Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Clinton In Florida And Trump In Michigan; Ex-Miss Wisconsin: Trump Helped My Family; Trump Campaign Manager Grilled On "The View." Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired September 30, 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] DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have a very good history.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Also, his ugly fight with beauty queens.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The most beautiful women in the world and we're made to feel like fat. It's just kind of quite worthless.
COSTELLO (voice-over): And she's not alone. Trump targets a former Miss Universe in an early morning Twitter tirade. Plus, rush hour horror.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just didn't slow down. It didn't brake.
COSTELLO (voice-over): Two questions this morning, what went wrong and could it have been avoided?
Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. Presidential politics in the all-important swing states. This morning, Hillary Clinton hits Florida and Donald Trump visits Michigan this afternoon.
But overnight, Trump fires off vicious new tweets on a new voice in the Clinton campaign, a former winner of his Miss Universe pageant.
Here are his latest swipes, quote, did crooked Hillary help disgusting -- in parenthesis, check out sex tape and past -- Alicia become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate? And this tweet, quote, using Alicia M. in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that crooked Hillary suffers from bad judgment. Hillary was set up by a con.
The next debate just nine days away and the election itself now just 39 days away. And from all indications, from all indications, the restraint that Trump boasted about just a few days ago, well, it is gone.
Let's begin our coverage this morning with CNN's Chris Frates. He is live for us this morning. Good morning. CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIONS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning,
Carol. After a week of fallout from Trump's lackluster debate performance, his advisers are starting to talk about overhauling how the GOP prepares for this next big face-off with Hillary Clinton. And some of those advisers are suggesting Chris Christie take the lead and bring some brutal honesty to that preparation process.
Meanwhile, Trump's preparing a couple of new lines of attack.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRATES (voice-over): Donald Trump's on a tirade this morning against Hillary Clinton and former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, tweeting that Hillary Clinton was duped by Machado, accusing Clinton of floating her as an angel without checking her past.
The Republican candidate also calling Machado disgusting, falsely alleging that she was in a sex tape, and that Clinton may have helped her become a citizen.
TRUMP: The Clintons are the sordid past. We will be the very bright and clean future.
FRATES (voice-over): This as Trump hints that he's considering bringing up Bill Clinton's infidelity the next time he faces off with Hillary Clinton on the debate stage.
TRUMP: Well, she was very nasty to me and I was going to do it, and I saw Chelsea sitting out in the audience and I just didn't want to go there.
FRATES (voice-over): The thrice married candidate telling reporters he's not worried about this attack inviting scrutiny of his own marital history like his well-documented affair with actress Marla Maples while he was married to his first wife.
TRUMP: I have a very good history. I guess, I mean, they can do, but from -- a lot different than his, that I can tell you. I mean, we have a situation where we have a President who was a disaster and he was ultimately impeached over it, in a sense, for lying. And so we'll see whether or not we discuss it.
FRATES (voice-over): The plan, an attempt to fight back against Trump's own controversial comments about women, detailing talking points obtained by CNN this week encouraging Trump's surrogates to drop names from Bill Clinton's past, like Monica Lewinsky.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you, as someone who presumably wants more women to run for and win office, in high office, feel any obligation if Trump brings up your husband's past to speak out against a spouse's indiscretions or past being brought into a campaign like this?
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No. Look, he can say whatever he wants to say, as we well know. We have seen it in real time over the last many months, and I'm going to keep running my campaign. FRATES (voice-over): Trump's also standing by his claim that he did a
service to the country by leading the birther movement.
TRUMP: I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate and I think I did a good job.
FRATES (voice-over): And going a step further saying he's proud of his effort, while reiterating a false claim that Clinton questioned the President's citizenship when she ran against him in 2008.
TRUMP: I'm the one that got him to put up his birth certificate. Hillary Clinton was unable to get there and I will tell you, she tried. She was unable to do it and I tried, and I was able to do it, so I'm very proud of that.
FRATES (voice-over): All of this as Trump's Foundation faces renewed scrutiny this morning, saying the New York State Attorney General's Office, The Washington Post reporting that the charity never obtained the certification that New York requires before charities can solicit money from the public. The Trump campaign has not responded to the paper's request for comment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRATES: Now, CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign and has not yet gotten a response. And also this morning, new polls done after the debate show Clinton leading Trump in three battleground states. Let's take a look.
In Michigan and New Hampshire, Clinton is leading Trump by seven points, 42 to 35 percent. And then in that all-important swing state of Florida, Clinton's edging Trump by four points, 46 to 42 percent. So Clinton is seeing some good news on the heels of her debate performance on Monday night. Carol.
[09:05:12] COSTELLO: All right, Chris Frates reporting live for us from Washington. Thanks so much.
Later this morning, Hillary Clinton holding an event in Florida, one of the most priced of the battleground states. And she'll deploy a weapon against Trump that could resonate deeply with hundreds of thousands of voters there.
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux joins us with more. Good morning.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Carol. Well, as you mentioned, Clinton is hitting the trail in the "must win" state of Florida where she's going to make two campaign stops.
As Chris had alluded to that poll showing she has a four-point lead there, she's dominating among women, African-Americans and Hispanics, but she does face some real challenges with the groups that Trump has captured.
We're talking about working class White men and independents and also the millennials. They're being drawn to the third party candidates particularly Gary Johnson, who could be a spoiler in this state.
So Clinton goes to Florida today with a fresh attack line, sure to resonate with a critical voting block and that is Cuban-Americans in Florida.
It is from Newsweek's report that says Trump secretly conducted business in communist Cuba during Fidel Castro's reign, allegedly violating the U.S. trade embargo.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Today, we learned about his efforts to do business in Cuba which appear to violate U.S. law, certainly flout American foreign policy. And he has consistently misled people in responding to questions about whether he was attempting to do business in Cuba.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: So Trump responded to the report in an interview with the "New Hampshire 1's" Paul Steinhauser telling him, quote, I never did business in Cuba. There is this guy who has this very bad reputation as a reporter, you see what his record is. He wrote something about me in Cuba. No, I never did anything in Cuba. I never did a deal in Cuba.
Well, Carol, you can imagine there is going to be lots of follow-up questions on this. And the hope from the Clinton campaign is that if this is true, it would peel off some Republican Cuban-Americans from Trump's camp and bring them to Clinton's side.
But right now, Clinton must also focus on a potential problem that she is facing in Florida. And that is, one, evidence that the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is gaining with millennial voters and, two, that her ground game is not generating the kind of voter registration and enthusiasm that is needed to get young Black voters to the polls. Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Suzanne Malveaux reporting live for us this morning. Thanks so much.
It is safe to say though that Donald Trump had a very bad week this week. "USA Today" did something this morning it has never done in its 34-year history. It has taken sides in a presidential election.
No, that's not quite accurate. The paper actually says, vote for anyone but Trump, calling Trump unfit for the presidency and the reasons why are brutal.
"USA Today" says Trump is erratic. He traffics in prejudice. He's a serial liar. He speaks recklessly. His business career is checkered. You get the drift here.
With me now to talk about this and more, Lynn Sweet, the Washington bureau chief of The Chicago Sun Times and Errol Louis, political anchor for New York 1 News. Welcome to you both.
LYNN SWEET, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, CHICAGO SUN TIMES: Hi, Carol.
ERROL LOUIS, HOST, NEW YORK 1 NEWS: Good morning.
COSTELLO: Good morning. So, Errol, if you thought the "USA Today" thing was bad, here is what a member of "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board wrote just this morning. Quote, Hillary Clinton's election alone is what stands between the American nation and the reign of the most unstable, proudly uninformed, psychologically unfit president to ever enter the White House. Wow.
LOUIS: Wow. Dorothy Rabinowitz uses words the way gladiators use spears and swords. She's a tough writer and a convinced conservative.
So just so folks understand where she's coming from with that, she is one of the ideological conservatives that said early on that Donald Trump represented a break with their movement and did not sort of make himself an extension of that movement. So that's where Rabinowitz is coming from.
As far as the "USA Today," I mean, look, it's devastating, not just because it's a break with their tradition, but because they are putting how many of these copies under every hotel door in America today. This is going to be a message that is heard far and wide, and it amounts to, if nothing else, a free ad for Hillary Clinton.
I mean, when "USA Today" says vote for anybody except Trump, in effect, what they're doing is saying that they want Hillary Clinton to win because that's the realistic choice at this point.
COSTELLO: And, Errol, you bring up conservative newspapers and, Lynn, I'll pose this question to you. The "Arizona Republic," which is a conservative paper, it's backed Hillary Clinton. The "Dallas Morning News" also endorsed Hillary Clinton. Something these newspapers have never, never done in decades, endorse a Democrat.
But does it really matter in the end, do you think, Lynn?
[09:10:05] SWEET: Well, for people who truly are undecided in the swing states, a local newspaper, the voice of a local newspaper making an endorsement may have an influence. Usually, the top of the ticket is a place where newspaper endorsements don't sway as much as for a local office where you may not get as much information.
One point, Carol and Errol, on the "USA Today" endorsement, endorsements should make the call. And the "USA Today" editorial writers know that there is a third party candidate out there who may make a difference in some battleground states.
And if they -- it's not enough just to list the reasons why Trump is unfit for office if that's the consensus of your board. But they're also saying, the editorial, they had no consensus as to who should be President.
Well, that's the job of an editorial board, figure -- you know, somebody is going to be president, and they should have made the call if they truly wanted this to be the most useful exercise and, in a sense, attest to the influence of their wide reach as Errol noted.
COSTELLO: OK. I want to switch over to Mr. Trump's Twitter tirade this morning because he started around 3:00 o'clock this morning. And then he tweeted again at 4:00, he tweeted again at 5:00. I don't know when this man ever sleeps, but he's attacking Alicia Machado, the woman he referred to as "Miss Piggy."
He brings up this sex tape that she supposedly made. And, you know, she was on a Spanish reality TV show and she wasn't naked in the sex tape. She was underneath covers and covered up, but she says some, I guess, sexual things, but big deal, Errol.
LOUIS: Yes.
COSTELLO: Alicia Machado has the right to do whatever she wants with her own body.
LOUIS: Well, obviously, whether it's eating or doing whatever she wants in reality TV, which Donald Trump very well knows.
Look, I think you've got to feel for Donald Trump's staff, his campaign staff, because he is going to now sweep into today's news cycle, going into the last 39 days. And every day, every news cycle is critical, is important, has to have some kind of a point and a purpose and a goal and a strategy.
And this is all -- this is the opposite of that. This is him just kind of emoting. And by the way, it is a "can't win" situation for Donald Trump's point of view. This is like attacking Judge Curiel. This is like attacking the Gold Star family. This is something where he just simply cannot win.
Women do not like to be told what to do with their bodies. They do not like to be insulted about their weight. He's doing all of this stuff instead of letting it go, and it's simply not a winning strategy.
COSTELLO: And, Lynn, he continues to bring up Bill Clinton's infidelities. He's called Hillary Clinton an enabler.
His campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was on "The View" yesterday. "The View" ladies put it to her. Kellyanne Conway said, I advised him not to talk about Bill Clinton's infidelities, and then she shared this personal story. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOY BEHAR, CAST, THE VIEW: If your husband was cheating on you, you'd turn on them too, wouldn't you?
PAULA FARIS, CAST, THE VIEW: I would.
BEHAR: I would.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: No, I would. You know, I -- no, I would leave him though. WHOOPI GOLDBERG, CAST, THE VIEW: You never had experience, right?
FARIS: Well, she's --
GOLDBERG: Your husband's never cheated, no?
CONWAY: Well, my mother did.
FARIS: But she did have --
(CROSSTALK)
CONWAY: My mother had that experience and she left.
GOLDBERG: Tell us about that.
CONWAY: Yes. Well, my mother - you know, I was raised by a single mother. And I'm sure there are many watching your show.
BEHAR: Yes.
CONWAY: I was raised by my mother, her mother, and two of my mother's unmarried sisters. They solely made me successful --
GOLDBERG: Yes. That's why we're in such shock that you're supporting him.
CONWAY: No, that's why I asked --
GOLDBERG: That's why. That's why --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: OK. So, Lynn, like Errol said, you got to feel sorry for Donald Trump's advisers who are saying don't go there. And Donald Trump, I guess, it's just "no holds barred Donald Trump" all the time now.
SWEET: Well, it is. And if your viewers saw me glancing down, I was checking my Donald Trump Twitter feed in case there's anything late breaking on our segment here.
But he does -- be brings up infidelity at his own peril because if you're looking for suburban educated women in the swing states, the strategy is risky.
And he is a genius of the tweet. It is the medium of conversation in the 2016 political contest. And if he thinks that the conversation that he wants dominating today, the weekend, is about a Miss Universe contestant, this brings him into what we're been talking about all these weeks, the alt universe.
Now, I am talking about Bill Clinton's sex scandals, if you do that in front of a woman, in front of any woman, Hillary Clinton, any woman, and you talk in front of her about her husband's cheating, you do so at very much your own risk. Hillary Clinton on the plane in Chicago yesterday when she was asked
about it just tried -- you know, she didn't blink. She just said when -- do you want to respond to this question? She just said no and let it hang there.
COSTELLO: And the reason she is able to do that, Errol, is because Donald Trump has been married three times, and he also cheated on one of his wives.
LOUIS: Very publicly, by the way. I mean, those who were not in New York reading the papers at the time, I mean, it was something you could not avoid. It was the front page of the newspapers. And it was brazen and it was comical in some ways. It was noisy.
[09:15:03] He doesn't want to go there. I mean, this is just not how -- look, every day that Donald Trump is not talking about trade policy or immigration or his other strong points that got him to where he is now is a day that he is wasting. I do not know why he's chosen to waste this day, but he's only got 39 of them left.
COSTELLO: OK. Here is the other thing that came up yesterday. Remember Donald Trump insists that he was always against the Iraq War. Even though everybody knows that's not true. And gave this interview to Howard Stern in 2002, he did say he was, you know, kind of for the Iraq war. Howard Stern comes out and says, yep, that's what he said.
Listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
HOWARD STERN, RADIO HOST: Trump was on our show years ago and said, yeah, you know, kind of for the Iraq war. Us going into Iraq. He was saying he really was for it.
So, they were forced to mention my name. It was cool. Good promotion.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
COSTELLO: So, Lynn, how can Donald Trump possibly continue to say that he was always for the Iraq war?
SWEET: Well, he lives in his own alternate universe where there is no facts that seem to be persuasive to him, including videotape, including audiotape of his own words. And that's one of the central findings of this campaign and why it is so unpredictable and so historic because you have an army of fact checkers who are working overtime to produce documented facts, linked to source documents, so people can see for themselves on the Internet, and it isn't persuasive to either voters or to the candidate himself.
That alone, you would think, would cause some pause among Trump's advisers and his supporters to think what have you got here that he cannot answer questions in a way that meet factual standards. Maybe we'll see this in the second debate. But the fact checking army still reinforcements to nail down the facts even if he won't acknowledge them. But we're doing it.
So, Carol, I'm at a loss to think of what else you can do in the wake of facts when somebody doesn't accept them? Do you have any more ideas?
COSTELLO: Out of ideas myself, Lynn.
I got to leave it there. Lynn Sweet, Errol Louis, thanks to both of you.
Coming up on THE NEWSROOM: Donald Trump once called her the bravest woman he knew. Up next, I'll talk with the former Miss Wisconsin about Trump's beauty queen controversy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:21:51] COSTELLO: Another former beauty queen is coming forward and speaking out against Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JODIE SEAL, FORMER MISS AUSTRALIA: The memories are really, really raw. Really quite fresh. And everything that's going on today brings it all back.
He told me to stick my gut in, quite often he would be walking through where we were eating or where we were performing and just kind of casting his eyes over the ones that were a little bit plumper and kind favoring the girls that were a little less.
So, very much he enforced exercise in his hot little tent in Las Vegas. We all had leg weights on. We were meant to be representing our countries as the most beautiful women in the world and we were made to feel like fat, just kind of quite worthless.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: This comes on the heels of the controversy involving former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. She says Trump called her "Miss Piggy" after she gained weight and referred to her as "Miss Housekeeping", a derogatory reference to her heritage.
But a former Miss Wisconsin, Melissa Young, has a different view of Mr. Trump. In March, he told Trump she's terminally ill and thanked him for his support.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELISSA YOUNG, FORMER MISS WISCONSIN: I wanted to thank you because through you and your organizations, my son who is Mexican-American, 7 years old, through your organization and just being able to stand on that stage and view in 2005, the outpouring of love that came from that ultimately provided my son when he graduates high school with a full ride to college. And --
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: That's great. (END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Melissa Young joins me now.
Thank you, Melissa, for being with me this morning.
YOUNG: Thank you so much for having me, Carol. Good morning.
COSTELLO: Good morning. I know you were in the hospital this week. So I really do want to thank you for taking the time. I notice you have a port in your chest.
Can you share with us what that is?
YOUNG: Yes, ma'am. It is not a port, but a different kind of line, a special line, it was really experimental. It is really the last line that they can put in my body and that's my only way of receiving hydration, and the nutrients I need to stay alive and formed a blood clot in the -- a few days ago, a large blood clot in my chest. And they successfully removed it.
And nothing really would have stopped me from being here this morning. So until my last breath, I will speak out about, you know, my experience with Mr. Trump. So, I'm honored to be here. Thank you for having me.
COSTELLO: And we do want to hear what you have to say.
So, specifically how did Mr. Trump help you and your son?
YOUNG: Yes, ma'am. Years after competing on his stage at Miss USA, I became extremely ill due to a doctor's medical negligence. And I had not seen or spoken to Mr. Trump at -- in any way, shape or form, and I was in the hospital really fighting for my life.
And that day, don't even think he knows this, I've never told him this part, but that day I was actually given my last rights.
[09:25:04] And a delivery man came to the door of the hospital and said, here I have an envelope for you.
And handwritten by Mr. Trump, it said must be delivered by 8:00 a.m. and I opened it, and there was a message from him saying, "To the bravest woman I know," and in that moment it lifted my spirits where I knew that God was not done with me yet, that there was more for me to do.
And he continued to do that, to reach out, to check on me, to check on my son, to see how he was doing, personally calling me on the phone in his busy life. Of course, he has so much going on, but to check on me and this was before he announced he was running for president. And, like I said, my son is a Mexican-American, and he has treated us with nothing but just the generosity, utmost respect and dignity, and he has never spoken about it, tooted his own horn about it.
He really has been such a wonderful support system for me and my son. COSTELLO: Well, Melissa, you've heard all that is going on right now.
And the other women who participated in Trump's sponsored beauty pageants. They tell a much different story.
Are there two Mr. Trumps? Are we just not knowing him? Where do these things come from, these insults about women's weights and the pageants and his continued attack on especially Alicia Machado's character?
YOUNG: Yes, ma'am. I don't know that there's two sides to Mr. Trump because I don't know that side, of him. I only know him as being a gentleman. He has supported me in my life as a woman, as a mother. And I've seen it also with my fellow Miss USA contestants that they were treated with the utmost respect during our time competing at Miss USA. We were there nearly three weeks and I saw nothing but tremendous respect from him and I just don't know that side of him. I've never seen it. That's not my personal experience.
COSTELLO: Melissa, when you see this old video of Mr. Trump at an exercise room with Alicia Machado and he's sort of like coaching her to lose weight, and Alicia Machado said that made her feel, you know, lowered her self-esteem, she was only 19 years old.
When you see pictures like that, old video like that, what goes through your mind?
YOUNG: A few things go through my mind. She was, you know, Miss Universe, and unfortunately, you know, having to be in a bathing suit and compete and so that comes with the territory, I guess, to take care of our bodies. But another thing that comes to my mind is that it has been 20 years. It has been 20 years.
So I -- it makes me, I guess, question too, why now? Why are we talking about this now? Why is this -- it just -- it doesn't make so much sense to me, why not ten years ago, why not five years ago, but now that Mr. Trump is running for president, that it comes out during the debate.
So, I'm so sorry that she felt that way, and I would never, ever want anyone to feel bad about something like that.
COSTELLO: I think people hear you when you say that this happened a long time ago. But Mr. Trump just tweeted again this morning attacking Alicia Machado's character. Why doesn't he just let it go?
YOUNG: OK. I can't answer that question for you. I'm sorry. I don't know why he can't let it go. But --
COSTELLO: Should he let it go?
YOUNG: Should he? I think that it probably shouldn't have been brought u so late in the game if there was a problem. And she was hurting, I think maybe that was something that should have been addressed a long, long time ago and probably would have been let go by now. But I think he has a right to defend himself, and also to address it.
I'm not sure how he feels personally about what is happening right now. I have not talked to him about that.
So, I would probably myself personally let that go, yes.
COSTELLO: Yes, because, you know, some might say that's not really showing the side of Mr. Trump that you know. It is just showing, you know, the counterpuncher he always talks about.
YOUNG: He has been nothing but just -- he's the greatest man I know. And until my last breath, I will -- I will say that. I want people to know I know a man that has a heart of gold, and I just -- I think he's a tremendous human being. So, that's my experience.
