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Trump Ramps Up Claims of "Rigged" Election; Trump Rails Against Claims of Sexual Misconduct; Trump, Clinton Prep to Square Off on Final Debate; GOP Headquarters Firebombed in NC; Ohio Secretary of State: "Rigged" Talk is "Irresponsible"; Trump: SNL Part Of Media Conspiracy; Battle For Mosul, Last Main ISIS Stronghold In Iraq. Aired 9-9:30 ET

Aired October 17, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:03] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hi. Have a great day. NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Donald Trump ramping up his claims that the election is a scam, and the results can't be trusted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The election is being rigged. The process is rigged. This whole election is being rigged. Remember this, it's a rigged election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And while his surrogates are backing him up, many Republicans are backing away, including his own running mate. Trump's claims adding to dangerously high tensions simmering across the country and erupting in one swing state. A firebomb is thrown into Republican headquarters in North Carolina. No arrests so far, but Trump is quick to point the finger.

There is a lot to cover this morning. We're following every angle. CNN's Phil Mattingly has the fallout over Trump's rigged comments, and Jason Carroll looks at the run-up to this week's third and final presidential debate.

Lead us off, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, look. Think about it this way. Donald Trump is saying something is rigged, not exactly a surprise. We've heard that plenty over the course of the last 16 months. But Donald Trump saying the electoral results on November 8th will be rigged, it more or less almost undercut a central pillar of what the democracy is all about, and it' terrifying even some Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: Remember this, it's a rigged election. MATTINGLY (voice-over): For Donald Trump, there's only one reason

he's trailing in the polls, a conspiracy to keep him out of the White House.

TRUMP: The election is being rigged by corrupt media, pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her President.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): In rally after rally, tweet after tweet, Trump pushing the theory without any evidence or recent historical precedent that the electoral results will be rigged. Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, trying to tone down the rhetoric saying Trump doesn't mean literal electoral rigging.

GOV. MIKE PENCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We will absolutely accept the results of the election. The American people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. That's where this sense of a rigged election goes here.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): But Trump undercutting that very message only minutes later, tweeting explicitly that the election is, quote, absolutely being rigged at, quote, many polling places.

This, part of a Trump Twitter storm that included multiple personal attacks against House Speaker Paul Ryan. Ryan, pushing back on Trump's rigged election theory. A spokeswoman telling CNN, the Speaker is, quote, fully confident the election will be carried out with integrity.

Hillary Clinton's running mate Tim Kaine calling on more Republicans to speak out against Trump's allegations.

SEN. TIM KAINE, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He started to make wild claims, kind of scorched earth claims, about the election being rigged, et cetera, so we have to keep putting out a message and we need to call on everybody to speak out about the fact that we run elections and we run them well here. And we ask the GOP leaders also to stand up for the integrity of the American electoral process.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Trump also continuing to fire back at allegations of sexual assault and unwelcome sexual advances. Now, accused by nine women. Trump attacking their veracity, their character, and their looks.

TRUMP: Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): And unleashing one new line of attack on Hillary Clinton, that she's taking performance enhancing drugs.

TRUMP: We should take a drug test prior -- because I don't know what's going on with her.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): The Clinton campaign calling this a shameful attempt to undermine the election.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, Carol, lest you think that Donald Trump doesn't actually mean rigging the election, the spin we've heard from some of his surrogates -- he's talking about the media, he's talking about bias -- Donald Trump, last hour, tweeting, "Of course, there's large scale voter fraud happening on and before Election Day. Why do Republican leaders deny what's going on? So naive."

Now, on that tweet, it is demonstrably false. There is no data that there is large scale voter fraud in any past elections or this one currently. It's important to note, when Donald Trump talks about rigging the election or the election being rigged, states and local offices run elections. They're how elections are run. Florida, Republican governor. Wisconsin, Republican governor. Michigan, Republican governor. Nevada --

COSTELLO: Ohio.

MATTINGLY: -- Republican governor.

COSTELLO: Right.

MATTINGLY: Ohio, Republican governor. So if the election is to be rigged, as Donald Trump is stating it is, it would be Republicans that would be doing it. As you noted from Paul Ryan and a lot of other Republican officials we talked to behind the scenes, they don't believe these claims. They're disoriented by them and, frankly, a little bit unsettled. It will be interesting to see how they react going forward.

COSTELLO: All right, Phil Mattingly, many thanks to you. So Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump getting ready for their final presidential debate just two days away. The stakes are high as Trump desperately tries to regain the momentum that has slipped away in the last couple of weeks.

CNN's Jason Carroll outside Trump Tower in New York with more on that. Hi, Jason.

[09:05:10] JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. And outside here at Trump Tower, a small group of women protesters just wrapping up outside here. Donald Trump continuing to paint himself as a victim, talking about those, what he calls, false allegations of sexual misconduct, talking about what you heard in Phil Mattingly's piece about the electoral system being rigged.

But he also has been spending some time over the weekend prepping ahead of Wednesday's debate. He was joined by his team of advisers in Bedminster, New Jersey, at his golf resort there, folks like Rudy Giuliani, Campaign Chair Steve Bannon was there, Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway.

Donald Trump also weighing in on that incident that took place, though, in North Carolina, the firebombing of state GOP offices there, a slogan written in the office there saying "Nazi Republicans, get out of town or else." Donald Trump tweeting about the incident, laying blame squarely at the feet of Hillary Clinton, saying, quote, animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina just firebombed our office in Orange County because we are winning.

Hillary Clinton weighing in on that situation as well, Carol, offering her prayers, saying, "The attack on the orange county headquarters of the North Carolina GOP office is horrific and unacceptable. Very grateful everyone is safe."

We should also point out that the state GOP there in North Carolina tweeted about this as well, saying, "Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, Secretary Hillary Clinton."

We should also tell you, Carol, as you know, North Carolina is a swing state where recent polls show Donald Trump trailing. Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jason Carroll reporting live from Trump Tower this morning.

Trump's talk of a rigged system without a shred of evidence is quite frankly dangerous. He's playing into people's fears and their hopelessness. I went to Trump Country in Ohio, to a small town where I grew up. I talked with people who do not trust any American institution. Bryan Rice, a union guy who represents steel workers in Canton told me he thinks the country is near collapse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRYAN RICE, VICE PRESIDENT, USW LOCAL 1200: We're headed down a hill that I do not believe we'll ever recover from. You know, I'm not a Bible flumber (ph), but I absolutely believe that there's a book written 2,000 years ago that's coming to pass right now, and I believe that we're in the end times. I believe that we --

COSTELLO: You believe Armageddon is coming?

RICE: I believe there's going to be a final battle in the Valley of Hinnom, that -- it's been written. I believe it's written, and we cannot stop that. And all great nations have collapsed at this time. You know, we're in that area of collapse. But again, it's one world government. They're shoving that down, one world government, one world order, one world currency.

We do not have the most qualified people. Out of 300 million people, those two aren't the most qualified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. With me now is Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. Welcome, sir.

JON HUSTED, OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE: Thanks. Great to be with you.

COSTELLO: It's really great to have you here because I really think what you're about to say is so important. You are in charge of the election process in the state of Ohio. What do you tell to constituents, like Bryan there, about the system, about the institutions of government?

HUSTED: Well, I'll say a couple things. First of all, I can reassure Donald Trump I am in charge of elections in Ohio, and they're not going to be rigged. I'll make sure of that.

But to people like the gentleman you just spoke to, look, I understand the frustration that they have with our institutions because our institutions have let them down over the course of the last 30 years. Times have gotten tougher for a lot of people who've seen their incomes drop during a period where many people have gotten very wealthy, and so they're frustrated by those kinds of things.

But our institutions, like our election system, is one of the bedrocks of American democracy. We should not question it or the legitimacy of it. It works very well. In places like Ohio, we make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. We have a bipartisan system of elections.

Frankly, it's the only place you can find Democrats and Republicans working cooperatively together. They work that way in our election system to make sure that the integrity of our election system is upheld and that people feel good about the process of voting.

COSTELLO: How would you characterize Mr. Trump's comments when he says thing like the election will be rigged?

HUSTED: Well, it's irresponsible. He should focus on issues that matter to people, like the gentleman you just mentioned. You know, the people that feel that they're losing hope. You know, give them some hope. Don't create hopelessness in our country. Don't make people feel despair.

[09:10:06] Make them feel uplifted and hopeful that there is a better day ahead for all of us. I think that's what we want from all of our candidates.

COSTELLO: OK. Because I think this is so important to assure people that the elections are not rigged and you're keeping a close eye on things just as the Secretaries of State are across our country, so I like the way this former Republican chair put it. His name is Al Cardenas. He says, how do you proclaim fraud before the incident takes place? It's like my calling you a robber before you rob the bank.

Can you relate to that statement?

HUSTED: Yes. Well, you know, the idea of a widespread voter fraud would require some systemic problem in our system. And so if there's a systemic problem, please identify it. Don't just make an allegation on Twitter. Tell me. Tell the Secretaries of State around the country what the problem is so that we can fix it.

But right now, we're not aware of any systemic problems in our voting system. Are there cases of voter fraud? Absolutely, there are cases of voter fraud, but it's rare and we catch these people. Most times, we catch them before their vote is even counted and we hold them accountable. And we're building the better system every single day. COSTELLO: No, no. Please, I want you to -- because when I went to

Ohio last Friday to do my stories, I talked to a lot of people who think that there really are people who are going to vote 10 and 12 times and they won't be caught. How do you prevent something like that?

HUSTED: Oh, we have safeguards built in to the system, everything from identification rules to removing deceased voters from the rolls, meaning keeping the voter rolls up to date. We have the ability to make sure that only one vote is cast and counted.

There are occasions where people do fraudulent behavior. We had a lady in the last presidential election who voted five times. She was caught. She went to prison for it. It's not worth committing a fifth degree felony to cast an extra vote. Most people understand that, and they don't even attempt to try to misuse the system.

But we have so many safeguards in place in our election system. It's bipartisan, it's transparent, and there's just no justification for concern about widespread voter fraud.

COSTELLO: And just a final thing because some Trump supporters will say, clearly, he's a Democrat. Are you?

HUSTED: No. I actually intend on voting for Donald Trump. But I'm just remorseful or regretful that he's saying things like this, which really undermine the potential that he has as a candidate. They are not the kinds of things that he should be saying.

He should focus on trying to reach people, to give them hope that he can be a leader that will ultimately move America forward. This kind of conversation, though, moves America backwards and it should be dismissed. And it shouldn't be part of the presidential campaign.

COSTELLO: Well, now I have to ask you one more question. So you're going to vote for a guy who's making your life harder, frankly, and is trying to disenfranchise voters?

HUSTED: Yes. I understand it's a very difficult thing, but, look, I care about second amendment rights. I care about the Supreme Court. I care about issues. I'm a policy-oriented person because these are the things that are going to move America forward.

I'm hopeful that in the next few weeks that he will be able to change the direction that he is trying to take this campaign, but time is growing short.

COSTELLO: Jon Husted, Ohio Secretary of State. Thank you so much for being with me this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it's not just the election that Trump says is rigged against him. "Saturday Night Live" is too. No joke.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump takes his rigged election theory one step farther. Mr. Trump now accusing "Saturday Night Live" of being part of a media conspiracy against him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I've said is nothing compared to what Bill Clinton has done. OK. He has abused women. Four of those women are here tonight. Four of them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wait, I'm sorry, who's here? Mistresses? Bill, how could you? How will I go on with the debate? No, I'll never be able to remember my facts and figures now. Oh, Donald no! Get real. I'm made of steel. This is nothing. Hi, girls.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Martha, she is trying to silence these women but they need to be respected. They need their voices heard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What about all the women accusing you of sexual assault?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They need to shut the hell up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Donald Trump did not find that so funny. He tweeted this quote, "Watched "Saturday Night Live" hit job on me. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show. Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election."

That's right, Mr. Trump thinks even "Saturday Night Live" is against him. With me now to talk about that and more is Zeke Miller, a political reporter for "Time" magazine, and CNN political commentator, Errol Louis, a political anchor for New York One News. Welcome to both of you. So Errol, even "SNL" is against Mr. Trump?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, they were much in his corner when they had him guest host it during the primary season. I can see why he wouldn't have thought that was terribly funny. But, as usual I think they kind of got to the heart of the matter and gave us a welcome bit of comedy in what has become a really sort of depressing end to this campaign.

COSTELLO: Zeke, I didn't think that whole skit was extraordinarily complementary for Hillary Clinton either.

ZEKE MILLER, POLITICAL REPORTER, "TIME": Yes, not at all. I mean, it shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone who's watched that show over the decades that it does have sort of a, you pro-Democratic bent, but it does hit both sides you know fairly evenly. But certainly the writers on that show generally are liberals and are open about that.

[09:20:05]I mean, the bigger question within the case of Donald Trump is that he's trying to cast this you know undermine (inaudible) everything from you know the television networks to newspapers to magazines to our very election process.

And that's the, you know, SNL might be it's certainly the easiest target for that, but it's certainly the fact that SNL may have a bias against him doesn't mean anything about anything about all the rest of the media being biased against him.

COSTELLO: But Errol, that's the thing, Donald Trump has attacked pretty much every American institution right. This is actually from Newt Gingrich. This is how he puts it.

He says Mr. Trump is setting up a hostile takeover. He wants voters to believe the media is a mortal enemy and that the country is in mortal danger and Hillary Clinton would end America as we know it. Errol, I think he's kind of succeeding in some way.

LOUIS: I'm not so sure about that. I don't think that works unless we, who are sort of from planet earth, allow it to happen. It's a free country. People can believe whatever they want. They can believe there's widespread conspiracies on every topic in the world. They can believe the birther lie. They can believe whatever they want.

What's important though is that we not give too much credence or frankly air time to a lot of these unfounded accusations because I think Newt Gingrich is right. I mean, this is warfare on important institutions including the electoral system itself at this stage.

And so it doesn't take more than a sizable minority to really destabilize the system, but the rest of us should be perfectly clear, we're under no obligation to coddle people who refuse to believe plain facts that are put in front of them.

Our job is to put those facts out there, if they want to believe some crazy fairy tale that Donald Trump or anybody else wants to tell them, that's going to be, I think -- it's going to have to be their problem and not our problem.

WHITFIELD: But, but, but Zeke, how do you think this will affect, you know, the number of people who go to the polls?

MILLER: Certainly Donald Trump's campaign has been open about their tactic in the last couple of weeks by going deeper and deeper into (inaudible) designed to suppress turnout on both sides. They're hoping -- Donald Trump's base voters are far more enthusiastic about going to the polls than Hillary Clinton based voters.

If they can depress turnout far enough then Donald Trump has a chance. That's where things are looking at right now. Donald Trump has given up any real strategy of trying to reach out to some voters in the middle the undecided voters.

It's really just -- if they can depress the number of voters who will come out to the polls maybe more of their voters will decide to show up and vote through all the muck. That's not exactly a winning strategy.

It's sort of the least bad strategy that may be available to them right now, but certainly it's bit of a scorched earth one for his campaign.

COSTELLO: But the interesting thing is, Errol, you hear people say they have to make a choice between these two terrible candidates. Right? I hear that all the time. But they are engaged and you talk about you know the enthusiasm level the polls show for each candidate, but I just don't think it will matter. I think people want to participate in the election no matter what.

LOUIS: Absolutely. Look the viewership numbers for all of the debates, the polling numbers on level of enthusiasm that people actually do like the candidates that they like. I think we have a -- in this season in particular but in general we have a tendency to kick our politicians around.

We're sort of a rambunctious democratic people. We don't bow and strap to our leaders. We actually kind of kick them around a little bit and make fun of them from time to time and that's OK.

I do think though that it's -- it's going to be in the next three weeks it's going to be really important that folks not fall prey to this sort of drum beat that we all hate the candidates. We all hate the system. We all hate the media. We all hate everything.

It's simply not true. And, and I think we're going to come out of this on the other side or we have the potential to come out of it on the other side with some renewal in this country and people have to recognize that it's up to us. It's not about the candidates. This election is not about them as we often hear. It's really about us.

COSTELLO: I like that glass half full stuff, Errol. Thanks so much and thanks to you, too, Zeke Miller.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, retaking Mosul. Iraqi forces try to force ISIS out of their last major stronghold in Iraq.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:23:31]

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. It is a fight to take down ISIS as one of its last major strongholds in Iraq. The battle for Mosul, the country's second largest city, now under way.

Iraqi-led forces already making headway inflicting heavy damage on ISIS troops. ISIS, of course, is fighting back. Watch as our Nick Paton Walsh tries to file a report from the front lines.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- much international support, a lot of coalition planning. American power --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK so Nick wisely got out of the way. He wasn't hurt in that exchange, by the way. In the meantime, the U.S. is leading the coalition's air offensive in a battle that could go on for months. CNN's senior international correspondent, Arwa Damon, live just outside of Mosul. Hi, Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi. Good morning. And much of the fighting that we saw today was really concentrated in the villages and the plains that you see behind us. There's still smoke rising from some of these villages. It was much thicker earlier in the day.

We saw coalition airstrikes. We are still hearing fighter jets buzzing overhead. There was artillery rocket fire. Fairly intense firefights that took place, as well. And we also saw other explosions, sending up massive, plumes of smoke that could have been suicide car bombers, a very familiar ISIS tactic at this point.

Now the Iraqi government is saying that they along with the Kurdish Peshmerga and other --