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Clinton Widens Lead over Trump; Russia and U.S. at Brink of New Cold War; CNN Films to Debut "We Will Rise"; Athletes React to Trump's Locker Room Talk. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired October 11, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:00:11] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles.

Ahead this hour, Donald Trump at war with his own party as Hillary Clinton takes a double-digit lead in the latest national polls.

Plus, Donald Trump on the war in Syria -- what he does not know about one of the biggest challenges facing the next president.

And why professional athletes are weighing in on what is and what is not locker room talk.

Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm John Vause. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.

Four weeks to go and Hillary Clinton has taken a huge lead in the race for the White House. It comes after Donald Trump was heard bragging about his fame which allowed him to sexually assault women. And at Sunday's debate he vowed to jail Clinton if he wins the election and he admitted a disconnect with his running mate on a major foreign policy issue. But all that pales in comparison to the rifts he's opened within the Republican Party.

The latest polling now from the "Wall Street Journal" and NBC show Hillary Clinton with an 11-point lead. We begin our coverage this hour with Sunlen Serfaty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tonight, Donald Trump's scorched earth strategy is threatening to engulf the Republican Party.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If they want to release more tapes saying inappropriate things, we'll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things. There are so many of them.

SERFATY: House Speaker Paul Ryan today holding a conference call with Republican lawmakers telling them, according to sources on the call, that he will no longer defend Trump and will spend the next month focused on preserving the GOP's congressional majority.

Ryan telling members quote, "You all need to do what is best for you and your district."

Trump firing back today tweeting quote, "Paul Ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration and not waste his time on the Republican nominee."

The intra-party battle comes as a new NBC/Wall Street Poll done after the release of the 2005 videotape with Trump making sexually aggressive comments about women but before Sunday's debate, finds Trump trailing Clinton nationally by double digits.

TRUMP: If you look at Bill Clinton -- far worse. Mine are words and his was action.

SERFATY: Trump's no-holds barred debate performance was an attempt to stabilize his candidacy bringing to the debate women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment and assault as he tries to move past the videotape controversy.

TRUMP: I apologize to my family. I apologize to the American people. Certainly I'm not proud of it. But this is locker room talk.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Have you ever done those things?

TRUMP: And women have respect for me. And I will tell you -- no I have not.

SERFATY: Trump's contrition was short-lived, quickly turning his focus to sharply criticizing Clinton.

TRUMP: She has tremendous hate in her heart. And when she said "deplorables" she meant it.

SERFATY: And even suggesting he would try to imprison his Democratic rival if he was elected next month.

TRUMP: If I win I'm going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.

TRUMP: Yes. Because you'd be in jail.

SERFATY: Despite the concerns by some in the party about Trump's path forward his running mate Mike Pence says he is not jumping ship.

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R-IN), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's absolutely false to suggest that at any point in f time we consider dropping off this ticket.

SERFATY: Even after Trump contradicted him during the debate on the ticket's stance toward military action in Syria.

TRUMP: He and I haven't spoken and I disagree.

SERFATY: Pence today saying there was no daylight between the two.

PENCE: I've talked to him about our policy. Donald Trump's made it clear. Our policy is safe zones for people suffering in Syria. But also his focus is on destroying ISIS in Syria.

SERFATY: And in a sign of support, Mike Pence returning back to the campaign trail, this is after he cancelled an event over the weekend saying he could not represent Donald Trump. Mike Pence telling a crowd in North Carolina that no, he does not condone what Donald Trump said in those videotapes but that he does believe in forgiveness.

Sunlen Serfaty -- CNN, Wilkes-Barre.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Joining me now Eric Bauman, the vice chairman of the California Democratic Party; and Noel Irwin Hentschel, Huffington Post contributor as well as a Trump supporter.

Thank you, guys, for coming in.

Is this decision by Paul Ryan -- is this kind of a hammer blow to Trump's campaign? It seems that Ryan has conceded the White House and for Trump he no longer has the support of the party which is crucial for these battleground states. In some ways Noel, is Trump now effectively running as an Independent?

[00:05:00] NOEL IRWIN HENTSCHEL, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I think he's always been independent minded but he is a Republican and he is a conservative. So it's -- it's actually maybe good opportunity because in the general election I know when I ran for office they tell you run to the right and then to move to the middle. If you're a Democrat run to the left then move to the middle.

VAUSE: Sure.

HENTSCHEL: So this is actually beneficial, I believe, for the people to realize that he is willing to stand up to the establishment and he's willing to fight for the people. It's all about fighting for the people in a new way. No more status quo. We need to change the way that we are running the country to run more like a company.

VAUSE: More like a company. Ok. And I hear that from a lot of Trump supporters.

But Eric just as a matter of practicalities here as someone who's run campaigns. If you don't have the support of the party how much trouble are you in?

ERIC BAUMAN, VICE CHAIRMAN, CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Look, Trump is clearly in free fall. Last night was a perfect example of it and the reaction going into last night's debate when some people held back their denunciations, and the reaction afterwards, when you see the highest ranking elected Republican in America reject his party's presidential nominee and tell his candidates for the preservation of the party's survival, you do what you have to do. You don't run with Trump.

Donald Trump is morally bankrupt and he proved it in his -- in what came out in the videotape on Friday, his reaction to it Friday, Friday night, Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday.

VAUSE: I want to get Noel to respond. Just for the moment because --

HENTSCHEL: That's not true. I know him. I know both of them. I don't know if everybody -- have you met him? Have you met him -- Eric? Have you met Donald Trump?

BAUMAN: Trump -- of course, I have.

HENTSCHEL: So you've talked to him.

BAUMAN: So I know he is morally bankrupt. That's exactly the point.

HENTSCHEL: No, that's not -- well, I know him. I've known him since 1990 when he began helping women in developing countries and our inner cities working with us and actually (inaudible) at that time and he cares about the people and he respects women. He's professional.

BAUMAN: Right -- that's why he wants to grab them by the genitals.

HENTSCHEL: No.

BAUMAN: That's what he said. That was his own words. That wasn't made up.

(CROSSTALK)

HENTSCHEL: That's -- ok, this was in 2003. I'm a mother also. I'm a business person, chairman, CEO and I'm also mother. In 2003 this came to our home. I used to take my son, teenager, shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch because he liked those kinds of T-shirts and everything. So we get on the mailing list.

This comes to our home. This is what was at that time. This is all telling young people to have group sex with each other in 2003. We have a cultural problem in our country.

And so -- and in here, what do they do? They support the Democrat Party. It's all about the Democrat Party in here. So --

VAUSE: I think it's a little off topic. I mean this is 13 years ago and Abercrombie & Fitch.

HENTSCHEL: Ok. Same thing -- late 1990s. I'm at home at the dinner table and I have to explain to my five-year-old son, the youngest of seven children what oral sex is because --

BAUMAN: This is diversionary talk. That has nothing to do with the presidential race.

HENTSCHEL: No, it's not. It's because this is where our innocence and wholesomeness went out. It's all talk. But Bill Clinton actually did it.

(CROSSTALK)

BAUMAN: In Donald Trump's own words, he said he grabbed women and kissed them. He grabbed them by their genitals --

HENTSCHEL: No, he didn't say that.

BAUMAN: -- and his celebrity allows him to do that.

(CROSSTALK)

HENTSCHEL: What do people care about? I'm a woman and I'm a businesswoman and I'm a mother. What women care about is security -- national security and jobs. And security of our daily life that has to do with our financial security and has to do with Obamacare -- Obamacare being a total disaster for businesses and for families.

VAUSE: The reality is that Donald Trump is doing very badly with women. If you look at the polling, he has very high unfavorability.

HENTSCHEL: Not with business women.

VAUSE: But with a lot of women, college-educated women. Romney won them last time. Clinton is very much ahead. If you look at these new polls but even Donald Trump now seems to realize that he has a very difficult path ahead. This is what he said just a few hours ago at a rally.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have 28 days. November 8th is the big day. We're going to get out. We're going to win. I'm going to make three, four, five stops a day. I may be limping across that finish line but we're going to get to cross that finish line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Fortunately you're going to be there.

I just want to look at the Electoral College map because these are the numbers here.

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: Noel, just a moment. Have a look at this -- this is the Electoral College map because in the United States you need 207 Electoral Colleges to win the election. Hillary Clinton right now of states that are leaning Democrat or in her corner -- 272; Trump -- 196. Even if Trump wins Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina there does not seem to be a path to the White House. So Eric, what now --

HENTSCHEL: The people will decide, though.

BAUMAN: Here's the reality. Hillary Clinton has a positive progressive futuristic message for America. She is standing up for working men and women. She believes that kids should not go to college and come out near bankrupt because they owe $160,000. She is talking about what Americans care about and Donald Trump is on videotape talking about women that he sexually abused not so many years ago.

[00:10:08] HENTSCHEL: No, he didn't sexually abuse them.

VAUSE: But he did talk about committing a sexual assault. When he did say I can kiss them and I can do things to them because he's famous.

HENTSCHEL: All right. You know, I think that we need to talk about what really, really matters. And if you talk about who's famous, ok, that is --

VAUSE: This does matter to a lot of people though.

HENTSCHEL: What matters to women is their jobs, is their kids, the future of their kids, what matters is the national security, what matters is ISIS. Hillary had her chance. She had her chance, John. We need to have status quo go. And we need to have change and we need it to be about the people.

VAUSE: So you want to say -- what Noel is saying is that we need to focus on policy. But we're now seeing -- it's actually coming from Trump campaign essentially to relitigate the scandals of the 90s with Bill Clinton. This is Mike Pence. I want you to listen to Mike Pence who was on CNN earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PENCE: I remember the extraordinary avalanche of scandals that came out of President Bill Clinton's despicable behavior even with a 23- year-old intern named Monica Lewinsky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAUMAN: But Bill Clinton is not running for president. That's the point they're making.

HENTSCHEL: Look, I have family members that have been sexually assaulted, ok? I work with the rape foundation. What they tell you is that the biggest problem is the enabler. The enabler -- anybody in a family that enables and that you have to stay away from the enabler because that doesn't help the person who has been the victim. That's what happened with Hillary. That's where it went to this conversation about Hillary and Bill Clinton. She enabled and she continues to enable. So she's not good for women.

BAUMAN: This is a shameful way to try to defend a xenophobic misogynist who is the most egomaniacal person that has ever run for president in American history, period.

VAUSE: Ok. Look, one last thing. We've got to come back next hour so you'll have many more times --

HENTSCHEL: It's not true. It's not true.

VAUSE: There is one issue that came up during the debate. It was essentially the appointment of a special prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton. It's caused a lot of controversy but again on the campaign Donald Trump is not backing away from what he said. This was him at a campaign stop today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: When I said we are going to get a special prosecutor to figure this deal out. I have never been so ashamed of this country as what's gone on with Hillary Clinton. I have never seen anything like it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Now, Eric, for all the outrage that's coming from the Democrat side, the Obama administration did something very similar in appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA over interrogations during the war on terror. The precedent to this was actually set by Barack Obama and Eric Holder. So there's a degree of hypocrisy here.

BAUMAN: So let me start off by the fact that there were seven, count them, seven, investigations appointed by and conducted by the Republicans in Congress each of whom found nothing. Each of whom found nothing.

VAUSE: Right. I'm talking about the --

(CROSSTALK)

BAUMAN: And the FBI's investigation --

VAUSE: I know. But what we're talking about is --

BAUMAN: -- said that no competent prosecutor would bring a case.

VAUSE: What we're talking about here is appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton. There is outrage. People are saying that is against the law. The President does not have that authority. It is banana republic stuff.

BAUMAN: Well, that's true.

VAUSE: What I'm saying here is that Obama -- President Obama did exactly the same when he took over office and appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA of interrogations during the war on terror. It was his way of placating the left who were angry at George W. Bush because of the war in Iraq.

So you know, the precedent here has already been set by the Obama administration.

BAUMAN: Well, precedent might have been set, and I'm not conceding that, because I don't know these facts, but I can tell you that's not what the law says. The law used to allow this to happen and the law was changed by the Congress.

VAUSE: Last word.

HENTSCHEL: I was at the convention in Cleveland and I heard, actually when I really started to cry and I usually wouldn't do that but when Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith in Benghazi came up and she spoke what it meant to lose her son and how Hillary Clinton was responsible for killing him and that was preventable. That was what really -- that's where the whole crowd there was lock her up. Lock her up.

Because there is a different standard, excuse me, Eric -- there is a different standard being placed here on the crime and the punishment. We are all sinners. We're all sinners.

BAUMAN: So the Republicans in Congress who investigated her seven times on Benghazi, seven times and found something.

HENTSCHEL: And when you read about it --

BAUMAN: So it was Republicans who investigated her. So you're trying to twist this into something that it is not.

[00:15:02] HENTSCHEL: Do you know what else made me cry tonight because as a mother --

VAUSE: Last word -- quickly.

HENTSCHEL: -- when I read that she and her team were making fun of during the Benghazi -- with Trey Gowdy about his hair and about Donald Trump's hair instead of about the responsibility she had for the lives of these people that were killed, that she could have -- she could have been helping to prevent and then she lied to the mother. How do you lie to the mother?

VAUSE: Look, we'll leave it there. But, Eric's point is correct that there were a lot of investigations led by the Republicans into Benghazi and they all came up empty.

But we have plenty of time to sort things out.

HENTSCHEL: Well, ask the mother. It's not empty -- she's got caskets.

BAUMAN: But she did not conduct the investigation. The Republicans did and the Republicans found that there was no crime there.

VAUSE: We'll talk again next hour -- guys. Thank you so much.

Ok. We'll take a short break.

When we come back, the relations between the United States and Russia are heading toward a deep freeze. We'll tell you how Moscow's latest moves are now adding to that strain.

Also ahead, amid the mud-slinging in the presidential campaign, a policy debate on Syria just did not really happen. What the candidates said, did not say and what the voters may have learned -- just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:20:04] VAUSE: U.S. and Russia are at odds over Syria's civil war. And repercussions from that could extend beyond the Middle East. Ceasefire efforts have collapsed and Moscow is ramping up military moves in several areas.

Elise Labott has more now on the escalating tensions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELISE LABOTT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Vladimir Putin moving nuclear-capable missiles to the border with Poland and Lithuania. Military maneuvers that may violate international treaties but Putin sees it as a show of strength on NATO's doorstep as Washington and Moscow head towards the brink of a new Cold War.

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: We run the risk of having an accelerated relationship that is nothing but potentially bad with Russia if we don't very aggressively address this.

LABOTT: Putin's nuclear brinkmanship comes as U.S. intelligence agencies probably named Russia for launching cyber attacks on U.S. political groups finding quote, "Based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior most officials could have authorized these activities."

On Monday, WikiLeaks, which the U.S. has linked to Russia, released new e-mails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chair as fears grow of Russia's interference in next month's election.

Since the collapse of the U.S. ceasefire deal in Syria and Putin's fresh assault on Aleppo, there are new signs Russia is further ramping up its military operation in Syria to help prop up Syrian President Assad.

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women. These are acts that beg for an appropriate investigation of war crimes.

LABOTT: Russia announcing just today their plans for a permanent naval base in Syria and Moscow's deployed an advance anti-aircraft missile system to northwest Syria near Turkey -- a troubling development for U.S. pilots flying missions against ISIS.

Citing what he called aggressive steps that threaten Russian national security foreign minister Sergey Lavrov warned those in the U.S. calling for more aggressive military action in Syria are playing a, quote, "very dangerous game".

MARKS: These are not simply academic discussions about posturing and alignments. This is a real capability in a hot war that exists right now in Syria with multiple players. It is an acceleration of a problem and escalation of real damage that could take place.

LABOTT: And as tensions with the U.S. over Syria deepen, President Putin was in Turkey Monday cozying up to President Erdogan whose ties with Washington are also strained over U.S. support for the Kurds in Syria and his crackdown following a July coup attempt. Putin said he was glad Erdogan was able to retain control over that coup. And the leaders are on opposite sides on Syria but did agree on the need to get aid into Aleppo.

Elise Labott -- CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: The second presidential debate will go down in history as one of the ugliest and nastiest ever. It probably will not be remembered for the fact it was almost a foreign policy free zone except for a few moments like when Donald Trump was asked about his vulgar language and he pivoted to how he would knock the hell out of ISIS followed by a few questions on Syria and Russia.

And when the Syrian city of Aleppo was mentioned that sent many viewers to the Google machine. According to Merriam-Webster, there was a surge in the number of searches for the term "a leppo" more than for the actual correct name of the city Aleppo, which then raises the question, would anyone watching have learned much from the candidates especially Donald Trump about the grinding conflict in Syria?

Michael Weiss is a CNN contributor and co-author, "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror". He joins us now.

Michael -- let's talk about one of the statements that came from Donald Trump. He was asked about who was fighting ISIS. This is what he said about who is actually taking on the terror group.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. And Iran is killing is. And those three have now lined up because of our weak foreign policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So what does he have right? What does he have wrong?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well look, it is true to some degree that Assad, Russia and Iran have waged war against ISIS. However the percentage of the sorties that the Russian air force has launched against ISIS is vanishingly small as against the number of sorties that it's waged against Free Syrian Army groups including and especially those backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Turks and also civilians.

It's not quite true -- you know, Trump's message here was essentially to say we have to align, de facto or du jour with Russia and Iran in Syria because they are doing the heavy lifting in the war against the so-called Islamic state. That is false. [00:25:07] And you can listen to any number of U.S. officials from the

Pentagon to the U.S. intelligence agencies or independent monitors. I mean Bellingcat, an open source intelligence resource has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Russian defense ministry has actually falsified much of the footage of their aerial bombardment raids claiming that they took place in places and times that they did not because they were saying they were hitting ISIS and in fact they were hitting other rebel groups.

VAUSE: On that note, he was also pushed on the issue of the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo and he actually supported his running mate Mike Pence who said he would use American military force to stop those attacks. This is what Trump said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He and I haven't spoken and I disagree. I disagree.

MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: You disagree with your running mate.

TRUMP: I think you have to knock out ISIS. I believe we have to get ISIS. We have to worry about ISIS before we can get too much more involved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: What does that one comment in particular say about a future Trump administration?

WEISS: I've got news for Donald Trump. The most territory that has been taken away from ISIS in Syria has been taken away by a U.S.- backed coalition led by the Pentagon under the command of Barack Obama and the YPG Kurdish militias and also the Turkish military which has committed 500 special forces into northern Syria which has effectively shut off, completely robbed ISIS of its access to the Syrian/Turkish border.

Now you'll recall, in the last two, three years we have been talking about this border as a sieve and the reason that we have seen so many foreign fighters pour into northern Syria and then even more dangerously so exported out for the purposes of conducting these foreign operations such as we've seen in Brussels and Paris and Istanbul and elsewhere.

So Turkey and the United States -- two NATO allies have done far more to combat and contain ISIS in Syria than Assad, Russia, and Iran. Now again, why does the GOP nominee, and he comes from a party that has been notoriously hostile to totalitarian dictatorships particularly the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia, why is he essentially carrying water for these governments?

This is very disturbing to somebody like me. And I think it's very disturbing for the average American who listened to these comments last night.

VAUSE: Well, he did say he knows more than the generals. So maybe we'll --

WEISS: I'm sure he thinks he does, yes.

VAUSE: Thank you for being with us -- Michael. We appreciate the insight.

WEISS: Sure. Cheers.

Well, next here on NEWSROOM L.A. a new CNN film highlights the extraordinary challenges many girls are facing just to get an education. The documentary features the U.S. first lady, and also my anchor wife, Isha Sesay. We'll catch up with Isha in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour.

Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump by 11 points in the latest national poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC. It's the first poll since video surfaced of Trump boasting about groping women but it was taken before Sunday's debate.

[00:30:06] Samsung says anyone with a Galaxy Note 7 should stop using it immediately, both the original and the replacement. They have been spontaneously catching fire.

U.S. airline regulators are telling passengers not to use the Note 7 on their flights and not to store in their checked baggage.

Tuesday's International Day of the Girl, but as we mark that day, young women still face incredible challenges simply to get an education. Worldwide, more than 62 million girls are not in school according to the U.S. agency for International Development.

And in the developing world, 1 in 7 girls are married before their 15th birthday. But girls with secondary schooling are six times less likely to marry as children than girls who have little or no education. And almost 60 percent fewer girls would become pregnant under 17 if they had a secondary education.

CNN Films is premiering a special film called "We Will Rise." It chronicles U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama's mission to educate girls around the world.

Our very own Isha Sesay is also part of that film. Here she is introducing us to one girl trying to get an education.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Your mother, does she go to school?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. She didn't go to school. Even though she is not educated, but she educated her children.

SESAY: If you educate your children, then you know, it changes their lives and it can change, you know, the family's life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I'm actually -- I'm actually proud of her.

SESAY: You should be proud of her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't care what the struggle will be. I can make it.

SESAY: Yes, you can. You can absolutely make it.

She's strong. She's strong and she's driven. She wants so badly to make it. Wants so badly to change her circumstances and she studies late at night with this tiny little light. She studies. She studies and continues to dream.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: And look who joins us right now from Washington, Isha. So congratulations on the documentary. It's fabulous.

SESAY: Thank you.

VAUSE: Do tell us, how did all this started? In particular, how did you manage to get the First Lady, Meryl Streep and Freida Pinto to come on board?

SESAY: So first of all I should say that CNN is always speaking to the White House about various projects. And they had been in talks about a number of different things and this kind of came up organically.

The first lady through her program "Let Girls Learn," they had a plan of going to Africa and just through, you know, right place, right time their conversations with CNN, they decided that we should chronicle it, effectively.

Freida Pinto and Meryl Streep had been involved with these issues for a long time. They were a part of "Girl Rising," a previous film that CNN was involved in. So, really, they had done this before. I was the addition to things.

And I was actually sitting in the office next to you one evening when I got a call from Amy Entelis who is head of CNN Films saying would you like to go to Africa with the first lady and tell these stories. And then I fell out of my chair, got back in my chair and said yes.

VAUSE: And, you know, because you actually are involved in helping girls in Africa. You have your own charity work as well. So you are familiar with all of this. Given all of that, is there one moment which still stands out for you more than any other?

SESAY: I think that it was just -- you know, I did this big workshop with all the girls. Close to two dozen of them the day before the first lady was arriving.

And so I got to sit with them for hours in this space in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, and just really kind of get to really get this close up look at them, their hopes, their dreams and just their tenacity and just their drive to succeed and they just stood out for me. It was such a beautiful moment.

And one in particular, this girl who has been through so much. She was sitting to my right was literally choked up and said she couldn't believe she had been chosen to meet the first lady after everything she has been through, after being written off by so many people in her immediate circle, she had been chosen. And it was just a kind of validation for all her efforts and it really, really moved me.

VAUSE: Well, that's incredible.

I mean, just generally speaking, how did the girls react when they had a chance to meet Michelle Obama? And also how did they react to Meryl Streep?

SESAY: Well, it's interesting. I was with Meryl Streep, first of all, in Morocco. And, I mean, everyone is taken by Meryl Streep. You just come in to her presence and she's this wonderful being. And, you know, it's Meryl Streep and it's just so wonderful. And so that was very, very special. Because I felt just the same way as the girls did.

[00:35:00] For the first lady, it is something to see, John. It is something to see when she comes into a room and she beams, you know. And she beams and she sits down and she speaks to girls about possibility and hope, and self determination and overcoming challenges. And I will tell you, I moderated the town hall with the first lady in Morocco when she was speaking to the Moroccan girls and Freida did the one in Liberia.

And to watch her in both settings, both times I walked out as a grown woman thinking I could walk on air. She is something to behold. The girls lit up. They were just buzzing, buzzing with her energy. And just, they would, in real time being impacted by her message.

VAUSE: Well, clearly, a wonderful film, a wonderful moment and something which we are all looking forward to seeing and watching here.

(CROSSTALK)

SESAY: Everyone must watch it. Everyone must watch this.

VAUSE: Congratulations. And get back and do some work.

SESAY: OK, fine. See you soon.

VAUSE: "We Will Rise" premieres in just under six hours from now. 6:00 p.m. in Hong Kong with encore showings at 5:00 p.m. in London, 7:00 p.m. in Monrovia.

There will be a test tomorrow, and if you don't see it, you will need a note from your mother.

Up next here, Donald Trump said the lewd comments he made about women in 2005 were just locker room talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I apologized to my family. I apologized to the American people. Certainly I'm not proud of it, but this is locker room talk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: But athletes like NBA star Blake Griffin say that's not what happens inside their locker rooms. More on that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Well, Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail and on Monday, the Republican nominee held his first rally since a decade old tape emerged of him making lewd comments about women. At Sunday night's debate, he dismissed those remarks as nothing but locker room talk. But in a campaign stop in Ohio, Hillary Clinton said her opponent is just doubling down on that excuse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This was locker room talk. I'm not proud of it. I apologized to my family. I apologized to the American people. Certainly, I'm not proud of it, but this is locker room talk.

CLINTON: A lot of athletes and coaches from the NBA, from Major League Baseball, from the NFL, and more, have been coming forward, tweeting, they've been saying, no, that's not what happens in our locker rooms.

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VAUSE: Joining me now entertainment journalist and social commentator Segun Oduolowu.

Segun, good to have you here.

SEGUN ODUOLOWU, ENTERTAINMENT JOURNALIST: It's good to be here. Thank you.

VAUSE: OK, you know, I think the problem a lot of people have with this, it was just locker room talk. It wasn't in a locker room. He was on a bus. He was 59 years old. He didn't come off a football field, he wasn't a 19-year-old and so the setting is completely and totally different, you know, to accept, you know, that this is what is said in a locker room. We'll get that in a moment. But the setting of Donald Trump making these comments, it wasn't all locker room.

[00:40:18] ODUOLOWU: Yes, there is no way to justify the statements. He basically advocated sexual assault. I've been in locker rooms my entire life. I play sports. I, you know, reported on NBA locker room. You know, college football and working with high school students. That's not the way people talk in locker rooms. And he owes athletes an apology. And I'm glad that athletes like Doc Rivers, like Blake Griffin, like you know -- and major league baseball.

I mean, I thought some of the football players, which is supposed to be the roughest and toughest of all American sports was like we don't talk like this. So I don't know what locker rooms you've been in, Mr. Trump.

VAUSE: OK, let's get to that. Because a lot of professional athletes have come forward tweeting about this. Sean Doolittle, picture with the Oakland As. He was one of the first.

This is what he wrote down. "As an athlete I've been in locker rooms my entire adult life, and that's not locker room talk."

Blake Griffin here was with The Clippers. This was another. "All this heavy breathing seems more locker room-esque than anything #Debate," a reference to Donald Trump's heavy breathing during the debate. Hashtag #NotInMyLockerRoom has appeared on social media.

If anything can we credit Donald Trump now with actually starting this conversation about what is appropriate language and what is not appropriate language? Not because -- essentially because of what he's done that was incredibly inappropriate.

ODUOLOWU: It's hard to give the Donald credit for anything.

VAUSE: I'm trying here, OK?

ODUOLOWU: But, honestly, look, I've said from the beginning that I thought he was a plant for the Democrats because no -- this buffoonery, this type of just idiocy that he is rampant with, you know, the misogyny and the glee in which he seems to, you know, revel in it.

And I would like to point out that privately what Donald said he said some horrible things publicly. So anyone who is just kind of like --

VAUSE: Surprise by this. They could not be surprise by this.

ODUOLOWU: Yes. I mean, this is the same guy who called a Miss Universe an eating machine.

VAUSE: Miss Piggy.

ODUOLOWU: Miss Piggy. When he found out she was Latina, Miss Housekeeping. He said Mexicans are murderers and rapists. He said horrible things. He's attacked handicapped journalists. He's a bad dude. This is not locker room talk. We don't do that. Even in locker rooms, there are place that you do not go into. Nobody advocates violence against women.

VAUSE: If he was ten points up in the polls, would they be abandoning him right now? I supposed he's some points behind, but that's another issue.

ODUOLOWU: That's a good issue. VAUSE: The "New York Times" media reporter Jim Rutenberg. He made this point today in "New York Times." I thought it was a good one. "It is only fitting that it was not an investigative report from the likes of "NBC News" that is posing the biggest threat yet to his candidacy, but a bit of raw -- and yes, deplorable -- video leaked from the editing bays of a celebrity entertainment program, "Access Hollywood."

In other words, the celebrity culture we help create Donald Trump might actually be the one thing which brings him down.

ODUOLOWU: It's -- I mean, it's irony at the kind of its finest in a great many ways. I think that in 2005, he was just a reality star. And, obviously, nobody wants the president of the most powerful country in the world to be speaking this way.

I think that if it was just this, maybe people say, well, you know, he was a reality star.

VAUSE: Sure.

ODUOLOWU: That was 11 years ago. But look at his track record and look how he's just built brick after mortar, after brick, after mortar of just nonsense and ridiculousness.

VAUSE: Someone in "Access Hollywood" told me he's made 700 appearances on "Access Hollywood". It makes you wonder how many tapes are out there.

ODUOLOWU: Listen, again, publicly what this man says is scarier to me. And like you said this just seems like an excuse for Republicans to jump off. Come on. Come on.

VAUSE: OK, Segun, thank you as always.

And thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause. Stay with us. "World Sport" is up next. I'll be back with another of news from around the world. You're watching CNN.

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