Soon: Polls Open In South Carolina
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: It's 6:00 on the dot and we are just one hour away from the polls opening in the South Carolina Democratic primary. Good morning, everybody. We're so grateful for your company as always. I'm Christi Paul here in Atlanta. Missing Victor Blackwell who is in Columbia, South Carolina leading our coverage of the Democratic primary. Good morning, Victor.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Christ, good morning to you. Yes, we are just an hour away from polls opening here in South Carolina. Big contest is on the Democratic side this week, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, of course, fighting for every last vote. And so far Clinton is leading by a wide margin in the polls here. She spent most of the week in South Carolina campaigning hard, of course. This afternoon she's in Alabama before heading back to South Carolina for the watch party tonight. Now after a concert and a rally in Columbia, last night, Senator Bernie Sanders already looking ahead to Super Tuesday campaigning in Texas and Minnesota today. CNN senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny following their campaigns. Jeff, good morning.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Victor, the South Carolina primary is now upon us. The Bernie Sanders campaign is hoping more than respectable showing, but they certainly are not counting on a win. He has not spent much time here this week. He's been across the country in Ohio, Illinois, and Minnesota. He's going to spend tonight in Minnesota as well. Looking ahead to those Super Tuesday contests next week. But in South Carolina, it gave him a chance to test his message. It gave him an opportunity to see that he can reach out to a more diverse part of his Democratic electorate. He did not spend as much time here as some of his advisers on the ground have hoped he would. But at this point, it's all a matter of mathematics. He noticed that to keep going in this contest he needs to do well next Tuesday to surprise the Clinton campaign in some states. We'll see if he does that here. But South Carolina is feeling so different than it did eight years ago when it was Hillary Clinton who is outside the state not remaining on Election Day when Barack Obama, of course, won this contest. Bernie Sanders looking beyond South Carolina for that next wave of races next week -- Victor.</s>BLACKWELL: Jeff, thank you so much. Hillary Clinton is expected to win here in South Carolina. She's hoping it's a decisive win, large margin. But of course, Bernie Sanders is hoping that the margin won't be too wide. We've been on the ground here in South Carolina and I've been around speaking with voters in Columbia to find out who they plan to vote for and why. Watch.</s>BLACKWELL: If you've chosen a candidate for the primary tomorrow, who's that candidate?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm voting for Hillary Clinton.</s>BLACKWELL: Tell me why.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. I think if she says she can get things done, she has experience on a lot of different levels.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Experience, nice balance of progressive values and foreign policy experience.</s>BLACKWELL: Are you leaning in a direction?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.</s>BLACKWELL: Toward whom?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary.</s>BLACKWELL: Why?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just like her. I think she's the best person for the office. She can walk right in and take over. She's used to everything.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't have no choice.</s>BLACKWELL: Tell me why?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's helping with the black people, the issues that black people are facing with.</s>KAREEMAH DENNIS, SOUTH CAROLINA VOTER: I just feel like in this moment, it's Bernie's time. I love what he says about the prison reform and reforming our economy and I honestly believe that Hillary did not speak adamantly about black lives matter issues until Bernie brought it into the forefront.</s>LEAH LAKE, SOUTH CAROLINA VOTER: I think she represents -- wants to represent all Americans, and she has been working since a young adult for minority minorities, for women, for the rights of unborn children, and I think she would be fair and have some wisdom because of her experience.</s>LAWRENCE DIXON, SOUTH CAROLINA VOTER: Hillary, you know what I'm saying, she seems like she basically had Obama's back. You know what I'm saying. That was good enough for me. When you've got his back, I've got yours.</s>BLACKWELL: All right, let's bring in Philip Levine, mayor of Miami Beach and a Hillary Clinton, and Justin Bamberg, South Carolina state representative and a Bernie Sanders supporter. Good to have both of you with us. I just want to let people know at home, if you saw that there was an imbalance there, we just went out and spoke with ten people randomly who were willing to stand in front of the camera and tell us who they are voting and all but one said either Hillary Clinton or they didn't have a choice. So those are the answers we got. Let's start with the final number out tonight. Hillary Clinton is expected to win. How important is the margin?</s>MAYOR PHILIP LEVINE, MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA: Well, I think she's going to do very, very well. Of course, the margin is important, but we're seeing this margin all across the country. We're seeing it in Florida. We saw some polls. It's important. As a matter of fact, I think I met every single one of those people you interviewed the last couple of days. No question about it.</s>BLACKWELL: And so the margins for Bernie Sanders, of course, he wants it to be as narrow as possible. How important is that margin for him?</s>JUSTIN BAMBERG (D), SOUTH CAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: The margin is important but only to a certain degree. There's only one candidate that has to win South Carolina and it's not Bernie Sanders. He just has to show that he can perform fairly well and that he is a competitive candidate. If you look back a couple of months, Bernie Sanders was polling at 6 percent. South Carolina is about closing the gap. I think he will do that.</s>BLACKWELL: Can he get within 10 or 15?</s>BAMBERG: I would like to see him within 10 or 15. Whether that's the case is going to depend I think on voter turnout.</s>BLACKWELL: Let me stay with you and voter turnout and Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders struggling to make inroads into minority communities, the black community here, of course, a large portion of the Democratic electorate is African-American here. Why is he struggling here, and if he continues to struggle here, will he continue to struggle across the south of the primaries continue?</s>BAMBERG: Well, I won't say he's necessarily that he's, quote/unquote, "struggling." I think he has had some difficulty due in part to the Clinton name recognition and recognition in the state. You know, Bernie Sanders is from Vermont. Not many people have even met anybody from Vermont down here. What you've seen is over time the more people have gotten to know Bernie Sanders, the more they've heard his message, the more voters he is pulling in. I really want to put out the key part here is that there are still a lot of undecided voters in this state. I think that is what this race is going to hinge on here in South Carolina.</s>BLACKWELL: You know what I learned last week when I was here for the Republican primary is that so many voters here make up their mind when they get into the booth.</s>LEVINE: I'm sure.</s>BLACKWELL: They take a moment then. Of course, we've heard from Senator Sanders and now we've heard from "The New York Times" the call for the release of the transcripts of those speeches to Wall Street. Let's put up a portion of those -- "The New York Times" op-ed. I think we have it. I'll read it here, "Public interest in these speeches is legitimate and it's the public not the candidate who decides how much disclosure is enough. By stonewalling on these transcripts Mrs. Clinton plays into the hands of those who say she is not trustworthy and makes her own rules. Most important, she is damaging her credibility among Democrats who are begging her to show them that she'd run an accountable and transparent White House." Is all this damaging her credibility? I mean, you know she has a trustworthy problem. If there's nothing there, why release them? I think it's absolutely ridiculous. I mean, just think about it. This is the "New York Times," the dig (inaudible) media. They planted three false stories about Hillary Clinton that she was under investigation, not true. Front page that her personal server was illegal. Not true. She was doing favors from the State Department for the foundation. Not true. Why doesn't "The New York Times" go to Donald Trump and say why don't you release all your transcripts from your board room, all your bankruptcies? You know, Senator Sanders, why don't you release the transcripts when you were out there campaigning for the DSEC with Goldman Sachs and you're on a beautiful yacht and talking about Wall Street. Why don't you release these things? It's also amazing, Victor. It's a double standard. She's been in the public office, public life for 40 years. The fact of the matter is, can you imagine releasing transcripts as innocent as they are. We have a $1 billion Republican attack machine. You're going to read I went to the bank one day to make a deposit. They're going take that and say, Secretary Clinton was at the bank, she was making deposits --</s>BLACKWELL: Let me hear from Justin. Justin, your thoughts on these transcripts.</s>BAMBERG: Well, you know, here's the thing. When you're running to be president and you're running to lead the citizens of this country, you know, if people have concerns, I don't see any harm in actually addressing them. You know, people look at Bernie Sanders and if you look at one of the recent polls, age group 18 to 29, 100 percent of them said Bernie Sanders is honest and trustworthy. You know, one of the concerns that voters have about Hillary Clinton is which version of Hillary Clinton are we going get? Are we going to get the 2008 version or are we going to get the early 1990s version or are we going to get the 2016 version before Bernie Sanders actually started to pick up speed or the most recent post Bernie Sanders has support versus Hillary Clinton. So you know, if there's no harm, no foul there, I don't see a problem with releasing them, but that's going to be her decision.</s>BLACKWELL: Let me get your response to what we saw from Robert Reich, and let's put up the segment of the Reich endorsement. Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's former labor secretary overnight endorsed Bernie Sander's campaign. I think that's far too small for the screen. He said he'll support Hillary Clinton if she's nominated, but he believes, and I'm paraphrasing here, that Bernie Sanders is the candidate that he's going to support and he's the candidate for the Democratic Party this cycle. That has to be a blow to the Clintons.</s>LEVINE: No. Secretary Clinton has so many endorsements from all across the country --</s>BLACKWELL: But this is a Clinton cabinet member.</s>LEVINE: But think about it, she's gotten so many cabinet members that endorsed her. Two years ago, she was the most popular secretary of state in American history. All of a sudden now when she is running for president, of course, everyone's on it. But you know what I think the media should do? I think the media should look at Donald Trump. They should look at Bernie Sanders, ask them to release various papers. Go to Marco Rubio and ask him to release his employment records. I forgot. He's never had a job. I mean, come on. I mean, seriously.</s>BLACKWELL: This is a Clinton cabinet member who says he will support Hillary Clinton, but he thinks that Bernie Sanders should be the person who gets the nomination.</s>LEVINE: Well, you know what, everyone has their opinion. I think Senator Sanders has done a great job and really growing the narrative and bringing more people under the tent. I think the Clinton people believe that in the next two or three months, we are going to see that this gap is going to show that Secretary Clinton is going to win the nomination and we hope to have Senator Sanders support.</s>BLACKWELL: All right, Philip Levine, Justin Bamberg, thank you both. All right, the GOP mud fight as we've seen it grow over the last 48 hours continues. Marco Rubio and Donald Trump taking their debate night battles on the road, but will it win over any voters. Plus, the former president of Mexico compares Trump to Hitler.