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Candidates, Surrogates Hit the Swing States; Clinton & Trump Blitz All-Important Florida; Millions to See Obamacare Price Hikes in 2017; Obamacare Premiums Set to Soar Next Year; Trump: Obamacare "Blowing Up," Must Be Repealed; Clinton Focuses on Florida; Top GOP Lawmaker: "Wind in Our Face Supporting Trump"; Top GOP Lawmaker: "We Will Keep the House". Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 25, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. The day's countdown, the drama builds up, the presidential election now just two weeks from today. And the candidates and their surrogates are scrambling to make either minute count. They're fanning out across key battleground states but Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton focusing on all-important Florida today. This as Trump seizes on a new issue and one that hits home for millions of Americans. A scathing report says Obamacare premiums are going to take a big jump this coming year. It has become his battle cry at least for today. We're covering all the developments for you on the campaign trail. Let's begin, though, in Miami Beach, with Jason Carroll, good morning.

JASON CARROL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you Carol. You know, Donald Trump is going to keep driving home this point that a vote for Hillary Clinton would essentially mean four more years of Barack Obama's policies. Trump seizing on this latest development that health insurance premiums are going to rise by some 25 percent. He spoke about that just a few moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But Obamacare's just blowing up and even the White House, our president, announced 25 or 26 percent. That number is so wrong. That is such a phony number. You're talking about 60, 70, 80 percent in increases, not 25 percent. And I think what he wanted to do because it was blowing up all over the country. The numbers came out in Texas where it's 60 percent increases. And other places, other states -- one state's going to be 92 percent I understand. So I think they wanted to put out -- pretty sad when you put out a 25 or 26 percent increase and that's supposed to be to keep it down. Obamacare has to be repealed and replaced. And it has to be replaced with something much less expensive for the people. And otherwise, this country's in even bigger trouble than anybody thought. So we're going to repeal and replace Obamacare. And I can say all of my employees are having a tremendous problem with Obamacare. You folks, this is another group, is that a correct statement? I mean, you look at what they're going through, what they're going through with their health care is horrible because of Obamacare. So we'll repeal it and replace it.

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CARROLL: And, Carol, we should note that Hillary Clinton has said for her part that what she wants to do is keep what works with Obamacare and fix what doesn't. You heard there from Donald Trump saying what he wants to do is repeal and replace it with something better. His critics say he's been lean on specifics about exactly what he would replace it with. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Jason Carroll reporting live from Miami Beach. So let's talk about Obamacare. Because there are tens of millions of people who have signed up for Obamacare and if we repeal Obamacare, those 21 million people are without insurance. So what do we do? Go back to the drawing board? CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins me now with more. So, you heard what Donald Trump said. He said premiums are actually not going up just 25 percent but as much as 80 percent. Is that true?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: So look, this is what we know, sticker shock, yes, but not 80 percent. You're talking about 22 percent increase in the silver plan on average for next year. That's the silver plan. That means a 27-year-old, a typical 27-year- old, would pay $296 a month. This year, on the federal exchanges, the inflation, that increase in the cost was only 7.2 percent, still a lot. Still Carol, three quarters of the people getting Obamacare would get subsidies from the government which would keep their price at about 100 or less a month. So, three quarters paying 100 or less a month. There's wide variation around the states. You're going to see the prices drop in Indiana but they're going to go up really big in Arizona. But Arizona was the cheapest last year. So, it's a real mess in terms of consistency in terms of the pricing.

So why are Obamacare costs rising? Let's look at this. Enrollees are sicker and they cost more. Remember, for years, insurance companies could ostracize sick people. They didn't have to get insurance. Now they're coming in and they're finding that they're sicker and cost more than they had forecast. There are fewer young healthy people who don't cost as much. They pay premiums but they don't draw down as much health care spending. Fewer of those people are coming in. They're just not coming in in the numbers they expected. Insurers priced the plans too low and fewer companies are offering coverage now. So when you have all of that together, it means less choice. It means higher prices. There was something - there was like a risk court -- I don't want to get too wonky here but there was a mechanism in the law, Carol, that insurance companies if they made a lot money on these plans they'd be able to put it in a pool and other insurers when they lost money because of those expensive, you know, expensive customers, they could draw from it. That hasn't worked. So, one of the mechanisms in the law is not working. And that's where a lot of health care economists say there could be some changes to make it work better.

COSTELLO: OK. Before I get into our

[10:05:16] partisan discussion.

ROMANS: And it will be a partisan discussion.

COSTELLO: It will be a partisan discussion. I'm preparing myself mentally for it right now, but is Obamacare fixable? And if it is fixable, why don't they fix it or do something?

ROMANS: So, well, the Republicans say it's not fixable. You know, Donald Trump wants to start all over. He said it's doomed from the start. What you hear from the White House and people who worked on this and people who work in this field is it's a work in progress. That we're in a transition of a huge undertaking in terms of the way we think and deliver, think about and deliver health care and that there are problems. I mean, we were discussing this with some health care economists -- it's a mess right now, but you can see where the mess is -

COSTELLO: Is there one thing you can tell to viewers, like this would go a long way to fix it?

ROMANS: You know, if you had higher fines on people who don't come out and get insurance. So there are people right now, this year, and a lot of people don't know yet, you're going to be fined $700 on average if you don't buy insurance, if you don't go out and buy insurance and get Obamacare. Right now, the bronze plan, the cheapest plan, is still more expensive than that $700. So people are just saying I'll pay the fine, I'm young and healthy. The invincible, they call them, I don't need to come in. Maybe if you raised the fees and the fines, maybe those young people would come in, and they pay their $100 a month, and then you'll have more money in the system. It's just one of the things that you can tweak.

COSTELLO: OK, Christine, so at least I have something tangible going into my partisan discussion.

ROMANS: And feel free about the risk corridor, the risk pool, they can fix that too.

COSTELLO: OK. So stick around in like, you know, in case I need you. OK. So, with just two weeks until Election Day and many already heading for the polls for early voting, will this Obamacare health issue matter in the race for the White House? President Obama's former chief spokesman says no.

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JAY CARNEY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Obamacare remains, you know, not as popular as I think the President Obama would like it to be. There's a whole bunch of reasons for that. But is it something that's going to change, this news, something that's going to change this election? No, it's not. Remember, the opportunity Republicans had to use Obamacare against the Democrats and win the White House was in 2012. Mitt Romney, a far more credible candidate for President of the United States from the Republican Party, you know, beat us hard over the head with Obamacare and guess what, the American people re-elected President Obama. What I think is correct is what Secretary Clinton has said which is that, you know, she needs when she becomes president both parties to help her to make adjustments to the law so that it can be improved.

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COSTELLO: OK, so let's talk about that. Hillary Rosen is a Hillary Clinton supporter and Jeffrey Lord is Donald Trump supporter. Welcome to both of you.

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND CLINTON SUPPORTER: I love you're worried about being prepared for us, Carol.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER REAGAN WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR AND TRUMP SUPPORTER: Happy two weeks to go, Carol.

COSTELLO: I'm mentally prepared now, I'm Zen, so it doesn't matter what happens. So, Hilary, I will start with you. Mrs. Clinton says she wants to fix Obamacare. -- If she's elected president, she's going to be dealing with a very hostile Congress. -- Many of its members are not really into Obamacare and want it to go away. So how exactly does she plan to accomplish that?

ROSEN: I think you have to step back and take this a little bit out of the partisan heat of the day and, you know, more like Christine was doing and saying what's good about new coverage that we want to keep and what do we want to change. And what is good is that unlike what we saw before, which was left totally to the private sector, there are some requirements that insurance companies and health care providers have to accommodate today. And that has provided coverage for an additional, you know, 20-some million people and it has provided some safeguards. So, women's health is equal to men' health, kids can stay on their parent's plan. You know, you can't get thrown off of insurance if you switch jobs or become too sick.

COSTELLO: Or have a pre-existing condition, right?

ROSEN: Or have a pre-existing condition, all things that we saw in the marketplace before. All things frankly that Donald Trump says we ought to get back to that the Republicans have called for. So, I think what we need is a sit-down with all of the players. I have confidence that Hillary Clinton will do that. And I hope that Republican Members of Congress who have seen enough of their constituents see benefits from Obamacare, will come to the table constructively.

COSTELLO: All right, so Jeffrey, Mr. Trump wants to repeal and replace Obamacare, although we don't know with what. So if Mr. Trump repeals Obamacare, what happens to those 21 million people who have insurance through Obamacare?

LORD: Well, Carol, I mean, let's be candid here. -- This is the kind of thing that drives conservatives wild. Is if you get all of our liberal friends who say the answer is that have the government come in and do this, the government then comes in and do it, it screws up and they say, oh, no, no, no. If we just have the government do this and do that. And then we're off on this endless discussion. If they haven't touched it like this in the first place, we wouldn't have to be doing this this way. This is what happens. So, we are going to have to start all over again.

[10:10:16] I mean, I was talking to someone. Not to get local here. But the local dry-cleaner was telling me just the other day that he had to let go of all the health coverage for his employees. He simply couldn't do it anymore because of Obamacare. This has upset a lot of people. And the idea that Hillary Clinton or any other president is going to get people in a room and just tinker with this at the edges. The mistake was doing this in the first place.

ROSEN: I'm a small -

COSTELLO: Here's the other thing, Hilary, I went to Ohio and I talked to people who have enrolled in Obamacare. I mean, it's not just high premiums, its deductibles. The deductibles are so high. They can't even go to the doctor. So, it doesn't really matter that they have health insurance. It's just sucking money out of their pocket.

ROSEN: What you really have to look at, as Christine who is still sitting there, will tell you is, what was the situation like before this health care law passed? I'm a small business owner. And our premiums were going up 40 and 50 percent a year. Health care costs were significantly going up before this law passed. And that made it even tougher for people who couldn't get any coverage. What this law essentially simply did was say, you can buy into a -- you can buy into an imperfect system and pay some significant cost to do it. But we will subsidize your access to it. So even with all of these significant premium increases, most people, 85 percent of the people, are going to get tax credits to do it. That doesn't - because we didn't go to a single payer system -

COSTELLO: Hold on, I want to go to Christine. Hold on.

ROSEN: Wait let me just make this point. Because we didn't go to a government system, we are depending on the private sector that does have variable costs.

COSTELLO: That's right. So Christine, you heard what Hilary was saying. What if Obamacare was repealed? Like what would happen to insurance rates then? The insurance companies - I guess, it would revert back to the way it was so would health care costs continue to go up?

ROMANS: Insurance rates and health care costs were going up before Obamacare. And you will hear from the White House that they would be going up even more now without Obamacare. Although in some of these states when you look at, in some of these policies, a 22 percent increase in one year is just hard to stomach. The high deductible is another complaint we've heard about too. Look, there are problems in this massive law that is changing how we consume health care. Health care costs were already going up. Insurance rates were already going up. That's why they tackled it in the first place. COSTELLO: OK, so Jeffrey, the last question for you, if Mr. Trump repeals Obamacare, right? -- How can he guarantee that insurance rates won't continue to go up even without the law?

LORD: One of the ways to work on this is competition. As I understand the old system, at least as I experienced, that if I saw a good health plan in California but I live in Pennsylvania, too bad for me, I had to stick with whatever company was here in Pennsylvania. That's the first thing that should have been changed. So that you can buy this anywhere you want. Competition, competition, competition is what works best when you're talking about health care or widgets -

COSTELLO: So why don't Republicans and Congress, Jeffrey Lord, sit down and talk about that with Democrats and come up with a compromised fix?

LORD: Well, I think they should. I mean, they're going to have to do this. No matter who's President of the United States in two weeks. They're absolutely going to have to do this. Because the system as it was had problems and the system as it's been changed is terrible. So whoever is -- finds themselves president-elect, they're going to have to put this - close to the top of their agenda, without doubt.

ROMANS: You can't go back to a system where a child with cancer can't get coverage or a parent who is ill can't get insurance. And you can't go back to a system where families are bankrupted. Bankrupted, personal bankruptcy is -- the number one cause of personal bankruptcies for years was health care bills. You know, it had to be fixed. The fix needs to be fixed.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. -- Thanks to all of you. But it was a great conversation and I didn't even need to be mentally prepared, Jeffrey Lord, Hilary Rosen, Christine Romans, thank you so much.

Coming up next in the "Newsroom," Trump's nasty woman insult turns into a rallying cry for Clinton backers.

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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, (D) MASSACHUSETTS: And on November 8th, we, nasty women are going to march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes.

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[10:18:37] COSTELLO: Hillary Clinton campaigns in Florida today. This comes a day after she and her surrogates launch some blistering attacks on Donald Trump. Let's bring in senior Washington correspondent, Joe Johns. Hi, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Hillary Clinton would get out the vote efforts, now in high gear especially in the battleground states. In Manchester, New Hampshire, the candidate making a unity pitch, reaching out to Republicans and independents while also trying to get the progressive vote fired up, with a little help from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who's being counted on to help mobilizing women voters as well. Warren has set herself apart from some other surrogates this campaign for her apparent willingness to attack Donald Trump with roughly, the same fierceness that he's used against other candidates, very much on display in the event in New Hampshire. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: He thinks that because he has a mouthful of tick tacks, that he can force himself on any women within groping distance. Well, I've got news for you, Donald Trump. Women have had it with guys like you. And on November 8th, we nasty women are going to march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our live also forever.

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JOHNS: Well, Senator Warren has been one of Hillary Clinton's toughest talking and tweeting allies. If Hillary Clinton wins in November, the left and the Democratic Party, is going to be pressuring Warren to be something of an enforcer. The hope is she would press the Democratically-controlled White House to keep the promises to progressives

[10:20:16] that were made after the sometimes bitter battle with Bernie Sanders, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Joe Johns reporting live from Washington this morning. Thank you. President Obama on the trail too, actually, President Obama is everywhere, supporting Clinton, yes, but needling Trump too. Here he is on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: "President Obama will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States!" @realDonaldTrump. Well, @realDonaldTrump, at least I will go down as a president.

What I don't do, is like at 3:00 a.m., I don't tweet about -

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE": You don't tweet -

OBAMA: -- people who insulted me. I'm actually ready for a crisis.

KIMMEL: When you watch the debate and you watch Donald Trump, do you ever laugh? Do you ever actually laugh?

OBAMA: Most of the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Let's talk about that and more. Ron Brownstein is a CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for "The Atlantic" and Lynn Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the "Chicago Sun-Times." Welcome to both of you. LYNN SWEET, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF "CHICAGO SUN-TIMES": Hi, Carol.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST AND SENIOR EDITOR "THE ATLANTIC": Good morning.

COSTELLO: You have to admit, Lynn, President Obama is funny these days.

SWEET: Yes, he is, he is -- he knows that the best kinds of political statements are often made in humor. He can do self-deprecating humor. He could toss those barbs at Trump and that just shows you what a skilled communicator he is. That's what Donald Trump is now capable of. That's what Hillary Clinton tries to do. But just think, you know, Carol and Ron, if you can wield humor like a weapon that always puts you ahead of the game when you appeal to voters.

COSTELLO: And it's interesting, like, Hillary Clinton has Elizabeth Warren out there. So, it seems to me -- it might be just my imagination, that Hillary Clinton is sort of sitting back and smoking a cigarette letting her surrogates do the work.

BROWNSTEIN: Not sure if she's smoking the cigarette but the -

COSTELLO: I was kidding about that part -

BROWNSTEIN: imbalance is quite revealing. I mean, Donald Trump is in many ways a man without a party. The leadership of the Republican Party has fractured over him more than over any nominee in the party's history. I believe it exceeds, not on Goldwater in '64, but even 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt walked out of party after we nominated William Howard Taft. And there are virtually no other high-profile current elected officials who are willing to make the case for him. And you see every week the extraordinary reach that Hillary Clinton gets from being able to deploy President Obama, Michelle Obama, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, the list of celebrities doing get out the vote in the final weeks, Jay Z and you know, Jennifer Lopez and Katy Perry. It's just an extraordinary imbalance and one that reflects one party that, you know, that is largely unified, maybe more, around the threat of Trump, at least as much as enthusiasm for Clinton, and another party that is fundamentally divided and will remain fundamentally divided over what Trump has meant after the election win or lose.

COSTELLO: The House Majority Leader, a Republican, Kevin McCarthy, was on "Fox & Friends" this morning, Lynn, and he - you know, Donald Trump was saying these polls are rig against him but Kevin McCarthy said it seems like Donald Trump is going in the wrong direction. Let's listen to what he said on "Fox & Friends".

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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R) MAJORITY LEADER: Do we know wind is in our face that supporting Donald Trump, supporting our Members of Congress, we're in a fight. This is a direction. What do we want to change this country? Do we want status quo. And the only choice is are you for Hillary, are you for Donald. I want to see this country changed. I'm concerned about the Supreme Court. I'm concerned about the actions of foreign policy, of where America currently stands based upon the former Secretary of State. So it's no doubt where we stand and what we're fighting for.

BRIAN KILMEADE, HOST "FOX & FRIENDS": So you don't believe stand with Trump and lose the house?

MCCARTHY: No, I believe we have to change this country. We are going to keep this house. We need to elect Donald Trump president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Lynn, if Donald Trump had more surrogates out on the trail speaking like that on his behalf, would he be doing much better in the polls?

SWEET: Well, yes and no, because he's fixated on the polls instead of being fixated on his message. So, his surrogates waste valuable time having to go back and forth. Well, maybe the polls are right or wrong. At this point, it doesn't matter what you think of the polls in terms of your own message if you're Donald Trump, because he doesn't have the surrogates. Just to amplify what Ron Brownstein said, he named some of the most famous people but that's in addition to a platoon of other lawmakers. You have Angela Bassett in Florida today. You have former DNC chair Howard Dean who appeals to a lot of people in North Carolina. You know, you have Michelle Kwan, the former Olympian, who has been working for the Clinton campaign for - since it started, in Iowa.

[10:25:16] You know, and the list goes on because they not only have the big-name surrogates that you know about, but they have somebody -- people on the campaign that also are very able to reach out to certain communities. Such as Vern Strider in Michigan and Josh DuBois, who are people, who are specialists in reaching out to the faith community. So that is how specifically targeted the Clinton campaign could be to send their surrogates. So it is a mix of celebrity and targeting spokesman. --

COSTELLO: I think a lot of people don't realize exactly what the ground game entails, right? I was talking to Star Jones, another surrogate for Hillary Clinton. She was in Tampa. She was visiting community groups to like, you know, get the enthusiasm level up for Hillary Clinton. She said in Tampa, she didn't run into a single Trump surrogate doing anything of the kind. Does that surprise you, Ron?

BROWNSTEIN: No, the organizational structure is, you know, vastly imbalanced. I mean, Democrats have built a significant voter contact identification mechanism to try to turn out their vote. The Trump campaign has largely relied on what the Republican National Committee can do. But again, with the party so divided, that kind of undercuts - diminishes at least, dilutes the effectiveness of what they can do. Carol, none of this was not predictable. If you go back to January and December, Trump was facing enormously unfavorable ratings among the same groups that are causing him the most trouble today. If you look back to -- literally last week, three quarters of minority voters, two-thirds of millennials, two-thirds of college graduates and three-fifths of women said they have an unfavorable view of Donald Trump.

Republicans went into this with their eyes open. They knew they had a candidate who had especially toxic reaction among the key elements of the Democratic coalition. The only way for him to win was to radically transform the nature of the electorate, turn out many, many more, blue collar white voters where he is strongest. And you know, that has been problematic, and the problem has compounded by the absence of an actual organizational structure to do anything like that, it would take to achieve that.

COSTELLO: All right, I have to leave it there. Ron Brownstein, Lynn Sweet, thanks as always.

SWEET: Thank you.

COSTELLO: -- Coming up in the "Newsroom," he's arguably the most unpredictable presidential candidate in history. So, ever wonder what Donald Trump's campaign manager thinks when he rips up the script? We get an up close and personal look into Kellyanne Conway's life, next.

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