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Clinton Pursues Millennial Votes; Trump Deposition Video Released; Crisis in Syria. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 30, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:02]

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Citing specifically Donald Trump's comments over Mexican immigrants and the potential that some of those immigrants might be rapists, those claims, of course, made in Donald Trump's announcement on day one of his campaign.

Now, there had been a lengthy back-and-forth whether we would even see these tapes. CNN and several other media outlets, they filed a motion to have these tapes released. And a D.C. superior judge today granted that motion.

We are still going through all of this deposition, but one moment really did catch our eye, where Donald Trump admits that his rhetoric negatively has impacted his businesses and, in this case, his D.C. hotel in this back-and-forth with the chef. Here's part of that deposition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If they would have gotten out very quietly, I think it would have been a lot better for everybody.

They caused me damages, because, you know, they made such a big deal out of it is. And they didn't have to make a big deal out of it, so that was disappointing. But that's what I meant. They wanted to be, they thought, politically correct by doing what they did. I think they made a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Now, in another part of the deposition, Trump also referencing those controversial comments that -- when he called Mexican immigrants rapists, or some Mexican immigrants rapists, he said that it has helped him politically. Here's more what he has to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I obviously have credibility, because I now, as it turns out, became the Republican nominee, running against -- we had a total of 17 people that were mostly senators and governors, highly respected people. So it's not like -- like, you know, I have said anything that could be so bad, because, if I said something that was so bad, they wouldn't have had me go through all of these people and win all of these primary races.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Now, the Trump team, Poppy, was very against these videotapes being released. They argue that it could potentially be used in the presidential campaign negatively, perhaps make its way onto TV commercials by his opponents.

And, certainly, 39 days to Election Day, it's a constant reminder to voters as they head to make their final decision of these controversial comments that kicked off his campaign.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And we should note, Sunlen, it was actually the judge, Judge Curiel, who first denied the media's request to see these tapes. He said he would not allow that. That's after Donald Trump questioned his ability to do his job as a federal judge because of his heritage.

This is a subsequent went judge who has released them. Much more of them to come, I am sure. Sunlen, thank you.

Let's go to Coral Springs, Florida. Boris Sanchez is following the Clinton event.

She spoke with Alicia Machado today, right, on the phone. What do we know about that conversation?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, we have heard from a campaign spokesperson that Clinton had called Alicia Machado early this morning.

She said it was a brief conversation in which Clinton thanked Machado for her support and told her that she was appreciative of her courage in what she called an ugly war of words with Donald Trump. In response, Machado pledged her support to Clinton's campaign. She's actually expected to get on the stage here in Coral Springs any minute right now.

And she's fully expected to go after Donald Trump and attack him for going after Machado. She's reportedly going to demand that he stop attacking Machado and that he apologize to her as well.

From what we understand, Clinton is going to use this to paint it as a pattern of Donald Trump's temperament. She's going cite other events, like the incident he had with Megyn Kelly, with the Khan family at the Democratic National Convention, and this latest incident as his -- what she would call his childish temperament and his inability to get over what he deems are attacks from others, all of that set to start soon, as Hillary Clinton will take the stage here in Coral Springs, Poppy.

HARLOW: Boris, they're singing the national anthem, I believe, behind you, so we will get back to you in a little bit.

She will take the stage in just about half-an-hour. Thank you.

Sunlen Serfaty, thank you as well.

Again, we are waiting for her to take the stage there in Coral Springs, Florida. Her campaign has already launched its counteroffensive against Trump on Twitter, sending out even more tweets than Trump defending the former Miss Universe, Clinton's tweets calling Trump -- quote -- "unhinged."

Another says that -- quote -- "Alicia deserves praise for courageously standing up to Trump's attacks and he has the gall to blame her and say he helped?"

And this Clinton tweet: "When something gets under Donald's thin skin, he lashes out and can't let go. This is dangerous for a president."

Joining me now, strategist Rick Wilson, who worked on Rudy Giuliani's Senate campaign in 2000 against Hillary Clinton. Giuliani dropped out of the race.

Rick, thank you for being here.

RICK WILSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: I think you offer very unique perspective because you actually ran focus groups in the 2000 Senate race here in New York trying to figure out how well attacking a candidate about their spouse's infidelity or their infidelity actually resonates with voters. What did you find?

[15:05:00]

WILSON: We asked our pollster at the time, who conducted a series of focus groups, to look at this question.

And what we discovered was that, even if Bill Clinton, they acknowledge, yes, he's done terrible things. They didn't care. They felt like it was a bridge too far, that it pushed -- it made Hillary Clinton, who's a generally unsympathetic character, into a sympathetic character.

It actually blew back. Look, I'm a guy who will use political attacks. If they work, I'm going to use them. They wouldn't work. That's why we never went at her on those questions. We had the data there, and it hasn't changed at this point.

HARLOW: Right.

I think it's interesting because Rudy Giuliani, we know, was a major part of the debate prep for Donald Trump.

WILSON: I know.

HARLOW: Especially in the final days of it. I wonder how involved he will be for the next debate. Do you think he will bring that knowledge to Trump and say, look, we studied this, doesn't work, don't go there?

WILSON: Well, as a former Rudy guy, I will always love and respect Rudy, but I don't know that he recalls the blowback that was in the polling data from back then. And it hasn't changed.

There's been additional data since then in public polling and in private polling that shows that this is an attack that doesn't work. It may appease some of the Trump base, but he doesn't need to win those people. He needs to win over a much broader coalition now. And this doesn't work.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: So here's a way perhaps he could win over more folks that aren't supporting him right now, and that is if stories like the one I'm about to play you part of were out there more. This is another pageant winner on one of Trump's pageants years ago.

He came out -- former Miss Wisconsin, speaking with our Carol Costello this morning talking about her darkest days, when she was literally near death in the hospital and she was gravely ill, she had a blood clot. Donald Trump sent her a note saying, "To the bravest woman I know." Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELISSA YOUNG, FORMER MISS WISCONSIN: That day, I was actually given my last rites. And a deliveryman 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 it was in that moment it lifted my spirits where I knew that God was not done with me yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Is this someone the Trump camp should be pushing a lot more and putting more of these stories front and center, instead of him continuing to go after Alicia Machado?

WILSON: You don't see Donald Trump doing middle-of-the-night manic tweet storms about people he's helped.

You see him doing these things to attack people that he believes have somehow offended him or somehow wronged him or someone that damaged his delicate ego. This is a guy who is -- he's running a very negative tone campaign. Make America great again may be the slogan, but mostly what he's talking about is very dark and very negative, and including about Machado in this case, where we know her name is a brand name now.

He never mentions Miss Wisconsin, for instance, never talks about that story, because he's drawn to these sort of attacks and petty slights, because I think he's got very thin skin and a delicate ego.

HARLOW: Rick Wilson, thank you.

WILSON: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: Interesting perspective.

All right, let's get more analysis now.

Guy Cecil is co-chairman of Priorities USA, a pro-Clinton super PAC. Also with me, Alicia -- Alice, is should say, Alice Stewart, a CNN political commentator who used to be the communications director for Senator Ted Cruz.

Thank you guys for being here.

Let's start with Hillary Clinton. She's about to hold that rally in Florida and address, we believe, Trump's tweet storm last night. She's not letting him dominate the conversation. Clearly, she's going after each one of these tweets.

I just wonder how she continue this is fight with him on this topic of women and appearances, et cetera., when Michelle Obama said, look, when they go low, we go high. How thin of a line is she walking?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the difficulty right there is for her to be able to address this and, as you mentioned, not let Donald Trump dominate the news cycle, but to respond to what he's saying.

And, unfortunately for him, it's keeping an issue that's not favorable to him in the news cycle. And he should be talking about the positive aspects that he did in the debate, where he was able to talk about TPP and his economic vision for the future. However, his middle-of-the- night tweets continue a negative story out there.

And do I believe that Hillary will be able to respond in kind, keeping this in the news cycle, but in a way, as Michelle Obama said, when they go low, we go high.

HARLOW: One of the issues, Guy, for Hillary Clinton is enthusiasm, right? Whether her campaign admits it or not, I have been in the field talking to voters in these swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Enthusiasm is a problem for her.

When does she need to start focusing more on her own narrative, her own stories, rather than responding to Trump and these issues?

[15:10:01]

GUY CECIL, PRIORITIES USA ACTION: Well, I think she's already begun to do that.

In fact, just a couple of hours ago, she did an event rolling out a national service program. Yesterday, she talked about college affordability plan. (CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Sure, but that's not what she's tweeting about. This is like five tweets from the Clinton camp responding to Trump on this issue of former Miss Universe. Is that the right tactic?

CECIL: One might argue that giving a speech for 45 minutes is probably more important than sending out five tweets.

But there's no question she has to find the right balance between holding Donald Trump accountable for what he's saying about Americans across the country and also presenting her own vision. And I think she's finding the right balance right now.

HARLOW: Alice, she's leading now. We finally have some new polling, post-debate polling. Let's pull it up, Florida, Michigan, Nevada. She's leading Donald Trump in these polls right now, and he's going to want to close that gap. She's up by four points in Florida. He's going to want to close that gap. She's going to want to widen it.

How do you think she does that most effectively, when Trump is threatening to talk about, for example, her husband's past infidelities?

STEWART: I think she should do what she did in this last debate. Have another two successful debates.

But keep in mind, this is really important for people to remember. If you recall back in 2012, Mitt Romney had a phenomenal debate.

HARLOW: The first one.

STEWART: The first debate was very strong. The wheels fell off in the second two, and he obviously didn't succeed in beating Barack Obama. And I think she must continue to have two more successful debates.

But also it seems to be working in her favor for the Democrats to continue to push this woman message against Trump.

HARLOW: As we talk about this -- and we know this is not good for Trump, right, the things he said about women and their appearance, et cetera, and doubling down on it, but what it means that we're not talking about as much, Guy, is his tax returns and the fact that he hasn't released them or other concerns about his campaign.

Is that perhaps a smart strategy, so the focus stays on this and not on, where are your tax returns? What about your foundation that didn't have the proper authority to raise money here in New York, et cetera?

CECIL: Look, there is no question that that it is very difficult to decide what exactly to talk about when you're talking about Donald Trump, because his career, his rhetoric gives us an endless amount of material to work with. Yes, he has refused to release his taxes because he doesn't want to show he hasn't paid income taxes and because he's not worth as much as he says he is. Yes, he has spent four consecutive days attacking a woman, body-shaming a woman, insulting her pretty consistently. Yes, he continues to attack Hillary Clinton based on something her husband did 25 years ago.

So, it's always a challenge to figure out what to talk about with Donald Trump and also to continue to provide a balance of presenting your vision for the American people.

I do think it's important, though, for us to respond to the things that Donald Trump is saying in real time, now, maybe not at 3:30 in the morning. But we are going to continue calling out his misogyny, his racism, his sexism, because, at the end of the day, yes, we can argue about tax policy, we can argue about foreign policy.

The problem with Donald Trump is that he defies what we want our country to be, the character of our country, the character of our president. And we have got to make sure we keep talking about it, because it's important.

HARLOW: I have to wrap it up there.

I do want to bring you and our viewers a new tweet just in from Trump about the tweets he made in the middle of the night.

"For those few people knocking me at tweeting at 3:00 in the morning, at least you know I will be there awake to answer the call."

STEWART: Well, there's that.

CECIL: I and the -- what else is there to say? I just -- you know, 39 days.

HARLOW: Guys, thank you.

STEWART: Thank you.

HARLOW: Guy and Alice.

Next: Is the Syrian city of Aleppo on the verge of collapse? Government-led troops ready to launch a major assault there. Is a U.S. response in the works?

Also, stunning images after hours of searching through the rubble, the moment that this rescue worker finds an infant alive. We will have a live report on that.

Also, a family desperate for answers after two American sisters vacationing at a luxury resort in the Seychelles are found dead in their room -- new details just into CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:18:26] HARLOW: Emotional footage has just emerged of the moment that a tiny

baby is pulled from the rubble of a four-story building in Syria.

Clutching the infant's dusty body, this white helmet rescuer runs into the ambulance. For hours, he dug for her, this little infant, and finally she was in his arms. As medics wipe the blood from her face, she reaches her tiny hands up to the man who just saved her life. And then he breaks down.

Another day, another child, another symbol of the Syrian civil war, and for the smallest ones, all they have known is a lifetime of war.

For more on the horror unfolding in Syria, let's go to our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

When you look at the city of Aleppo, it was 2014 when an Obama administration official warned, if you think what's happening with the Yazidi stuck on a mountain is terrible, wait until Aleppo falls. And now we're talking about potentially days away from that and 300,000 people trapped.

[15:20:02]

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: You know, Poppy, the world weeps for the children they see, for the people of Aleppo.

But the people of Aleppo are desperate not for the weeping for them, but for action, something to save their lives. And right now, it does not appear to be coming. The Russians, the Syrians who are leading the offensive against women, children, and babies, the civilians, the people of Aleppo, they say they are attacking terrorists.

And yet we see babies pulled from the rubble. Right now, according to the U.S. assessment, according to officials I'm speaking to, there may be thousands, up to 10,000 Syrian-led troops in and around Aleppo, Syrian forces, militia forces, Kurds backing the regime, Iranian militia groups backing the regime, all continuing to pound away at the people of Aleppo, backed up by the Russians.

The Russians say they're hitting terrorists. The State Department is about to throw its hands up, by all accounts, at any diplomatic initiative. You just have to look at what is being hit here, hospitals, babies, civilian areas, water plants,ambulances. These are civilian targets. It's very difficult to see a way ahead.

HARLOW: Barbara, to what end, right, because...

STARR: Exactly.

HARLOW: You can't call this a cease-fire now, clearly. And Kerry is basically saying -- throwing up his hands. This isn't working with the Russians. But to what end these bombardments that are taking the lives of 96 children in the last week? And, frankly, what can the world do in response? Because this is five years on now.

STARR: Well, it is a question at the moment, a very small part, whether the world is witnessing a war crime. No one is calling it that yet.

The U.N. is calling for a review of some of these strikes. It's against international law to hit these types of humanitarian civilian targets. So, first up, what to do now? The State Department does not appear to have -- to trust the Russians and any Russian language at the moment that they want to go for a cease-fire yet again

It didn't work last time. Nobody obeyed it. Getting humanitarian relief in, you cannot get it in unless you can ensure security. That's proven not to be there. There is no security to get humanitarian relief in. It's now up to the Obama administration to see if they can find another way, and there right now appears to be no appetite for U.S. military action, Poppy.

HARLOW: And we know the president has said the situation in Syria haunts him to this day. Barbara, thank you for the reporting from the Pentagon.

Next, to politics and the coveted millennial vote far from locked in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Who are you going to vote for?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jill Stein.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hillary Clinton.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm undecided.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: They showed up for President Obama, but will this year be a different story? We will take you to the campaign trail in battleground North Carolina.

But, first, a sneak peek at next week's episode of "PARTS UNKNOWN." Anthony Bourdain heads to Nashville to take in the city's lively music and rich cuisine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY BOURDAIN, "PARTS UNKNOWN": Nashville, Tennessee.

When I planned to do a show here, I was saying, you know, everybody does shows about music and Nashville. But then we got really, really lucky.

So, prepare yourself. This show is all about music and it is filled with the most awesome music ever in the history of the world, maybe even the universe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [15:29:14]

HARLOW: In the final weeks of this election, Hillary Clinton is stepping up efforts to court young voters. Polls show she's lagging behind in winning this critical group.

And as CNN's chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, reports, the Clinton camp is taking notice.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a volunteer with Hillary from North Carolina here in Pitt County.

BASH (voice-over): At field offices and 280 college campuses, millennials work the phones for Hillary Clinton.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was wondering if you'd like to come out and do some voter registration or a phone bank with us this weekend.

BASH: Young voters fueled President Obama's wins. He got 60 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds in 2012, a demo that was nearly 20 percent of the vote, and now could be growing.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Young people could represent 25 percent of the vote.

BASH: Team Clinton is putting such a premium on millennials, they hired youth directors in key battleground states.

Lillie Catlin runs North Carolina, and says social media is key.

LILLIE CATLIN, NORTH CAROLINA YOUTH VOTE DIRECTOR, CLINTON CAMPAIGN: You know, we can't necessarily knock on every...