Republicans Battle for Votes in South Carolina; Controversy over Filling Supreme Court Vacancy; Beijing Deploys Missiles to Contested Island; Obama Slams Russia on Syria
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): President Obama on the offensive, going after Donald Trump and critics who say he should not nominate a Supreme Court justice. Beijing, adding to tensions in the South China Sea by deploying missiles to an island in disputed waters. And three months after terrorists stormed their concert, a rock band returns to perform in Paris. Hello and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and, of course, all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church. This is CNN NEWSROOM.</s>CHURCH: In the fierce battle for votes in the upcoming South Carolina primary, Republican presidential candidates, resorting to name-calling and character attacks. And it's only going to intensify in the run-up to Saturday's vote. President Barack Obama was unusually candid in his assessment of front-runner Donald Trump's chances. And Trump was quick to respond.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I continue to believe Mr. Trump will not be president. And the reason is because I have a lot of faith in the American people. And I think they recognize that being president is a serious job. It's not hosting a talk show or a reality show. It's not promotion. It's not marketing. It's hard. And a lot of people count on us getting it right.</s>DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He has done such a lousy job as president. You look at our budgets. You look at our spending. We can't beat ISIS. ObamaCare is terrible. We're going to terminate it. We're going to absolutely terminate and replace it. And when you look at everything our borders are like Swiss cheese. This man has done such a bad job, he has set us back so far. And for him to say that actually is a great compliment, if you want to know the truth.</s>CHURCH: The back-and-forth comes as a new poll shows Trump with a healthy lead in the state hosting the next Republican primary. A CNN/ORC poll shows 38 percent of likely South Carolina voters support Trump, putting him 16 points ahead of Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio is at 14 percent; Jeb Bush, just barely in double digits; Ben Carson and John Kasich trailing the pack. Among Democrats, the same survey shows Hillary Clinton with a sharp lead over Bernie Sanders, 56-38, due in part to the strong support she is getting from women and black voters. Meanwhile, President Obama may have to battle Senate Republicans over the U.S. Supreme Court. He has vowed to nominate a successor to the late Justice Antonin Scalia. And they have promised to block his pick. Justice correspondent Pamela Brown has more.</s>OBAMA: This will be the opportunity for senators to do their job. Your job doesn't stop until you're voted out. I intend to do my job between now and January 20th of 2017. I expect them to do their job as well.</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight, President Obama is sending a strong message to Senate Republicans: he will nominate a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia no matter what.</s>OBAMA: I'm going to present somebody who undisputedly is qualified for the seat and any fair-minded person, even somebody who disagreed with my politics, would say would serve with honor and integrity on the court.</s>BROWN (voice-over): Senate Republicans are vowing to block any nominee until a new president is in office. Presidential candidate Marco Rubio weighed in from the campaign trail today.</s>SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLA., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our next president is going to choose not just the replacement for Justice Scalia but at least two other Supreme Court justices, possibly. We know this because at least three of the justices are near 80 years of age. So we know that eventually they will have to retire or something will happen.</s>BROWN (voice-over): Republican Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley told Radio Iowa he has not made up his mind about whether there will be confirmation hearings for any potential candidate.</s>SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIR: I would wait until the nominee is made before I would make any decisions. In other words, take it a step at the time.</s>BROWN (voice-over): Democratic leaders came out in full force to defend the president's position. Minority leader Harry Reid warned in a scathing op-ed, Republicans risk being, quote, "remembered --</s>BROWN (voice-over): " -- as the most nakedly partisan, obstructionist and irresponsible majority in history." Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also chimed in, firing off 11 tweets, calling any vow to block President Obama's nominee as "disgraceful." The White House is expected to announce a nominee within a month.</s>OBAMA: I intend to nominate somebody, to present them to the American people, to present them to the Senate. I expect them to hold hearings. I expect there to be a vote.</s>BROWN (voice-over): Pamela Brown, CNN, Washington.</s>CHURCH: Joining me now to talk more about this is CNN political commentator Ryan Lizza. He is also Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker." Thank you so much for being with us. So let's start by taking a listen to what the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, had to say about filling the Supreme Court vacancy.</s>GRASSLEY: I think that it should wait until the next election. And I believe that that's the right thing to do because it's a very important position. And it would be kind of in line with what Democratic leaders said in the tail end of the Bush administration, said that Bush had not appointment somebody to the Supreme Court because they had to be concerned about balance. And I'm concerned about balance the same way they are.</s>CHURCH: So, Ryan, what is the right thing to do here? Should President Obama fill this Supreme Court justice vacancy? Or should it be left for the next president to do? There seem to a very split decision on this.</s>RYAN LIZZA, "THE NEW YORKER" MAGAZINE: Well, let's just state at the outset that both parties are generally hypocritical about these things. When one party is in power, they take the opposite view. But put all that aside for a second. It's -- our Constitution is very clear about this. Article II, Section 2, known as the appointments clause, says that the president shall nominate members of the Supreme Court. That means it is his duty to do so. Of course, there is nothing legally binding; if he doesn't do it, he can't get in trouble or be arrested or anything. But the Constitution is crystal clear that the president retains all of his powers and responsibilities for the entirety of his term. He has almost one- quarter of his second term left. So of course it is in his rights and it is arguably his constitutional duty to nominate someone to the Supreme Court.</s>CHURCH: OK, so his constitutional duty, that is not in question here What about those concerns Chuck Grassley raised, regarding balance? The Democrats had those same concerns at the end of the Bush administration, as he referred to there. Now the country facing that same problem again. How valid is that concern? And how might President Obama deal with that concern, when it comes to coming up with a list of possible people to fill that vacancy?</s>LIZZA: Well, this has the great fear of Democrats and Republicans since 1991. This is the first time that a president will make an ideological change to the court. What we have had since '91 is we have had Republicans picking conservative replacements, where we -- you know, in other words, conservatives replacing conservatives or Democrats replacing liberals, liberals replacing liberals. Well, this time, we have arguably the most conservative member of the court being replaced by a liberal Democratic president. And that's why the fight is so raw over this. If this has been Ruth Bader Ginsburg, if had been just another liberal who left the court and was replaced, it would not have reached the sort of -- that fight that it's going to reach here. So that's why the stakes are so serious because the ideological makeup of the court is at stake for the first time in a very long time. The Constitution is very clear about what the Senate can do. It can either accept or reject the nominee. And I think, politically, the Republicans who control the Senate, obviously, have made a bit of a mistake here because they came out immediately, literally within hours of Scalia's death, saying that they would not approve of anyone that Obama picked. Well, that's going to make them look a little unreasonable in the eyes of the public. What they should have done is waited. And if you notice, some of the smart Republicans are doing this now, waiting, saying, well, we'll see who it is even though we're likely not to accept that person.</s>CHURCH: All right. And we will certainly watch that and see who it is. But I do want to move to the campaign trail now. And President Obama has said that Donald Trump will not win. But Trump's poll numbers for South Carolina show him well ahead of his Republican rivals. And he could very well become the Republican nominee. So why is Mr. Obama so sure about his prediction that Trump won't win? The numbers don't appear to stack up.</s>LIZZA: Well, I think you'd have to say that Donald Trump is the most --</s>LIZZA: -- likely Republican to win the Republican presidential nomination. Looking at the numbers in a general election, I think it's very different in Donald Trump's weaknesses in a general election are massive. He has really alienated a huge chunk of the mass public. But in the Republican primaries, he is in the -- he's best positioned right now to win. He came in second in Iowa. He had a smashing success victory in New Hampshire. And he is poised to win South Carolina. And if he does, it will be very difficult to stop him. And the main reason it will be difficult to stop him is because his -- all of his opponents are divided. So you have Donald Trump winning a third or more of the electorate. And then the two-thirds of the electorate is divided between seven other candidates. And that's been the problem with this entire race. There's seven other candidates. The anti-Trump coalition, which is a majority, can't rally around a single alternative.</s>CHURCH: Ryan Lizza, always a pleasure to speak with you. Thanks so much.</s>LIZZA: My pleasure.</s>CHURCH: China has deployed surface-to-air missiles on the contested Woody Island in the South China Sea, according to Taiwan. And senior U.S. military officials. Beijing claims it's in self-defense. But the move will likely raise tensions even further, with the countries locked in a territorial feud in the region. Senior international correspondent Ivan Watson joins us now from Hong Kong with the details. So, Ivan, talk to us about what's going on here exactly and how the region is responding to China's moves.</s>IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's first take a look at the map here. This is the South China Sea here. It's important because it's estimated maybe a third of all shipping globally travels through this body of water. And there is a lot of disputes over archipelagos in this area between the different countries of the region. These are the Paracel Islands, which are claimed not only by China bit also Vietnam and Taiwan. And here on Woody Island, that is where China, reportedly, has placed surface-to-air missiles, according to Taiwanese and U.S. Defense officials. Now some of this shouldn't come as a surprise. The Chinese have had a presence here, despite the territorial dispute, for more than half a century. They were landing fighter planes on this airstrip, I'm told, as recently as last year. But it is interpreted by some as a provocation because U.S. President Barack Obama has been hosting leaders of Southeast Asian nations in California in recent days. And one of the big messages that the White House has been trying to send is that, in these territorial disputes, all nations, whether large or small, should get a say and should follow international law. And he is also calling for an end to militarization of the South China Sea. And also insisted that the U.S. will continue what are so-called freedom of navigation operations. Basically the U.S. has been sending in warplanes and ships, Navy ships, into this area, challenging China's claims to some of these waters. One of the real areas of tension right now are the Spratly Islands, Rosemary. They're, as you can see, very close to the Philippines, quite far from China. And yet China claims this entire area, this entire area as effectively Chinese territory. And look what it's been doing in some of the reefs and the rocks of the Spratly Islands. We're going to send you a before photo of an area that was called Fiery Cross. Now look after the Chinese engineers completed their work there. They put in an airstrip. They put in -- they basically made it an island instead of a partially submerged reef, despite the Philippines' claims to this very body of water and this rock. As you mentioned, China, it defends its moves here, claiming that it's putting in some military installations for self-defense, that it will not impede on freedom of navigation and that some of this is being done to help fishing in the area and in case of medical emergencies -- Rosemary.</s>CHURCH: All right. Well, the international community watching this very closely and many people very uneasy. Our Ivan Watson, reporting there live from Hong Kong. Many thanks to you. The U.S. president is slamming Russia over the role it's playing in Syria's civil war. Ahead, we will show you how he says Moscow is jeopardizing hopes for peace. Plus Pope Francis visits a Mexican town hit hard by drug violence. The message he has for church leaders there -- still to come. Stay with us.