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Trump Falsely Claims "Millions" Voted Illegally; Trump To Meet With Petraeus Today; Soon: Wisconsin Holds Election Recount Meeting; Ohio State University Issues Active Shooter Alert

Aired November 28, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:41] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. A bit of breaking news to share with you right now, we understand that Donald Trump will indeed talk with General David Petraeus. He's doing that sometime this morning.

It's rumored that Petraeus is up for the position of secretary of state. As you know, Mitt Romney is and also Senator Bob Corker. In fact, Trump will talk with Romney and Corker tomorrow. But today he's talking to General David Petraeus.

I want to bring in Sara Murray right now, because this is interesting, because David Petraeus, Sara, was convicted of giving classified information to his mistress so she could write a book.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, it certainly is an interesting meeting. Look, Donald Trump's plate is packed full today, but the meeting with Petraeus which we're expecting later on this afternoon or this evening is one that could potentially be an opportunity for him to fill this secretary of state position that's been the subject of much palace intrigue.

But as you pointed out, Petraeus would be an interesting pick for secretary of state really for any top level cabinet position because of the scrutiny he's faced for mishandling classified information.

Now, he did plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of mishandling confidential information, but he resigned as CIA director in the midst of this scandal as he was having an extramarital affair.

Now, the broader context of all of this is the battle for the secretary of state position that we are seeing play out in sort of an uncomfortably public way. And that's going to continue not just today, but also tomorrow.

Sources are telling us that Donald Trump will be meeting with Mitt Romney as well as Senator Bob Corker as he tries to flesh out his options for secretary of state.

Now, Mitt Romney isn't exactly a fan favorite even among some of Donald Trump's closest advisers. Take a listen to what Kellyanne Conway had to say about the potential of Romney being part of Trump's cabinet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, SENIOR ADVISER TO TRUMP: The number of people who feel betrayed to think that a governor Romney would get the most prominent cabinet post after he went so far out of his way to hurt Donald Trump. There was the Never Trump Movement and then there was Mitt Romney. He gave speeches against Donald Trump, he attacked his character. I'm all for party unity but I'm not sure that we have to pay for that with the secretary of state position.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, tough words from Kellyanne Conway and it gives you an indication of how many people still remain in the mix for this position. We are talking Corker, we're talking Romney, we're talking Petraeus, and even Rudy Giuliani who made it no secret that he was interested in the secretary of state job.

Now, if you think Mitt Romney spent his weekend no sitting around wondering what people are saying out him, wondering if he was going to get picked for the job, he certainly cast a nonchalant appearance on social media. He posted this photo of himself with his wife Ann Romney as well as his children at the beach -- I think we have that photo for you -- saying no greater joy than making discoveries together with grandchildren.

So at least on social media, Mitt Romney is playing it cool. We'll see what comes out of his meeting with Donald Trump tomorrow, Carol.

COSTELLO: It will be interesting. Sara Murray, thanks so much reporting live for us this morning.

In the meantime, Donald Trump is lashing out, slamming the recount push in three states and at the same time, falsely claiming millions of people voted illegally in an election he won.

Confused? Well, here is President-elect Trump's tweet. "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote of you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." Of course there's absolutely no evidence to support that. But this hour, officials in Wisconsin are holding a meeting. They're discussing how to conduct that recount after the Green Party pushed to retally the votes.

CNN's Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny has more for us. Hi, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The fact-checking continues even after the election here. Let's start with the fact that Donald Trump said that he would've won the popular vote despite millions of people voting illegally. There's no evidence to support that at all. Moving on to the recount potentially in Wisconsin, that is being called for by Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, who has been raising a lot of money, millions of dollars, for a potential recount in Wisconsin.

Now, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by some 22,000 votes. The Clinton campaign over the weekend said they would participate in this recount to oversee it, if you will, but they also said they had no evidence of any wrongdoing or that any different outcome would come out of a recount here. But despite all that, the Trump campaign, the Trump new administration, is firing back aggressively. Let's take a listen to Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:05:12] REINCE PRIEBUS, PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP'S CHIEF OF STAFF: This is a total and complete distraction and a fraud, and something that they should drop. We will sit there and look through Scantron ballots, we will win again for the second time and they will lose again for the second time.

CONWAY: I was asked on CNN and elsewhere, goodness, a thousand times, will Donald Trump accept the election results? And now you have got the Democrats and Jill Stein saying they do not accept the election results. And the idea that we are going to drag this out now where the president-elect has been incredibly magnanimous to the Clintons and to the Obamas is pretty incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So there is a meeting happening at this hour in Wisconsin to talk about the way forward for a recount in all 72 counties across the state.

Now, you can request a recount as Jill Stein is doing, but since she was not within the margin of error by any means, she only had a few thousand votes, she will have to pay for that recount. So they're discussing that now. It could start as early as Thursday.

Again, important to point out, even Democrats believe that this will not change the outcome of this at all, but this still may go forward until mid-December. Carol?

COSTELLO: It's going to be a messy process. I just talked with an elections commission official and he says, you know, what if this Stein camp goes to court to force a recount of all the paper ballots? Because electronic machines are backed up by paper ballots, can they recount 3 million paper ballots by December 13th which is a date that's federally mandated, Jeff?

ZELENY: It is indeed, that is difficult to do, but the point here, all of this might be sort of a proceeding, but the reality here is that no one is disputing the fact Donald Trump is president-elect, he's meeting with potential people for his cabinet. This Wisconsin situation may sort of drown on. But I talked to one Democrat this morning, he said look, this is maybe giving false hope to people who don't accept the outcome of the election.

The reality is, even if Wisconsin was overturned, that would not give the election to Hillary Clinton. So, Carol, it's time to move on and most smart Democrats realize that.

COSTELLO: That's right. Wisconsin only has 10 electoral votes, right? Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much.

So let's talk about all of this, with me now is Matt Visor national political for the Boston Globe, Ron Brownstein the senior political analyst and Senior Editor for the Atlantic, and Larry Sabato the Director of the Center of Politics at the University of Virginia.

Before we delve into this recount thing that's going on right now, I want to talk about General David Petraeus, Larry, because it's just -- some might call it odd that General Petraeus is being considered for secretary of state when he admitted guilt to mishandling classified information, and isn't that what Donald Trump complained so bitterly about when Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state, that she mishandled classified information?

LARRY SABATO, AUTHOR, THE KENNEDY HALF CENTURY: Carol, that was before the election, and you should have wiped your server clean on November 8th. I think it's shocking that you are calling these things from prior to the election. Kidding, of course. Look, obviously if he is picked and there's a large group of people now being considered for secretary of state, if he's picked, President-elect Trump and the Trump team will have to explain this.

It's also true that just about everybody who knows General Petraeus will tell you that he's a very, very able person. He did make a serious error, perhaps the president-elect is willing to give him a pardon, in a sense, and put his talents to use. And I think that's a legitimate decision that he could make.

COSTELLO: You know, he did say also during the election, and I did hear you, Larry, but Mr. Trump did say during the election, Ron, that what Hillary Clinton did was much, much, much, much, much worse than General Petraeus. So it seems like he was sort of setting this up even during the election process.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, look, I agree with Larry. I mean, you know, General Petraeus obviously made a serious mistake but we are talking about a very accomplished person and it kind of is a cutting up your nose despite your face for the country for a future president to kind of deny themselves systemically of what he could bring to the table in any number of positions. So in that sense, this is not surprising. But it is against the context of the way Donald Trump talked about Hillary Clinton on the use of classified information it what makes it unusual.

I would say there's a broader point here which is, you know, if you look at Donald Trump's agenda on foreign policy, it departs much more decisively from traditional Republican thinking than it does on domestic policy. I mean his kind of reassessment of the internationalist bend of the Republican Party really since Eisenhower beat Robert Taft in 1952 and his reconsideration of alliances, of trade, of immigration, of our entire relationship with the world, it's hard to find someone who is both credible as secretary of state and shares those basic views. That is a very narrow needle to thread.

COSTELLO: And it's obvious that members of Trump's transition team are sort of in-fighting about the -- who serves as secretary of state.

[10:10:08] Kellyanne Conway coming out and kind of slamming Mitt Romney saying he said all sorts of mean stuff about Donald Trump. How could he even think of appointing him as secretary of state? Congressman Chris Collins said on "New Day" -- well, he had harsher terms for Mitt Romney. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHRIS COLLINS, (R) TRUMP SUPPORTER: What do I know about Mitt Romney? I know that he is a self-serving, egomaniac who puts himself first, who has a chip on his shoulder that thinks he should be president of the United States. I mean there's no love lost between me and Mitt Romney. I have called him a loser for the last six months.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So Matt, what do you make of this, that Trump's transition team is openly, I don't know, campaigning for certain people to become secretary of state?

MATT VISER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, BOSTON GLOBE: It's dramatic and -- I mean it's interesting. It's some way not to be unexpected. I mean Donald Trump has sort of put on a show a lot of times and it's hard to tell kind of how much of this is orchestrated by him or not. You know, I mean there's reports that he's upset with Kellyanne Conway for going so far. I don't know how much to believe about that. But, you know, I mean, it is striking and it's striking how much, you know, how much open dialogue there is among his advisers, you know, publicly, you know, as well as privately, you would imagine.

All of the meetings are interesting, him meeting again with Mitt Romney tomorrow. You have the sense that Trump was struck with Mitt Romney during that first meeting that they had, and genuinely impressed with him and maybe thought to consider him more than just having a showy meeting.

COSTELLO: OK. I want to move on to -- go ahead, Ron. Is that you?

BROWNSTEIN: Just real quick. You know, one thing to consider about just out of this whole process is that, you know, again, the breach between Donald Trump and the republican foreign policy infrastructure was much greater than on the domestic side. You had literally dozens of the people who you would expect to be in all the deputy and assistant secretary positions at both the Pentagon and the state department signing letters during the campaign, veterans of former Republicans' administrations saying they did not believe he was qualified to be commander in chief. Now, any of them watching what is happening to Mitt Romney, can any of them look at this and say, this is something I want to go through, if in fact they did reach out and try to overcome that earlier enmity? I mean what you are seeing is kind of this civil war on the foreign policy side playing out on national television in a way that I have got to think is discouraging to many of the others that they might be looking to fill kind of the guts of the Pentagon and the state department.

COSTELLO: And Larry, while all of this is going on, this recount is going to happen in Wisconsin at any moment now, and you know, and since, you know, Trump tweeted out that, you know, he really could have won the popular vote had he campaigned in states like California and then he came out with a later tweet that said there were many illegal voting, there's fraud going on in California and in New Hampshire and in Virginia. What do you make of all of that?

SABATO: Well, I would say first, the recount is a waste of time and money, in all probability, and therefore, I would agree with Trump's team on that point. However, his tweets are making things worse.

Just to go through it very briefly, first he claimed he got an electoral landslide, an Electoral College landslide. 306 electoral votes, assuming he gets Michigan in the end, is certainly a healthy margin but it's very close to what John F. Kennedy got in 1960, what Jimmy Carter got in 1976. Both of them won very close elections, as did Donald Trump. The difference being of course ...

COSTELLO: Hey, Larry. Larry, I'm sorry I'm going to have to interrupt you. We do have a serious breaking news alert to tell our viewers about and it's very disturbing.

We understand that the Ohio State University in Columbus has issued an active shooter alert on campus. Moments ago the school posted this on Twitter. "Buckeye alert. Active camper -- active shooter rather, on campus, run, hide, fight. Watts Hall 19th and College."

So we don't know exactly what's going on but we wanted to get the information out to you right away. We're going to take a break. We'll come back with much more in the Newsroom.

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[10:18:02] COSTELLO: All right, disturbing news to share with you right now. We have a little more information. The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio has issued an active shooter alert on campus.

Moments ago, the school posted this on Twitter. "Buckeye alert. Active shooter on campus. Run, hide, fight. Watts Hall, 19th and College." Deborah Feyerick is with us now. She has a little bit more information. This is a huge university, 66,000 students, what more can you tell us?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do know is that there's a huge response right now. The police are on scene, other agencies responding as well, the fire department there also. That part that you read out, the run, hide, fight, that is really a warning to the students. That's what they are supposed to do.

First they run. If they encounter anybody, then they fight. I'm sorry, then they hide and then they fight. And so that is normal sort of when you are dealing with an active shooter situation. That's what they are conveying to the students. But right now, we know that police are responding as are other law enforcement agencies and they are trying to determine exactly what is going on.

We are told that it is in an area -- it's on the campus. We are trying to confirm that right now. Those are the few details that we have as we work the phones, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Deborah Feyerick, stand by. I'm going to let you get to finding out more information. I want to go to -- do we have this Ohio State student? OK. We are working on getting an Ohio State student who did hear gunshots. But before that, let's bring in Tom Fuentes, our law enforcement analyst.

Tom, this is a huge, huge campus that's right in the middle of a very large city in Ohio. So, how challenging is this for authorities?

TOM FUENTES, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, the biggest challenge, Carol, from the beginning is to make sure there actually was a shooting and that they are actually pursuing something that actually occurred. We have so many of these instances where somebody thinks they heard a shot, heard a loud noise or something, and then later they can't verify there actually was a shooter. So first we have to verify that there was.

[10:20:02] And I haven't heard if that's already been done, I'm just joining you now suddenly. But if that's already been done, they have to determine that first, and then try to find out from there do they have somebody who just randomly going to shoot other people, if it's a personal dispute between a couple of people where somebody has a vendetta to go after an individual. All of those are yet to be determined.

COSTELLO: We understand Columbus fire is also on the scene. We don't know exactly what that means. It could mean there are injuries. We just don't know anything. Tom, you are absolutely right. It's very early on. The alert that Ohio State sent out is intriguing though. It said for students to run, hide and fight. That's new, isn't it?

FUENTES: No, we've heard that in other shooting situations where authorities have put out that exact same statement. I know when we had the report of a hospital shooting I believe that the naval facility in San Diego, they put out a very similar thing to -- and I commented on the air at the time, but if you are in a hospital bed, where are you going to run to, where are you going to hide and how are you going to fight. So -- but this is a generic thing that the authorities put out or the camp -- the school authorities put out to pretty much just to try to cover themselves and tell everybody that we warned you, do something.

COSTELLO: All right, Tom, stand by. We have that Ohio State student on the phone right now. His name is Wyatt Crosher. Hi, Wyatt.

WYATT CROSHER, OHIO STATE STUDENT: Hi.

COSTELLO: What are you hearing?

CROSHER: We heard the gunshots about maybe a half hour ago from our dorm across the street. We couldn't see much, but we did hear these sirens from across the street and they are still going.

COSTELLO: You are at 19th and College?

CROSHER: Yes. We are in Nosker House which is just across the street.

COSTELLO: Did you hear too -- I mean, do you know for sure it was gunfire? Or did it sound like it ...

CROSHER: We can't know for sure, but we did hear like three or four things that would sound like gunshots, and then we heard sirens come so we assume they were gunshots.

COSTELLO: So that alert, did it come over your phone from Ohio State?

CROSHER: Yes. There was a -- there's a school-wide alert that we get through text message from Ohio State that tells us to stay safe.

COSTELLO: And then what are you doing to stay safe?

CROSHER: We are just staying in our room. No one's allowed to leave our dorm. So we're going to stay safe and see what updates come in.

COSTELLO: Did someone come through the halls and tell you to stay put?

CROSHER: No. No one came through the halls. We just got the text message. And in the lobby, they are telling us we have to go back into our rooms.

COSTELLO: Got you. So, it must be nerve-racking for you not knowing exactly what's going on with what you've heard.

CROSHER: Right. It's very scary. We don't know much. We just know there was an active shooter across the street.

COSTELLO: So we are getting now pictures from WBNS, which is a local affiliate of ours from Columbus. And we're seeing police vehicles on the scene right now. What can you see from your window?

CROSHER: From our window, we can see about the same thing. We just see a bunch of police cars and ambulances around the hall where the shooting supposedly took place.

COSTELLO: Is this -- is this sort of thing still surprising to you that something like this could happen on your campus?

CROSHER: Yes, it is surprising. I know there's a lot of people that go here but it's still surprising to see an incident like this especially when it's so close to you. It's a scary thing.

COSTELLO: And do you have your roommate in the room with you? Are you alone?

CROSHER: No, I'm with my roommate and one of my other friends.

COSTELLO: Well, that's a good thing. And have you called your families?

CROSHER: Yes. Yes. I told them I was safe.

COSTELLO: So was it your mom?

CROSHER: It was my dad. I'm about to call my mom after this.

COSTELLO: Oh, my goodness. Your mom's going to -- mom's not going to be happy with you, Wyatt.

CROSHER: I know.

COSTELLO: What did your dad say to you?

CROSHER: He just wanted to make sure that I'm safe and he wanted to see if I knew anything of what was going on, but first he wanted to make sure I was safe.

COSTELLO: And where -- what state is your dad in?

CROSHER: He's also in Ohio. He's up in the Cleveland area.

COSTELLO: So he's far away.

CROSHER: Yes.

COSTELLO: So I don't know, this could drag on for a long time. I just can't imagine how you're feeling along with your roommates.

CROSHER: Right. It's a scary thing for sure. We don't know much of what's going on. But the fact it's so close makes it a lot scarier.

COSTELLO: So going back to the gun -- what you -- going back to sounds you heard that might be gunfire, what -- were they really loud? Did they come in quick succession?

CROSHER: They did come in quick succession. They -- I mean from where we were, we could just like faintly hear something that sounded like they could be like little -- like pops, but we -- but then the sirens came, so then we kind of assumed what they were and then we got the notification saying there were shots fires, so that's where we kind of assumed they were gunshots.

[10:25:05] COSTELLO: All right, Wyatt. I'm going to let you go so you can call your mom. And you better do it...

CROSHER: Right.

COSTELLO: ... right when you get off the phone. Thank you, Wyatt.

CROSHER: I will. Thank you.

COSTELLO: Wyatt Crosher an Ohio State student. Soon, I want to go back to Tom Fuentes.

So, we are seeing pictures of the scene right now, Tom. I don't know how much you can tell us from ...

FUENTES: Yes, Carol ...

COSTELLO: Go ahead.

FUENTES: If you look at that, if you look at the photos of the scene, you'll see that they have the yellow police line tapes spread across the road. That indicates to me that they have a contained crime scene and they are not looking for an active shooter. I don't think running around because everybody outside of that yellow tape seems to be pretty calm and more or less standing around. So to me, just looking at these aerial photos, I would say whatever they have, it's contained in that building or near that building since they have the police tape keeping everyone out, and people that are on the outside aren't exactly being told to shelter in place or to run back in their buildings. They are going about their business or standing around watching to see what happens next. But to me, I think this looks like a contained situation and at least the active shooter part of this may be called off pretty soon.

COSTELLO: And it's likely something happened with all of this police activity on campus.

FUENTES: Right. It appears so. You know, because they have fire department vehicles, ambulances, police cars, all standing by. So, you know, whatever is happening though, I think they believe to be contained in that -- inside the perimeter of that yellow police tape.

COSTELLO: Is it easier for authorities to deal with shootings when universities are in the middle of a major metropolitan area?

FUENTES: I don't think it's ever easy for them. We have had shootings at colleges and universities in rural areas and they wonder if the shooter, you know, that got out of the area and ran into the woods. Obviously in an urban environment like this university and the capital of Ohio, you know, it's a large urban area, it would be difficult. But just the nature, the fact that you see so many people standing around, it doesn't seem like they would be in fear of their lives if they are just standing around watching.

COSTELLO: I hope not. I want to bring in Joe Giacalone. He's a former NYPD sergeant. He's also a law enforcement analyst. Joe, I know we have very little information to go on but you heard what Tom has been saying. You heard from that student that I interviewed Wyatt Crosher who said he heard three pops that sounded like gunfire. When you surveyed this scene, what do you see?

JOSEPH GIACALONE, LAW ENFORCEMENT TRAINER: Yes. I was just looking at the video there. Nobody seemed to be in a big rush. I mean we saw something like this happen in JFK recently where there was a couple of what people thought were gunshots and everyone panicked and it turned out luckily to be nothing. Let's hope that this is the case here.

I mean there are a lot of people just standing around. So I think if there was something that was really going on, I think law enforcement would have these people moving along and you know, put them some place in safety.

But I see the tweets went out from Ohio State University, they got the message out quick which is excellent. And I think that social media plays a big role in these things going forward.

COSTELLO: Exactly. And I know that you work at a university here in New York City, so that Ohio State sent out this particular warning to students, run, hide, stay safe, universities have really worked on drills so that students will be safe during these kinds of situations.

GIACALONE: Yes, absolutely. We have even -- I teach at John Jay College, we have CUNY alert which is -- it goes right to your cell phone via text message or you could follow on Twitter or Facebook, we different pages. I think that the text messages, though, is the way to go because every kid basically has a cell phone. And it's a way to get information out quickly to the group and yes, run, hide and then fight is of course the last version that is taught.

COSTELLO: So are there drills for students, freshmen coming in, because when, you know, the word "fight", it's like so how do you fight a person who has the gun?

GIACALONE: Well, that's the last resort measure. And that's if you're, you know, you're cornered, this is it, there's no other option that you can do and hopefully that you can go for the element of surprise. That's why we teach the kids, in an event this happens, if you can escape immediately, you do so. You run out of exit door, whatever, you can -- staircase, whatever it may be. And if you're trapped somewhere, you try to hide, either a closet, under a table, somewhere out of sight.

And that's basically what you're doing because, you know, the shooter's going to be just looking for those live targets. And if they don't see anything, they might move on to it. The school has even retrofitted the doors where they can put these shields so that the shooter couldn't even look into a room to see if somebody was in there. So they're trying to do the best they can under the circumstances that we're seeing nowadays.

COSTELLO: OK. I didn't hear the end part of what you said Joe, but we understand that Ohio State students got this emergency text, in fact that's what a student told me that I interviewed a little earlier that the warning came over a text, and you're right, social media and, you know, iPhones play a huge part ...