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Iraqi Troops near Mosul; Clinton Aide's Emails in Review. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 01, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We're now just one week from Election Day here in the U.S. presidential election. Seven days for the final push and plead to potential voters on both sides. The day includes three stops in Florida for Hillary Clinton. High-profile backers like President Obama and vice president Joe Biden. They're hitting other key states later today on her behalf.

And here, take a look at this. Getting some live pictures in from Florida City right now in Florida, where Hillary Clinton is holding a rally. And New Hampshire, look at this, where Senator Bernie Sanders is also stumping for Hillary Clinton. That's a key battleground state.

On the other side, Donald Trump, he'll be in Wisconsin later tonight. But just a short time ago, he appeared in Pennsylvania, another key battleground state, with running mate, Mike Pence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will ask Congress to convene a special session so we can repeal and replace. Our replacement plan includes health savings accounts, a nationwide insurance market where you can purchase across state lines, and letting states manage Medicaid dollars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Polls show the presidential race tightening. Just a week before Election Day. Donald Trump is hammering away at Hillary Clinton over Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act and the FBI review of newly discovered e-mails in the investigation of her private server.

Hillary Clinton is fighting back hard trying to paint Donald Trump as simply unfit for the presidency.

Let's bring in our panel. Matea Gold is national political reporter for "The Washington Post." CNN Politics Executive Editor Mark Preston is with us. Our Senior Political Reporter Nia-Malika Henderson and David Catanese, Senior Politics Writer for "U.S. News and World Report." Right now, over at the New York Stock Exchange, our Business Correspondent Alison Kosik is standing by. First to you, Alison. Both candidates are making hypothetical proposals on the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, but whose proposal looks like a better fit for the overall U.S. economy and for American consumers?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Do you know what strikes me, Wolf? You know, you listen to Donald Trump in that speech saying, oh, I'm just going to hold this special session, and we're going to repeal and replace Obamacare. Yes, easier said than done.

You think about how the Affordable Care Act was passed in the first place. This is a highly partisan -- you know, highly partisan law that passed. Good luck getting it -- getting it done again.

You know, there's a recent report from the Rand Corporation, that's a non-partisan corporation. And it's actually trying to put numbers on the impact of each candidate's proposal. So, specifically, how these proposals will impact the federal deficit.

I mean, you look at the deficit. What Rand says is that Trump's plan would actually increase the deficit by almost $6 billion because it looks to provide a tax deduction and allows insurance carriers to sell across state lines. So, that could increase the deficit. But it's actually offset quite a bit by turning Medicaid into a fixed grant to states which would save the federal government $33 billion.

And then, you look at what Clinton's plan would do. That would actually cause the deficit to balloon $88.5 billion, mostly because of the tax credit she's proposing. This is a credit to those whose premiums and out-of-pockets costs exceed five percent of their incomes.

Look, the reality is of both Clinton and Trump's teams had issue with the Rand analysis, because they show that they're going to hike the deficit higher. And the other reality is, neither Clinton nor Trump's proposals are perfect solutions for health care.

You know, one thing is for sure, Wolf, that Obamacare, the way it is, it needs to be fixed. Even the president, himself, has admitted that.

But when you listen to Donald Trump go up there and say, we just want to scrap Obamacare all together and just pass something else. I say, good luck to that.

BLITZER: Alison Kosik, thanks very much. Alison Kosik reporting from the New York Stock Exchange.

Matea Gold, Hillary Clinton's strategy right now. She's doing everything she possibly can to change the subject, to move away from the FBI investigation into her e-mail server and go on the offensive right now. Really attacking Donald Trump in these final few days.

MATEA GOLD, NATIONAL POLITICAL DIRECTOR, "THE WASHINGTON POST": You really gets sense of a campaign just trying to survive this last slog. And still feel confident in their chances. They have acknowledged maybe some tightening in some overall national numbers. They still see a really clear path to an electoral victory.

And it must be said that, you know, that map has not changed dramatically in the past week. It still comes down to a very narrow path for Donald Trump and several different options for Hillary Clinton to secure the White House.

[13:05:02] BLITZER: Our poll of polls, Mark Preston, this is an average of the major national polls, it's now down to four points, 46 percent for Hillary Clinton, 42 percent for Donald Trump. How worried should the Clinton campaign be right now?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: No doubt they should be worried. But, you know, as Matea said, it is a very tight path for Donald Trump to actually get there.

Look, he has to win all battleground states and pick up a Democratic state at the same time. The concern, though, amongst Democrats in the Clinton campaign is that is there a hidden Trump vote out there, where folks are not telling pollsters that they would, in fact, vote for Donald Trump. But when they get behind the curtain, they will actually do so. So, that is a big concern right now for them.

BLITZER: You know, the Clinton campaign has just today come out with a scathing new attack ad against Donald Trump, using some of his off- color comments over the years, especially involving women. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. When I come home and dinner's not ready, I go through the roof.

Grandmother (INAUDIBLE.)

And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: That's just the beginning of that ad. It's a 60-second ad. Is this an effective strategy to try to rally women supporters out there? Women voters?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: It is. And it's the strategy they've been trying, really, since day one, in terms of this campaign, using Donald Trump's words against him.

I mean, one of the things that's effective about this ad is you don't even really have to watch it, right? You can be in the other room doing whatever you're doing and you can just hear it. Each time you hear, it's rather shocking, right? To hear what he's saying there about women, about whether or not women should work, about the things he said on that "Access Hollywood" ad.

It's very similar to that 47 percent ad that we saw the Obama campaign use so effectively against Romney in 2012, using the candidate's words. We've seen them do that over and over. It works with women voters. And we can see that in the polls. But it also works with men who are disturbed by this kind of language, when it comes to talking about women.

BLITZER: David, you have a high-profile piece out there you've been reporting on the surrogates, the Hillary Clinton surrogates versus the Donald Trump surrogates. You've got map showing where everyone is today. The vice president of the United States, the president, the first lady. She has some terrific surrogates out there. Very effective, politically speaking, surrogates. He doesn't have a whole lot of surrogates out there.

DAVID CATANESE, SENIOR POLITCS WRITER, "U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT": She has -- she's going to hit eight different states today with all the surrogates that are out there. While Donald Trump and Mike Pence, they're going to hit two. They're in Pennsylvania together. Then he will go to Wisconsin later tonight.

So, I just think that shows the breadth, the yawning gap that Hillary Clinton has around the country, to be able to move people around the country. She can touch more voters each day.

But I will say, two to three weeks ago, most people thought Donald Trump is dead -- was dead. And I think there's a fear of the unknown with the Clinton campaign. You've seen the national numbers track closer over the last week.

Weekend polling isn't as good. Yesterday was Halloween. I talked to a pollster today that said wait until Wednesday or Thursday numbers. He expects it to close even closer in this race. And that will make the final 72 hours of this race crucial.

BLITZER: You know, there's some Hillary Clinton supporters who are fearful that there are Donald Trump voters out there who won't acknowledge they're going to vote for Donald Trump. It's (ph) the pollsters, for example. Is that a legitimate fear they have?

GOLD: Well, I think that's something that, as Mark noted, they're anxiously looking if they can find a metric even to analyze it, to quantify it. Because it really is the unknown that I think is giving a scare to the Clinton folks right now.

They have put so much time and energy into identifying their voters, knowing who they need to get out to the polls. And the question is, are there people out there who we just can't anticipate their behavior?

I do think, though, that on the surrogate strategy is also an indicator of something else going on on the ground which is those surrogates are also raising money for Clinton and the party at the very same time that they're out there doing politics. That brings more funds in for the DNC and its get out the vote operation which is outflanking the Republicans when you take into account all the Clinton folks on the ground as well.

BLITZER: All right, everybody stay with us. Don't go too far away. We're going to have much more on the race for the White House. New developments happening right now.

But I want to immediately turn to another major story. A major development happening right now in the war against ISIS. Iraqi troops are now within a few hundred yards of entering Mosul, the second largest city of Iraq, after sealing out the last village on the city's outskirts. And the Iraqi prime minister today is vowing, in his words, to cut the head off the snake.

Our Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon is traveling to the front lines to see the battle firsthand. She's joining us now from nearby Erbil in Iraq.

Arwa, we're hearing that a sandstorm has moved into the area. How is that affecting, first of all, this military operation?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it makes it very difficult. Now, the operation continued in the early hours of the morning. And when we first arrived at the front lines, there were some sporadic, though fairly intense, clashes and airstrikes taking place. ISIS using its usual tactics of playing -- placing boobytraps in buildings and along the roads as well as suicide car bombs.

[13:10:16] But then, it seemed as if, in the particular location we were at that was something of a fixed position, the situation had quieted down. There was no incoming fire, Wolf, for hours. And then, a few bullets came in the direction of the troops that we were with.

And as it would turn out, they had spotted three ISIS fighters who were wearing similar clothing to what the unit we were with would be wearing. This is the Iraqi counterterrorism unit. They spotted them. They moved forward fairly quickly. They called in some coalition fire power. A rocket was fired into the building that these three ISIS fighters were believed to be holed up.

And then, this is something that ISIS also does quite frequently. They lie low. They wait. And then, they come out and try to strike when they think the advancing forces have their guard down. And in the late afternoon, of course, that sandstorm you mentioned there did blow through. And it just significantly decreases visibility.

And you can just imagine how challenging it makes it for troops moving forward, but also for the air power and drones to be put to use. And this tone of Gupchali (ph), this last remaining town between the Iraqi forces, at least from the eastern front and Mosul, has a population of about 25,000 civilians that still remained inside which is why Iraqis were moving forward very carefully and very methodically to try to make sure that they decrease, minimize civilian casualties as much as possible -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I remember, Arwa, when the ISIS terrorists took over Mosul more than two years ago. They simply went in and the Iraqi military, they ran away. They dropped their weapons. They abandoned U.S. supplied armored vehicles and simply fled, leaving all that equipment for these ISIS terrorists. I assume the ISIS fighters, they still have all this equipment. Have you seen any sign at all that the Iraqi military, or the Kurdish forces for that matter, are abandoning their positions as they get closer and closer to these ISIS fighters this time around?

DAMON: They most certainly are not, Wolf. We have seen, in the early stages of this fight, and I'm talking weeks ago, months ago when they were first pushing into the Nineveh Province, they would struggle, in some instances, to take over a village and perhaps withdraw a little bit. But this is a force, an Iraqi force especially, that is completely and entirely revamped. And that has really been the main role of the U.S. advisers and this U.S.-led coalition.

But there is also something else that's quite significant to keep in mind as well. And that is this time around, they have U.S. fire power and air power supporting them. And that has really helped to bolster the confidence of those troops on the ground.

Because one of the reasons why they dropped their weapons and fled isn't just down necessarily to poor training. It's also because they didn't feel as if they had the support of Baghdad. And there really was a significant collapse in military leadership.

And this time around, everything has been done to ensure that history does not repeat itself, Wolf.

But what many people are worried about is not necessarily the battle for Mosul itself but what happens after the city has been liberated.

BLITZER: Arwa Damon, joining us. Arwa, we'll stay in very close touch with you. Thanks for the excellent reporting.

Let's get a little bit more on this military campaign to recapture Mosul. I'm joined by the U.S. special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIS. Brett McGurk is joining us from the State Department.

Brett, thanks very much for joining us. I know you recently returned from Iraq. What is your assessment right now of the status of this Iraqi-Kurdish military offensive backed by the U.S. towards liberating Mosul?

BRETT MCGURK, U.S. SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY, COUNTER-ISIS COALITION: Well, Wolf, thanks for having me. I just returned from about a week out in Iraq between Erbil and Baghdad. And this has been a -- really, we worked almost six months to put this campaign plan together to get the Kurdish Peshmerga together with the Iraqis security forces. It took an awful lot of great work by our military colleagues and by our diplomats to get this moving.

The operate -- we're now in the third week of the operation. We always knew this is a multiple-month operation to actually clear and hold the city the size of Mosul. But, so far, it's ahead of schedule. But, again, there will be days in which there are real advances like today. And there will be days in which, you know, things slow down a little bit. That's just the course of events in a military campaign.

But, right now, I think we feel pretty good about the progress and we're going to continue to support the Iraqis and the Kurdish Peshmerga as they move forward. BLITZER: How close are the Iraqi forces now from actually entering

Mosul? And what's your assessment, how much longer is it going to take to liberate that city?

[13:15:01] MCGURK: Well, they're on the -- you know, they're in the outlying villages. And, again, we're ahead of schedule on most of the axis of advance. And that's a very good sign. As I just heard a very good report from Arwa, this is a revamped Iraqi security force. Some of these units, which we've trained, have now been fighting for two years, are some of the most effective forces in the region. They're battle hardened and they have our support.

And so they're in those outlying areas. They made some real good advances today, particularly from the access from the east. But, again, I don't want to get ahead of events. This is a very big city. This is an enemy that is barbaric. They are quite literally suicidal. They have spent two years building tunnels and booby traps. So this will be a methodical, a very careful, a very precise campaign. And, most importantly, and this comes from Iraq's prime minister and from the coalition, first and foremost is a protection of civilians. So this is a very careful, a very deliberate campaign. It will proceed in stages. And we're very focused on making sure that we're not just defeating Daesh, defeating this baric enemy, but also doing all we can to care for the civilians who have been living under this terror now two years.

BLITZER: Daesh, also another name for ISIS or ISIL, and there may be more than a million people system living in Mosul right now.

Brett, the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, as you know, he's been highly critical of this Mosul military offensive, especially the logistics of it. Listen to what he said yesterday. This is yesterday, Donald Trump speaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Even Mosul. We're trying to retake Mosul for a second time, because we essentially gave it up. So now we're going in. And we gave them - did we give them enough advance notice? Four months is enough time, right? General, did we give Mosul enough advance notice? I think so. Four months. And I keep saying, whatever happened to the element of surprise?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: When a military expert was quoted, a U.S. military expert, as saying comments like that are off the mark. Listen to how Donald Trump reacted. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The resistance is much greater now because they knew about the attack. Why can't they win first and talk later? Why do they have to say three months before the attack, we're going in? So you can tell your military expert that I'll sit down and I'll teach him a couple of things. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Trump also tweeted about it last week. he said this. I'll read the tweet. "The attack on Mosul it turning out to be a total disaster. We gave them months of notice. U.S. looking so dumb." Here's your chance. What's your response to Donald Trump's assessment?

MCGURK: Wolf, you know, I'm going to stay out of the presidential election campaign. It's really hard to even respond to that.

This is a complex endeavor. I would just say we're catching Daesh, ISIL, these terrorists by surprise. We are killing their leaders every single day. We recently killed Mohammad al-Adnani, who was Baghdadi's number one deputy. And this operation in Mosul, it is - it's advancing on multiple axes of advance. ISIL does not know what's coming for them, and we are catching them by surprise, killing them where we find them.

This operation is exceedingly complex. It's ahead of schedule. So I have to say, let's watch - let's watch the coming days unfold and it's kind of bizarre to hear that when the Iraqi security forces are just on the edge of Mosul and about to enter the city.

BLITZER: Trump also says by giving the ISIS forces so much advance notice, their leaders have already fled Mosul. Is that true?

MCGURK: When we find their leaders, we're killing them. We've killed about every three days or so we take out one of their leaders. All of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's deputies have been eliminated. We have our special forces in Syria and Iraq doing operations against ISIL. These are things we don't talk about.

So I would just say, Wolf, there's a lot going on here that we do not talk about. But to prepare a campaign the size of Mosul, this is the most complex thing the Iraqi security forces have done in decades. It takes time to prepare. You have to move tens of thousands of security forces to stage and begin the attack. So, obviously, this is something that you knew was going to eventually launch. The Iraqi security forces and Prime Minister Abadi announced the date - a date of his choosing, and the axis of advance are catching ISIL very much by surprise.

So it's a sophisticated, very well-run operation. It's in the early stages. We're getting to the outskirts of the city now, with security forces that we have trained, with American advisers, and I think this is something the American people should really be proud of.

As your correspondent just said, this is a revamped Iraqi security force. They're revamped because of what our brave America soldiers have done in Iraq the last two years to rebuild the security force. And here we are on the verge of liberating the city of Mosul and I think that's something that, you know, we should feel pretty good about. But, again, this will take time. It's complex, and we're going to see it through.

BLITZER: Brett McGurk, the president's special envoy involved in this battle against ISIS. Brett, thanks very much for joining us.

MCGURK: Wolf, thank you.

[13:20:02] BLITZER: Still to come, new details in the - on the investigation involving Hillary Clinton's e-mails. The attorney general of the United States and the FBI director, they meet for the first time since the new revelations.

Plus, President Obama is out stumping right now for Hillary Clinton. Can he help her cross the finish line with just seven days left in this extraordinary campaign.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The FBI director here in Washington, James Comey, is in the center of a major firestorm, the 2016 presidential election. Hillary Clinton's campaign is now claiming there's a double standard in this race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBBY MOOK, CLINTON CAMPAIGN MANAGER: And then if you're in the business of releasing information about investigations on presidential candidates, release everything you have on Donald Trump. Release the information on his connections to the Russians. Now that he has weighed into the election, we're saying, let's get all the information out there. Let's get the information out on Hillary Clinton that he supposedly might have. Let's get the information out on Donald Trump. The voters are smart and they can figure this out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Right now FBI agents are cataloging tens of thousands of e- mails discovered on the laptop of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin's estranged husband, Anthony Weiner. Officials say the investigation is unlikely to be wrapped up before Election Day a week from today.

[13:25:15] CNN's chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is joining us now.

Jim, on Sunday, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, sent a letter to the FBI director alleging in part that top officials in the national security community, including the FBI, have what he described as explosive information about ties and coordination between Trump, his advisers and the Russian government. What have you learned about this?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Let's look at what we know here. We know that the FBI has multiple investigations underway of alleged ties either between Trump camp, Trump advisers and Russia, each of them, though, at this point has not turned up any evidence of criminal behavior. Let's run through them.

Paul Manafort, you'll remember, former campaign manager for Donald Trump, who left the campaign a number of weeks ago, he advised a pro- Russian leader of Ukraine before - he then left office, forced out by popular protest. The FBI has been looking into that for more than a year. That investigation's still underway. Arguably the most substantial because we know that Manafort did, in fact, work for this pro-Russian leader of Ukraine but so far has not led to anything criminal as it relates, most importantly, to the Republican nominee.

Another line of inquiry is in Carter Page (ph). He has been, at times, a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. The question there was whether he met with Russian individuals who are currently under U.S. sanctions for Russia's military activity in Ukraine. So far no evidence found beyond the initial claim that he did so. That inquiry's still underway.

You have a final line of inquiry on Roger Stone. He has been something of an informal adviser to the Trump campaign and his relationship, his alleged relationship with WikiLeaks that's been the source of these many hacked Russian e-mails targeting the Democratic National Committee, other senior Hillary Clinton campaign figures. This is another line of inquiry which is part of a broader investigation of WikiLeaks, which has been going on for a number of years. This is an organization that has released many then or at once secret documents. So far they haven't found anything criminal there either.

And that's a difficult one because, keep in mind, WikiLeaks, whatever you think about them, they're exposing information. We're in a country that has First Amendment rights and exposing that information, regardless of the source, has some protections. But, again, that line of inquiry's still underway but nothing criminal found to this point.

Complicated to say the least, Wolf.

BLITZER: Very quickly, what do we know about - yes, what do we know about this meeting that we now know occurred between the FBI director, James Comey, and the attorney general, Loretta Lynch?

SCIUTTO: Well, they're meeting today. They're appearing at a joint event, appearing in public at a joint event. One of our - my colleague, Evan Perez, is there to witness it. You know, it's - they still have a professional relationship. The DOG oversees the FBI. We know - our reporting has been that the DOG disagreed with Comey's decision to go not public, but to send this letter to Congress about this investigation. Loretta Lynch disagreed with it, but she didn't tell him not to do it, which presumably might have been within her power since the DOG oversees the FBI. They still have a working relationship. Nothing clear from this public appearance together as how that relationship has changed due to this disagreement. But the fact is they've still got to work together, whatever they think of Comey's decision in this case.

BLITZER: All right, Jim Sciutto reporting for us. Thank you very much.

Coming up, the polls here in this presidential race, they are clearly tightening with only seven days left. Each campaign pulling out all the stops in their drive for capturing the necessary 270 electoral votes needed to win. We'll break down each candidate's path to that goal. That's coming up next.

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