasn't been able to generate enthusiasm with simply by the prospect of, look, you don't want a Donald Trump presidency.

You got to turn out and vote for me. Whatever the case, it would be an extremely exciting election and a lot of the electorate would be engaged. CHURCH: All right, Dylan Byers, Tal Kopan, standby, we want to come back to you both very soon. But let's take a very short break right here.

We'll have the latest updates on the Nevada Republican caucuses when we return. Hear more of Trump's victory speech, including all the voter groups he won over. Back in a moment.

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[02:45:57]

CHURCH: A ruckus crowd at the Donald Trump victory rally in Las Vegas where he has scored a major victory in the Republican contest for the presidency. CNN projects Trump will win the Nevada caucuses by a wide margin.

The only real question right now is who will finish second? Look at these numbers. So, you have got Marco Rubio, 24.1 percent and Ted Cruz, 23.5 percent, but maybe looking at the actual votes is more real.

Look, 6,000 votes for Marco Rubio, 5,819 for Ted Cruz. You couldn't really get much closer here. They need that second position. But then look at that, this dominance of Donald Trump, 42.4 percent at this point.

And Donald Trump has just sent out a tweet about his crushing victory. He says simply, "Thank you Nevada." Trump touted his entrance poll numbers during his victory speech listing all of the groups he won, including Latino voters. And senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, has more from Vegas.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump won a massive victory here in Nevada crushing his nearest rivals, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. And despite Trump's attacks on those two contenders in recent days, he barely mentioned them in his victory speech here in Las Vegas.

Instead Trump predicted his campaign would only grow stronger as other candidates dropped out and he touted his poll numbers coming out of caucus sites showing his support among Hispanic voters. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We won the Evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated. We're the smartest people --

(VIDEO OUT)

[02:50:17]

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): -- because a lot of people -- the caucuses started at different times in different precincts. So, some people showed up at the wrong precinct at the wrong times. So that could have accounted for some of the problems.

They didn't have really a uniform system for starting these caucuses at a certain time. Now, in some of the caucus sites that probably didn't train some caucus workers quite well enough, although they have said that they have done a much better job of that than they had four years ago.

I guess in some places, they might have fallen short of that and were just a little bit overwhelmed with the turn out. So, that could account for some of the irregularities.

At least where we were it went smoothly and you heard from the state GOP later in the evening that in most places it did go smoothly although they did ran out of ballots in some places. There were some other problems with checking identifications.

CHURCH: Brian, what are the chances in the hours ahead that some of the candidates might say I lost support because of the bad organization?

TODD: You know, they could claim that, but honestly, Trump's victory was so dominant that I don't think they can make a very good case for saying that that was the reason they lost.

It may have cost them a few votes here and there but honestly, this was such a dominant victory by Donald Trump and you could tell it, you know, again with the number of first time voters who came out and said they supported him, I don't think it would have made a difference.

CHURCH: All right, out Brian Todd joining us on the line there from Las Vegas. Many thanks to you. You can probably go and have a little snooze now. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

All right, well, let's take a look at what factors contributed to Donald Trump's victory in Nevada. Here's CNN's (inaudible) with our panel of experts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, "AC 360": There's no ceiling. He busted through 46 percent.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Conventional wisdom and conventional wisdom has proven to be wrong. Not only there, but also Latino voters. This is a huge fact tonight that Latino voters, 44 percent broke for Donald Trump more than the two Latino candidates underneath him.

COOPER: Although, to Ryan's point, it is a very small --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: But it's something that Donald Trump can certainly use moving forward as he did tonight.

MCENANY: It's a small sample size, you're right, but the point is he did it and this myth that he can't win minority voters, not case. Frank Luntz has said, look, this is someone who I think could win minority voters like Reagan did in a general election and win independents. Conventional wisdom is wrong. It was wrong tonight, and I think it will be wrong moving forward.

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: To Kayleigh's point, I think it was erroneous for folks to assess that because Donald Trump was getting 30 percent therefore 70 percent of the electorate was anti- Trump.

And somehow transferable to whoever would emerge as the one candidate. So I think that is a problem. The other thing is the rest of these states are not sealed off from the momentum and all of the dynamics that are now shaping the electorate's view of this contest.

So it's not like all the sudden we're going to have two candidates and all of a sudden we are going to scramble this thing and start from zero again.

Donald Trump's momentum is going to feed a lot -- and I will tell you even voters who don't like Donald Trump, many of them are going to, at a certain point, become resigned to the fact that maybe --

COOPER: I mean, there's a lot of enthusiasm for Donald Trump. If it's about getting our votes and getting new voters in, I mean, is there more enthusiasm on the Republican side than there is on the Democratic side right now?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There might be at least at this point, but Axelrod was talking about he's not broken through and now he's running toward. He's not broken through electorally. He's broken through psychologically, sociologically.

He's making people feel comfortable with things that were completely unacceptable. We have a frontrunner who is threatening to punch someone in the face at his own rally and we said he's done so many other crazy things.

That is very dangerous. Authoritarian movements gain momentum by lowering the resistance to really outrages stuff. I'm really very concerned about this development.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: All right, I want to bring out the numbers because we told you it was close for second place. How about this. Ted Cruz has now just moved into second place with 24 percent, 6,562 votes. Marco Rubio right behind him at 23.6 percent, 6,446 votes.

Incredible. Both these men fighting hard for that second place. You wouldn't think it's important but for them, it is. But when you look at Donald Trump's lead there, he's totally dominating at 42.7 percent, 11,688 votes.

[02:55:05]And of course, we are live here on CNN. So, we're bringing you these numbers as they happen, as the count continues. And Trump's acceptance speech fired up his supporters Tuesday night. Some of his biggest cheers were on border security and his love for Nevada. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: This is an amazing night and I love the country. I love the country. We're going in the wrong direction. We're going to keep as you know Gitmo, we're keeping that open and we're going to load it up with a lot of bad dudes out there.

We're going to have our borders nice and strong, build the wall. And I have a lot of respect for Mexico and you just heard we won Hispanics, but let me tell you Mexico is going to pay for the wall, right. Going to happen. Going to happen.

They know it, I know t we all know it. We have a tremendous deficit. They'll pay are the wall. They'll be very happy about it. They're going to be very thrilled to be paying for the wall.

We're going to be the smart people. We're not going to be the people who get pushed around all over the place. We are going to be the smart people. You're going to be proud of your president and even prouder of your country. OK.

So, tonight, folks, this was a great evening. I love this place. I love this state. I love Las Vegas. I have spent and invested so much money over here. Trump International Hotel.

I keep telling Steve we have the best hotel in Las Vegas. He's fighting me all the time but -- I want to say it's a great state and they have great people. I was all over the place tonight. The people are amazing.

The enthusiasm, it was unbelievable to see. The people of this country are absolutely amazing. I love you, folks, very much. Remember, make America great again. We're going to do it and it's going to happen fast. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much. We love you. We love you. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Donald Trump in his victory speech there in Nevada. I'm Rosemary Church. Remember you can always get in touch with me on Twitter @rosemarycnn.

But don't go anywhere we are live for you on CNN with the results of the Nevada caucuses much more coming your way. Do stay with us.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Weather watch time. Pedram Javaheri with you watching the pattern across the eastern U.S. here with a wintry storm that is going to begin push in portions of the Midwest eventually could spell snow showers, but I think much of it really going to be confined towards parts of Ontario and Quebec from Thursday into Friday as cold air settled in towards the latter portion of the week. How much snow are we talking? Not an impressive amount, six to seven inches. But again it has been a very quiet season across this portion of Canada and the temperatures do want to warm up above freezing.

Certainly something to watch carefully across the region. Weather conditions across (inaudible) 100 percent of the trails now open. Machine groomed to keep them in that shape. To the south, a little too mild.

The theme this season has been the mild conditions that have been plaguing this region and the temps around 9 to 10 degrees not going to do much to bring snow down. And look at the west where you expect it to be a blanket of white.

Very quiet conditions. Generally sunny skies, temps well above freezing and the snow amounts picked up a couple of inches in recent days. But much of this is machine groom conditions.

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