Its the biggest election day of the year so far. Welcome to cnns Special Coverage of super tuesday im wolf blitzer in washington and im kate bolduan in new york. The first polls are closing in just a few hours from now. And turnout in states like North Carolina is strong as millions of americans and six next extreme states are now voting for republicans. It is a big day, 865 delegates are at stake. Donald trump expected to win most of them making the republican front runner almost unstoppable potentially. By the end of this light tonight, trump is expected to be within striking distance of the 1,215 delegates needed to win the republican president ial nomination, which raises the big question, what does nikki haley do next . Our less than an hour will be getting our first early clues about the outcome of tonights vote. Thats where we get the first results from our exit polls. We have our reporters fanned out across the nation right now is better. Voters are heading to the polls. I want
government reported a second straight quarter of negative economic growth. so this complicated picture is why president biden is pushing back against talk of a recession. with both senator schumer and manchin. that s consistent with the transition to a stable steady growth and lower inflation, but if you look at our job market consumer spending, business investment, we see signs of economic progress in the second quarter as well. joining us now to take a closer look at this, cnbc senior economics reporter steve liesman and ben white, politico chief economic correspondent and host of the politico money podcast. steve, when you take all of this data into account, all these indexes, what does it tell you about the state of the economy right now? it tells us that for sure the economy has slowed. remember, we did like 6% growth in the fourth quarter and now we ve come off two quarters in a row. the first quarter we came off because of what was happening with inventories. thi
tonight, straight from the source, joe manchin is an outgoing senator. but is he also an outgoing democrat? i asked him that question directly tonight as he now says that he would consider a bid for the white house while insisting he is not going to be a spoiler. president biden just wrapped up a crucial press conference in san francisco after meeting with china s president and fielding questions about israel s war with hamas, backing up israel s claim that there s a hamas command and control center beneath the largest hospital in gaza. nikki haley partially walking back a campaign pledge made just yesterday after setting off a firestorm over suggesting a ban on anonymous social media users. this is the source. tonight, we begin with our one on one with senator joe manchin who is not running for re-election in the senate but considering running for president. amid a lot of speculation about what he has planned next, he is openly acknowledging that he is, quote absolut
quote cnbc which is my favorite definition of this. it s squishier than simply those two negative quarters. why is that? well, because a recession is a very unique phenomenon, and, yes, squishier is actually an official recessionary term or economic term. here s the deal. the deal is that people want to use that benchmark, and i get it because it s an easy benchmark to use of these two negative quarters. in general when we do two negative quarters we are in recession. the reason is because the nber looks at a variety of factors and really there s three things looking for. is the downturn pervasive? is it pronouced? is it prolonged and they will meet a year from now or so or maybe six months, look back on the data and come to that determination, but it s not hard for somebody to look right now and say, look, it s not really deep. it s not been very long, and it s not very widespread right now. it may be that we turn around and decide or they turn around
doodle, when it comes to donald trump she is right about this. we ve never dealt with a figure like this in american history before. this man, our president, is not just a politician, he s a phenomenon. and an insider political game will not be able to defeat it. the only thing that will defeat him is if we have a phenomenon of equal force and that phenomenon is a moral uprising of the american people. so i m still looking at the look on your face. steve, who s a numbers guy. but there is something to be said about a feeling that people take away, right? like who is the counter? who is the counter to donald trump? is there something a little squishier that a poll can t necessarily define that is really ha the average voter is looking for? i think what you re showing from david brooks gets to a bigger question we ve all had since 2016. there s a camp of people who i think tend ton overread what trump pulleda uh in 2016 and a camp of people who maybe tend to