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Obama And Trump Stumping In Florida; Candidates Focus On Pair Of Battleground States. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 04, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 8:00 p.m. in Mosul, Iraq, 9:30 p.m. in Kabul, Afghanistan. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We're down to five days and counting in the U.S. presidential election. Combined, there are at least 36 scheduled campaign stops today from the candidates, their supporters and surrogates. And that includes Melania Trump making a rare speech. That's coming up soon.

But here's where the candidates are, their running mates, where they're stopping today. Donald Trump in Florida and North Carolina. Mike Pence in Iowa, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton has several stops in North Carolina today. While Tim Kaine focuses in on Arizona.

But the Clinton camp also had President Obama continuing his campaign tour through the south. He's in Jacksonville, Florida this afternoon and was in Miami this morning. Here's part of that message to young voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you disrespect the Constitution before you're president and threaten to shut down the press when it says something you don't like or threaten to throw your opponent in jail in a live presidential debate, without any regard for due process.

If you discriminate against people of different faiths before you are president, then that is what you will do in office, except you will have more power to carry out the twisted notions that you had before you were in office.

So, you can't make excuses for this stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Donald Trump just wrapping up his own Florida stop. His fourth in the past two days. He spoke today about the FBI, trade and President Obama. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I just left, by the way, Miami. And in leaving, I see Air Force One. So, I said to myself, I wonder who that could be? And it's our president, and he's down here campaigning for crooked Hillary.

Now, why isn't he back in the office? Sometimes referred to as the Oval Office. Why isn't he back in the White House bringing our jobs back and helping our veterans?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN National Correspondent Jason Carroll is in Jacksonville following the Trump campaign for us. Our White House Correspondent Michelle Kosinski is in Miami. They're both in Florida.

Michelle, has the president's tone in these recent events been changing as we get closer and closer to Election Day?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Wolf, and you've heard that too. I think every time we hear the president speak, especially now getting down to the wire, there's a headline that comes out of it that says, you know, he's done this differently or this is the most energized we've seen him.

Of course, there's a cap to that. You can't see him, you know, go crazy by the end of this or get to be much more energetic than he's been before it starts getting a little strange.

Well, yesterday in North Carolina -- and keep in mind, we're in Florida right now. These are both crucial battleground states. And this is where we expect to hear the president's best arguments.

But, yesterday, it was kind of bordering on a scary warning to voters. Not just urging them but also begging them to vote. Saying things like, the fate of the world is teetering. The fate of republic lies on your shoulders.

Today, it was much more of a celebration in here. The president was back to his slightly comedic routine with his common refrain of, come on, man, as he's mocking Donald Trump. So, that's kind of a return to what we saw earlier on.

But, as the White House puts it, he wants to get everything in there as much as possible. He wants to criticize Donald Trump. He wants to criticize Republicans. He wants to focus on local races and down- ballot races as well.

Again, we saw him turn Marco Rubio's words back on him. Things that he said in the past about Donald Trump. And the president also wants to hit on his legacy and talk about how Hillary Clinton will continue that legacy.

So, what we're seeing is the president wanting to keep up that energy. And what he needs to do for Hillary Clinton are get in those voters that she needs, the young people, African-Americans. And, by the way, we're at Florida International University right now. But they do a lot of national polling. And I think what's been really fascinating here, and nationwide too, is the Latino vote. The Latino vote is 18 percent of the Florida electorate.

[13:05:05] And what FIU just did, they put out some recent numbers that show Latino support for Hillary Clinton has ranged from in the low 60 percent up to 84 percent. Well, this week, it's down. It's around 73 percent.

For Donald Trump, though, his Latino support has ranged from a low of about eight percent to 17 percent and that's what it is right now. It is at a high -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Michelle, stand by.

Jason, Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, says her candidate is focusing on the positive in these final days. Is that actually playing out in his campaign speeches?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me just tell you this, I mean, as he just wrapped up his speech here today, just a few moments ago. You know, he talked about doing great with African- American voters, even though there's no evidence of that.

He did say that this is a campaign that's doing great in the polls, doing great in the state Florida. He said, we're going to win Florida. So, in that way, it was a positive message.

But the bulk of what we heard here is what we've heard many, many times before. And in terms of whether it's positive or not, that's what voters are going to have to decide.

But this was the message, he says, look, we're doing terrible with our military so that's not very positive. He says we're doing terrible with trade. He went on to say that crime was on the rise across the country.

He talked about Hillary Clinton, once again calling her crooked Hillary. And when the crowd shouted, lock her up, lock her up, there was no rebuttal from the candidate. It was more shouts of that.

You know, yesterday, we heard Donald Trump say, I've got to stay on message. My advisers want me to basically stay on message. I've got to stay cool and stay on point. And he did that.

I mean, these are some of the points and the messages we've heard repeatedly throughout this campaign. We heard it again here today. So, Donald Trump did do something. He did stay on message.

But to your question, was it positive or not? You know, to someone sitting at home on the sideliners, I think that remains to be seen. But for supporters here, they certainly liked what he had to say here in Jacksonville -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jason Carroll and Michelle Kosinski reporting from Florida for us. Guys, thanks very much.

I want to talk a little bit more now about the two states the candidates are really focusing in on today. We're talking about Florida and North Carolina. Here with us, "The Washington Post" reporter David Nakamura, Carol Lee, she's the White House reporter for "The Wallstreet Journal" and CNN Political Director David Chalian.

CNN's poll of polls right now has Hillary Clinton with a four-point lead in North Carolina, 46 to 42 percent. And Florida, our poll of polls, that's an average of the most important recent polls, shows a dead heat, 45 to 45 percent.

There's still room to move over the next few days and, obviously, that's why those states are getting so much special attention from both campaigns right now.

So, David Chalian, here's the question. Are those -- are the races in those two states, Florida and North Carolina, as close as they really seem to be?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I believe that they are. And, quite frankly, both campaigns, they are the states that have seen the most advertising money in this campaign. This is where the biggest part of the ground game has been focused on both sides.

These two states probably hold the key to the election in two ways. One, for Donald Trump, he simply can't get to 270 electoral votes without both of these states in his column. It's nearly impossible.

BLITZER: So, if he loses either one, it's over?

CHALIAN: Basically, if Hillary Clinton can win either one of those states, she can throw up such a massive roadblock to Donald Trump's path to 270, that it would be all but over.

BLITZER: Interesting.

Carol, President Obama and Donald Trump, they're both hitting Jacksonville, Florida, the northern part of the state, today. How much can the president, first of all, move the needle for Hillary Clinton?

CAROL LEE, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Well, he can -- he certainly is popular among Democrats, and that's why you saw him in south Florida. And in Jacksonville, what he can do there is narrow the margins, meaning that it's a predominantly Republican area.

But, as you saw the president do in 2012 and 2008, he goes into these types of areas and tries to really get black voter turnout. Higher than it has been in the past. And so, that's why he's there. And he's also there eight years to the day when he held his last rally in Florida 2008. So, --

BLITZER: November third. And the next -- the election was November fourth, exactly eight years ago tomorrow. We'll have more on that coming up later. David, this morning, the trim -- the Trump campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, suggested, sort of bragged, that they were getting into Hillary Clinton's head, forcing her to go to traditionally blue states like Wisconsin, Michigan right now, spend time there. Does she have a point?

DAVID NAKAMURA, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It might not be necessarily the Trump campaign getting into her head, but some of the public polling and some of -- obviously, the problems related to the e-mails. And you saw President Obama react in frustration yesterday, a little bit, with the FBI's activities over the past week.

But I think that Hillary Clinton campaign recognizes that given the state of the narrowing of the polls already, even before FBI director Comey came out Friday with his announcement that the investigation would be re-examined with these e-mails, there's a sense now, I think, that you can't take anything for granted.

[13:10:10] She has a big war chest. Much bigger than Donald Trump's. (INAUDIBLE) now you see in Wisconsin and other key states. So, I think they don't want to take it for granted. But you do see her biggest surrogates like President Obama focusing on the states you talk about. He's going again to two stops in North Carolina tomorrow, then Florida again on the weekend. So, you know, she's sending others out there as well.

BLITZER: I think it's fair to say North Carolina, Florida, that could be the key right there.

Interestingly, David, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a former Republican presidential candidate, he was out campaigning today but not with Donald Trump, with Mike Pence, his vice presidential running mate. We heard this from Cruz today. I'll play pay clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: The stakes in this election have never been higher for our country. I believe this election comes down to three critical issues. Jobs, freedom and security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: It's -- I think it's significant, though, that Cruz is even campaigning with Mike Pence, not necessarily with Donald Trump. There was a lot of bad blood, as we all remember from that Republican primary.

CHALIAN: That's right, no love lost there. Did you see where he was campaigning there? In the state of Iowa. A state where Ted Cruz won the caucuses, where he may want to go visit again after this election, depending how it comes out.

So, it probably serves Ted Cruz's political interest. He has a lot of work to do and rehabilitation to do after the way he handled Donald Trump at the convention and beyond. And so, --

BLITZER: When he showed up at the convention and didn't actually endorse --

CHALIAN: Exactly.

BLITZER: -- Republican nominee.

CHALIAN: Which didn't make the delegates all that thrilled, if you recall. Including his own Texas delegation was not that thrilled with his behavior there. So. he's got some rehabilitation to do with the Republican Party. And, clearly, helping out Mike Pence is part of that process.

BLITZER: In terms of the base, that could certainly help.

LEE: He -- yes, he needs those -- he needs Donald. It's very interesting that he's coming in now. He hitting the road. He getting some air time. And he needs those voters. If he's going -- this feels all about 2020. And if he's going to run then, he needs Donald Trump's support -- Donald Trump's base.

NAKAMURA: And it's also interesting, of course, if Trump were to win, what role Cruz would play, you know, in the Senate and the Trump administration. You can see, very clearly, what kind of role he would play with a Clinton administration, antagonistic and kind of, you know, grandstanding in the way he did a little bit with President Obama. But what would he do with a Trump administration? Maybe he wants to make sure that he's not completely sidelined.

BLITZER: Yes, if Cruz is thinking, David, of running in 2020 for the Republican nomination again. First, he's got to get himself re- elected in Texas. Mike McCall, the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, I spoke to him earlier this week. He's a Republican from Texas. He didn't necessarily rule out the possibility of challenging Ted Cruz.

CHALIAN: He just didn't want to go there yet with him.

BLITZER: He didn't want to go there yet. He wants to focus in on the current election. But he certainly didn't rule it out.

CHALIAN: No. And to David's point about sort of how Ted Cruz deals with a potential Trump administration. John McCain was sort of antagonistic to the Bush administration for quite some time. Until he got very close to starting to run for the nomination again, and then started to repair that relationship. You might see something similar from Cruz. It's hard to imagine he won't be a little bit of a thorn in the side of a Trump administration from the Senate as well.

BLITZER: He probably will be. All right, guys, don't go too far away.

By the way, you can catch all-day coverage of the election this coming Tuesday right here on CNN.

Coming up, Melania Trump, she's set to give her first speech since the Republican National Convention in July. You're looking at live pictures there outside of Philadelphia. Will she help her husband win back the women vote in that crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania?

Plus, Iraqi forces pushing into the heart of ISIS-held -- the ISIS- held city of Mosul. The terror group that still controls that city, they are now using human shields and booby traps as they desperately fight to keep control of Mosul. We're going there live. We'll take you to the front lines. That and a lot more coming up.

[13:13:55]

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[13:15:40] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to a beautiful day here in Washington, D.C. You're looking at live pictures. There's the White House behind us. The Washington Monument at well.

Any moment now, Hillary Clinton takes the stage in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We're going to have live coverage. We'll go to that speech once she starts talking. Mark Cuban, by the way, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA, a Pittsburgh native, he's going to be introducing Hillary Clinton there in Pittsburgh.

Meantime, the last jobs report before the election shows solid growth, and that's good news for now. But a new forecast from Citigroup reports it may be different, it may be a different story come Wednesday depending on the outcome of the presidential race.

I want to go to CNN's Money correspondent, Alison Kosik, who's joining us now.

Alison, break down, first of all, the latest jobs numbers. What does it mean for the economy?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: OK, so this jobs report, Wolf, really shows that the jobs picture is on a steady and stable path forward. I mean you look at the unemployment rate, it fell from 5 percent to 4.9 percent, 161,000 jobs were created in the month of October. But the real headline out of this - out of this jobs report is what you see on the far right, wage growth. That 2.8 percent. Wages actually grew 2.8 percent over the past year. This is the best wage growth that we've seen in years. It means some Americans, or maybe many Americans, are seeing fatter paychecks. So that certainly makes Americans feel better about the economy, especially better maybe as they head to the voting booth on Tuesday.

Now, Donald Trump did come out with a statement after this report came out, of course, looking at this through a political lens, saying that the jobs report was disastrous. Now, I find it pretty difficult to call this report disastrous, but there is one point in his statement that I do agree with, and he points to the labor force participation rate. That is something that he's really been harping on for quite a while. That counts as the number of people who are working the number of people who are looking for work. That level is actually at historic lows, at lows we haven't seen since the 1970s. People are dropping out of the labor force, and a lot of economists are scratching their heads and wondering why.

Wolf.

BLITZER: Alison, what's the Citigroup prediction? Should we be preparing ourselves for some sharp post-election market swings?

KOSIK: Well, Citi is predicting, its analysts are, that if Trump wins, then we could see the S&P 500 fall anywhere between 3 percent and 5 percent immediately. It predicts that a Trump win would also risk the U.S. - put the U.S. economy at risk. The U.S. economy will looking - be looking at slower growth and possibly a recession. It - these analysts are also predicting that a Clinton win wouldn't move stocks significantly.

So why is it that investors who you would think would be excited to have a billionaire for president, why they're not rallying behind Donald Trump, it's because he's seen as a wildcard and Hillary Clinton is seen as more predictable. She is considered the continuity candidate. And there's one thing that Wall Street hates, and that's instability and uncertainly. And that's how Wall Street views Donald Trump.

Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Alison, thanks very much.

Hillary Clinton, once again, getting ready to speak on the U.S. economy and other issues in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, an important key battleground state. Look at some live pictures. You see Mark Cuban, there he is. He's the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He's from Pittsburgh. He's introducing Hillary Clinton. We're going to go there in a moment.

But I want to take a quick look at how her economic plans compare to Donald Trump's economic plans. Hillary Clinton would raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, raise the estate tax by as much as 65 percent, spend $275 billion on infrastructure and push for a $15 an hour minimum wage. Trump would cut income tax rates, lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, renegotiate trade deals and limit itemized deductions.

Let's bring our in - back our panel.

Gloria, first of all, the jobs report. The numbers that came out today, politically there could be an impact.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And as Alison was say, the big number that is important for Hillary Clinton, because these are good numbers for her. The big number that's important is the 2.8 percent wage growth. People in this country feel like they haven't had a raise in the last 10 or 15 years. Suddenly there is a sense that their wages are starting to increase. When you feel it in your pocketbook, it's good for the person in charge.

[13:20:09] Hillary Clinton has hugged Barack Obama very tightly during this election. His popularity is up. People are beginning to feel things are getting a little better for them, and that can only be good for her as a Democrat. Republicans will say these things haven't moved quickly enough, and it should - their wages should have increased faster. And, of course, getting rid of these trade deals will help. But this says that the U.S. economy is doing OK, and the people are finally feeling it.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And I'm old enough to remember when campaigns would hold their breath -

BORGER: Right.

BASH: Before the first Friday of the month, particularly when it came right before Election Day, because jobs reports were so important in moving numbers, because, at the end of the day, people do vote on the economy more than anything else and it just sort of struck me as you were talking about how different this is because this is such a character-driven election cycle. As, in terms of the narrative and how the candidates are going at one another, when at the end of the day what the voters do really care about is whether they have a job, or, more importantly in this day and age, whether their wages are high enough.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And if you go state by state - look, the national unemployment rate, when President Obama came to office, was 7.8 percent. It spiked up to 10 percent. Remember, the recession started at the end of the Bush Administration into the Obama administration. Now it's 5 percent, 4.9 percent nationally. In almost every key battleground state, it is half or more than half. You know, it's shrinking, than it was when he took office. So Hillary Clinton can make that case. She has to say the glass is half full. Yes, we were in a ditch, but we're getting much better. Donald Trump has to say the glass is half empty. You know, where's economic growth. It's the regulatory policies of the Democrats that are stifling growth in the economy.

The question is, Gloria - Gloria frames this question perfectly in the sense that, do people feel this in their pocketbook? Do they feel better? If they do, continuity's OK. But, remember 1988, the numbers were good for George H.W. Bush at the end too, but they came late. They came later -

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's also, do people really feel it?

KING: Right. They didn't get it yet.

BLITZER: And the old Ronald Reagan question, are you better off than you were four years ago?

KING: Right.

BASH: Right.

GREGORY: Right.

BLITZER: And I'm sure a lot of people are asking themselves, am I better off today than I was four years ago or eight years ago? That has an impact.

GREGORY: It does have an impact, but I think that there's still so many people and so many Trump voters, for example, who feel outside of this economic growth -

BASH: Yes.

GREGORY: And who feel outside of the economy generally.

Interestingly, I was looking at some numbers among Hispanic voters. Top concern, economy and increase in wages. Even a higher percentage than seeing comprehensive immigration reform. So this cuts across all demographic boundaries and it really is a question of whether you are feeling this impact and this progressive growth in the economy.

The bigger kind of legislative question and policy question is, how much growth is realistic growth in the U.S. economy and what can Washington do to actually have an impact on that? That's where their plans are one thing and what Washington does with either one of those plans is quite another.

BORGER: Well, that's what I was thinking as you - as you showed that, you know, on the TV, I was thinking, OK, how are either of these people going to get any of this passed through a Congress? You say, OK, I want to increase taxes on the wealthy. Well, let's see what the Democrats decide to do about that.

BLITZER: You can't just sign a piece of paper.

BORGER: Yes, and -

KING: Well, you have to get a mandate from the voters, and this election hasn't been about policy.

BORGER: Exactly.

KING: George W. Bush won by the Supreme Court, got his tax cut.

BORGER: The only -

GREGORY: Right.

KING: Bill Clinton won and he did get his middle class tax cuts, but they campaigned on it. These two don't campaign (INAUDIBLE).

BORGER: The - but the only issue, as David was pointing out earlier, that Donald Trump is now campaigning now on is the question of the increases in Obamacare premiums.

KING: Right.

BORGER: And I think that does affect people and it scares people because health care is so important to every family in this country and they want to make sure they have it.

BLITZER: Dana, made a good point earlier, let's not forget, when President Obama took office in 2009, January 20, 2009, the country was losing 600,000 job a month, 700,000 - the country was in the worst recession since the Great Depression, if you will.

BASH: Right.

BLITZER: And since then, there have been 73 months in a row consecutively of jobs growth. And I know he gets frustrated. A lot of his supporters get frustrated.

BASH: Right.

BLITZER: That he's not getting enough credit for it.

BASH: No question. And that's why one of the most energetic riffs that President Obama has right now on the campaign trail, especially when he's in younger audiences, he says, you know, when I was elected, many of you all were 10. You know, when he talks about how he feels old, but then he goes back to say, you don't understand it now but at that time the economy was in freefall and giving a lot of the numbers about how bad it really was.

I mean, remember, back then, John McCain's campaign effectively ended, the bottom completely dropped off - out the day that Lehman Brothers collapsed in September of 2008. So it was - it was because of the bad economy. And, yes, compared to that, during the entire time President Obama has been president, things are much better. But it's about how you feel in your home with your bank account, with your pocketbook, with the things that you have to buy for your kids and health care and so forth. That's what matters.

BORGER: Well, and, Obama, on the campaign trail, has taken to saying, thank you, Obama, to his audiences, sort of reminding them where the country has come over the last eight years, which is, I think, when we hear from Hillary Clinton talking about the economy, that is exactly what she's going to say.

[13:25:12} GREGORY: But we should just remember, we keep saying that this is about personal characteristics, about fitness to serve. You know, a lot of our elections are like that. They're not issue generated. In 2008, it was really about leadership in a crisis. That's what that moment when John McCain wanted to suspend, did not have the - not have the debates, when Barack Obama handled himself better, the people looked and said, can this guy handle this?

BORGER: Right.

GREGORY: That's what matters. We're not talking about the thing that's likely to befall the next administration in terms of a crisis. We all covered George Bush and, obviously, he didn't campaign on 9/11. So these things happen and it becomes a leadership test. That's why these fitness for office questions are so fundamental, whether it's in an economic crisis atmosphere or whatever kind of crisis atmosphere we're in now.

BLITZER: And everybody stand by. And Obama officials also remind us when he took office, the Dow Jones was about 7,000. Now it's over 15,000 or so. So he says, you know what, that's why they feel frustrated. They don't get enough credit for that. But we'll talk about that. Certainly the economy isn't perfect. There's a long way to go.

You can certainly catch all day coverage of the election this coming Tuesday right here on CNN.

Coming up, two former officials linked to Chris Christie's office are found guilt for their association with the so-called bridgegate controversy. We have details.

Plus, what it means for the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie. That, and, remember, we're standing by to hear from Hillary Clinton. She's getting ready to speak in Pittsburgh. We'll have live coverage of that.