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Hillary Clinton Gets Testy When Pressed on E-mails; Hillary Clinton's Support Among Democrats Dips Below 50 Percent; High School Accuses Schoolmate of Rape; 2016: Year of the Angry Voter?; Source: Subway's "Jared" to Plead Guilty; Serena Williams Aims for 2015 Grand Slam. Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired August 19, 2015 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[09:00:14] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now on the NEWSROOM, Hillary Clinton responds to reports about wiping her e-mail server with a shrug and a joke.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Like with a cloth or something? No.
COSTELLO: New CNN polls out this morning show she's still the one to beat, but the margin gets smaller.
Also, a teenage girl takes the stand facing her accused rapist, testifying about what happened at an elite private school. The text, the e-mails and what she says happened that night.
Serena Williams gears up for the U.S. Open.
SERENA WILLIAMS, TENNIS CHAMPION: No one wants to win more than me.
COSTELLO: Focusing on a possible grand slam and giving a shoutout to other female athletes.
WILLIAMS: You know, I get chill bumps, like literally, thinking about all the stuff that, you know, the women are doing.
COSTELLO: Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
We begin this hour with Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner in the Democratic race for the White House. Well, she's now facing a sharp decline in the polls, falling below the 50 percent mark for the first time during her campaign. One possible reason, the seemingly never ending scandal involving personal e-mail she used while secretary of state and reports that she wiped her server clean. But while Clinton is addressing the issue head on, it appears to be testing her patience. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: My personal e-mails are my personal business, right? So that's all I can say.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did you try to wipe the whole server?
CLINTON: I -- you know, I don't -- I have no idea that's why we turned it over --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You were in the charge of it. You were the official in charge. Did you wipe the server?
CLINTON: What, like with a cloth or something?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I don't know. You know how it works digitally. Did you try to wipe the whole thing?
CLINTON: I don't know how it works digitally at all. But we turned over everything that was work-related, every single thing. Personal stuff, we did not. I had no obligation to do so and did not. Nobody talks to me about it other than you guys.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: There you have it. CNN's Evan Perez is following the story.
Tell us more, Evan.
(LAUGHTER)
EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: You know, she is trying to apparently minimize what this problem is into really a political problem. And you know, everything that so far that we know indicates that she may be right. At the end of this, this will likely not end up being a legal problem, at least based on what we know at this point. However, there is an FBI investigation.
They are looking at the server that her campaign has turned over. And it is a serious investigation. So it's a little odd to see a presidential candidate just dismiss an investigation that is being done by the FBI. And, you know, they -- people I talked to say that they believe that they will be able to recover data from this server.
And we'll see where that goes, Carol. We do know that she does believe that she's being treated differently from other people who've had similar issues, she says. Here's how she put it yesterday at the end of that press conference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Whether it was a personal account or a government account, I did not send classified material and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified, which is the way you know whether something is. What you're seeing now is a disagreement between agencies saying you know what, they should have and the other saying, no, they shouldn't. That has nothing to do with me. If it had been a government account and I said release it, we'd be having the same arguments.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREZ: And, Carol, what she's getting at there is that there -- the issue of classification is not that simple. For instance, you know, one agency might say well, we think that's classified and the State Department might say, well, that's not so clear. And so it's not a cut-and-dry issue. And she is pointing to something that is correct. However, you know, nobody would question if somebody -- if Hillary Clinton had a dot gov e-mail, she was simply using a government e-mail account, there would -- this controversy likely would be much, much smaller for her. So that's the problem she's created.
Speaker John Boehner this morning tweeted that Hillary Clinton is playing word games in an effort to mislead the American people. He says that she's making yet another false claim about whether or not this was classified information. What he's pointing to simply is that there have been shifting explanations by the Clinton campaign as to exactly what she did and what she sent and received -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Evan Perez, reporting live for us from Washington. Thank you.
Clinton is dismissing that e-mail controversy, but some say Miss Clinton does that at her own peril. A new CNN-ORC poll tells the story. For the first time in our national polling Clinton's support among Democrats has dipped below 50 percent. It now stands at 47 percent. That's a big drop, nine percentage points from just last month.
[09:05:01] Political maverick, Bernie Sanders, once a veritable punch line in the race, has gained 10 points and is narrowing the gap separating the two.
And that's not the only heat that Clinton is facing. For more let's bring in Mark Preston, the executive editor of CNN Politics.
Hi, Mark. Tell us more.
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Well, Carol, no doubt about that. Just from our last poll, you can see that Bernie Sanders has cut the lead in half in many ways. If you look at the gains he has made, he is now trailing Clinton by 18 points, which is sizable. But it was 37 points in our last poll.
But let's look at where Bernie Sanders has to make up some ground, and this is very important. Would Bernie Sanders do a better job as president? 31 percent of voters said yes, 37 percent say no, and a third of the voters are unsure at this point.
So Bernie Sanders clearly has a lot of work to do to try to convince people, Carol, that he is a better alternative than Hillary Clinton. But let's look at hypothetical general election matchups with two specific candidates. Jeb Bush, look at these numbers right here. Hillary Clinton right now holds a lead over Jeb Bush in a hypothetical matchup by nine points. Pretty healthy lead certainly at this point in the election.
And then let's look at her against Donald Trump, the frontrunner right now for the Republican presidential nomination. Six points right now, Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump. However, what is not on the screen and what I will tell our viewers right now is that this is a sizable increase from our last poll with Donald Trump. In fact, it is a 16-point gain for Donald Trump on Hillary Clinton. So while he is still trailing by six point, he has gained considerably since our last poll -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Interesting. Mark Preston, reporting live, thank you so much.
President Obama loses a key vote for what may be his signature achievement in foreign policy. New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, a fellow Democrat, is the latest to come out against the Iran nuclear deal. Obama has said that if Congress votes to kill the deal he will veto that legislation, but Menendez says if that happens, he will join with other opponents on Capitol Hill and vote to override the president's veto.
We'll keep you posted.
A teen prep school student is retaking the stand this morning facing the upper classman she says raped her. She says 19-year-old Owen Labrie sexually assaulted her as part of the so-called Senior Salute, a competition to see which upper classman can rack up the most female conquests. Labrie's lawyer says the pair never actually had intercourse and that the accuser was a willing participant in everything that went on. Labrie's attorney also says that for girls at St. Paul's participating in Senior Salute is a, quote, "source of pride."
Boris Sanchez is covering this story. Good morning.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Quite interesting and painful testimony to listen to in court. Both sides going back and forth about these specific details in the case.
They're in trial right now in New Hampshire. The victim, as you mentioned, the alleged victim is set to give her second day of emotional testimony. And she's expected to get pressed by the prosecutors as well.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ (voice-over): Just a few miles from the elite St. Paul's High School, 19-year-old Owen Labrie sat in court listening as his former schoolmate gave her tearful testimony accusing him of rape, saying in court, quote, "I thought his intentions were really wrong," end quote. The prosecutor arguing Tuesday that when Labrie contacted the then 15- year-old schoolmate last year he did so with one intention.
CATHERINE RUFFLE, PROSECUTOR: To solicit, lure or entice her to meet with him with the plan that he was going to have sex with her.
SANCHEZ: Labrie is pleading not guilty to allegations that he raped her at the elite prep school where they were both students and further denying that they had sex days before his graduation last year.
RUFFLE: This was not a consensual act.
SANCHEZ: The prosecutor revealing that a nurse observed an abrasion on the accuser's genital area which she says are, quote, "consistent with a sexual assault." The encounter occurred, both sides agree, as part of a decades-old tradition at St. Paul's known as the Senior Salute, a competition described as male seniors try to rack up sexual encounters with younger female students.
Labrie's attorney arguing Tuesday that not all Senior Salutes were sexual, even reading messages in court to illustrate that the accuser willingly participated. "Only if it's our little secret," she wrote. Labrie replied, "Not a soul needs to know."
On Tuesday St. Paul's published a statement on the school's Web site, saying, quote, "Allegations of our culture are not emblematic of our school or our values, our rules or the people that represent our student body, alumni, faculty and staff."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: This is really not a good look for St. Paul's. This is a very well-respected school. Six congressmen, 13 ambassadors and Secretary of State John Kerry have all attended that. This case could tarnish their reputation.
[09:10:01] COSTELLO: And the trial is ongoing right now. So the alleged victim is going to take the stand. And will the defendant at some point take the stand?
SANCHEZ: We still don't know. We're waiting to see. You would expect that with these allegations being so serious against him that he likely will but we'll wait and see.
COSTELLO: Boris Sanchez, thanks so much.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Jarred, the one-time face of Subway sandwiches, now facing a feeding frenzy at an Indianapolis courthouse. We'll have the latest on the child pornography investigation and the guilty plea that's said to be imminent.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON": According to a new poll, Jeb Bush saw a 6 percent drop in support after the first debate. But experts say that he still has a shot because he's likable and qualified.
(LAUGHTER) And Donald Trump was like, weird, because the opposite is working for me.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[09:15:00] COSTELLO: Oh but Donald Trump continues to dominate the polls. And as he does, questions grow, not only about his policies, but also about the reason for his meteoric rise. Many believe Trump has tapped into something in the American electorate.
Here's what rival George Pataki told CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE PATAKI (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's so much attention being paid to one candidate. And the angry candidate, the one who is looking to divide is the one getting attention right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Trump is tapping into the angry voter. And what some might call a muscular way. So, let's talk about.
Michael Kimmel, a distinguished professor of sociology at the Stony Brook University. He created the nation's first ever masters program in masculinity studies. He's also the author of "Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era."
I'm going to show your book. Because I don't know what's on the screen right now. Here it is in the flesh. Thank you so much you for being with me.
MICHAEL KIMMEL, AUTHOR, "ANGRY WHITE MEN": Pleasure. Thanks.
COSTELLO: But I do want to get into this notion of the angry voter and the angry candidate. Is Donald Trump an angry white man?
KIMMEL: Well, I think he embodies a lot of classic angry white man characteristics, especially this idea that I talked about it, what I call aggrieved entitlement, where we feel entitled to all of these positions and we don't feel like we're getting them.
But Trump taps into something else. He taps into that in a lot of people's hearts, that anger. But I think he also represents the classic alpha male bully. He is willing -- the thing about Trump is he's who he is. He's completely authentic. He doesn't talk out of both sides of his mouth.
And a lot -- he tells it like he sees it. Now, I think he doesn't tell it like it is, but like he sees it. And people love that about him. Here's a guy --
COSTELLO: Let's go back to the alpha male bully. That doesn't sound so attractive to me. Why are so many people attracted to that quality in him?
KIMMEL: Because he exposes I think in some ways, the timidity and spinelessness of so many of the other candidates. You know, he says something completely outrageous. And everybody lines up.
He says he's going to build a big wall, you know, and make the Mexicans pay for it. And the other candidates go, I'll build mine higher. I mean, they don't know what to say in response to that. So, he says, well, I'm not going to have the birthright anymore, everyone else says, oh, me either.
So, they're all responding to him. He controls that narrative. That's what the alpha male does. That's what the bully does.
He intimidates everybody around him. And for many people, that's really attractive.
And the other thing, Carol, is we live in a culture in which a lot of people think they are being completely oppressed by a regime of political correctness. And Donald Trump gives voice to that part that says, I'd really like to say stuff that's racist and sexist and homophobic, but I can't in polite society.
But he's saying what I truly deep down think.
COSTELLO: OK. So, let's just center on that for a minute, because Donald Trump has said a lot of awful things about women. Yet a recent poll showed that 60 percent of Republican women -- they like Donald Trump. So, why is that?
KIMMEL: Well, I think that there's two things. First of all, there is something about the alpha male that is attractive to large numbers of women. But the other thing is it's not just that he's going after women as a group. He's going after particular women, elite women.
And a lot of women out there love to see elite women, especially women perhaps in the mainstream media, knocked down a peg. And I think they like that. They kind of enjoy that circus.
COSTELLO: I hate that sentiment, when a certain type of woman wants to run down another type of women, I think that's -- I'm not sure I buy into that.
KIMMEL: But I think a lot of people enjoy the culture of the celebrity knockdown, the takedown. And they enjoy the fact that these uppity women are getting -- you know, are getting their just desserts.
COSTELLO: Because women might stay at home, so it's the old career woman versus the woman who stays home with her children.
KIMMEL: Or it's a woman who thinks she's better than everybody else.
COSTELLO: Gotcha. So as long as -- is there anything that Donald Trump could say that would dry away his supporters?
KIMMEL: He hasn't said it yet. I think there's kind of pushing the envelope, going right to the edge. And one expects, I think many people are expecting that it will be Wile E. Coyote moment where he would run over the cliff and suddenly look down and go, oh-oh, you know? But he hasn't gotten there yet.
COSTELLO: Some people said he could skin a baby seal on the steps of the White House.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: Or the Capitol, and it wouldn't matter.
KIMMEL: Right, right.
COSTELLO: So, we'll see. Michael Kimmel, thanks so much for stopping by.
KIMMEL: Nice to be here, Carol.
COSTELLO: I appreciate it.
Also tonight, a CNN special report, "The Donald Trump Interview". The GOP frontrunner joins Chris Cuomo for a frank discussion about how he's playing the game and writing his own rules. That's tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.
Checking some other top stories for you at 19 minutes past the hour:
Three people unaccounted for after a Motel Six near Seattle explodes. Firefighters now search the rubble in case they were inside their rooms when that motel exploded. It's not clear if those missing were actually in the moment at the time of the blast.
[09:20:01] The blast causes by a gas leak that blew firefighters back 20 feet and severely burned a gas worker.
A passenger plane that crashed Sunday in Indonesia was carrying nearly half a million dollars in cash meant for the poor. You see the bags there that held the cash. Officials with the country's postal service planned on giving the money to 6,600 people. Search teams recovers the bodies of all 54 people on board that plane on Tuesday.
In Palmyra, Syria, ISIS has executed an antiquities expert. The 82- year-old archeologist was beheaded in the city's public square as militants looked on. Palmyra is a UNESCO world heritage site full of ancient monuments and temples. The Syrian government is raising to save hundreds of thousands of antiquities from ISIS. Museums across the country have been left bare, their valuables whisked away to secret locations.
One of the most well known company spokesmen in America is expected to enter a guilty plea in a child pornography case. Jared Fogle, the longtime pitchman for the Subway sandwich chain, is due in court just weeks after federal investigators raided his Indiana home and hold away computers and other electronics.
CNN's Ryan Young is outside of the courthouse this morning to tell us more.
RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, a lot of high interest in this case. Jared Fogle, the Subway spokesman that everyone knows for losing over 200 pounds. But we're not talking Subway sandwiches anymore. People are concerned about the charges he may face. In a news conference this afternoon we do believe we'll learn more from federal authorities about what they're going to charge Jared Fogle with.
But we do believe it's connected to a child pornography case. Now, all of this spiral out of control over the last month. We were there outside the house during the raid. We know the FBI went through the home and gathered several computers from it. Now, a forensic audit has been done and we believe images have been pulled off computers from inside this home.
But we do not know how far his investigation goes to Jared Fogle. We do know that his childhood obesity director Russell Taylor was arrested on child pornography charges about two months ago. He was charged with filming kids and sex acts inside his home.
Now, it has been revealed, we believe investigators have been able to tie the two together. Subway did release a tweet yesterday that said, "Subway no longer has a relationship with Jared and we have no further comment."
Of course, we're covering that news conference this afternoon and Jared could turn himself in -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. We'll check back. Ryan Young reporting live for us this morning.
Still to come, the world's top woman tennis player says she's proud to share the spotlight with other outstanding women athletes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: I get chill bumps literally thinking about all the stuff that women are doing in sports. I think that we as women are on the rise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Rachel Nichols scores with a rare interview with Serena Williams. It debuts next, right here in THE NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:27:17] COSTELLO: The U.S. Open begins just 12 days from now in Flushing, Meadows, New York. All eyes will be on defending champion Serena Williams, the top ranked woman in the world.
If she wins, she'll achieve the holy grail of tennis, a grand slam within a single calendar year. Only five other people have done it in the history of the sport. The last was Steffi Graf in 1988.
CNN sports anchor Rachel Nichols sat down with Williams for an in- depth interview ahead of the U.S. Open.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: You seem relaxed about it. How do you manage pressure so that it doesn't overtake you?
WILLIAMS: Well, you should be up early (ph), you come to my practices, because I'm not relaxed at all. I learned a lot about myself.
I learned a lot about myself, I learned (ph) to have a tough mind and I face a lot of adversities. You know, I just look forward to being at the open. I'm excited to be there. No one wants to be there more than me.
NICHOLS: You won Wimbledon. The U.S. soccer team wins the World Cup. There is a woman in the coaching rinks of the NFL this summer. There are two women serving as assistant coaches in the NBA right now.
What effects do you think this summer of the American female athlete, as a lot of people are calling it, is going to have going forward?
WILLIAMS: I think it's going to have a great effect. You know, I get chill bumps literally thinking about all the stuff that, you know, the women are doing in sports. You know, I think that we as women are on the rise.
NICHOLS: Well, it's not jus what you're doing that no one else has done. It's the age you're doing it at. You're doing at 33 what a lot of people are doing at 23.
WILLIAMS: I think it just boils down to me being good at what I do. Yes, I'm 33, but if you look at it this way, go to a doctor and you tell your doctor you're 33, he's like, oh, you're really young. And you're like in the sport, you're like oh you're vintage.
NICHOLS: Let's switch gears and talk about your family. Your sister Venus has been diagnosed with Sjogren's Syndrome, which is a condition that causes your immune system to attack itself. What has that been like for you to go through that with her, especially since you're used to her being the big sister taking care of you?
WILLIAMS: Yes, it hasn't been easy. Thinking about her and her battle really helps me and has helped me in my career. And that helps me think, well, I'm healthy and I'm doing well and I don't have any excuses to make.
NICHOLS: You've been taking some college classes as well. How has your sister and what she's been dealing with affected you and what classes you've taken?
WILLIAMS: Yes, I start taking -- I'm majoring in premedical. So, you know, just looking at Venus in the past few years and being able to find alternative ways of being healthy and not having to take all these medicines and other stuff has been really important.
NICHOLS: More holistic medicines?
WILLIAMS: Holistic medicines and stuff. So, I kind of really want to focus on that in my field.
NICHOLS: Most professional tennis players, especially ones who are multiple, multiple grand slam champions, are not also premed on the side. How are you managing all of those?
