79594061 call. >> now, i'm kaitlan polantz in washington, and this is cnn it's wednesday, march

trump, dominant on super tuesday pulling off. a near-sweeps. that's could spell the end for his only real primary opponent left in the race. and president biden, hoping to drive home to key points when he delivers his state of the union address, why he's fit for a second term, and why donald trump is not. and nikki haley is still hanging on. >> but >> for how long after seeing her hopes all but slip away on super tuesday a live look at the white house right there in front of the washington monument. there's still not awake there. can i it's 06:00 a.m. here on the east coast. good morning, everyone. i'm kasie hunt. it's wonderful to have you with us. it looks like that november rematch that most americans tell us they don't want. well, it's exactly what we're all going to get after donald trump's near sweep on

super tuesday, trump dominating nearly every race, winning by big margins and state after state and now closing in pretty quickly on the 1,215 delegates. he needs to clinch the nomination >> they call it super tuesday for a reason and they tell me the pundits and otherwise that there's never been one like this there's never been anything so conclusive. this was an amazing, an amazing item amazing day nikki haley did win her first state, vermont, keeping trump from running the table. >> but she's gotten no >> events on her calendar and her future is uncertain on the democratic side, president biden's sweeping all the super tuesday states. >> he did not win >> an american samoa. >> he's turning his >> focus to november. biden's campaign out with a new memo this morning calling trump a wounded, dangerous, and unpopular man. and this quote, we have a clear path to

victory. let's discuss all this in more with new york times white house correspondent zolan kanno youngs david polyansky, former desantis deputy campaign manager. we've got bakari sellers, cnn political commentator and former south carolina state representative, and geoff duncan, the former georgia lieutenant governor. gentlemen, thank you so much for being here because you had a very late night. i'm particularly grateful to you for coming in early here for the american samoa verdict i hate to call you out right off the top, but you did have predictions you thought haley was going to win alaska, utah and maine. vermont was missing yeah. >> i would have taken your money >> you actually get destroyed and alaska, utah was a little bit closer. vermont was slight amina maine was slightly closer, but she did well in vermont. i mean, that's what you want when you want to be the republican nominee, vermont and the district of columbia >> yeah. >> the queen of the swamp, quote from david thank you for this is your first tour with us

here in the mornings. i really appreciate you being here. >> thank you. >> talk to me a little bit about how you see haley's future in the context of what just happened with donald trump. i mean, you obviously ran against trump when you were part of the desantis campaign, he handled the aftermath of his early losses in a different way than she has. what should she do next? >> well, look, the race was all but decided the night in iowa very cold night. but on january 15 for the republican nomination was one when you allow donald trump to get over 50% of iowa caucusgoers, the race concluded. and so every candidate and campaign had to make a decision at that point, not only for 24, but for their own futures going forward. what was the best pathway for them in our case? ron desantis decided to we go back and serve as governor of florida and make decisions about his future then if i had been advising nikki haley, i probably would have fought through new hampshire given the independent and democrat crossover. but going home and losing by such a wide margin in her home state that

probably as an adviser, i would have recommended that be the end in unfortunately only for her taking so many losses last night to bakari's point up and down the country. and by significant margins in some cases, 80% going to trump. that's not recoverable. not only obviously for this cycle, but going forward, she's just not going to be the party's standard bear watching the results come in yesterday i was thinking about how you it seemed like nikki haley really never found the right sort of way or consistent message for criticizing the former president xi at times tried to make it a generational argument, both talking about the age of former president trump and president biden saying and that she was sort of represent a new generation coming in. but not often also directly taking on the former president, really until after iowa as well i think that that did play into this a little bit. she in a way represented a

bit of the old republican party and the oldest stablished front and the ended yesterday as the results were coming in, it was hard not to think about that. >> yeah. one of the things that i think helped kept haley in the race longer than perhaps many would have expected was the way donald trump talked about her after the new hampshire primary. so he was on better behavior from his advisers perspective when he was onstage last night, but he also talked that's about a much differently on talk radio. so he clearly knows his audiences. let's watch first what he had to say onstage last night we have a great republican party with tremendous talent >> and we want to have unity and we're going to have unity and it's going to happen very quickly and i have been saying lately, success will bring unity to our country dropping. >> all right, so there he said on stage, tremendous talent and the republican party, we want to have unity that's gonna happen. now, listen to what he had to say on the mark levine

show. he was not terribly complimentary let the beginning, she was very nice, very respectful, and then she's gotten crazy. and i've never seen anything like it. she's gone off the wagon. i'd never seen she got so angry, sees a bitter person. i never saw. is that all right. so >> trump describes her as an angry, a bitter, a bitter person. i do also want to just update everyone. the haley campaign did just send out a release saying that she is going to deliver remarks in charleston today at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. our teams are working on sorting through exactly what what this announcement could be. obviously, she had a tough night last night on super tuesday, very unclear what her path forward a could be. jeff, let's talk about the haley voters and haley supporters. i mean, this this biden campaign memo that came out at five really talks about how those people represent an opportunity for the president of the united

states. where do you think these voters are going to go? well, look, donald trump's going to >> squander the opportunity to actually build bridges with these folks that supported nikki haley. what we've seen show up as an average of about 35% state to state is crossed up through this point in the primaries. there's nikki's work was important in this process. >> shi quan when a the heartburn inside the republican party, that just as consistent folks that have just don't believe they're republicans or conservative, they're like me, but they don't believe that the 2020 election was rigged. they're fiscally conservative. their former republicans had donald trump alienated throughout his last umpteen years of doing exactly what he's done. the democrats who used to be republic that's a, that's a 35% grouping that is really quantifiable heartburn and it's important work. it's interesting to hear donald trump call her angry, right? nice and sweet or whatever his words were. first parts of the campaign, which i think was a mistake on her part. i think it was a mistake on hur's and ron desantis is but when she's not angry, she would just being honest and truthful and calling out donald trump for what he

is. and that's a liar >> you know, the weird part about this race though, is that it's really hard to dictate a determined nikki haley's future because this election even last night's shellacking was not a referendum on nikki haley i mean, the people who voted for donald trump were always going to vote for donald trump in the peat at people who voted for nikki haley or the geoff duncan's of the world? yeah. all right. and so that it's unique, i believe she has a path forward in 2028 or whatever because you know what she's also has is she raised $28 in between january and february, and i know she didn't spend all that let me pause because we do have some breaking news here just in to cnn. >> cnn breaking news. >> nikki haley will announce today that she is exiting the presidential race according to sources, familiar with her plans, she plans to address supporters in charleston at 10:00 a.m. and today with us now, is kylie atwood. she is in south carolina and is the person who broke this news for

us, kylie, what have you learned? yeah so we're learning >> according to sources familiar with nikki haley's campaign, that she is going to announce today that she is suspending that presidential campaign. this comes after she has been running for president for more than a year, but it also comes after last night, she suffered losses across the board on super tuesday, her campaign saying just moments ago that she is set to deliver remarks this morning in charleston. that is her hometown. her in her home state of south carolina, at 10:00 a.m. so we will watch to see that speech from her. and i do want to point out that last night we've heard from the campaign in spokesperson thanking the americans who have voted for nikki haley saying that there are millions of them and also pointing out very clearly that in nikki haley's perspective, there is still not unity within the republican party's saying that there are a large block of voters republican primary voters, who

don't stand with donald trump, making it quite clear in that statement that nikki haley is not poised, at least at the time that they sent that statement out to endorse the former president we'll watch to see her language surrounding that today as this makes it very clear that donald trump is now set to be the nominee of the republican party kylie. >> i know she didn't have an event last night around the events. can you talk a little bit about kind of what the mood was among people you were talking to last night as they were trying to decide what to do moving forward. and i am interested in this question too, about what she decides to do about an endorsement if not now, perhaps later, what else do you know about any timeline on something like that >> well, listen, yesterday, we weren't hearing a lot from the campaign at all. and casey, you've covered campaigns for long enough to know that that's pretty telling. of course, there were no public

remarks that nikki haley had scheduled gould. there weren't any campaign events that she had scheduled beyond super tuesday events that happened in texas on monday. >> so it >> was clear that they were really focused in on the results last night to determine the future of her campaign. and obviously as they tabulated everything that was coming in, it was clear enough to them that they felt that this was the moment for her to bow out, not to continue campaigning on. now, when you talk to campaign officials, they also said that there was a sense of jubilation among the campaign last night that they were happy worries that they were feeling but i do think that nikki, haley's campaign feels like she did what she set out to do, which of course not becoming the nominee is not ideal. she wanted to be the nominee of the party, but she did set out to try and make the case that there is an alternative pathway forward for the republican party here she truly believes that there are principles that

the republican party should stand for, that donald trump does not stand for, and she made that case incredibly clearly throughout the entire course of her campaign just last week, she was campaigning in more than ten states leading into super tuesday, even though they knew that the stakes were going to be incredibly high, that the odds were incredibly low, that she was actually going to be able to clinch the nomination. she was still out there campaigning, making sure that americans who wanted an alternative to former president trump had an option that they could choose in her. >> all right. kylie atwood. thanks very much for your great reporting for being on top of it for us this morning. really appreciate it >> our panel is back >> with us. david, let me just put this question to you. is this the right call for her to get out right now? >> it is blook in presidential politics, there's nothing more difficult than talking to a candidate in a. campaign. under these conditions, but it's the right decision for hurts, right decision for the party. the

bigger challenge i think has alluded earlier was what does she do in regards to donald trump? i would be surprised if she endorsed him today, but i believe between now and are convention in milwaukee, she will she committed to the rnc to get on the debates stage that she would make that choice? yeah. although she kinda went back on that and interview recently, if you want to have a future in this party, fair? not on the presidential level. she's going to have to get behind the nominee. and that's another calculus. her and her team are going to have to make, maybe not today, but in the weeks ahead for sure. >> so when we should hear, she's already said thus far that she couldn't bring herself to support the other leading candidate, right? that being president biden. this is somebody who worked for president trump to sometimes i feel like that gets lost a bit in this fast-paced election season. she is somebody who worked in his administration as well. so that's immediately what i look towards, but i think this is, this becomes the immediate pressing question now. but i mean these somewhat

one of the stories of the sort of trump era is many republicans coming out and criticizing him for various pivotal moments, whether he, when he was president or even post his presidency, and then quickly there king a trip to mar-a-lago, or coming out and once again, pledging support for him. so this immediately becomes the question. >> now, let me extinguish any burning notion that nikki haley will not endorse donald trump. i mean, that is that is just a fantasy world that a lot of pundits may live in finding reasons to the pretzel themselves to say, nikki haley will not do this. look, she's going to do it is going to come in a moment where both of them can stand on a stage together and say that we're unifying the party sometimes with trump, with letter stand on the same stages, him i mean, you can already see the cinema behind it. i mean, it's about unifying the party. it's a good day. the moment everybody is going to say, oh, my god, this is terrible for democrats because republicans are unifying i think the flip side

of this is, this is no longer 1984 or 88 or 92, or whenever it is that republicans nominate the number two to be the standard-bearer going forward, nikki haley is not the is not the republican party pretty number two. >> she she she >> literally and i was just reading. i loved article. i mean, i actually think we can look. i was reading the washington post is a great, there's a great piece in here this morning by robyn, given it says people aren't voting for haiti. they're voting for themselves like this is exactly right. this isn't some oh, my god, nikki haley is the next shining star. she's not going to be someone who is a bastion of anti-trumpism, who stands for the age of morality, and fiscal responsibility that was the republican party of a of a day gone by. i think i think she happened to be somebody for the moment that people could vote for themselves and not have the vote for donald trump in a primary. my encouragement should really read the newspapers on your guests. >> that's the whole point of the news

>> for nikki haley not to endorse donald trump. i believe it's a mistake i believe it's not moving forward for the party. and what will be a short-term sugar high and i just named a number of individuals. kevin mccarthy tim scott's moment where just cringeworthy at best. i mean, we've talked about it ad nauseam. it's a mistake. and i believe there's a number of folks, this 35% of republicans that didn't vote for donald trump in these, in these primaries we're going to be absolutely disappointed to think somebody would just want to preserve their political career and not do the right thing. look, if we're going to turn the tide as the republican party, if we're going to turn the tide as a country we've got to be more serious minded than just petty politics or short-term wins. we've got to go figure out a way to get real solutions on the table, right? well, i mean, we should be focussing. we haven't even talked about the state of the union. i mean, the whole country he's gonna be holding their breath, seeing if joe biden can even get through this speech. and here we are as republicans just in fighting. it's i would encourage or not to she's done a great job. she's worked hard, she's put a great message and she's certainly achieved a number of goals along the way. >> no. i mean, i just look at

your former candidate, ron desantis mean what's the first thing he did? i think the quote was you rather eat that sandwich now. and he did it and it was lukewarm at best. i mean, he's still been a thorn and donald trump side the campaign is still holding it against ron desantis, but he went ahead and did it. nikki haley is she's gonna do anything. she's going to put her political career in self-interest first she might have done something knowable for the republican party during this campaign, but i believe it's backed that nikki haley able yeah, it's way too early for that sandwich analogy but look, i'm just i was thinking it was, well, look, i think i think the point here, it's important to remember with republican primary voters actual republicans, even in new hampshire, donald trump won 75-25. so what nikki haley's done is relied on a lot of crossover democrats and independents, whether that was in iowa to agree, certainly new hampshire, but we even saw it in south carolina and a bit yesterday. and so if she wants to have a future in the party, she has to play within the party parameters. and if she doesn't and wants to lead a

movement outside of it that's her prerogative, but it's going to be very lonely out there both from a donor standpoint and certainly from electoral one. >> yeah. i mean, i sort of see that in some ways she has boxed yourself in. i mean, she's learned the power of i mean, the aggressive fundraising that comes from opposing donald trump. she's clearly leaned into attacking him in ways that she's wasn't comfortable doing at the beach beginning, i do think if you're going to argue, hey, this is my political center. i mean, she's got some serious just got a serious turn to make if she's going to endorse trump, let's bring in alayna treene, who is with us here in our dc bureau. she covers trump for us. alayna, good morning. thanks so much for being here what are you hearing from the trump team as this? news is breaking this morning that nikki haley is planning to exit the presidential race later on today. >> well, you can expect that they will be very happy with this news, casey, and this has really and i reported some of this yesterday. this was their goal for super tuesday. they wanted to have very much a definitive win across the board

enough so to force nikki haley out of the race. and that's exactly what we're seeing play out with her remarks coming at 10:00 a.m. later today. and i will say, you know, for weeks now, donald trump and his team have been pivoting already to a general election strategy. they really felt that nikki haley was standing in the way of making it official that he would be the nominee knee, but they had already been really turning their attention to november and two taking on joe biden. but this will help them in a number of ways, having donald trump be declared the presumptive nominee. of course, we have to see what will happen with the upcoming primaries. we knew that they were really hoping to be able to declare him the presumptive nominee next week with some of the other races that would really give him the necessary 1,215 delegates to make it so, but the whole goal for them is to be able to do that as early as possible, which they now feel they will be able to do and really unite the republican party behind him. they want to be able to pull from not just

the republican can hold out voters that they are looking for, but also donors and the money part here is a huge deal. they want to be able to have the rnc officially be able to come behind donald trump to use the infrastructure of the national republican party to boost him in a potential general election campaign >> alina, can i ask you? we've been talking here at the table about how haley would handle an endorsement of trump, what her future might be in the party from the trump perspective, i mean, there was no love lost between these two even before this primary got underway. i mean, he's sort of private. my understanding is having toxic to people about it. like he privately snubbed her around, requested have dinner with him and some other things that were not normally how trump would necessarily basically this has signaled trump was pretty unhappy with her. how is he likely to interact with her going forward? say if she was willing to endorse him or are we more likely to see him

continue to attack her? >> you know, it's interesting. i think we can look at ron desantis as part of this, you know, donald trump for the majority of last year, had railed against ron desantis, the florida governor. lot of that was from personal animosity against him for believing he wasn't loyal. and then once he came out and endorsed him, donald trump kind of laid off and actually they were willing to embrace ron desantis if he were to be a surrogate, of course, that's a different case, but it's actually a little bit different with nikki haley from my conversations with trump's campaign, they believe that nikki haley has gone too far. we've reported this many times that donald trump has been grumbling even long after his aides had told him to just focus on so biden, he's been very frustrated with nikki haley for remaining in the race for as long as she did end, has been very frustrated with her criticism of him. they feel that she's really gone very far, not only in that criticism, but also with some of her policy. so i think it'll be harder for donald trump and his campaign to embrace her for if she were to endorse, of

course, that's a big question. if she would even do that after what she has been saying on the trail in the last several months. so i think an interest of relationship between them will never be what it once was. i don't think there's going to be a wholehearted embrace of nikki haley, regardless of whether she endorses the other part of this, too, i just want to bring up is that they really do not think that nikki haley is a part of the trump republican party, and that's what a lot of this will come down to. i think regardless of what she does with the potential endorsement, they see her as being a different part of republicanism, a different part of conservatism, someone that does not represent the trump ideals. so i have a very hard time believing that they'll, they'll find a strong place for her in the trump world or in the trump operation looking forward, but we don't really know there are times when donald trump has had a lot of critics in the past who have fiercely attacked him. and then later on embrace them for the sake of the party as his advisers argue, they would rather fight democrats than

fight republicans. but we'll see what happens >> indeed, we will. all right, alayna treene for us, alina, thank you very much. i mean, i think we should just take a beat to to just point out, you know, what nikki haley has accomplished in this race. i mean, she went farther than i think a lot of people expected her to certainly when she first gotten it was driven by debate performances early on and she did for as much as people have been joking about vermont and the district of columbia kind of already here. she is the first woman to win a republican presidential primary contest. >> but i think that's right. i think it was mentioned earlier that even though you have trump's sort of talking about how the party is unified, clearly there was some representation here of the frustration with the former president what he represents more broadly, just sort i think there's a lot while i speak to a lot of voters, even on the democratic side, that often talk about sort of the remainder of the status quo with these candidates as well. so i i think there she represents some of that frustration as well when it comes to the age of these

candidates and sort of a lack of satisfaction with them. you're right, there was also the debate performances. i mean, going up against ramaswamy as well. and sort of some of those moments definitely benefited her. and you also saw her lean on sunday the experience both in state government as well as foreign policy experience. but i mean clearly, trump has grip on this party right now >> yeah. i mean i think my question just comes back to bakari, her voters, right? like these people are showing up, even if many of them are independence, there are democrats, right in some of these, in some states they are now there's, it's a chunk of the republican party. i mean, there is a sizable constituency in the united states right now, the fuel is politically homeless, right? conversations about third parties are more impactful this cycle than they've been in a really long time. i mean, all of the the polls show that people are really unhappy with their choices. i mean, where do those people go? >> so first, the push back on the frame of the question a little bit is a presumption that they have to go somewhere

and i don't think they'll just stay home. i believe that is a huge risk that we'll see in this election. and that's a greater risk for the president of the united states and the former president. and that is what they're guarding against this apathy. that means that voters, particularly voters of color, will stay home, also pushed back on the presumption that there is a there is a nikki haley voter. i still don't believe that to be the case. i think that the third of the third of the people that you see, the overwhelming majority of those people who did not vote for donald trump are going to come home to the republican party. i mean, that is just the way politics is they the overwhelming majority are going to vote for donald trump in november. they're going to be some that do not. >> and >> those individuals that we look at who voted uncommitted or who voted for. oh, what's the gas name from minnesota? i don't know any run for president and the democratic side plus name come up an area and ramzan, the other one >> that one, sorry, sorry. >> it's not going to

>> figure out under your revenue that one that would end dean phillips, those individuals who voted uncommitted it for dean phillips and marion williamson the question is, they're not going to vote for donald trump. the question is, can joe biden get them to come out? i mean, that's the question, jeff, what do you make of all this back? the napkin math right now, if we're all being honest democrats and republicans is there's 100 million people in america that are unhappy with their selection if it's joe biden and donald trump, there's 100 million folks and they're there for a number of reasons, right? if you're a republican and you're not what donald trump, it's because you don't believe the 2020 election was rigged. it's because you're disgusted by the personal behavior. you're disgusted by the latter. ethics and morals and values and the family how do i explain to my teenage kids how to act and grow up when somebody who's supposed to be the head of my party acts and doesn't says it's the same thing to do. democrats have their own list of issues and i'm sure you would wish, if you can hit the reset button, you'd pick somebody younger than joe biden, somebody was more polished in policy, centered. but the reality is that's where we have cultural problems in our parties. and for your accompany and you have a culture problem, you don't make micro size changes, you change the leader and to me this is

the tectonic shift nikki haley proved that there's a culture problem inside the republican party in its exact, the exact number is 35% that creates the permanent math problem for donald trump in this coming election. no matter how bad joe biden is, donald trump cannot beat him this is what i think we're all kind of getting at, which is did any support that nikki haley have represent sort of actual support for that candidate or rather a discontent for the other two candidates. >> exit polls and even when we started the cycle, really we modeled and it was almost equal across the board in thirds, there was a third of the primary electorate across the board that was always going to be not consider trump. they were not going to vote for donald trump in a primary or caucus cycle. there was another third that was always going to support trump. the real meat of the debate was the middle third, which was considered trump and others, they had voted, supported him in the past, but we're open to another candidate. that's where we tried to get him on the

desantis side and battle them. and it was really hard lane. but as the tim scott's of the world and others started to drop out, nikki grew in that never consider trump universe. so unfortunately for her, it wasn't a pro-haley universe. it was just a universe of folks that to the governor's point where dissatisfied with donald trump, were not going to support him across the board. and she fit that model that doesn't translate into the future very well. i >> don't think david, what would you say to i mean, her argument here, the end of the campaign trail is a donald trump is a loser, and that's borne out in the data that we've seen some 2020, the 2022 midterms. i mean, they're all sorts of two georgia senate races, right? but are down donald trump held by democrats like there is obviously a head-to-head general election should match up between trump and biden is a different question, and you can, from joe biden's perspective, it's compare me to the alternative, not the almighty. >> i get that, >> but i still don't see how the republican party ends up being. the evidence contradicts

the claim that the republican party can be a majority party in the us with the circumstances being what they are right now. >> look, it's very the hard to make an argument that donald trump is a loser after a night light last night. and i don't think anyone's saying that he isn't a primary for sure, but the primary electorate is very different from the country it is. >> but even if you look at the data from the york times polling this past weekend, i mean, 28% of democrats are very enthusiastic about joe biden, 40 or 23%, 48% of republicans are. and so if you're talking about looking forward into november, joe biden's the one that has a real base problem right now. i mean, with minority voters, with men maybe he'll do exceedingly well in the suburbs today. >> i don't know how we get that. i mean, i listened joe, biden doesn't have a base problem, drove out and has a very loud minority that oppose certain policy views, particularly that in gaza that, that does not equate to joe biden having a base problem.

the fact is if you go back and look at last night's super tuesday and you compare it side-by-side with barack obama in 2012 joe about the outperformed them like so this whole narrative that i mean, it's weird how narratives get baked into our lexicon. joe biden has a base problem. he doesn't. joe biden is old. yes. but so is donald trump. i mean, we have to reframe the argument when we're talking about joe biden, nobody is cured, nobody's carrying about whether or not he can complete speech on thursday, i heard that being said, but my friend jeff, the question is, what is he going to say? >> i do. >> we have to push pause because we're hitting >> the bottom half of the hour here and i do want to reset. i'm breaking news before we continue this conversation. we continue our coverage now with breaking news >> cnn breaking news >> this just in to cnn, nikki haley expected to exit the presidential race later on this morning. she lost a sweeping loss to donald trump in the super tuesday primaries

yesterday. she plans to address supporters in south carolina at 10:00 a.m. we did not hear from nikki haley last night she was in private behind closed doors as these results were rolling in. so this is going to be the first that we've heard from i'm her about what she plans to do next. let me bring my panel back in and we were kind of resetting this argument in terms of talking about these voters, these people that back to nikki haley, right? who feel like they are politically homeless in a situation where you've got joe biden and donald trump and bakari, you and david were i didn't want to cut that off because he said, democrats have a base problem. you say that that's not true, but the numbers contradict that. i mean, the numbers, especially among black voters are tough for president biden. >> if >> they're not, they're tougher than they were >> if you believe that 23% of black voters are going to vote for donald trump. i just want to go ahead and sell you that bridge in brooklyn. >> that's why are they telling pollsters that they will win? >> because first of all, we have to begin to turn the page on polls and actually read

cross tabs. and we have to begin to actually analyze how these polls, many of these polls that we're referring to, r plus seven or r plus eight so when you actually look at these polls and you're looking at the voter now, is their discontentment among black voters with what they're saying in washington dc. the answer is yes. is there a question or a disconnect between the policies that have been passed and whether or not they fill it in their pocket. the answer is yes, but we have to get out of this social media bubble where people run to the fact that meek mill is accurate tweeting something about that's pro trump or pro republican talk points are kila mic is out here traversing the land with robert f. kennedy and all of a sudden we're saying democrats have this base problem that is not the case. they are their messages that need to be heated. yes. but but we are saying the 35% that voted against donald trump, that's hard and fast. biden it's putting up win after win after win without seeing that consternation. >> referring to briefly, and then we're going to say from the political experts to democrats, people around the campaign, i've talked to, it's

not a matter of the black, the black voters going towards trump. but what you talked about earlier, which is a risk that they could stay home, that is a real concern for those around the world white house and the democratic. >> all right, let's bring in kylie atwood. she is our reporter who covers nikki haley. she's down in south carolina with the latest and she's got some new reporting for us, kylie, what are you know? >> yeah. so as we're expecting nikki haley to announce that she suspending her presidential campaign today. >> she's >> also not expected according to sources familiar with her plans to endorse former president trump today, what she is going to do is make the case that he should be courting the reporters who had the excuse me, the voters who have supported her throughout the course of this campaign, those are republican voters, those are independent voters. those are voters that she believes he will need if he is going to win a general election. so this does not appear to mean that she will not endorse trump at

all before the november her election. but what she's going to do today is really make the case that he needs to reach out to those voters. we also should expect her, casey too hard. trump on the themes that we have heard from her throughout the entire course of her campaign the need for there to be fiscal responsibility conservative fiscal responsibility in us policy the need for there to be a certain approach to foreign policy that we haven't heard from former president trump. so she's really teeing up what will be a conversation between her and the former president and her voters over the course of the next few months here and will really we just have to walk and see how that plays out because we don't know how the former president is going to respond to that. if he's going to play ball with her and engage with her voters because what we have heard from him over the course of the last few months is that he doesn't want those people

who are supporting >> all right. i think we may have lost her live shot. we will come back to her in just a moment, but we do have a way to train standing by for us. alayna, what do you here in this new reporting, kiley has, in terms of the planned haley at pitch to say, hey, you can't, you can't win a general election without my voters i mean, it's something that i think donald trump's team recognized as they know that any sort of general election rematch with joe biden is going to be very close despite what the polls have been saying. and of course they'd like to tout the ones that show that donald trump is beating joe biden in a hypothetical rematch. they recognize that it would be very close and they can't take any voters for granted. and so i think obviously nikki haley has a point here and i think what we saw on super tuesday, particularly her strength with suburban voters, is something that trump's campaign needs to

internalize and in plays into their upcoming strategy and some of especially in these battleground states like arizona, michigan, georgia, the ones they know that they really need to go full force ahead in the coming months to try and beat joe biden. but look, i also just want to point out that i think donald trump very much is going to remain donald trump regardless of what nikki haley says, regardless of what other people says, he's always had a problem with more moderate voters, more independent voters. again, something that the trump campaign recognizes they need to work on, but he's going to continue using the rhetoric that turns a lot of these people off and that's another part of this as well. his campaign knows that donald trump is very much a polarizing figure, even as they've been repeatedly telling him to only focus on joe biden over the last couple of weeks we saw last night when he did a radio interview, he still attacked nikki haley pretty fear fiercely. and so i think it'll be interesting to see how they move forward. and i also just want to add casing the

conversations i'm having with donald trump's campaign right now about this they're expecting that trump himself will be weighing in on the announcement that nikki haley is exiting the race at some point, they expect he'll be the one to have the first word potentially on truth, social as we've seen seeing him do with similar announcements in the past. and we're still waiting to see whether or not they're going to be giving remarks at all. more former remarks in relation to this news. i know that donald trump had wanted to hold a big event, maybe get up on stage at mar-a-lago again when it seems like he was going to be the presumptive republican nominee. so i think those are questions that will be looking into today. >> what do you think alayna, the sort of as kylie was reporting that there's not going to be an endorsement today. how much does that get under trump's skin? >> i think it gets under his skin a lot. i know that they want they will say i'll put it this way. i think a lot of the republican rivals that he had initially who had dropped out in immediately doris tim, you saw the way that donald trump reacted and embrace them. we saw doug burgum, tim scott, a

lot of his strong rivals being surrogates now for donald trump, i do not expect that to happen with nikki haley, and i think the fact that she's not going to immediately endorsed that she has these messages for don donald trump about how he should be running his campaign. of course, that's not going to sit well with him or his team. and so i think that's just going to add further to their unwillingness to want to embrace there at all, looking forward, of course, it's also unclear if nikki haley even wants to be embraced are associated with donald trump moving forward and his campaign all right, alayna treene for us. alina. >> thank you. >> we're going to go now to arlette saenz. she's at the white house for us kinda check in with where the biden campaign and the white house stand as they are taking in this news. obviously, arlette, nikki haley and her voters, again, i think this is really the important part to underscore this group of people that, whether they were voting for nikki haley or they were voting against trump and against biden or whatever. there are group of people out there who are saying we don't want either trump or biden. and

the biden team in this campaign memo, they put out at 05:00 this morning, says that, hey, those are people that they can potentially get. what's the latest that you're here? hearing and what's your take on this as we've watched these results unfold over the last 12 hours >> well, kasie biden, campaign officials, i've spoken to in recent weeks have long felt that super tuesday would be the moment that this race crystallizes between joe biden and donald trump in the latest proof point in that argument is the fact that nikki haley is expected to win draw from the presidential race today. and one thing the biden campaign will be working on very hard in the coming months is trying to see if they can tap into those haley voters who are turned off by donald trump, the senior campaign officials, says as much in a memo last night as they offered their assessments of the super tuesday results saying that president former president trump came out as a damage and unpopular candidate and jen o'malley, dillon and julie chavez rodriguez, the two women leading the biden

campaign. a wrote, quote, a significant share of moderate and haley voters across the country are saying that trump cannot count on their votes in a general election and that will be key for biden going forward, whether they can tap into those haley voters, those moderate voters, those suburban women who do not want to see donald trump have a second term in the white house. the biden campaign has long argued reproductive rights is a key vulnerability for donald trump has that is something that they think will also play with moderate voters as well. and it's not just a haley voters that the biden campaign will be going after it's also haley donors i've had conversations with fundraising officials over the course of the past few months and they have believed that there might be a universe of haley donors that they could also tap into. but clearly the biden campaign thinks this is the is certainly a number of . challenges facing president biden and tomorrow he will have one of the most high profile moments to offer his vision for a second term and try to

convince voters to give him another it's for years and the white house with the state of the union address tomorrow night. >> all right. arlette saenz for us signs for us at the white house. arlette. thank you very much for that reporting. and of course, if you are just joining us here, we have been covering this breaking news just into cnn, nikki haley plans to exit the presidential race and later on this morning, she will address supporters at 10:00 a.m. eastern time in charleston, south carolina. we're going to take a quick break, but we're going to have much more of this breaking news when we come back cnn this morning is brought to you by vip guard. and vip guard high, true law? >> i've struggled with generalized myasthenia gravis. but the pitches started changing when i started on vif guard vivek guard is for adults, generalized myasthenia gravis or anti echr antibody positive gonna clinical trial

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join me at john.com. >> i'm jeremy diamond in tel aviv, and this is cnn welcome back. we've been covering breaking news. nikki haley, according to sources, expected to exit the presidential race later today, our sources also tell cnn that she will not endorse the presumptive. now, republican nominee donald trump, he has yet to reach the number of delay but that he would need to clinch the nomination. but without any serious rival left in the race. and after he essentially swept with the exception of vermont, the super tuesday states last night, donald trump in a commanding position here to become the republican nominee, our party or our panel is about, we're having a party right? >> panels here. >> glass breaking news party this morning. >> i want to show you a >> little bit of haley's sort of final critique of donald trump. this was her campaigning over the weekend as she was heading into super tuesday. and

it really highlights in a pretty stark way the challenges that, both trump and i mean honestly, biden also will face challenges in the general election in terms of fighting over the moderate and independent voters that currently feel homeless. she put it in the context here of donald trump watch we lost in 2018, we lost in 2020, we lost in 2022. but look, two weeks ago, republicans lost the vote on mayorkas. they lost a vote on israel. the rnc chair lost her job, and donald trump's fingerprints were on all of it. how much more losing do we have? to do before we realize maybe donald trump is the problem >> i mean, david polyansky after that, how do you really go crawling back to the donald trump wing of the party >> well, look, i mean, memories are short i remember being with senator cruz and cleveland at a convention speech where he it didn't endorse donald trump and just a few months later was

one of his biggest allies and surrogates and has become so on the hills. so politics makes strange bedfellows. you say what you need to say on the campaign trail. but ultimately, i believe nikki haley will endorse donald trump. i think she'll be part of the program to get donald trump elected this november i think if she wants to have a role in future in the party, she's going to need to do that sooner than later, and i expect she will. >> the difference though, and i i have to disabuse us of this kind of notion or talking point that the similarities between joe biden or the issues that joe biden and donald trump have are the same fundamental, the fundamental issues that donald trump has are not going to change their issues of character, their issues of fitness history is history. he lost those things. he's being branded as a loser. he's struggling with mike johnson to find any footwork or or any any stability when you're talking about policy this was repeal and replace republicans. they

haven't been able to replace obamacare with absolutely anything there. they have nothing but a no on immigration and so those are that's the foundation of who donald trump is. what joe biden there are things that can change. for example, if there is some semblance of a ceasefire or permanent ceasefire in gaza. and we believe that they're inching closer and closer to a least a period of time where there's a cessation of forces back-and-forth. if that happens, that changes the economy, which we've seen him actually beat strongest wall street performing the s&p nasdaq, all performing extremely well if those things continue to go in the direction they're going, that is a plus in the right direction and when he's, on thursday, if he's on stage and he's able to lay out a clear vision on what immigration reform actually looks like. and the democrats are the party of immigration going forward. that's different then the problem i take all these points, i really do. but like i disagree, you'd mentioned this earlier about how you didn't think people are gonna be watching the speech, to watch joe biden's performance, president biden's

performance. and i just i sort of have to push back on that a little bit because i think that this is as much about joe biden, the man and what people see from him and the fundamental reality that you just, you can't turn back the clock. it just doesn't work that way. i mean, this is what people are telling us they're worried about. but joe biden is not >> going to look like tom cruise. i mean, he's not going go out there and think anyone expects that he's not going to go out there and all of a sudden become matthew mcconaughey and start i mean, he's he's old >> that is, we as american just want them to look like a president, act like a president, talk like a president, a talk like the leader of the free world. and i think that's the position we're in. if i'm a democrat, i'm sitting here going. how is how is the sitting president with all those accolades that you talked about the economy, the s&p nasdaq, all of those other howard so you're not 20 points ahead of a guy who's got 91 charges against them, four separate indictments, federal, state charges. the next seven months are going to be absolutely brutal watching facts, figures that evidence come out that donald trump lied, tried to coerce people to

do awful things. i mean, we're going to watch this continue to play out. i think nikki haley has to continue doing what she's done that closing argument was spot on. right. and to see her change her tune just because she wants to chase a short-term sugar high. i disagree with. i push back on that notion. i think she's done exactly what she needs to do. it needs to keep doing because if i'm skating to where the puck is going in the republican party republicans are going to get beat joe biden is going to limp his way into the white house again for a second term. republicans are going to be beat. >> and then what? >> then what, so now we have a whole list of potential candidates that have endorsed donald trump and have to take a shower. it's not a big enough shower to wash donald trump off you. i just want to follow up on one >> thing when it comes to present biden, it seems like the status the union as well. it is a bit twofold. there were folks in the white house last year when he had that back-and-forth with house republicans over medicare and social security. they were watching performance. they actually thought that was a response to some of the concerns about his age, the the fact that he was able to move on his feet and engage in that

for tat, it's twofold hold when he looked at the state of the union, one addressing the concerns about his age and that being how does he have another moment like that if his republican critics to speak up in the crowd, but also, i think the greater challenge, more pressing challenge for democrats is he has passed a lot, a lot of people don't feel it and a lot of people don't understand what's in those bills. so how does how do you articulate a cohesive digestible message of what you have passed and these past couple of years, that's right. >> look, i think with trump, you look at what's happened on the legal front. i think as we came into this year, most people expected he would be on trial sooner. he would potentially be convicted sooner you started yesterday all right. and in fact, there were a lot of people both in the republican party and outside of it, who assumed he might even be in handcuffs by the end of this year? that's not going to happen. in number two, when you look at the issues that matter most to voters, number one, immigration, president biden's at 18% with voters on that issue, there's nothing he's going to be able to save from

the state of union that's going to turn that around. brown >> there's an interesting moment right now with even the immigration because for a while, yes, you're right. it's been one of his greatest political vulnerabilities and practical vulnerabilities as well. it's a big challenge, it's intractable, but there's a moment here that you're seeing a shift in strategy them actually, i'm not saying i don't know if it will be successful, but but not distancing themselves for my going on the offensive to say that house republicans, the republicans in congress are the ones that have roadblock this. but we might hear but also again, i mean immigration is a number is a large looming issue, right? that is an issue that democrats have to tackle. and joe biden does not do well in comparison to donald trump on that issue when polling. but on the flip side of this, you have a major driving force that we've seen win elections in places like ohio and kansas, which has turned out voters in one seats and maintain seats in the senate. and that is the issue of abortion and you cannot. donald trump's going to try to oh, my goodness, i can't use that phrase of splitting. he's going to try to

he's going to he's going to try to thread the needle is a better, better analogy. he wanted to try to thread the needle and say, although i am responsible for the reason that dobbs is law now you know, i also want to make sure door that women have a right to choose and that's just not something that's going to happen. so you know, to articulate a counter point to your policy point there. yeah. immigration and crime are achilles heels right now, and we're trying to figure that out as we, as democrats are finally paying attention to those two issues. but on the issues of the abortion, reproductive rights in the economy, those are winners for democrats right now. >> right? >> and you're also seeing those latter points that you made abortion as well. you're seeing them also talk about that under the umbrella of democracy. and i'm interested to see how that resonates yesterday, late last night present biden statement issued through the campaign definitely focused on democracy. we saw mcdonald's as well as recent new yorker piece say that that's the way they're going to talk about these issues as you get closer to the election, watching to see if that

resonates. >> sorry, go ahead and i was just going to say look at the end of the day in november, i think people are going to vote with what matters most to them and their families. that's do they feel safe at home? do they have the money they need to put their kids through school? pay for textbooks, pay for groceries, and take care of their families. and right now, voters are not giving joe biden the benefit of the doubt even if as we see the economy climb bad, don't disagree with and he certainly has a long way to go in battling both his base and where the most of the nation is at on immigration and crime. it is going to be a tough haul for him. >> jeff, can i ask you about january 6 and the democracy argument because we are seeing this is clearly something that for president biden is incredibly important to him. it is a motivating, animating issue for him and so on referenced this evan osnos piece that came out in the new yorker where it was very clear that he and his team were very focused on that. >> this >> is not an area where you you saw nikki haley attacked donald trump vociferously at the end of her campaign in a lot of different ways. she kinda steered clear of what happened

on january 6 why is that? and i mean, i know that you have a lot of friends, family, people you've talked to all the time, who are republicans in georgia who are not fans of donald trump? >> you've talked to them. how much does what happened on january 6 factor in? do you think that this democracy argument is one that would resonate with them starting with january 6, is probably one of the worst moments i've seen in my lifetime. and 48 years certainly there's others. september 11 and whatnot, but it certainly was it was a moment in time that showed how vulnerable our democracy was. i remember governor kemp and i talking about it's sitting in atlanta at the capitol watching this play out in front of us just put yourself when you were at january 7, republican democrat independent just put yourself where you're at january 7. did anybody in the right mind think donald trump ever had a chance to be elected to anything? >> because you knew you >> could tangibly feel how culpable he was for that moment in time. that moment of insanity for this country, that moment of just terminal velocity towards the wrong direction. but here we are. and

i think what's happening and i think ron desantis made a misstep here. i think nikki haley made a misstep then in that they didn't take fight to donald trump. they didn't take the fight and just call out january 6 for what it was, didn't call out donald trump for being a fake republican for raising the debt. $1 trillion, for not actually building a border wall. he built a selfie station, but not a wall >> right? heed. he was a fake republican and they didn't do that early enough. and i think that helped that hurt that trajectory because to your point earlier, third a third, a third, a third, never going to vote for donald trump. a third always going to vote for donald trump. and that third in the middle was trying to look for somebody that had the substance to get across the finish line and actually have a chance to the problem with the democracy argument. and i was talking with terrance woodbury yesterday, who's a poster? and we were at a national urban league policy forum where they were talking about the state of black america, the problem with the democracy argument, particularly for black and brown. and young voters, is that they don't feel that argument, feeling that

something is broken when it's never really worked for them in a first-place. so there is a there is somewhat of a removed sense from that democracy argument that's why this that's why this campaign, the biden campaign, has a unique task of tying in things like capping credit card fees or insulin or student loan debt relief and all of those things that they've done, right? a showing that they've actually effectuate change. but joe biden, what gets him going every morning is protecting democracy. and so is this really weird? tug and pull that they're having to face to jeff's point, david, i mean, do you think if you had you look back on the desantis campaign, did you, ms an opening no >> the minute donald trump was indicted, the race was really over. it was over an iowa. but the minute he was indicted, he was the nominee you saw in every way, measurable, not just from polling and cross tabs, but just as importantly on the ground. i mean, you saw a sense

of of momentum and energy get behind him because the former president did a very effective job of making the fight against him legally, a fight against conservatives at fight against the party, and a fight against the country. and that's a very difficult message to push back on. weather hits on trillions of dollars in covid, spending not finishing the wall. there were a lot of criticisms against him. but when you veer too closely in that lane, you also found yourself being pitted on the same side, unfortunately, is the new york times and others who criticized him. that's a tough place to be in a primary. all right. well, jeff bakari, david zolan. thank you all for a great impromptu news conversation. this morning because again, nikki haley, again, we expect to exit the presidential race when she speaks to supporters at 10:00 a.m. this morning, don't go anywhere, stick with cnn as we cover this unfolding breaking news