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The Black Vote; Clinton Battles Likeability Factor; ISIS Resistance in Mosul. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired November 04, 2016 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Trump and Symone Sander, CNN political commentator, Democratic strategist and Hillary Clinton supporter.
Welcome to both of you.
SYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hey, Carol.
BRUNELL DONALD-KYEI, VICE CHAIR OF DIVERSITY OUTREACH, NATIONAL DIVERSITY COALITION FOR TRUMP: Thank you. Good morning.
COSTELLO: Hi. Good morning.
DONALD-KYEI: God bless you and God bless America.
COSTELLO: Thank you.
Brunell, I will start with you.
Mr. Trump was in North Carolina yesterday. He didn't spend much time talking about African-American voters. Why?
DONALD-KYEI: Well, I'll tell you this, Donald Trump has been on the stump. He did a new deal with the African-American voter. What he said is that he will give $100 billion into the inner cities for infrastructure, jobs, over an eight-year period. He's also stated he's going to make sure that African-Americans, as well as all Americans, have school choice, which is important to all Americans.
He has been reaching out to the African-American community asking for our vote, not acting like he's entitled to our vote. And that's important. He has done more outreach for African-Americans than any Republican nominee that I can even remember in recent history. And so he's not just talking, he's saying, look, I've got $100 billion that I want to put into your communities. I've got school choice that I want to make sure you have. I want to protect (INAUDIBLE). I want to protect our Constitution.
COSTELLO: Right. No, I know, but I just wondered why he isn't talking about that in these swing states and trying to rally the -- the African-American vote, or is he concentrating more on -- on rousing his base?
DONALD-KYEI: What he's doing is, he's reached out to African-Americans throughout his time. And believe it or not, the African-American outreach that he did for the new deal to African-Americans was in North Carolina. So it's not the first time that he --
COSTELLO: OK.
DONALD-KYEI: You know, is there. He's been there before already and that's where it started.
COSTELLO: OK.
DONALD-KYEI: His new deal with African-Americans.
COSTELLO: OK.
Symone, your thoughts on that because Democrats are out in force in states like North Carolina and they're really trying to rally the African-American vote. Is there a comparison here?
SANDERS: Indeed. I really don't think there's a comparison here, Carol. You know, the Democrats have been actively working to earn the votes of African-American voters in this country. This new, new deal, this new deal with the Africa-American community that was just referenced, I've never heard Donald Trump talk about that and I think that's part of the issue.
But on the Democratic side, Secretary Clinton and a whole host of surrogates are storming these battleground states, are -- are -- are talking to communities, where -- they're at the barber shop and beauty shops and the Bible studies, really encouraging folks to get out the vote. You know, this weekend in Florida particularly is really important. The numbers in Florida have not been where folks thought they should be, but we did see uptick in these last couple of days and definitely this weekend is the final weekend of polls to the polls right before the election. So you can expect to see high African- American turnout. There have been surrogates in the state. I think Trina (ph), the rapper, was just in Florida yesterday. So things like these concerts that I know we're going to talk about shortly are a part of an outreach effort, but it's not the only thing that's going on. A phone calls have been being made. Real relationships have been built with the community.
COSTELLO: Right. So, Brunell, are you worried that all of these --
DONALD-KYEI: Yes, Carol --
COSTELLO: All of these high-powered African-American entertainers are out there trying to excite African-Americans to vote for Hillary Clinton? Does that worry you as a Trump supporter?
DONALD-KYEI: You know what, I'm -- I'm not worried about it at all. You know what, African-Americans don't want to be entertained. What we want is schools. We want school choice. What we want is money in our communities. What we want is for our youth not to be filling up the prisons and the cemetery. What we want is for the Democratic Party that promised eight and four years ago to put money into our communities, to give us better schools, that's what we want. There is no enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton. I like Jay-z.
SANDERS: What?
DONALD-KYEI: I love Trina. But let me tell you something, black people want a real seat at the table. We want to know that when you make a promise for our vote, that you're going to deliver. And we know, even under our president, my president, Barack Obama, he did not deliver on his agenda to black people, our inner cities. We know that for a fact.
SANDERS: And let me stop you right there because, Carol -- no, let me stop you right there.
(CROSS TALK)
DONALD-KYEI: No need to stop me.
COSTELLO: No, let's (INAUDIBLE). No, let's --
DONALD-KYEI: I'm a Democrat. I know what I'm talking about.
SANDERS: Let me -- let me stop -- let me stop you right there. Let me stop you right there. Here's why.
DONALD-KYEI: Twenty years voting Democrat. You can't stop me at all.
SANDERS: Carol, it is -- Carol, it is --
DONALD-KYEI: At all.
SANDERS: It is disingenuous to insinuate that because President Obama is African-American he's the first African-American president, that he was going to be able to come in, wave a magic wand and fix all the ills in the African-American community.
DONALD-KYEI: He used that to get 95 percent of the -- of our votes.
COSTELLO: Can you please let Symone have her say?
SANDERS: Look, today --
DONALD-KYEI: You have 95 -- to get our --
(CROSS TALK)
COSTELLO: Brunell -- Brunell -- Brunell, you're filibustering.
SANDERS: We have 73 (ph) straight months of private sector job growth --
COSTELLO: Stop, stop, stop, stop.
Symone, have your say.
SANDERS: Thank you, Carol.
(INAUDIBLE) today, just the job report came out. We now have 73 straight months of private sector job growth, black wealth has increased since President Obama has been in office, job numbers have definitely gone up and he has made real investment in criminal justice reform efforts across this country. We've made investments in education programs for not just African-American young men and boys and girls of color, but also Latino and Native American and Asian- American. So, President Obama has done some good work and so has the Obama administration.
[09:35:05] But the ills that we're facing in the African-American community didn't just pop up in 2007-2008. This is -- you know, we've got 246 years of child slavery, 87 years of Jim Crow. We've got real systemic issues that will not be fixed overnight, which is why it's dangerous what Donald Trump is saying, that he can come in and he can do it all.
Secretary Clinton has a plan, OK? She has a plan to put more money in communities. She has a plan of $25 billion -- to invest $25 billion in historically black colleges and universities. Entrepreneurship. We know young people, particularly young African-Americans, they want entrepreneurship. So, again, folks like Jay-z and Furell (ph) and Trina going out on the campaign trail, that adds some excitement and some well-needed excitement that folks want to see out on the trail, but those are not the only things going on.
I was in Nevada this past week and I'm in -- I'm in Nebraska today and there are real things going on.
COSTELLO: Well, let me -- let me just -- let me just stop you there because I want to get in one more question. I just want to get in one more question.
So, Brunell, we know that, you know, we know from early voting results that African-Americans aren't as excited to vote this election as in past elections, but is there any sign, in your minds, that those African-Americans that are voting are voting for Donald Trump?
DONALD-KYEI: Well, we are getting the feedback that African-Americans are voting for Donald Trump. They're tired of the promises. And, you know, Hillary has been in politics over 30 years. What we want to see is her record. What we want to see is her record of what she's done for the African-American community.
COSTELLO: No, but what I'm asking you -- what I'm asking you is, are you hearing from lots of African-Americans that they're voting for Donald Trump?
DONALD-KYEI: Yes, they are. The problem is, people are afraid to speak up because they don't want to be called a coon or a sellout or an uncle tom. And I just wanted to say to Miss Symone, I'm not saying that the president is the reason why we have every problem. What I am saying is that there were promises made eight and four years ago that did not come to fruition for the black community. So you're going to need more than some entertainment to get people to come out and vote for you. That's why (INAUDIBLE) for Hillary Clinton aren't' there.
COSTELLO: OK. So, I'm going to ask -- SANDERS: I agree, which is --
(CROSS TALK)
COSTELLO: I'm going to ask the same question of Symone.
DONALD-KYEI: I'm just keeping it real --
COSTELLO: I'm going to ask the same question of Symone.
SANDERS: So --
DONALD-KYEI: Sure.
COSTELLO: Is there any indication that there African-Americans out there in your mind that are too afraid to admit that they're voting for Donald Trump?
SANDERS: Not in large swaths, Carol. You know, I think Mr. Trump is at 3 percent, maybe 5 percent with of African-Americans nationally. And clearly there are some black people out there somewhere that are going to vote for Donald Trump. But in terms of, are these voters that were -- we haven't seen the numbers going to the polls in states like North Carolina and Florida, even though the North Carolina numbers are up, it's not abysmal, it's just not absolutely amazing. But it's good.
But, no, I don't think black people in large swaths are going to vote for Donald Trump. I do think that there is still time to get out there and go to the polls. I think African-American voters are paying attention to this election and they want to hear --
DONALD-KYEI: Yes.
SANDERS: You know, the candidates speak directly to them. And I think that's Secretary Clinton's opportunity today.
DONALD-KYEI: Yes.
COSTELLO: All right.
SANDERS: She'll be on stage with Jay-z and she's going to have to some words to say prior to Jay-z.
COSTELLO: I have to leave it there.
SANDERS: Thank you, Carol.
COSTELLO: Thanks to both of you, Brunell Donald-Kyei, Symone Sanders. Still to come in the NEWSROOM --
DONALD-KYEI: Thank you so much for having us. God bless you.
SANDERS: Thank you.
COSTELLO: You're welcome. You, too. Three decades in the public eye, everyone has an opinion about Hillary Clinton. Love her? Hate her? Viscerally hate her? Why? We'll talk about that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:42:33] COSTELLO: Democrats call it Clinton derangement syndrome, as in an inexplicable visceral dislike of their candidate, Hillary Clinton. Others call it "clintipathy." It's a thing because at points in Clinton's career she was quite popular. At the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, her favorability rating shot to 67 percent. When she was secretary of state, she enjoyed an approval rating of 65 percent. Today, her likability factor is in the tank, and President Obama is now trying to fix that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Her heart's always been in the right place. Works hard every single day. I know. She worked hard when she was running against me. I was worn out. She worked hard when she was working for me. She was there in the situation room as my secretary of state, making the argument to go after bin Laden, even when it was risky. She circled the globe as secretary of state, earned the respect of world leaders. Her efforts weren't all flashy. They weren't always fully appreciated, which is true for a lot of the work that women do, by the way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Gil Troy is a history professor at McGill University. He's also the author of a book called "The Age of Clinton: American in the 1990s.: He also wrote a "Time" magazine op-ed called "Understanding Clintipathy: A Pathological Hatred of the Clintons."
Welcome, Gil.
GIL TROY, AUTHOR, "THE AGE OF CLINTON: AMERICA IN THE 1990s": Thank you.
COSTELLO: Really, there's a pathological hatred of the Clintons?
TROY: Oh, it's been building since 1990. But it also builds on anger against the hippies of the 1960s, against the yuppies of the 1980s, and so Hillary Clinton is carrying a lot of the tension, a lot of the cultural tension that we've been having and building over 50 years in our cultural wars.
COSTELLO: And by the hippies and the yuppies you mean the hippies had this like idealistic view of the world, and then when they became yuppies, they became good old capitalists?
TROY: That was part of it, and part of it was simply back in the 1960s, you know, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, they were representatives of that generation. And so as that baby boomer, pig in the python as they called it, has worked its way through the American body of politics, those from the left have often incurred the enmity of those on the right.
When Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, there were conservatives who called it a cultural coup d'etat and the fight against the Clintons has continued. Now, it's complicated because the Clintons also bring it on. So there are two sides to the story. But their -- but over the decades we've seen this Clintipathy.
COSTELLO: OK, so in light of that, they bring it, on because I remember in 1992 when they were running for office, Hillary Clinton sat down and you kind of knew she wasn't going to be the typical first lady, right? Remember this from Hillary Clinton back in the day.
[09:45:10] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: So that comment sparked a lot of controversy and, frankly, some dislike.
TROY: So, again and again she's stepped into these cultural land mine. There also is, we should point out, some good old-fashioned sexism where she's been held to certain higher standards. She's looked at in a certain way that is more difficult for her as a woman. But that comment was right at that point where many women in America were saying, no, I want to be validated as a homemaker and they felt invalidated, when other women in America wanted to be validated as working mothers. And -- so she was right at the cusp. And again and again, she's been at that point. And when, you know, she's Hillary, right? She doesn't even have a last name in many ways. She's like Cher, like Madonna. She's one of these cultural phenomenons. And that has led to --
COSTELLO: Well, remember like back -- she changed her name to Hillary Rodham Clinton, right?
TROY: Yes.
COSTELLO: It used to be just Hillary Rodham, and then she added Clinton when Bill Clinton ran for president, right?
TROY: Right. And part of her tromo (ph) was she -- when she was in Arkansas and she was stuck being first lady of Arkansas, this, you know, northeastern feminist, she had to take her glasses off, she had to go blonde, she had to give up her last name, and she thought when she went on the national stage she'd be more at home. And all of a sudden, in 1992, 1993, she's running into the same cultural firestorm. It actually gets even worse.
And then the other side of it though is the ethical issues that again and again the Clintons show a certain kind of blind spot that feeds the Clintipathy. So people say, you see, we're right, there is something wrong with them. And -- and that's been the strange (INAUDIBLE) --
COSTELLO: Yes, I love -- I love this passage in your -- in your "Time" magazine op-ed. You wrote, quote, "Democrats who deem her blameless and Republicans who grant her a master criminal both exaggerate. Such absolutes confuse voters who much judge her lapses in context, proportionately deciding how relevant such past behaviors are in determining what kind of president she or her opponent will be."
TROY: Right. So I know on the cusp of an election day we're not supposed to be rational, we're not supposed to be -- talk about context. We're not supposed to talk about proportion, but that's what we have to do. We have to see. We have to judge her fairly.
COSTELLO: I don't think it's possible to judge any candidate fairly in this particular political climate because you hear so many untruths on both sides of the aisle about candidates. Voters are left confused in large part I think because of that. And then the candidates themselves feed into that with their own untruths.
TROY: And we're also in this age of tunneling where if I'm on the left I just get messages in my Internet bringing me further and further into the left conversation. On the right I get further and further into Trump land. And if I'm only hearing good about Hillary Clinton, if I'm only hearing good about Donald Trump, I have no space in my head, that peripheral vision, to kind of notice, oh, maybe it's more complex. Maybe she's not the angel. Maybe she's not the devil.
COSTELLO: So is this election, is it agony for you as it is for so many Americans?
TROY: Look, as an American patriot, I want a vigorous, partisan fight, but I also want healing. And I hope and pray that on Election Day we'll remember. There's a reason why there are state laws saying don't politic too close to the ballot box. There's supposed to be a certain kind of reference. There's supposed to be a certain kind of contemplative space when you're voting and then there's supposed to be some healing. And the challenge for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, whoever wins and whoever loses on Election Day is to join together, be gracious and heal.
COSTELLO: Oh, such a big challenge. Gil Troy, thanks for an interesting conversation. I appreciate it.
TROY: Thank you.
COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the U.N. now says ISIS may be using child soldiers in Mosul. And Iraqi troops are facing fierce resistance as they fight inside the city.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:52:38] COSTELLO: The United Nations says ISIS is recruiting child soldiers. They're ordering families to hand over their sons, nine and older, to fight in Mosul. As Iraqi troops try to retake the city street by street, they're facing what one soldier called crazy resistance from ISIS. Listen to the gunfire in the background as our Arwa Damon files a report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They've been coming across quite a bit of sniper fire, gun fire, mortar rounds, rocket propelled grenades and, of course, those car bombs, suicide car bombs. In fact, the unit we were just with saw a yellow taxi driving towards them. They called, asked the vehicle to stop. It did not. They shot the occupants and he was wounded. They then dragged him out and are in the process of interrogating him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Joining us now live from Erbil, Iraq, CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson.
Hi, Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, hi there, Carol.
About five or six different neighborhoods is what the Iraqi army says they've pushed into on the eastern side of Mosul. At least one of those areas they were forced to withdraw two suicide bombers that they couldn't intercept, detonated their explosives, destroyed two Humvees, damaging three others and three soldiers were killed in that -- in those incidents. Seven others wounded. So that unit in that particular neighborhood quite literally had to pull back and say, regroup and figure out how we approach this again.
So -- what Arwa has been experiencing, these intense gun battles. This is what the Iraqi troops are facing. And, of course, as we saw in the opening days of the offensive against Mosul, a lot of suicide bombers driving vehicles back then across the open desert towards the approaching Iraqi army. They were able to take them out because they could see them coming. But in some cases, what ISIS is doing is just literally driving out of narrow side streets right at the military convoys that are very, very close by. And, of course, the army doesn't have time to respond and take them out.
Another problem the army faces is they say ISIS snipers are on the roofs of buildings that still contain civilians. So they can't target those buildings. Normally they could hit it with artillery, destroy the building, not worry about who was in it. So, again, this also slowing up, making it much harder for the army advancing into eastern Mosul.
[09:55:02] Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Nic Robertson reporting live from Erbil in Iraq this morning.
Coming up in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM, one word, turnout. Who votes and how they get to the polls, both of critical importance. We're breaking down the ground game after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
Four days, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton locked in a last minute scramble for votes. The final sprint focus, get voters to show up at the polls. And here's why. A new CNN poll of polls showing Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in a four point race. Clinton's lead even smaller in a new ABC/"Washington Post poll. As the race tightens, both campaigns are sending out their surrogates for a last minute push. Clinton's camp zeroing in on places like North Carolina and Colorado and Donald Trump going all in on tossups like New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
