Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Clinton, Trump Neck-and-Neck in New CNN Poll; Trump, Clinton Fight for Key Battleground States; Trump Tries to Clarify Immigration Stance Again; Trump Unveils Endorsements of 88 Military Officials; Biden, Kaine Team Up to Woo Rust Belt Voters. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 06, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Sixty-three days to go until Election Day, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton now locked in a statistical dead heat. A new CNN/ORC poll shows Trump ahead of Clinton by two points among likely voters. Among registered voters, Clinton leads by three. Keep in mind, all of this is within the margin of error.

Let's bring in CNN Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He's going to dig into this whole deeper forest. Good morning.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Certainly an interesting view here two months out basically after our Labor Day start here.

Now, campaigns are run state by state. Battleground state polls are important, but what this national poll is showing is really how tight this race is. Let's take a look at some of those numbers again.

Likely versus registered voters, let's start there. Donald Trump is leading ever so slightly among likely voters -- that is the universe of voters who we expect to turn out -- 45 to 43 percent. As you said, that is within the margin of error.

We go beyond the horse race though. This is probably more instructive here. Look at the enthusiasm. This is something that concerns Democrats, concerns the Clinton campaign and gives the Trump effort, you know, some positive news here. 58 percent of Trump voters say they are enthusiastic to vote for him. Only 46 percent of Clinton voters say they are enthusiastic.

Now, that doesn't mean that they won't necessarily vote, but this is a turnout issue. That is why we are seeing Democrats across the board get out on the campaign trail, from President Obama to Vice President Biden and others, trying to fire up those Democrats.

Now, they're also concerned with a gender gap. Let's take a look at this number here. Among women, Donald Trump is massively behind, some 15 points behind Hillary Clinton, 50 to 38 percent, but it is nearly reversed on men. Trump versus Hillary Clinton, 22 point there. That is so key here going forward. Also White versus non-white voters. Take a look at these numbers. Trump, 55 percent of White voters, and Clinton, 34 percent -- a 22- point gap there. Non-White voters here though, a 53-point gap, 71 percent for Hillary Clinton, 18 percent for Donald Trump.

So this basically where this race is now starting here going forward to the next 63 days or so. Again, if you look at the state by state battleground polls, Hillary Clinton has an edge in most of those, but they know the race is tightening. That convention bounce that they had a month or so ago has bounced away, and this race is tighter than they would have liked. Carol.

COSTELLO: Well, fascinating numbers, and we're going to dig deeper into that a little later. But, Jeff Zeleny, thanks for going through the numbers for us. I do appreciate that.

Some critics think the race is tightened because Clinton was asleep at the wheel in August. Donald Trump was everywhere. Clinton was meeting with big money donors. Well, that is about to change. Phil Mattingly has more on that this morning.

Hi, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol. That's exactly right. If you live in a swing state, congratulations, you're about to see a candidate or a surrogate or somebody related to candidates or surrogates.

We are now in the sprint, the home stretch, the post-Labor Day period which is crucial to both candidates as they try and get themselves in position to win in November.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Welcome to our big plane.

MATTINGLY: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, inviting the press to travel with them for the first time on their campaign planes.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it's nice everyone's on board.

MATTINGLY: Both planes just a few hundred feet apart on the same tarmac in Cleveland. Inside Trump's Boeing 757, the billionaire, modeling his stance on immigration again.

TRUMP: We're going to make that decision into the future. Okay? Good question, I'm glad you asked. That decision will be made.

MATTINGLY: The GOP nominee now saying he'll decide later on whether undocumented immigrants could apply for legal status under his administration.

TRUMP: I'm not ruling out anything. To become a citizen, you're going to have to go out and come back in. MATTINGLY: A question ruled out less than a week ago.

TRUMP: For those here illegally today who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and one route only.

MATTINGLY: Trump spending Labor Day looking and acting more like a traditional politician, glad-handing at Ohio's largest county fair and courting voters at a diner with his running mate. Hillary Clinton barnstorming Ohio with her top supporters and deploying her former rival to New Hampshire. The former Secretary of State battling a coughing fit at a rally.

CLINTON: Every time I think about Trump, I get allergic.

MATTINGLY: And answering questions from reporters about her health after months of criticism for avoiding the press.

CLINTON: I'm not concerned about the conspiracy theories. There are so many of them I've lost track of them.

MATTINGLY: Slamming Trump for cozying up to Vladimir Putin.

CLINTON: I think it's quite intriguing that this activity has happened around the time Trump became the nominee.

MATTINGLY: As investigations continue into whether Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee.

CLINTON: He, very early on, allied himself with Putin's policies.

MATTINGLY: While Trump is dismissing allegations of impropriety about a donation three years ago.

TRUMP: I never spoke to her about it.

MATTINGLY: In 2013, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was considering opening a fraud investigation against Trump University. Around the same time, the IRS says the Trump Foundation improperly donated $25,000 to a group supporting her re-election. Trump insisting he never discussed the investigation with Bondi.

TRUMP: I never spoke to her. First of all, she's beyond reproach. She's a fine person. Never spoke to her about it at all.

MATTINGLY: Bondi ultimately deciding not to proceed with the investigation.

CLINTON: There are so many things that are questionable about that, and the IRS certainly thought so and said it was illegal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And, Carol, that battle ground blitz continues today. Hillary Clinton in Florida where you can expect to hear more about that issue between Donald Trump and the State's Attorney General Pam Bondi. Donald Trump in North Carolina and Virginia. Now, North Carolina is a state that when you look at Trump's narrow pathway to a victory in November, Donald Trump has to hold onto it, a state that Mitt Romney won in 2012. In Virginia, a state where Donald Trump has seen the polls move away from him in a large way over the last couple of weeks. You're seeing increasing effort in both of those battleground states, something we're obviously going to see in all battleground states in the weeks and months to happen. Carol?

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, we are. Phil Mattingly, thanks so much. Let's talk some more about this now. With me now, Jason Johnson, politics editor for theroot.com and professor of political science and communications at Morgan State University, and David Paleologos. He's the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. Welcome to both of you.

JASON JOHNSON, POLITICS EDITOR, THEROOT.COM: Good morning.

DAVID PALEOLOGOS, DIRECTOR, SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY POLITICAL RESEARCH CENTER: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So, Jason, the big news for Mr. Trump does not stop with just these new CNN polls. The campaign just announced the support of some 88 retired military officials. Now, some of the names on that list raise eyebrows. The "New York Times" reports that one filed court documents accusing president Obama of not being born in the United States and challenging his ability to be president. Another labeled the fight of extremists as a religious one between the Christian nature and an idol of Islam.

Still, though, 88 signed the letter. Your thought?

JOHNSON: I mean, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who have served in the Armed Forces, and who they endorse is not necessarily an indicator as to whether or not that person would be the most capable Commander-in-Chief that we'll have. But I will say this, Carol. This is the overall thing. Trump, in the last two weeks, has actually started to put together something resembling a presidential campaign. He is giving speeches, he is showing up where he needs to show up, he's having people come out and give him endorsements.

The problem is he's still really behind on the ground game. He still doesn't have a lot of people in Florida. He still doesn't have a lot of people in Ohio, but at least he's making an attempt, which is something that should make Republicans happy.

COSTELLO: OK. And I want to delve deeper into this poll, David, because I know that's your specialty because there are so many contradictions in this poll. For example, terror and foreign policy. So Mr. Donald Trump has a six-point lead on Clinton when it comes to who would better handle terrorism. On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton has a 16-point lead on the topic of foreign policy. So how do you reconcile that?

PALEOLOGOS: Well, you have Donald Trump who's been talking about ISIS pretty much in every speech and with the kind of terminology of drawing a line in the sand and we're going to wipe out ISIS, and so the people who are independents in this race are looking to that and that's what you're seeing in your poll.

In the Suffolk poll, we saw kind of the same thing. You know, we see in terms of national security, Hillary Clinton was leading in that number also. So voters are differentiating between the two.

COSTELLO: So foreign policy is different than fighting ISIS?

PALEOLOGOS: You know, I mean he's taken a more aggressive combative viewpoint. And foreign policy is very detailed. It's very technical, and people don't see Donald Trump as detailed or technical right now. They see him as potentially drawing a line in the sand and being strong against ISIS, but the devil is in the details.

COSTELLO: OK. So here's another contradiction, and I'll post this one to you, Jason. This is another contradiction. When asked who was the stronger leader, registered voters picked Trump 50 to 42 percent, but Clinton comes out on top by a five-point margin when asked who was better able to handle the responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief. So why is that?

JOHNSON: I think, Carol, because the split that we're seeing in the poll is the split that Americans are sort of experiencing, you know, really for the last 15 or 20 years. I rember polls in 2004 that would ask the question, you know, do you believe in the war in Iraq or do you believe in the war of terror? If you think that those two things are connected, that's completely different. And if you thought attacking Iraq had nothing to do with what happened on 9/11 and that's what we're seeing here.

Those Americans who want a strong bombastic kind of leader, they think Donald Trump is the better option. Those Americans who want a leader who makes sense and seems more capable and secure and confident on what they're doing, they want Hillary Clinton. And I've always felt like this election is going to be very, very close in the popular vote. I don't think it's going to be that close in the Electoral College.

COSTELLO: Interesting. And I'd like post this --

PALEOLOGOS: You know, that's --

COSTELLO: Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, David.

PALEOLOGOS: No, I was just going to say, in our poll, we watched the number of people who don't trust both or who are unfavorable to both. According to our poll, one in six likely voters who will go to the polls today with an unfavorable opinion of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Now, that slightly favors Trump right now, at least in that subset of voters, because the trustworthiness issue seems to be more deep rooted than the temperament issue. And again it will be the independents who decide. COSTELLO: Right. And among independents -- and I'm just going to sheet here, Clinton seems to be in trouble with independents. So, according to the CNN poll, Mr. Trump does better the independents, 49 percent to 29 percent.

PALEOLOGOS: And I think that's what you're seeing in the CNN poll, yes.

COSTELLO: OK. So just a final question because I do want to poll into perspectives, so, Clinton -- it seems to me Clinton did not lose support to Donald Trump. Trump gained support. So what does that tell us, Jason?

JOHNSON: Well, what it tells us is that, number one, you had a lot of people who didn't want to support Trump, but now the Republicans are finally coming around. The good news for Republicans is many of those "Never Trump" people are coming around and they're supporting him. Independents are coming around and saying he's an OK idea. Independents also, young ones, happen to be going to Gary Johnson.

The good news for Hillary Clinton is that, like you said, she hasn't really lost that much. But I'd say, overall, everybody has to be cautious about this kind of poll because any poll that shows someone leading with less than 48, 49 percent of the vote, you've got way too many people still saying they're still undecided, and undecideds tend to break for the incumbent party.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Jason Johnson, David Paleologos -- actually, stick around because I'm going to ask you about the trust question some more in the next block of NEWSROOM.

Also, still to come, Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton doesn't look presidential and her running mate goes on the attack, even calling his comments idiotic.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:17:09] COSTELLO: Hillary Clinton is now everywhere. She was on "Good Morning America" this morning. She talked with reporters on board her brand new campaign plane. And she's holding a rally in Tampa later today.

But Clinton was not everywhere in August. Perhaps that's why Clinton and Trump are now in a statistical tie in our latest CNN/ORC poll.

So, let's talk about that. With me now is Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. He spoke at the Democratic National Convention and is a Clinton supporter.

Welcome, sir.

REP. EMANUEL CLEAVER (D-MO), HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTER: Good to be with you.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. Was it a mistake that Mrs. Clinton did not campaign hard in august? Even Trump's campaign manager said why in the world didn't Hillary Clinton's campaign totally put us away in those two weeks back when Trump was stumbling in August?

CLEAVER: Well, two things. One, campaigns need money at the presidential level. Actually they need funding now at every level.

And Hillary Clinton is far ahead of Mr. Trump in terms of fund- raising. If she's going to have a 50-state strategy, then she needs to have the funds to do the strategy. So, she built up the coffers and now you're going to see the benefit of it because now you'll see ads all over the country. And I think that's going to create some separation from the two.

COSTELLO: Because, you know, Donald Trump absolutely controlled the news cycle, right? He went to Mexico, he campaigned. He was on, you know, CNN and other networks constantly. And Mrs. Clinton was not.

CLEAVER: Well -- but keep in mind those were not positive experiences. Controversy has dogged Donald Trump after his --

COSTELLO: His poll numbers went up.

CLEAVER: -- trip to Mexico.

Well, I'm not sure and I don't think any of us is sure exactly why they went up. There may be some influence on those numbers by the e- mail situation, by the foundation situation. And I think all of that's going to have to wash before we know exactly what's going on. I think with Donald Trump, the information out about the $25,000 donation to the attorney general of Florida, I think that's going to probably be factored in as people are measuring character.

COSTELLO: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Just to clarify what you're talking about, the CNN poll was taken at the very same time the FBI released information on Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server. That may or may not have affected the polls. So, that's what you're talking about.

I also want to ask you about this. Mr. Trump's campaign says Secretary Clinton ought to go to Mexico. Mrs. Clinton says she is not going to Mexico. He says she does not look presidential.

This is what she said on "GMA" this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[09:20:02] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I just don't think she has a presidential look. And you need a presidential look. You have to get the job done. I think if she went to Mexico, she would have had a total failure. We had a big success.

INTERVIEWER: But when you talk about her not looking presidential, are you talking about aesthetics here?

TRUMP: I'm talking about -- hey, by the way, she says things about me that are horrible. As an example, the single greatest asset I have according to those who know me is my temperament. But she came up with this Madison Avenue line, oh, let's talk about his temperament.

It's the single greatest asset I have is my temperament.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Does she look presidential, fellas? That's an idiotic comment from Donald Trump. I got added to this ticket about 11, 12 weeks, 100 days from the election. This great public servant has been on the field for 17, 18 months. It's hard to keep up with her.

The day he tweeted out Hillary didn't come to Mexico. Does she have the energy? She was here in Ohio talking to the American Legion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: What do you make of that? What is this really about?

CLEAVER: Well, first of all, Donald Trump going to Mexico no more makes him look presidential than going to bed makes an individual become a quilt.

So I think you know going to Mexico is something that presidents don't generally do, presidential candidates in an election, because you're not trying to win over the Mexican vote. You're trying to win over the people here in the country. So most presidential candidates don't do it.

They make a trip to Europe or maybe go to Israel, but going south of the border was more of a publicity stunt than anything else. I don't think that's going to have any impact. If anything, negative, because number one, most of the legislators don't want him to come back to Mexico. The president is in deeper trouble than he was before Donald Trump came.

And Latinos in the United States are pushing further away from him, in fact, some of his own people have backed away. Some of his own supporters who are Latino. That's not positive.

COSTELLO: I will say, some of his supporters think it was a good thing Mr. Trump went to Mexico. He stood beside what they call an ineffectual leader and he looked strong.

CLEAVER: Well, he looked taller. If that matters, maybe he did look strong.

But you've got to understand, the president of Mexico has poll numbers that could be barely ahead of Satan. So I don't think that in any way helped Donald Trump. I mean, and he got nothing out of it. It was a misadventure. And the people in this country are letting him know it.

He is in deeper trouble now as a result of Donald Trump coming. So there would be no purpose for Hillary Clinton to fly down to Mexico because Trump said she should do it.

COSTELLO: Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

CLEAVER: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, from trust issues to foundation fallout, Vice President Joe Biden answers Clinton's critics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, the one thing Hillary understands, she understands the pain of actual folks out there who can't get their kid to school.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:27:38] COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

In a matter of hours, Democratic V.P. nominee Tim Kaine will deliver a major national security address in North Carolina. His speech today coming on the heels of a Rust Belt tour where Clinton's campaign unleashed its working class weapon, Vice President Joe Biden. The pair teaming up in Pittsburgh on Monday and that's where CNN's Jeff Zeleny spoke with Biden and Kaine.

Jeff is here now to tell us what they said.

Good morning.

ZELENY: Good morning, Carol.

It's Vice President Biden's last time around this campaign lap, and, boy, you know, we've seen him over the years. He loves to campaign. But he also was trying to teach Tim Kaine a thing or two about really what they can do to try to win over some of those white working class voters.

But we started by asking him what advice he would have for Hillary Clinton. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BIDEN: I think it's an incredibly confusing year, number one. I think a lot of the criticism of her has been veiled and unspecific. I think what you're going to see now as we focus on what each of the candidates are going to do, I think you're going to see that changing. And I feel it.

Look, the one thing Hillary understands, she understands the pain these people are in. She understands the pain of actual folks out there that can't get their kid to school. So, he has no notion of it.

And my advice to Hillary always is, just open up, let them see your heart a little more. She has the heart.

BIDEN: Well, I think she's -- I -- certainly Tim (ph), but my understanding is she is going to make a final judgment about what they're going to do with the foundation and just lay it all out and this is what's going to happen from this point on, this is who I am, this is what we're going to do. And they've got to be good.

ZELENY: Has she not been clear enough?

BIDEN: Well, it's been a moving target. Look, the whole notion of how foundations function is now, all of a sudden, being put in play like it never was before. So, I'm absolutely confident she is doing it by the book and I think she is going to figure out what she is going to say crystal clear to the American people about what the relationship between the family and the foundation will be from this point forward.

KAINE: And one of the things that's interesting, Jeff, is, you know, she made a commitment about the foundation activities before the election.