Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Final Presidential Debate Tonight; Iraqi Forces Close in on Mosul; Jimmie Walker Talks Election. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired October 19, 2016 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:30:25] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. Thanks for joining me from the campus of UNLV, the site of the third presidential debate. Good morning. I'm Carol Costello.
In a matter of hours, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off for the final time on six topics, debt and entitlements, the economy, the Supreme Court, foreign hot spots, the fitness to be president, and immigration. Immigration has been a key issue, especially here in the battleground state of Nevada, yet the topic has barely been discussed on the debate stage. Well, that could end tonight.
With me now is Angela Rye, CNN political commentator and former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Jesus Marquez, a member of the National Hispanic Advisory Council for Trump and Las Vegas radio commentator.
Welcome to both of you.
ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you, Carol.
COSTELLO: Nice to have you here.
JESUS MARQUEZ, MEMBER, NATIONAL HISPANIC ADVISORY COUNCIL FOR TRUMP: Thank you for having me.
COSTELLO: So, Jesus, we haven't heard Donald Trump talk much about the wall or making Mexico pay for it. Why?
MARQUEZ: Well, I think right now we're focusing on the other issues. And we've got to understand one thing. Here in Nevada, we have a big Hispanic population. But Donald Trump is doing very good. He's got 33 percent of the polls according to your own polls. I believe that immigration reform, it's not the number one issue right now. We have the economy to fix. We have jobs to create. We have security -- national security, and I believe that's why you don't hear that much -- too much.
COSTELLO: Yes. And I ask that question about immigration, especially here in the state of Nevada, Angela, because, according to Pew Research, one in five Nevadans (INAUDIBLE) outside of the country and the state has currently 210,000 undocumented immigrants. That's the highest population of undocumented immigrants than in any other state. So that issue, you would think, would be important here.
RYE: Yes. And you would also would think it would be important throughout the country. I think one of the things that we saw under President Obama's term is executive actions, one, to solve for what are undocumented people in this country, and also you saw the Senate try to consider a comprehensive immigration measure that didn't go anywhere in the House. Part of that bill dealt with border enforcement. And so we have to deal with what's immediately before us.
Yes, Hillary Clinton plans to continue a lot of President Obama's policies. She certainly plans to extend the executive actions that he put into place, but also wants to see comprehensive immigration measures because that is how we really address and solve for what is illegal immigration in this country.
COSTELLO: OK. So this is what people may want to hear tonight, because the wall's a big part of Donald Trump's campaign. Will we finally hear how he's going to make Mexico pay for that wall?
MARQUEZ: Well, I'm pretty sure we can do that by taking some of the money that we already give Mexico for other issues. But I believe that going back to what you said --
COSTELLO: No, no, I really want to concentrate on this particular issue, because this has been a tenet of his campaign. So you're a supporter. You talk on the radio about Mr. Trump all the time, right?
MARQUEZ: That's --
COSTELLO: So do you know how exactly he's going to make Mexico pay for that wall? And, secondly, is he still for the wall?
MARQUEZ: No, he's still for the wall. Absolutely. We have to secure the border and I think most Americans agree with that. In terms of how is this going to be paid? I believe that we -- we give subsidies to Mexico in the billions. So we can -- we can take some of that money back, you know, or not, you know, not sending it to Mexico.
COSTELLO: So that's not making Mexico pay for it.
RYE: No, it's not.
MARQUEZ: (INAUDIBLE) it is. You know, and we -- he's going to -- he's going to address that in time. But right now we have to focus on --
COSTELLO: This is his last chance.
RYE: Out of time.
COSTELLO: (INAUDIBLE).
MARQUEZ: Well, you know, he told -- the only one talking about securing the border, Americans agree with that, and that is something that he has talked all along and he hasn't changed that subject.
COSTELLO: OK, I want to talk about Hillary Clinton and, you know, she talks about carrying on President Obama's policies as far as immigration goes.
RYE: That's right.
COSTELLO: But, let's face it, if she becomes president, she still has a hostile Congress. How's she going to do that exactly?
RYE: Well, Carol, that's --
COSTELLO: How can she guarantee that we just won't go on and on, not solving the problem forever, because she doesn't have a great relationship with Republicans in the House and the Senate?
RYE: So a couple of things here. I think we have to acknowledge the fact that the face of Congress could change as well. Thank you to the Donald Trump campaign. The numbers may very well shift. The Senate is more in play than it ever was before. And even the House. That's why Paul Ryan is out on the stump ensuring that he can keep frankly his members of Congress in the House.
The reality of Hillary Clinton is she actually has better relationships with many congressional Republicans that far exceed the relationships that Donald Trump has. I do --
COSTELLO: I don't think voters believe that, Angela.
RYE: I -- they may not believe it, but it actually is true. You can look at the number of folks who are saying they're undecided, they don't know if they're going to support Trump or they all the -- They (INAUDIBLE).
COSTELLO: But here's the thing, they may have a good relationship with Hillary Clinton, but they don't exactly -- many of -- especially establishment Republicans have a great relationship with the extreme right of their party. And they all --
[09:35:03] RYE: No, that's right.
COSTELLO: They have to -- they have to keep that in mind because they want to get reelected, right?
RYE: That's absolutely true.
COSTELLO: So how does she get past that?
RYE: So part of it has to do with saying this -- these are the things that I plan to put in place. This bill that was a comprehensive immigration bill that was passed two years ago now, it need to bring it back up. It needs to be reintroduced and we have to solve for the gaps that exists in this country. It's not just the wall, Carol. And we also have to acknowledge that the walls not even -- it's not physically capable of being built. There was something called the Secure Border Initiative that I know firsthand, as a former Homeland Security staffer, that also didn't work. That was both electronic and physical wall. That didn't even work.
MARQUEZ: It is well known that Hillary Clinton is for open borders. We just find out from WikiLeaks --
RYE: That's not true.
MARQUEZ: Well, she's -- she actually, that's actually true.
RYE: No, it's actually not.
MARQUEZ: She believes in a world with open borders. Now, the American people have had it already with, you know, illegal immigration. I believe that we need to stop the influx of, you know, illegal immigrants and we -- and we --
COSTELLO: So what about those -- what -- what about those --
RYE: It's down. Those numbers are down under the Obama administration.
MARQUEZ: (INAUDIBLE) the economy because the economy is bad right now.
COSTELLO: What about those 210,000 -- what about those 210,000 undocumented immigrants right here in your home state? What would you like to see happen to them?
MARQUEZ: That -- well, Donald Trump is not even talking about deporting the --
COSTELLO: What would you like to see happen to them?
MARQUEZ: Well, we need to -- we need to first secure the border. We need to make sure that there's no more people coming in illegally.
COSTELLO: Got that. What -- what is (INAUDIBLE).
MARQUEZ: Then after that we will talk and we can negotiate and we can put it on the table to negotiate. But right now the first priority is to --
COSTELLO: See, when you say that voters go yes, yes, yes, we're going to talk about it, but it's never going to get solved because you don't really have a plan and you're just like -- you're --
MARQUEZ: Well, even -- even in Hispanics -- among Hispanics, the number one issue is not immigration reform, it's the economy, jobs, and education.
RYE: Right.
MARQUEZ: So, I believe that the American people (INAUDIBLE) --
COSTELLO: He is right about it, the economy is number one here.
RYE: No, I -- I agree. I was nodding yes.
COSTELLO: OK. I want to play -- I want to -- I want to play something from 2008, because it will remind us of a time when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were actually friends and liked one another. It's hard to imagine right now. But CNN's k-file (ph) found an old New York One interview with Mr. Trump and he was talking about Bill and Hillary Clinton. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think she's a wonderful woman. I think that she's a little bit misunderstood. You know, Hillary's a very smart woman, a very tough woman. That's fine. But she's also a very nice person. I think she's going to go down, at a minimum, as a great senator. I think she is a great wife to a president. And I think Bill Clinton was a great president. A lot of people hated him because they were jealous as hell. Bill Clinton was a great president. Hillary Clinton is a great woman. And a good woman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: So, Jesus, what happened?
MARQUEZ: Well, you know, the same thing we -- we can happen about what happened between Obama and Hillary Clinton. You know, in the first election, when Obama won --
COSTELLO: No, but Mr. Trump went from saying Hillary Clinton was a nice woman to she's a crook and should be in jail.
MARQUEZ: Well, the same -- it's the same thing -- the same thing we can say about Obama and Hillary Clinton when Hillary Clinton was talking this stuff about Obama and now is --
RYE: That -- that's a -- I think it's a textbook example of false (INAUDIBLE), right, at its best. We're talking about someone who campaigned against the president in a primary, lost to that president and then served in his cabinet. Someone who was talking about continuing the policies of that president and expounding upon them, building upon them. We're talking about someone who, for the first time in a long time, Carol, Donald Trump was consistent. In the last debate they asked him what he thought about Hillary Clinton, and he said, she's a fighter. That's consistent with that message there. We all know it.
COSTELLO: I will -- I will say, too, that, you know, the Clinton's attended Trump's wedding. So at one time --
RYE: Sure.
COSTELLO: The Clintons liked Mr. Trump too. And I could ask you the very same thing, what happened.
RYE: Please do. I think a lot's happened. We've seen it play out before the American people. He announced his campaign and on that same day, speaking of immigration, called Mexican people drug dealers and rapists. He has come at black people. He has put -- took out full page ads in the Central Park Five in the '90s and doubled down on that once they'd been exonerated by -- from DNA evidence. So this is someone --
MARQUEZ: He wasn't talking about --
RYE: This is someone who has demonstrated his ability to be treacherous, evil, and -- and -- and lie profusely of more than 75 percent of the time Donald Trump is lying.
MARQUEZ: If that was true, Donald Trump --
RYE: It is all true.
MARQUEZ: Donald Trump wouldn't be as good in the polls as he is here in Nevada. You know, he's actually polling better than Mitt Romney four years ago.
RYE: I don't -- I don't know that --
MARQUEZ: According to CNN polls, that was (INAUDIBLE) --
COSTELLO: Well, we'll bring up the polls -- we'll bring up the polls afterwards so everybody can see and I -- I'm not discounting what you say. I'm not.
RYE: Including his leading in Nevada, (INAUDIBLE).
MARQUEZ: He's at (INAUDIBLE) --
COSTELLO: Clinton is in Nevada (ph).
MARQUEZ: Well, yes, but Donald Trump has 33 percent of the Latino vote according to a CNN poll that was conducted a few days ago.
COSTELLO: OK, thanks to both of you.
RYE: Thank you, Carol.
COSTELLO: We'll have to end it there.
All right, still to come in the NEWSROOM, Iraq and Kurdish forces closing in on Mosul, but ISIS is fighting back. We'll take you to the front lines, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:43:51] COSTELLO: The battle to retake ISIS' last stronghold in Iraq is fierce. An Iraqi commander telling CNN his forces are just three miles from Mosul now, but farther south ISIS militants have surrounded Iraqi soldiers, showing just how hard this fight is going to be. Clarissa Ward is with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces near Mosul.
Hi, Clarissa.
CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.
Well, we're here with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces at their front lines, their closest front line to the city of Mosul. The city of Mosul is about eight miles behind me. But if you see just behind me there's a town, just at the bottom of the hill, not far off at all. That town is still under control of ISIS. And that town appears to be the object of most of the activity that we have seen going on today.
Since we've been here, all day we have seen a steady stream of coalition artillery, rockets, and also at least four airstrikes hitting that town before -- behind me, apparently trying to soften the town before an offensive that we would expect, I guess, would start in about one or two days. It's difficult to say. But this is a pattern essentially that you're seeing replicated all around the south and the east of the city of Mosul. Coalition forces going along, village by village, taking each piece that they can as they start to surround the city of Mosul.
[09:45:15] You mentioned those Iraqi forces. They have been enmeshed in some pretty heavy clashes to the south of the city of Mosul. Mostly near a town called Nimroh (ph), which is an ancient site. Also in a Christian town called Karakoch (ph). So there have been some heavy clashes that have been going on throughout the day.
But for the most part, their morale is good, the progress seems to be positive. Iraqi forces saying, as you just mentioned, that they're just miles from the outskirts of the city of Mosul, saying that they've liberated at least 14 villages. But certainly, Carol, I think it's fair to say, from what we're seeing here on the ground, this is not going to happen overnight. This is a marathon. It's not a sprint. And, of course, the real concern is when the heaviest fighting is likely to start is when troops get right back into the center of the city of Mosul. And there are 1.2 million civilians who are living there, compared to just 5,000 to 7,000 estimated ISIS fighters, Carol. That makes it very difficult to know where they are. They can easily melt into the civilian population.
Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Clarissa Ward, reporting live from near Mosul, Iraq.
I'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:50:58] COSTELLO: The polls show Clinton is in the lead, but could "Saturday Night Live" pick the real winner? Tonight's debate is likely to deliver comedic fodder for the show. To talk about the role of comedy in this race is comedian and actor Jimmie Walker.
Welcome.
JIMMIE WALKER, COMEDIAN: It's always nice to be with you, Carol, because I'm a big fan anyway and I'm a big fan of CNN and news and I'm a big fan of talking comedy and politics.
COSTELLO: That's awesome. And I have to bring up a clip because, you know, I'm a big fan of yours, too, and I loved that show.
WALKER: Thank you.
COSTELLO: It takes me back.
WALKER: Thank you.
COSTELLO: So let me take you back. Jimmie Walker.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER : She has a figure that makes the number eight look like the number one, and a smile that lights up the night, and it all belongs to kid dynamite!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: OK, I had to do it. See, they love you, too.
WALKER: Yes, well, a couple of people. A couple of them remember.
COSTELLO: Yes, the (ph) people do.
WALKER: There they go. There they go.
COSTELLO: There they go. Yes.
OK, so you are a Nevadan now.
WALKER: Yes, I've been an Nevadan since 1979.
COSTELLO: A long time Nevadan.
WALKER: Yes, longer than you've been alive.
COSTELLO: I wish.
So are you an undecided voter?
WALKER: I'm a -- I'm a quasi-undecided, but I'm kind of leaning one way but I'm not going to -- I'm leaning. I'm leaning. So, I -- I --
COSTELLO: Which way, right or left?
WALKER: Well, I -- you know, Hillary is running and Hillary is going to win, but that doesn't mean -- that doesn't mean I'm a Hillary fan. It means that she's going to win because she's political, she has a tremendous amount of hate out here, you know, tremendous amount of hate, but Donald Trump lost the election in the first week when he talked about Hispanics. And Hispanics are a very growing group and they hated to hear not the wall, but they hated to hear, we don't have your best. We don't have -- there's people who are thieves and killers and that kind of stuff. And Hispanics hated that because we have a tremendous amount of Hispanics that work hard, go to work every day, go right to school here, and they felt really hurt by that, and I think from then on anything Trump said worked in his --
COSTELLO: So nothing he can do tonight will --
WALKER: Nothing he can do. This is what I call -- nothing he can do. This is the Yelp -- Yelp debate. If you ever read Yelp, you read about a restaurant, they'll say, this is the worst restaurant I've ever been to. Then the next review will say, this is the greatest place in the world. So these debates are like Yelp to me. But Donald Trump, I think, has better ideas, newer ideas, newer ways
to go. He's a guy that really would bring a change into this country, but he's not going to get in because he's not going to get the minority vote which is the key thing that counts.
COSTELLO: OK, I want to talk a little bit about the role of comedy in this year's presidential election.
WALKER: Yes.
COSTELLO: An interesting thing happened to Amy Schumer. She was doing a show in Tampa, Florida, and she was not saying very nice things about Donald Trump, but she worked them into her act, so it's part of her comedy show.
WALKER: Right.
COSTELLO: Two hundred people stood and walked out. And let's watch a clip so you know what I'm talking about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I think right now (INAUDIBLE) for the country is probably the biggest thing we have. And he's going to protect us with regards to --
AMY SCHUMER, COMEDIAN: With all of his experience with signing ceasefires?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not really voting for Trump. I'm voting against Hillary.
SCHUMER: OK, you can go sit down. So that's -- thank you. I appreciate that.
That was just really cool to hear from one guy, who doesn't seem like a psychopath, why he would want to vote for that orange, sexual assaulting, (INAUDIBLE) fake college starting, monster.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: OK. So what she did is people were heckling her from the audience --
WALKER: Yes.
COSTELLO: So she brought up Trump supporters on stage.
WALKER: Right.
COSTELLO: And then you saw what transpired.
WALKER: Right. Right.
COSTELLO: So -- so I'd just like to get your reaction to that. WALKER: I think it's unusual for that to happen because if you go to
see Amy Schumer, you know what you're getting. You know what she's about. There are a strong, strong amount of Trump supporters out here. There's a strong amount -- well, they're here. And I think because he's so different, he's one of the guys that has not run in any campaign, he's not been a vetted guy, but still the Republicans themselves are in trouble.
[09:55:20] COSTELLO: But as far as Amy Schumer and the people walking out --
WALKER: I'm stunned because, first of all, the tickets are $100. I'm not walking out if I'm paying $100. I'm staying. But Amy does what she does and you should be ready for that. Any comic you go see, if you go see Louis Black, Amy Schumer, anybody like that, you should know that this is what's coming. So I'm stunned that that kind of support would be against her. I'm really surprised.
COSTELLO: Jimmie Walker, thanks for stopping by.
WALKER: OK. Thank you.
COSTELLO: Always fun. Please, come back again.
WALKER: Thank you.
COSTELLO: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
