Less than 24 hours before Super Tuesday polls open across dozens of states, candidates are working overtime to build support, especially at each other’s expense. While Donald Trump’s momentum continues unabated despite criticism of his refusal to condemn the KKK, both his trailing GOP rivals and the Democratic contenders are hoping to turn the outrage to their favor.
Trump continues to offend as Super Tuesday dawns
Politics
Feb 29, 2016 07:29 PM EDT
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GWEN IFILL:
It was no-holds-barred on the presidential campaign today, underscoring the all-important races on tap tomorrow, Super Tuesday.
And, as tensions flared, the Republican race was thrown into uproar again.
This is Donald Trump, barreling toward tomorrow's big voting day with the wind at his back in almost all 13 of the Super Tuesday states. Today, in Southwestern Virginia, the Republican front-runner boasted his campaign is on a nonstop roll.
DONALD TRUMP (R), Republican Presidential Candidate: Republicans have a hard time, because, structurally, you have to win Pennsylvania, you have to win Ohio, you have to — you know, they have like a map of in particular six states. And you lose one, it's over. The Democratic ride is a much easier ride.
But if I pick up New York, or if I pick up Michigan, it's over, folks. It's over. It's over.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
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GWEN IFILL:
But his speech was interrupted today by protesters representing the Black Lives Matter movement.
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DONALD TRUMP:
Get them out of here, please. All right, folks, you're going to hear it once. All lives matter.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
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GWEN IFILL:
Party leaders denounced his refusal yesterday to reject support from white supremacist groups, including the KKK and David Duke.
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DONALD TRUMP:
Well, just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke. OK? I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.
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GWEN IFILL:
In a tweet, the Republicans' last presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, called Trump's words — quote — "a disqualifying and disgusting response."
While Donald Trump traveled in Virginia, which has 49 delegates at stake, Florida Senator Marco Rubio cast a wider net for the 174 delegates up for grabs in Tennessee, Georgia and Arkansas. Rubio, in a stop in Atlanta, also knocked Trump for his comments yesterday.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), Republican Presidential Candidate: Honestly, you know our country, you know your neighbors, you know your family and you know your friends. Do you really believe that those — that they're going to vote for someone who refuses to disavow the Ku Klux Klan?
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MAN:
No.
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SEN. MARCO RUBIO:
Do you think they're going to vote for someone with a record like his?
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AUDIENCE:
No!
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SEN. MARCO RUBIO:
They're not. That means we're going to lose. That means the winner of this election will be Hillary Clinton.
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AUDIENCE:
No!
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GWEN IFILL:
And Ted Cruz, who spent today in his home state of Texas, piled on as well. With 155 delegates at stake there, the Lone Star State is Super Tuesday's biggest prize.
Cruz took aim at the practices of a Trump-owned club in Florida, one that he said turned aside American workers looking for jobs.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), Republican Presidential Candidate: Now, listen, that's not a whole lot different, what Donald's doing, than a whole lot of other big companies. But you don't get to abuse and take advantage of American workers, and then suddenly style yourself a champion for American workers.
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GWEN IFILL:
The heated Republican rhetoric became the focus today on the Democratic campaign trail as well. Hillary Clinton, fresh off her nearly 50-point victory in South Carolina, weighed in this morning from Massachusetts.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), Democratic Presidential Candidate: What we need to do now is make America whole, working together, rejecting the mean-spiritedness, the hateful rhetoric, the insults. That's not who we are.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
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GWEN IFILL:
And Bernie Sanders, in Minneapolis, spent more time taking on Trump than he did Clinton.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (VT-I), Democratic Presidential Candidate: We will defeat Mr. Trump, because the American people believe that community, working together trumps selfishness.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS:
And, most importantly, we will defeat Mr. Trump because the American people understand, and always have, that love trumps hatred.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
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GWEN IFILL:
Tomorrow is likely to provide a definitive turning point for both parties.
We will take a thorough look at the Republican and Democratic races after the news summary.
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