Can Sanders Make a Dent in Clinton's Lead?
KING: Welcome back. There are six Democratic contests this week. Three on Tuesday and then three more on Saturday. Bernie Sanders could go 5 for 6, possibly even 6 for 6. That would be a game changer, right? Well, there's momentum and then there's math. Take a peek here. Hillary Clinton heading into this week has about 330-delegate lead. These are just pledge delegates. This is does not involve any of the super delegates. Three hundred thirty lead in pledge delegates. Now, let's say that Bernie Sanders wins them all right here in the West on Tuesday. Now, the Clinton campaign says, wait a minute. We're competitive in Arizona. We might win Arizona. But just for the sake of the hypothetical, say Bernie wins them all on Tuesday. Then, say, he wins three more, all out west, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington state on Saturday. Bernie Sanders, if he won all six of those contests, 55-45, he would cut Hillary Clinton's lead, the beginning of the week, 330, the end of the week, 302, somewhere in that ballpark. So he would make up a little ground but not a lot. Hillary Clinton says I'm so far ahead that even if you have a week like this, you can't catch me. Why don't you tone it down, Senator Sanders? He says such talk, though, is reckless.</s>SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It would be extraordinarily undemocratic to tell the people in half the states in America, oh, you don't have a right to get involved in the nominating process for the Democratic candidate. If you write off or if you say to half the states in this country that they should not participate, their response may well be on Election Day, well, you didn't want us to participate in the primary process, you know, we're not going to come out to the general election.</s>KING: But so, Bernie Sanders is essentially saying my supporters, if you ignore us, treat us with disrespect, we won't be there in November. But how does he manage this moment in the sense that he could have huge week? He could win six contests. He could win 5 of 6 contests and make barely a scratch in her delegate math, which is going to -- his supporters are going to be all revved up, here comes Bernie. But?</s>MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: The problem is that a lot of Democrats and frankly a lot of media are also not treating like this race is still going on. I think that's his main challenge. He needs to have a bunch of wins and then say, look at how well I did. It's not justifiable that people are not treating us for real. He does still have this incredible low-dollar support base which I think will continue to fund him especially if he has a bunch of wins. His argument is not particularly different than what Hillary Clinton said in 2008 when she was running against Barack Obama. And I have been expecting his campaign would say more of that. His language also -- excuse me, his remarks in substance are not that different than what Donald Trump is saying either. It's just that the tone is very different. But I do think that mathematically, it is becoming extremely hard for them to make a credible case, and they have changed their argument, the Sanders campaign. Before it was that, you know, super delegates shouldn't count. Now, they're looking towards super delegates. And I think that becomes difficult to navigate.</s>ED O'KEEFE, THE WASHINGTON POST: His point about staying home in November actually does cause a lot of fear for Clinton folks. And they realize that as much as she can talk about saying, get out, or suggest get out, they have to be very careful about that because should those young voters especially stay home in certain states, it could rob her of winning places like Colorado, Nevada, you know, even perhaps places like Pennsylvania if you have to make up a margin against a Trump. So, they have to be very careful. They know, though, that this is going to be a rougher week for them potentially because he will win. The problem is if he doesn't win with, like, 80 percent plus in each contest, he will not catch her. You have to keep doing that over the course of the next few weeks.</s>KING: Right, he would have to win just about everything from here on out if he wins one 60-40, the next one 80/20, he's got to above 70 percent essentially. But Maggie makes a great point. Hillary Clinton has been here. She's been in this very spot before. So she has to understand his mindset.</s>JULIE PACE, ASSOCIATED PRESS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.</s>KING: He wants more wins. He wants to build himself up. He wants a role at the convention. He wants to validate his candidacy. But sometimes, she does sound like -- like senator, it's over.</s>PACE: There's some urgency in her campaign. You are seeing her pivot toward Donald Trump. She's not talking about Bernie Sanders very much. What they -- they don't mind Sanders staying in the race if he's going to make cases broadly about his economic policies if he's going to turn his attention to Donald Trump. But if he is aiming a lot of fire at Clinton basically handing over general election arguments to the Republicans, that's when it's going to become problematic. They do know they have work to do in the Clinton campaign to try to get young people who are fervent Bernie Sanders supporters into her camp. That will take some effort on her part. She will need Sanders probably involved in trying to help that along. But she personally knows better than anybody what Sanders is going through and how difficult a process it will be to close down a campaign when you do feel like you're so close.</s>MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: And Sanders' issue, too, is not only just that the narrative has changed and that the media is increasingly not treating this maybe as a two-person race or that the narrative has changed that this is no longer a two-person race that she really has this, he needs someone to fight against, and I think the more that she talks about this and uses a tone as though she were heading into the general election, he doesn't have anyone to fight, right? When two people are in a fight and one person is yelling, the most frustrating thing the other person can do is to respond in a calm voice as if they are not engaging. And I think that is what we're starting to see happen here.</s>KING: She's been off the campaign trail. She's almost absent this weekend raising money. Raising money. So, we'll see what happens Tuesday. But a super PAC that supports her has an ad up that's interesting. It's already focusing on the general election. Listen here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who are you consulting with consistently so that you're ready on day one?</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain, and I've said a lot of things.</s>KING: It's kind of funny. This is Priorities USA, which is a pro- Hillary Clinton super PAC. And I asked some people involved why are they doing this now? What is the point here? And actually, what they said was that they're testing this message because they think Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. They think he's going to be the principal opponent. And their point is they're not going to underestimate him like the Republicans did and they're trying to see what would work.</s>HABERMAN: What's interesting is actually that ad was a response to something that Trump did. Trump did his own version of that, that featured video of Hillary Clinton at that rally that I never understood what was happening.</s>PACE: She was barking.</s>HABERMAN: She was barking like a dog and then it concluded with I think it was Putin laughing. So, this is essentially the same thing.</s>KING: Right.</s>HABERMAN: What was interesting to me about the fact that the super PAC did this is I think less that they are testing messages although that's definitely true, but that they were responding to something that the campaign did not. Hillary Clinton has been navigating a careful line here in terms of how she wants to deal with Donald Trump. Remember, she was using him as sort of a rhetorical device at the end of last year-around, you know, Christmastime, right before it, and Trump went after her and her husband very hard. Both of them stopped talking about him after that. She made clear in one of the recent debates, you know, she's going to engage him on policy, but she doesn't want to trip over some kind of a line where he is firing nukes. He's going to do that anyway, to be clear. But I think she is trying to keep away from that as much as possible.</s>KING: Interesting, interesting, interesting. It was -- it's going to flip the map, and they know that. So, they're trying to figure out how do you go after white working-classmen, Donald Trump's case. We'll watch the advertising play out. Up next, though, a Supreme Court fight and a new attack on Mr. Trump -- the Obama factor. How President Obama plans to shape the campaign to replace him.