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Melania Speaks On 'Access Hollywood' Comments; The Fight for Mosul. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 18, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: -- gets back at noon tomorrow. We'll be live from the debate site in Las Vegas. "WOLF" starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 10:00 a.m. Las Vegas, 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 8:00 p.m. in Mosul, Iraq. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We're following breaking news, just three weeks away from Election Day in the U.S. presidential race. Today, Donald Trump has two campaign events in Colorado. Hillary Clinton is off the campaign trail again. She's preparing for tomorrow night's critically important debate in Las Vegas.

But the Clinton camp still has important supporters in play. And that includes President Obama who spoke about the election only moments ago during a joint press conference with the Italian prime minister when he gave this response to a question about Donald Trump's claim that the election here in the United States is rigged. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have never seen, in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place. It's unprecedented. It happens to be based on no facts.

Every expert, regardless of political party, regardless of ideology, conservative or liberal, who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found. That, keep in mind, elections are run by state and local officials which means that there are places like Florida, for example, where you've got a Republican governor, who's Republican appointees are going to be running and monitoring a whole bunch of these election sites.

And the notion that somehow if Mr. Trump losing Florida it's because of those people that you have to watch out for. That is both irresponsible -- and, by the way, it doesn't really leadership and toughness that you'd want out of a president. You start whining before the game's over? If whenever things are going badly for you and you lose, you start blaming somebody else? Then you don't have what it takes to be in this job. I'd advise Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's go to our Chief White House Correspondent Michelle Kosinski who's joining us right now. Michelle, the president seemed reluctant at first to discuss the election and then he really went after Trump, accusing him of whining, if you will, before the game is over.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, he hasn't been holding back lately. Twice he used the word unprecedented, during this press conference in the Rose Garden. You heard him use the words irresponsible and whining more than once. But, you know, this is the second time when we've heard Obama talk about the elections.

He also saves some of his strongest criticism not just for Donald Trump but for Republicans. That wasn't in relation to this rigged election situation or the allegations that are out there.

This is about Donald Trump's statements regarding Vladimir Putin. That's when the president took that opportunity to also hammer Republicans who had criticized President Obama in the past for talking to Vladimir Putin, now they're supporting Donald Trump who has praised Putin.

So, that shows you how much the president is not just thinking about hitting the Republican candidate, but also all of those other elections that are happening down ballot. I mean, he wants to include Republicans that are supporting Donald Trump in his comments against them -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, the president had said at the beginning he was going to be a little bit more reluctant to go after Trump at this event with the visiting prime minister of Italy. But he really let loose on that issue of Trump's, quote, "whining," about this election.

Michelle, thanks very much.

I want to bring in our panel to discuss what we just heard from the president of the United States. We have our CNN Politics Editor Juana Summers who's with us, our Political Commentator Ryan Lizza, the Washington Correspondent for "The New Yorker," Matea Gold, National Political Reporter for the "Washington Post" and our Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto.

So, Juana, how effective was the president's decision to go ahead and slam Trump on this issue of a supposed rigged election?

JUANA SUMMERS, CNN POLITICS EDITOR: Well, Wolf, the president said, as you noted, that he was going to be a little bit more soft on his criticism of Trump. I certainly don't think he did that.

[13:05:00] Look, I think that's really effective (ph) and something that's important to note here is there just isn't factual evidence of the widespread rigging or voter fraud that Trump has alleged. And I think president Obama drove that home today.

Here we are just three weeks out from the election and you have a major party nominee who is effectively telling Americans they may not be able to have confidence in a -- in the system of voting that will choose the next president and offices across the country.

Early voting already in play in many states around the country. So, I think that the -- we'll likely see the president, if Donald Trump and his surrogates continue to push this line, bring that up again and again because it's critical that Americans be able to trust that the systems they are voting in will work well for them.

BLITZER: That democracy really -- that the democracy really works. Ryan, all of us know Donald Trump. When you hit him, you know what he's going to do --

RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No doubt about it.

BLITZER: -- in response. The president of the United States just hit him. He's going to be speaking in an hour or two. You know what he's going to do.

LIZZA: There's no doubt he'll respond. You know, I think Obama did something that he's done a lot with Trump. He tries to argue that Trump's basically a phony. He did this when he talked about Trump in economics. He says he not a real populist. And he did it today.

He didn't just make the sort of high-minded moral argument about how you shouldn't discredit our election system. He also said, look, he's whining. And the better -- you know, he's basically saying he's not a tough guy. If you were a tough guy, he would go out there and appeal to voters and win that way. So, kind of two punches there.

I also think on the bigger, broader foreign policy, he's making a subtle contrast with Trump and Republicans. You know, Don -- Barack Obama was criticized early in his tenure for not being close enough to Europe, not cultivating European allies.

Here, he is ending his eight years in office with the Italian leaders and basically saying a united Europe is important. NATO (INAUDIBLE), of course, is a native ally is important. And the Republican Party has turned toward Putin and Russia under Donald Trump. There are two arguments there at least.

BLITZER: And Matea, he also responded to the suggestion that there was a quid pro quo between the State Department and the FBI during the Hillary Clinton tenure as secretary of state. The president insisted that did not happen. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think you've heard directly from both of FBI and the State Department that the notion or the accounts that have been put out there are just not true. Some of the more sensational implications or appearances, as you stated them, aren't based on actual events and based on what actually happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So, I'm sure Trump is going to respond to that as well as other Republicans who do see an improper quid pro quo between the FBI and the -- and the State Department on a sensitive issue involving the classification of Hillary Clinton e-mails.

MATEA GOLD, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": And the political problem here for Hillary Clinton and for the administration is even though both the State Department and the FBI has said there was no quid pro quo, there was no change and no classification, it -- the fact that there was even a mere discussion about it was enough to give Trump and his campaign and Republicans a huge opening yesterday. And they drove right through that and we're going to see them continue to do that today.

BLITZER: On Russia, Jim, the president minced no words going after Trump and his supporters as well. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mr. Trump's continued flattery of Mr. Putin, and the degree to which he appears to model many of his policies and approaches to politics on Mr. Putin is unprecedented in American politics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Now, that's unprecedented as well. You've heard him make that -- use that word twice now in this news conference.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's interesting, lost in this geopolitical romance between Putin and Trump is what could be a reasonable discussion of the Obama legacy, in terms of the relationship with Russia. Obama in 2009 with Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, had this reset, the famous reset button in Geneva, that has -- that has failed, right?

And you can argue whether that might have happened anyway, regardless of what U.S. policy is. But that's a substantive discussion you could have in all of these debates and all these -- all these interviews with the presidential candidates, and particularly with Hillary Clinton who was secretary of state and now running against Donald Trump.

But Donald Trump has so swung the discussion in a that really -- no one even in his own party wants to go of cozying up, in effect, to Putin. You had Donald Trump saying, in the last 24 hours, that he might very well meet with Putin even before he's inaugurated, if he were to win. This happens on the same day that -- you know, in the same weeks that Russia has deployed a -- as a for instance here, a missile defense system in Syria that could take down U.S. warplanes and greatly diminishes U.S. options there, in terms of Syria.

So, the debate that could have happened here in the center, about how to approach Russia, has swung all the way over here to what it is. And the president's -- granted he's a politician here supporting the Democratic candidate, but it is fractionally true. Donald Trump's positions on Russia are unprecedented. Not just for a Democratic candidate, for a Republican candidate for president.

[13:10:09] BLITZER: And it comes at a time when the U.S. government, at the highest levels, have directly, publicly, officially accused the Russians of cyber warfare on U.S. political -- Democrats, in particular.

We'll have more on that. Everybody stay with us.

Also coming up, Malania Trump defending her husband to CNN. What she had to say about his vulgar comments back in 2005 and the string of accusations of sexual misconduct.

Plus, we'll have the latest on the battle to retake Mosul in Iraq. U.S.-backed forces facing explosives, booby traps, suicide bombers as they try to free the city from ISIS control. All that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:15:13] BLITZER: Donald Trump's wife comes to his defense. Melania Trump refers to those lewd comments her husband made in a 2005 videotape as simply boy talk. She says the woman -- the women accusing him of inappropriate sexual behavior are lying. Trump's wife sat down with our own Anderson Cooper. It was her first on camera interview since Trump's vulgar comments from that "Access Hollywood" videotape went public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELANIA TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S WIFE: I said to my husband that, you know, the language is inappropriate. It's not acceptable. And I was surprised, because that is not the man that I know. And as you can see from the tape, the cameras were not on. It was only a mike. And I wonder if they even knew that the mike was on, because they -- they were kind of a -- a boy talk, and he was lead on, like, egg on, from the host to say dirty and bad stuff.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Is that what it is to you, just locker room talk?

TRUMP: Yes, I -- it's kind of a two teenage boys. Actually, they should behave better, right? It was not --

COOPER: He was 59.

TRUMP: Correct. And sometimes I said, I have two boys at home. I have my young son, and I have my husband.

COOPER: So a number of women have come forward. They've made allegations against your husband. Some of them go back more than 30 years. He has said they're lying. Do you believe him?

TRUMP: I believe my husband. I believe my husband. This was all organized from the opposition. And -- with the details that they go, did they ever -- did they ever check the background of these women? They don't have any facts. And even the story that came out in "People" magazine, the writer that she said that my husband took her to the room and start kissing her, she wrote in the same story about me, that she saw me on Fifth Avenue and I said to her, Natasha, how come we don't see you anymore? I was never friend with her. I would not recognize her.

COOPER: That never happened?

TRUMP: Never happened. That's why I send them the letter, because it discredited the story.

COOPER: Right, your --

TRUMP: She --

COOPER: Your lawyer has sent a letter to "People" magazine saying they have to retract?

TRUMP: Of -- of course. Yes, because was not true. I'm very strong. People didn't really know me. People think and talk about me the -- like -- oh, Melania, oh, poor Melania. Don't feel sorry for me. Don't feel sorry for me. I -- I can handle everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's bring back our panel to discuss what we just heard from Melania Trump. Juana Summers is still with us. Ryan Lizza, Matea Gold.

So, Juana, first of all, the whole issue, he said it was just locker room talk. She called it boy talk. Anderson Cooper pointed out he was 59 years old at the time. What do you think of her explanation?

JUANA SUMMERS, CNN POLITICS EDITOR: Well, so at this point most people have either heard, seen the tape, they've heard something about it and about these remarks and what's interesting to me is that most people say that this isn't going to impact how they vote, whether or not they decide to support Donald Trump or not. This doesn't matter to them.

But I think that more importantly than the boy talk/locker room talk is listening to Melania Trump talk about the allegations. We're now talking about more than half a dozen women who have come on the record and said -- have accused the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of some form of untoward conduct ranging from inappropriate comments to unwanted sexual contact, to kissing, a variety of litany of comments. And I think that that is the part that gets really dangerous here, right?

This has been an election where people have questioned Donald Trump's temperament repeatedly. We've seen in polls repeatedly that people are concerned that he does not have the character to serve as commander in chief or the temperament to be in the Oval Office. And I think that can be really damaging if we see more women come out. And with these types of allegations, that's the part that's a real danger for the Trump campaign, whether or not you agree that this is locker room talk, as Trump and his surrogates have said, or if it is sexual assault, which is from the sound of what he's describing, that's what it is.

BLITZER: And Trump has said, as you know, Ryan, that maybe these women weren't even that attractive, not attractive enough for him to make those kind of moves. And Anderson discussed that particular aspect with Melania. Listen to this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: He's made some comments about the way some of the women who are accusing him look. What do you think about that?

[13:20:03] TRUMP: Well, that's him. He's raw. He will say it as he feels it. So, you know, I -- I know he respects women, but he's defending himself because they are lies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: She's saying all these women, nine of them, at least nine of them, maybe more, have publically, on the record, come out and made these accusations.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, and, look, very hard for us, obviously, to judge who's right. But you have three pieces of information there really weigh on the side of the accusers. One, you have before any of the accusations came forward, you have Donald Trump saying that he engaged in this behavior, saying he sexually assaulted people.

BLITZER: In that "Access Hollywood" video.

LIZZA: In the 2005 video. Two, you have him, after the fact, saying at least to a -- about a couple of them, well, these ones are not attractive enough for me to have assaulted. Well, implicit, that is, if they are attractive enough, then maybe you would have done it, right? And then you have -- you -- well two pieces of information. I'm having my Rick Perry moment here. I forgot my third point.

But, you know, and I -- you know, Melania is in a tough position. She's the candidate's spouse. It's natural to want to defend your husband. But I don't think it's credible when she says that it was Billy Bush's fault and that he egged him on. When I listen to that tape, that's not how -- how I -- how I saw it. I don't think Billy Bush pushed Trump into saying those things. He was bragging.

BLITZER: Matea, was the interview a pro -- help for Donald Trump and his campaign, or did it hurt his campaign?

MATEA GOLD, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, I think it told us something about the thinking inside the campaign, which is they put Melania in what is an all too familiar political arc type, right, the wife standing by her husband when he's been accused of some kind of inappropriate behavior. And I don't think they wouldn't have done that and kept that story alive if they did not feel like this was hurting him, and continuing to hurt him.

Whether it was effective or not I think is probably going to be in the eye of the beholder. But one thing that she didn't do that everyone sort of has always wanted to see from her, and we never have, is this sort of personal insight into who Trump the man is. She speaks about him in generalities. She talks about, I believe my husband, but you -- she's a very -- clearly a very private person. We don't get a sense of really any kind of window into their relationship or what it is about him that makes her feel so comfortable with the situation.

BLITZER: We're going to have much more on this story, this extraordinary race for the White House. That's coming up. So, stay with us.

Also coming up, we've got breaking news, Iraqi war planes drops 17 million leaflets over 16 areas controlled by ISIS, saying, drop your weapons and surrender or else. We're going to go live to the outskirts of Mosul for the late on the battle to retake that key city, the second largest city in Iraq. A million people are still there from the terror group.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:26:33] BLITZER: We'll get back at today's big political developments in the race for the White House just in a few minutes, but I want to go to Iraq right now, where the military offensive to retake the key city of Mosul from ISIS is now in its second day. Already, Iraqi-led forces say they've recaptured about 75 square miles of territory and at least nine villages on the outskirts of Mosul. President Obama said last hour, it's going to be a very difficult fight but he's confident ISIS will be defeated.

CNN's Barbara Starr is covering the story from the Pentagon. Nick Paton Walsh is on the ground near Mosul and he reports on the first 24 hours of this offensive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They've been waiting years to finally push through the lines and take on ISIS' brutality. And when the day came, it was still a dusty, slow grind. Peshmerga, into the desert, to flank a main road to Mosul. Distinctive American vehicles with western occupants in their convoy.

Airstrikes often hitting the places they were headed to first. Hopes ISIS might not fight for the tiny settlements around Mosul, quickly dashed.

WALSH (on camera): This is the first village they come across as they move down the road towards Mosul and they're encountering pretty heavy resistance. Returning fire with what they have.

WALSH (voice-over): Which are often blunt and old. They want this over, fast. Suddenly, there's panic. They spot a car. A suicide car bomb racing towards them. It's ISIS. One, two rockets try to hit it. The third is lucky.

They push on towards the main prize, the road itself to Mosul, flanked by oil fires lit by ISIS and airstrikes piling in regardless. Shells still landing near the Peshmerga. A casualty taken away.

Down on the main objective, the road itself, ISIS sent two car bombs at them and attacked from both sides.

WALSH (on camera): The Iraqi military, too, at some point, will have to push down here towards Mosul. But this has been an effort with much international support, a lot of coalition planning, American airpower.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shut the doors.

WALSH: (INAUDIBLE) move.

Is yours (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay in the car now.

WALSH (voice-over): ISIS still everywhere, even in the hills. They give chase to one man, an ISIS fighter. He shoots a Peshmerga. Humvees rescue him and they hunt on. An ISIS fighter popped up from a tunnel, shoots. He blows himself up. A tenacity and desire to die that will surely slow and bloody the fight ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)