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Clinton, Trump Face Off Tonight in Final Debate; Trump Predicting Election Is Brexit All Over Again. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired October 19, 2016 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:33:28] UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: Do you think it's important for the country and for democracy for him to concede if he loses? And will he?
IVANKA TRUMP, DAUGHTER OF DONALD TRUMP: Well, look, my father is in this to win it. And I'm not interested in talking about alternative outcomes and, of course, I think my father will always do the right thing. That's the type of person he is.
But when you asked me before, do I think it's rigged, I think, from a media perspective, it's very hard to get an accurate portrayal of who he is as a person or the business he's built, his professional accomplishments. It's borderline impossible. In large parts, we've stopped trying with mainstream publications because they just don't -- I was going crazy around a year ago calling these reporters, trying to get them to at least hear our perspective, and it's just a waste of time. You fall down such a rabbit hole with this. And it doesn't yield a result.
But to your point, he'll either win or won't win and I believe he'll accept the outcome either way.
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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Ivanka Trump, just hours before her father debates Hillary Clinton in the final presidential debate.
I'm joined by Angela Rye, CNN political commentator and former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, a Clinton supporter; and Mr. Jeffrey Lord, CNN political commentator, Donald Trump supporter, and former Ronald Reagan White House political director.
Good to see both of you.
ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to see you.
JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hello, Brooke
BALDWIN: Let's begin with you.
Ivanka Trump says she believes her dad will abide by the result. Do you agree?
[11:35:14] LORD: Sure. Sure. I'm sure he will.
BALDWIN: Or do you think he will fight it?
LORD: It depends on how close. I had the opportunity year ago to meet Richard Nixon when he was long since a former president. He went to his grave thinking he won the 1960 election and was cheated out of it. So it depends on how close we are and whether there would be a fight in terms of results, as Al Gore chose to fight George W. Bush in 2000.
BALDWIN: Because he says it's rigged?
LORD: Right. And there are questions about that. Let me say in a serious fashion, as a Pennsylvanian, quite a while back, we had a Pennsylvania Senator turned out by a federal judge because she said his party, the Democrats, cheated on the election, and she installed the Republican. In 2008, we had 57-some-odd-thousand registrations rejected by the Philadelphia county because --
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BALDWIN: I don't doubt there are certain instances. But in terms of widespread voter fraud, that's just not true.
LORD: Well, it certainly has been true in places in Pennsylvania. I mean, that's -- depending on the race and all of that kind of thing. It is something we have to be concerned about. Just off the top of my head, now that a lot of us are doing electronic voting, just because I touch the button that says Donald Trump doesn't mean it registered for Donald Trump.
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BALDWIN: Is this effective?
LORD: -- computer hanky panky.
ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's problematic for the Republican Party for a lot of reasons, and one of them is voter fraud occurs .00031 times, percentage. And I think that we have to deal with the fact that there are voter suppression measures introduced in Republican-led state legislatures all over the country.
LORD: This is called Voter I.D. and --
RYE: It's voter suppression though because it's also cutting back on early voting days. It's making it harder for people to vote who don't have the money, so it's been equated to a modern-day poll tax. That should be discussed?
LORD: No. No.
RYE: Then you also have -- yeah. Then you have the gutting of "Shelby v. Holder," was gutted, Section Five of the Voting Rights Act. So we're talking about an election this year that is going to be more difficult for people to vote than ever. And my question to the Trump campaign would be, OK, if the election is rigged, was it rigged before or after you won the primary.
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BALDWIN: That was John King's point earlier. When you think of all the Republican presidents we've had, the House and the Senate, you weren't crying rigged then, was John's point.
RYE: No.
BALDWIN: I want to move off the rigged point because Kellyanne Conway, the campaign manager for the Trump campaign, said something fascinating last night to Anderson Copper. Take a look.
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KELLYANNE CONWAY, DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN MANAGER: For Hillary Clinton, she's got the current president, the past president she happens to be married to, a very popular first lady, more popular than Hillary Clinton will be, in Michelle Obama, she has the vice president. She has endless amounts of money. And as I tried to you last night, Anderson, why can't she get to 50 percent and stay there anywhere. That's an important question. She's like the 46 percent gal. She just -- she's nowhere near the margins that President Obama got twice in states that where we're competitive.
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BALDWIN: To her point, Angela, why isn't Hillary Clinton running away with it?
RYE: I think there are so many reasons why. Hillary Clinton is running, I think, now maybe even more so than in 2008 in a nation that -- Americas. Donald Trump has appealed to a different kind of base with a message that has worked very well, clearly. We see that today. You also have the fact that there are two very un-liked candidates. This is a polarizing election. So she's talking to one group and he's talking to another and there's no middle ground. So the undecideds will decide this election. There was a poll a couple weeks ago talking about Millennial voters, Hillary Clinton hasn't run away even with African-American Millennial voters. There's still a gap there.
BALDWIN: So you think it's the deep divisions within this country --
RYE: Absolutely.
BALDWIN: -- that Donald Trump has touched on, clearly, that that is the reason why.
I don't know if you buy that?
LORD: I would say she's not a very strong candidate. When we talk about President Obama, for example, President Obama was there in Philadelphia the other week to campaign for her. I can tell you, as a Pennsylvanian, there was no way on God's green earth Hillary Clinton is going to lose Philadelphia so why send the president there? The reason he's there is because they know there's not much enthusiasm for her so that she could win, but win by a sort of moderate or week amount. You get to the rest of the state and they could overwhelm the Philadelphia votes, which is frankly the old pattern of Republicans and Democrats. But the fact that they're executing that says they know she's weak. And that's why Kellyanne has a good point. Kellyanne has been a professional pollster her entire adult life. She knows what she's talking about.
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[14:40:13] RYE: And, Brooke, what does it say about Donald Trump. If Hillary Clinton is such a weak candidate, why isn't Donald Trump running away with the election? He's behind a weak candidate, so that's something else we have to address. He's not as strong as you all might think he is, either. He's had to do a lot of lying to get to where he is so he's not so strong, either.
BALDWIN: 20 days.
LORD: 20 days, but who's counting.
BALDWIN: 20 days.
Who's counting?
RYE: We are.
(LAUGHTER)
BALDWIN: Thank you so much.
I think they are, too. Feeling the energy at UNLV with this crowd.
Coming up, Donald Trump predicting this election will be Brexit all over again.
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DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If we keep our spirit and if we go out and win, this is another Brexit, believe me. They are so worried.
I'll tell you what, we'll have big surprises. This is going to be Brexit all over again.
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BALDWIN: Brexit being the British exit, the vote over this summer for Britain to withdraw from the E.U.
Coming up next, we'll talk to the man who is largely credited with getting that vote to pass. He's also supporting Trump for president. He will join me here on set.
This is CNN's special live coverage.
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[14:45:55] BALDWIN: Welcome back to the live show in Las Vegas. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me.
Donald Trump telling supporters don't believe the polls. The Republican nominee for president has compared this election to the Brexit surprise, Great Britain's stunning vote to vote leave, leave the European Union. Ahead of the Brexit vote, betting markets, media pundents, most polls predicted a comfortable win for those who wanted to remain within the E.U. You know what? They were, oh, so wrong. Brexit won by appealing to working class economic frustrations and immigration concerns. Ring familiar?
Donald Trump has mentioned Brexit again and again.
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TRUMP: I have a feeling this is another Brexit. This is going to be interesting.
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TRUMP: If we keep our spirit and if we go out and win, this is another Brexit, believe me. They are so worried.
I'll tell you what, we'll have big surprises. This is going to be Brexit all over again.
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BALDWIN: Let's talk it all over here. Nigel Farage, the U.K. politician who led the winning Brexit campaign and a Donald Trump surrogate.
Sir, nice to meet you.
NIGEL FARAGE, UNITED KINGDOM INDEPENDENT PARTY LEADER: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Welcome to Las Vegas and the circus ahead of the debate.
Just so I'm clear, would you consider yourself Mr. Brexit, and Donald Trump could be, "I'm hoping they'll call me Mr. Brexit in 20 days from now."
FARAGE: Well, there are crossovers, big crossovers. We were taking on the establishment. We were behind in the opinion polls. We had very little support from mainstream media. So there's big crossover stuff here. On the day of Brexit, there was an opinion poll that put us 10 points behind. Yet, we won. Why is that? I'll tell you why it is. Modern polling companies cannot get to non-voters reentering the system. They can't measure them.
Now the question is, is Trump reaching non-voters? I'm told registrations of new voters in many states is quite high, so it could be that Hillary is ahead but maybe by not very much.
BALDWIN: That's the thing and that bears repeating for this audience because we point so much to polls, and in the U.K., at the time, in the final week of the campaign, the percentage chance that Remain would win didn't fall below the 75 percent mark.
FARAGE: That's right.
BALDWIN: So what do you think went so wrong? You think those voters -- what was so inaccurate about that.
FARAGE: No, what went so right.
(LAUGHTER)
BALDWIN: What went so right for you?
FARAGE: As I say, it's the cause. I think, whether it's Washington or Brussels or London, what we've seen over the last 25 years is the emergence of a professional political class who are out of touch with main stream public opinion. And I think Hillary's problem is she is the epitome of that establishment.
BALDWIN: But isn't it possible the oversimplification of what we're talking about with Brexit versus the U.S. election, there are massive, massive differences. Do you still think -- is your thesis that Mr. Trump could still pull off a surprise win based upon your experience in the U.K.
FARAGE: I'm not sure the differences are that great. I mean, Hillary's slogan, "Stronger Together," is the same slogan the Remain team used. Hillary wants a global common market. She wants America to be part of a big club where your laws would get made somewhere else, where you have no control of your borders. And Trump believes the opposite. I think crossovers are quite big. I would say this. I think the Bush tape did damage the position Trump held. I think he's behind her. But I suspect not as far behind her as these polls are saying today. And I think if he for and gets a knockout blow tonight on policy, we could be in for an interesting 20 days.
BALDWIN: I think also what's fascinating with Brexit in reading about it after the fact, a lot of people went in there assuming Remain would win and therefore this was their -- forgive me -- proverbial middle finger to the establishment, to the government, and they went ahead and voted Leave assuming it wouldn't be the win.
FARAGE: In some cases that may be.
BALDWIN: The privacy of the polling booth.
FARAGE: Yeah. And maybe also people aren't telling pollsters the truth. There might be people -- I don't want to tell a pollster I'm supporting Trump, they might think badly of me but, in private, that's how I feel and that's what I'm going to do.
BALDWIN: Last question. You were at that St. Louis debate and you said you could feel the intensity in the first 20 minutes. You'll be in the room tonight. Your advice to Mr. Trump is?
[14:50:06] FARAGE: I just think the race to the bottom where the argument becomes the morality of Trump versus the Clinton family, I don't think he wins in that situation. I think he has to pivot out, talk about the issues --
BALDWIN: Don't go low. You want him to pivot away from calling somebody a loser.
FARAGE: Just say, look, I'm being accused of all sorts of things, it's no surprise given the timing, but let's talk about America's future and America's place in the world. Talk about immigration control, talk about helping small business, do those thing, and then he'll win this debate.
BALDWIN: Thank you, sir.
FARAGE: Thank you.
BALDWIN: I appreciate the time.
Nigel Farage.
Special coverage continues from Vegas in just a moment.
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[14:54:40] BALDWIN: We're back live in Las Vegas for tonight's final presidential debate. Strike up the band.
By the way, breaking news involving the electoral map. It's all about the numbers, you have to get to 270. See what just changed for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as far as the Electoral College is concerned.
Also ahead, Mr. Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, her candid comments on stage there in California moments ago about her role in her father's campaign and how she reacted to his comments onboard that bus 10 years ago.
You're watching CNN's special live coverage. We'll be right back.
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BALDWIN: We're back in beautiful sunny Las Vegas. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN's special live coverage hours ahead of the big night tonight. It will be four years until we're headed to the next presidential debate.
This is a city, Vegas, baby, a city world renowned for its prize- winning fights. It defies -- the prize tonight couldn't get bigger. Just a couple hours from now, it will be Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton in this third and final presidential debate. And listen, you know this. You've been watching all this coverage for months and months. The gloves, the came off --
