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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Flight for Florida; Trump Tries Obamacare Slam; Carpenter to GOP: Defend Women or Lose Them; Sen. Warren Fights Hard for Clinton Against Trump; Trump on Multiple Bankruptcies; Are the Polls Really Rigged? Aired 9-10p ET
Aired October 25, 2016 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:00:26] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening.
Perhaps by this time a couple Tuesdays from now, we'll now who the next president of the United States is, or we could be bracing for a long night of vote counting, and as it has before, it could all come down in Florida. Donald Trump says he might not be able to win without it, and Hillary Clinton's campaigning is the same is true for her. So, two reports both from Florida tonight, first, Sara Murray traveling with the Trump campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Today, Donald Trump is taking aim at President Obama's legacy on the news that ObamaCare premiums are set to spike next year.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ObamaCare is just blowing up.
MURRAY: Trump seizing on the issue as a government report reveals premiums for the benchmark silver health care plan under the Affordable Care Act are set to rise an average of 22 percent in 2017. But Trump is insisting the price hike will be even larger.
TRUMP: ... that Americans are going to experience another massive double digit hike. Now, they said 25 percent. Forget 20 -- you'll take 25 percent. It's going to be 60, 70, 80, 90 percent.
MURRAY: Trump appeared with his employees at his Doral property today to take a swipe at Obama, the billionaire businessman ended up inviting questions about what sort of health care he offers his employees.
TRUMP: And I can say all of my employees are having a tremendous problem with ObamaCare. I mean, you look at what they're going through, what they're going through with their health care is horrible, because of ObamaCare. So we'll repeal it and replace it.
MURRAY: Despite Trump's suggestion that all his employees are struggling with ObamaCare, the general manager of Trump National Doral clarified that more than 90 percent of employees are insured through the hotel. According to the general manager, only part-time or seasonal employees would be using the health care exchanges.
Trump's attempt to go on offense on policy comes as he appears eager to set aside his war of words with nearly a dozen women who have accused him of sexual misconduct. Telling Fox News this morning, he'd rather focus on other issues.
TRUMP: I just want to let people know I'm innocent. OK? Nothing ever happened. It didn't exist. This was all fantasy land. I'd like to get off the stuff because everybody ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it all -- also ...
TRUMP: ... everybody brings that up.
MURRAY: But as he spends his third day stumping across Florida ...
TRUMP: In Florida, the number of people at the voting booths are massive, the biggest they've ever seen and a lot of them are wearing Trump buttons and hats and shirts. So I assume they're voting for us, right?
MURRAY: Trump's electoral challenges are growing more pronounced. A new Monmouth University Poll in Arizona, a state that hasn't voted for a Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1996, shows Hillary nipping at Trump's heels. She's drawing 45 percent support to Trump's 46 percent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Sara Murray joins us now from Tallahassee. So Trump was clearly dialed in on the ObamaCare issue today. Was he able to stay on message in Tallahassee tonight?
MURRAY: Anderson, he made it almost all the way there. He did talk about ObamaCare here in Tallahassee, but then he started mocking Vice President Joe Biden calling him a tough guy, and indicating that he would willing to fight Biden. That's after a couple of days ago, Biden said he wish the two of them were in high school, so he could take Donald Trump behind the gym. It gives you a sense how there's still this push and pull between what Donald Trump's advisers want him to talk about and the fact that he just feels the need to hit back at anyone who was critical of him. Back to you.
COOPER: All right, Sara Murray. Sara, thanks.
Judging by the battleground polls, Hillary Clinton does not need Florida to win the election. She's got any number of winning combinations unless, of course, the polling changes drastically. Still, or is it incorrect, still 29 electoral votes is tempting to any campaign so is making difference in the down-ticket races. And perhaps, most of all, so is being able to decisively slam during Donald Trump campaign. Superseding all of that, though, could be the real reason why Secretary Clinton's campaigning so hard in Florida, namely the fear of not campaigning hard in the closing weeks of this campaign. Brianna Keilar tonight reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There are just 14 days, two weeks from today.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hillary Clinton eyeing the Sunshine State and its 29 electoral votes today.
H. CLINTON: So, please join me. This is bigger than me, it's bigger than any of us. It's even bigger than Donald Trump, if you can believe it.
KEILAR: Expectations for Clinton are high. A new CNN/ORC poll shows nearly seven in 10 voters believe she will win the election and her campaign is spending their last two weeks racing through battleground states trying to convince voters not to become complacent.
H. CLINTON: I feel good, but, boy, I am not taking anything for granted. I'm going to work as hard as I can between now and the close of the election.
[21:05:06] KEILAR: Vice President Joe Biden in battleground Pennsylvania.
VICE PRES. JOE BIDEN, (D) UNITED STATES: This man is thoroughly unqualified based on his conduct, his abuse of power, and his lack of sustentative knowledge, just the minimum amount of knowledge needed to be president of the United States of America. So I'm finished with Donald Trump.
KEILAR: President Obama on late-night T.V.
PRES. BARACK OBAMA, (D) UNITED STATES: President Obama will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States, exclamation point, @realdonaldtrump. Well, @realdonaldtrump, at least I will go down as a president.
KEILAR: And about that new ObamaCare report showing significant premium hikes next year, former President Bill Clinton defending the program in North Carolina.
BILL CLINTON, 42ND UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: So Hillary says, fix the problem, don't repeal the solution. That's a terrible idea. More than 20 million people would lose their health insurance.
KEILAR: The former president's comments earlier this month now seem prophetic.
B. CLINTON: So you've got this crazy system where all of a sudden, 25 million more people will have health care, and then the people that are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world.
KEILAR: That statement put him in the dog house with Democrats and put his wife on defense with Donald Trump.
H. CLINTON: So if he repeals it, our Medicare problem gets worse. What we need to do is go after ...
TRUMP: Your husband disagrees with you.
H. CLINTON: ... the long-term health care drivers. We've got to get costs down, increase value, emphasize wellness. I have a plan for doing that.
KEILAR: A point Clinton echoed today in a radio interview.
H. CLINTON: The costs have gone up too much. So we're going to really tackle that. We're going to get co-pays and premiums and deductibles down. We're going to tackle prescription drug costs. And we can do that without ripping away the insurance that people now have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Brianna, how confident is the Clinton campaign about Florida right now?
KEILAR: They're feeling pretty good because they're looking at some of the folks who already have been voting and they feel like they're getting an uptick in Latino voters and female voters and traditionally those are people who are trending towards Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump. Also, they're just looking overall at the polls and she is leading. She's doing better in Florida than say Ohio, but they just want to make sure that they continue with that momentum. It's not a super, super comfortable lead. And that's why she's spending a lot of time there. And also some of her big-name surrogates are.
COOPER: All right, Brianna, thanks.
One piece of Hillary Clinton's polling lead is the double-digit advantage she has among women voters. And one big concern, obviously, for the GOP is that it will stay that way. Not just on Election Day, but years to come.
As you might imagine, flaws from the party's embrace of Donald Trump at the expense some are now arguing of Republican women. Those voices include CNN political commentator and conservative, Amanda Carpenter, who has an op-ed in today's "Washington Post." She writes, "I don't purport to speak for all women, but I know I am not alone. I am one of the many women the Republican Party left behind this election. The GOP is about to learn a hard lesson, "she says, "when it comes to the women's vote, defend us or lose us."
Amanda Carpenter joins us now, and back with us as well is Trump supporter, Kayleigh McEnany.
You feel that the Republican Party, Amanda, has abandoned women, has abandoned you. How so?
AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think somehow this decision was made along the way during the primaries that it was OK to appeal to this very angry, vulgar, alt-right section of the party at the expense of women. I mean, look at what has happened to some of these rallies. There are signs being printed and shirts being made -- I can't even repeat what is on those shirts.
When I was a staffer working for Republicans like Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz, if someone like that was at an event, they would be politely asked to leave. I don't know why people like that were not asked to leave those events. They were welcomed, they celebrated online. And at some point, someone in the Republican Party should have stood up and said this is not OK. We will not tolerate this kind of behavior. This is not what the Republican Party is about. Nobody did that in any concentrated way. You did see some people stand up like Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, here and there, but they were ignored. They were told to just be quiet.
COOPER: So, you're saying it's not just Donald Trump and his comments, it's actually Republican leaders?
CARPENTER: No, I'm done aiming fire at Donald Trump. I want men in the Republican Party to be accountable for not standing up and defending women. Where's the chivalry? Where are these conservative men that talk about family values, but then go on T.V. and defend locker room talk? That's not OK.
COOPER: Kayleigh, what do you ...
CARPENTER: Republican women have had enough.
COOPER: Kayleigh, what do you say?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Look, Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party. He was put there by Republican voters. And the Republican Party is respecting their voters because, in fact, they don't exist without their voters. And this notion that Donald Trump is hurting the party with women and doing so poorly among women ...
COOPER: You don't buy that?
MCENANY: I don't buy that at all. In fact, you look at our CNN poll, he's losing women by 12 percent.
CARPENTER: That would be bad.
MCENANY: Mitt Romney, according to Gallup, lost women by 12 percent, McCain lost women by 14 percent. Even George W. Bush lost women. Women tend to be Democratic voters. We can talk about the Democrats' problem with men, but that's the way the genders tend to break out. And Donald Trump is not doing any worst than Romney or McCain did among women.
[21:10:13] COOPER: Do you agree with that, Amanda?
CARPENTER: Well, here's -- I can speak from my experience working for Ted Cruz, Jim DeMint, being in the position of having to defend the party from charges of sexism. I know female former staffers like me that question whether they could go work for the men who have defended Donald Trump. That means the party has a problem. You can't -- you're going to lose the women's vote by, you know, however many points. But if you can't get women to defend with you -- defend you, work with you in the future, once that becomes a problem, you have a problem as a party.
Before this election, I never really believed you needed a big push to put women in leadership positions to make sure they were in the room, because I trusted the men in our party to speak up for us, to defend us, to protect us. No, I don't believe that anymore. They need female supervision from now on.
COOPER: To an Evangelical, a very prominent Evangelical today who's opposed to Donald Trump who was saying, you know, he's gotten pushback from other Evangelical leaders who support Donald Trump. But oftentimes those Evangelical leaders say to him, well, you know, my wife is actually on your side in this.
You don't believe that there's any lasting damage, any kind of lasting impact to this election on women in the Republican Party?
MCENANY: Not in the slightest. And in fact, you look at the CNN poll, in fact, you see Republicans tend to support Donald Trump at the same rate Democrats support Hillary Clinton. And I think it's a myth that there's this huge never-Trump exodus of women.
And in fact, the question I would pose, maybe Amanda can answer it and to any Republican women out there, and to this Evangelical you spoke with, you know, you're upset with Donald Trump's words from years ago. And I understand that. I don't support the words he said on those videos. He apologized for those words. But the stakes are so high. You have a candidate who just sat on the stage. As a Republican woman, you should be so discomforting with the fact that she supports ...
CARPENTER: Don't tell me what to think. You should not tell me what to think right now.
MCENANY: Hillary Clinton supports late-term abortion. There is a five to four decision upholding the ban on ...
CARPENTER: I know you're going to be talking about ISIS. And We've heard all the arguments so many times. I know the lines you're going to go through.
MCENANY: Please, let me get this point out there.
CARPENTER: Sure, and I'll answer.
MCENANY: There is a 5-4 decision saying that a baby that comes out in full term cannot be murdered, 5-4 Supreme Court decision. Forever more, those in the Never-Trump movement, if Hillary ...
CARPENTER: You're going to tell me I'm a Hillary supporter.
MCENANY: ... that retracts the partial birth abortion ban, the Never Trump movement will have an answer for that.
COOPER: OK. So, Amanda, what do you say to that?
CARPENTER: OK. Here's the thing. And Republicans with I've spoken with, Donald Trump has no boundaries when it comes to the law. So once you have someone who has tyrannical impulses in the White House, forget the Supreme Court, it's over. This guy has no boundaries. But again, this isn't about Donald Trump. And I really hope the Republican Party doesn't stick their head in the sand and go along with Kayleigh's way of thinking, because they're going to lose.
Everyone knows we're going to lose this election unless something very surprising happens. So if nothing is learned from this election and we continue to become a Trumpian party, it's going to continue to fracture. There has to be some kind of reckoning going forward and there has to be a recognition that what Donald Trump did to women, it's hurting everyone down-ballot too. Just today, the political report said that the Senate could lose five to seven seats. Not only is the White House gone, but the Senate is gone too, because of a Donald Trump ...
COOPER: Kayleigh, do you think Donald Trump continues to -- I mean, right now he defines the Republican Party. Do you think if he loses, does he continue to -- or doe he just go off and go back to business or whatever it is, Trump T.V., whatever he may do, and the Republican Party then has to redefine himself? Or -- I mean, he talks about a movement, do you believe that he would want to continue with that movement in some sort of political realm, and shape the Republican Party for years to come?
MCENANY: I think he'll have a voice in leading that movement forward. I think someone like Mike Pence will probably carry the mantle forward.
COOPER: So, you don't think he'll become a Sarah Palin and just going to go off and, you know, continue being a celebrity?
MCENANY: I don't think he'll run for office again, you'd have to ask him, but I do think that he'll be on the outside being a voice for that movement. And I hope -- just to come back at Amanda's point, I hope the Republican Party never gets to a place where we say voters, 1,500 of you showed up to vote, but you were wrong and we're going to stand on the moral high ground and allow the Supreme Court to overturn these vital decisions because we believe we know better than our voters. I hope we never get to that point.
COOPER: It's interesting, Amanda, because you know, there was an autopsy done after 2012 and it was all about reaching out to women, reaching out to minority groups, having a bigger tent. I mean is a -- do you see a similar autopsy being done after this or is there just ...
CARPENTER: There should be, but it should be done by the same people, because they -- I think they misdiagnosed a lot of problems when it came to immigration, right? They said that the Republican Party needs to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform, take this issue off the table ...
COOPER: Right.
CARPENTER: ... so that we don't have to deal with it in 2016. Well, it didn't work out that way, and that issue created Donald Trump. But that said, there needs to be wholesale change at the RNC, particularly Reince Priebus, you know, Mitch McConnell -- Mitch McConnell was telling his fellow Senate members as late as July that we will not lose one Senate seat because of Donald Trump. What a gross miscalculation that was. Reince Priebus is essentially letting Donald Trump hijack the party and say, "Get in the car, it's going to be OK, we're going for a joy ride." These guys all got it so wrong. And it's not because ...
[21:15:19] COOPER: But he did win the primary. I mean, what else were they supposed to do?
CARPENTER: It's not because of the "Access Hollywood" tape. So we knew what kind of guy Donald Trump was.
Listen, he has decades worth of interviews in print, radio, T.V., saying very lewd, vulgar things. And to say that he's the guy that's going to change the champion family values for the Republican Party? You let him in the party and you let him poison it. That never should happen.
MCENANY: It's just worth mentioning, we've got 14 days to go, there's no autopsy that needs to be written, because it could be the Democrats that will need the autopsy ...
COOPER: We'll see. Amanda Carpenter, Kayleigh McEnany, thanks very much.
Coming up, breaking news, the new Donald Trump tapes, hours of really revealing audio recordings. Donald Trump talking about what makes him (inaudible), we'll hear what he thought of President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush two years ago and what he thinks -- whether he thinks he'd be a better husband.
Excuse me. Later, Senator Elizabeth Warren was one of the many recipients of Trump's nicknames and impulse, now she's fighting hard on the campaign trail. Take a look at their complex history.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, Donald Trump hates losing, he loves fighting, and he think it's hard to be married to him, just a few of the headlines from extensive interviews that we've obtained. Trump speaking 2014 with journalist Michael D'Antonio who went on to write a biography of Donald Trump. Kyung Lah has gone through the hours of audio tape and joins me now.
You know, we've seen obviously a lot of past interviews and recordings of Donald Trump come out in the last few weeks. His campaign has been making the case that the Trump of the past is not the Donald Trump of the present or the future. Trump, though, on these tapes offers a really fascinating take on people and whether they change. What did he say about that?
KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Basically, he's saying -- you're right, Anderson. We've been hearing from the campaign that we shouldn't be gleaning anything from these old interviews. But in this interview, what you hear from Trump is that he believes that personalities are set young. Here he's answering a questions about marriage. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
[21:20:04] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you pay better attention as a husband now?
TRUMP: I don't think -- OK. So I don't think people change very much over the course. You may slow down, you may -- but honestly? You know, I've known people -- I've known many people for many years. They've never changed. I see -- I don't think people change. I think I'm a very big believer in the fact that when you are a certain way, pretty much that's the way you are.
Now environmental situations change, conditions change, wealth changes, both up and down, lots of things -- health changes.
But I think, basically a, you know, a personality is set from very early, very close to the time of birth. I mean, if I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I don't think I'm that different. No really.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
LAH: There he's answering question about marriage, but if you listen to the entire context of the interview, it's very clear, Anderson, that he's talking about personalities in general.
COOPER: Donald Trump talks about a number of issues on the tapes, also including the Iraq War. What did he say about that?
LAH: Yeah, this one caught our eye, because he's been talking at length about Iraq. Every debate he's brought up, the withdrawal of the Iraq War, what Obama did or did not do, and that it left a vacuum for ISIS.
But here, in this interview and we want to remind everybody, this is in 2014, he's saying Obama should have pulled out faster but yet still less some troops. Here's what he says.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
TRUMP: I am not a fan of Bush. I was -- I think he was a terrible president. So, you know, I'm not one of these Republicans who, "Oh, Bush, Bush. Well, he was a disaster. He got us into Iraq.
But Obama didn't get us out fast enough. Obama kept us there for many years, and he didn't get us out fast enough. And then when he did get us out, he could have left some people behind and maybe wouldn't have had this. (END AUDIOTAPE)
LAH: So, a little confusing there, Anderson, because what exactly is he advocating? Pull out sooner or leave troops? It's a little hard to follow.
COOPER: Trump was also heard praising Bill Clinton on these recordings?
LAH: Very interesting. Because -- especially if you consider the context of everything we've seen in the last couple of debates where Trump has really try to glean some of the allegations from Bill Clinton's past. Here in 2014, he had nothing but nice things to say.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
TRUMP: Bill Clinton is certainly a great politician. And you should call Bill Clinton and ask him about me. He was on Larry King. He said, Donald Trump is a great golfer and he's a friend of mine. And, you know, now -- of course now it's a little different, because a lot of people want me to run, and, you know, his wife is obviously going to be running if she's healthy.
You could ask him. Maybe. I mean, you know, he may say something interesting. No, but he's a great politician.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
LAH: And the two men have certainly golfed together. It bears reminding that he has donated -- that Trump has donated to then Senator Clinton's campaign back in the early 2000s and he also donated $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation, Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Kyung, thanks very much.
Earlier this evening, I spoke with Michael D'Antonio, who interviewed Trump on those audio recordings and wrote the book, "The Truth about Trump".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I think back to, you know, when President Obama at the White House Correspondents' Dinner sort of was poking fun at Donald Trump. I want to play that for our viewers.
OBAMA: Now, I know that he's taken some flack lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?
COOPER: Not the kind of thing he enjoys.
MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, TRUMP BIOGRAPHER: No and you know, the first thing he said to me was something about how much he hates Obama. I really think this was personal for him. I think that the campaign, to some degree, is very personal that he wants to avenge this humiliation. Now, other people would laugh at it and kind of get the joke and almost encourage people to see them as human. I don't think that's ...
COOPER: Well, even at that Al Smith dinner just, you know, last week, which is all about being self-deprecating, he really -- I mean, he was able to kind of poke fun at Melania Trump, and he just sort of -- the only thing he sort of said about himself is that he sort of made a joke about him being full of humility, but it wasn't really kind of -- the kind of self-deprecating humor that we often hear.
D'ANTONIO: No, he doesn't have that thing to do, that impulse in him to joke about himself and understand that it's OK. And you know, that sort of makes you feel sorry for him. How lonely must it be to be the guy who can't laugh at himself and has to be serious all the time?
[21:25:01] COOPER: The -- his -- I've never seen a public figure who pays more attention to how they are talked about in the media, who watches coverage -- I mean, most public figures I know don't watch themselves at all. Donald Trump, I mean, he watches this program and will tweet about, you know -- he might even be watching right now and tweeting about what you're saying. He cannot -- he watches stuff constantly. He watches television constantly.
D'ANTONIO: Yeah, he wants that feedback. And if you think about who wants to have a reflection of themselves all the time, almost the message about themselves coming from outside.
COOPER: Well, I know, that's -- that's what's so odd is the idea of a public figure looking to get their sense of themselves from the way other people talk about them on television is just such an odd idea.
D'ANTONIO: It's profoundly strange. But, you know, I identify this as kind of the ultimate example of the narcissistic culture. We now live in a world where people advertise themselves on Facebook. We're practically walking brochures.
COOPER: Right.
D'ANTONIO: And Donald pioneered that. And there is emptiness to it. I think of him as being a bottomless pit of need and the presidency was the one big rock he could get to try and fill that pit. And it's not going to work.
COOPER: That's interesting. You see him as a bottomless pit of need. I mean, that's a really stunning kind of portrayal.
D'ANTONIO: So much so that although I'm just a middle class guy, I felt like I wanted to give something to him. I left these encounters thinking how can I get this guy to let down his guard and just be real?
COOPER: There is a neediness for approval, I mean, in some of the interviews I've done with him that -- and other people I've talked to (inaudible) sense in him that like even in an interview setting like if you give him a compliment, you can see it sort of wash over him.
D'ANTONIO: It's really important to him. He runs number ...
COOPER: But the poll numbers ...
D'ANTONIO: Poll numbers matter, but he hit a home run in high school. And he remembers the article reporting that Donald Trump won the game. And he had to tell me about it. Now, this is a guy whose clippings could fill a library, but he remembers every single report about him and it all matters.
COOPER: It's fascinating.
D'ANTONIO: Yeah.
COOPER: Michael, thank you so much.
D'ANTONIO: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Up next with the panel, things on the tapes and hear what Trump had to say during those interviews about his multiple bankruptcies.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:31:16] COOPER: Well, if there's one thing we've learned from the tapes of the interviews Donald Trump did with Michael D'Antonio back in 2014 or at least what they've reaffirmed is that Trump doesn't like losing or even the perception that he's failed in any way. Listen to this exchange about his multiple business bankruptcies.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
TRUMP: I bought something and I throw it into a bankruptcy. I made an unbelievable deal. Wiped out a lot of the debt. Came back. The next day I read a story, "Trump files bankruptcy." I get all these people that don't understand business saying, "Oh, did you go bankrupt?" Do you understand that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But this, this bothers you a little bit ...
TRUMP: No. It only bothers ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... because you talk about this a lot.
TRUMP: I do. I always do because -- I'll tell you why I do. What always bothers me is false stuff. Untruths. That bothers me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Joining me now, CNN Political Commentator and New York 1 Political Anchor Errol Louis, "Washington Post" Political Reporter Philip Bump, CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger, and Senior Political Analyst David Gergen. David, it's interesting, you know, hearing Michael D'Antonio talking about his perception of the man he spent hours interviewing Donald Trump for this biography. He called Donald Trump a bottomless pit of need. And a lot of people have talked about sort of a neediness that they have sensed in him. I'm wondering what your reaction is to that?
DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER TO REAGAN, FORD, CLINTON & NIXON: I think that he's the most narcissistic political leader that I can remember in American politics. He does have an obsession with winning and to being adored. He wants to be the center of attention.
You know, Teddy Roosevelt had some of that quality. You know, where he said of Teddy, he wanted to be the groom at every wedding and the deceased at every funeral, in order to be celebrated. But he had all of these offsetting compensatory qualities that Trump doesn't have.
I tell you, Anderson, what comes to me more than anything else is he is not a deeply anchored man. He doesn't -- his value system is not deeply anchored. We look in leaders for what we call the true north, a sense of authenticity, what they believe the values they hold for a lifetime.
He doesn't have -- I don't think he knows what his true north is. He is, you know, I might call it -- he's all sail and no anchor.
COOPER: Gloria, I mean, you did a documentary on Trump for CNN. One of the things that I know struck you is how kind of alone he is. We all sort of Michael D'Antonio echoed that observation about Trump.
Trump's ex-wives told Michael that they're not even sure that they really know the true Donald Trump. That's pretty -- I mean, stunning from somebody, you know, who was married to Donald Trump.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And Ivana Trump also said to D'Antonio that Donald Trump just wants to get noticed. And that's what he is about and that's what you see play out in the campaign.
When I talk to people who have known him for 30 years, and I would ask them, "Who is Donald Trump's best friend?" And they would pause, because they would never name themselves, and they would pause and say, to a person, he doesn't have a best friend. He is his own best friend. And that is because friendship is kind of a two-way street.
He can be generous to people. He can listen to people. He can be caring. A lot of them told me when they had a sick member of the family or a death in the family, he was very caring. But on a day-to- day basis, they say, nobody is really his best friend, because it's all about Donald Trump.
Everything is about Trump and what he gets from the crowds and what he gets from running for president is kind of the adulation that he craves that his biographer was talking about that he needs in order to survive.
And one of the reasons he ran, I believe, is because he wasn't getting that anymore in business, so he had to get it somewhere else.
[21:35:00] COOPER: Errol, I mean, I did think one of the things he said about himself that was pretty perceptive in this interview with Michael D'Antonio, is that it difficult being married to him.
And what he was saying is that, you know, and I think it's true of anybody who has a relentless drive and a, you know, determination to succeed and clearly Donald Trump wants to win in all aspects of his life. It's hard to have people around you who you're close to if you have that drive. It's incompatible.
ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL ANCHOR, NY1: Well that's right. He doesn't have a lot of peers. You know, even in the billionaire class of New York and it's a pretty large group, I think 80 plus billionaires live in New York City. A lot of them, they made their money in very different ways.
I mean, very few, even in the real estate business, have done it the way Trump has done it. None, virtually none have done what he's done as far as the branding of his name and the franchising it all over the world and the -- so, yeah, he's in a constant whirl.
You know, the image that comes to mind for me is towards the end of Faust, right, the legend of Faust, (inaudible) Faust where it's a developer, it's somebody who's always improving, always moving, always in motion, kind of grinding over people and traditional values along the way and it is sort of a terrifying spectacle in the end.
COOPER: You know, Phillip, Gloria mentioned, you know, asking who his closest friends are. You know, I think back to the convention, you know, Hillary Clinton had, you know, an old friend, I think, at least one who was on the stage, who also cast, you know, a delegate vote.
Donald Trump had a business associate, who he had been a business associate with for many, many years. But the story he told about Trump was about going to a boxing match and, you know, there was somebody who Donald Trump paid attention to and wrote a little note to.
It wasn't sort of, I've been friends with Donald Trump from the time we were kids and this is how, you know, the way he was in seventh grade is the way he is now, you know. It wasn't that sort of a relationship. I don't know if he has those.
PHILIP BUMP, POLITICAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, the only people who played that role at the conventions were his kids. They were the ones that knew him well, that were close to him, that spent time in Trump Tower and could actually speak to who he was as a person, because he doesn't have those close relationships or other business associates that were up there.
COOPER: And all the stories they told were basically about being in the office and while they he work or calling into the office. Yeah, which is -- I mean, I'm not criticizing it, but it is, you know, perhaps a very obvious reality of when you -- to get that level of success, that's what you have to do.
BUMP: Right. You know, I think that's exactly right. And, you know, and I think what's important in the context of the current campaign is that I think people pick up on the fact that he is a different sort of person in this way, right?
You know, and I think that, you know, the temperament is this big issue that we keep coming back to with Donald Trump. And there's something about him and something about the way in which he interacts with people that I think voters are picking up on and makes a lot of them hesitant.
COOPER: Interesting. Gloria, we're going to have more from you and David in just a second. Errol Louis thanks very much, Philip Bump as well.
I want to get Gloria and David's take on Donald Trump's contention that the polls are rigged against him. We've got a fact check on that coming up, not just now, but down through the years. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:41:50] COOPER: Donald Trump today called members of the media "scum." That's his opinion, he's entitled to it. It's become a staple of his campaign speeches. So is this, though, not always as in this case about Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, personally.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: John Podesta rigged the polls by oversampling. He said, do this. By oversampling Democrats, a voter -- I mean, you see this. You see it all, a voter suppression technique.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Unlike his take on the media, which, again, is his opinion, the question of whether the polls are rigged is a matter of fact. So we asked our top fact checker, Tom Foreman, to check it out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 2012, Barack Obama is fighting for re-election and Republicans are furious, saying polls showing him with a significant lead over Mitt Romney are skewed in favor of Democrats and dead wrong.
DICK MORRIS, POLITICAL ANALYST: Romney will win this election by 5 to 10 points in the popular vote and will carry more than 300 electoral votes.
FOREMAN: By Election Day, the polls have tightened to a deadlock, but the final result is anything but. The president cruises to re- election beating Romney, 51 percent to 47 percent.
Two years later, the 2014 midterm elections. The numbers suggest the president's party may be in for a rough ride, so this time, some Democrats are saying, "Don't trust the polls." And it turns out the polls are wrong. The news is not bad for Democrats.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We have a major projection to announce right now.
FOREMAN: It is catastrophic.
BLITZER: CNN projects the Republicans will take control of the United States Senate.
FOREMAN: The GOP takes the Senate, tightens its grip on the House and ceases more governorships, too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it was not even close. It wasn't even close.
FOREMAN: It all encourages doubt and gives anyone losing in the polls an easy complaint.
TRUMP: Even the polls are crooked, I'm telling you. Look, we're in a rigged system, folks.
FOREMAN: Pollsters are undeniably facing challenges. Fewer voters willing to participate, new technology like computerized calling, which makes some polls cheaper, faster, and at times, less accurate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stand by. Stand by.
FOREMAN: And unbelievably close races with rapidly evolving news cycles can lead to occasional mistakes, which have often haunted the polling business.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Still, for all those troubles the presidential polls remain among the most accurate. Yes, there is still a margin for error, meaning the actual vote may be a little higher or a little lower than a poll predicts for any given candidate, but the vote will almost always fall within that margin, when you average several solid polls, as we do here at CNN, the results become even more reliable. Anderson?
COOPER: All right, Tom thanks. With us again, CNN Senior Political Analyst and former adviser to four presidents, David Gergen and CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger.
David, I mean, there's a big difference between some polls being inaccurate or outliers and being downright crooked or rigged, which is what Trump is claiming.
GERGEN: That's true, Anderson, and my experience has been over a long period of time working on polls is that there is great incentive on the part of the pollster to get it right.
[21:45:06] You know, every one of these news organizations that's taking polls is in competition with each other and if you come up, you know, over the course of the season if you've been consistently wrong, you get hurt in the market place. This is what capitalism is. The forces of capitalism have an effect on polling. People try to make it accurate and scientific.
There are two things you can count on. One is, in looking at the polls, the average is usually a much better -- a much safer assumption than anything else, an average of good polls. And secondly, the trend line. Which way are the polls moving, because definitely they move over time?
If you keep an eye on those two things, you don't have to get down in the weeds and understand every single poll and why is the "L.A. Times" tracking poll so much more favorable to Trump than say, the ABC poll that came out and showed Hillary 12 points ahead.
You know, those are questions interesting, but look at the poll of polls and watch the trend lines.
COOPER: Gloria, I mean, there are those years like 2012 with Obama and Romney, when the polls are so tight, no one really knows what to expect, and yet, this year, does it feel like that to you?
BORGER: No, it doesn't. I think when you take the averages, as David is talking about, and you look at it over a period of the last few months or so, this race has been surprisingly stable.
We do have outlier polls that give Hillary Clinton a dozen-point lead or so, but when you do these averages, you see that she has been up consistently, somewhere between four and five points. And what you see then is the effect on the battleground states.
To me, the battleground states generally tend to move once the national poll moves their reflection of it, lagging indicator if you will, and they all tend to move together. So you see the battleground states moving here.
And we also know that Trump has a very challenging Electoral College map and he's got to turn, you know, some of those states that Romney didn't win red, and he's having trouble with the Romney states. Utah comes to mind for example.
COOPER: Yeah.
BORGER: So, it's -- the trajectory seems to be clear, but honestly, I think it's pretty stable. It is stable, right?
COOPER: This whole idea, David, of a rigged system, a crooked system. If Donald Trump loses by a clear and significant margin, both in the electoral vote and the popular vote, I mean, what do you think he'll do on election night?
GERGEN: I don't know, Anderson. I think it all comes back to that very revealing set of interviews he had back in 2014 you've just had on the program. He has an obsession with winning. And I think this whole thing about being rigged is a way to say, "I would have won, had it not been for the rigging." And so -- and not accept defeat. I think one of the interesting questions on election night, the days that follow is, if he thinks he went through bankruptcy and then pulled out and then had these major successes, if he starts looking at this election like, "That was my bankruptcy, now I'm going to rebuild for the future and I'm going to run again," interesting problems for the Republican Party.
COOPER: So the idea, Gloria, that Trump, you know, genuinely thinks he's winning, poised for a victory. I don't quite understand why he'd be laying down all the groundwork for the rigged election argument because that would only then undermine his own win, if he, in fact, won. Or I guess he would say, "I overcame the rigging."
BORGER: Right. But, you know, we went through this in the primaries, Anderson, because he talked about the rigged delegates and all of that, until he won Indiana in early May. And once he won Indiana in early May, he actually came out and said publicly, "You know what, I was kind of talking about a rigged election, until I won."
GERGEN: Right.
BORGER: "And now that I won, I'm not talking about that anymore." So, we'll have to see.
COOPER: We'll see. All right, Gloria Borger ...
GERGEN: We'll see.
COOPER: ... David Gergen, thanks very much.
GERGEN: Thank you.
COOPER: Just ahead, you'll see why Senator Elizabeth Warren has become one of Hillary Clinton's most vocal campaign surrogates and why she's getting such mileage out of not mincing words.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:52:29] COOPER: And tonight, Senator Elizabeth Warren is campaigning in North Carolina for Hillary Clinton. A short time ago, she came out swinging at Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, (D) MASSACHUSETTS: What kind of man does that? What kind of a man roots for people to lose their homes? I'll tell you what kind of man, a small insecure money-grubber. What kind of man does that? A pathetic bully. What kind of man does that? A selfish little sleazeball. A man who will never be president of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, Senator Warren has become one of Secretary Clinton's most vocal surrogates, outspoken, unafraid to trade insults with Donald Trump. And as an ally of Clinton, she may be invaluable. Now that said, the back storage to this partnership is what's kind of complicated. Dana Bash reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hillary Clinton has a stable of high octane headliners.
WARREN: Get this Donald, nasty women are tough. Nasty women are smart. And nasty women vote.
BASH: But none quite like Elizabeth Warren.
WARREN: He thinks it because he has a mouth full of Tic-Tacs that he can force himself on any woman within groping distance.
BASH: A hero to the left for her years of fighting big banks and student loan debt. Team Clinton is deploying Warren to rally factions of the progressive base who aren't in enthralls by Hillary Clinton.
But for the liberal icon, full-throated support for Clinton did not come easily. In fact, during the Democratic primaries, Warren was the only female Democratic senator who would not endorse Hillary Clinton.
When she finally did.
WARREN: I'm with her. Yes, her.
BASH: She immediately started taunting Trump.
WARREN: A small insecure money-grubber who will never be president of the United States.
BASH: Showing Clinton how to get him to take the debate.
TRUMP: Do you ever see her? I mean, this woman, she's a basket case.
H. CLINTON: I do just love to see how she gets under Donald Trump's thin skin.
BASH: But if Clinton wins it could be her skin, Warren gets under. The Massachusetts senator support for Clinton comes with conditions. That Clinton sticks to the progressive ideals she promoted to win the nomination.
WARREN: Fight for every single promise that Hillary Clinton has put forward in this campaign, including her promise to end the revolving door between "Wall Street" and Washington.
[21:55:02] BASH: One example, she wants Clinton to ban "Wall Street" executives with golden parachutes from getting big government jobs. She already torpedoed of President Obama nominee to the Treasury Department because he was coming from a "Wall Street" bank with a reported $21 million payout.
WARREN: When we talk about personnel, we don't mean advisors who just pay lip service to Hillary's bold agenda coupled with a sigh, a knowing glance, and the twiddling of thumbs until it's time to take the next swing through the revolving door.
BASH: Warren has a long history with Hillary Clinton that may give her reason to be weary. As first lady in the 1990s, Clinton went to see then Professor Warren to discuss a bankruptcy bill before Congress.
WARREN: And she says tell me about bankruptcy, and I've got to tell you, I never had a smarter student.
BASH: Warren said Hillary convinced her husband to veto a bill that protected credit card companies, but when Hillary became senator she voted for similar legislation.
WARREN: She has taken money from the groups and one of the points she worries about them as a constituency.
BASH: 12 years later with Warren the Senator and Clinton a potential president inclined to make deals with Republicans, Warren promises this time she would hold Clinton's feet to the progressive fire.
Dana Bash, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:00:07] COOPER: That's all the time we have. Thanks for watching. "CNN TONIGHT" with Don Lemon starts now.
