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One Day After Most Watched Presidential Debate Ever, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Back on Campaign Trail. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired September 27, 2016 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:20] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And good afternoon. I'm Anderson Cooper. Thanks for joining me.
One day after the most watched presidential debate ever, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton back on the campaign trail, reacting to their historic faceoff, an event that drew a record audience of nearly 81 million viewers. Today the candidates wasted no time putting their own spin on their performances. Here was Secretary Clinton just moments ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Did anybody see that debate last night? Oh, yes. One down, two to go.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (voice-over): Well, I may hit her hardener in certain ways. I, you know, I really eased up because I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. But - but so I may hit her harder in certain ways. I think that - I don't know if it's the same forum, or if it's a similar forum. I had a problem with a microphone that didn't work. I don't know if you saw that in the room, but my microphone was terrible. I think - I wonder, was it set up that way on purpose. My microphone, in the room, they couldn't hear me. You know it was - it was going on and off.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.
TRUMP: Which isn't exactly great. I wonder if it was set up that way. But it was - it was terrible that -
CLINTON: We had a great, great time last night and I have to say, I was thrilled that I got a chance to lay out some of the middle-class economic policies and pro-family policies that I've been talking about throughout this campaign.
I'm going to show up. He gets to decide what he's going to do. But I will be there at Wash U (ph) in St. Louis. And then, after that, in Las Vegas. If I'm the only person on stage, well, you know, I'm the only person on stage.
QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) you microphone, Secretary Clinton?
QUESTION: What about his stamina? CLINTON: Anybody who complains about the microphone is not having a
good night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, by most accounts, Clinton came out on top, picking apart Trumps no-show tax returns and birther claims, hitting him on policy gaps. But Trump started strong, repeatedly casting Clinton as the typical politician who supported bad trade deals only until they came out against them. No doubt those themes will echo as both get back to the stump. Trump is in Florida this evening. Moments ago, Hillary Clinton finished up an event in Raleigh, North Carolina.
And that is where we find senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar.
So during the debate, Clinton slammed Trump for how he has treated women, including bringing up former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. Machado just talked to reporters, I understand.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right.
So, Anderson, this is very clearly a concerted effort and a very organized effort by the Clinton campaign to get Alicia Machado's story out there. She was the first Miss Universe after Donald Trump bought the campaign. And the Clinton campaign thinks this speaks to three different things. They think it speaks to sexism, as they charge Donald Trump with that, because of him talking about how she was overweight. They think it speaks to racism. In a video just put out by the Clinton campaign as well, this is a charge that Machado makes. And also another claim she makes is that as an employee of the pageant, she was supposed to earn 10 percent of what she brought in from advertising and she was never paid. So they think it also speaks to this idea they're trying to convince voters of that Donald Trump really doesn't look out for working people. She also appeared, as you mentioned, on this Clinton campaign call a short time ago talking and here's what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALICIA MACHADO, FORMER MISS UNIVERSE: For me, this campaign - these elections are like a bad dream, you know what I mean, because I never thought and I never imagine then 20 years later I'll be in this position, you know? I'll be in this moment like, you know, watching this guy again doing a stupid thing, and stupid comments and so (INAUDIBLE). You know I never - I never imagine something like this. It's a really bad dream for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: In the online video, Anderson, that the Clinton campaign has put out, Machado speaks in Spanish the entire time and it features video of - a soundbite actually of Donald Trump, because this was a controversy at the time, and he says - he says in this soundbite that she had weighed 117, 118 pounds and that she had gained weight and she now weighed over 160 pounds. He says in it, quote, "this is someone who likes to eat" and there's video of him - Machado says from "Inside Edition," which we see and she's - the video says that he invited reporters to watch her work out as this controversy was going on.
[14:05:07] Hearing from the Trump campaign, they say these are unsubstantiated claims -
COOPER: Right.
KEILAR: But Donald Trump himself talked about this today, Anderson, and he said this was - he talked about her massive weight gain. Back to you, Anderson.
COOPER: I want to, Brianna, just go to - Donald Trump is speaking live at a roundtable in Miami. Let's listen in.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: But - but it was - it was a fascinating period of time and I think we did very well. We won virtually every poll, every poll, except for CNN. And nobody watches CNN. But we won almost every single poll, CBS and Drudge and Slate and "Time" magazine and all of them, right? We won all of them. So - so that was a great - that was a great honor.
A very big moment. A very important moment. Talking about a lot of very important subjects, including jobs, including immigration. You folks know more about immigration than anybody. But immigration's such an important subject. And our military, our vets, taking care of our vets. But it was a - it was an interesting evening certainly and big league. Definitely big league.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Trump.
And I think we know you're in the heat of the campaign and obviously it means so much to our community in Dade County, not only that you're campaigning, but that you've come down here to spend time with us and to hear our concerns and to hear the issues that are important to us. So we have a few guest speakers today, Mr. Trump -
TRUMP: Great.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That are going to discuss some of the issues facing our community and the importance of them.
Our first one is -
COOPER: About the debate, we heard that.
I want to bring in my political panel. CNN's senior political analyst David Gergen is joining us, chief political correspondent Dana Bash is here, and CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali.
David Gergen, now that you've had a couple hours to look back on it, what did you make of last night? What stands out?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It was a fascinating debate. I really think for the first time last night we saw the organization that Hillary has built, this huge organization, kick into gear and make him a - make her a much better prepared candidate for the debate, whereas he came in with this casual sense of an organization and casual sense of the debate and came in nowhere near prepared. I thought he missed a lot of opportunities.
For example, when he said, "I'll give up my tax returns if she displays her e-mails," that could have been a headline out of the debate, but he dropped it and he never went back to it. And it, you know, and knowing that Julian Assange may be putting out more stuff from WikiLeaks between now and the election, you'd think he'd keep some heat on that issue. So I thought, overall, by traditional debate standards, she crushed him.
COOPER: And those were certainly things that if you had prepared -
GERGEN: Yes.
COOPER: Even just a modicum of preparation, you can figure out, OK, well, if this comes up, I'm going to pivot to this and use this against her.
GERGEN: Yes. Yes, exactly. And I - you go ahead, please.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, no, no, please.
GERGEN: Well, I was going to say, I kept thinking they were using Miss Universe as sort of a bait for him and, you know, OK, what was your husband doing back 20 years ago when I was in the midst of this. And if he'd gone there, he would have raised one kind of hackles, and instead he just sort of dealt with the issue in a loud - and made it wide open for whoever (INAUDIBLE).
BASH: Well, and I -
COOPER: Again, I mean that's the thing, every - every time she brought up something, which was clearly designed to bait him -
BASH: That's right.
COOPER: He took the bait.
BASH: Completely. Hook, line and sinker, just to keep the metaphor going. And that was one - first of all, it was actually interesting in the spin room afterwards I asked him if he had any moments that he was - you know, that he wished he had done differently and he said, oh, I wished I had, you know, brought up the - the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky thing after she mentioned that, and maybe I'll do it in the next one, because he was trying to restrain himself.
I - my understanding in talking to people around Donald Trump is that he certainly didn't prepare like Hillary Clinton did. He did it Donald Trump's way. But that they did practice pivots and they did plan for some of the things that she did. And you could see it at work in the first like 20, 30 minutes when he was really on his game, on his message, trade, jobs, she has been there for 30 years, what has she done? Experience doesn't necessarily mean anything. And then he couldn't help himself. Every time, whether it was about
his father or about Miss Universe or, you know, down the line, his businesses, it's so personal to him and he's so used to not letting things go. It's who he is. He couldn't help it.
COOPER: He was, Tim, fascinating. I mean you could see that Clinton and her people had planned this out. You know, first she brought up his dad and inheriting money. That's a very sore point for Donald Trump. And just one thing after another.
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Her performance was choreographed, not scripted. And so it -
GERGEN: Yes. Good point.
NAFTALI: It's - it was - it was real. It was beautiful. And, listen, from the - from the standpoint of somebody who studies debate, it was actually masterful. Whether she delivered it always masterfully is a different issue. But the - there was clearly a strategy there.
What is so interesting is that he fell for it. And - and we were talking - a lot of - everybody's been talking about which Donald Trump would show up. The Mexican Trump, the very calm (INAUDIBLE) quiet Trump or the Trump of the tweet, what's clear, not only is it - is there one Trump, but it's - wherever he's in an adversarial situation the competitive Trump comes.
[14:10:06] BASH: Absolutely.
NAFTALI: And he is apparently so far incapable of the self-discipline that would be required to - to let things go.
Hillary Clinton let things go and so she appeared to be the Ronald Reagan of 1980. She was apable (ph). She was positive. She let the other one criticize him the way that let Carter criticize him. It was supposed to be reverse. It was supposed to be Trump who was presidential and seeming positive. In the end, she was much more positive, which was new for her and a disaster for him.
GERGEN: Yes, you know, it's a little bit like, you know, going to see the doctor (INAUDIBLE) crush your legs and he takes a little hammer and hits your knee and you reflexively go up. That's all - all she had to do is pick up that little hammer, hit is knee and, boom, he kept on going up. He would do it every time.
BASH: But he's a competitor.
GERGEN: Yes.
BASH: And so, just in talking to the people around him this morning, they, to a person, have said, you better believe he got it, he did it his own way the first time and it didn't go as well as he wanted to, to put it mildly, and that he's being told that privately, and that he's going to try to figure it out and try to restrain himself for the next debate that - that you're going to -
GERGEN: You don't get mulligans on a first debate.
BASH: Moderate.
No, excuse me, for the next debate.
You don't get mulligans, but - but - but you're -
GERGEN: (INAUDIBLE).
BASH: But you don't get - well, but, I mean, you're both historians. It is one in a series of three.
COOPER: Right. I mean we saw it with Ronald Reagan.
BASH: Exactly.
COOPER: Remember that - that -
GERGEN: It's very hard for a challenger to come back like that.
NAFTALI: And - and - and -
GERGEN: That was an incumbent.
NAFTALI: And historically -
COOPER: That's a good point.
NAFTALI: The second and third debates do not have the same audience.
COOPER: Right.
NAFTALI: Although, who know, Anderson, you may change that.
COOPER: Well -
NAFTALI: But, historically, they don't have the same audience. So it's really the first night is the big night.
GERGEN: Yes. Yes. But I thought it was so interesting yesterday when "The Times" had this big piece comparing the same similar - campaign.
BASH: Yes.
GERGEN: And that was Al Gore as sort of the incumbent, knows it all, versus George W.
COOPER: Right.
GERGEN: You know - you know, Callow (ph), Deborah (ph) doesn't really know it all and Bush, Jr., had 15 different practice rounds before he walked in.
BASH: Oh, yes.
GERGEN: And this guy, he had - he had almost nothing. COOPER: Right. It was an incredible night.
GERGEN: Yes.
COOPER: I thank - I want to thank everybody on the panel.
Coming up next, we're going to talk about style and performance, including Trump's interruptions and the audience not following the rules. By the way, we're going to talk to Ms. Machado, who's going to be in my broadcast tonight at 8:00 on "360."
Plus, some fiery exchanges over race and Trump's refusal to apologize for the birther conspiracy. We'll discuss that.
And who has the advantage in the second debate, which is a town hall style debate.
This is CNN's special live coverage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:16:27] COOPER: Welcome back.
After months of sparring in the field, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton finally went head to head at Hofstra University. It was an incredible night with potential voters having a chance to compare and scrutinize not just every word but every gesture, every facial expression.
I want to bring in James Fallows, national correspondent with "The Atlantic," who wrote a really incredible piece on the psychology, the body language, the mind games of the one-on-one political debate. You've got to read this. If you haven't, it's in this month's "Atlantic."
James, you and I talked before the debate about what to watch. And one of the things that I thought was so interesting about your article is you said that often it's best to watch a debate with the sound turned off. So I'm wondering, I was thinking about that as I was watching the debate last night and those cut away shots of Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump told a story, even if you didn't know what they were saying. I'm wondering what stood out to you.
JAMES FALLOW, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE ATLANTIC": I had that same feeling, too. And I - Secretary Clinton held herself the entire time as if she was aware every second that she was going to be on that split screen and she was, you know, looking at -- sometimes attentive, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes amused, sometimes a little bit condescending, but always aware of that. Whereas Donald Trump, it's as if he forgot that he was on camera when he wasn't actually talking himself. So he was rolling his eyes, he was grimacing and all the rest. And as we talked a couple of days ago, I think if you didn't have the sound on, you would have seen an increasingly angry-looking man and a basically calm looking woman. And I think that the calmer look is usually the one you want to have in these debates. COOPER: Also sort of drinking water a lot, which is something he made
fun of Marco Rubio for in prior instances. Secretary Clinton I don't think took a drink of water the entire time.
In the article you also said that Trump uses domination, humiliation against rivals. We certainly saw that during the primary debate. I guess that took sort of the form of interruptions, which far exceeded the interruptions by Clinton last night. We put together just a compilation of that. Let's just show it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real. I think its science is real and -
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I did not. I did not. I do not say that.
We have people that are political hacks negotiating our trade deals. How -
LESTER HOLT, MODERATOR: The IRS say that audit -
TRUMP: Excuse me.
CLINTON: Under the current mayor, crime has continued to drop, including murders. So there is -
TRUMP: No, you're wrong. You're wrong.
CLINTON: No, I'm not.
TRUMP: Murders -
CLINTON: Donald supported the invasion of Iraq -
TRUMP: Wrong.
CLINTON: That is absolutely -
TRUMP: Wrong.
CLINTON: Proved over and over again.
TRUMP: Wrong.
CLINTON: He actually -
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: How do you think that plays with the audience, effective or off-putting?
FALLOWS: Well, you know, there's a fascinating and just unavoidable gender politics to this kind of interaction, as we discussed before, too. Jane Goodall was talking about the male chimpanzees and their dominance. I think there is a precedent for imaging how this will play. That was back in 2000 when Hillary Clinton was running against Rick Lazio (ph) for the Senate in New York and you'll recall the scene where Rick Lazio walked over and sort of was right impending on her space, impinging on her space, and that did not play well for him.
So to the extent Donald Trump's goal, one of them in this debate, was to broaden his appeal to people who are not already in his base, including women, I think the ways in which he was sort of being an aggressive alpha male with a woman there, I don't know that that will help him.
COOPER: We also saw Secretary Clinton in what our prior guests call kind of a sort of masterly choreographed way, goading Donald Trump, and he basically - you know, responding every single time. She often would sort of brush aside things, but he seemed to - everything she dangled in front of him, he went for.
[14:20:00] FALLOWS: It was incredible. On the one hand you saw when the e-mail controversy came up for Hillary Clinton, she said one sentence about it and then just moved on to whatever else she wanted to discuss. But when she was able to have these little darts, these little pin pricks into Donald Trump's flank, he wouldn't let go of them. Whether it was being against the Iraq War, that incredible final thing about Miss Universe and how she was gaining weight, about birtherism. And so, you know, usually the goal in politics is, if there's a story that's not helping you, you want to move past it. But just as was the case with the Captain Khan story back during the conventions, Donald Trump couldn't let it go. So you and I were talking a couple days ago about whether she would be able to succeed in her strategy of goading him and certainly the day afterwards it seems as if that worked.
COOPER: It's also something that I - you know, I guess you could argue had he prepared more or even had mock debates, he would have been able - because these were - weren't things that came out of left field. I mean they were all pretty - you know, pretty much stuff that was floating out there. It's the kind of thing an experienced debate her could have prepared for and figure out how to pivot to hit issues, which the moderator didn't bring up, which would have played very well for Donald Trump.
FALLOWS: Boy, I agree, and I was thinking that through the whole debate. And in a way that reflects on the presidency, too, because as you well know, live performance before an audience of millions is a hard thing and these debates are an unusual, unique circumstance that requires some training and Trump - Donald Trump sort of disdained the need for any preparation.
By extension, being an actual president is really hard and I think Hillary Clinton is trying to say, look, I'm not only prepared for the debates, but I'm preparing to be president, too, if that comes up. So I think it was - was again a reminder for Donald Trump that this isn't something you can just breeze into.
COOPER: And then, of course, the question is, what does Donald Trump do to adjust if - if he wants to or believes it's necessary for the next one?
FALLOWS: Well, certainly changes are possible in debating style. You'll recall that eight years - or four years ago, Barack Obama did very poorly in his first debate against Mitt Romney and then was able to sort of summon himself and do much better in the second and third. Back in 2000, Al Gore had a very sort of overaggressive performance in his first debate against George W. Bush and then overcorrected for the second one where he was just almost too laid back.
I guess the question we'll see in the next couple of weeks is whether actually it is possible for Donald Trump and his handlers to make this kind of adjustment. It's a difficult - it's a different situation, a town meeting with eminent moderators, and we'll see how that's going to go.
COOPER: We certainly will. James Fallows, thank you. Again, the article is "The Atlantic." I really recommend people read it. It's fascinating. Thanks.
Coming up next, healing the racial divide. When Donald Trump was asked how to bring the country together, his answer was law and order. The question is, does that help, particularly among minority voters? What about the question - the discussion they had last night about the birther situation? We'll discuss that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:27:25] COOPER: "It's just one of those things." That was Donald Trump's final word on the debate stage about a federal housing discrimination lawsuit filed against him in the 1970s. He made the remark when he and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton were debating the question of race in America. The discussion was wide-ranging. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Race remains a significant challenge in our country. Unfortunately, race still determines too much. Often determines where people live, determines what kind of education in their public schools they can get and, yes, it determines how they're treated in the criminal justice system.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We need law and order in our country. Our inner cities, African-Americans, Hispanics, are living in hell because it's so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: When asked what he would say to people offended by his birther movement against President Obama, Trump responded this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She failed to get the birth certificate. When I got involved, I didn't fail. I got him to give the birth certificate. So I'm satisfied with it.
LESTER HOLT, MODERATOR: We're talking about racial healing in this segment. What do you say to Americans -
TRUMP: Well, it was very -
HOLT: People of - people of color -
TRUMP: I say nothing.
HOLT: Who (INAUDIBLE) -
TRUMP: I say nothing because I was able to get him to produce it. He should have produced it a long time before. I say nothing.
But let me just tell you, when you talk about healing, I think that I've developed very, very good relationships over the last little while with the African-American community. I think you can see that.
CLINTON: Just listen to what you heard. And clearly, as Donald just admitted, he knew he was going to stand on this debate stage and Lester Holt was going to be asking us questions, so he tried to put the whole racist birther lie to bed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Joining me now are CNN commentator and former Democratic South Carolina State Representative Bakari Sellers, and Bruce Lavell, executive director of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump.
Bakari, first of all, your reaction, you know, how Donald Trump handled the birther issue, because Lester Holt continued to go back at him saying, well, you know, even after President Obama showed a birth certificate, there was questions by Donald Trump about the validity of it, about continuing this - the whole birther story, which was not true.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN COMMENTATOR: Well, I think that this shows you how unprepared Donald Trump was for this debate last night. I think the most telling statement that he said and one you're going hear over and over in ads is when asked about racial healing in this country, Donald Trump quote/unquote said, "I say nothing. I say nothing." And Donald Trump, in his 70 some odd years or 70 years on this earth has not done much, if anything, for the African-American community. I mean he just - he stated that he just started trying to build these relationships before.
[14:30:14] But Donald Trump
