Michael Bloomberg Qualifies For Nevada Debate
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Mike Bloomberg will be on the debate stage tomorrow in Nevada, giving other Democrats the chance they need to slow his climb in national polls.</s>LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. is amassing forces to keep coronavirus from spreading on American soil. Hope is riding on a special facility in Nebraska.</s>ROMANS: The Boy Scouts of America filing for bankruptcy over sexual abuse allegations dating back decades.</s>JARRETT: And a fiery end to the Daytona 500 leaves a popular NASCAR driver in the hospital. Good morning, this is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.</s>ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 30 minutes past the hour this morning. And brand-new, Michael Bloomberg has now qualified for tomorrow night's Democratic debate in Nevada. He is not participating in the state's caucuses but a new poll gives him a big lift nationally. Bernie Sanders is widening his lead, but Mike Bloomberg leap-frogging several Democrats into second place, according to the NPR-Marist poll. Bloomberg was only at four percent in this poll in November. So, Bloomberg will be on stage with five other Democrats. CNN has learned the former New York City mayor has been preparing for the debate, something he's never done on a national level. We're already getting a sense of his opponents' strategy. They want an inspection of Bloomberg's record and say he shouldn't be able to buy the election.</s>JARRETT: The gloves are decidedly off between Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders. A digital ad from the Bloomberg camp highlights the hostility of some Bernie supporters and their attacks on rival Democrats. And it's backed up with a Bloomberg tweet claiming that type of energy is not going to beat President Trump. That word "energy" playing off something Sanders said about the multibillionaire.</s>SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We will not create the energy and excitement we need to defeat Donald Trump if that candidate pursued, advocated for, and enacted racist policies like stop-and-frisk.</s>ROMANS: It was a day-long exchange of attacks between the two camps. Bloomberg's campaign manager charging Sanders' staff with using the same tactics employed by President Trump. His statement went out with the subject line "Bernie's New Bro...Donald Trump." Two hours later, Sanders tweeted an image of Bloomberg and Trump golfing together.</s>JARRETT: The times have, of course, changed. The Vermont senator also releasing two new ads in Nevada. One has a "Nevada First" theme with a focus on climate -- the climate crisis. The other touts how Sanders will stand up to corruption. The Sanders camp is also opening new campaign offices in North Carolina a few days after Bloomberg beat him to the punch.</s>MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know that you can see very many presidential candidates here in Winston-Salem. They're spending all their time in South Carolina. But I think the voters in North Carolina deserve just as much attention.</s>ROMANS: Right now, the shadow of the Iowa caucus debacle is hanging over Nevada. Trained volunteers say they are still unclear about how exactly the process will work. The issue for some precinct captains is how tens of thousands of early votes will fold into what's happening face-to-face inside the caucus room. A Nevada Democratic Party source tells CNN it's just a matter of plugging numbers into a spreadsheet and there's a paper trail if a backup is needed.</s>JARRETT: The counter-programmer in chief following the Democrats out west. President Trump begins a four-day western campaign swing today. He finishes with a rally Friday night in Nevada just before the Democrats' caucus. It's the third-straight state where the president is rallying ahead of the Democrats' vote.</s>ROMANS: All right. A spokesman for the Bloomberg campaign says Bloomberg is quote "looking forward to joining the other Democratic candidates on stage and making the case for why he's the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump and unite the country." Let's bring in Axios White House reporter Alayna Treene, live in our Washington bureau. Good morning. So, that Bloomberg poll is going to be the big political talker here this morning. At just four percent in November, he jumps to number two here at 19 percent. OK, so what is this? Is this the money at work? I mean, he has pumped millions into television advertising across the country. Is it the money at work here or is this more a statement of the moderate lane is getting more attention?</s>ALAYNA TREENE, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, AXIOS: I think it's a mix of both. But we've seen, you know, apart from Sen. Bernie Sanders, it's really been a battle between the moderate candidates trying to duke it out for that first spot right behind Sen. Bernie Sanders. And a lot of people are saying yes, he's a billionaire. Mike Bloomberg is able to really pour money into this campaign -- pour money that really no other candidate has to make it to the end of this race -- and we're seeing it pay off. He's really shown his prowess after New Hampshire --</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>TREENE: -- and after Iowa and climbed his way to the top. And so, it will be really interesting to see him on the debate stage tomorrow. The other candidates really haven't had a good chance to go after him in a public setting like that and so there will be a lot of fire trained on him then.</s>JARRETT: You know, Alayna, if you look at the poll there, obviously, Bernie is still in the lead with over 30 percent.</s>TREENE: Yes.</s>JARRETT: But moderates -- I mean, if you combine Biden, Klobuchar, and Buttigieg -- I mean, there's still -- it's still a firm holding there.</s>TREENE: Yes.</s>JARRETT: I think we focus, obviously, on Sanders being in the lead and for good reason. But in your view, the fact that you see Biden, and Klobuchar, and Buttigieg still holding their own, what are your -- what are your sources telling you about how they see the race? Are they -- are they feeling nervous about this?</s>TREENE: A bit, so it's a mix -- it's a mixed bag, especially when I talk to people on -- in Congress --</s>JARRETT: Right.</s>TREENE: -- and members of the Democratic Party. They are definitely spooked by Sen. Bernie Sanders who really doesn't, in many people's eyes, represent the entire Democratic Party. You know, a lot of the more activist base and the leftist wing of the party is --</s>JARRETT: Right.</s>TREENE: -- much louder, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who obviously is one of Sen. Bernie Sanders' most prominent surrogates, but the majority of the party is still very centrist. Now, we did see some of this happen in 2016. If the non-Trumpers consolidated early on we might not have seen President Trump become the Republican nominee in 2016. And so there are concerns of that. Now that if they continue to really battle it out among these moderate candidates, I'm saying --</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>TREENE: -- it could really continue to provide Bernie Sanders with the platform he needs to hold that front-runner status.</s>ROMANS: I mean, what are you hearing from people in Washington on the Hill about just the money factor here? You know, when he was passing out the money for the midterms, right, to help the Democrats take over the House. Midterms, that was one thing. Now, I mean -- now, he is spending gobs and gobs of money to win a presidency. What are -- what are people saying about that?</s>TREENE: There's been a lot of internal conflict among members that I speak with on the Hill that yes, they found back in 2018, Mike Bloomberg's willingness to really just kind of throw bags of money at the Democrats as irresistible and they were very excited to take that. But now that he potentially could be the Democratic nominee, a lot of people find his strategy here, frankly, corrupt -- and they say that. They think it's a way of him buying the election. And it's really interesting to look at where the Democratic Party started where we saw -- you know, when you looked at the debate stage just months ago it was a very different picture than what we have now. And the fact that we could have a billionaire like Mike Bloomberg duking it out on stage eventually with billionaire Donald Trump, both white male, New York Republican --</s>ROMANS: Republicans-Democrats.</s>TREENE: -- former Republican and now Republican, it's just a completely different dynamic than what we saw earlier. And so, a lot of people are a bit -- as much as they're spooked by Sen. Bernie Sanders and the idea that there could be a Democratic socialist as the nominee, they also have concerns about a billionaire, in many ways, buying an election.</s>ROMANS: You know, we both grew up in the Midwest --</s>JARRETT: Yes.</s>ROMANS: -- and New Yorkers aren't really, you know --</s>JARRETT: Representative?</s>ROMANS: They're not really seen as warm and fuzzy like in the Midwest. The idea that there could be two New Yorkers vying for the presidency just sort of -- it surprises me a little bit.</s>JARRETT: Yes. Well, Alayna, before we let you go I just want to get your thoughts on -- you know, obviously, Bloomberg at 19 percent is leap-frogging over several of the candidates. But isn't the person who perhaps has the most to be worried about here Joe Biden? I mean, we say it all the time but this is a two-term vice president --</s>TREENE: Yes.</s>JARRETT: -- who is now -- at least it's -- again, it's only one poll but he's being beat by Bloomberg. I mean, is it -- how worried should he be?</s>TREENE: It -- there's definitely a lot of need for concern. We did see former vice president Joe Biden say yesterday that he's excited that Mike Bloomberg is kind of taking off some of the pressure in that front-runner status --</s>JARRETT: Right.</s>TREENE: -- that he's had before, but it is very concerning. And it's still remarkable to me, honestly, to look at Iowa, to look at New Hampshire, that someone like Joe Biden is being beat out by someone like, for example, Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana coming out ahead of a former -- like you said, two-term vice president. And so, there is a lot at stake here for his legacy -- how he will perform. There's still time. A lot of people are saying don't discount Joe Biden.</s>ROMANS: Sure.</s>TREENE: He will be very, potentially, successful in North Carolina, South Carolina -- other states ahead of Super Tuesday. And so, it is still a wait and see. But as of now, Mike Bloomberg has really shown to just glide his way to the top and his strategy of --</s>JARRETT: Yes.</s>TREENE: -- waiting to enter much later has been paying off, it seems.</s>ROMANS: We'll have to see how he performs on the debate state. I mean, that's going to be --</s>JARRETT: Yes.</s>ROMANS: He's never done a national debate --</s>JARRETT: At that level.</s>ROMANS: -- like that, although he has spent the last few years really working on climate change and some of these -- gun violence, so he's --</s>JARRETT: Yes, he knows the issues.</s>ROMANS: Some of these other issues --</s>JARRETT: Right.</s>ROMANS: -- that he's really been working on. So it will be fascinating. Alayna Treene, nice to see you this morning -- White House reporter for Axios. Thanks for getting up early for us.</s>TREENE: Yes, thanks for having me.</s>ROMANS: You're welcome.</s>JARRETT: Thanks, Alayna. All right, stay with CNN tonight and Thursday night for a series of town halls with the leading Democrats from Las Vegas. Tonight, we've got Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar. On Thursday, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. This all starts tonight at 8:00 eastern only on</s>CNN. ROMANS: There's so much going on. You know, this poll -- this NPR- Marist poll is really interesting. But it is just one poll and there's a lot happening and you can see how quickly and how fluidly voters have been changing their opinions.</s>JARRETT: Yes, but it's a poll coming at a really critical time --</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>JARRETT: -- for all of them.</s>ROMANS: All right. Why an independent group of judges is holding an emergency meeting about the Justice Department. Plus, on a national holiday, vandalism strikes at one of the most iconic landmarks in U.S. history.