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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary in a relative landslide, beating frontrunner Bernie Sanders by almost 30 percentage points, and Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer decided to call it quits.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials report the second death from Coronavirus in the United States, and the first case of the disease has been confirmed in New York City.

And lastly, the U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban on Saturday, beginning the process of ending America’s 19-year-old war in the country, which accomplished next to nothing besides killing a whole bunch of people.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary. Good for him! It only took him three presidential campaigns to win a state, but he did it comfortably this weekend, winning over 48 percent of the vote. Bernie Sanders came in second with about 20 percent.

Biden’s big win makes him by far the biggest centrist threat to the progressive wing of the party, and signs show that establishment consolidation may come a little quicker than expected.

That’s because Pete Buttigieg dropped out today, which means there’s one less firmly centrist candidate in the running to split the vote. Tom Steyer also dropped out after finishing third in South Carolina.

Sanders still has a lead in most states going in to Super Tuesday, but Biden’s inevitable post-South Carolina bump and Buttigieg’s exit could make it a whole lot more competitive of a race.

Basically any voters that shift toward making Biden viable in states he might not have been viable in saps eventual delegates from Bernie and pushes the race closer to a contested convention -- the nightmare situation for progressive voters, because it’s highly unlikely anything resembling democracy comes out of it.

That said, the Sanders camp is still pretty strong, raking in 46 million dollars in February alone. It really all comes down to the showings on Super Tuesday tomorrow, especially in the big-delegate states like California and Texas.

The coronavirus has now killed two people on U.S. soil. Both were patients at the same hospital in Kirkland, Washington, which has confirmed six cases among patients and quarantined dozens of others.

On Sunday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also confirmed the disease’s first case in New York City, which affected a late 30s Manhattan resident who had recently returned from Iran.

In other words, the virus is still a very rare occurrence in the states, but it is spreading. And as more and more cases get confirmed worldwide, it’ll get harder and harder to stop.

As you’ve surely read by now, part of the problem with the virus is that it’s difficult to detect early on and can therefore spread before people even know they’ve got it. Officials think it may have spread undetected for weeks in Washington state, meaning there could be any number of cases still waiting to be confirmed.

The president, of course, isn’t making any of this any easier, accusing Democrats of over-reacting and even calling concern over the disease QUOTE: “their new hoax” ENDQUOTE.

So while the disease may be limited at the moment, there are a lot of big questions as to how well a Trump-led America will be able to handle it if it becomes widespread. So far, he’s not exactly inspiring confidence.

America’s longest war in the Middle East may finally be ending, on roughly the note it deserves: bitter regret and shame.

On Saturday, the U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban, the fundamentalist terror group that it overthrew in 2001 and then battled unsuccessfully for 19 years.

The peace agreement, signed after a year of negotiations in Doha, Qatar, did not involve the U.S.-backed Afghan government. While the deal does provide for the majority of the 12,000 U.S. troops still deployed to the country to come home, critics warn that it lacks, well, pretty much everything else.

Representative Barbara Lee, who has been an outspoken critic of the war since it began in 2001, said that the deal QUOTE “lacks the critical investments in peacebuilding, human-centered development, or governance reform needed to rebuild Afghan society.” ENDQUOTE.

In other words, it doesn’t even come close to leaving behind a system that makes amends for the damage we’ve already done. What’s worse, officials fear that the power vacuum left behind may make terrorist groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban themselves even stronger.

That means that thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Afghans lost their lives for a cause that amounts to basically nothing. Does the peace deal mean this entire disgrace is finally over? Who knows.

While it should be clear at this point that a military solution in the country is idiotic, other experts warn that the plan lacks quote “any strategy for long-term peace.” endquote. And all that can mean is more war.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Turkey openly declared war on the Syrian regime under dictator Bashar al Assad this weekend, mounting a massive counteroffensive against Syrian government forces three days after losing over 30 men to Syrian and Russian air bombardment.

Thousands of Puerto Ricans are still sleeping on the streets, afraid to return to their damaged homes after a powerful 6.7 earthquake shook the island in January. Aftershocks continue to make the situation worse, and federal aid is disorganized and scarce.

Protestes in Minnesota shut down a campaign event for Amy Klobuchar on Sunday evening, occupying her stage for more than an hour while hammering her on her prosecutorial record in a key case involving a black teenager and demanding she drop out of the race.

Despite previously saying they would not attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference, both Klobuchar and former candidate Pete Buttigieg will send in pre-recorded “video addresses” to the event. We’re not sure of the catering outlook for AIPAC, but it sure looks like some people are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show later this afternoon, available wherever podcasts are found.

#AMQuickie - Mar 2, 2020

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn