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FBI Reviewing Emails Linked To Clinton Aide; Biden Reacts to FBI Email Probe Linked to Clinton Aide; Clinton Questions Timing of FBI's New E-mail Probe; DOJ Unhappy with FBI Director for Coming Forward with New E-mail Information; Many in N.C. Going to Polls Undecided in Early Voting. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired October 29, 2016 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:08] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Ivan, thank you very much for the reporting for us on the phone from Istanbul. We'll get much more with Ivan coming up here.
Top of the hour, you are on the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. And we will turn to politics now because if you thought this election was in the bag, think again. The epic race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is now significantly tighter and now there's a potential game changer from the FBI. Director James Comey announcing yesterday there will be a brand new review of e-mails linked to long time Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Moments ago, Hillary Clinton fired off some fresh words about this FBI e-mail review.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm sure that some of you may have heard about letter that the FBI Director sent out yesterday. Well, if you're like me, you probably have a few questions about it. It is pretty strange. It's pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election. In fact, it's not just strange, it's unprecedented and it is deeply troubling because voters deserve to get full and complete facts. And so we've called on Director Comey to explain everything right away, put it all out on the table, right? Now, of course Donald Trump is already making up lies about this.
(CROWD BOOING)
He is doing his best to confuse, mislead and discourage the American people. I think it's time for Donald Trump to stop fear mongering, to stop disgracing himself, to stop attacking our democracy. We can't let him get away with this, can we? Now, like any campaign, there have been ups and downs and ups and downs, but I got to tell you, I feel so motivated, so excited, so ready because I've always stayed focused on one thing, you and your families.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
What I worry about are the problems that keep you up at night.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: Take a look at the numbers. CNN's new poll of polls updated just hours ago shows a pretty tight five point spread between the two with Clinton and the lead at 47 percent. All of this happening as Clinton and Trump race across the battleground state pivoting on the fly and testing their new strategies in real time. FBI Director James Comey defying the objections of top Justice Department officials sending a letter to Congress saying in connection with an unrelated case. The FBI has learned of the existence of e-mails that appear to pertain to the investigation.
I'm writing you to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday and I agree that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these e- mails to determine whether they contain classified information as well as to assess their importance to this investigation. Comey says right now the FBI doesn't know if any of the material is significant. Comey, by doing this, is breaking long-standing practice not to comment publicly about politically sensitive investigations within 60 days of an election. This came out 11 days before the election.
Justice Department officials acknowledge the fallout from this day in June when former President Bill Clinton boarded Attorney General Loretta Lynch's plane on a tarmac for a private conversation is complicating things. Because that was not long before the Clinton email investigation wrapped up. That meeting has kept Lynch on the sidelines and thrust James Comey into the spotlight, and the optics of that private conversation on that private plane not good for Hillary Clinton. So what lead the FBI to these emails?
It is a bizarre turn. It all apparently comes back disgraced former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. The e-mails the FBI is reviewing were found on at least one computer used Huma Abedin, his now estranged wife. Abedin has been by Clinton's side for the better part of two decades. A separate FBI investigation into sexting allegations against Weiner appears to be what led the feds to this computer used by his wife. Whether or not any of these e-mails contain any classified information or frankly anything significant, we don't know.
The FBI's review of the e-mails linked to Abedin is echoing Clinton on the campaign trail. We just heard her speak about it in Florida. Trump seized on it as well today.
[17:05:14] Phil Mattingly is on the trail with Clinton in Daytona Beach. Sara Murray is in Golden, Colorado where Trump spoke earlier today.
Phil, let's begin with you. Key here is that Huma Abedin is not traveling with Hillary Clinton today, and this is someone who is literally always by her side. Do we know why?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right. The gatekeeper, the kind of the sister -- the younger sister, the daughter, whatever you want to call it, Huma Abedin is obviously extraordinarily close to Hillary Clinton, goes with her everywhere. Now, the official explanation is, she's back in Brooklyn today working out of the campaign headquarters, but she was on the plane yesterday, she was with Hillary Clinton yesterday when she made her initial statement about the FBI letter that came from Director Comey.
And she was right next to Hillary Clinton when they got the news in the airplane that this ad actually occurred. So her not being here is certainly noticeable to anybody that's been following this campaign up to this point, but it does kind of underscore one thing. The Clinton campaign is trying not to be distracted by this. They are most certainly taking it head on, they're kind of attacking Director Comey, attacking the FBI for the decision to send this letter all together, but trying to move past it and trying to continue to focus on a strategy that they thought 11 days out certainly had them in position to win on November 8th -- Poppy.
HARLOW: Phil, stay with us. Sara, let me bring you in. Trump, you know, Trump months ago was talking about this and tweeting about, you know, Bill Clinton getting on Loretta Lynch's plane and how inappropriate that was, et cetera, et cetera, and now this is just sort of all coming home to roost. The question becomes does he harp on this for the next ten days, or does he mention it and then move on to the issues. What are you hearing from the campaign?
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, I think he's absolutely going to continue to talk about this over the next ten days because this feeds into what they want to be their closing argument, the notion that Hillary Clinton is a corrupt politician and that Donald Trump is going to be this change agent. And he's taking this a step further, saying that the only reason that Comey must have put out this letter is because they found something criminal.
Listen to what he said about it here in Colorado today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: A criminal action was willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful. Hillary set up an illegal server for the obvious purpose of shielding her criminal conduct from public disclosure and exposure. That didn't work. Although it certainly did because 33,000 e-mails missing, you know, we haven't seen it yet. However, I think some of these 33,000 were captured yesterday.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: Now, Poppy, obviously Director Comey did not say there was any criminal activity and investigators are still going to be sifting through these e-mails. We don't even have a good idea of whether these will be new e-mails or they're ones that they've already looked at but you can see the way that Donald Trump views this as a political gift just ten days out from the election.
HARLOW: Sara, thank you. Stay with us. Phil, thank you as well. I want to bring in now Michael Smerconish to talk more about this, and the sort of bigger picture, host of CNN's Smerconish. Also a man who did a fascinating interview with the vice-president, Michael, that was extraordinary.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, HOST, "MICHAEL SMERCONISH PROGRAM" ON SIRIUS XM: Thank you for that. Hi, Poppy.
HARLOW: Hi, it's good to see you. We're going to bring our viewers that in the next block. But I got to get your take, your initial impression here. I mean, was Comey, you know, damned if he did, damned if he didn't?
SMERCONISH: I've been watching you all afternoon and I think you've so correctly summed this up because had he not done anything and if Secretary Clinton became president-elect Clinton and then President Clinton and then voters were to learn in the aftermath of all those charges that Donald Trump made about this being a fixed or a rigged election, there would be a hue and cry and yet if he wrote the letter that he wrote, you're now getting it from the other side.
And look, I said that yesterday when I read this letter, my first impression was that it was terribly crafted, so vague that it didn't tell us anything. And the more that I think about it and the more that I study it, it was probably the best that he could do to let people know there's something out there, but he doesn't really know the extent of it.
HARLOW: So where do we go from here? Because I think for the first time the Clinton camp and the Trump camp are on the same page. Let's listen to Kellyanne Conway who manages Trump's campaign put it to Anderson Cooper.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": So we heard Secretary Clinton press her case, Kellyanne, on saying she wants more information from the FBI, saying the American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately. Do you agree with that? Do you think voters are entitled to more information?
KELLYANNE CONWAY, DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Yes, I'm for transparency and full disclosure and immediatesy and honesty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[17:10:08] HARLOW: So, they're on the same page but what we know from our Evan Perez's reporting is that we're not going to get it. The public is not likely going to get anything else from the FBI before November 8th, so how does Hillary Clinton play this? How does she not risk it being Clinton versus the FBI?
SMERCONISH: So, I watched Evan's report and I bet that he's accurate in so far as the Justice Department or FBI will not have anything further to say in this regard. My hunch is that we're going to learn more from the media, that the Evan Perez of the world are probably going to unearth more in the span of the next ten days and until that time, until there's more information, I think you're going to see a continuation of what you're seeing today which is that both sides will play this for their political advantage.
She just came out on that stage in Florida and she used the word unprecedented, and the implication is, you know, the fix is in to try and undermine her as she makes her closing argument. And Donald Trump will continue to say, see, I told you so. She'll be elected under a cloud, only he puts it in more strong language.
HARLOW: I think, you know, one of the questions that I had last night when Hillary Clinton came out, Michael, and gave those brief remarks and then took three reporter questions is, you know, how much of that is evidence of the Hillary Clinton we would see in the White House if she does win the election? You know, she wasn't that forthcoming. The third question about had she spoken to Huma Abedin about this or not, she didn't even answer directly. Does this all tie into a belief among some if the Clintons play by different rules and that perhaps there won't be the transparency that they want if she is to become president?
SMERCONISH: It does and I think that that argument is one that she's secretive and that she keeps things too close to the vest even when there's a public right to know. And I think that the response from the Clinton side would be, you know, she's lived for so many years, decades literally with the vast right wing conspiracy, always undermining and analyzing and scrutinizing, that it has driven her to operate in this fashion. I'll make this observation about my conversation with Vice-President Biden.
HARLOW: Yes.
SMERCONISH: I said to him and he acknowledged she does have herself to blame for these issues because here she's in a position of saying to the FBI, we'll release everything you have. Had she released all of the e-mails initially, she wouldn't be in the fix that she is today.
HARLOW: I think that's a very important point because for our viewers, you'll remember that back in August, 15,000 more e-mails were uncovered that were not initially released. Michael, stay with us. We're going to take a break. On the other sided our viewers will hear your interview with Vice President Joe Biden.
As we go to break, live pictures of former President Bill Clinton stumping for his wife in Forest Park, Ohio, another critical battleground state. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:16:09] HARLOW: Any minute now Vice President Joe Biden will take the stage at a Hillary Clinton rally in Reno, Nevada. I want to show you Biden's reaction as we wait for this to a question in an interview with our Michael Smerconish, this question on the FBI's e-mail review linked to Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Abedin as you'll remember is the estranged wife of disgrace former New York City Congressman Anthony Weiner. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: I'd be remiss if I didn't note that if she had released all of the e-mails from the get-go, we wouldn't be having this conversation. VICE PRES. JOE BIDEN (D), UNITED STATES: Well, that's true. But I
don't know where those e-mails came from --
SMERCONISH: Apparently Anthony Weiner.
BIDEN: Well, oh, God. Anthony Weiner. I should not comment on Anthony Weiner. I'm not a big fan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: All right. We'll hear more of your interview with the Vice President in a moment. I mean, you broke that news to him, Michael.
SMERCONISH: Yes, it was kind of a funny moment because it was all happening on the fly and this was the first opportunity to ask him about the Comey letter and I take him at face value that he didn't know the origin of it. And you heard what his reaction was, and I believe him.
HARLOW: You know, you led this interview and we're going to play it as soon as my team tells me we have it. You've led this interview by saying, my lead question to you has changed three times in the last 24s hour going from whether he wanted to be secretary of state or not, to what, you know, if he regretted those comments about saying he would take Trump behind the gym to this. I think what you got out of the Vice President was a lot of candor, frankly. Were you surprised at how candid he was?
SMERCONISH: I'll tell you what. Most surprised me, is that I said to him -- and maybe you'll have this. I said, Mr. Vice-president, when a story like this breaks, does it cause you to say, damn it, I should have run? And he said to me, no, it doesn't because of the tragic situation with regard to his son. It was just not among the options. But, Poppy, he said, if I had run, I had beat her, I had beat him. I think I would have beat any of them. And that candor. It doesn't surprise me that he thinks it and by the way he's probably right. It surprised me that he said it.
HARLOW: Let's take a listen to some of the interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: You don't want to be her secretary of state I'm told?
BIDEN: No, look --
SMERCONISH: This was an issue earlier today, it came up.
BIDEN: I will do anything that she wants if she's elected president to help her but I'm not looking to be in administration. It's time for me to move on.
SMERCONISH: Your folks or your family, you were there until the third grade Scranton.
BIDEN: Yes. SMERCONISH: Both my parents are from Hazelton. So, we're both a
cocracker (ph) --
(CROSSTALK)
Right? It's Trump country. It would be Biden country if you were in this. So you're not united in policy with Donald Trump, so what's the commonality and why can't she win with those folks?
BIDEN: I think she's going to end up -- think we're going to win Scranton Wilkes-Barre, she's going to win. And the reason is that, look, people are upset and angry. They hate the dysfunction of Washington. Trump comes along and talks about how he is going to change all that, he's this new breath of fresh air, and then people started to see who he is. They started to see -- look, in Scranton and Hazelton, if anybody in your household or your neighborhood talked about I'm famous, I can go grab a woman anywhere I want when I want it, they would get the living stuffing knocked out of them. Your parents would have the end of it. That would be the end of it. People are beginning to figure out, those same people have basic decent values and I think that's going to trump -- no pun intended -- their concern about Hillary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: We of course will see the full interview on your show coming up next at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. What do you think the vice-president does from here? Because he said in the interview with you, he'll do whatever it takes to help the next president if it's Hillary Clinton. He even said he would help Donald Trump because he will be our commander-in-chief. What do you think is next in terms of what he does?
SMERCONISH: I don't know. I'll tell you what I hope he does. I hope that he can bring his knowledge of the Senate at a time when it was able to work better across the aisle. And try and instill some of the civility that was the hallmark of Joe Biden's many, many years when he was in the United States Senate.
Poppy, I'll tell you something else. I said to him that my Sirius XM radio listeners talk about Joe Biden being a Supreme Court justice and I posed to him the idea that if Judge Garland can't get confirmed is that the sort of thing that would be appropriate for Joe Biden. I mean, his age is appropriate. He didn't take that bait either but I think that's worth commenting on.
HARLOW: Yes, it's very interesting. We'll see. Michael, we look forward to the full interview coming up on your show.
SMERCONISH: Thanks, Poppy.
HARLOW: Thank you so much. That's at 6:00 p.m. Eastern right here after us.
Still ahead. Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal is bigger than Watergate. Is it? I will ask someone in the know, Carl Bernstein. Remember Woodward and Bernstein broke the story. He's live us with us, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:25:20] HARLOW: Welcome back. The announcement that the FBI is reviewing e-mails that may be tied to Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server comes in the final stretch of this election. Not only though is it hitting two weeks -- less than two weeks before you go to the polls, it also comes at the end of a week in which Clinton has frankly steadily lost ground. Take a look first at this poll of polls which shows Clinton and Trump apart by just five points, 47 percent to 42 percent. Now, take a look at an apples to apples comparison of an even entire poll, ABC News "Washington Post" poll showing the spread between the two now at just two percentage points.
This taken obviously before the e-mail news dropped from the FBI. But why does it matter? It matter because a week ago this same poll showed Trump trailing Clinton by 12 points. Now it shows her -- him only behind her by two points.
Let's talk about all this and the fallout from the man who wrote the book on Hillary Clinton, CNN political commentator, journalist and analyst, Carl Bernstein, he is the author of "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton." Thank you for being here, Mr. Bernstein. So --
CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to be with you.
HARLOW: You broke Watergate. Trump says, this is bigger. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This is bigger than Watergate. This is bigger than Watergate, in my opinion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Is it?
BERNSTEIN: It's an absurd statement. Watergate, there's no comparison. Watergate was about a criminal president of the United States who presided over a criminal presidency from the day he arrived at the White House until the day he had to resign. Forty eight of his aides were found guilty, most of whom had to go to jail. There was never anything like it in our history. This is about Hillary's e-mail and a server that she should never ever have installed but it is not about endemic criminality.
HARLOW: How did you know? I mean, Carl Bernstein, even the FBI says they haven't reviewed the e-mails yet. How do you know what's on them?
BERNSTEIN: Again, I said it's not about endemic criminality. Nobody has been more critical of Hillary Clinton than I for what she's done with the server. It has got her in this mess where she could conceivably lose this election. The worst thing she probably has ever done in her life is make it possible for Donald Trump to maybe win the presidency. At the same time, there is no comparison here.
HARLOW: It is a bombshell, in our opinion? Is this, you know -- you had the "Access Hollywood" tape from 2005 with Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault, and then these 11 women came forward saying, you know, he did something like that to me. Now there's this for her. Is this an akin bombshell?
BERNSTEIN: Of course it's a bombshell as I said on the air yesterday, but it's a political bombshell thrown into the last days of the election by the director of the FBI. And right now his conduct ought to be as seriously looked at as Hillary Clinton's here. Because look, there is a history of abuse of the FBI by its director, notably J. Edgar Hoover who presided over the bureau from its beginnings for almost a half a century who did terrible things by becoming political and hurting people by release of secretive information, and we don't know if this is comparable. But go ahead, Poppy.
HARLOW: It's interesting that you bring up Hoover because Paul Callan wrote this column on CNN.com last night. In it, he brings up Hoover at the end and he says, J. Edgar Hoover liked to impact, you know, political races and elections but he did it in private where this was in public. If you're saying there was political motivation here, you know, by Comey, some would say he was sort of damned if he did, damned if he didn't because he had already come out with this July press conference and said all these things, so he would be seen arguably as withholding information if he didn't come out with this.
BERNSTEIN: I'm not saying that there was political motivation. It may have been simply covering his ass, as that phrase goes. Whatever the any case, he ought to have a very good and better explanation of why he did this in the last ten days. I made the assumption and I said it on the air that he wouldn't have done this unless there was some serious information that deserved further investigation.
[17:30:00] But even then you have to wonder why would he make that disclosure to the Congress of the United States. Write a memo to himself and put it in the drawer. There are Justice Department protocols about this kind of thing. You don't get involved in the last 60 days of an election if there is such information, unless it's of the most extraordinary nature. So there are a lot of questions. He has a lot of explaining to do. Also, we now need to see as much of this evidence, as it were, these e-mails, as we possibly can in the next few days.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And that is actually a point that the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign agree on. They're both actually calling for the same thing.
Stay with me, Carl Bernstein, because after the break I will ask you about what her strategy needs to be.
Where does Clinton go, because you see the clock there, nine days and counting, until you go to the polls?
You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Hillary Clinton taking FBI Director James Comey head-on after learning that the bureau is reviewing new e-mails that appear to be pertinent, Comey says, to the investigation into Clinton's prevent e- mail server. At a rally last hour in Florida, Clinton questioned the timing of Comey's announcement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is pretty strange. It's pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election.
(SHOUTING)
CLINTON: In fact, in fact, it's not just strange, it's unprecedented and it is deeply troubling because --
(SHOUTING)
CLINTON: -- voters deserve to get full and complete facts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Comey announced the e-mail review Friday in a letter to Congress. He didn't say where the e-mails were found exactly, how many there were, or if they were, quote, "significant." Since then, CNN has learned that the e-mails in question were found on a computer used by Clinton's long-time aide, Huma Abedin. And a law enforcement official tells CNN the e-mails, well, they may be relevant. That's really all we know at this point.
So let's talk more about what Clinton does in the final stretch here of the election. Again with me is CNN political commentator and analyst, Carl Bernstein. He wrote the book on Clinton, "A Woman in Charge, The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton."
Carl Bernstein, you have held no punches. You've been critical of Clinton through this election. Where does she go from here? What does she do? Does she keep talking about this, criticizing Trump and Comey, or does she move on?
[17:35:41] BERNSTEIN: You can't move on. I' been critical of Hillary Clinton, especially about the server but more of Donald Trump who is a sociopath --
HARLOW: Fair.
BERNSTEIN: -- and has conducted a campaign of demagoguery and fascism the likes of which we have never seen in our history and I think that's where Hillary Clinton needs to go. Focus on who Donald Trump is, what he represents, the absolute horror of his semi-criminal business practices.
One thing though, if she showed a bit more contrition about how she is responsible for this and also she can't say this aloud but we have to remember that Bill Clinton getting on the plane with the attorney general of the United States put a new ceiling on the difficulties here for the director of the FBI that has made everything infinitely more difficult. So the behavior of the Clintons has compounded this.
But she needs to focus on who is Donald Trump and who is Hillary Clinton compared to Donald Trump in terms of a record of service in various offices, as a defender of children, a defender of women's rights, someone who wants to see change in America of a progressive sort but also as she says of some of the f a gradual nature. She has to show the dangers posed to the country by Donald Trump. But she has to say we have a director of the FBI who we need to know why he has inserted himself in this election the way he has, and we need more facts from him and let's see these e-mails.
HARLOW: How does she, Carl, not make this Hillary Clinton versus the FBI? If you look back at transcripts, if you look back at what her own campaign said about Comey in July after this press conference, I mean, they basically said there's no reason to question a career prosecutor here. Now they're flipping the tables.
BERNSTEIN: Well, that is true in the sense that they rather disingenuously took Comey's comments that were damning of Hillary Clinton and her behavior of the e-mails and the server when he did this in July and went into a lot of the awful facts of the whole e- mail business and said, well, he said there should be no indictment, therefore, we're clear and we acted just fine. She didn't act just fine.
At the same time, I think she's doing the right thing here by questioning right now this is something that looks egregious that Comey has done unless he can show that there is real reason that the Congress of the United States needed to be informed at the last minute knowing that that letter -- he made it public but if he didn't, that the Congress would make it public. This is very strange.
And we need both her conduct, his conduct, and Donald Trump's conduct to be the three things that we're looking at right now as people go to the polls. I think if they do that with fairness and with discretion, that they can reach a serious judgment, we hope, about who should be the president of the United States.
[17:39:12] HARLOW: Carl Bernstein, thank you very much.
Coming up, the Justice Department stood firmly with the FBI in its decision to close -- well, they never really closed the case, frankly, but in its decision to have Comey make that press conference in July. But now top officials at the Department of Justice, they do not like what Comey has done, sending that letter to Congress. The details next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Let's talk more about what is going on right now inside the Department of Justice between the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and her top officials, and the head of the FBI, Director James Comey. This all in the wake of Comey's letter to Congress yesterday saying that they are reviewing e-mails potentially linked to Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server.
Our justice correspondent, Evan Perez, has been breaking news left, right and center on this.
Evan, what are you learning? How big is the divide right now between the two?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, it was kind of, frankly, an extraordinary period for a couple of days with the Justice Department because they were opposed to the idea of Comey sending this letter, a three-paragraph letter is what he ended up sending which frankly left more questions than it answered. The problem for the top officials of the Justice Department including Loretta Lynch, the attorney general, was that there's a general policy I place to not comment onion going politically sensitive investigations close to an election, within 60 days in fact. In this case we're talking about 11 days. Comey felt that he had no choice because he had already testified multiple times in Congress and told them that the investigation was completed, and here he had new information. The problem here is he didn't know what these e-mails were. He still doesn't know. So the objections from the Justice Department which were relayed by Lynch's staff was that why don't you give them more time, why don't you give the investigators more time to figure out what they have.
HARLOW: Here's the thing, Evan. Isn't it fair to say we wouldn't be talking about any of this had Clinton, her aides, Clinton's team actually given all of the e-mails and all of the devices to the FBI more than a year ago when this investigation was launched?
[17:45:02] PEREZ: Yeah, and it goes back even further. The original sin here, if you want to call it that, is Clinton setting up a private server, which nobody has ever done, to conduct all of her government business while she was secretary of state. And then, once she left the State Department, the rules, clear rules were that she was supposed to turn over all of the government material when she left the State Department. She did not do that. She didn't do that until years later after this became the subject of litigation, the Freedom of Information Act litigation. There are many places where there were missteps by Clinton and her team. They could have fixed this.
Again, the discovery of this new material on a computer that Huma Abedin shared with Anthony Weiner, her estranged husband, is part of this issue, too. The FBI did not know these existed when they decided to not bring charges.
HARLOW: Right. That's true, they didn't have that device and now they do. Now they're pouring through what could be, according to some reports, thousands of e-mails.
PEREZ: Thousands of emails.
HARLOW: Evan, thank you for your reporting. Thank you very much.
Still to come, with just 10 days to go until you go to the polls, there are still plenty of undecided voters in the critical battleground states across the country. We will take you to one of them, North Carolina.
You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
First though, CNN is proud to announce the top-10 CNN Heroes of 2016. Each receives a cash prize and a shot at the top honor being named CNN Hero of the Year and $100,000 for their good cause. Anderson Cooper explains how you can help decide who wins.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, A.C. 360: Now that we've announced the top-10 CNN Heroes of 2016, I want to show you how you can help decide who should be CNN Hero of the Year, and receive $100,000 to help them continue their work. Go to CNNheros.com where you can learn more about each other. And when you're ready, click vote over here, then choose your favorite. Confirm your selection by using either your e- mail address or Facebook account and you're all set. This year, for the first time, you can also vote through Facebook Messenger and on Twitter. You can vote up to 10 times a day per method every day through December 6th. Then rally your friends by sharing your vote on social media. We'll reveal the 2016 Hero of the Year live during the Tenth Annual CNN Heroes, An All-Star Tribute, Sunday, December 11th.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:51:27] HARLOW: Take a look at live pictures. Donald Trump set to speak tonight in Phoenix, Arizona, where we'll bring that to you live when it begins.
10 days out until Election Day. Take a look at the new Quinnipiac poll of likely voters in North Carolina. Hillary Clinton leading Trump but, frankly, it could go either way. President Obama won it in 2008. Mitt Romney took it in 2012. Early voting has begun.
CNN's Jessica Schneider went to Apex, North, Carolina and found many voters walking into their polling places, literally walking in still undecided.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am really having an issue this year. I don't want to vote for Hillary either.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am kind of stumped right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am not sure which side I want to go with.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): It is a must-win state for Donald Trump, and with just days to go, it is still a toss-up for some here in Apex, North Carolina.
Al Casaletto showed up to vote early at the town center still undecided.
(on camera): You are walking in to vote. Have you made up your mind?
AL CASALETTO, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: No, I have not.
SCHNEIDER: What's keep you from making a decision?
CASALETTO: It's a tough decision this year. There are so many different aspects of the election this year.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): He prides himself on being Independent. This year's vote left him unsure of his decision until the very end.
SCHNEIDER (on camera): You are going to wait in line and get that ballot. When are you going to make your decision?
CASALETTO: When I have the ballot in front of me. I'll say this is my decision. I'm going to live with it and that's where I stand right now.
SCHNEIDER: He thinks he is one of many conflicted voters, and he might be right.
KITTY SWENNIES, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: You want to make the right choice for my children and what's going on in the world. It is so hard with what's available to us.
SHANNON MARTIN, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: Go!
SCHNEIDER: Shannon Martin usually votes Republican but he is wrestling with his decision.
MARTIN: If there was a third party that I knew was going to make a difference to throw it where neither candidate would get 270 electoral votes, then I would probably lean more towards that way.
SCHNEIDER (on camera): You want neither candidate to get 270 electoral votes.
MARTIN: I would rather that.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Bev McKernie has always voted Republican. This year, she's not so sure.
BEV MCKERNIE, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I am conflicted. I don't know what I am going to do until I get there.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHNEIDER (on camera): You will just close your eyes and vote.
(voice-over): Her 26-year-old daughter is equally torn.
(on camera): Have you made up your mind yet for your vote?
SHANNON MCKERNIE, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: No, I haven't. I think I will lean towards Hillary, because I don't like what's been in the news about Donald Trump and what he has been saying. SCHNEIDER: You hope for divine intervention?
SHANNON MCKERNIE: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHNEIDER: Many looking for divine intervention to help with their decision. But most agree it is their civic duty, and they plan to get out and vote.
Jessica Schneider, CNN, Apex, North Carolina.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[17:44:17] HARLOW: Jessica, thank you so much for that.
Quick break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Time for a look at tomorrow night's episode of "Parts Unknown." This week, Anthony Bourdain breaks his own stereotypes about Houston and he also gets a lesson in car culture while he's at it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(SINGING)
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST, PARTS UNKNOWN (voice-over): L.A. may have low riders, but Houston has slab, its own car culture with its own accompanying sound and it's own hip-hop style.
(SINGING)
LIM THUG, MUSICAL ARTIST: This pretty much like one of the most classic designs of a slab. It's the Cadillac. See you got the inside custom with the stitching. That's a complete slab, you know.
BOURDAIN (on camera): Full reclining is --
(CROSSTALK)
SLIM THUG: Full reclining. That's the laid back there.
BOURDAIN (voice-over): Houston musical, Slim Thug, and his friends, Bone and David, called friends to bring their cars over to the part in the southern part of the city.
(on camera): If you're going to do it, what do you have to have? What are the rules?
SLIM HUG: Paint. Got to have these type of rims.
BOURDAIN: OK. SLIM HUG: Elbow swingers. Fifth-wheeling grill is mainly like a slab. That's what makes it complete. And the music, you know how they have the popped trunk with the custom music? You've got to have that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: That makes my Toyota look so boring.
That is a new episode of "Parts Unknown" in Houston. That airs tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. eastern, right here on CNN.
Don't go anywhere. CNN's Michael Smerconish has a very candid interview with Vice President Joe Biden, and it all begins right now.
