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Trump vs. Clinton; FBI Releases Email Report; Tropical Storm Hermine Still Threatens Millions. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired September 02, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. Its 1:00 p.m. here in Washington. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: We're tracking two major stories this hour. Downgraded but still dangerous. Hurricane Hermine weakens to a tropical storm after making landfall along the Florida Gulf Coast. It's now moving along the Carolina coastline. Forecasters are warning of life-threatening flooding in its wake.

And take a look at these aerials over Tampa, Florida with homes flooded. We're going to tell you where Hermine is headed next, how it will affect the weather for millions of holiday travelers this weekend.

And presidential politics. The election now less than 67 days away. Donald Trump is trying to expand his reach among African-American voters. He holds a round table in Philadelphia next year ahead of his trip to Detroit tomorrow.

Hillary Clinton's lead over Trump has been cut in half, according to our new CNN poll of polls. That's an average of the five most recent surveys. It shows Clinton at 42 percent to Trump's 37 percent. She was ahead by 10 points just a few weeks ago.

Donald Trump tries to convince African-American voters to give him a chance. He'll make a direct appeal next hour in Philadelphia and once again tomorrow in Detroit.

And the campaign is reportedly taking steps to keep Trump on message. Our Political Reporter Sara Murray is joining us from outside Trump Tower in New York with the very latest -- Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Wolf, well, while Donald Trump is going to Philadelphia today to hold this round table to continue his minority outreach, it's really the trip to Detroit that's getting a lot of attention. And that's partly because "The New York Times" unearthed a transcript prepared by Donald Trump campaign really tailoring the answers they wanted him to give when he speaks with an African-American pastor tomorrow. Now, today, people are trying to iron this out. And the pastor says that he does not want to see these kind of canned (ph) remarks from Donald Trump and he's going to be changing his questions. Take a listen to what he told CNN earlier today.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

WAYNE JACKSON, PASTOR: I have questions that they don't know about, no one know about. I changed them after that came out. And I want to make something very clear. There was no coercing with the Trump campaign and myself to try to get him up in hand on these questions.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, Wolf, that's really going to be the challenge for Donald Trump as he goes to communities like Philadelphia, as he goes to Detroit. It's not just a matter of sitting down with an African- American pastor, visiting a black church, holding a round table. But it's a matter of trying to convince these voters that Donald Trump cares about their problems that he's having on authentic experience when it comes to visiting these communities and chatting with the citizens there.

So, we will see soon how it goes in Philadelphia and, of course, how that plays out tomorrow in Detroit -- Wolf.

BLITZER: We certainly will. Sara, I understand that Donald Trump had an intelligence briefing over at the FBI offices in New York City today. What do we know about that?

MURRAY: Well, we know very little about the intelligence briefing, in large part because they are classified intelligence briefings. But Chris Christie was with him as he left Trump Tower earlier today.

Remember, Christie accompanied him to his first intelligence briefing as well. They believe that this is a way for, sort of, Chris Christie to not only be there to help Donald Trump understand what he's learning, for the two to sort of bounce these issues off one another, but also for Christie who is the head of the transition team to sort of prepare in the event that Donald Trump does win the presidency so that he's ready to hit the ground running.

But, of course, Donald Trump is going to be going up against Hillary Clinton in these debates in just a couple of weeks. She obviously has a much longer experience record in foreign policy than he does. So, this is supposed to sort of help inform his thinking of the different challenges around the word. But, obviously, the challenge for Trump is to make sure you that don't leak any of that classified info when you do go on the debate stage -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, the tradition is that the U.S. intelligence community, the CIA, they offer exactly the same intelligence briefings to both of the presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I also understand retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he accompanied Chris Christie and Donald Trump to that intelligence briefing earlier this morning. All right, thanks very much for that. Sara Murray in New York.

Our other big story we're following right now, the threat from Hermine far from over. More than 30 million people from Georgia to New York, they're currently under tropical storm watches and warnings. Hermine made landfall this morning in Florida as a category one hurricane. At least one death is reported in the state. Hermine brought strong winds, heavy rain, surging waves but weakened to a tropical storm after moving over land and heading to Georgia. Officials are still assessing the damage. But Governor Rick Scott of Florida says 253,000 Floridians are without power.

[13:05:02] For more on where this storm is heading, we want to bring in our Meteorologist Chad Myers. He's over at the CNN Severe Weather Center. Chad, what's the latest you're getting from the National Hurricane Center?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Wolf, the latest is that it's 50 miles per hour, so down from 80 where it was. That's good news. It's picked up forward speed, now doing 18 miles per hour. That should lessen the flooding possibility if you spread the rain out more quickly.

But also, the 50 miles an hour winds getting on top of areas that had been already saturated. So now, we have trees with roots in mud and now you're going to put wind on top. So, all of a sudden, we're going to start to see these trees come down, power lines still coming down today. That's today.

And then, for the weekend, the storm goes back out into the ocean. It get into the Gulf stream which is the warm water out there and it sits there for three days. And the forecast is for it to get stronger, back up to 75 miles an hour. Now, notice this big circle. That's where it could be at 75 miles per hour. So it could be back on land, the same kind of left-hand turn that Sandy did. But it also could be way out in the Atlantic because that's still part of that cone of uncertainty. It's still a possibility.

Now, for Connecticut, Long Island, all the way down the Jersey shore already now seeing those tropical storm watches and, in the blue, tropical storm warnings.

Let's get to the map here and I'll show you what happened. Hermine came on shore in the -- for the people of Saint Marks, the worst possible place. But for the state of Florida, there are so few people living there compared to the rest, compared to Panama City, compared to the East Coast. This was an area that has a lot of man groves, a lot of trees and not a lot of shoreline, not a lot of beaches. So, people don't build there.

But, all of a sudden, it has now moved on up toward Charleston. And those Charleston winds are going to pick up. The flooding in Charleston may pick up as well.

Here's what happens on Sunday night. All of a sudden, this thing is in the Atlantic Ocean and it's getting stronger. It tries to go out to sea but the computer model says, wait, not so fast. There's a high pressure out there. I can't go too far. I'm going to turn around and possibly come back. This is the comeback part that no one is sure whether it's going to come back too far, not far enough.

And with the numbers you see here, Atlantic City with a 24-mile-per- hour wind, if it gets closer that could be double, if it's on land, that will be triple. That's what we certainly don't want but it's a possibility.

Wolf, it's five days away. We have trouble with the 12-hour forecast for a hurricane, but this still is a possibility for your Labor Day weekend at the beach. Not much fun.

BLITZER: Yes, and we're going to watch it closely together with you, Chad. Thank you very, very much.

As Chad just mentioned, Hermine is forecast to move over coastal North Carolina later tonight and then into the Atlantic. Right now, 33 counties there are under a state of emergency. Let's talk about this with the North Carolina governor, Pat McCrory, who's joining us right now.

Governor, thanks very much for joining us. I know you're incredibly busy. How is your state preparing for this storm?

GOV. PAT MCCRORY (R), NORTH CAROLINA: Well, our goal is to be over- prepared and under-whelmed. Our goal is to get this storm through North Carolina as quick as possible and hope it doesn't stall not only in North Carolina but anywhere up the coast. But we've got Swiftwater Rescue ready. We've got the Guard ready. All our local shelters are ready. Our main concern is flooded roads, flooded beaches and also electric power going out.

But we've gotten some good news in the last 10 to 15 hours, based upon the track of the storm and hopefully the rain won't be as heavy as predicted five to 10 hours ago.

BLITZER: I assume you'll start losing some power in various parts of the state, at a minimum, right?

MCCRORY: Yes, that's what we anticipate and we're ready. We've got all our electric utility crews right at the edge of where the storm is hitting, ready to go in for repair as quick as possible. And, again, we've also got the Guard and DOT, our Department of Transportation, ready to move in.

Again, our major concern is flooded roads. And with the tree roots being very loose, the ground being very loose, it's usually that's how the power outages go. And that's our biggest concern, at this point in time. And, of course, the safety of our residents because, sadly -- if we have a lot of swift water, sadly we have automobiles try to go through that swift water and comes with that is tragedy. And that's what we're trying to prevent in North Carolina.

BLITZER: So, what's your advice to residents in North Carolina? What should they be doing right now to prepare? MCCRORY: Well, in Ocracoke Island, we've already evacuated that of

all tourists, about 500 cars have been evacuated from that. But everyone else need just stay still, stay in their house and stay out of any low lying areas. Right now, it's raining pretty hard from Raleigh east all the way on the coast.

You know, just stay home or stay at work right now and stay off any wet roads, and especially areas where you could have flash floods. We have the possibility of having from two to 12 inches of water. And in low-lying areas, it could get even higher. And if it gets higher than that, we could have some potential serious problems.

[13:10:00] And we're just hoping this is a fast moving storm, because, in the past, North Carolina's had that stalled system which caused major flooding in past decades.

BLITZER: Good luck, Governor. Pat McCrory of North Carolina. Good luck to you. Good luck to all the folks not only there, but in South Carolina and up the East Coast as well. We'll watch Hermine closely together with you.

MCCRORY: Thank you very much, Wolf.

BLITZER: Up next, Donald Trump heads to Detroit this weekend to visit an African-American church. Our panel joins us. We'll talk about the Republican presidential candidate's message to black voters.

And take a look at this. Live pictures coming in from Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina as we continue to monitor this tropical storm, Hermine, right now, it's aftermath. So, we'll take a quick break. Much more right after this.

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BLITZER: Donald Trump visits an African-American church in Detroit tomorrow as part of his outreach to black voters. Next hour, he holds a round table with community leaders in Philadelphia. Trump has come under some fire for making appeals to black voters in front of mostly white audiences. Some critics have dismissed his outreach as insincere, even insulting.

In an interview on Fox News, Trump once again painted a bleak picture but he conceded to say, not all blacks are living in poverty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[13:15:04] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via telephone): But, first of all, I have so many African-American friends where they're doing great and they're - they're making good money. They're - they're living a good life. They've got the American dream going. But you have tremendous numbers of African-Americans that have really had a hard time, I mean beyond belief. And I - you know, I - I read the numbers where you have so many in poverty and the crime is horrible and the education is terrible and they live terribly. And I say, what do you have to lose? I say to them, what do you have to lose? Give it to me. I'm going to fix it. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Joining us now to discuss this and more, our politics executive editor, Mark Preston, Molly Ball, political writer for "The Atlanta," and "Time Magazine" political reporter Zeke Miller.

Mark, this "New York Times" report suggesting that the questions and even the answers for Donald Trump's interview that he's giving to this African-American pastor in Detroit pretty much all scripted.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Right. And what we should tell our viewers, this often happens during interviews where the campaign tries to find out at least the topics that you're going to discuss, let alone the questions. It's not often that the questions are actually submitted in person. Now, the pastor was on our air just a few hours ago and he said he has done it before. In fact, he did it when he gave a prayer at an event where the vice president was at and he had the prayer vetted by the White House. The White House asked for it.

But to the point of whether they were going to go piece by piece and let Donald Trump answer them the way that he said, he said that's not true. So it's a little bit he said, she said. We don't really know the full answer.

BLITZER: The answers that were scripted, those were what, like talking point recommendations for Donald Trump?

PRESTON: Right.

BLITZER: What he should say.

PRESTON: Right.

BLITZER: They knew the questions and then his staff came up with some suggested answers.

PRESTON: Correct. And the irony is, is really, you don't even necessarily need to have this scripted out. It's really basic how you would answer questions about how you would take care of a community or what you can - other (ph) programs you could put in place. This isn't necessarily very difficult questions to answer. That was most surprising to me.

BLITZER: Molly, as you know, Dwyane Wade, the NBA all-star, the great player, his cousin was shot and killed in Chicago. Donald Trump was criticized for a tweet, at least an initial tweet, that didn't seem to show enough empathy for what had happened a he basically used it to tell people, vote for me, I can fix these kinds of things. Dwyane Wade has now responded. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DWYANE WADE, CHICAGO BULLS PLAYER: I was grateful that it started a conversation. But on the other hand, it was just - it was - it's just a bad taste in my mouth because of, you know, of what my family is dealing with and what our city of Chicago is dealing with and it looks like it's been used as a political gain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So what's the fallout from that exchange, that initial tweet which a couple hours later he tried to correct by expressing his deep remorse?

MOLLY BALL, POLITICAL WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Well, I mean, I think this is the reason that you see Donald Trump trying to go to the African-American community and make contact and do outreach because he has been so damaged by the kind of long distance interactions he has had on issues of significance to the African-American community where they've - where he has seemed opportunistic, where he has seemed to be using people as pawns and trying to score political points.

And so the hope I think of his campaign is that he can change that impression by having this interaction, but it's then very damaging when you have the script come out and it reveals that they don't even trust him to have an actual conversation with black voters without being told what to say in advance. And the substance of those talking points is also very interesting because they're very boilerplate, very traditional sort of talking about opportunity, shifting the subject away from race and it's very different than the message that we've heard Donald Trump speak to the African-American community thus far.

BLITZER: He's also reaching out, as you know, Zeke, to the Hispanic community. I got some criticism in recent days from some people, some Hispanics who actually supported him earlier. One of the guys who did that, the founder of a group called Latinos for Trump, set off a bit of a firestorm in an MSNBC interview. He said this, and I'll read it to you. We'll put it up on the screen, Marco Gutierrez. "My culture is a very dominant culture and it's imposing and it's causing problems. If you don't do something about it, you're going to have taco trucks on every corner." So this reaching out to the Hispanic community, not necessarily working all that well for Donald Trump right now.

ZEKE MILLER, POLITICAL REPORTER, "TIME": No, and it's been kind of a Jekyll & Hyde from Donald Trump himself, from his campaign and just shifting from poll - from poll to poll, there's really not a coherent message of strategy, of what they want Hispanic voters or really all voters to understand about what Donald Trump thinks about his immigration proposals specifically, but also his outreach to any sort of different affinity group. He doesn't have - you know, we saw on Wednesday alone, he's going into Mexico and saying he greatly respects and holds Mexican Americans beyond reproach, is the same groups in his campaign announcing he'd call - said many of them are rapists. And then hours later said - you know said - talk about the crimes of - the alleged crimes of many people here illegally. And it's sort of a - the (INAUDIBLE) - we're paid to do this. The people who are just a general observer watching at home watching Donald Trump, I think they're just going to confused. Their head must be spinning. And what is he trying to communicate? It seems he walked away without a win.

[13:20:12] BLITZER: The latest CNN poll of polls numbers show a decline in support for Hillary Clinton. Right now, we'll put it up on the screen, you can see there, this is an average of five of the most recent polls that we accept. Hillary Clinton at 42 percent, Donald Trump, 37 percent. That's about half of the support she had only a few weeks earlier.

PRESTON: Right. And so this is the double edged sword of Donald Trump being able to dominate the media coverage, suck every bit of oxygen out of coverage, basically. Hillary Clinton has had a bad couple of weeks, and she will continue to have a bad couple of weeks because this e-mail server situation is not going to go away. However, Donald Trump still can't get out of the way of it and what he should have done is taken a step back and allow Hillary Clinton still to come under the scrutiny of the media as opposed to going in and try to suck all the oxygen out again. And that's why you're seeing a dip in the polls numbers certainly nationally for Hillary Clinton. But if you look at the battleground states, if the election were held today, Hillary Clinton becomes president.

BLITZER: Does he - she's ahead significantly in almost all of those key battleground states.

PRESTON: (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: But in some of them it's relatively close.

PRESTON: Yes, relatively close.

BLITZER: All right, guys, we have much more to discuss. Don't go too far away.

Up next, the new jobs report. That number is now out. The campaigns have plenty to say about that. We're going to break down the numbers, the arguments on all sides. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:26:06] BLITZER: The break - there's some breaking news this hour in the race for the White House. We're just learned that the FBI has released the notes from their interview with Hillary Clinton. Our justice correspondent Evan Perez is joining us now live.

Evan, we've been waiting for these notes. What have you learned?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, one of the remarkable things that we've learned from looking at these documents is the way in which the FBI approached and questioned the secretary of state about how much she knew about the handling of classified information, whether or not she was properly trained and how to deal with the stuff, how to properly dispose of it and, frankly, what to do when she finally left the State Department with all the information that she had on these private - on this private server. And repeatedly what you see in her answers from her 302 from the interview that was done with the FBI is that she doesn't recall ever being trained or ever being told how to handle this classified information. And that's one of the things that really stands out here.

I think we got a picture of that a little bit from the FBI director, who said in his testimony to Congress last - back in July and August that he was surprised to find that Mrs. Clinton was - seemed to be ignorant about the rules that govern how to handle classified information. For someone in her position, he was really shocked to see how little she knew about the way - how information was supposed to be labeled when it was - when it was being sent on these - on these - on classified e-mail system. And you get that sense from the interview with the FBI. She repeatedly says she does not recall when she's asked about it.

Another thing that stands out from these documents, Wolf, is you see a lot of what this is about. This is about the CIA and in particular the CIA being very concerned about the discussion about the drone program, which is a covert program on these State Department e-mails, including ones that were sent to Mrs. Clinton. And that is what has been driving this controversy all along. There's a lot of redactions. Many, many, many parts of this has been redacted simply because it refers to this covert program that everyone knows exists, obviously, but which members of the State Department team were openly discussing on unclassified e-mails, and this is what has given a lot of concern and what's driven a lot of this controversy.

Again, we're still going through these documents, Wolf, but those two things really stand out here, what has - what has made this controversy simply not go away for Mrs. Clinton and her campaign.

BLITZER: Did they release, Evan, both the - the notes that were taken by the FBI agents in the - in the interview that Hillary Clinton gave them about the e-mail server, as well as the recommendation to the Justice Department from the FBI director that no criminal charges be filed against Hillary Clinton? They were supposed to release both. Did they release both of those documents?

PEREZ: They did, Wolf. They did. The first document is a longer document, about 30 pages long, that was sent from the FBI and it summarizes what they found, including, according to the FBI's report, 81 e-mail chains which FBI investigators determined contained some level of classified information, whether from confidential, which is the lowest level, to top secret special access programs. And, again, that last part would be the drone program, which is what drove a lot of the concern about this information being contained in a private server in her basement in her home there in Chappaqua, New York.

Both documents are now out. We're going through a lot of it to see how the FBI arrived at their - at their recommendations. But what you see repeatedly is that her answers are, I didn't know. I simply did not know that this was inappropriate for me to do. And we've heard that from her repeatedly in her - in her answers to questions about this.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to get back to you, Evan. I know you and your team, you're going through the documents.

PEREZ: Absolutely.

BLITZER: We'll, obviously, have a lot more on this in the coming hours here on CNN. Evan Perez reporting for us.

[13:30:01] There's other important news we're following. The new jobs numbers released this morning will become potentially a key talking point for both of the presidential campaigns. We'll talk about the political impact in just a moment.

I want to bring in our chief business correspondent, Christine