Will his rivals convince voters they should survive . For kasich and rubio, this could be do or die for them. Theyve called their home state primaries coming up must wins. All told here, got to do some math, 367 critical delegates at stake. Today, another development adding to the drama. Look at this with me. John kasich. Pulling ahead of donald trump in his home state of ohio. Which means there is even more at stake when they stand all four of those podiums tonight. Lets kick things off with my colleague jim acosta, inside that cnn debate hall, where i know, jim, some of the walk throughs will begin. I was in the space yesterday. It is gorgeous, it is massive. Did we just lose him . And we lost him. Well go back to him, i promise you. Ive been in there. Its a stunning space. That will be where all of it will go down later this evening. President obama, by the way, heres another thread, today weighing in on this republican race during his News Conference today with the canadian Prime Minister justin trudeau. The president said he found the fact that some republicans are blaming him, president obama, for the partys chaotic primaries as, quote, novel. The Republican Base for the last seven years, a notion that everything i do is to be opposed. What youre seeing within the Republican Party is to some degree all those efforts over a course of time creating an environment where somebody like a donald trump can thrive. That was president obama. Well talk about him with our panel here in just a second. But second time in a charm, here he is, jim akocosta is back inse that debate arena. Show me those four podiums. Thats right, remember when we had 17 candidates in this race, brooke, now were down to four, donald trump, kasich, rubio, cruz. Those are the four podiums for those candidates behind me. Were going to see them later on tonight. You know, we heard donald trump saying hes expecting a softer debate tonight. I wouldnt buy into that just yet. There are indications coming from all sides this could be a lively debate. I talked to a senior rubio adviser in the last couple of hours who said yes, marco rubio is not going to go personal when it companies to attacking trump. Hes not going to go after the spray tanning or small hands or whatever you heard him say. Marco rubio says he now regrets those kinds of attacks. He is going to go after trump university. He is going to go after Donald TrumpsBusiness Enterprises that hes had over the years. We should expect those types of things coming up during the debate. Even though he was saying to Anderson Cooper maybe it will be a softer debate, last night, he was saying marco rubios basically out of the hes already out of this race. And so donald trump is really almost counting marco rubio out of this race coming up on this big super tuesday next week. Even before this debate even starts. And ted cruz earlier, you know, this morning, it came out on christian broadcasting, ted cruz was saying to cbn that donald trump is taking advantage of, quote, poorly informed voters, and so theres a lot of fur flying at this point. My guess is that this will be an intense aggressive debate tonight and well see it unfold in just a few hours from now. The clock is ticking down not only for this debate but for all of these candidates. You mentioned ohio, we should mention, brooke, last night, you dont hear this very much, donald trump going after john kasich. He called him an absentee governor out in ohio. I think that has something to do with those poll numbers you just indicated, showing john kasich perhaps moving past donald trump in his home state. So just saying it could get a little intense later on tonight, brooke. It definitely could. A softer intent. Name your adjective. We shall see. Thank you so much. A lot to talk about here on this debate day. Joining me now, the author of what america needs, the case for trump. Jeffrey lord who was the political director for ronald reagan. Also political commentator amend ka carpenter who used to serve as the common cations directioner for cruz. And david cattany, Senior Reporter for world report. David, with you talking about president obamas comments, so were hearing bits and pieces from him recently, you know, marinating on this republican race. The fact he said it was the Republican Party that created trump, and he was saying all of these candidates are essentially the same. You think thats right . Well, i dont think its right that all the candidates are essentially the same. Trump is a totally different candidate in our lifetime. Weve never seen anything like him. I do think he has a report that the Republican Party in part created donald trump. I was at a rubio rally yesterday. Even people that supported rubio and are going to go vote for him understood trunlp and understood why he was appealing to people. So i think this has been sort of a long festering problem in the Republican Party. That its now coming back at them. I think its most interesting that president s finding himself weighing in to the republican primary at all. Listen, he wants to remain obviously pertinent to whats happening in his final year in office. You, turning to you, you want to respond to any of this . You know, i have to mused at. Nominees or respective nominees have won the party frequently, as my friend david axelrod, our colleague, are the opposite of whoever the president is. You can really say that george w. Bush was responsible for the rise of barack obama. And you can really say that bill clinton was responsible for the election of george w. Bush. What people are looking for quite frequently is all the way to the other side. This goes all the way back to John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson so i think president obama is just the latest. When you look at the state of the Republican Party, the tea party, more recently, im curious with that sort of revolution over last four, eight years, if that created an opening for someone such as donald trump. Every president ial nominee is a reaction to the previous president. Certainly the vacuum of strong relationship leadership created an opening for donald trump. The reason why many conservative people like donald trump is because they think he will do what obama said. Then say, okay, we dont have a problem with executive action, we just want our guy to do it. When trump talks about a lot of strength, im going to do this, which i think is impossible, thats the reaction to president obama, having such a big view of government and doing things unilaterally himself. Let me stay on donald trump because he definitely made news in the conversation he had with Anderson Cooper specifically in what he said about islam and, as we play the sound, let me just tell all of you in a couple of hours, c. A. R. E. , the council of American Islamic relations, theyre holding a News Conference demanding he apologize for this. Do you think islam at war with the west . I think islam hates us. Theres something theres something there thats a tremendous hatred there. We have to get to the bottom of it. Theres an unbelievable hatred of us in islam itself . Youre going to have to figure that out. So, calley, as a trump supporter, i want to ask you this. Even Trump Supporters, the Trump National campaign chair, was only specific on radical islam here. But it was mr. Trump who said islam hates us. Sure, but the next question in that clip, anderson came back to him and said, do you mean radical islam or do you mean islam . And trump immediately said radical islam. However, sometimes its hard to tell the difference. So trump is against radical islam, a consistent narrative weve seen from his campaign. He says, i have many muslim friends. I respect islam. I dont respect radical islam. Go to the guardian and you can read about a muslim supporter of trump who says i understand donald trump. Hes standing against radical wahhabism. Hes protecting me as a moderate muslim. This muslim individual explains very well how he can tell the difference between trumpance opposition to wahhabiism but support for islam in general. Do you buy that . Trump is the king of imprecise language. If he added radical we wouldnt be talking about this. Look, this doesnt hurt him in a republican primary, frankly. I mean, he speaks in a raw language. He speakings in a primal language. This is why people are drawn to him. Because every voter you talk to, theyre sick of the political correctness. You hear that around the country. And thats that trump is it resonates. He doesnt tip tow around that answer. He just says it. Its a huge contrast to our president who has preetedly refused to say islamic radicalism. Hell call it workplace violence. Americans at their dinner table recognize this is terrorism by and large is a problem within this radical sect of the islamic faith. Radical sect, not islam as a whole. But the president has failed to acknowledge that. Donald trump has. Its radical islam but its important to say that word. Move on. Marco rubio, we were talking yesterday, will we see a mean marco or a nicer marco today. You laugh. Its a valid question. Hes even commented on how he regrets some of the language hes used. Heres marco rubio. In terms of things that have to do with personal stuff, yes, at the end of the day, its not something im entirely proud of. My kids were embarrassed by it. And i, you know, if i had to do it again, i wouldnt. This is a guy whos basically offended everyone for a year. Literally has mocked a disabled journalist, a female journalist, every Minority Group imaginable. On a daily basis. You use profanity from the stage. That said, yeah, i dont want to be that. If thats what it takes, then i dont want to be president. So he took it there, multiple times. Hes now sort of coming back. Will we see a more toned down version of him tonight . I think it will be very hard for him to change course. Listen, marco rubio has gone on the attack. Weve seen it several tyimes against ted cruz and donald trump. But we didnt see it in the beginning. Like im memorizing all these attacks, i shake out my folder and let it fly. He has that one mode. I think its very hard to adapt this late in the game. Also, he has to go all out. This is his last chance. Super tuesday is on tuesday. This isnt a time to tone it down. I think this makes him look really week when youre saying, oh, i did all that, now regret it. You have to own it. He does not. Its nothing personal, again. I watched him last night. Hes back on his opposition message. He says this embarrassed his kids and his wife. I bet an adviser told him to go dirty on trump to get Media Coverage when he needed it most. It just was a backlash. I think you will see hopeful optimistic marco. Trump university is going to be its going to be all the thats a fair game, spray tans the attacks are coming. What this says what this says is somebody whose message was i can win. That isnt a reason to elect somebody president. This is mitt romneys message, im a winner, and of course romney lost. Marco rubio was on the same kind of line of attack. When you run on empty, you start to do this. I have so much more. Pause. Do not move. The panel will be with me. We have to take a quick break and a reminder, so much at stake in tonights cnn president ial debate. Pregame starts at 8 30 eastern tonight. Opening statements, 9 00. Of course that is only here live on cnn. Ted cruz, dissing donald Trump Supporters, calling them ill informed, ill engaged. He is also saying trump is taking advantage of them. How might trump respond . Plus, Hillary Clinton makes an interesting admission about how she is not like her husband, shes not like president obama. Does the revelation feel authentic or could it make her more vulnerable . And well speak live with a man by the name of Luther Campbell, rap icon and unofficial mayor of miami here about his experiences with donald trump, including a visit to his mansion with mike tyson and eddie merurphy. Who knows where this could go. Youre watching special coverage here at the university of miami. To truly feel healthy on the outside you have to feel healthy. At your core. Trubiotics a probiotic from one a day naturally helps support both your digestive and immune health by combining. Two types of good bacteria. Trubiotics. Be true to your health. Is caringing because covering heals faster. For a bandage that moves with you and stays on all day, cover with a bandaid brand flexible fabric adhesive bandage. That just tastes better. With more vitamins. And less saturated fat. Only egglands best. Better taste. Better nutrition. Better eggs. Were back here live at the university of miami, ahead of tonights allimportant Republican Debate. Were going to talk about something now we actually hadnt planned on talking about until we got this bit of news. A 78yearold man has just been charged with assault after alley hitting a protester at a donald trump rally in North Carolina. That protester apparently was being led out of this event and thats when said sucker punching occurred. Yes, there is video. And here it is. Ouch. All right. So as the video continues, the protester is pulled to the ground by police. Again, the man there in the hat who looks to have punched him has now been charged with assault. We have reached out to the Trump Campaign for a response to what youre looking at. As soon as we hear from them, we will of course pass that along to you. But to the panel, again, this is something were planning on talking about. In terms of behavior at some of these rallies, 78yearold trump isnt directly responsible but i do think im not blaming him at all. When you drag that person out, dont give their coat back, that gets up the crowd. Theres been a lot of fights. This is what happens at these rallies. They now come for the fight. Im curious to see what most people arent pulling in rallies with 35,000 people. Thats a huge crowd. Donald trump cant see whats going upon his speech last week was interrupted 13 times by protesters. Each and every time, he said get them out and left it there and left it to security to do that. I dont presume that because black panther pulled up at his polling location that obama somehow likes the black panthers. This is not indicative of what they believes. Its about the anger, the feeling. It doesnt matter though, hes the candidate. If he wants to be president of the United States, he should stand up and denounce violence. Its getting out of control. This is only happening at trump rallies. You know whether its the black panthers the photographer david. Thats what leaders do. David. Because that is david, number one, theres no place for violence. Unfortunately, the american left has a very long and detailed history of doing exactly this why are we but thats not what were talking no, no, no, that is what were talking about thats fine but shouldnt mr. Trump say stop they are in search of violence, thats what their thats fine, but what do you the 1968 Democratic Convention why are you bringing up its history, david, it counts. Why cant trump say we cant hit anyone at rallies trump shouldnt bring up shouldnt he do that . He had. After decades of seeing decades . Decade, decades. But that does not condone violence. Were you calling on barack obama to down the black panthers . Show me an instance of that video of someone getting sucker punched at polling places and i dont recall at polling places theyre not getting in anyones face polling, okay that not the same thing as getting cold socked. That video is shocking. Thats a terrible video. Of course, of course, but what im saying is there are people who go to these rallies with a deliberate attempt of provoking people that doesnt matter thats fine. No, its not fine, david, and therein lies the problem. That is why that guy so its okay to hit protesters who may disagree its okay to have that its okay to hit protesters it is not okay to provoke somebody to violence okay, okay, okay, okay. Easy argument okay, well come back to that. I appreciate the passion. Lets move on to ted cruz. He had some words for Trump Supporters. You know donald gave a press conference where he said to quote him i love the poorly educated. Part of it is, i think donald is taking advantage of voters. If youre angry at the corruption of washington, you dont solve it by supporting someone who has been emeshed in the washington corruption for 40 years. Donald does well with voters who have relatively low information who are not that engaged and who are angry and they see him as an angry voice. Where were beating him is when voters get more engaged. When they inform themselves, they realize his record. Hes what theyre angry at. So amanda, turning to you, this is your former boss, should he not be courting these voters . I think weve seen that donald Trump Supporters arent going anywhere. Its very hard to peel those people off. Easier to get a rubio supporter or someone else. Listen, think hes dead right. If donald trump voters were concerned about his policy inconsistencies, they wouldnt be donald Trump Supporters so i think hes got it dead right. I can only say i like Vice President cruz a lot, i really do, but i just think he made a bit of a misstep here, and all these folks a lot of folks hes describing there voted for ted cruz in texas so i think he made a bit a mistake. Lightning round time. What is the number one thing that will surprise you tonight, kaylie . I want them to mention flint, i think it transcends party lines and i want them to point that out. Will he go after marco rubio . We know trump is the target but cruz wants to go after rubio in florida. I wonder how much of the aggression will be targeted at rubio versus trump. The question that has to be asked if youre a senator or governor and you win your home state, why is that a big deal . What do you mean . If marco rubio wins florida, shouldnt he win it . Hes the senator from florida. If kasich is leading in ohio, hes the governor of ohio, so he wins, and what