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VP Debate: Kaine & Pence Insult, Interrupt; Trump, Clinton Prep for Round Two After VP Debate; Hurricane Matthew Takes Aim at U.S. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 05, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. The dust has barely settled from the vice presidential debate and the candidates and their surrogates are back on the road this morning.

You are looking at a live event in Youngstown, Ohio. Bill Clinton will be behind that microphone stumping for his wife very soon. It's his first stop of the day, in this battleground state. And Clinton's surrogates are fanning out across the Midwest, daughter Chelsea and Bernie Sanders holding events from Iowa to Wisconsin.

On the Republican ticket, Donald Trump heads west to stump in Reno, Nevada. And next hour Mike Pence rallies in Virginia not far from last night's showdown. As for that debate lots of jabs insult and interruptions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TIM KAINE, (D) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The thought of Donald Trump as Commander-in-Chief scares us to death.

GOV. MIKE PENCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The campaign of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine has been an avalanche of insult.

KAINE: The Trump plan is a different plan. It's a you're fired plan.

PENCE: I appreciated the you're hired, you're fired thing, senator. You used that a whole lot. And I think your running mate used a lot of pre-done lines.

KAINE: When Donald Trump says women should be punished or Mexicans are rapists and criminals or John McCain's not a hero, he is showing you who he is.

PENCE: Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again. Look --

KAINE: Can you defend it?

PENCE: There are criminal aliens in this country, Tim.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: The -- vice presidential nominees came into the debate with one goal. Do not hurt their own campaigns and by most accounts, mission accomplished. Let's begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly. He's here to break down some of the more fiery moments. Good morning.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Carol. Do not harm, probably the first principle. No question about it when it came to these two candidates. But don't get anything wrong, they had very clear goals going into this debate.

For Tim Kaine, it was to talk about Donald Trump. He didn't want to talk about Mike Pence at all. All he wanted to do was remind voters. Remind viewers of Donald Trump and some of the comments he's made. And that meant attacking on the issue that has become the premier issue for the Clinton campaign over the course of the last week, taxes. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAINE: He said, "If I run for president, I will absolutely release my taxes." He's broken his first promise. --

PENCE: And he will.

KAINE: He's broken his first promise. Second, he stood on this stage -

PENCE: He hasn't broken his promise. He said he's -

KAINE: He stood on the stage last week and when Hillary said, you haven't been paying taxes, he said, "That makes me smart." So it's smart not to pay for our military. It's smart not to pay for veterans. It's smart not to pay for teachers.

PENCE: His tax returns showed he went through a very difficult time but he used the tax code just the way it's supposed to be used and he did it brilliantly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, Carol, it's worth noting that a lot of people went into this debate thinking it was going to be dull or uninteresting or boring. It was not that. It was feisty and combative, back and forth the entire time. When you talk about what Tim Kaine was trying to do for the Clinton campaign. Mike Pence also had a very important role in this debate, a very kind of steadfast role in this debate. Be poised, be calm. Present to the voters, present to the public, that there's a steady hand on a ticket that really has been in turmoil over the course of the last couple weeks. That meant deftly pivoting away repeatedly from Tim Kaine's attacks and in some cases maybe not necessarily telling all the truth. Take a listen to this exchange on Vladimir Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAINE: This is one where you can just kind of go to the tape on it but Goveor Pence said inarguably, "Vladimir Putin is a better leader than President Obama."

PENCE: That is absolutely inaccurate.

KAINE: And I just think a guy -

PENCE: I said -- he's been stronger on the world stage.

KAINE: No. You said leader.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Putin and I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Russia.

Certainly in that system he's been a leader far more than our president has been a leader.

PENCE: I think it's inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now Carol, you see that back and forth there. And going back a little bit to the tape there, the Clinton campaign pointing out that Mike Pence tried to dodge defending his nominee often and repeatedly throughout. But you talk to Trump advisors, you talk to Pence advisors, they are thrilled with the performance Mike Pence put forward last night. They say it's exactly what he needed to do to make the point going forward. It's something you're going to hear repeatedly over the course of the day including here and Harrisonburg, Mike Pence's first post-debate event trying to keep some momentum going after as I noted, rather rough week for the Trump campaign. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right. Phil Mattingly, reporting live for us this morning. Thank you. Even before the debate began you knew how the night would end. Both campaigns would claim victory, right?

Here's a -- post-debate photo of Donald Trump calling Mike Pence but here's a twist. Campaign insiders telling CNN that Trump could be upset that Pence, did too good a job in that debate. We'll have more on that in just a minute.

And Hillary Clinton, she also took to Twitter, praising her running mate and saying quote, "Lucky to have a partner like Tim Kaine who stood up for our shared vision tonight instead of trying to deny it." CNN's Sunlen Serfaty, live in Philadelphia where Tim Kaine will hold an event later today to tell us more. Good morning.

[10:05:16] SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning too, Carol. Well, one thing we know about Donald Trump is this is a man that certainly does not like to be upstaged and at least one Trump campaign official is telling CNN's John King that Mike Pence's solid debate performance last night did not sit well with Donald Trump.

That said he did tweet out some praise of his running mate saying that he did do a good job and of course, the Trump campaign is going to try to capitalize on his solid debate performance. That said, they are also making an issue of Tim Kaine's aggressiveness up there on stage, the point that he interrupted many times at many, many different points throughout the debate, the Trump team, calling that rude this morning, they are calling Tim Kaine unhinged.

But this is something that the team Clinton is trying to spin as a good thing, that he was aggressive there -- on the debate stage. Here are reactions from both campaigns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Donald Trump and Mike Pence are very different people. They have different styles. They have different styles of debating. I can't imagine Secretary Clinton is happy with her running mate Tim Kaine tonight. He interrupted Gov. Pence when he wasn't interrupting the female moderator. He was interrupting Gov. Pence.

JOHN PODESTA, CLINTON CAMPAIGN CHAIR: Look, I think he was the aggressor tonight. I think that he did a great job both in explaining what he and Hillary wanted to do for the American people. I think that he challenged Gov. Pence to defend the kind of hateful campaign that Donald Trump has ran and time and again, Gov. Pence took a dive

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Now, on this issue of Tim Kaine's interruption which although the Clinton campaign is trying to celebrate it. He's just being aggressive. He didn't receive a lot of negative attention for it. The fact that it was nearly 70 times he interrupt there, up there on the debate stage, including this interesting tweet from Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee. He tweeted this out, "Tim Kaine seems to think a VP serves the same function for a president as a yappy Chihuahua does for a socialite's purse."

So, certainly some sassy words there over Twitter from Mike Huckabee. And certainly not the narrative that the Clinton campaign wants coming out of the first and only vice presidential debate. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Sunlen Serfaty reporting live from Philadelphia this morning. So the VP debate is history. The next round, Sunday, Trump and Clinton battle it out again, this time in a much more intimate setting. So let's talk about that. With me now is Larry Sabato, director for the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Rebecca Berg is the national political reporter for "RealClearPolitics" and a CNN analyst and Mark Preston, CNN's politics executive editor. Welcome to all of you.

REBECCA BERG, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER "REALCLEARPOLITICS" AND CNN ANALYST: Thanks Carol.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So Mark, Sunday's presidential debate is critical for Donald Trump. If he does not do well, is he toast? MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, in this campaign I think making declarations has proven to be really a stupid thing to do. Until we actually see the votes in November, who knows what's going to happen. But look, this is where we are at in the campaign. We have seen Hillary Clinton come roaring back after her debate. Even though Mike Pence according to our poll last night, our snap poll of watchers of the debate, he won the debate. But how much is that really going to factor quite frankly into people's votes, you know, heading into November. Donald Trump needs a strong performance. Donald Trump needs to take some lessons from Mike Pence. Donald Trump needs to show that he can curb his temperament which is something that he's failed to do even in the past few days, Carol.

COSTELLO: So Larry, a lot of people are saying that Donald Trump should sit down and he should study Mike Pence's debate performance, including the "Wall Street Journal."

Here's what the "Wall Street Journal" wrote this morning. "If Donald Trump could make the case for Donald Trump half as well as Mike Pence makes the case for Donald Trump, the New York businessman would be well on his way to the White House."

So Larry, do you think that Donald Trump will take some cues from his running mate?

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CENTER FOR POLITICS: I don't think Donald Trump sits down and studies very often. It's always possible. But look, they're such different people, Donald Trump and Mike Pence. And your personality tends to come out in these debates one way or the other. And particularly for somebody like Donald Trump, who has not been in politics before. You can't emphasize enough how important that is. He is used to being very combative in the business world, let no insult go unanswered. In politics, the key is picking the right insults to answer. That's something Donald Trump has not learned. Mike Pence knew the lesson years ago.

COSTELLO: OK. So you talk about I guess that you could call that a competitive nature, right, because Rebecca, here's the thing. John King reported last night that Trump may not be all that happy with Pence's performance because Pence upstaged Trump as a better debater and let's face it, Pence did not effusively defend his running mate during last night's debate.

BERG: No, he did not. The focus for Mike Pence was

[10:10:16] inarguably on Hillary Clinton and on Mike Pence. And he did a very good job, I think, of pivoting throughout the debate to attacking Hillary Clinton but as Tim Kaine pointed out during the debate itself whenever it came time for Mike Pence to defend something that Donald Trump had said or some controversy that Donald Trump had created he didn't do it in the way you might expect or the way Tim Kaine did for Hillary Clinton. That said that might not have necessarily been the goal for Mike Pence. As you mentioned earlier in the show, Carol, it's important for these vice presidential candidates to really just do no harm for their ticket because vice presidential debates don't often really shape the trajectory of a presidential election and often don't necessarily reflect on the top of the ticket, and certainly Mike Pence did that. He was very on message, he was unflappable, really a stark departure stylistically from Donald Trump in terms of his style on the debate stage. -

COSTELLO: And here's the other thing. Mike Pence was very thoughtful at times, right, and actually so was Tim Kaine once he got past all the interrupting you know, through the first 45 minutes of the debate. Because - and I bring that up because next Sunday's debate will be in a much more intimate setting. There will be 40 people in the audience. The audience will post questions to these candidates and they have to like talk to people and give thoughtful answers. And by that, I mean, well, listen to this exchange from last night's debate, both candidates were asked about their faith and how faith plays into public policy. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAINE: For me, the hardest struggle in my faith life was the Catholic Church is against the death penalty and so am I. But I was governor of a state. And the state law said that there was a death penalty for crimes if the jury determined them to be heinous, and so I had to grapple with that. When I was running for governor I was attacked pretty strongly because of my position on the death penalty but I looked the voters of Virginia in the eye and said look, this is my religion, I'm not going to change my religious practice to get one vote, but I know how to take an oath and uphold the law and if you elect me, I will uphold the law.

PENCE: For me, the sanctity of life precedes out of the belief that ancient principle that where God says before you were formed in the womb, I knew you. And so for my first time in public life, I have sought to stand with great compassion for the sanctity of life. The state of Indiana has also sought to make sure we expand alternatives in health care counseling for women, non-abortion alternatives. I'm also very pleased the fact we are well on our way in Indiana to becoming the most pro-adoption state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So Mark, those were thoughtful answers from politicians who know they have to do their jobs but have also really thought about how their faith plays into things. Can Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton articulate things in that way for this intimate debate that's coming on Sunday?

PRESTON: Well, let me just first take Donald Trump very quickly. We just heard from two men who based their policy positions on their faith. To Larry's point, they are politicians. They know how to answer questions. They know how to handle themselves in a situation. If you go back and listen to Donald Trump, every time he's attacked or asked like what is his experience that makes him, you know the right person to be the Commander-in-Chief. He always goes back to his business background. He always talks about his business background. That is in very much way, his faith. That is what he's grounded in that has helped to develop how he thinks moving forward. Hillary Clinton also has a very difficult time, while she has all the experience she sometimes has a very hard time relating that to the voters. And that's why someone like Tim Kaine when we saw him announce as her running mate was seen as a good get, because it helped to kind of edge the sharpened edges that Hillary Clinton has.

COSTELLO: But I think Larry that you know, as voters sit down and watch that second debate, they will want answers like that from these candidates. Will they get them?

SABATO: Well, I think Mark is absolutely right because these two are not natural debaters for a town hall format. The best ever I think the other panelists will agree with me, the best ever at this is Bill Clinton. We all remember those of us who were there, who lived through the 1992, in that town hall format in Richmond, when a very difficult question, kind of nonsensical question about the national debt was asked and President George H.W. Bush did his best to answer it but he didn't, he couldn't. Bill Clinton got up off his stool. He went to the edge of the stage and essentially said in the classic Clinton-esque fashion, "I feel your pain." He just reformulated the question and answered it in a way that thrilled the woman who had asked and really the entire audience.

[10:15:16] That's what you do in a town hall. I don't think either Trump or Clinton necessarily has the skills to do what Bill Clinton did so well.

COSTELLO: OK. So Rebecca, what can we expect from Sunday's debate then?

BERG: Well, I don't think we can necessarily expect a major difference in terms of the candidates' tone and style from the first debate. And I think we will see maybe some awkward moments because as Larry noted, these are not two candidates who naturally are very good at relating to normal people, and striking that empathetic tone which is so important in a town hall setting as Bill Clinton did in 1992 and Larry just mentioned. You want to express to people that you understand their problems and care about their problems. And this is actually an area where you know we talk a lot about honesty and trustworthiness ratings in polling. The question does the candidate care about people like me, both of these nominees don't do very well on that question, either, in part because their unfavorable are so historically high, people don't necessarily trust them to understand or care about their problems. And so the big challenge for both of them in this setting will be to express that sort of empathy where people start to think. Where voters can imagine them actually caring about solving their problems and thinking about them in the same way that maybe they did.

COSTELLO: All right. So I'm sure we will be watching on Sunday. Thanks for joining me this morning, Larry Sabato, Rebecca Berg, Mark Preston. Still to come in the "Newsroom" mandatory evacuations as a deadly hurricane barrels toward the United States, so when could it hit?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [10:20:55] COSTELLO: A stark warning from Florida's governor as hurricane Matthew takes aim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK SCOTT, (R) FLORIDA: The storm has already killed multiple people and we should expect the same impact in Florida if people do not take this seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Right now the category 3 storm is on track to possibly make landfall on Friday morning. President Obama canceling his Florida trip today. He is going to meet with FEMA officials very soon. Lines for gas stretching around the block in Miami as homeowners board up windows in Georgia. You're actually looking at live -- are these pictures out of Miami, Florida? Fort Lauderdale. OK. This is from Fort Lauderdale. And you see people -- have their propane tanks with them and they are filling them in case of course the electricity goes out because that hurricane will bring high winds and possibly flooding and they are preparing for the night ahead. Everybody is hunkering down. We have got team coverage for you this morning. Meteorologist Chad Myers is at the forecast center but we want to head to Boris Sanchez. Looks beautiful where you are right now but that may not be the case in a few days, Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's definitely not going to be the case here in about 12 to 36 hours, Carol. We are going to really feel the beginning of hurricane Matthew as it starts approaching Florida. As you said, people are taking the governor's warnings very seriously. There are long lines outside of gas station, reports that some gas stations have even run out of gas. There are also at grocery stores some really unbelievable scenes, aisle after aisle emptied out. People buying water and non-perishable food, making sure that they are stocked up at home for this storm. The way that it's tracking right now, it's really a tossup whether or not it's simply going to graze the coast or whether or not it's going to be a direct hit. The governor says we should brace for a direct hit. This is a very dangerous storm that killed seven people in the Caribbean. He's trying to get the message out that you can rebuild a home but you may not be able to rebuild a life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: I cannot emphasize enough that everyone in our state must prepare now for a direct hit. That means people have less than 24 hours left to prepare, evacuate and shelter. Having a plan in place could mean the difference between life and death when it comes to a storm of this magnitude.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: He's also trying to get the word out that if you fear that at some point you may have to evacuate, you should just do it now. It's better to get out of the way early than wait until the last minute. There are now mandatory evacuations south of us in Brevard County. Those are likely to expand as we get closer to the storm and coastal communities and barrier islands like this one. In fact, we have been told by our hotel we are staying at that we may have to prepare to evacuate at some point. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right. Boris Sanchez, you stay safe. Thanks for that report. Let's head to Atlanta and the Weather Center, because Chad, you have been advising people to listen to their governors, if there's evacuation orders, go.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Correct. And go early. Don't wait for everybody else to get on the highway and then sit there during five miles per hour. That's the thing, Carol. Once everybody is told to leave, it's hard to get out. If you have medicines, medications, make sure you take them with you. Make sure you are telling somebody elsewhere you're going so they are not looking for you. If you are in Naples and you should be in Fort Lauderdale, and you're not there, they will be looking for you. All these little things that you can do right now.

Now, to be honest, there is more of the eye that's offshore, more of the cone that's offshore than is on. So the likelihood of a direct impact is actually lower than a miss so the chance of a miss is higher. But if we're looking at 140 miles per hour storm, do you really care how much it misses by? Northwest winds going to be blowing all weekend long, all week long, 115 miles south of Long Island, Bahamas right now and it's a category 3. But it's forecast to become a category 4.

Here's the cone. Here's what we are looking at. Yes, you see the cone is onshore in Florida, in Georgia and then the Carolinas but it's more off than on. If this changes just a little bit and all of a sudden everybody panics, it's going to be Katy bar the door just to try to get out of there. And that's why we talked about this earlier, Carol.

[10:25:16] If you can go, if you have ways to go, places to go, do it now. Because it is going to be a lot easier to do it now than it is when everybody else is trying to get out of there. This storm will change at 11:00. Please tune back in so we can tell you what the new 11:00 advisory is because I guarantee it is going to change something, maybe drastically. That's what Dr. Ned told us about three hours ago.

COSTELLO: OK. So hope it changes for the better and it heads out to sea. But we'll see. Chad Myers thanks so much. Coming up in the "Newsroom," Hillary Clinton's army of surrogates campaigning in four states today, what can the Trump/Pence ticket do to counter some of the Democratic Party's heavy hitters?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)