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Trump Slam Economy Under Obama; Dana Milbank: Clinton Right on Trump "Deplorables"; Shimon Peres Hospitalized in Israel; Killer Mike, Others Weigh in on Presidential Candidates. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired September 13, 2016 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here's more numbers just to confuse everyone but it's significant. This is the news that came out today. This is from the U.S. Census Bureau. Median income in the U.S. grew to 56,516. That represents a 5.2 percent raise for American workers, the first gain since 2007. Additionally, the poverty rate also declined. All obviously positive news. We heard the president out thing that as part of his legacy. He said, yes, it took time for change. How do you hear Trump juxtaposed with the positive news today?
SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, USA TODAY: This is very important. These are important statistics for the Democrats because we know that the unemployment rate has gone down significantly, down below 5 percent, during President Obama's tenure but the stag station of wages has been a big problem for American households, this means more Americans can feel the economy is really in that recovery that we've technically been in for some time but which a lot of people and their families and households haven't felt. Definitely important statistic.
But you see two different versions of America from these two campaigns and we saw that in the two conventions in July, a much more upbeat version of where the country is headed among Clinton supporters and Democrats than Trump supporters. We found in our latest poll that about six in 10 Clinton supporters think the country is headed in the right direction. 90 percent of Trump supporters think the nation is headed in the wrong direction. This may be the most fundamental divide between these two campaigns.
BALDWIN: Kris Kobach, I want to play this sound. This is from Trump talking about the economy, talking about the different parties. This is from 2004.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. Now it shouldn't be that way but if you go back, it just seems the economy does better under the Democrats but we've had some pretty bad disaster under the Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: "It just seems the economy does better under the Democrats." This is something the Clinton campaign grabbed on to when they tweeted out today, Kris.
KRIS KOBACH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It is interesting. If you look at the economic ebbs and flows, the ups and downs of GDP, sometimes a Democrat is in the White House and sometimes a Republican is but there have been some periods when Democrats have been in the White House but I think we have this probably false conceit in America that whoever is president has the ability to just by their own will somehow change the economy, we know that it's a combination of what are the tax policies coming out of Congress, what is the president doing? So it's a variety of things.
BALDWIN: But Trump wasn't saying that. I hear you on the nuance and the different administrations but Trump is speaking in a bit more general terms saying it just seems the economy does better under the Democrats. We've had some pretty bad disasters under the Republicans, his own words.
KOBACH: I think he was probably talking about the way I read it, when a Democrat is sitting in the White House because, for example, the second term of the Clinton administration you had Republicans balancing the budget in Congress, Clinton signing that budget, and so you had some good years, but a lot of it had to do with Republican fiscal conservatism, too. So it's hard to generalize like that. Bottom line, is Trump is --
(CROSSTALK)
KOBACH: Go ahead.
BALDWIN: Go ahead, Hilary.
HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I was going to say much of it has to do with the fact that when the Republicans were in charge they drove up the deficits by creating huge tax cuts across the board. Creating a big vacuum in the economy and essentially crashing the labor force. And so that is -- and then, you know, Trump started to make more money when Democrats came into office. That's what he's saying and yet what he's trying to do now is to suggest that is those same policies, those same advisors, those same across-the-board tax cuts are somehow going to create a different situation for the middle- class voter. It's not true.
BALDWIN: As a middle class voter, I thought it was interesting President Obama was questioning how Donald Trump would be championing working-class people.
Nia, to you, questioning the appeal of working Americans to Mr. Trump. Seemed to highlight that.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: I think that was one of the most effective lines in his speech today, essentially taking one of Trump's arguments and his selling point that he alone conditioned k do it and he is the voice for so many voiceless and saying well, what have you done so star in that regard and I think Donald Trump and his supporters will say listen, he's created X number of jobs as a businessman but I do think it's fair to look at those business practices, to see if he's invested. For instance, he's going to Detroit saying he wants to invest in those communities, well he hadn't done that already as a business person so I think Obama's tone, the kind of mockery and the questioning I think is a smart one. And I think even this ad that you see today with Donald Trump saying, "Democrats do it better," he sounds like Bill Clinton's speech from 2012. And you can imagine that if you're a Democrat you'll make that into an ad because there you have Donald Trump arguing the Democratic policies are better for the economy.
[14:35:13] BALDWIN: Final question, Jeff Zeleny, to you.
She mentioned Bill Clinton in terms of people on the trail this week because obviously Hillary Clinton is recouping from pneumonia. Her husband will be at fundraisers in Beverly Hills. Who are the big names?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: The biggest name is the one we saw right there in pennsylvania but Tim Kaine was in Michigan, Chelsea Clinton has two stops today in North Carolina so really the entire Democratic Bench has been out there and Hillary Clinton has been up with ads but I think the key takeaway here, president advisors bout this, and we heard him say he's like I am really, really, really into electing her. He is pretty much clearing his calendar to the extent he can in October to campaign for her and I think that he makes probably the best argument. We saw in 2012 at the convention how Bill Clinton made the argument for Barack Obama, made the economic case for that. Ryan's Bill Clinton, if you will. I think he can make the case better. He's not related to her, but they used to be adversaries. I think he has some credibility here, at least with that coalition here. So she has a big bench. I can tell you her advisors would also like to see her on the road soon which we're told will happen later this week.
BALDWIN: Jeff Zeleny, thank you.
We ask everyone to stand by.
Coming up, we'll continue the debate over deplorables. Trump's running mate calling on Hillary Clinton to apologize. We're also hearing from Hillary Clinton's running mate on this comment and what Tim Kaine is now saying.
I'm Brooke Baldwin. Stay with me. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[14:40:39] TRUMP: While my opponent slanders you as deplorable and unredeemable, I call you hard-working American patriots who love your country and want a better future for all of our people.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: Her comments displayed the same sense of arrogance and entitlement that led her to violate federal laws as secretary of state, hide and delete her e-mails. I mean, think, 33,000 e-mails.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Donald Trump speaking moments ago in Iowa, grabbing that "basket of deplorables" comment Hillary Clinton made on Friday. He's still running with it. She is being lambasted by a number of Republicans on that. His campaign, Donald Trump's, pouncing on her words, painting her as this elitist, who doesn't care about American voters. He just said smearing essentially "patriots."
His running mate, Governor Mike Pence, is doubling down on that today, calling on Hillary Clinton to apologize. But you know what? My next guest says she's not wrong. Dana Milbank, opinion writer for "The Washington Post," who just penned a piece, "Yes, Half of Trump's Supporters Are Racist."
Dana Milbank, thank you for joining me.
DANA MILBANK, OPINION WRITER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Good to be with you.
BALDWIN: In reading your piece, you say Clinton wasn't wrong. You went on to say, if anything, she low-balled the number. And this election has shown us there is so much more racism in this country than we believed.
MILBANK: It's true, and I'm not making the argument that half or more of Trump supporters are putting on sheets at night and not that kind of racist but -- and I'm not saying it was smart of Hillary Clinton to say such a thing, and I think you're seeing the blowback for that there. But if you look at things like the American national election survey, the gold standard of research going on in this country for years, you actually can unpack those numbers. There's been a huge jump in the amount of racial stereotypes expressed by white people in America, people who will say that black Americans are less intelligent or lazier than white Americans. And it's really quite shocking, something like 62 percent of white voters have these sorts of sentiments and by better than 2-1 they vote Republican. So as a matter of statistics, it's probably true that people expressing racist sentiment are -- constitute more than half of Trump supporters. They were, in fact, more than half of Mitt Romney's supporters and now you see Trump obviously taking the rhetoric far beyond anything the Republicans have before.
BALDWIN: Listen, he's taking it -- it could be a smart strategy for him but you and I were just talking in commercial break, you were listening to President Obama, as we all were here, and he didn't mention her comments a single time. Surprised by that?
MILBANK: Well, it indicates that President Obama doesn't think it's good politics and wt I was just mentioning this startling jump in racial sentiment in this country going from 2008, there's been sort of a 20 percentage point jump in the number of white Americans expressing these racist stereotypes and a lot of that has to do with backlash against the first African-American president, one, now you see Trump stirring it up saying to people it's OK, it's safe, you're not deplorable and you're a hardworking America. And you have them, and you have Mike Pence refusing to use that word to even apply it to David Duke so tacitly it's saying it's OK, it's safe to say this, now.
BALDWIN: In fact, Tim Kaine was asked to weigh in on what you just mentioned and he condemned that interview. Here's a piece with Tim Kaine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TIM KAINE, (R), VIRGINIA & VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Last night on a news program Wolf Blitzer ask, a running mate is David Duke deplorable? "I don't want to get into the name calling business." If you can not call out bigotry, if you can not call out racism, xenophobia, if you can't call it out and you stand back and you're silent around it, you're enabling it to grow. You're enabling it to become more powerful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[14:45:00] BALDWIN: My thought when I heard this, if you have Mike Pence saying, well, I don't want to be part -- get into the business of name calling, but yet he is signed on to a ticket where you have the president of the name-calling club at the top of the ticket, I'm not sure what I was trying to say.
MILBANK: Mike Pence has created this deplorable situation for himself. On your network this morning you had Kellyanne Conway saying, "Just say he's deplorable." But rather than being sucked into that trap, he's refusing to say it. He'll say David Duke is a bad man. Won't use the word. You even have Senator Mike Lee, a friend of Mike Pence's saying, "Come on, use the word." Now he's dug in there so what could have been a nice opening for the Trump ticket seems to be causing the backlash because they're refusing to denounce the deplorables in their midst, even just one of them.
BALDWIN: Dana Milbank, thank you so much.
MILBANK: Thank you
BALDWIN: Come back any time. Appreciate it.
Coming up here, my trip to a barbershop in Atlanta. Rapper Michael Render, Killer Mike, noted Bernie Sanders surrogate, joined me as we talked to friends. It was quite the conference. It was real. And what they said about Hillary Clinton might surprise you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Why do you question Trump because he hasn't released them?
JAMIDA ORANGE, ACTIVIST: Because he's a big fat liar.
SHELLEY: That's true. I'll grant you that.
ORANGE: We go back to Hillary. We going to say Hillary's a liar --
(CROSSTALK)
SHELLEY WINTERS, HARLEM NATIVE, TRUMP SUPPORTER: It doesn't matter she's sick it matters she lies and it matters she lied about being sick.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:51:01] BALDWIN: Breaking news out of Israel where former President Shimon Peres has been hospitalized after suffering a, quote, "brain episode."
CNN's Oren Liebermann joins me live from Jerusalem.
We know the former president, 93 years of age. How's his condition?
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've learned that brain episode was a stroke he suffered earlier this evening. At first he was taken to the hospital, he was fully conscious in stable condition just a short time later we got another statement from the office of president or former President Shimon Peres saying he had been sedated and intubated, was to undergo a cat scan so doctors could understand his condition. That's the update after former president Shimon Peres, 93 years old, suffered a stroke earlier this evening. We're awaiting the update of his condition. The results of that cat scan which we expect we hope comes from the hospital.
This isn't President Shimon Peres' first time in the hospital this year. He was taken to the hospital in mid-January having suffered a mild heart attack. A week and a half later he suffered an irregular heart beat. He was there for five days and at the hospital last week to have a pacemaker to put in. Another trip to the hospital. Everybody wishing a speedy recovery -- Brooks?
BALDWIN: Oren, thank you so much for the update there.
Meantime, the barbershop is known for candor, politics and perspective. I went to the Graffiti Swag Shop to hear about Trump and Clinton and the impact of the black vote on this year's election.
You are about to hear a candid conversation, six people, including Michael Render, AKA Killer Mike, rapper, activist and barber shop owner. You will hear from Taj Anwar Baoil, a firefighter and urban farmer; Shelley Winters, a Harlem native who is voting for Donald Trump; Jamida Orange, whose father marched many miles with Dr. King; Kalonji Changa, a grass-roots activists and local leader who is not at all voting on a national level, period; and Christine White, an attorney, who is all in for Hillary Clinton.
Here is the beginning of our conversation which took off very quickly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WINTERS: I think this weekend marks the turning point. I think the illness -- (CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Why is that in-air quotes? Her doctor says she has pneumonia.
WINTERS: Because last week when I believed this, I was called a kook, a conspiracy theorist.
MICHAEL "KILLER MIKE" RENDER, RAPPER & ACTIVIST: Who are you supporting?
WINTER: Donald Trump.
But I think this is a turning point in the election. I think that you lied about being sick, what else have you lied about and you're already seen as a liar.
BALDWIN: Who else feels like she lied versus just being sick?
CHRISTINE WHITE, ATTORNEY: Why would she need to lie about being sick? That doesn't even make sense to me. There's no rational argument about being sick.
WINTER: Her lying about being sick, absolutely. There's a long history in America. FDR was in a wheelchair for the majority of his presidency.
BALDWIN: We're talking about Hillary Clinton in 2016.
(CROSSTALK)
WINTER: The reason why she would lie is because, one, she's a woman, one, you don't want to appear weak because you're a woman, so by appearing -- and so --
(CROSSTALK)
RENDER: She's not lying because she's a woman.
WINTER: No, no, no. Absolutely not.
RENDER: That's what it sounded like. I didn't want you to get --
(CROSSTALK)
WINTER: No, no, I'm married to a woman. My mom is a woman.
(CROSSTALK)
ORANGE: Women go to work sick all the time.
(CROSSTALK)
WINTER: But when you go to work sick, you tell your boss, "Hey, I'm not feeling well today."
ORANGE: No, we don't. No, we don't.
WINTER: No, you don't? You don't? You don't? You don't?
TAJ ANWAR BAOIL, FIREFIGHTER, PARAMEDIC & URBAN FARMER: So first of all, her being sick is her personal business. That's not something she needs to disclose, in my opinion.
(CROSSTALK)
BAOIL: Because if I have something -- I had breast cancer. Why would I tell my employer that? What does that have to do with it?
BALDWIN: Are you running for president of the United States?
WINTER: Absolutely not.
BAOIL: Does that mean I can't do my job? I'm not running if president, but I save lives for a living. People rely on me to be in tiptop shape.
Do we need to know when this woman is on her menstrual cycle?
(CROSSTALK)
ORANGE: Yes, you do because she's a woman and we got to tell it all!
(CROSSTALK)
[14:55:15] RENDER: You know he didn't mean it like that.
But let me say this, though. I feel like we're making mistake we as good black people always make. Look, man, I had a white champion in Bernie Sanders. That was my man. It is hard for me not to bring him up in conversations but I must accept that he's out of the running. What's best for black people? I pray for everybody, Hillary included. I pray for Trump's toupee.
(LAUGHTER)
What is best for black people? And what made you pick Donald Trump versus --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: How many Trump supporters among us? Raise your hand? Who's all in for Hillary?
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Who is all in for Hillary?
ORANGE: I'm all in for Hillary.
BALDWIN: All in for Hillary.
(CROSSTALK) BALDWIN: I feel like you're kind of wavering.
ORANGE: I will commit. I will commit. What is a bigger deal for me is why Trump won't release -- and I don't want to hear nothing about, no audit, why he won't release his tax returns.
BALDWIN: Because he's says he's being audited although we haven't seen proof. Why do you question Trump because he hasn't released them?
ORANGE: Because he's a big fat liar.
SHELLEY: That's true. I'll grant you that.
ORANGE: We go back to Hillary. If we're going say Hillary's a liar --
(CROSSTALK)
WINTER: It doesn't matter she's sick, it matter that she lies and it matters she lied about being sick. And over a 30-year period this is the attack that has been put on her and her husband, that you lie. You lied about having relations with other women. The same with Hillary. It's a pattern. If you can't tell me that you me that Russia's about to attack or anything, anything of serious nature.
BALDWIN: Even though she's been secretary of state, has logged all these miles, at the end of the day, is it's about lying?
RENDER: I feel she's going to win, if I'm just -- but she's going endorsement.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
RENDER: She -- it seems the leader of the free world -- like I know we hear that and we're in America. People expect a lot of us and I wouldn't want someone I have the confidence to lead the free world to just drop dead on me. I know she's a good politician. I know that she's a good enough politician to reward people who are going to give her up to 80 percent of their vote. My question always doubles back down to what Taj Anwar wants to say, what's in it for us?
KALONJI CHANGA, COORDINATOR, NATIONAL COALITION TO COMBAT POLICE TERRORISM: She can't do anything for us because she is a puppet. She represent this is two-party system. The two-party system is not designed to help us at the grass-roots level, first and foremost. Secondly, they're both liars. We're clear on that. We figured that out long ago. So whether she's sick or not we know they both have a history of being psychotic, period. You know what I mean? We know she has no concern for our well-being as a people. We can take that back to 1994 with her and her husband --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: The crime bill.
CHANGA: Yes, the crime bill.
BALDWIN: Even though she says she's regret it, things she's said, that's still a big issue.
CHANGA: Before the election, who was talking about stopping police terrorism on the street? Neither one of them. Who was concerned with the homeless population? Neither one of them. Who's concerned with the prison population, over 60 percent of the prison population? We didn't hear a peep about that. She regrets it, that's good. I regretted selling drugs when I was younger when I got locked up. Me being a grass-roots organizer, it's all fair game here. It doesn't matter whether Hillary Clinton's the president or Dumb Donald, Wicked Witch of the West, or Dumb Donald, we don't care. It's the same program.
BALDWIN: Wicked Witch of the West or Dumb Donald?
CHANGA: We're totally not concerned.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
