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Presidential Election; Missouri Senate Race; Presidential Ads; Fight for Mosul

Aired October 24, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And I am really excited about what we can do to make sure every young American is prepared. I want to start in the early years of life, in early education, universal pre-k. I want kids to be prepared to succeed because we are in a competition. And, you know what, I want us to step up and compete and win. And I want our schools, I want kids to have good teachers and good schools in every zip code. And I want to be a good partner with our teachers and our educator here in New Hampshire. And I want to bring back technical -

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we're going to pull away from this. You've been listening to Hillary Clinton there speaking alongside - we can call her the darling of the left, Senator Elizabeth Warren, there in Manchester, New Hampshire.

I've got Dana Bash, who's been sitting here watching this with me, our chief political correspondent.

You saw there on the screen how Hillary Clinton, a bit ago, had apparently said Trump seemingly already conceding defeat. But I'm pretty sure I heard Donald Trump over the weekend saying he's winning. Why that's dangerous of her to sort of say that.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. Whether or not, let's just say, just for argument sake -

BALDWIN: Yes.

BASH: That he suggested that he is conceding defeat. If you are Hillary Clinton and you're trying to make sure that everybody gets to the polls, not just now in states where there are early voting, she is not in one of them right now, but more importantly on Election Day you want to keep up enthusiasm, you want to get people energized to stand up and say, oh, Donald Trump is already conceding defeat. If I'm somebody who is on the fence as a voter in a swing state -

BALDWIN: Why are you going to get out on November 8th.

BASH: And I hear there, I'm not - I'm going to go take my kids to school, go to work and come home. Why - you know, if I'm not that enthusiastic to begin with.

BALDWIN: Right. Right.

So, interesting note there. Then, meantime, you have this reporting from Jeff Zeleny on phone

calls. I know like at Clinton HQ, Robby Mook, the campaign manager, you know, he forbids anyone from talking about post-election day comings and goings. But we know from Jeff Zeleny's reporting that apparently Secretary Clinton is picking up the phone and calling folks, some of whom she used to work with on Capitol Hill, already thinking ahead to November 9th and her first 100 days.

BASH: You know, it's interesting because we know that both campaigns have pretty robust transition teams. Donald Trump's actual campaign is pretty lean and mean, but his transition team isn't. Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, in addition to helping him privately prepare for the debates, his actual job is to chair the transition team. And he goes down to Washington pretty frequently. He has a pretty big staff of people who are working on the what-if, if Donald Trump is elected. It's not unusual. This is something that is very conventional, and both campaigns are. To take that couple of steps ahead and for Hillary Clinton to start calling Republicans saying, I want to work with you, you know, on the one hand it might seem presumptuous. On the other hand, I think she realizes, if she does get elected, that there is so much animosity and so much pressure on Republicans by many in their base to not work with her, to make her - make sure that she doesn't accomplish things that she, as the benefit of having relationships, frankly, that Barack Obama, when he became president, didn't have. So she's trying to bank on those.

BALDWIN: Do we know - you mentioned Chris Christie, in charge of the transition team for Trump, if he were to win. Do we know what they're doing to prepare for their potential first 100 days?

BASH: They're quiet about it.

BALDWIN: OK.

BASH: But they are doing the basic fundamentals that you need to do to make sure that there is a smooth transition of power. It's not that much time between Election Day and inauguration day. And particularly when you have a whole - if you have a whole new party coming in, if you are Donald Trump if you win, it takes a lot - a lot more work. So they have been, you know, having meetings, talking to not just people on Capitol Hill, but they've been working with firms and outside and inside political people to try to make sure that if that day does come, and if Donald Trump is elected -

BALDWIN: That they're ready.

BASH: That they're ready. You know, it actually is one of the areas where the fact that Donald Trump is a businessman, kind of - it seems to be helpful because that is, again, an area where he seems to be - he has a pretty robust operation.

BALDWIN: OK. Dana Bash, thank you.

BASH: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thank you very much.

President Obama is also looking past Donald Trump. This is a pretty unprecedented move when you think of the numbers here. He is set to endorse dozens of Democrats in these down-ballot races.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We can't elect Hillary and then saddle her with a Congress that is do nothing, won't even try to do something, won't even get their own stuff passed, much less the stuff you want passed. All they got to offer is blocking and obstructing every step of the way. We've got to have a Congress that's willing to make progress on the issues Americans care about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:05:24] BALDWIN: With me now, CNN political commentator Kevin Madden. He used to serve as spokesman for Mitt Romney's campaign. And also with me, the author of "First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies," Kate Andersen Brower.'

So, welcome to both of you.

And, Kevin Madden, you're first up to bat. You know, and what I was just talking about, Jeff Zeleny's reporting with Dana about how Hillary Clinton is picking up the phone. She's thinking ahead to, you know, if and when she wins, she wants everyone to try to get along. My question to you though would be, is that being a tad overconfident?

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, transition planning is due diligence. Both campaigns are heavily involved in it. If they're not right now, I think that they'd be in trouble come November 9th.

But I think, you know, Hillary Clinton, having been a creature of the Senate previously, she's conducting what I think she sees as routine outreach. She knows that members of the Senate, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, really like that type of outreach from the executive.

The key to making sure, though, that this doesn't become an electoral problem is keeping it quiet. As Dana Bash had reported earlier, I think the transition folks on the Republican side are being much more low key about it. And what Hillary Clinton is doing is tending to make noise. I think that's more of a reflection right now of who people think's going to win, but I think it is - it is - they do have to be careful of that a - you know, a message doesn't emerge that they are being very presumptuous before the votes have even been counted on Election Day.

BALDWIN: Let's put this in historical context and just - I just want to try to understand, Kate, you know, what would then Senator Barack Obama have been doing this time eight years ago, perhaps, or even pushing it farther back to any of the Bushs? I mean what sorts of conversations do you think they would have been having potentially as far as transition is concerned and getting ahead? KATE ANDERSON BROWER, AUTHOR, "FRIST WOMEN": Well, whoever wins in

November, they're going to have 4,000 presidential appointments and about 1,000 of them are going to require Senate confirmation. So since 2010, as Kevin said, there's been this, you know, active transition. And certainly it's been something that's been discussed well in advance. I mean Nancy Reagan was very much on top of who was going to be in President Reagan's administration well before the election. And it seems that it would only make sense because this is a Senate confirmation, and they're also going to have intense, you know, financial background investigations and things like that. So it takes time to get the core team, including the cabinet, confirmed.

MADDEN: Yes.

BALDWIN: Let me say - go ahead, Kevin. You want to jump in?

MADDEN: I want going to say, you know, on the Romney campaign in 2012 -

BALDWIN: Yes, what did you guys do?

MADDEN: We were - we were planning on winning right up until the day we lost because we didn't know, as Kate pointed out -

BALDWIN: I heard that concession speech was written very quickly.

MADDEN: Right. But we knew that, you know, as Kate had pointed out that there were going to be - should he have won, 4,000 political appointees that we would have been responsible for, 15 cabinet agencies responsible for getting up and running. And then when you consider the fact that you have an inauguration to plan, a state - an address to the Congress to plan, and a budget all probably within the first four months of your administration, have you to have that planning done ahead of time, even if you end up losing.

BALDWIN: No pressure. No pressure.

And, Kate, to you on all of your knowledge about the first ladies in your book and the chapter on bad blood, you point out - I'm asking you this. Let me step back because we know this week Hillary Clinton will be doing her first rally with the first lady, with Michelle Obama. And this is obviously extraordinarily significant. And you have this super surrogate out. And Michelle Obama, you know, her approval ratings are like - are gangbusters. And you point out in bad blood that back in 2007, Michelle Obama would not say that she would have voted for Hillary Clinton even if her husband wasn't in the race. But something's changed?

BROWER: Yes, I mean it's the - you know, that old line, the enemy of your enemy is your friend. So, I mean, the two of them have had a rocky relationship. Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, 2008 was a very bitter primary. But clearly Michelle Obama has

come out and done even more than the Clinton campaign has asked her to do. She's been a godsend to them. Her approval ratings are well beyond either presidential candidates approval ratings. So I mean she's almost the equivalent of an Eleanor Roosevelt, who JFK had to actually go to Hyde Park and convince Eleanor to support him because she supported Adelaide Stephenson back in 1960. So I think we see with Michelle Obama that her dislike of Donald Trump far outweighs any, you know, remanence of the bad blood left over from the 2008 primary.

BALDWIN: But, still, you would have the Trump folks who, I'm sure, like a Kellyanne Conway, would point out and say, well even that she has the first lady and she has the president, she's still not - they - you know, her line is that she should be doing better if they feel like that they've done so successfully. And speaking of Kellyanne Conway, she made news saying this over the weekend. Roll it.

[14:10:20] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: We are behind. She has some advantages, like $66 million in ad buys just in the month of September, thereby doubling her ad buys from August. Most of those ads are negative against Donald Trump, classic politics of personal destruction, cesspool kind of ads. And she has tremendous advantages. She has a former president, happens to be her president, campaigning for her, the current president and first lady, vice president, all much more popular than she can hope to be. And she's - but she's seen as the incumbent. So our advantage going in, we were behind one, three, four points in some of these swing states that Mitt Romney lost to President Obama, Chuck (ph). Our advantage is that Donald Trump is just going to continue to take the case directly to the people. He doesn't expect to be able to cut through the noise or the silence and the way we're treated by some.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, Kevin, here's my question for you. I mean, you know, Kellyanne Conway is such a, you know, she's made a living on being a pollster. She reads numbers, I'm sure, in her sleep. And so you heard her say, you know, she acknowledged that they are a bit behind. Sean Spicer, all right, the spokesperson for the RNC says it's a dead heat. And then you had Donald Trump over the weekend saying, we're winning. Three different perspectives.

MADDEN: Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: Which is it and, most importantly, what should the American voter think?

MADDEN: Well, I mean, the American voter, it's up to them on Election Day. They're going to - they're going to render their decision. But I think for - from a campaign standpoint, look, Kellyanne is not only a pollster, she's a very good pollster. And she has - I think it's very important when you're in a campaign like this that is behind, if you look at any of the averages of all the national polls right now, the Trump folks are behind Clinton with a crucial 15 days to go, you have you to be cognizant of the challenges that lay ahead.

So I think what was good about Kelly's answer was that they acknowledged that they have some - that the other side have some advantages and then she quickly laid out how she thinks they're going to overcome those advantages with their own strengths of their own candidate. That is crucial right now to sending that message to the - you know, the millions of volunteers that Donald Trump may have across the country that are going to be getting folks to the polls from here to Election Day. If they were to do it pie in the sky and soft talk it, that's the worst kind of thing you could do going - heading into Election Day.

BALDWIN: Their own - she has their own plan, their own map to 270. Kevin Madden and Kate Andersen Brower, thank you both so much, as always.

MADDEN: Great to be with you.

BROWER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: We were just listening to Hillary Clinton a moment ago, right? She was speaking with Senator Warren in New Hampshire. And just to clarify, when she mentioned Trump is conceding defeat, she was referring to his comments about the battle in Mosul, which he called a disaster. Hillary Clinton went on to say to Trump calling America's strategy there as quote/unquote "dangerous." Actually more on that in a moment. We'll talk to Arwa Damon about what's happening there in Iraq.

Meantime, a Democrat tightening his Senate race against a Republican after releasing this ad, putting together this AR-15 blindfolded. Hear why.

And another sign it is 2016 - Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus knocking on doors of dorm rooms to get out the vote. We'll talk to two students who met with the artist formally known as Hannah Montana.

And the military uses a cash bonus to recruit Americans to risk their lives, fight in wars, which they did, but now the military wants the bonuses back. Why? This is outrageous. We have to talk about this today.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:17:34] BALDWIN: Let me set this up for you. A blindfolded Democrat, who would like to be senator, an AR-15 and a table. This is a campaign ad boosting the chances of this one candidate challenging a Republican senator in Missouri.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON KANDER: I'm Jason Kander. And Senator Blunt has been attacking me on guns. Well, in the Army, I learned how to use and respect my rifle. In Afghanistan, I volunteered to be an extra gun in a convoy of unarmored (ph) SUVs. And in the state legislature, I supported Second Amendment rights. I also believe in background checks so that terrorists can't get their hands on one of these. I approve this message, because I'd like to see Senator Blunt do this.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: With me now to discuss, branding and social media consultant Peter Shankman and Mark Preston, CNN Politics executive editor.

I mean we were all watching that ad. I really wanted to start with that ad. To you, sir, because from what I've read about that race in Missouri, it was that ad that really flipped things for Jason Kander.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Yes, it certainly did. Look, he is a former Army National Guard veteran. And at the time, Roy Blunt is a well-known name in Missouri politics. He's been there a long time. His son was the governor. But in Missouri is a stated where, you know, they embrace the Second Amendment. So when you have a Democrat go out there and be able to take that issue off of the table, that's very powerful. And we saw that in that ad.

BALDWIN: Just quickly, you - I want to move on a conservative ad, but you like that one as well.

PETER SHANKMAN, BRANDING & SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTANT: Completely - completely the same thing. I loved it. It was a definite mike drop. I called a friend of mine in the military. I said, is this something they do? Is this (INAUDIBLE)?

BALDWIN: Blindfolded.

SHANKMAN: He said, they do it all the time. They practice in case they have to put together their weapons in the dark. And it's a bang of honor to really be able to do that as well as he did.

BALDWIN: So you agree it's effective?

SHANKMAN: Oh, definitely.

BALDWIN: Let me play -

SHANKMAN: Phenomenally effective.

BALDWIN: Let me play something else. You liked an ad on the conservative side. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVANKA TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S DAUGHTER: The most important job any woman can have is being a mother. And it shouldn't mean taking a pay cut. I'm Ivanka Trump, a mother, a wife and an entrepreneur. Donald Trump understands the needs of a modern workforce. My father will change outdated labor laws so that they support women and American families. He will provide tax credits for child care, paid maternity leave and dependent care savings accounts. This will allow women to support their families and further their careers.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm Donald Trump and I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: What did you like about that?

SHANKMAN: I think from a standpoint of women, which he's definitely trying to get to -

BALDWIN: Yes.

SHANKMAN: They - they are looking at them to saying, wow, maybe I can be that. Maybe I have that - she's a mother, she's an entrepreneur, she has it all. You know, and it's a takeaway from everything we've been hearing of Donald (ph). The ad dropped of the 30th of September, which is difficult, this was right around the time that the sexual allegations dropped as well, so it kind of muffled the ad. But from an advertising - strictly an advertising perspective, a very good piece.

[14:20:13] BALDWIN: On the flipside though, would you agree that some of the more effective ads this cycle have been Hillary Clinton's ads where she just takes Donald Trump's words and uses them against him?

PRESTON: Absolutely. And we saw that in a couple ads. One specifically, the deplorable ad, which I think was very powerful, if we have that.

SHANKMAN: Yes. Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Speaking to wealthy donors, Hillary Clinton called tens of millions of Americans deplorable.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.

The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic - you name it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People like you, you and you, deplorable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Talk to me about it.

PRESTON: OK. So not only was Donald Trump doing what Hillary Clinton's been doing to Donald Trump, using her own words, but look at the images there. We saw what seemed to be a union worker.

SHANKMAN: Yes.

PRESTON: You know, a blue-collar worker with a hard hat. We saw an African-American, you know, look like was at the RNC, or at least one of his rallies. Really trying to show a broad spectrum of people who support Donald Trump that Hillary Clinton says are deplorable because they back him. So it was a good ad for Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: And even though she walked back, you know, apologized -

PRESTON: Sure. BALDWIN: That's a word that I still hear from Republicans -

SHANKMAN: Yes. Right.

BALDWIN: In saying, well, he may have said nasty woman, but she said this.

And then there's the element, ads aside, of social media. First of all, that we're even covering a candidate. I never would have thought I'd be sitting here and we're following the tweets, but he makes news, right?

SHANKMAN: Every single time.

PRESTON: Every single day.

SHANKMAN: Every single time.

And what's been fascinating about that is because the media has been paying so much attention to his tweets, it's actually given a stage to other people who would have had some - people would have look a little bit from their tweets, but now everything's in fair play. Marley Matlin's (ph) tweet just yesterday where she's pointing to the sign, nasty woman. It's brilliant. By the way, the woman never ages. FYI, she never ages.

BALDWIN: Beautiful. Beautiful.

SHANKMAN: But, I mean, I love that. And the amount of retweets that's pulled up. And it just sort of - every time something like that happens on either side, it really just fires up that base in a way that advertising can't do.

BALDWIN: How quickly this has moved because we're all living in this new age of check the tweets, see what's happening, the retweets, the gifs, the memes (ph), the whole deal.

SHANKMAN: Yes.

BALDWIN: Whoo, Peter Shankman, Mark Preston, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

SHANKMAN: Thanks.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, in the battleground state of Florida, more than 1 million people have already cast their votes by mail, but it's how the numbers break down that could be an early indicator, could be, for the race for president. We'll have that for you next.

Plus, Donald Trump calls the battle to save the city of Mosul a, quote, "disaster." And a lot of people disagree, including the secretary of defense. We will take you live to Iraq. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:27:11] BALDWIN: Donald Trump calls the fight to retake Mosul from ISIS a disaster. On Twitter he writes, "the attack on Mosul is turning out to be a total disaster. We gave them months of notice. U.S. is looking so dumb. Vote Trump and win again."

Well, the man who's in charge of the Defense Department disagrees. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, in Iraq over the weekend, he says the mission won't be easy, but, in fact, it is going well so far.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASH CARTER, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I'm encouraged by what I see. So far it is proceeding according to our plan. We've got tough fighting ahead and the U.S. will continue to play its part.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is in Iraq near the front lines. Arwa's on the phone.

And, Arwa, you're there. So you tell me what you're seeing.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, it's a very complicated battlefield. One does have to come out and say that. And when you speak with U.S. commanders, they are very clear to emphasize, and the Iraqis will agree with them to a certain degree, that this is very much an Iraqi-led operation with U.S. support.

What does that mean? It means that both the American and the Iraqi commanders will sit in joint coordination centers, joint operation rooms, and the Iraqis will be the ones watching the screens and, for the most part, calling in the targeting, saying what they want to have hit as the Iraqi troops are moving forward.

And we've witnessed this on a number of occasions. One cannot emphasize how significant the air power that the U.S. and other coalition partners bring to the table, as well as the other artillery enablers that they have. This kind of fire and air power is what has really bolstered the Iraqi's confidence and helped them move forward as they do get closer to Mosul.

But what's also important at this stage, Brooke, is a recognition that once they reach the city itself, the dynamics are going to be very different. Right now they're fighting out in open plains and in villages that are, by and large, deserted. Once they hit the city, itself with a population of upwards of 1.2 million people, calling in those artillery strikes, calling in those airstrikes are going to be much more difficult because of the risk of civilian casualties. Now, yes, the U.S. does have some very precise munitions at its disposal, but it's still going to be much more difficult. Add to all of that, the fact that no one really knows exactly what ISS has in store when it comes to its own capacity and desire to defend that city. So there's a lot that's unknown at this stage.

BALDWIN: That is the frightening mystery, but you would know, you know, everything you just said, you visited the largest military base in Iraq, talking to soldiers there. Arwa Damon, we'll stay in close contact with you there near the front lines of the war there in Iraq.

[14:30:08] Coming up next, in the battleground state of Florida, more than 1 million people have already cast their vote via mail