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Clinton to Speak in Battleground of Michigan; Obama Stumps for Clinton in New Hampshire; Election Eve, Trump and Clinton Barnstorm Swing States. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired November 07, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. You're watching CNN special live coverage from Washington. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Here she is. We just saw her opponent in North Carolina. Now Hillary Clinton descending the plane there in Grand Rapids, Michigan, ahead of her event in Allendale in the next hour. She is then headed back to the battleground state of Pennsylvania for a second time today. As far as polls are concerned, they show her ahead there by five points among likely voters. Here is what she just said in Pittsburgh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Elections have consequences. For everything we care about. And that's why we've got to have each and every one of you put down your stake in our future. If the lines are long tomorrow, please wait. Let's go to CNN senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, live in Philadelphia, ahead of where they'll be this evening. If you have the Democrat, you have the Obamas, you have the Clintons and you have the boss. Jeff?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZELENY, SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, this is going to be quite an extraordinary scene here on independence mall. I'm just outside there. And this really is going to cap this -- what's really been an unprecedented history-setting fall. A couple reasons, appropriate perhaps we're here in Philadelphia for this. But we've never soon a sitting president or a first lady of course be so involved in another presidential campaign.

Tonight, when president Obama is on stage with Hillary Clinton and another former president as well, this really puts everything into historical perspective here. Boy, the Obamas are trying to push her across that finish line. He's aggressively campaigning in Michigan and New Hampshire. She's campaigning in Pennsylvania and Michigan as well. So, interesting this race is ending here, in these blue states, in the rust belt states here.

What I'm struck by walking around Philadelphia, the site of the Democratic convention and so much history, how this completes with eight years ago and there have been a lot of ups and downs since. We'll find out what happens tomorrow. That's certainly one of the final chapters in their relationship, Brooke.

BALDWIN: We just had the discussion it will create quite the tableau for election morning, Jeff Zeleny, thank you.

The president of the United States will continue his unprecedented presidential push for Hillary Clinton. He'll speak in New Hampshire shortly. The president already headlined the Clinton rally in Michigan and he waxed nostalgic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some people who aren't quite as famous but I want to take a minute to thank because I'm feeling a little sentimental. This is going to be my last -- probably my last day of campaigning for a while. But not just here in Michigan. All across America, I want to say thanks to the organizers of so many grassroots efforts. There are some organizers here who got their start on my first campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:35:00] BALDWIN: Let's go to CNN's Chris Frates in Durham, North Hampshire, where president Obama is set to speak shortly. This is an endpoint for him in a sense. I know, Chris, in New Hampshire, a huge chunk he'll be talking to those independent voters.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. I'm here at the University of New Hampshire, Brooke. Lots of young voters here that's not a coincidence, in fact I talked to a White House official who said look for president Obama to talk about things young voters care about, student debt, climate change. And also, will take a shot at some Republicans who already suggested that even before Hillary Clinton's elected president, if she were elected, she would be and should be impeached.

He's going to say, that's about republicans talking about gridlock that they don't want the kind of progress they've seen over the last eight years to continue. The Clinton campaign also like this is a contrast, of a sitting president going out there and campaigning for his former secretary of state, making the case he can do the job he's been doing for the last eight years while Donald Trump, on the other hand, doesn't have any former presidents endorsing his campaign.

And the Clinton campaign also hoping that Barack Obama can juice turnout here. Remember, for places Obama has been going, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, no early voting happening there. They're looking for everybody to get out on Tuesday. They hope Barack Obama can bring those young voters, the progressives, to the polls. In fact, the Hillary Clinton campaign had a hugely busy weekend.

About 400,000 door knocks for a total of 1.1 million over the last few months. Also, 185,000 phone calls, 2.2 million phone calls total. They're out there getting people to the polls, making sure they show up to vote tomorrow. As you and talked about yesterday, they have that ghost of Al Gore, hoping they don't see a repeat of 16 years ago. Al Gore, had he won New Hampshire, he would have been president. Florida. That's in the minds of lots of Clinton folks here. They want to make sure history doesn't repeat itself on Tuesday, Brooke. BALDWIN: New Hampshire and you could add Michigan to that as well.

Chris Frates, thank you, my friend, in New Hampshire as these candidates make their final pitches, volunteers doing ballot work behind the scenes. Randi Kaye, what's happening there in Orlando?

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR-CORRESPONDENT: Oh, a whole lot happening here, Brooke. Ballot counting is already under way. 17,000 ballots being counted today in Orange County, in Orlando here in Florida. We'll also show you the latest technology to make sure that everything goes smoothly tomorrow on election day.

[15:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. We are live on our special set here in Washington, D.C. you are watching CNN on a Monday afternoon. Who will be living in that house in just a couple of months? We're just about here, election day 2016. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, they are blitzing these battleground states, making their closing statements for the white house. We have a team of correspondents across the country. Randi Kaye is in Orlando. Ryan Young is in Janesville, Wisconsin. Let's begin with Brian Todd in Leesburg, Virginia, a state that turned blue for both of Obama's presidential campaigns.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, it has turned blue over the last couple of election cycles but this is seen as a state where the race is tightening and this county is seen by Republicans as a place where they might be able to turn the tide red in this election cycle. In Loudon County is where they're counting on. We're here at the fall pumpkin festival at the Leesburg animal park because this illustrates the dynamic of the county, kids going down the slide, kids lining up for hay rides. A lot of young families have moved into this county in recent years, that is the dynamic the Republicans are counting on.

Donald Trump especially made a late campaign stop here just after midnight last night. Thousands of people lined up for hours to see him. The Trump campaign counting on Loudon county as a county that may lean red. It went narrowly to president Obama in 2012 as the state went narrowly to president Obama. So, the Trump campaign looking to turn Loudon county, on the western edges of northern Virginia. Northern Virginia traditionally pretty Democratic but they think this county might start to lean Republican.

So, the Trump campaign putting a lot of eggs in the basket in Loudon county. Here's an illustration of it, too. Donald Trump has had 11 campaign events in the campaign. They're hoping they can turn things in the Trump campaign's favor in the state of Virginia.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Let's head south to Florida, Randi Kaye standing by in Orlando. Take me behind the scenes.

KAYE: They are breaking records in Orlando, orange county. Registered voters have already voted. More than 400,000 people have already voted, early voting or through absentee ballots. They want to make sure they get it right. Let's show you the latest technology they'll be using this year to make sure there isn't any voter fraud. Timothy will show us here. People come in now and you register voters on this -- on these tablets now.

[15:45:00] TIMOTHY, FLORIDA ELECTION WORKER: Absolutely. They come in, give us their voter or signature I.D., we scan that in. It comes up. It brings up the voter information there.

KAYE: So, John Q. Voter could register and vote in how long a time?

TIMOTHY: Not register. We pull up their registration if they registered within the allotted time, 29 days. We have John Q. America here, we just hit proceed and go through a series of questions --

KAYE: The idea is to move voters very quicker.

TIMOTHY: It's not like the old-fashioned books where we had to look them up by the books. This is very fast. This is a direct connection to our office, too. If there's anything going on with this, if there's an error, we can call right to the office.

KAYE: What's happening here is everybody from the polling places is picking them up. They're picking up their tablets to be brought out to the polling places. This area is specifically important, the i-4 corridor, the swingiest part of the swing state of Florida. This is the area that they think determines the president. It's very

purple.

To the north of here it's a lot of Republican support. To the south in Broward, Miami-Dade, a lot of Democratic support. So, this is the spot they believe they will pick the president tomorrow, at least for the state of Florida. Back to you.

BALDWIN: Got it. Randi, thank you so much. Let's head to Wisconsin. Let's go to speaker Paul Ryan's hometown, Janesville, Wisconsin, watching a senate race there. Hi, Ryan.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, how you doing? You know, absolutely. This is about the small things, Brooke. I've had several people walk up to me and say, can you believe the weather? Look behind us. They believe that will have people out voting in numbers. Early voting returns have already shown this state is breaking its own record of how many people have been turning out to the polls.

You're talking close to 800,000 people have already cast their votes already. On top of that, this state, when you think about Paul Ryan, you think about Scott Walker, you think vote Republican. This state hasn't voted for Republican candidate since 1984. They are counting on that strength to carry them through.

The senate race, Russ Feingold is running against Ron Johnson who beat him several years back. He was up by 15 points at one point and now that's in single digits. Thousands of people are canvassing right now, knocking on doors to get out vote. Every place we've been to this weekend, whether that has been a campaign event for either candidate, everyone is talking about grabbing their friends, family, neighbors, taking them out to vote on Tuesday because early voting, of course, closed last week.

This is a big conversation here. The ads on TV, every 30 seconds it seems like there's another ad just popping up in every single commercial break. It's pretty close here as well.

BALDWIN: Thank you so much, Ryan Young in Wisconsin. Appreciate it. Want to have a big conversation coming up. Let me remind all of you, Hillary Clinton is about to speak to voters in the battleground state of Michigan. We just saw her hop off the plane in Grand Rapids. Then she heads to Philadelphia where she will rally with her biggest name surrogates, including the president and first lady.

Joining me now, Kayleigh McEnany, Trump supporter and CNN political commentator. Van Jones, CNN political commentator and former special adviser to president Obama.

Chris Kofinis, Democratic strategist and former communications director for Jon Edwards, and Matt Schlapp, former political director for George W. Bush. Happy election eve, all. Van, let me begin with you. The fact we're about to hear from Hillary Clinton in Michigan. We know president Obama was talking to students in Ann Arbor. We know Bill Clinton has been there. Why the emphasis on Michigan? I thought this was part of the blue wall? Why?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Because they are terrified! They're terrified. They are cracking the blue wall. Trump took a big gamble in some ways he was willing to throw away the sun belt, really alienate the Latinos because he thought it would give him a big advantage in the rust belt. I don't think he's going to pull it in but people have no fingernails and their beds are wet.

BALDWIN: You agree? Terrified?

CHRIS KOFINIS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: No, we're not terrified. I think it's smart strategy. Don't worry about your nails. They'll be fine.

BALDWIN: Go ahead.

KOFINIS: You may want to have a couple cocktails ready just in case. Listen, it's a day of state which makes it I think, more complicated.

BALDWIN: Yes.

KOFINIS: And we haven't really had a lot of polling. And any time you get a poll that comes back within four, five, you're wondering, well, you know, it's trending the wrong direction. So, I think they're being smart to go there. You have to have, you know, a big turnout amongst the African American community in Detroit and other parts of the state.

[15:50:00] So, they're really energizing that. At the end of the day, I'm not worried about it. I think their demographics there outside the Detroit area that give concern, especially when you look at the challenges, some challenges we're having in Ohio. But I think it's smart strategy to do that same reason why he's glad to be in Philadelphia. Make sure your firewall not only holds but gets strengthened.

BALDWIN: We don't want any of this. we don't want any of that. But speaking of nerves and cocktails and bites nails. More people have voted absentee than all of the that crazy election in Florida. 103% from 2008 to 2016. Does that make you want to bite your nails given that many of these Hispanics may not be voting for your guy?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I'm a Floridian. I love my state. I'm glad we have such high turnout. That's good. The Latino numbers, you know, I think that we are almost naive to just drop it all in the Hillary bucket. I think there are a large swath of Cuban voters that will vote Trump. That being said, I'm not suggesting Trump is going to win the Latino vote outright but I think something underdiscussed is the fact there are 1.2 million unaffiliated voters who turned out in Florida. We know that in Florida --

BALDWIN: More Republicans turn out in election day.

MCENANY: Absolutely. And also, Republicans voting early is up 2% from 2012. Democrats are down 4%. He will pull out Florida. I think it will be nail-biter but I think he will pull out Florida. Sorry, Van.

BALDWIN: Where do you wish, he had perhaps spent more time?

MATT SCHLAPP, FORMER POLITICAL DIRECTOR FOR GEORGE W. BUSH: I think when you keep going back to the same states, Pennsylvania, Florida, that big plane can only land so many places, and you're hitting the same media markets. What I like about what he's done at the end is he's popped into states he hasn't spent a lot of time in.

One visit to a state you haven't been in very much has a much greater impact than going back to those same old states. As a Republican am I glad we're playing in blue and purplish states at the end? Absolutely. Am I glad that I see the other the going to those very same states? Yeah, absolutely. She's playing for a close win. She's not playing for the Arizona, making progress in Texas win.

This is going to be a cloud of dust as far as their concerned, and so I like what I see strategically from the Trump campaign.

KOFINIS: What I would say is, you know, listen, if you want to be -- which of the candidates you want to be today, you definitely want to be Hillary Clinton. In terms of where the map is and where it's headed, you definitely want to be Hillary Clinton. Now, in terms of the strategy for Trump, he had no other option but to go to these different places because he simply does simply does not have the math to crack that blue wall.

BALDWIN: Does it help him to be an underdog.

MCENANY: There's a slight advantage to Hillary Clinton right now. The numbers suggest that but the enthusiasm is on Trump's side. And being an underdog I think you are guaranteeing the rallies of 20,000 here, 20,000 there. A lot times these are sometimes announced six hours in advance.

KOFINIS: Rallies don't translate into votes.

JONES: Hold on, here's the deal, I think that two things are happening. There's visible enthusiasm from the white pro-Trump voters but there's an invisible surge Latinos. We don't know yet which of these surges is going to be the most important. We want to be clear that the fact that in Arizona he might win by two, that's insane.

SCHLAPP: No, it's not. That state is trending.

JONES: And he accelerated that trend by his position on immigration and also when you look at other places, Georgia. He might win by four in Georgia. Something is happening in your party where the purple is gaining in the red a lot more than ---

[15:55:00] SCHLAPP: I have a lot of respect for you but even in 2004 we had early indicators in Arizona, in Georgia, and Louisiana, that's always that next ring of states that we worry about if you have a big African American turnout, et cetera.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) So, I think actually what we're seeing here is different from what we're saying. I think that, you know, she is worried about these blue states. I think on the early vote I could give you as many talking points and facts as to why actually what's happened in the early vote shows that this is going to be close and could be a Trump win as I could hear about these other talking points.

You look at the Hispanic turnout in Florida. It's not just a Cuban turnout. It is also the Puerto Rican turnout. Immigration is not their number one issue. They are Americans. The i-4 corridor is a place where Republicans do very well.

KOFINIS: Let's look at Florida just the numbers. Hillary Clinton is up 88,000 in early votes. Barack Obama was up about 110,000 or so early votes around that time.

BALDWIN: Yes.

KOFINIS: He won the state by 72,000 votes. Here is the big unknown. I will grant to everyone, right. We have had a surge in some of the key battlegrounds amongst independents and the argument the Trump people will say is the independents will track his way, but here is the reality.

If you look at the polls, especially "The Wall Street Journal" poll, independents are trending her way. If she pulls off -- and historically that's not the case. If she gets more independents, she's going to win these key states. She's going to win, for example, Florida.

SCHLAPP: She's not going -- it's nice but she's not going to get a majority of the independents. We are all allowed to make some predictions here. I don't think she is going to get a majority of independents. And I also think those folks even in the CNN poll who are undecided, you got to remember the number one dominant statistic in this campaign has been 70% of Americans saying the country is on the wrong track. If you want to change Washington and New York City, you vote Trump.

KOFINIS: Here is the big problem with that. They don't see Trump as the solution. It's always been his problem.

JONES: Exactly. And Hillary is such a great solution. If the bus is driving in the wrong direction, you don't ask a drunk guy to drive.

BALDWIN: Enough of these car crash, drunk driving metaphors. We're about to hear from several of the candidates later tonight, Philadelphia. We just heard from Donald Trump in North Carolina. She has a midnight rally in Raleigh. We're moments away from Hillary Clinton in Michigan, the second rally of the day for her. While her most powerful supporter, president Obama, is about to take the stage at the University of New Hampshire, we will have both of the events live on the election eve here. You're watching special coverage. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for watching. Thanks, guys.

END