Michael bloomberg is not on the ballot until next week, but tom steyer has spent heavily in South Carolina and on the polls there. At least one voter questions the wisdom of some of that spending. You claim to be proenvironment and raising significant alarms about climate change. Yet we have been receiving so many mailings from your campaign, literally three to five times per week for months now. How do you justify this unnecessary overkill of mailings and printed material in a Digital World that would certainly be much more environmentally friendly . Voters ask the darndest things. We begin there with the democrats big debate night and big is an understatement. Bernie sanders in the middle to raise the curtain on an incredibly consequential week in the 2020 campaign. South carolina votes on saturday, and then one state at a time in february gives way to the politics version of march madness. 13 states plus American Samoa one week from today, super tuesday. After South Carolina on saturday, 155 democratic delegates would have been advocated, just 4 . But more than a third of the democrats delegate pool settled in just one primary night. February is about momentum. March is about math. And tonights debate is the last National Stage before the biggest day of the primary season. Senator sanders will be in the middle and he will be the primary target as his rivals try to stop him from pulling away. One is the price tag of all his plans and debate prep clearly everett at a town hall last night. I thought that question might come up. This is a list which will be on our website tonight of how we pay for every program that we have developed. I also believe we should cancel all student debt in america. Now, youre smiling and youre saying, well, thats a great idea. How does he pay for it, right . Did he read your mind on that one . Okay. And the answer is ill tell you exactly how we pay for it. We pay for it through a rather modest tax on wall street speculation. That is how we pay for that, all right . Cnns abby phillip and jeff zeleny are in charleston for the debate tonight. Abby, let me start with you. What are you looking for . Reporter well, we have for the first time now all the candidates on the stage, and last week bloomberg was in the line of fire. We know that sanders is going to be in the line of fire, too. The question is, what is going to be the balance of attacks between these two men . Bloomberg is still a threat to all these candidates going into super tuesday, and last weeks debate saw Pete Buttigieg doing these doublebarrelled attacks. Will he do that again and will others join him . The second thing im looking for is how much scrutiny does Bernie SandersForeign Policy philosophy come under . This is something we have not talked a whole lot about, and its gotten more attention as his comments about fidel castro have come up in the last couple of days, but there is more to this. And how deep will we go and how will Bernie Sanders explain that to the public . Then finally, Elizabeth Warren. This is a big debate for her. Last week she had a standout moment attacking Michael Bloomberg, but now the question that i have for her campaign is how does she expand that . How does she show strength and dexterity on that debate stage outside of attacking Michael Bloomberg . I think that will be important to her as she makes her case that its not just attacking bloomberg as the reason she should continue to be in this race, theres got to be something more there that will push her into the first or second tier as we go into super tuesday states so she can get delegates, which is what this is all about. Abby, theres no question. Bernie sanders has been the frontrunner before, but never like this at this moment. I think the scrutiny on Bernie Sanders is going to be something his team is preparing for. But the scrutiny at the town hall here is just the beginning of how he will pay for his plans. Look for Amy Klobuchar and others to really puncture that and do a reality check. So far thats not worked. This is not a new argument for Bernie Sanders. Hes been making the argument for a long time. See how he strands up to the scrutiny. The second thing, take 2 for bloomberg and warren. No doubt Elizabeth Warren wants to use Michael Bloomberg approximate asas a foil to get her to the next step. Shes looking to not necessarily make an argument to South Carolina voters, shes looking for donors. She wants the debate here tonight to launch her into super tuesday for the next week to put more money on television in all those states. But finally, perhaps the most important thing of all, joe biden. He is trying to resonate to africanAmerican Voters through some 60 of the electorate here in South Carolina. The question is can he hold those who he has and convince some younger black voters to support him . Because that is what im hearing as im traveling across South Carolina and other things. Theres definitely an age breakdown here. Some people dont remember the obama legacy in the administration and they didnt vote for him. So joe biden needs to make a commanding case here. If there is going to be a stop bernie movement, which is a lot of skepticism for that, joe biden has to lead it. That depends how he does tonight. John . Jeff zeleny, abby phillip, i appreciate it from the debate site of charleston. Lisa lerer with the new york times, the Washington Post and toluse olirunnipa. Its almost a pivotal contest, anyway, then 72 hours later we get what i call the blur. 14 states, American Samoa. The candidates, if they blow the debate tonight, dont have much time to recover. In a lot of super tuesday states, given theyre already voting and have been for a while, given this race has been so mottled and fluid already, is there really a possibility for anyone to break out and move to the front of the pack given that the trend weve seen so far has been everybody but bernie sort of treading water and not even able to break 20 in most cases, and its Bernie Sanders who continues to consolidate more and more and more support to the point that, you know, in the last contest in nevada, he got nearly half the support, which really makes it more difficult for his rivals to make the argument that hes somehow divisive or doesnt have a majority of the party, that hes somehow a factional candidate. This guy is getting more than half the vote. Hard to make that argument. If he gets half the vote, game over. Sanders is better organized than them across the breadth of these 14 states. Only bloomberg can spend more money than steyer or Bernie Sanders can. Its an enormous test for him. When he has resisted the answer, hell say, well pay for it, well pay for it, or he says, i dont know to some answers. He comes in last night with a piece of paper. A lot of people say it doesnt add up, but the fact that he adapted and said, okay, this is going to come up in the debate, here. It shows you he understands hes in the lead and hes trying to protect it. I think he definitely understands hes in the lead and he also definitely knows the knives will be out for him. Weve seen debate after debate where each candidate who has ticked up in the polls has had to barrel, and that time has come for Bernie Sanders. If the candidates are going to stop Bernie Sanders and prevent him from becoming the nominee, this is the week when that needs to happen. After that it just becomes a question of whether he can get a majority of pledge delegates, or it remains more divided and you go to a convention, theres a second ballot and everything gets really crazy. If someone else is going to have the opportunity to overtake him and to get 50 of those pledged delegates whenever that moment may come, that groundwork, we need to see that movement happening now. And super tuesday will be the big tell on whether anyone else is able to do that. The others have struggled with how to get it in the sense that sanders is familiar, his supporters are very loyal, hes shown that hes expanding his coalition and actually growing. Maybe his ceiling is a little higher than people thought it was. You have joe biden saying, the democrats will get crushed. The democratic socialist at the top of the ticket will ruin the party. Sanders, he sticks by his views which is one of his appeals. Is it also potentially a liability . In a 60minute interview with anderson cooper, he said, you know what . Castro is bad. Its been bad in cuba. Communism is bad. But he said he has a great literacy program, one he started. And Pete Buttigieg says, do you really want that guy atop the ticket . In our one shot to defeat donald trump, we should think carefully about the consequences of nominating senator sanders. I dont want as a democrat, i dont want to be explaining why our nominee is encouraging people to look on the bright side of the castro regime when were going into the election of our lives. Have they found the magic issue here, or is that sort of distraction into silly season . This is so reminiscent of 2016, donald trump speaking positively about Vladimir Putin, talking negatively about some Top Republican issues, talking about planned parenthood in a positive way. These were seen as third rail issues that would have sunk his campaign. All the other republican candidates, there were a lot of them as well saying, we dont want this guy to be the leader of our party and hes going to get crushed in november. They were never able to coalesce around a single message. It faded into the background, and thencandidate President Trump continued to make leads in the field and soak up all the oxygen. Bernie sanders is continuing to do that. Hes not apologizing, hes not backing down from his controversial opinions, but the fact that the field is so large and the moderates are splitting up the vote means he can continue to coalesce a large portion of the voting population and continue to be at the top of the field, and unless some of these other moderates drop out, they can continue to attack him on various issues, but they wont be able to break through unless they can get other people out of the same lane of the field. And theres also Michael Bloomberg who had a pretty horrible first debate. I think thats fair to say. As he goes on the stage again and tries to show more energy, lo and behold, a little tape of Michael Bloomberg talking in 2016 about Elizabeth Warren and banks. Lets listen. Part my First Campaign platf would be to defend the banks. You know how well thats going to sell in this country. But seriously, somebodys gotta stand up and do what we need. A healthy Banking System thats going to take risks because thats what creates the jobs for everybody. And nobodys willing to say that. The trouble is, these campaigns in this day and age, really are about slogans and not about issues anymore. He says, my First Campaign platform would be to defend the banks. He goes on in that conversation to call Elizabeth Warren scary. I guess thats coming at him tonight. Yeah, this is something we saw warren capitalizing on last night, and we fully expect her to do that again, double down in the debate. Most of these other candidates will be attacking sanders, and i think warren has made it pretty clear shes putting her money on bloomberg. She was asked about sanders and whether hes a concern as a nominee over the weekend, and she wouldnt answer that question. She went and pivoted to bloomberg. She had a standout moment last week on bloomberg, so i think this will help her break away from the pack. But i think bloomberg will be better prepared about questions about the nda, taxes and things like that. Will bloomberg have better answers . Will he have Better Energy and will he be able to speak as a democrat to the issues . The early voting didnt transform as much to early voting in the caucuses because so many people had already voted. The question is, if you keep coming in third or worse, can you say youre making progress. She has clearly decided she believes this will help. She was on tv in super tuesday states with this. Mike bloomberg, Mike Bloomberg. Youve probably seen more ads on Mike Bloomberg than the rest of us running for president put together. Big money is powerful, but it doesnt always win. I know that firsthand. Its an interesting sort of pool shot, if you will. Can it work, will it work . It has to work fast, right . Listen to what shes saying, because shes making an electability argument. This is the same thing she did in the debate. Shes not just saying his positions are wrong and out of sync with what democrats believer. Shes saying he would be a risky nominee because of these positions. She said big money doesnt always win and in the debate we would take a risk with someone with these views. She, like literally everyone else in this field, know thats what democrats are fixated on. We get into saturday and 14 on tuesday, one week from today. 14. A reality check. Is the coronavirus well under control as the president says . Applebees new irresistabowls now starting at 7. 99. Now thats eatin good in the neighborhood. A new kind of investor is changing things up. [ indistinct talking ] with an app thats changing the way we do money. Download robinhood now. How we worship, or who we love. And the 2020 census is how that great promise is kept. Because this is the count that informs where hundreds of billions in funding will go each year for things like education, healthcare, and programs that touch us all. Shape your future. Start here. Learn more at 2020census. Gov nondrowsy claritin cool mint chewables. Feel the clarity of new the only allergy product with relief of your worst symptoms, including itchy throat. Plus an immediate blast of cooling sensation. Feel the clarity and live claritin clear. We do it every night. Every night. I live alone, but i still do it every night. Right after dinner. Definitely after meatloaf. Like clockwork. Do it run your dishwasher every night with cascade platinum. A load with as few as 8 dishes, is all it takes to save water. An Energy Star Certified dishwasher uses less than four gallons per cycle. While handwashing uses that, every two minutes. So, do it. Run your dishwasher every night with cascade platinum. The surprising way to save water. President trump very much downplaying the threat of the coronavirus today, just as Administration Officials were up on capitol hill to brief lawmakers on their assessment and their response plans. At a press conference in new delhi, the president said the virus, quote, is going to go away, and he predicted minimal impact here in the United States. The coronavirus, which is, you know, very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it. The people are getting better, theyre all getting better. And i think that whole situation will start working out. A lot of talent, a lot of brain power is being put behind it. 2. 5 billion were putting in. Theres a very good chance youre not going to die. Now they have studied it, they know very much. In fact, were very close to a vaccine. The latest numbers in the United States, 53 americans have confirmed cases of the coronavirus. Thats a small portion of the more than 80,000 confirmed cases, 2700 deaths so far around the world. Our chief medical correspondent dr. Sanjay gupta joins us now. Sanjay, you just heard the president downplay this, almost submissive. Do others share this, or are they more worried . I think most are more worried than that. At the end of the president s commentary, he says were very close to a vaccine. Were more than a year out to a vaccine. I want to make sure were clear on that. He may have been talking about a different vaccine, i dont know. But the numbers you show, john, are correct. Were about two months into this, and the vast majority of people who have been diagnosed with the coronavirus in this country were repatriated, many of them from that cruise ship, for example. There have been 12 travel related and only two persontoperson submissions. Thats good news. But when you talk to public officials, you talk to folks at the cdc, and i want to put up language that we just got from the cdc from a News Conference they just gave regarding this, theyre basically saying, look, the data over the last week and the spread in other countries has raised our level of concern and raised our expectation that we are going to have Community Spread here. Two points, john. One is that this is a very contagious virus. It seems to be able to spread even when someone does not have symptoms. That obviously is of concern. But the countermanding point to that, and this is an important one, it seems that a vast majority of people, eight out of ten people, they either have no symptoms or minimal symptoms. So its concerning in terms of spread, just how problematic in terms of sickness and death. We still dont know yet, john. I think the number will be smaller in the United States versus other countries around the world, but we have to make sure were ready in this country. I think thats what were hearing Public HealthOffic