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Trump and Carson Alone Atop GOP Field; Fiorina Loses 11 Points in a Month; Joe Biden Meets with Advisers; FBI, Secret Service Investigate Hack Report; Interview with Richard Branson; Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired October 20, 2015 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:01] TURNER: There are so many things that need to be answered in this film.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Luke Skywalker is in the melted Darth Vader mask.

TURNER: Oh, Carol. Carol Costello.

COSTELLO: OK. And I have to end the segment on that.

Nischelle Turner, thanks so much. You're always fun.

TURNER: Hilarious. Absolutely. All right.

COSTELLO: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM.

ERICA PARDEE, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Go, Donald.

COSTELLO: Donald Trump riding high in a brand new CNN poll.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How can you say you were safe under his brother when we just had the worst attack in the history of our country?

COSTELLO: And those comments on George Bush on 9/11? Not swaying his supporters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald says it, I take it.

COSTELLO: Also, the CIA director's personal e-mail allegedly hacked. CNN talks to the hacker who says he did it.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: How difficult would you say it is?

UNIDENTIFIED HACKER: You mean out of 10?

SEGALL: Sure, out of 10.

UNIDENTIFIED HACKER: A one.

COSTELLO: Why he did it and what did he find out?

Plus, what happened between Johnny Manziel and his girlfriend in this car? Depends on who you ask.

COLLEEN CROWLEY, JOHNNY MANZIEL'S GIRLFRIEND: He's like -- I don't know. He hit me a couple of times.

COSTELLO: We've got the dash cam video, the 911 calls. What does it mean for the Cleveland Browns?

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.

The Republicans' race for president, the strong gets stronger and the weak appear to wither. Frontrunners Donald Trump and Ben Carson now control nearly half the Republican support. According to the latest CNN-ORC poll, Trump leads Carson 27 percent to 22 percent. All the other candidates in the crowded field are mired in single digits.

So who's trending? Trump gained a few percentage points from last month, while Carson hauls in eight. Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Carly Fiorina all losing ground.

These are among Trump's topic this morning in the free-wheeling interview on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Ben Carson is running second to you. He's at 22 percent. Could there be any two more different people? How do you explain that you both are winning with Republicans?

TRUMP: Well, we hit a cord. And we're not as different as people think. You know, we have a very good relationship. We're not as different as people think. But there is a -- certainly a different style. And you know, I have great assets and he has some great assets. But we are both resonating; there's no question about it. And NBC just came out with their poll, and it's very similar. I'm in first place.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TRUMP: And Ben is in second place. And I went up a lot and from my original, I've gone up a lot. And you know, it's -- the other candidates are very similar. So maybe these polls are starting to really accurate out.

CAMEROTA: Can you imagine a Trump-Carson ticket?

TRUMP: Well, I like him. He likes me. I mean, stranger things have happened. That I can tell you. But it's too early to think about that. It certainly is interesting. So many people have suggested it because we seem to be doing awfully well.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Very quickly, can we talk about Carly Fiorina for a second?

TRUMP: Yes.

CAMEROTA: You two have obviously had your issues in the past. But how do you explain how her poll numbers have plummeted? She had this big bump after the debate. She's gone from 15 percent to now 4 percent.

TRUMP: That's a big drop. I don't know. I like Carly, actually. But I don't know why she would have dropped so much. That's a very, very big drop. I -- there's no answer to that. A couple of others have dropped pretty good, too. But there's no answer to Carly. She's talented. And I'm -- I'm surprised to see that much of a drop.

CAMEROTA: OK. Let's talk about last night. You were in South Carolina. You had, as you said, a passionate crowd there. And you said something to them. You said -- about guns. You said, "You know the president is thinking about signing an executive order where he wants to take away your guns. You hear about this?"

Now, Mr. Trump, the president has not signed an executive order to take away guns.

TRUMP: No, no, I've heard that he wants to. And I heard that I think on your network somebody said that that's what he's thinking about. I didn't say he's signing it. I said -- I think that will be tough one to sign actually.

CAMEROTA: Yes. It's impossible, in fact. The president --

TRUMP: Yes, I would say it would be impossible, but nevertheless, he was thinking about it. And I've heard it from numerous networks and I've read it in the papers, you know. My source is the papers. So they're pretty good sources.

CAMEROTA: I mean, the president constitutionally cannot sign an executive order to take away guns. But -- so what are you doing? When you're telling --

TRUMP: Well, he can't sign an executive order on immigration either, and he did.

CAMEROTA: But when you're telling your crowd last night that he's coming after you and your guns, and you know that not to be true. I mean, you know --

TRUMP: Well, no, he has been in different forums. I mean, he's very much against -- in my opinion, he's against the Second Amendment, which is ridiculous. But he has certainly not been pro-Second Amendment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So going back to this latest poll, it does not bode well for Carly Fiorina, as you saw. She was flying high at 15 percent after a stellar debate performance with the perfect comeback to Donald Trump's "Look at her face."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:05:07] CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.

TRUMP: I think she's got a beautiful face and I think she's a beautiful woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But since that debate, that moment, just one month ago, Fiorina has lost 11 points, declining from 15 percent support to 4 percent today. Donald Trump said he couldn't explain the plunge, but maybe my next guest can.

With me now, Loretta Lepore, she's the Georgia state co-chair of Carly Fiorina for President. Welcome.

LORETTA LEPORE, GEORGIA STATE CO-CHAIR FOR CARLY FIORINA: Good morning, Carol. Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So what happened?

LEPORE: Well, I think Carly clearly has a name I.D. issue at this point still. We know going into the first debate she only -- fewer than 40 percent of the voters knew her name. Going into the second debate, fewer than 50 percent of the voters knew her name. And so she still has that issue. When we look at the state polls, however, in the early primary states, Iowa, New Hampshire, she's polling in the top three.

And if you look at the average, if you look at the Real Clear Politics polls which are averaging polls across the board, she started out at 1 percent. Today she's at 7 percent. So the arrows are clearly going in the right direction. Factor in the fact that she's receiving numerous endorsements in various states and her recent fundraising numbers, which in this last cycle she outraised Marco Rubio. So you have to look at the picture in totality, I believe.

COSTELLO: OK. Well, let me lay this by you. Some say --

LEPORE: OK.

COSTELLO: Some say Carly Fiorina can't figure out how to define feminism for a GOP audience. On one hand, she effectively stood up for women everywhere with that great comeback to Donald Trump, but then she went to war with Planned Parenthood, which I understand she's pro-life, but she used a falsehood out of that video to do it. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIORINA: Anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table. Its heart beating. Its legs kicking. While someone says, we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: A majority of women support Planned Parenthood. Half of women support abortion rights. Did Carly Fiorina, by saying that, alienate women who aren't quite as conservative?

LEPORE: Well, I think, one, you know, the argument that Carly made, we may have to agree to disagree on that. She feels very strongly and convicted about in what she said about Planned Parenthood and the video. And her comments have been borne out by some news organizations. Secondly, I think her bigger point is, not whether you are pro-life or pro-choice on this issue, but it's a matter of what are the -- you know, harvesting fetal tissue doesn't necessarily fall on one side or the other. It doesn't fall on a partisan.

This speaks to a broader issue. It speaks to the character of our nation. It speaks to how do we want to be defenders of life, if that is value that Americans hold dear, then we ought to all rise up and speak in support of that. This is not a pro-life, pro-choice argument. So I don't think that that's a factor with women voters.

I think clearly Carly has been very clear on where she stands on this feminism issue. And her definition of feminism clearly and simply is women should be able to choose their path, whatever that path is. And it should be unobstructed. So -- and I think your viewers can find her remarks, she delivered a whole speech on feminism, it's on YouTube, and I would encourage folks who have any question about where she stands on that to look at that video.

COSTELLO: All right. Fiorina is also stepping up her criticism of Hillary Clinton, her camp -- actually, her supporters released an ad.

My question is, shouldn't Carly Fiorina be attacking her Republican opponents and not Hillary Clinton at this particular time?

LEPORE: Well, I don't know about, you know, critiquing her Republican opponents. I think we have a number of very qualified candidates in the field. And that's just not Carly's style, necessarily. I think, yes, she does wanted to differentiate herself from her competitors in the Republican field, and I think she has a strong footing on which to do that. Whether you look at her business experience, her nonprofit experience, her technology experience, are clear delineators between her and her Republican rivals.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: But I think --

LEPORE: It can be made in a civil way. COSTELLO: But I think what people really like in the debate was, you

know, she was tough and that resonated with voters -- you know, after that debate her poll numbers shot up. But we haven't really heard that kind of language from her lately or have we and we just haven't noticed?

LEPORE: Well, Carly is spending a lot of time right now in those early states and other states around the nation, talking specifically to voters and answering the questions that are of most concern to her. They want answers. They want to know what it is and where she stands on the issues of importance today, the economy, national security.

[10:10:04] And she will have many opportunities, next week, the first -- the next debate next Wednesday and then subsequent debates in November, December, and then several into the New Year to delineate herself and her positions amongst her Republican opponents.

COSTELLO: Loretta Lepore, thanks so much for your insight. Appreciate it.

LEPORE: Thank you, Carol. Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Is the Joe Biden guessing game entering its final hours? I know many of you hope so. New maneuvers by Biden and his political allies may mean the decision is imminent. But minutes ago we learned that Hillary Clinton is sending a message of her own.

So let's head to Brianna Keilar, she's our senior political correspondent, and Jim Acosta, he's live at the White House, and he's going to talk about Joe Biden.

So let's get the Biden stuff out of the way first, shall we?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Sure.

COSTELLO: Take it away, Jim.

ACOSTA: Well, Carol and Brianna, it seems like Vice President Biden is sending some messages of his own. You know, we should point to these live pictures, we're seeing right now. Vice President Biden attending an event in honor of former vice president Walter Mondale over George Washington University here in D.C. And Vice President Biden, you know, with all of the speculation about what he's going to do, is he going to run for president, you know, I hate to say it, but he is taking some very subtle digs at Hillary Clinton. There's really no other way to describe it.

Consider a couple of things that he said just in the last several minutes. First, he talks about how when he was part of the Obama transition team, he had veto power over Cabinet secretaries, which would presumably include the secretary of state.

Here's what Vice President Biden had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We spent 14 hours a day some days, on the 80th floor, whatever it was, in a high rise in an office building in Chicago, and putting together a cabinet. The president at the outset said, you have veto right on anybody in this cabinet. If you think we should not move, and sure enough, he asked my opinion on every cabinet member, and we were in total agreement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now he went on to say during this exchange with Walter Mondale that, you know, when it comes to traveling around the world and speaking on behalf of this administration, he said, we've had two great secretaries of state, but when I'm abroad, there's no question I speak for the president, which could be read as another dig.

And then consider that Vice President Biden went back to this line that he uttered yesterday about not having enemies in the Republican Party, sort of harkening back, not saying it directly, but harkening back to what Hillary Clinton said at the debate last week in Las Vegas when she said that she considers Republican -- people in the Republican Party her enemies.

Here's how Vice President Biden talked about it just earlier this morning. Once again, here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I really respect the members up there. And I still have a lot of Republican friends. I don't think my chief enemy is the Republican Party. You know, this is a matter of, you know, making things work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, Carol, he said almost this exact thing yesterday at a climate change conference. Those comments obviously have nothing to do with climate change. The comments he's making there have nothing to do with Walter Mondale. So you can only, you know, come to the conclusion, he's talking about Hillary Clinton there. And it's kind of astounding because we're all talking about, well, is he going to make this decision, is he not going to make this decision?

But he's very much sounding like a candidate earlier this morning. At one point he talked about how he did not definitively say the president should not go after Osama bin Laden. You know, that's one of the narratives in Washington that Hillary was in favor of it, Biden was against it. He was fighting against that during this chat with Walter Mondale so this is going to generate a lot of headlines this morning.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Brianna, is Hillary Clinton's camp going, what?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, she -- what they're concentrating on today, Carol, is sending a message of their own to both Joe Biden, a would-be competitor, and to Bernie Sanders, who was Hillary Clinton's closest competitor and Hillary Clinton, her campaign announcing today that she has secured the endorsement of more than 50 African-American mayors. This includes the mayor of Columbia, South Carolina. And in almost half of these mayors who were endorsing her are from South Carolina. That is key.

Also James Perkins, the former mayor of Selma, Alabama. He was the first black mayor of that historic city. So the message that she is sending and that her campaign is sending to Joe Biden is, hey, buddy, you're late to the game. You know, we have been working on this ground game, on this organization on securing these endorsements and we are well ahead of you when it comes to this.

But the other big message is to Bernie Sanders, and that is specifically in South Carolina. It is the third contest during the primary and caucus season. The black vote is all important to a Democrat who is trying to win that state. And she's sending a message to Bernie Sanders, who doesn't do very well with black voters compared to Hillary Clinton, hey, I got this. I have secured this support and I'm going to stop you after Iowa and New Hampshire. There's no path for you. That's the message she's sending.

[10:15:07] COSTELLO: Interesting. Jim Acosta, Brianna Keilar, thanks.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, top U.S. officials reportedly hacked. An exclusive interview with one of the professed hackers who said he did it while he was high.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Did the head of the CIA really just get hacked? The FBI and Secret Service are investigating reports that personal e-mail from CIA director John Brennan and Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson were breached.

This morning we're hearing from the -- we're hearing from the men who said they did it. Who said they did it all. The apparent hackers giving CNN an exclusive phone interview.

[10:20:05] Here's what we know. The self-proclaimed hackers describe themselves as Americans, they say they're under the age of 22 and smoke pot every single day. As for their motivation, free Palestine.

Laurie Segall is in London with more. Good morning.

SEGALL: I will tell you this, Carol, it was really interesting to actually get on the phone and talk to these guys. And I'll tell you a little bit about how I found them. They were posting -- the alleged hackers were posting on Twitter what they say were the leaked documents from the director of the CIA's inbox. And so obviously that Twitter gained a following, and I was able to get in touch with them through that.

Now they spoke to me a little bit about their motivation. They kind of added a little bit more about why they want to do this. And they also said something pretty shocking about how vulnerable government officials are. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: How vulnerable are other government officials to people like you?

UNIDENTIFIED ALLEGED HACKER: I would say 100 percent vulnerable. I mean, most things are on the Internet. There's always something that -- or someone that can make it vulnerable. And exploit it. And that's just what we are doing.

SEGALL: Tell me a little bit about your background. I know you don't want to share too much, but why is this so important to you?

UNIDENTIFIED ALLEGED HACKER: Because I don't always think about myself, you know what I mean? Like somebody has got to do something. The United States government aren't going to stop because they think they're above everybody, so somebody's got to take a stand, I guess.

SEGALL: You seem to have a lot of hatred for the government. Did something happen?

UNIDENTIFIED ALLEGED HACKER: I don't know why the people trust the government so much that they're being so stupid. We all trust the CIA with their security, but really an attack this easy can be done. We can, like, send e-mails and get passwords for highly sensitive servers. I mean, I don't know why we didn't.

SEGALL: Where do you draw the line? How do you view yourselves?

UNIDENTIFIED ALLEGED HACKER: I view myself as a guy that likes computers. And I don't like the government either. I'm not a terrorist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEGALL: And Carol, sources have actually confirmed that both of the accounts were, in fact, hacked. We can't independently verify that these documents were those leaked documents. You know, that being said, I try to take everything they're saying with a grain of salt because obviously you hear they were disguising their voices. We don't know exactly where they are or what they're saying is true, but you know, if it is, it is very, very scary to think that these guys who don't call themselves sophisticated hackers were able to breach the personal e-mail of the director of the CIA. That is very eye- opening and also very troubling when you look at it, Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh, absolutely. Has the CIA contacted you or those guys you talked to?

SEGALL: You know, we've heard from the CIA. They say that they are looking into it. When I spoke to the hackers yesterday, they said they have yet to hear from them. They believe they're untraceable but they also said something pretty interesting which was that they thought they said they're going to keep doing this, they're going to keep targeting government officials, they're going to keep targeting the police until they get raided. You know, you almost -- you almost get a sense of immaturity when you

talk to them. I've covered cyber security quite a bit. I've spoken to a lot of very sophisticated hackers. And you almost get the idea that they did this -- they kept changing their story to say that there were three of them, then there were six of them, then there were nine of them. You get the idea that this is almost someone who could hack because they figured out they could and it was kind of easy, which is really eye-opening when you look at the motivations behind why people are deciding to hack more and more.

COSTELLO: You got that, right. Laurie Segall, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, want to win the war on drugs? Sir Richard Branson has an idea, the Virgin Group founder, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:17] COSTELLO: All, I repeat, all drugs should be legalized, this according to music and airline industry pioneer, Sir Richard Branson. Branson is a longtime advocate of decriminalizing personal drug use and treating it instead as a health issue. Branson says the United Nations, at least in part, agrees. He posted a paper prepared by the U.N.'s head HIV doctor on his blog. It reads, quote, "Treating drug use for nonmedical purposes and possession of personal consumption as criminal offenses has contributed to public health problems and induced negative consequences for safety, security and human rights."

But the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crimes says not so fast. They're now walking back any suggestion that it advocates decriminalizing personal drug use. The office says the paper was for discussion only and that the position was, quote, "misunderstood."

Virgin Group's Sir Richard Branson is with me now. Good morning.

RICHARD BRANSON, FOUNDER, VIRGIN GROUP: Good morning. And nice to talk to you.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. You say the United Nations is backtracking now only because they were pressured. Who was pressuring the U.N.?

BRANSON: Well, what we know is that the document was meant to be launched on Sunday. And the "New York Times" had a copy of the -- were given a copy of the document and then they went to the White House to get their comments and quite quickly that we believe now that the executive director of the U.N. ODC ended up saying the document could not go out on Sunday as planned. And so exactly why they changed their mind, who's to know. But I think what is really important is what was in the document.