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Trump Angry at Allies, Pressured to Prepare More for Next Debate; Clinton Has female Voter Problem as Well as Trump; Republicans Divided Over Trump Attacking Clinton on Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky; FBI Director: Voter Registration Info. May be Russian Hacker Target; Wall Being Built in France to Block Migrants Using Chunnel to Reach Great Britain. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired September 29, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:32:57] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to politics now.

Donald Trump will be speaking at any moment in New Hampshire and while he does that. His team, it looks like, is scrambling to cement his strategy on his next debate on October 9th with Hillary Clinton. The first debate taking center stage on a rough conference call that Trump aides had with campaign surrogates. Sources telling us at CNN that he's angry with some of his own allies publicly acknowledging they pushed him to change his tactics and prepare more before this debate, and now they're telling him he needs to change his style and do more preparation before the next one.

With me now, CNN politics executive editor, Mark Preston.

This was fascinating reporting coming from your team, Dana Bash, Gloria Borger. The headline not a subtle call and Trump making clear he's unhappy that basically a lot of people on his team put it clearly out there to "The New York Times" that they're not happy with what he did.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: And subsequently doing it to other news agencies as well. There's other two reasons why we're seeing this one is to shame Donald Trump into doing preparation, to see what the reaction is outside his small circle of advisors that prepped him for this debate. Clearly he was not prepared. He was prepared on the issue of trade and jobs which he talked about at the develop top of the debate then the roller coaster went off the track. The second thing when you're coming to the close of the campaign and you see the campaign falling apart and this is what we've seen at this debate, people start pointing fingers and they don't want to take responsibility because in the business of politics, there's the next campaign.

HARLOW: That's a really interesting point. Some of the key things that stood out to me, one ally described Trump as the kind of guy who can't simply be told the stove is hot, he has to touch the hot stove. Another advisor saying the poor performance could be the best thing that happened to Trump and when he argued with them and essentially said well -- they said this isn't the right strategy, for example, you're not going to want to bring up past indiscretions of Bill Clinton, he said "this is what my base wants."

PRESTON: And guess what? He's not going for his base. At this point, your base is your base and we're talking a few more weeks left before we hit Election Day. Going into that debate we had a tied election not only nationally but in the key battleground states. Hillary Clinton supporters, Poppy, were with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump supporters are with Donald Trump. You're fighting for the small sliver of undecided voters. So Donald Trump, while he feels the energy off of his supporters, specifically what we've seen in subsequent rallies, that's not going to help you win.

[14:35:33] HARLOW: Let's turn to Monica Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton's past infidelities. Republicans on the Hill today are talking about the fact that we don't want you to bring that brought up and he threatened to you that in the last debate and told Dana Bash after. His family and team have celebrated the fact-the-didn't bring it up, at least directly in the first debate. Talking points come out, which we have a full copy of from the Trump camp to their surrogates saying things like exactly the opposite, you should bring that up, you should bring up Monica Lewinsky. They said, "Mr. Trump has never treated women the way Hillary Clinton and her husband did when they actively worked to destroy Bill Clinton's accusers."

Seems like two sides of his within one camp.

PRESTON: Well, I take issue with the fact that he said he was happy with himself for not bringing it up at the debate because he brought it up right after the debate. So guess what? He brought it up and we've been discussing it for a couple days. He didn't bring it up on stage.

HARLOW: But he's -- his team is surrogates to bring it up with specifics.

PRESTON: Correct. Correct. So, again, to the point where he is saying they're not addressing it, they've put it on paper. You don't just do something like that when you're getting to this level, this real personal level of attacks. This is not going to work politically for him. She is going to look -- she being Hillary Clinton -- will be looked like the victim and it's not a good political thing, especially when they're trying to get undecided women voters.

HARLOW: Expanding the base, as you said. You don't need your base, you've got your base, these debates are to get the others.

PRESTON: Correct.

HARLOW: Mark, thank you very much.

Trump is not the only candidate who has a problem with female voters.

That brings me to my next guest. Joining me now is Shawn Boburg, of the "Washington Post," with a fascinating piece on this.

Shawn, thank you for being here.

SHAWN BOBURG, REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Thanks for having me.

HARLOW: You've done extensive research. Your piece outlines a number of people you have spoken with that are close to Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and to the Clinton camp and you discuss in the Clinton has treated women, Hillary Clinton specifically, who've made accusations against her husband. A lot of these are confidantes, et cetera. When you look at both admitted and alleged infidelities that go back to the '80s, how do you think Hillary Clinton has evolved in the way she's addressed them and frankly been more and more willing to talk about them publicly?

BOBURG: I think, in the beginning, one of the earliest examples is Gennifer Flowers and you -- for anyone who was paying attention to politics at that time, you saw that she was willing to go in front of national television audience, defend her husband and she said some comments about Gennifer Flowers at that time that questioned the validity of her claims. I think over time she's written more and spoken more about the pain that these indiscretions have caused and opened up more about its personal effect. And I think there was probably a lesson early on that aggressively counterattacking in public these female accusers did not pay politically.

HARLOW: For example, when you talk about Gennifer flower, when she was watching this, way back now in the '90s, when she was watching the press conference of Gennifer Flowers speaking about this, she talked to her team on a plane venting frustration and said, "If we'd been in front of a jury, I would have said, Ms. Flowers, isn't it true you were asked by the A.P. about this in 1990 and you said no? When you were asked by the Arkansas Democrat and I said no. I mean, I would crucify her."

That hurt her, the "I would crucify her" hurt her. Has there been an evolution since then do you think?

BOBURG: I think so. You don't hear that kind of rhetoric. You certainly didn't towards the end of Bill Clinton's presidency during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. There were little snippets that came out in private conversations with friends but I think that she learned early on that she kept her guard up, at least publicly, about her thoughts of these women accusers so I think that that's been the evolution has been to button down, be less critical a deal with this in private.

HARLOW: One thing that struck me is, you know, Michelle Obama said on the stage of the DNC and then again yesterday when she was stumping for Hillary, when they go low, we go high. The question is, if Donald Trump brings up Monica Lewinsky, for example, or these other women in the next debate more to interviews or his surrogates start bringing them up like the talking points are suggesting that they do, how does the Clinton camp respond to that while "going high?" What do they do?

[14:40:07] BOBURG: Well, I can tell you right now that the Clinton camp thinks that this only plays to their benefit if Donald Trump brings this up. I think you'll hear exactly what they've already said which is we're not going to engage on that level. They feel like Mr. Trump has his own liabilities with women that sort of speak for themselves and that this is a losing proposition for Trump to pursue this line of attack.

HARLOW: And just to be clear, before I let you go, one of the other Trump talking points on this issue this: "Why are we not hearing from Monica Lewinsky who started an anti-bullying foundation because of how she was treated by the Clinton machine?"

In your reporting, you reached out to Monica Lewinsky but she didn't want to talk, correct?

BOBURG: I did and Monica Lewinsky did make a comment in 2014, she wrote an article for "Vanity Fair," saying that she found it troubling that Hillary Clinton blamed herself and blamed Monica, at least in private conversations, for the indiscretion with Bill, but that's all we've heard from her. She's kept a low profile and I don't expect we will hear from her.

Shawn Boburg, a fascinating piece. Thank you for being on.

BOBURG: Thank you.

HARLOW: Breaking details on the deadly train crash in Hoboken, New Jersey. We know it has killed one woman and more than 100 people, 108 people have been injured, according to the governor of New Jersey. What went on behind the controls? That's ahead.

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[14:45:55] HARLOW: Right now, your voter registration information may be a target for Russian hackers. The director of the FBI says hackers are, quote, "poking around U.S. voter systems." The FBI has uncovered attempted hacks in more than a dozen state, none of them were successful, at least to this point. And now, just 40 days from the presidential election, law enforcement officials tell us they believe Russia is behind the attempted hacks.

I do want to point out when you talk about voting machines where you will cast our ballot, those aren't accessible from the Internet. That makes them less vulnerable to hacking. That's why Russia is going after the database.

Let's talk about it with Fareed Zakaria, host of "Fareed Zakaria, GPS."

Fareed, let's look big picture at how unprecedented it is, Fareed, that you and I are sitting here talking about the possibility of Russia meddling in the U.S. election.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA, GPS: You know, it's completely unprecedented at one level when you think as you say historically because you've never had the possibility. The nature of the digital world is that everything is connected and everything is connected means everything is open to be penetrated. It's true in the past the Soviet Union in the bad old days of the Cold War did try to influence American foreign policy by recruiting spies up into America's nuclear establishment, scientists, intelligence officers so there was always that game going on. This is new because there would have been no way in the past to have actually influenced the vote because it was all manual voting and closed systems. So this is a kind of unusual feature of the new digital age.

HARLOW: But what also makes it such a key point of discussion and concern is that the fact that Donald Trump has been so complimentary of Russian president Vladimir Putin and that begs the question would that give cause for Russia to meddle more in the election?

ZAKARIA: There's no question that a Trump presidency would be something that the Russians and particularly Putin would welcome. It's not a sentimental thing. In Trump's case I think it's some weird affection he has for the strong man that Putin is, but for Putin he sees Trump saying let these countries defend themselves, let the eastern European countries fend for themselves, let Japan and South Korea fend for themselves.

HARLOW: Until yesterday when he said we have to strengthen NATO.

ZAKARIA: But still he says, look, if these guys don't pay, I'm not sure we're going to come to their rescue. That has been one of the core goals of Vladimir Putin, to weaken the automatic defense system, which has secured Eastern Europe, which is securing the Baltic republics, places like that. So in that sense a Trump presidency would be a victory for Putin.

HARLOW: A fascinating piece in "Time" delves into the question of whether or not the United States could loudly call out Russia. It says, quote, "Senior Justice Department officials have argued in favor of calling out the Russians and that position has been echoed forcefully outside of government by lawmakers and former top national security officials from both political parties."

The question is, Fareed, this is a delicate dance, a delicate political dance with Russia and the United States. Why not call them out directly and forcefully.

ZAKARIA: I think the awkward thing here is, to put it very bluntly, we do this as well. The United States is probably pretty advanced and sophisticated in what we do around the world. Now, I think one should be clear the United States does not try to influence democratic elections in other countries but it does snoop, it does eavesdrop. We know this from the weekly hacks, from the Snowden files and things like that, so perhaps there's some sensitivity there.

HARLOW: Hip pocket.

ZAKARIA: Also there is the concern that it seems as though this is kind of taking sides in the current presidential race because the Russian hacks do seem so directed in some way against Hillary Clinton. I spoke to a few intelligence officials who said the evidence is overwhelming that it is Russia, but we're concerned that by doing that, we seem to be reinforcing a Clinton campaign talking point.

[14:50:06] HARLOW: The DNC, those e-mails that were hacked.

Let me get your take on another piece in the "Washington Post" because you've been critical, publicly critical of Donald Trump. And the headline in the "Washington Post," "France is building a mile-long border wall to block an area from where many migrants live to the Chunnel that would lead to Britain."

What do you make about France doing this? The discussion has been Trump and the wall in the United States, now we're seeing this in France?

ZAKARIA: I'm a legal immigrant. I don't like illegal immigration at all. I think anything we can do to regulate it is we're a society of laws is great. And by the way, we have many more walls than this little barbed wire thing France is putting up. We have miles and miles of walls all over the U.S./Mexican border. The issue is that that is fundamentally not -- you're never going to build a wall big enough or high enough when you have this massive income disparity between the United States and Mexico.

HARLOW: They'll find a way.

ZAKARIA: The United States and Mexico share the longest border with the largest disparity in income. People will find a way. The most important thing to do is, yes, interdiction, yes, action, but also work with the Mexican government to make it less appealing.

I think what many people object to about the wall is it seems an -- symbolically, it's insulting and demeaning. Of course, we should be in control of our borders. The wall, whether you build it two feet high or three feet high isn't going to make a difference. Trump himself once, when boasting about the wall, said, "This is going to be impenetrable -- except I suppose if you have a rope." Yeah, and I think the Mexicans might have thought about that rope.

HARLOW: Quote of the day.

Fareed Zakaria, thank you very much.

You can catch Fareed every Sunday morning on "Fareed Zakaria, GPS."

Next, did Mark Cuban get under Trump's skin while he was sitting in the debate in the front row Monday night? Listen in a moment to what Hillary Clinton just told a crowd in Iowa. That next.

Also, Gary Johnson with another gaffe. He was asked to name a world leader he respects and he couldn't name one. Moments ago, he just spoke out about it, ahead.

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[14:56:37] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HARLOW: We're approaching the top of the hour. I'm Poppy Harlow, in for my friend, Brooke Baldwin, today.

And we begin with breaking news of a deadly train crash in Hoboken, New Jersey, just across the river from New York City. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie just announced a revised death toll and a number of injured. We know that one person has died and we know 108 people have been injured.

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CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R), NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: Governor Cuomo and I have just taken a tour of the damage inside. Obviously, an extraordinary tragedy. We pray for the family of the one fatality that we have confirmed for her and for her family. We have a revised total of injured. We have 108 injured in this accident and all of those have been evacuated to local hospitals.

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HARLOW: Also, we have this video into us. It's video showing the train speeding along the tracks moments before the crash. This happened this morning right in the middle of the rush hour commute on the valley line that was on track 5. As the train approaching the station, it should have been coming in at about five miles an hour, witnesses, including the governor, say it barreled in much faster than that, the sheer force sending the cars over the emergency bumper. The front car went airborne when it struck and plowed through the train depot.

We're now seeing devastating pictures of the scene and hearing desperate accounts of people inside and outside the train, people bracing for impact and even crawling out train windows when he finally stopped and even walking over a body as they rushed to help others.

Jean Casarez is at the scene.

Jean, walk us through what we've learned throughout the day. I know they were able to get everyone out who'd been trapped in the train for hours. What else do we know?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let me tell you what's happening. We heard from Governor Chris Christie that structural engineers are inside the train terminal looking for the integrity of the structure to see what damage there is structurally speaking and that no one will be allowed in the building, Governor Chris Christie said, a minute before it's structurally sound. So that's what's happening right now.

Victims are being treated at the hospital as you said. One fatality a female, she was not on the train, however, she was standing on the platform and it was debris from the platform and the impact of the train coming into the train station that ultimately it's believed caused her death. 108 injured.

The train engineer was transported unresponsive from the train station. He is now in the hospital the governor said.

But the big question now is why. Here's the only fact we know. The governor said the train was at an extremely high rate of speed and that high rate of speed went right into the train terminal with the ceiling collapsing, the structural integrity collapsing around it and we learned that the train actually stopped at the wall. So it was the strength of a wall that stopped that train from going any further. We also learned that the people, civilians, seeing what happened, helped first responders get people off the train, Poppy. And they were doing it as quickly as they could as emergency responders were coming right here to the --