[Fredricka Whitfield, Cnn Anchor:] Good answer. Will Smith there. All right. We have so much more straight ahead in the NEWSROOM right after this. All right. Hello again, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. The third Democratic presidential debate is tonight, but the gloves have already come off. The party is in an uproar after the Sanders campaign filed a lawsuit against the DNC for barring Sanders' team from using a national voter database. The DNC shut off access after a Sanders' team member admitted to browsing through Clinton's secret files on the database. All sides reached an 11th hour agreement last night, but the DNC chairwoman defended the party's action on CNN this morning.
[Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chair, Democratic National Committee:] We did reach an agreement with the campaign. They finally gave us the information that we'd been asking for so we could begin to assess the depth of the breach where their staff looked at inappropriately and were unauthorized material that was the proprietary information of the Clinton campaign. And we've been asking them for that information for two days. They had refused not only to provide us with the answers to those questions, but also refused to participate or not agreed to participate in an independent audit so we could get to the bottom of how deep the breach was. They have now done that. Unfortunately, when the Sanders campaign after this window opened through a glitch from our vendor, their staff took advantage of it in a sense, went into the unlocked door of the house and rummaged around, took things that didn't belong to them, and then, actually, accused the homeowner of violating the terms of an agreement when they had unauthorized access to the house and took things that didn't belong to them. It was pretty outrageous. But, like I said, I'm glad that we were able to reach an agreement.
[Whitfield:] CNN's Athena Jones is at the debate site in New Hampshire. So, Athena, what did the Sanders' team feel like they benefitted from this encroachment?
[Athena Jones, Cnn Correspondent:] Hi, Fred. Well, that's the essential question here. Just what did these staffers we understand it was more than one staffer by the campaign, by the Sanders' own account, that accessed this data. But the question is, was it inadvertent? Was there nefarious intent? The national digital the national data director for the Sanders' campaign who has now been fired for accessing the data said that he did so just to see what was the extent of the exposure of the Sanders' campaign voter files because of this security breach. He said that the campaign reached no material gain from his actions. And yet two other sources, two Democratic sources who have spoken to CNN, people who are familiar with the program, familiar with the investigation, says that these Sanders' campaign staffers may have gleaned information that's key to the Clinton strategy. We're talking about information including voter turnout projections in the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. We also understand this team of four staffers did searches involving other early states like Nevada, South Carolina, and about 10 states that vote in March. That's a big busy month for primaries, including Florida and Colorado. Now going back to Iowa and New Hampshire, we understand that these the staffers did several searches to look for voter to measure voter enthusiasm and voter support. The Clinton campaign scores the voters they come into contact with by how likely they are to come out and caucus for Hillary on caucus night or cast a primary ballot for her. Those get high scores. Lower scoring voters are the ones who are more persuadable. So this is the kind of information that could be very, very helpful to the Sanders' campaign if they were trying to figure out who to contact in these final weeks heading into those caucuses and those primaries. I should tell you, though, Fredricka, the Sanders' campaign says that no modeling, no lists, no voter contact lists were exported. No material gain has been reaped here. So you've got two sides to this story here, Fred.
[Whitfield:] All right. Athena Jones, thank you so much. Appreciate that. So as the Democrats get ready for the big night tonight, the first poll taken since the CNN Republican debate is out. It's the first measurement of which candidate might have gained the most from the event. And in the poll from FOX News, Trump is still the big frontrunner, getting 39 percent support. Ted Cruz, second, with 18 percent. Marco Rubio, 11 percent. Ben Carson then with nine points. And everyone else is at 3 percentage points or less. The survey largely syncs with other national surveys taken before the debate, showing Trump with a large double-digit lead over Cruz and the rest of the field lagging behind. So several Republicans are also out on the campaign trail today, including Jeb Bush and Donald Trump. They've been going at it quite a bit ever since things got rather heated at this week's GOP debate. Bush is still lagging in the polls, and today, in New Hampshire, he called Trump a jerk.
[Jeb Bush , Presidential Candidate:] Just one other thing, I've got to get this off my chest. Donald Trump is a jerk.
[Bush:] You can't you can't you cannot insult your way to the presidency. You can't disparage women, Hispanics, disabled people. Who is he kidding? This country is far better than that. And the idea that he's actually running for president and insulting people is deeply discouraging, to be honest with you.
[Whitfield:] Meanwhile, Ted Cruz spoke at a rally just outside of Savannah, Georgia, where he talked about how he thinks the country is in a crisis.
[Sen. Ted Cruz , Presidential Candidate:] We're here this morning because our country is in a crisis. This is not a typical time in politics. We are bankrupting our kids and grandkids. Our constitutional rights are under assault each and every day. And America has receded from leadership of the world and has made the world a much more dangerous place.
[Whitfield:] Let's go to CNN politics reporter, Jeremy Diamond. He is at the Donald Trump campaign event that will be taking place there in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. So Trump is expected to speak there at 3:00 Eastern Time. So, Jeremy, we talked a little bit on the phone. It doesn't seem that he is really compelled to be silent about his willingness to get into a war of words with other candidates. How's that for diplomacy?
[Jeremy Diamond, Cnn Politics Reporter:] That's right. You know, certainly, I think that we can expect to see Donald Trump hitting Jeb Bush again today. You know, he went on a little bit of a Twitter tirade yesterday against Jeb Bush. We've seen this whole week Jeb Bush has been going after Donald Trump. It's kind of a renewed effort from the Bush campaign to say, listen, we're tired of taking hits from Donald Trump, we're tired of just trying to ignore him. We're just going to go after him. And so that's what we're seeing from Jeb Bush. Now I think he may be starting to get under Donald Trump's skin. You know, Donald Trump for a while had stopped going after Jeb Bush, saying that he had bigger fish to fry, essentially, and this week, you know, we're seeing Trump at it again. Jeb Bush, Donald Trump, the fight is back. So we'll have to see if it comes back here to Iowa today.
[Whitfield:] Yes, and I mean, Trump's showing, he's bristling, even during that, you know, debate, that he seems irritated. Yet we know this FOX poll puts Trump on top after the GOP debate. But Jeb Bush is only at 3 percent. So you really do have to wonder, why, you know, Donald Trump even feels compelled to criticize Bush, to counterpunch or throw the first punch, whichever way you want to look at it.
[Diamond:] Absolutely. I mean, you know, it's interesting, because the one candidate who's closest to Donald Trump in the polls is Ted Cruz. And Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have decided to kind of embrace each other, continuing their mutual detente here, where they're not attacking each other, they're kind of riding it out, and both rising in the polls as we've seen in this latest FOX News poll. But I think that it goes to Donald Trump's brand. You know, he can't not hit back when somebody hits him. So Jeb Bush is going to attack him this week and Donald Trump, it's getting under his skin and he needs to hit back. You know, that's what his supporters like as well. So I think that we may see that again from him today.
[Whitfield:] All right. Jeremy Diamond in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, thanks so much. All right. And this just into CNN. Russian president Vladimir Putin says he is ready to use, quote, "more military means in Syria if needed." Putin's remarks came during a gala reception at the Kremlin. He touted what he sees as progress in Russia's military campaign in Syria and indicated that Russia has even more military force it can unleash. Former CNN Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty joining me now on the phone from Moscow. So, Jill, why did Vladimir Putin feel the need to say this, or what does he mean that there are more military means to unleash?
[Jill Dougherty, Former Cnn Moscow Bureau Chief:] Well, I think, you know, put it in context, it was a tough talk because he's talking to the security agency people. It was Security Agency Workers' Day, this gala reception, so of course he was going to come up with something that sounded very strong. And he did say, we're not using everything we have there. Our capabilities are not limited to this. And we have additional means and we'll use them if necessary. You know, they have been they already have a big operation, this air operation in Syria, and they have brought in more defenses as time has gone on. They now have air defenses in there, they have missiles, the S-400 missiles, they have fighter planes, not just the bombers that they've been using to hit ISIS and other targets to help the Syrian army. So I think what he's saying is, you know, a bit of bravado, telling them that they're doing a good job and that our military is on the case and we can certainly bring in more. You know, they were caught pretty much a little off defense when the Turks shot down that Russian warplane and just back in November. And they realized that a lot of their planes were going out without fighter jets around them to protect them. So now they brought in they have the S-400, as I mentioned, and fighter jets. And he notes a little bit of a shot over the bow, I'd say, to Turkey, as they continue their really bad relationship right now with Turkey. And just, basically, a little chest thumping and saying, we've got more where that came from.
[Whitfield:] All right. Jill Dougherty, thank you so much from Moscow, appreciate it. All right. Coming up, a teenager who killed four people in a DUI crash had vanished. He had argued that he suffered from affluenza, brought up with wealth with no limits. Now he and his mom are missing. That story, next.