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Both Campaigns Blitz Battleground States; Trump: Hacked E-Mails Show Clinton, DOJ Collusion; Trump Rips Ryan, McCain for Abandoning Him; Trump Declares War on GOP, Top Republicans. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 12, 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: VP nominee, Tim Kaine is in North Carolina. In the meantime, Trump and Clinton are sparring over some e-mails stolen from her campaign. Trump now says they show she was in cahoots with the Justice Department.

And right now, Hurricane Matthew plays into another election debate. A federal judge is hearing a case from Florida Democrats. They say the voter registration deadline should be extended so those affected by the storm will not be shut out on Election Day.

Let's dive deeper into Trump's assault on John McCain and Paul Ryan. Two key Republicans who defected after Trump's most recent scandal. Here's what Trump had to say last night beginning with the Speaker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What I want to do is I want to win for the people.

The first sign of a little bit of difficulty, he unendorses. I wouldn't want to be in a foxhole with a lot of these people, that I can tell you.

BILL O'REILLY, HOST "THE O'REILLY FACTOR ": But McCain's a brave man.

TRUMP: Including Ryan.

O'REILLY: He's a brave man.

TRUMP: By the way, including Ryan, especially Ryan.

O'REILLY: I got that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. So let's bring in CNN politics executive editor Mark Preston to talk more about this. Good morning.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Good morning, Carol. Yes, Donald Trump, saying that neither Paul Ryan nor John McCain, are very loyal. In fact, are running for the hills at a little sign of trouble. In fact, last night, he went directly at John McCain. Let's hear what Donald Trump had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: McCain was desperate -

O'REILLY: Let me ask a question.

TRUMP: No. He was desperate to get my endorsement. I gave him the endorsement because he needed it for the primary. And frankly, he ran against a very, very good woman. I feel very badly I gave him the endorsement but that's OK.

O'REILLY: All right. --

TRUMP: He easily wins his primary. He easily wins his primary. And then all of a sudden, you know, he does the un-endorsement thing.

O'REILLY: He didn't like the tape thing.

TRUMP: He's never heard, give me a break. He's never heard salty language before. You know, John McCain who has probably the dirtiest mouth in all of the Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON: And it's not just Donald Trump, either. It's his surrogates. It's his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway on "Good Morning America" offering lukewarm support at best for Paul Ryan next year to be Speaker of the House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, CO-ANCHOR "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": Does Mr. Trump wants Paul Ryan to be the Speaker if he's elected?

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well, that's up to the members of the Congress, but I hope it means that we have a majority in the House, the Senate and the presidency because that actually would be the best indication that Americans who are voting for Donald Trump for president also want a mandate for him to push through different pieces of legislation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON: Now Carol, you know, she is right. The fact is if Donald Trump were to win the election that means we probably have coattails. He would drag Republicans across the finish line. Republicans would have a very good shot at maintaining the Senate and of course the House of Representatives as well. So, but still, the lukewarm reception to Paul Ryan, I guess we can't be too surprised seeing that Paul Ryan has distanced himself.

COSTELLO: Yes, OK. But let's say that Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House, right? That means Mr. Trump would have to work with his fellow Republicans and he said some nasty stuff about them. PRESTON: He has. But you know, Paul -

COSTELLO: It's not like Republicans are all on one page these days. So, how is he going to manage that?

PRESTON: No, but they do have the common enemy in Democrats and politics are very situational. And if Donald Trump, were in the White House and Paul Ryan were the House Speaker and Mitch McConnell, were the Senate Majority Leader, I'm sure they would find a way to work out.

COSTELLO: I don't know. Paul Ryan is pretty passionate about his budget.

PRESTON: True, but we have to see how that works out.

COSTELLO: OK. Mark Preston thanks so much. OK. So, just how bad could this Trump/Ryan rift get for the GOP? Iowa Congressman Steve King added his two cents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE KING, (R) IOWA: I also think about the establishment wing of the party could simply be amputated out in this, in this effort that's going on right now.

LAURA INGRAHAM, RADIO HOST "THE LAURA INGRAHAM SHOW": Go, good. They should leave.

KING: They've gone so far out on this limb.

INGRAHAM: Yes, I think they should --

KING: And in the end, maybe we can rebuild.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So, let's talk about this. With me now is Jeffrey Lord, CNN political commentator, former Reagan White House political director and Trump supporter. Patti Solis Doyle, CNN political commentator and Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign manager. And S.E. Cupp, CNN political commentator, welcome to all of you.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER REAGAN WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR AND TRUMP SUPPORTER: Good morning, happy Monday, happy whatever, Carol.

COSTELLO: No, we are over Monday already. Don't make me go back there, Jeffrey. S.E., I want to start with you because -- I don't know, do you consider yourself an establishment Republican?

CUPP: In today's parlance, I guess I would be for not supporting Trump because he's not conservative or really all that Republican. But I just think it's the height, the height of arrogance or maybe ignorance for Trump's supporters to tell people like me who warned for months that Trump was totally unelectable and radioactive for the party to show our party loyalty. Where is our party loyalty and why aren't we supporting the nominee when the nominee has shown very little party loyalty.

I mean, his feuding with Ryan is not new. He was feuding with him months ago, calling him out, calling out Reince Priebus, insisting he doesn't need any of them to win. When that became untrue and Paul Ryan actually did take his support away, Donald Trump said well, if I lose it will be because of people like Paul Ryan. Now, he's back to bashing. This is what a dying campaign looks like and I have to tell you to Steve King and Laura Ingraham,

[10:05:16] I will be the one left standing. It is people like me who will be left standing after this election is over, not people like them. So, we're not going anywhere.

COSTELLO: OK. So, not people like you, Jeffrey Lord.

LORD: Well, I'm not going to blame my friend S.E. for anything here, but I will say I have a column in "The American Spectator" this morning calling for Speaker Ryan to resign as Speaker immediately. His views on Donald Trump or anything else are between himself and his constituents in Wisconsin. But as Speaker of the House, he is the senior leader. He's not only the leader of the Republican Party in the House. He's a senior leader of the national party, period. And he won't support the Republican presidential nominee. And I don't care who the nominee is. That is a gross dereliction of duty and he ought to resign on the spot.

Secondly, what we have here is a battle of -- this began to be perfectly candid, when the bushes came to power after Ronald Reagan. And it's what I call "the ruling class" if you will, who have basically a lot of contempt for the average Republican voter and grassroots conservatives. And they are very much in the inside culture of Washington, D.C. They have no intention of changing it. This is not Ronald Reagan. This is what Reagan used to call the paternal order of Republicans. And they think they can do this and get away with it. I think Steve King is right. This is going to mean the end of the ruling class.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Democrats are kind of looking at this rift within the GOP and they are like doing the happy dance, right? In the meantime, Donald Trump continues to go more negative. In fact, the Trump campaign just released a new ad attacking Hillary Clinton. It's titled corruption. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Clintons, from dead broke to worth hundreds of millions. So how did Hillary end up filthy rich? Pay to play politics. Staggering amounts of cash poured into the Clinton Foundation from criminals, dictators, countries that hate America. Hillary cut deals for donors so let American workers, exploited Haitians in need. She even handed over American uranium rights to the Russians. Hillary Clinton only cares about power, money and herself. TRUMP: I'm Donald Trump and I approved this --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So Donald Trump is going to go very negative. We just saw more evidence of that with that ad, right? So a lot of Democrats, Patti, are worried that this kind of negativity will kind of suppress the Democratic vote. Voters will see these ads and say I'm just going to stay home. Is that a concern?

PATTI SOLIS DOYLE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND HILLARY CLINTON'S 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Look, I think we know what Donald Trump's strategy is right now. That's to go very, very negative on Hillary Clinton and really appeal to his base. But that's not a winning strategy for him. He has to expand his base. He has to appeal to women. He has to appeal to minority voters. And he's not going to do that in the next 29 days by putting up ads like this.

I also think that the Clinton campaign has invested enormous amount of resources in their Geo TV effort in all of the battleground states. Early voting begins today in many of the states and they are working very hard. And in terms of the enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton, I think in the last two debates she really sort of closed that enthusiasm gap for her voters. So I think there's no real need for Democrats to worry, in terms of Geo TV turnout. --

COSTELLO: Well, I think - S.C., the strategy perhaps for Mr. Trump, he is going to lay everything negative out there he can about Hillary Clinton. He's not going to try to expand his base. He's going to try to make what -- the voters he - have really enthusiastic effect at the polls which this negativity also does. So, might that be a winning strategy for Mr. Trump at this point?

CUPP: I think it's sort of his last hope, right? And actually, I thought that was a very effective ad except for the guy at the end saying I approve this message. All of the stuff that he was laying out there about the Clintons is true. It's like she found the one candidate that she could beat. Anyone else I think would have been making that case about Hillary Clinton's corruption and some cozy ties with nefarious actors would have been making those kinds of arguments throughout the campaign.

Now, it's really all Donald Trump has. And instead of trying to reach new voters, undecideds or people who, you know, are maybe open for the taking, he's really just saying to the voters he already has I want you to like me even more. And I just don't think there are enough of them to get him over the finish line limping or otherwise.

COSTELLO: So Jeffrey, I mean, can Donald Trump win without women, without any minority group, without gay Americans? --

LORD: Well, the assumption here Carol, is that women do not -- women like Hillary Clinton

[10:10:16] or that various members of minority groups are all solidly in the Democratic Party camp. I don't believe that for a second. And to S.E.'s point -

COSTELLO: So the polls lie?

LORD: I would say that Donald Trump is the only candidate on the Republican side of all these people who ran who would have the nerve to put a commercial like this together. Other Republicans just let these things pass. I remember four years ago seeing an ad from the Republican National Committee, saying that the only problem -- that everybody wanted President Obama to succeed but alas, he had failed.

Well, no. No. A lot of us didn't want President Obama's agenda to succeed because we disagreed with it. But they didn't want to go down that road. They never do. They never want to go after the other side, and yet the other side was out there saying Mitt Romney killed a steelworker's wife and all this kind of thing. I mean, they play hardball.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I totally get it except that President Obama's approval ratings are at 55 percent at the moment. So -- but Patti, go ahead, last words.

DOYLE: I was going to say, I do agree it takes a lot of nerve to put an ad up like that but it's not effective, Jeffrey, my friend. I hate to disagree with you. It will not be effective in getting people out to vote, the people that he needs to vote.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Jeffrey Lord, Patti Solis Doyle, S.E. Cupp, thanks to all of you.

A hearing on whether to extend Florida's voter registration deadline is set to get under way this hour as Republicans and Democrats grapple for leverage in that crucial swing state.

Hurricane Matthew halted sign-ups when it slammed into the state last week prompting Democrats to request more time for people to register. The Republican Governor though, Rick Scott, who is chairman of a super pack backing Donald Trump, denied that request. But a judge sided with the Democrats and extended the deadline to today. CNN's Martin Savidge is following this for us. Good morning.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Carol. Yes, 5:00 today is when the registration deadline is set to run out in the new order that had been put out by Judge Walker. He's a federal judge who was nominated by President Obama and in Tallahassee, that hearing is under way right now.

We don't know how long it's going to go but of course in theory, he probably has to issue some kind of a ruling before 5:00 today because that's when his previous order expires. But we all know what's at stake here. Florida is the largest of the swing vote states so the biggest prize for either candidate. But historically it's had the narrowest of margins. In 2012, less than 1 percent of the vote decided who won or lost in the presidential race in that particular state. So when you're talking about potentially maybe a few thousand people who could have somehow been dissuaded or disrupted from registering a vote, because of Hurricane Matthew, that matters a lot. What's interesting though, it's the Democrats that are asking for more time, Governor Rick Scott tried to deny it but that was overruled by this judge. So we will wait to hear what the judge has to say. Maybe he will even allow more days after this. Carol?

COSTELLO: Who knows, I know you will continue to follow that for us. Thank you so much, Martin Savidge.

Still to come in the "Newsroom" hackers steal e-mails from the Clinton campaign and Donald Trump says they reveal a disgraceful secret with the Justice Department. We'll peel back the layers for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:22] COSTELLO: Donald Trump seizing on hacked e-mails released by "WikiLeaks," saying the Department of Justice helped Hillary Clinton's campaign in his words, "cover up her crimes."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This is collusion and corruption of the highest order and is one more reason why I ask my attorney general, I will ask to appoint a special prosecutor. We have to investigate Hillary Clinton and we have to investigate the investigation. This was a disgrace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: We will get to the e-mail Mr. Trump was talking about in just a minute. But first, Clinton's camp is firing back, hinting that Trump's team and Russia are actually in cahoots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN PODESTA, HILLARY CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN: So I think it's a reasonable assumption -- or at least a reasonable conclusion that Mr. Stone had advance warning in Trump campaign and advance warning about what Assange was going to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So what is Russia saying about this? CNN's Christiane Amanpour sat down with the country's Foreign Minister this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I asked Sergey Lavrov what he made of those accusations. And were they worried now that the White House has said that it will proportionately respond.

SERGEY LAGROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, it's flattering, of course, to get this kind of attention from original power as President Obama called us some time ago. Now, everybody in the United States is saying that it is Russia which is running the United Nations presidential debate. It's flattering, as I said, but it has nothing, you know, to be explained by the facts.

AMANPOUR: Let's get back to the facts. You deny this - you know, the international community deny this -

LAGROV: No, we did not deny this. They did not prove it.

AMANPOUR: Of course, I asked you about motive because if you remember, not many weeks ago, President Putin himself told "Bloomberg News" that in fact, the publication and the hacking and the leaking of those Hillary Clinton and Democratic Party e-mails was "a public service." Still, Lavrov denied that Russia is trying to intervene on behalf of one or other of the U.S. presidential candidates. Christiane Amanpour, CNN in Moscow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And you can catch Christiane's full interview with Sergey Lavrov on CNN International at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

So, how will all of this "WikiLeaks" stuff and Russia play out on the campaign trail? Let's talk about that more. I'm joined by the director of the University of Virginia, Center for Politics, Larry Sabato and senior politics writer for "U.S. News & World Report," David Catanese. Welcome to both of you.

[10:20:16] DAVID CATANESE, SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": Good morning.

COSTELLO: So, let's start with the "WikiLeaks" and the leaked e-mails and John Podesta may have been getting a heads-up from the Department of Justice about investigations into Hillary Clinton's e-mail server. Is this resonating with voters, Larry?

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CENTER FOR POLITICS: Not particularly. But you know, since we are talking about "WikiLeaks" leaks, I think you can call this a drip, drip, drip problem for the Clinton campaign. You know, Carol, everybody knows that in all probability, they're saving some good stuff, probably bits and pieces will leak out all the way to November 8th.

So it's a continuing problem in that and it's a distraction for the campaign and there may be something really embarrassing in the documents. We need to remember, this is illegal and in a sense, we are all participating in the illegality by discussing it. But it's hard not to discuss it.

COSTELLO: That's right. It is hard because you want to examine the contents and by the way, there's no definitive proof of any wrongdoing at the moment, right, but who knows what other e-mails will reveal. At the same time, David, you heard what Donald Trump said. He said he wasn't to appoint a special prosecutor and he wants to investigate the investigation, and you heard what John Podesta said. He said that Russia is working -- well he kind of intimated that Russia is working with the Trump campaign so that Hillary Clinton doesn't win. So what are we to believe?

CATANESE: Look, they are all trying to get the best advantage point on this because it is embarrassing for the Clinton campaign to have all their private e-mails thrown out there into the public. It's a lot of you know, internal campaign strategy that is common in all of campaigns but you certainly don't want it out there for the masses to review because there are offensive and embarrassing things that are said in private e-mails, in all of our private e-mails, that would be the case if this is true.

On the Russian part of it, there's an aide, Brian Fallon, had a connection at the Justice Department, used to work at the Justice Department, so he was sending an e-mail over there to say hey, can you give us a heads-up. He knew someone over there on the Justice Department side that could give him a timeline of events. Look, this is a lot of ways how Washington works. People have connections, they worked in places before. They try to get a leg up. They try to get information before others do to help their candidate. There's no real link, though, or proof that the Justice Department covered up Clinton crimes because of this relationship. This is just sort of how Washington works.

Now, on the other side, though, for Podesta to say we can assume that the Trump campaign is coordinating with the Russian government, that's also false. I mean, he hasn't shown any proof of that. Roger Stone, a long-time aide to Trump, not formally tied to the campaign, had been tweeting that this was coming, but there's no credible proof that Podesta has. But he can show at least today, that the Trump campaign officially was coordinating with the Russian government or anyone else to release these.

COSTELLO: OK. So -- but still, Donald Trump is pouncing on these leaked e-mails or I should say these hacked e-mails because you're right, Larry, this was a crime. It wasn't just leaked. They were hacked into and stolen from John Podesta.

But Trump put out this new campaign ad. The campaign ad and it's called "corruption." So Donald Trump is probably betting that that will win over or energize his base of supporters.

I am going to bring Mark Preston into the conversation now because we just got word of this new poll out of Utah. It is credible poll, Mark. And it shows something amazingly -- I'm just looking at these results. So bizarre because Utah is usually a reliably Republican state, right, but this poll finds Clinton at 26 percent, Trump at 26 percent, and independent Evan McMullin at 22 percent. And I would say that most voters don't even know who Evan McMullin really is.

PRESTON: Correct. And this is something Larry and I and you have been talking over for the last couple days here. Now, this is a point now, where Donald Trump is not adding on to his coalition. He's losing states right now. And in a state like Utah, shouldn't even be on the board. They shouldn't even be polling in Utah right now. It would be a waste of money. But the fact of the matter is when you have Utah right now, a number like that coming out, you have a state like North Carolina that Trump needs to win, a state like Florida. We have even seen polling out of Ohio now that has Hillary Clinton up. That should be a state right now that Donald Trump should be winning. This is where you are looking at Hillary Clinton getting momentum behind her and Donald Trump losing a lot of gas.

COSTELLO: Interesting. I'm sorry my executive producer, Michelle is telling me something. Who endorsed what? "The Salt Lake Tribune" endorsed Hillary Clinton.

PRESTON: -- Which is amazing.

COSTELLO: Wow. OK. So Larry, will these negative ads work and will these continuing calls to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton win Trump the voters he

[10:25:16] needs to win this election?

SABATO: In a word, no. Look, this is, as you suggested, Carol, energizing the Trump base. I didn't know that they need to be energized. I think most of them have had quite a few cups of coffee in the average day. That Utah poll, I know Mark agrees with me on this, when I heard about this this morning, it absolutely blew my mind. Utah is a 70 percent Republican state, 70.

But what you have had there is the governor, a whole bunch of the members of Congress, Senate and House from Utah and other officials un-endorsing Donald Trump. And of course, Mitt Romney has a lot of influence in Utah as well. And it is pretty clear that this is helping the independent, Evan McMullin, who is being supported by people like Bill Kristol, editor of "The Weekly Standard." And this is a 3-way tie in Utah. I think we need to go out and poll some of these deeply red states. If this is happening in Utah, it might, might be happening in some other states.

COSTELLO: Oh, that would be so fascinating. So Mark, Larry, get to it. David, a final question to you, so you know, Donald Trump says his attacks on establishment Republicans will not make a difference and that he will still win. But obviously, if you know, this poll in Utah proves the opposite because he attacked Mitt Romney. He attacked what other prominent Republican politicians within the state of Utah and obviously, it's not working.

CATANESE: Look, this Utah poll is a reaction to his terrible last three or four days. I should remind everyone that there was a previous Utah poll taken in this summer that had him dropping and then he had a good September and he rebounded pretty well, was up I believe 10 or 12 points.

So look, there's four weeks left. Lot of these numbers are going to bounce around a lot. But right now, Donald Trump is bottoming out everywhere. There's a new poll out of Ohio today, down nine points. That was his best battleground state. Well, just a few weeks ago he was up five, six points. So you are going to see him dropping in polls everywhere. Watch Georgia. Watch Arizona. Two other traditionally red states where I think he's going to have problems. Unless he course corrects and brings not only Republicans back on board but starts appealing to adding to his coalition of 35 percent to 40 percent, it's going to be a long four weeks for Trump.

COSTELLO: David Catanese, Larry Sabato, Mark Preston, thanks to all of you.

Still to come in the "Newsroom," one of Trump's top aides says he found religion after the infamous 2005 video. Do Evangelicals believe him?

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