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Trump Steps Up "Rigged Election" Claims; Trump & Clinton To Face Off In Final Debate On Wednesday; WikiLeaks Releases Transcripts Of Clinton's Wall Street Speeches; Peter Thiel Donates $1.25M To Trump; America's Heroin Epidemic; Woman's 911 Call Leads To Discovery Of 3 Bodies In Ohio. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired October 17, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:02] REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: They do -- the definitely tilt the playing field in the opposite direction, I think. But I also saw a bit of that pattern at the end of the Iowa caucus when it was that contest that came out the way it did here so I think it's a little bit of each of that.

But I do think it's a good idea for the American voters to take a look at the system that we have. There is significant evidence out there that there's voter fraud and that we have an illegal --

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, when you say that there's significant evidence that there's fraud what are you pointing to because, you know, look, nobody is saying that our voting system is perfect. There are lots of things that could be done to improve it. Why they don't happen, why it's so antiquated is up to you guys. Of course, it's done state-by-state on many different levels. But to suggest that hey, maybe the election will be illegitimate, don't you think that's a dangerous and unsubstantiated suggestion?

KING: I wouldn't say it's completely unsubstantiated. Partially unsubstantiated -- I would agree with that. But I would look back at the 2000 election and the fiasco in Florida and the 537 votes that decided the presidency and say that if Al Gore had not accepted the decision of the Supreme Court, we would have had discredited elections in this country back then and --

CUOMO: All right, but he did and, certainly, that wasn't a Democratic engineering situation, right? We all know the history of what happened with that ballot and how things were lined up, and the hanging chad. We probably both wasted months of our lives on that situation.

But again, to say, hey, there is a little bit of proof -- Congressman, there really is no proof that there is any kind of fraud that has been prosecuted that would have changed the outcome of an election.

KING: In the -- in the past there have been in small cases. Not in larger cases like the presidency.

CUOMO: Right, small cases.

KING: John Fund has done a lot of good work on this. And so -- but that lays the foundation. By the way, these election laws are not really antiquated. The worst of them began about the time of Motor Voter and they've been opening up this, making it more vulnerable for fraud ever since. ACORN, for example, 444,000 false or fraudulent voter registration forms that they confessed to.

So, I want to bring that thing back to -- square it away, and I'd say this is something we'll agree on, Democrats and Republicans. The constitution is the foundation of our country but the bedrock that it sits on is legitimate free and fair elections and the public has to perceive that they're free and fair. And I do think there's concern here that there are voices out there to delegitimize this election.

CUOMO: Yes, you're one of them.

KING: I don't want that to be the case. I want the American people --

CUOMO: But you're being one of those voices right now by saying there is some proof --

KING: I want it to be fair and square.

CUOMO: -- to say that maybe it would be rigged.

KING: There is.

CUOMO: There is no proof that you can point to that would demonstrate that the outcome of this election could be false. Look at the independent vetting that was done -- put it up on the screen -- because of these allegations and what it leads to.

One hundred and forty-six million total registered voters. Two thousand sixty-eight total alleged -- alleged cases. How many did they actually find? Ten cases reported. How many of these are prosecuted over a decade? Look at that. Thirty-eight cases, 13 prosecuted for double voting --

KING: Chris, you know that --

CUOMO: -- over a decade. Congressman, I'm making the point that to suggest -- well, you look at these cases. There are 13 cases, there are 10 cases -- you see there is some fraud. That's not what he's saying. He's saying that this election is going to be stolen from him. Do you agree with that?

KING: Chris, I don't want to say anything on this program that delegitimizes the elections because I don't want the American people to lose faith in our electoral process. If we do, this entire constitution of republic could come tumbling down. So I think, instead, we should look at this and try to clean this up, to a degree.

And if we have a -- we have a mainstream media that there's plenty of evidence to point to that they have been tilted in favor of Hillary Clinton by and large. We have evidence out there that illegals have been voting by the hundreds, if not the thousands. It only took 537 in Florida. Those are things that do concern me. When I see that there's allegations that the Clinton campaign -- the

Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton, herself, are negotiating in the same phone call -- the quid pro quo with the FBI -- to declassify emails that were already out on her server, those things do concern me.

And I don't know how we get justice in this country if we end up with another Loretta Lynch as the attorney general and another James Comey as the director of the FBI, and a Clinton administration there that's proven for decades that that's how they operate. That is what concerns me and I don't think we should a have a presidential candidate that's trying to delegitimize the election while people are going to the polls, either.

CUOMO: Look, you said a lot of things there, Congressman, but let's just get back to this central premise. You just said I don't want to say anything that would make people feel that they should have their confidence in the system undermined. Do you accept the idea that Donald Trump saying that it is already rigged -- that the fix is in -- is unsubstantiated?

[07:35:00] KING: I would not say it's unsubstantiated. I think there's truth to some of the things that he lays out on this. I just don't think it's that constructive to make this the campaign issue. I'd rather see this turned over on what are we going to do with ISIS, the budget, and border security.

CUOMO: But Congressman, when you say there is some truth -- you can say the media is biased --

KING: Yes.

CUOMO: -- against Donald Trump. Knock yourself out. We can talk about that for hours. I don't think it changes anybody's minds. But I don't think it is fair --

KING: It remains true, however.

CUOMO: I don't -- well, you may think it's true, but that's OK. You have a right to that opinion. So, the idea of -- well, there's also some validity to him saying the process of our democracy is rigged, that's not OK because it's been vetted. And yes, there are problems, but they do not in any way add up to any basis for a suggestion that this election is going to be stolen for Trump, and I don't get why you won't shoot that notion down.

KING: Chris, I'll take you back to 537 votes in Florida. I'd point to Virginia and see where Terry McAuliffe has essentially, by executive edict, legalized tens of thousands of felons that, by law, can't be allowed to vote in Virginia.

There's piece after piece of this around this country that I say don't follow the law and do lean this thing in the wrong direction. We should look at those. We should -- we should abide by the law. We should be squared away with that and we should make sure that we don't have illegals voting or registered. We should clean up our voter registration lists in this country of deceased and duplicates and felons. And we need to make sure that they're citizens and they should be certified to be citizens.

And on top of that, we've got a census situation in America where we count the people rather than the citizens. And the redistricting gives representation to illegal aliens in different places across this country. So there's much that must be done but I don't think the center part of it is the bias that's there because I think people will finally see through that in the end. At least I hope they do.

CUOMO: Nobody's saying that the system can't be made better and should be made better by you, were possible, but the system itself -- there's no basis to delegitimize it at this point. Congressman Steve King, thank you very much for joining us.

KING: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: As always, spirited discussion -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Chris, we're just two days until the final debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, so we're going to look at how they're preparing, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:40:50] CAMEROTA: Both candidates preparing for their final face- off in Vegas Wednesday night and Donald Trump has a special request for Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate, I do. I think we should -- why don't we do that? We should take a drug test prior because I don't know what's going on with her but at the beginning of her last debate she was all pumped up at the beginning and at the end it was like oh, take me down. She could barely reach her car. So I think we should take a drug test. Anyway, I'm willing to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: What happens if you fail the drug test, by the way? Let's say you have amphetamines in your system --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: -- or a little bit of the roids -- some kind of liquid gold. What happens? Do you lose? Do you have to withdraw?

CAMEROTA: I don't know, he didn't mention that part. But, luckily, we do have someone who may have the answer. Here to discuss is CNN political commentator Michael Smerconish, host of CNN's "SMERCONISH". We drug test him every week.

CUOMO: On HGH.

CAMEROTA: Michael, what is this? What is the request for a drug test? What's the calculus there?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hey, I'm going to say what Chris was thinking and wouldn't say. Does he have the big blue pill in his system?

CUOMO: No, no.

SMERCONISH: Will we find that?

CUOMO: I was not thinking that.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

CUOMO: I was -- he said there's no problem with that. He says there's no problem with that, I remember. He said it to all of America.

SMERCONISH: Listen, Phil Rucker and Bob Costa have a great piece in "The Washington Post" this morning that sums up my thinking. It's all playing to the echo chamber. And I had this conversation with Alisyn just last week.

You know, what's the mathematical argument for the way in which he is approaching this campaign? It has to be that if he can squeeze every last white working-class voter without a college degree to come out and vote for him, somehow that can trump -- no pun intended -- the outreach that a candidate would normally make in trying to expand the tent.

CUOMO: What does he have to do in this debate, in your opinion, and what do you think he has to do in this debate, in his opinion?

SMERCONISH: In his opinion, he needs to keep doing exactly what he's doing. He needs to say Benghazi about five or seven times. He needs to talk about Crooked Hillary. He needs to play the hit parade of all of the things that he has been saying. That's in his mind. In line with what I just said, I'm convinced their model is that they think they can exceed that percentage of the white vote that's been obtained by all Republican candidates, going back to Ronald Reagan.

And yet, she, at the same time, is, I'm sure, just desirous of running out the clock. If you take a look at her public schedule I don't believe it's attributable -- the lack of events -- to needing to be behindclosed doors preparing for the debate. I think, on the Clinton side of the equation, they're simply saying give him the rope to hang himself. Let him continue to be out there.

CAMEROTA: So Michael, let's talk about the things that could haunt her at the debate that have come out and that being the WikiLeaks dump where they did find out that her campaign was worried about these Goldman Sachs speeches coming to light. And of the things that they were worried about was that when she talked to the Wall Street crowd she said that they should be, basically, held to account for political reasons -- so instead of for moral reasons.

CUOMO: Also wishy washy on Dodd-Frank. She seemed accommodative. Now, of course, they were paying her to be there but now she wants to be president.

CAMEROTA: So, do you think -- how big of an impact do you think those sorts of things will have?

SMERCONISH: So, I've been looking at all these revelations with an eye toward answering the question if I were advising Trump, where's the smoking gun? What's the 30- or the 60-second commercial that I could run against her, specifically? And it's very hard to find an item that you can really go after her. I mean, for example, what you just referenced also seems a repeat of her saying well, a politician needs to have a public persona and a private persona.

The worst thing that I've seen thus far is her embrace in limited circumstances of so-called hemispheric open borders. But look at how many of these emails are not even hers. You know, it's Podesta, it's Palmieri. It's people who are around her. Some of them are from a couple of years ago. If there were a smoking gun I'd be eager to discuss it with you, I just don't see one.

[07:45:15] CUOMO: How about this smoking gun? The idea of saying the media is biased, that's fine. It happens all the time. Nobody likes the media. But we just had Steve King on -- he's a Trump supporter -- and he backs up Trump's suggestion that the election has already been rigged. That the result will be illegitimate and he says well, there is a little bit of a basis for that.

And I couldn't get him off it even though he said I don't want to undermine people's confidence in the system. I would suggest the then did just that by giving an illegitimate basis for some speculation about it being illegitimate. What is your take?

SMERCONISH: To quote Joe Biden, he gave you a bunch of malarkey. You asked him, OK, where's the beef? And what did he say? He said 527 votes separated the final outcome in Florida. OK, Congressman, but where was the fraud? And then he made reference to Gov. McAuliffe allowing felons the right to vote in Virginia by law. OK, where's the beef?

Listen, here's what they come back to, and I really get sick and tired of how they continue to reference Philadelphia. And they talk -- and Rudy did it over the weekend. Oh, you know, Philadelphia is going to be the home of theft. And then when pushed, they'll talk about the New Black Panthers and what happened in 2008.

So this morning I went back and I looked at the data. There was a polling place where two members -- two knuckleheads -- from the New Black Panthers who, by the way, should've been prosecuted but everybody in the national media was saying oh, they're there to intimidate voters. There were 1,535 voters at that division and only 84 of them were Republican.

My point is, if you wanted to intimidate voters to vote for Barack Obama against John McCain, you don't come out to the lily-white suburbs where I live. You wouldn't go to an all-black, all-Democratic polling place because it was already going for Obama. CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, the headlines often suggest something that when you dig into it deeper and go back to the source you find out that the voter fraud -- the claims of voter fraud are wildly exaggerated.

CUOMO: The media -- can't trust them.

CAMEROTA: Michael Smerconish, we can trust you. Thank you very much. Great conversation there.

SMERCONISH: See you, guys.

CAMEROTA: OK. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off, as we say, for the final presidential debate on Wednesday night. CNN's live coverage will begin at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.

CUOMO: So, did you hear about this one?

CAMEROTA: I did.

CUOMO: A father tells his son about the heroin overdose death of his mother, recording the moment, sharing it with the world. Of course, it has gone viral. Did the father make the right choice to make it public? Why did he do it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:51:45] CAMEROTA: Time for "CNNMONEY" Now. Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans is in our money center with a look at the latest campaign cash. What are you seeing, Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, I see the uglier it gets and the closer it gets to Election Day, the more money flows into this race.

The Trump campaign hauling in $100 million in September, Clinton raising $154 million. Both are the highest totals of this election. They support joint fundraising committees so not all of it goes directly to the campaigns.

But Clinton has a big lead with money in the bank. She had $152 million at the end of last month, Trump with $75 million. The question now, will Trump throw down more of his own money to catch up? Trump did pull in his some huge donations from GOP mega donors like the casino magnet Sheldon Adelson, the Ricketts family, Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot.

A much smaller but significant donation came from this guy, Peter Thiel. The PayPal founder is contributing $1.25 million to Trump. You may remember his speech at the Republican National Convention, guys. He put in a little bit more than $1 million of his own money into the race.

CUOMO: All right, thank you very much, Christine, appreciate it.

We're going to take a turn now. You remember those videos where they showed the peopleoverdosed in the car and it has a public service reminder. And the kid's in the backseat and his parents are passed out --

CAMEROTA: From heroin.

CUOMO: -- from heroin? I mean, look, the heroin scourge is underreported, it's underplayed, and it's going to be a big, big problem. Now there's a new one. This father is sitting across from his son and some other friends and family members -- and the kid's eight years old -- and he tells this kid that his mother has died of a heroin overdose, on camera. Here's a piece.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRENDAN CLARK: Your mom dad last night, OK?

BRENDAN CLARK'S 8-YEAR-OLD-SON: What do you mean? My mom?

CLARK: Yes.

BRENDAN CLARK'S 8-YEAR-OLD-SON: How?

CLARK: From drugs.

BRENDAN CLARK'S 8-YEAR-OLD-SON: (Crying)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right, look, the pain and the reality are real. There's no reason to debate that. The question is did the father do the right thing, posting that moment on Facebook?

All right, let's discuss it right now. We've got Ashley Banfield. She's got a new show, "PRIMETIME JUSTICE WITH ASHLEY BANFIELD". Premieres tonight on our sister network, HLN at 8:00 p.m. Her show's going to focus on a confessed serial killer named Shawn Grate.

Now, we're going to talk to you about that but where's your head on this? We all know that we can't do enough to let people know how painful this is. How it affects the people around the addict. What do you think of this?

ASHLEY BANFIELD, HOST, HLN'S "PRIMETIME JUSTICE WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD": If you're not affected by that, I don't know who you are. And if you read the comments under those postings -- I think there were something 34-35 million people who've seen this -- you'll get a really good sense of where people fall. Some people are so thrilled that this is breaking through some of the noise about heroin and other people are devastated that this child was subjected to this.

The father says he talked about it with his son. Asked his son if it would be OK to post it. The son's eight. It doesn't matter what kind of conversation you have with an 8-year-old. But at the same time, there are lot of addicts who've been posting saying thank you, thank you so much, this has changed things for me. So it's breaking through, it's making a difference. [07:55:00] CAMEROTA: The father, himself, is something like 100 days clean so he is also a recovering heroin addict. You know, this follows in the steps, as Chris was alluding to, of the sheriff's deputies --

BANFIELD: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- putting out those videos of people in their cars with children in a car seat just looking blue, asphyxiating from a heroin overdose. And, is -- I mean, they're going for shock value, and I --

BANFIELD: Sure.

CAMEROTA: -- guess the question is we don't know yet if it works but it's certainly getting everybody's attention and it's continuing the conversation.

BANFIELD: Big story just in the last 10 days, I think it was. A 7- year-old got on the school bus and told the school bus driver I can't wake my parents. And when the police go there they were dead, both of them, from a heroin overdose.

Seventy-eight people are dying per day. Let's just say that again. Seventy-eight people in this country are dying per day because of opiates. Opiates -- overdosing on these kinds of drugs. Just in Ohio -- just last year in Ohio, over 3,000 people died from drug overdoses, so that makes them the leading cause of injury-related deaths. Not accidents, not car crashes, just drug overdoses.

And I think we're just beginning to see that this isn't just a story you hear on the news a lot, this is an epidemic. And if it were any other kind of epidemic we would be throwing resources like mad at it, so maybe this is the kind of thing --

CUOMO: There's a big stigma on this, though. People think it's your choice, that you do it, and that they don't want to reward that. And there's a whole culture around it. But you tell us what you think. You tweet us, you Facebook us. What do you think about this father's move and impact on his son, and the impact on you?

Now, talk to me about this Shawn Grate. His picture is frightening because it's exactly what a serial killer uses to their advantage, the normalcy. That he seems like a normal, clean-cut guy but he is, obviously, one of the worst people.

BANFIELD: So, the only way you can actually say the word serial killer when you talk about this man, Shawn Grate, is because he's saying it himself. He has not gone to court. There's been nothing that's been litigated with this man yet. But that face -- get a good look at that face. If that reminds of you a Dahmer or a Bundy. Let me tell you. The stories that this guy is telling to reporters and to police, and to anybody who will listen, they are nothing short of bone-chilling.

Do you remember that call from the woman who was whispering to the police? CUOMO: Yes.

BANFIELD: Yes, saying oh, please come and get me.

CAMEROTA: Is that him?

BANFIELD: This is him, this is him. So that woman who called saying I've been abducted, I'm lying here next to him. Please come and get me, please come and get me. And whispering to them -- they came and got her. And in that house where she was being held -- in an abandoned house -- two more bodies.

CAMEROTA: We have -- we have a portion of that call so let's play that for the viewers who might have missed it. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DISPATCHER: 911, what is the address to your emergency?

CALLER: Right across from the 4th Street laundromat.

DISPATCHER: What is it?

CALLER: 4th -- 4th Street laundromat.

DISPATCHER: What's the problem?

CALLER: I've been abducted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was chilling.

BANFIELD: It gives me the willies.

CAMEROTA: So you're examining it in your new show, "PRIMETIME JUSTICE" that is premiering. So, when you look at it -- I mean, what else will shock us from this case?

BANFIELD: So, just the facts alone are just so astounding because, again, they found two more bodies in that house and then he started talking and leading police to three other bodies.

CUOMO: Why? Is he saying this is compunction or, you know, a guilty conscience, or is he a braggart? What are they saying?

BANFIELD: He's weird. I really can't put my finger on this one. He says he's now 50-50 remorseful on it. He says that, you know, some of them were just dead already, they just needed me to kill them. It's really strange. But why he spoke to reporters and just -- you know, just verbal lagaria -- giving all the details about what he did to these women.

This is a death penalty state and the prosecutor has said, in no uncertain terms, he's facing the death penalty. Yet, Shawn Grate entered a not guilty plea. So in court he said not guilty to the first charges he's charged with and to reporters he said and I did it all and they sort of needed it, they sort of needed it.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my God.

BANFIELD: It's really shocking.

CAMEROTA: Ashleigh, we can't wait to watch your show.

BANFIELD: Claire Underwood, too. No, no the real Claire Underwood. Robin Wright, the actress. She's going to come on the program, as well. She's got a phenomenal cause. It has to do with justice for women. You'll hear all about it.

CAMEROTA: Fantastic, can't wait to watch it. Thanks so much for previewing it with us. And you can watch "PRIMETIME JUSTICE WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD". It premieres tonight at 8:00 p.m. only on HLN.

CUOMO: The light of justice right behind you there. We're following a lot of news. Another turn in the election. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And remember this, it's a rigged election.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The disturbing stories keep coming.

TRUMP: The media collaborates and conspires directly with the Clinton campaign.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Donald Trump's words don't make me sick anymore, they make me furious.

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R-IN), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: They made it clear that it was just talk, not actions.

CLINTON: This is who Donald Trump really is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the final battle to drive ISIS out of Iraq.

CUOMO: The battle to retake Mosul now underway.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well over one million civilians still remain. They are expecting the worst.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.