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Trump Defends Slamming Beauty Queen's Weight; Debate Reality Check; The Most Watched Debate. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 27, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:31:58] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Republicans might say Hillary Clinton dealt the woman card by bringing up Donald Trump's past transgressions. One of them, Alicia Machado. She's a former Miss Universe who gained weight after winning the crown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman "Miss Piggy." Then he called her "miss housekeeping," because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Where did you find this -- where did you find this?

CLINTON: Her name is Alicia Machado.

TRUMP: Where did you find this?

CLINTON: And she has become a U.S. citizen. And you can bet --

TRUMP: Oh, really?

CLINTON: She's going to vote this November.

TRUMP: OK. OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. So Alicia Machado did gain weight after winning Mr. Trump's Miss Universe Pageant. Trump tried to clarify his remarks this morning on "Fox and Friends."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (voice-over): She was the worst we ever had. The worst. The absolute worst. She was impossible. And she was a Miss Universe contestant that ultimately was a winner who they had a tremendously difficult time with as Miss Universe. You know, she gained a massive amount of weight. And it was -- it was a real problem. We had a -- we had a real problem. Not only that, her attitude. And we had a real problem with her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So, reality check here. Alicia Machado went from 118 pounds to 160. She's 5'7". According to the CDC, the average American woman weighs 166 pounds.

So let's talk about this. With me now is Maeve Reston, CNN national political reporter, Scottie Nell Hughes, CNN political commentator and a Trump supporter, and Symone Sanders, a Democratic strategist and former national press secretary for Bernie 2016.

So, Scottie, why -- why did Mr. Trump go there this morning? Why not just let it go?

SCOTTIE NELL HUGHES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, any advice for a man is, never talk about a woman's weight in the past. I mean it's not -- you're not going to win no matter what you say. Just, you know, that's (INAUDIBLE). But I think it's interesting. This just shows how she cherry picks. She -- this can -- Secretary Clinton can bring out this issue, but she doesn't talk about Tara Conner and how Mr. Trump stood by her side and got her into rehab. She doesn't talk about Miss Wisconsin '05, who because of Mr. Trump was able to establish a scholarship for her son and who is very sick right now. It's cherry picking. So if we're going to start, this is -- this is an interesting --

COSTELLO: Well, he himself brought up Rosie O'Donnell last night.

HUGHES: Like I said, it's never good to bring (INAUDIBLE). But that's the reason I think why yesterday was very bad for Hillary Clinton because I don't think there's a single woman that woke up this morning going, hooray, I'm now going to go vote for Hillary Clinton, which is what she needed to do. She needed to bring over those married women who overwhelmingly are supporting Mr. Trump. And she did not get that message across last night.

COSTELLO: So, Symone, how do you see things?

SYMONE SANDERS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I don't think that married women overwhelmingly are supporting Donald Trump. And I don't think it was Secretary Clinton that needed to go out there on that debate stage and submit herself as the candidate for women. I think she's already done that.

I think that Donald Trump tripled down on his comments about the former Miss Universe this morning and it's damaging because there are millions of American women across this country that can identify with someone calling them overweight when, again, the average size of a woman is the size of the former Miss Universe. So I don't think it helps him at all. I think it furthers the point that he was just a little bit unhinged last night. That he was grossly unprepared. And Secretary Clinton came out looking like a winner because Donald Trump just wasn't ready for last night's debate.

[09:35:20] COSTELLO: Well, but here's the thing, Maeve, Hillary Clinton's camp has already released this web cam video on this very topic. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator: he was overwhelming. I was very scared of him. He'd yell at me all the time. He'd tell me, "you look ugly," or, "you look fat." Sometimes he'd "play" with me and say, "hello, Miss Piggy," Hello, Miss Housekeeping."

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: She weighed 118 pounds or 117 pounds, and she went up to 160 or 170. So this is somebody that likes to eat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was very humiliating. I felt really bad, like a lab rat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Maeve, it's probably no accident that she's also speaking in Spanish, right?

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Right. Absolutely. I mean I think that -- I don't understand why Donald Trump went back to this issue this morning on "Fox and Friends." Just -- the tape is out there, as the Clinton campaign is showing, and, you know, to just move on and talk about the issues that he really wants to be talking about would have been a much better strategy. But --

COSTELLO: Like the child care issue. Why not say, you know what, my daughter has these three --

RESTON: Right. Exactly. And that's, you know, that's -- to that point, you know, Kellyanne Conway was saying this morning that she really believes that the polls are tightening up in states like Colorado and some of the western states because more suburban women have been attracted to his message over the last couple of weeks, the policies that he has rolled out. And if you would just stick to those issues, I think states like Colorado would be a lot easier for him to win.

COSTELLO: Although I will say that Mr. Trump said that he was nice to Mrs. Clinton last night because he did not bring up her husband Bill Clinton's infidelities because of Chelsea Clinton. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (voice-over): When she hit me at the end with the women, I was going to hit her with her husband's women, and I decided I shouldn't do it because her daughter was in the room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that's what you were talking about.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: OK. So he did it because Chelsea Clinton was in the room. But, you know what, Chelsea Clinton's been through it. Remember this picture taken of Chelsea Clinton, she was holding hands with her parents, you know, just right after the Monica Lewinsky thing. It's coming up. You will remember this famous, iconic photo. There it is. Chelsea Clinton's been there and Chelsea Clinton has heard everything, Scottie. So, really, was -- it was out of deference to Chelsea Clinton?

HUGHES: Oh, absolutely. I mean we could have brought up a whole plethora of stories. You've got 17 women out there that involve Bill Clinton. You have sometimes reporters tiptoeing around. We've seen Hillary -- Chelsea Clinton and not asking about those, yet hitting Ivanka Trump about her -- about her father's issues from his private past. You've seen that. So I think actually that showed a little bit of grace on his part, a little bit of class. And I think there's a reason why he's winning --

COSTELLO: But --

HUGHES: By 17 points with married women, because he showed that. Why bring it up? We already knew --

COSTELLO: What?

HUGHES: According to CNN --

COSTELLO: He's not winning by 17 points --

HUGHES: Well, with married women, CNN/ORC poll --

COSTELLO: No.

HUGHES: I've got the numbers right here. It's the latest one that came out September 6th.

COSTELLO: OK.

Going back to the Bill Clinton thing for just a second, though. If Mr. Trump had brought that up during the debate, might Hillary Clinton have come back at him with his own infidelity?

HUGHES: Well, absolutely, but he still -- the thing is, he's still good friend with all of those women. All of his ex-wives are still speaking on his behalf. His children are all still together. He's always said his family was priority, his children were number one. They've got good relationships. You can't say that about Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and the women that have the allegations against him. So you have to take it -- you have to look at the entire picture.

RESTON: But, I mean, he did -- he did bring up the issue by saying that he wasn't going to bring it up. And now we're going to be talking about it. And it doesn't seem like the campaign is going to be backing away from this issue at all. I would only expect in further debates to see him, you know, weigh deeper into that issue because they do think it's a good issue for him. But I think it's very dangerous territory for, you know, for both of those campaigns to deal with.

COSTELLO: And, Symone, people say this is a dangerous issue for Mr. Trump because Hillary Clinton wasn't the cheater, her husband was.

SANDERS: Exactly. And so this is, again, Donald Trump trying to hold Secretary Clinton responsible for something again that she did not do. This is definitely dangerous territory, but Donald Trump knew exactly what he was doing last night when he said, I was going to say something, but, you know, I didn't say it. And then he went down in the spin room and then on "fox and Friends" this morning where he opened up the line of questioning so he can put in there exactly what he didn't get out on that debate stage.

But, again, I don't think it's a great strategy. I think women and voters in general are turned off by this strategy. And Donald Trump's going to be dinged for it. We just have to wait and see what the numbers say when the polls come out.

COSTELLO: Yes, we're all eagerly awaiting those numbers. Maeve Reston, Scottie Nell Hughes, Symone Sanders, thanks so much for joining me this morning.

[09:39:50] Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it's one of the top issues for voters, the economy. So who convinced voters that they're the best candidate to handle it? We'll break it down, next.

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COSTELLO: Mexico and jobs. Signature issues for Donald Trump. And he wasted no time diving right in. Six seconds into his very first answer, he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: More jobs are fleeing the country. They're going to Mexico. Ford is leaving. You see that, their small car division leaving. Thousands of jobs leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio. They're all leaving. And we can't allow it to happen anymore.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, so that didn't make Ford very happy. Christine Romans is here with some reality check.

So, Christine, true or false?

So, Ford actually tweeted about this. Very rare to see a company fact checking a presidential candidate. Ford now says it has more hourly employees and produces more cars in the U.S. than any other automaker. And then it shows you this. For the past five years, Ford has created 28,000 U.S. jobs and invested 12 billion in U.S. plants. Yes, it is moving its small car division to Mexico, but it's using those same facilities here in the U.S. to build other things, and those workers in the U.S. will still have jobs. [09:45:06] That's the Ford issue. If he talked about Carrier, or some

other companies, yes, many of those have been moving jobs to the detriment of U.S. workers. But Ford, not the best case there. Here, though, here are U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2000, Carol. This chart really tells the story. Some 5 million lost. By one estimate, maybe as many as 800,000 of those gone to Mexico for a variety of reasons, technology, globalization, trade liberalization after NAFTA. So, Carol, we're going to say the CNN reality check fact finding team says this is mostly true, his claim that jobs are going to Mexico.

COSTELLO: But not specifically Ford per say.

ROMANS: Yes. Yes.

COSTELLO: OK.

So Clinton talked about job creation too. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: People that have looked at both of our plans have concluded that mine would create 10 million jobs and yours would lose us 3.5 million jobs and explode the debt --

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You are going to approve one of the biggest tax cuts (ph) in history.

CLINTON: Which would have a recession (ph).

TRUMP: You are going to approve one of the biggest tax increases in history. You are going to drive business out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, true or false?

ROMANS: So she's talking about a forecast from the economist Mark Zandi, from Moody's Analytics. And he's somebody who has advised Republican candidate for president John McCain, but he supports Hillary Clinton. And he found that if there are no changes at all, no new economic plans at all, there would be more than 7 million jobs created over the next eight years. Add in Clinton's plans, she would add another 2.8. So altogether it would be 10 million. So he's saying that if you do nothing there would be 7 million jobs created. So on this one the CNN fact check team is saying it's true, there could be 10 million jobs under Hillary Clinton, but misleading, because current policies would already have jobs growth in this country.

COSTELLO: OK. So on to the next thing. Clinton and Trump also butted heads on -- also butted heads on trade deals. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Now you want to approve Trans Pacific Partnership. You were totally in favor of it, then you heard what I was saying, how bad it is, and you said, I can't win that debate. But you know that if you did win, you would approve that and that will be almost as bad as NAFTA. Nothing will ever top NAFTA.

CLINTON: Well, that -- that is just not accurate. I was against it once it was finally negotiated and the terms were laid out. I wrote about that in -- I wrote about --

TRUMP: You called it the gold standard.

CLINTON: Well, I hope --

TRUMP: You called it the gold standard of trade deals.

CLINTON: And you know what --

TRUMP: You said it's the finest deal you've ever seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, burn it, Christine.

ROMANS: Well, she's against the TPP today, but, Carol, you can listen to the secretary of state, in her own words in Australia in 2012.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade. The kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So we are rating his claim true. She's against it today, as you can see the populist anger against these trade deals, it is not a good thing on the campaign trail right now to be supporting. She is against it now but she has supported it in the past and she did call it the gold standard in 2012.

COSTELLO: We heard it for ourselves. Christine Romans, many thanks.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Trump goes from praising Lester Holt's line of questioning, to calling some of his questions hostile. Trump's reaction to the debate, next.

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[09:52:48] COSTELLO: Donald Trump praising Lester Holt after the debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I thought Lester did a great job, OK. I thought, honestly, I thought he did a great job.

QUESTION: You thought the questions were fair?

TRUMP: Yes, I thought he was great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Oh, but this morning, Donald Trump had a markedly different response expressing disapproval.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I thought it went really well. I mean I had some hostile question, also that was OK. I thought it went really well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what grade would you give Lester Holt?

TRUMP: I'd give him a c, c-plus. I thought he was OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So let's talk about the whole thing with CNN's Brian Stelter. He's with me now. Everybody's -- before we dive into the Lester Holt issue, got to know about ratings because everybody wants to know, did we hit 100 million?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I'll have more for you in about an hour, but it looks like this debate was higher rated than the 2008 debates and the 2012 debates. And it is on track to be one of the highest rated debates ever. We'll have better numbers a little bit later in the day.

COSTELLO: OK, so let's delve into Lester Holt right now because he was a man who could not win. He just couldn't win no matter what he did, right?

STELTER: You're telling me. That's right. But I think he's feeling good this morning. Certainly his bosses at NBC are already publicly praising him. You know, he started out with a very hands-off approach, letting these two candidates actually debate, actually argue, which I found very revealing. You know, the number of times that Trump, for example, interrupted Clinton was very interesting.

COSTELLO: Yes, I think there was a breakdown at "The New York Times" this morning. He interrupted her some 26 time, maybe more.

STELTER: Right, he definitely interrupted her more often than she interrupted him. You could see, thanks to that split screen, which was really this -- you know, the iconic image of this debate, the split screen of this man and this woman on stage. You could see them sometimes choosing when to interrupt and when not to. But later --

COSTELLO: OK, let's talk about the split screen because --

STELTER: Yes.

COSTELLO: We were having a debate this morning.

STELTER: Oh.

COSTELLO: Did Donald Trump know that he was going to be on camera the entire time?

STELTER: And the reason why I think he had to know is because these sorts of issues are hashed out well in advance. There's negotiations that happen between Trump's lawyer and Clinton's lawyer and the debate commission. And so all the campaigns knew, both campaigns knew, that CNN and other news outlets would have access to all of the camera shots at all times. Remember in the primary debates, these split screens were also used quite a bit. So I think Trump was expecting this. And if he wasn't, he should have been.

But, you know, this morning he is complaining about Lester Holt quite a bit, as you showed in that sound bite, saying that some of the questions were unfair. He's also suggesting his microphone wasn't working. There's no indication that's the case. But I do wonder if he's setting up sort of an argument against the media and against the moderator looking ahead to the debates, number two and three.

[09:55:13] COSTELLO: I think that's a sure bet, don't you?

STELTER: I do. I do. This morning, Rudy Giuliani, one of his top surrogates, is out saying that if -- well, actually, we got it. We can put it on screen. He says, "if I were Donald Trump, I wouldn't participate in another debate unless I was promised that the journalist would act like a journalist and not an incorrect, ignorant fact checker."

COSTELLO: What?

STELTER: That's the message from Rudy Giuliani, who does have Trump's ear.

COSTELLO: OK, so -- well, let's look back and like Lester Holt corrected Donald Trump on things that were -- were not true. His support of the Iraq War. He did support the Iraq War before he was against it, right? The birther thing, right? Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton started it. That's just a lie.

STELTER: That's right.

COSTELLO: So what is Lester Holt supposed to do exactly?

STELTER: I think -- I think Holt was choosing his spots about when to speak up and when not to. The reality check team here at CNN, and other news outlets, confirmed that there were more falsehoods uttered by Trump than Clinton. But you have to wonder, going into the next debate, if Trump will make more hay out of this controversy.

COSTELLO: Brian Stelter, thanks for stopping by.

STELTER: Thanks.

COSTELLO: And do inform us when you get word of those ratings.

STELTER: I will. I'm watching.

COSTELLO: All right, the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)