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Donald Trump Refuses to Acknowledge Election Outcome; Trump and Clinton Trade Barbs in Final Debate; Women Fire Back at Trump, Embrace "Nasty Woman". Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 20, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WALLACE, DEBATE MODERATOR: Do you make the same commitment, sir, that you will absolutely accept the result of this election?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will look at it at the time. I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's horrifying. You know, every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction, he claims whatever it is is rigged against him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. It may be the single most shocking moment in an election season riddled with name calling and ugliness, a defiant nominee challenging a pillar of American democracy and refusing to say that he will accept the outcome of the election. All of this less than three weeks before Americans choose their next president.

We have a lot to cover this morning, but let's begin in Las Vegas with CNN's Manu Raju. Good morning.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. This was supposed to be the debate that would turn around Donald Trump's fortunes after a rocky month, perhaps the rockiest of any presidential candidate in recent memory.

And at the beginning of the debate, he was executing a policy argument that conservatives like to hear about abortion, about the Supreme Court, about the Second Amendment. But then, Hillary Clinton got under his skin about Russia. And then he made this comment about the elections that has overshadowed everything.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (voice-over): Donald Trump refusing to say he will accept the election results.

TRUMP: I will look at it at the time. I'm not looking at anything now. I'll look at it at the time.

WALLACE: Are you saying you're not prepared now to commit to that principle?

TRUMP: What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense. OK?

CLINTON: Well, Chris, let me respond to that because that's horrifying. You know, every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction, he claims whatever it is is rigged against him.

RAJU (voice-over): Trump suggesting Hillary Clinton's e-mail use is disqualifying.

TRUMP: She shouldn't be allowed to run. She's guilty of a very, very serious crime.

RAJU (voice-over): Clinton changing the subject of her Wall Street speeches to Russia and pressuring the GOP nominee to condemn Russia for hacking and stealing Democratic records, Trump taking the bait.

CLINTON: Will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this and make it clear that he will not have the help of Putin in this election, that he rejects Russian espionage against Americans, which he actually encouraged in the past?

TRUMP: I don't know Putin. He's said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good.

He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our President. And I'll tell you what, we are in very serious trouble. From everything I see, has no respect for this person.

CLINTON: Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as President, and it's not to say --

TRUMP: No puppet. No --

WALLACE: You condemn their interference?

TRUMP: Of course, I condemn.

RAJU (voice-over): Throughout the night, Trump repeatedly interrupting and attacking her.

CLINTON: It's pretty clear --

TRUMP: You're the puppet.

CLINTON: It's pretty --

TRUMP: Wrong.

CLINTON: A very clear fact that --

TRUMP: Wrong.

CLINTON: Before the -- TRUMP: Excuse me, my turn.

CLINTON: Replenish the self-security --

TRUMP: Such a nasty woman.

CLINTON: -- trust fund --

RAJU (voice-over): Trump did have a strong start sparring with Clinton on issues that play well with conservatives, like abortion.

TRUMP: Based on what she's saying and based on where she's going and where she's been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day, and that's not acceptable.

CLINTON: Using that kind of scare rhetoric is just terribly unfortunate. You should meet with some of the women that I've met with, women I've known over the course of my life. This is one of the worst possible choices that any woman and her family has to make, and I do not believe the government should be making it.

RAJU (voice-over): Trump even going as far as claiming his pro-life Supreme Court picks would automatically overturn Roe v. Wade, something he can't guarantee. Later, Clinton hitting back on immigration.

CLINTON: When it comes to the wall that Donald talks about building, he went to Mexico, he had a meeting with the Mexican President, he didn't even raise it. He choked.

TRUMP: First of all, I had a very good meeting with the President of Mexico, very nice man.

RAJU (voice-over): Trump raising eyebrows with this response to the question of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.

TRUMP: Once the border is secured, at a later date, we'll make a determination as to the rest, but we have some bad hombres here and we're going to get them out.

RAJU (voice-over): And once again, rejecting the growing number of accusations from several women of making unwanted advances.

TRUMP: Because their stories are all totally false. I have to say that. And I didn't even apologize to my wife who is sitting right here because I didn't do anything. I didn't know any of these women. I didn't see these women. These women, the woman on the plane, the woman -- I think they want either fame or her campaign did it. And I think it's her campaign.

[09:05:02] CLINTON: Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don't think there is a woman anywhere who doesn't know what that feels like. So we now know what Donald thinks and what he says and how he acts toward women. That's who Donald is.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Now, Republicans close to the campaign realize how damaging his comments about possibly not accepting the election results are, trying to do damage control both last night and this morning. Here's Kellyanne Conway speaking on "NEW DAY" earlier this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, DONALD TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I've said -- I'm his campaign manager, his running mate, his daughter, we've all said the same thing, absent widespread fraud or indices of irregularities but please don't say he said, quote, unless I win, I won't respect it. He did not say that.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: He didn't say it. He said, I won't tell you until then. He didn't what you said either. He didn't say, oh, look, if there's a huge irregularity or something like that, like Florida, then we have to look at it. He didn't say that. He said, I don't know. I'll look at it when it happens. I want to keep you in suspense. He didn't say what you said.

CONWAY: So he was supposed to give 10 or 12 different hypotheticals?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, Carol, I can tell you, the Republicans I have been e- mailing with are nervous about not just the debate performance but Donald Trump's overall standing. They're worried that he's going to continue to tank in the polls, and the bottom could fall out and cost Republicans control of Congress. So we'll see how this plays out in the coming weeks, but a lot of nerves in Republican circles right now, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Manu Raju reporting live from Las Vegas. Even talk show host Laura Ingraham, a passionate Trump supporter tweeted, "He" -- Trump -- "should have said he would accept the results of the election. There is no other option unless we're in a recount again."

The response to Ingraham's tweet? This is from an Ingraham follower. This is from a woman named April LaJune tweeted, quote, there's another option. "It's called the Second Amendment. If you think we will tolerate this, you're mistaken." LaJune went on to tweet, "The second amendment is meant to protect yourself from a tyrannical government."

So let's talk about this. Todd Graham is a debate director of Southern Illinois University, David Swerdlick is the assistant editor at "The Washington Post," Yamiche Alcindor is a national political reporter for "The New York Times," and CNN Senior Political Reporter Nia-Malika Henderson is here. Welcome to all of you.

Nia-Malika, I want to start with you and that tweet from a Laura Ingraham follower. That's exactly why even many Republicans are saying, you can't go around insisting that the system is rigged and that you're not going to accept the results of the election. NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, and we saw

this happen at a Mike Pence rally, right, when a woman stood up and said, if Hillary Clinton wins, she would be ready for a revolution. And it doesn't help, right, that Donald Trump, when he speaks to his supporters, his followers, he basically says that electing Hillary Clinton means the end of the country, means the end of American sovereignty.

So you do have this heated rhetoric around this rigged system which has a racialized overlay, as well, right? I mean, Rudy Giuliani as well as Donald Trump basically saying that this kind of rigging and this kind of voter fraud is going to happen in cities. It's going happen with illegal immigrants who are showing up in droves and voting illegally. So it's more of the same in many ways.

And I think, you know, to listen to Manu's reporter there and to hear about the nervous Republicans, I mean, I think we really get to see that Donald Trump is ending this campaign where he began it, right? I mean, there he is with Sarah Palin who is, in some ways, a Donald Trump before Donald Trump was Donald Trump back in 2008. There he is with Malik Obama at that debate. There he is also stoking some of the division there using the word "hombre" when he was talking about illegal immigration --

COSTELLO: Right.

HENDERSON: -- and what he would do about it. And I think the polls show that. I mean, in some ways, we've had a very steady race, Donald Trump has been behind, Hillary Clinton has been over performing almost --

COSTELLO: Well --

HENDERSON: -- in every demographic group.

COSTELLO: I want to center on this rigged election because I do think it's so very important. Todd, what is Donald Trump exactly trying to accomplish here by saying things like this?

TODD GRAHAM, DIRECTOR OF DEBATE, SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY: I'm not exactly sure what he wants to accomplish. Honestly, it does sort of play in to Donald Trump, his history. His history is that he's not a very good loser, and he doesn't like it when things don't go well.

Now, the problem and perhaps he hasn't factored in, maybe he has, is that he now has followers that are sometimes frightening, perhaps even on edge. And anyone like me who has ever made negative comments about Donald Trump in the press or his debating ability or his policies, we know exactly who those people are because we've heard from them and they're frightening. And now, they're following him when he says things like he doesn't know if he'll follow the election results. I mean, that's did that's pretty scary.

[09:10:04] COSTELLO: And, Yamiche, you kind of wonder, if Hillary Clinton wins, what Election Day might look like. YAMICHE ALCINDOR, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I

mean this is really going to be the key to a Clinton administration if she is elected. I've talked to so many supporters of Donald Trump who say that they do not trust her, that they think that they are buying into this idea that this election is going to be rigged, that she's a criminal that really belongs in jail. So she's going to really have to face how she deals with this country and how she brings people together.

The idea that she's already called some of his supporters deplorable is something that really has cast doubts among a lot of these supporters on whether or not she's going to be their president. So you can imagine that in the first, hopefully, 100 days of her administration that she's going to be going there trying to talk about the fact that now that this election is over, we're supposed to come together as a country. And it's going to be really important that the people she puts in office and the people that she fills her cabinets with, that they are really focused on that.

COSTELLO: So, David, it does make you wonder if Mr. Trump does lose this election --

DAVID SWERDLICK, ASSISTANT EDITOR, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes.

COSTELLO: -- will he concede? Will he come out on stage and will he call, you know, on the phone and congratulate Hillary Clinton as the winner?

SWERDLICK: Carol, you know, I can imagine a scenario where if Secretary Clinton has enough of a margin, Trump will have to find some kind of way of acknowledging that at least on the surface, he lost.

But here I think is it presents two problems for Donald Trump just in the way he made his statement last night. One, there was a way for him to finesse this. If he was sincerely worried about voter fraud, he could have said, look, I fully anticipate, you know, accepting the verdict of the American people, win or lose, on November 8th, but my team and my lawyers are going to make sure, do everything we can, to prevent any kind of voter fraud which we believe may happen in some places around the country. He could have said that. Instead, he left it at this, we'll see. We'll see.

Everything with him, this is his other problem, is a big reveal, right? Just like a few weeks ago, show up at the Trump Hotel, reporters, and I may or may not tell you what I think about President Obama's citizenship. Ladies and gentlemen of the American public, let's see what happens on November 8th. Maybe I'll concede, maybe I won't. And that, I think, is indicative of the Donald Trump we've seen throughout this campaign.

COSTELLO: So, Nia-Malika, does Hillary Clinton have to win by a land slide for voters to accept her victory?

HENDERSON: You know, in some ways, I think those hard core Donald Trump supporters, even if he concedes, are very likely to be very much stuck in the same place, and in terms of thinking, that this campaign was stolen.

I mean, remember what happened in the wake of 2008? Barack Obama, in a landslide victory, but there was this group of people, Republicans and conservatives, who constantly questioned the legitimacy of his presidency by claiming that he wasn't born in America.

And the other thing about Donald Trump, even if he concedes, right, that night, do we really think he's going to stick to that position? I mean, here is someone who might say something on CNN and then tell Sean Hannity something else. I mean, he is someone who likes to do that and likes to draw attention to, you know, changing his mind.

So you know, I think in some ways, whether he concedes or not, the American democracy will remain intact. It doesn't hinge on what Donald Trump does. I mean Donald Trump, should he lose on Election Day, he's not going back to the Senate. He's not going back to a governor's mansion. He's going back to Trump Tower, and he'll have his Twitter account. He won't have a standing army. He won't have a Party. He barely has a Party now.

So I think, in some ways, this idea of, you know, American democracy hinging on what Donald Trump does should he lose is a little bit overblown.

COSTELLO: OK. And, Todd, I'll throw this one to you because I've seen the head line in more than one place. Donald Trump said something incredibly damaging when he said he wouldn't accept the results of the election, right? So many people are wondering, does he really want to win this thing?

GRAHAM: Yes, I mean, it's a really good question. I actually wrote in my column for CNN.com today that he actually fulfilled his debating strategy last night. I gave him straight As on fulfilling his strategy.

The problem is, he had a losing strategy. His strategy was to not be truthful and to debate for his base, but they're already voting for him. It almost seems like, in these debates, he's doing everything absolutely wrong. I mean, his strategy is the worst disaster in the history -- oh, well, you've heard that before.

So, anyway, my point is that I'm not sure what his plan is. I'm not sure if he's trying to set up for something after the election, but certainly, he didn't seem to be debating with a strategy that was designed to win votes.

COSTELLO: All right. So, guys, stick around, Todd, David, Yamiche, and Nia-Malika. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, we know Donald Trump's fired up his base, but did his nasty fight with Hillary Clinton just create another fire storm with women?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:19:15] COSTELLO: Hillary Clinton calls Donald Trump Vladimir Putin's puppet. And he calls Clinton this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's part of my commitment to raise taxes on the wealthy. My Social Security payroll contribution will go up, as will Donald's, assuming he can't figure out how to get out of it. But what we want to do is to replenish the Social Security Trust Fund --

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Such a nasty woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So, women online now owning the term "nasty woman". One voter tweeting, quote, "I'm dressing up as a nasty woman for Halloween by which I mean I will dress as a competent, calm and brilliant woman."

A reporter for "The Huffington Post" wrote, quote, "I, too, am a nasty woman. If nasty means smarter than you, and pissed about it."

[09:20:00] Teen Vogue now using Trump's jab as a call to action for young female voters, quote, "retweet if you're a nasty woman who's headed to the polls to vote for your rights.

So, let's bring back our political panel. Todd Graham, David Swerdlick, Yamiche Alcindor and Nia-Malika Henderson.

Welcome back all of you.

OK. So, Yamiche, was this helpful in garnering independent women?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I don't think it was very helpful in garnering independent women, but I should say in this debate, he's calling her a nasty woman but the last debate, he called her the devil and had this idea he was someone who was terrible.

So, this idea of casting Hillary Clinton as someone who is despicable as someone who is not just an opponent but someone who really is untrustworthy and belongs in jail kind of goes to his message. So, he's really just I think feeding red meat to his base and a lot of the women that I've talked to, undecided Republican women who he wants to bring in to the fold, they don't his surprisingly on the women I've talked to say this is politics and that Hillary Clinton doesn't deserve to be running for president.

So, a lot of the women he's appealing to and the ones I've talked to really don't take issue with this. Of course, when we talk about suburban educated women who are undecided they of course are going to take issue with this because they don't see that as presidential. They don't think that calling Hillary Clinton a nasty woman says anything about whether or not he's going to be able to create jobs or whether or not he's going to be able to fix the economy.

COSTELLO: Well, David I have to agree with Yamiche because I, too, went to Ohio last week and a lot of women there think Hillary Clinton is a nasty woman. DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, in the last CNN/ORC

battleground poll in Ohio, Ohio was that one state where married women particularly were still quite a bit away from Secretary Clinton. Donald Trump was up 54-40 percent among married women. I actually am starting to really think that Trump is going to win Ohio and break that away from Clinton. Whether or not she wins or loses I think that's one that's kind of slipped out of her grasp.

But in other battleground states in national polls we've seen that women particularly single women, women of color, younger women, are moving away from Trump precisely for what he did in that debate. You know, he can disagree with Secretary Clinton on policy, Carol, but to call her a nasty woman, the way in all manner of ways, throughout all three debates, does not play well with that narrow slice of people left particularly women who are persuadable, who are in the middle, who are independent, in swing states.

And even though like Todd said before the break, he had a strategy that did sort of work to shore up his core 35 or 40 percent of the electorate that supports him no matter what. He needs more than that and I'm not sure he accomplished any of that last night.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Nia-Malika, let's talk about an issue that was talked about, the abortion issue, right? So Mr. Trump doubled down intimating that women get abortions the very day before their babies are born. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, I think it's terrible. If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.

Now, you can say that that's OK and Hillary can say that that's OK. But it's not OK with me, because based on what she's saying, and based on where she's going, and where she's been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month on the final day.

CLINTON: Well, that is not what happens in these cases. And using that kind of scare rhetoric is just terribly unfortunate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So, that rarely ever happens that women get abortions the day before their babies are born. But that probably appealed to very strongly pro-life people, Nia-Malika. So, did it move the needle at all?

HENDERSON: No, you know, I think it reaffirmed for a lot of pro -- pro-life voters, evangelicals, conservatives, that Donald Trump is where he -- where he needs to be on this issue.

But I you know this is remarkable what we saw last night. Hillary Clinton the -- the first nominee for a major party for -- for the White House making a robust defense of abortion. And one of the things she said was that do we want to live in a country, and she compared it to other countries, where women are forced to carry their babies to term, all women, that the government can do that.

She also mentioned Planned Parenthood, right? A robust defense of Planned Parenthood and the thing that she knows about Planned Parenthood is that Planned Parenthood has a 59 percent approval rating. Donald Trump doesn't have that kind of approval rating. Obama doesn't have that kind of approval rating. And neither does Hillary Clinton.

So, with independent women, that's going to play really well I think. But again, I think what Donald Trump is him shoring up his base, but, but Hillary Clinton also knowing that there's a broader cross section of people out there women and men who use Planned Parenthood and who've had to make the difficult decision to end pregnancies.

[09:25:08] COSTELLO: So, Todd, I think that, you know, when Clinton was talking about the Clinton Global Initiative, and taking donations value women actually abuse women and Donald Trump says that you know the Clinton Global Foundation should give that money back to those countries. Was that an effective line of questioning?

TODD GRAHAM, DEBATE DIRECTOR, SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY: No, that doesn't even make any sense to me. So, if she's getting money and using it for her charity that's great. But, I don't know why she would -- when I watched that, I just said why on earth should she give the money back to these bad -- isn't it better that she takes their money?

So, no. I mean and we all know that in politics you, you know, if you're charities or whatever you take the money where you can get it. So I didn't think that was a very effective strategy.

Plus, if you remember, it was in that line of analysis that he said that they had been hurting the LGBT communities but he actually said the gays. Like that. And it's very difficult, as one of the gays to really understand and/or empathize with him when he talks about us like that.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to end it there. Todd Graham, David Swerdlick, Yamiche Alcindor, Nia-Malika Henderson, thanks to all of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, some Trump supporters say they will refuse to accept a loss on Election Day, with one offering a threat of violence. We'll talk about that next.

But first, we're just moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. Christine Romans joins us now with a quick look at what's ahead.

Hi, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Carol.

Three, three debates now in the history books and so now investors are looking forward, and frankly, global market investors think that Donald Trump did not make up any ground last night and they are basically pricing in a Hillary Clinton presidency at this point. That means the focus for investors turning to other things like the Fed. When will the Fed raise interest rates? It looks like chances every day are rising that the Fed will raise interest rates in December.

And then there are earnings in the near term to get through, Carol. Banks have been a little bit better on the earnings front than we had feared. But you're going to see hundreds of millions of dollars of losses for companies as they report their earnings in the oil patch.

So, we'll be watching oil, we'll be watching Fed guessing. And we will be watching the markets here today -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And we do appreciate it. Thank you, Christine Romans.

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