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Reviewing Last Night's Republican Debate; Federal Reserve Decision to Come Today; Trump & Fiorina at the Debate; Muslim Teenager Arrested at School Now has White House Invite; Fact Checking the Debate. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 17, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I'll admit that. Full disclosure. But Mike Huckabee got what, five minutes, four minutes?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Huckabee, nine minutes as well.

COSTELLO: Nine minutes. OK.

STELTER: Yes. Yes.

COSTELLO: So does Mike Huckabee -- would Mike Huckabee think what you just said?

STELTER: Well, partly it's about using your nine minutes effectively, right, or using your 12 minutes effectively. If you -- if you feel that you've got your message across in that time, you feel that you've made every minute count, then you had a very good night and you were able to do so on a very, very big stage.

Now, of course, some of this is about knowing how to use the format to your advantage, right? And we saw all night some of the candidates lobbying Tapper, saying Jake, Jake, Jake, trying to jump in. That was part of the -- part of the challenge of a debate. These candidates know the rules ahead of time, so they're able to game out their strategies for how to stand out, how they get ahead. And when these ratings come in this afternoon, I think we'll see a true record being set here for CNN.

COSTELLO: Oh, that's awesome. Brian Stelter, thanks for stopping by.

STELTER: Thanks.

COSTELLO: I appreciate it.

So, what did Hillary Clinton think about last night's debate? CNN's Wolf Blitzer will ask her live tonight in "The Situation Room." You can catch that interview right here on CNN, 5:00 p.m. Eastern.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

It could be the day analysts have been nervously awaiting, the interest rates on your credit cards, mortgages and car loans about to go up. The Federal Reserve could determine all of that today. You can see the stock market there. It's down just about seven points.

Let's head over to CNN's Alison Kosik. She's live at the New York Stock Exchange.

Good morning.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

You know what's funny about this is everybody's wondering, will the Fed raise rates today, will they not? And for every person who says yes it's going to happen, there's another who says they're going to hold off.

And traders that I've been talking to, they say they want the Fed to go ahead and raise rates. They want to get it over with. Take the uncertainty out of the market. But there's also a growing course of some big names saying, look, the Fed should wait. Everyone from Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein to former Treasury Secretary Larry Sommers, they're saying the Fed should wait and they point to anemic wage growth, low inflation and all the volatility that we've seen in the financial markets and the worry there is that that volatility can spill over into the economy. Many say, look, it's the wrong time for the fed to pull the trigger because if you look at what lower rates are meant to do, they're meant to hold down borrowing costs for car loans and mortgages. And the reality is, higher rates could crimp that spending.

But even if the Fed puts it decision on ice today, rates, Carol, will eventually go up. And when it does pull the trigger, it means it's going to make it more expensive for you and me to borrow money. You mentioned it, car loans, mortgages, credit cards. All of those rates will go up. The rate hikes, though, are going to be gradual, which means you shouldn't see any massive jumps. That's the one thing that the Fed's really going to try to avoid by raising rates slowly. So my advice, relax. You don't need to rush out and buy a new home or get a new car loan because interest rates, even with the hike, are low and will remain historically low for a while.

Carol.

COSTELLO: OK, I'll keep that in mind, Alison Kosik. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, how did voters feel about last night's debate? Who are the winners and losers in their minds? We'll hear from them, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:37:41] COSTELLO: All right, so you know what the pundits think about the debate, but what about you, the voters? CNN's Randi Kaye got immediate reaction after last night's big event. Here's what they told her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of the people here think that Carly Fiorina was a big standout, including Susan Mersero (ph) here.

Why do you think Carly did such a good job?

SUSAN MERSERO, VOTER (ph): I think she took on Donald Trump. He did not impress me as much as he has in the past. But Carly was there. She was steadfast. She was intelligent. She was -- she just really came across as someone that thought things through more than, you know, spoke off the cuff. She's an outsider. I think that we've, in the last election cycle, handed the Republicans a pretty big majority and they've done nothing with it.

KAYE: Yes.

MERSERO. And so I'm looking at an outsider.

KAYE: How do you think, Mike Hammond (ph), that Donald Trump did tonight and maybe even Ben Carson, since they're neck-and-neck?

MIKE HAMMOND, VOTER (ph): Yes, Donald Trump, they're the non- traditional candidates. I'm not a supporter of them and I don't think they did themselves any favor. Ben Carson's an extremely nice guy. He's probably well informed, but he just doesn't have the background experience. And Donald is Donald.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: There you have it, Donald is Donald. As you just head, a few voters said they were not as impressed by Donald Trump's performance. One saying Trump and his fellow outsider, Ben Carson, did themselves no favors last night. So after weeks of skyrocketing poll numbers, could the man who has defied political gravity be falling back to earth?

Here to talk about that, Tana Goertz. She is the Iowa state co- chairwoman for the Trump campaign. She's on the phone. And Charmaine Yoest is a former adviser to President Reagan.

Thanks to you both for being with me.

TANA GOERTZ, IOWA STATE CO-CHAIRMAN, TRUMP CAMPAIGN (via telephone): Hello.

COSTELLO: Hello. Thank you so much for being with me.

So, Tana, Politico asks, is the summer of Trump over? "The Daily Beast" writes, Trump's debate stick (ph) turns stale. But perhaps Chris Christie crystallized that feeling when he told both Trump and Fiorina to stop being so narcissistic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm as entertained as anyone by this personal back and forth about the history of Donald and Carly's career. For the 55-year-old construction worker out in that audience tonight who doesn't have a job, who can't fund his child's education, I've got to tell you the truth, they could care less about your careers. They care about theirs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:40:04] COSTELLO: OK, so, Tana, is this the beginning of the end for Mr. Trump?

GOERTZ: Are you kidding, Carol? This is just the beginning for Mr. Trump. I mean absolutely not. That is so funny. I think Chris makes me laugh when -- when he made actually my entire debate watch party that we had just packed to support Mr. Trump, he made everybody laugh. Of course he's going say that about Mr. Trump I mean because Christie is not a successful businessman like Mr. Trump and he wants that position of the president of the United States because he'll probably make more money. Unlike my boss, who's going -- who's losing a lot of money, you know, working so hard to make America great again.

No, absolutely not. I mean as you have probably seen in "The Drudge Report," as well as "Time," 62 percent, 55 percent said Mr. Trump just overwhelmingly won that debate last night. And that's from the voters, not the two people that Randi had interviewed prior.

COSTELLO: Well she interviewed more than that, but we only had time to show two. But I get your point.

GOERTZ: Oh, no, I know. I saw it.

COSTELLO: Charmaine --

GOERTZ: I mean I'm here in Iowa. There was like 40 people there and -- so 40 people versus, you know, over, what, a million people voted last night saying Mr. Trump hands down won that debate.

COSTELLO: Well, Politico has an interesting story this morning and they talked to Iowa caucus goers about the performance, especially of Mr. Trump and Carly Fiorina, and I just want to read a quote from that Politico article. "She," Fiorina, "caused the fifth and final bankruptcy of Donald Trump. Bankrupt of policy, ideas and stature, he was finally shown to be the fraud con artist of 2016."

Charmaine, want to take that one on?

CHARMAINE YOEST, FORMER ADVISER TO PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, I'll have to say, Carol, it was not a good night for Mr. Trump. And truly Carly really did land blow after blow after blow on him. And particularly the point about the bankruptcy. If you think about the words that were coming out of last night related to Donald Trump. First Carly makes the really solid point about his bankruptcies, which I think a lot of voters aren't really aware of because he has been effective in making the case for himself as a businessman.

But then Jeb Bush came back and really landed a blow on him on the word "casino." It really didn't matter so much the back and forth, but just the repeat of that word "casino," "casino," "casino." There's a lot of people out there who really didn't have that word associated with Donald Trump. So I think those are just two moments that were really not good for Donald Trump.

And then throughout the middle of the debate, there were 40 whole minutes where he just faded away and didn't say a word, which I just think it was not a good night. And when you look at the high negatives that he went into this debate with, yes, he was the front runner, at least for now, but those high negatives are something he has to battle against and he didn't do himself any favors with that last night.

COSTELLO: And it is interesting --

GOERTZ: Well, the only reason he let people speak was because he felt so guilty taking all that air time. I mean Mr. Walker got nine minutes in the entire three hours. So I mean he was like, well, I've got to let somebody else have a turn. So that (INAUDIBLE) quiet.

YOEST: Well, you know, I -- I -- I think -- I think describing Donald Trump as feeling guilty is maybe not quite accurate. But you do raise an important point, which is that last night was the battle of the time clock. With eleven people on the stage --

GOERTZ: Right.

YOEST: What really mattered at the end of the day was how much time that you had. And that was another place that Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio really, really shined. At the end of the day, being able to take up that space on the stage, both literally and figuratively, is what really, really mattered. Both Carly and Marco ranked in the lower amount of questions that were received, but they both were ranked very highly in the amount of time that they ended up taking. And that really demonstrated a command and a presence and a strategy. And at the end of the day, that's very -- they were able to demonstrate leadership in that way by using the format to their advantage.

GOERTZ: And that's true.

COSTELLO: Tana -- and, Tana, I will say -- Tana, I will say that Mr. Trump still didn't seem to have like specific policies that he could articulate in a way that would make voters feel good about him being in the White House. Carly Fiorina, whether you agreed with her policy positions or not, seemed to have it down.

GOERTZ: Well, Carly wasn't being attacked over and over again. She didn't have to defend herself. I mean she could use that time, you know, strategically. Mr. Trump again was being attacked over and over again. So he had to use his time to deflect like the comments that were just made about the casino and bankruptcy. And he had to say, hello, how many times are we going to hear this word bankruptcy. I did not file for bankruptcy --

YOEST: You know, Tana, I think to say that Carly was not attacked last night is again very inaccurate and not a reflection of what we actually saw on screen.

COSTELLO: All right. YOEST: But she was really --

GOERTZ: (INAUDIBLE) --

COSTELLO: I have --

YOEST: Carol, she was really effective, you're right, in talking about policy and one of the best moments that she had was talking about Planned Parenthood. She's being attacked for that by some people saying that what she said was not accurate. But, you know, in a debate, you're not footnoting. What you're doing is you're communicating emotion. You're communicating passion. She was accurate in what she described as being in the Planned Parenthood videos.

[09:45:00] And she was the only one who talk the opportunity to describe what Americans are feeling in response to Planned Parenthood, kind of getting into this --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: And you're right, you're right. I got to leave it there. But Charmaine, you're right.

YOEST: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: She was very emotional in her Planned Parenthood remarks but not so accurate when it came to the content of that video.

GOERTZ: Well actually --

COSTELLO: But we'll just leave it there, because we have a fact check at the end. Tana Goertz, Charlaine Yoest -- Charmaine Yoest, thank you so much for joining us this morning. I appreciate it. I wish I could go on. This has been great.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a Muslim teenager arrested at school now has an invitation to the White House. His incredible story and how it became part of last night's debate, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:08] COSTELLO: A Muslim teenager who was arrested at school after his homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb is returning to class today following his three-day suspension. Officials say Ahemd Mohamed will not be charged, but the 14-year-old says he's thinking about transferring to another school and he's speaking out about how he felt after being put into handcuffs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMED MOHAMED, ARRESTED AFTER CLOCK MISTAKEN FOR BOMB: I'm the person who built a clock and got in trouble a lot of for it. I built the clock to impress my teacher, but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. So -- so, it was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it and I got arrested for it later that day.

(EDN VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Once word got out about Mohamed's arrest his story went viral. Social media users supported the teenager, using the hashtag #istandwithahmed. The incident even came up during the first round of the GOP debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN DEBATE MODERATOR: How do you strike the balance between vigilance and discrimination? Obviously we know how you feel about the vigilance part of this. Do you ever see the discrimination part of it?

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R-LA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Sure. I don't think a 14-year-old should ever get arrested for bringing a clock to school. So if you ask me am I glad he wasn't arrest -- eh was released, I'm glad that police are careful, I'm glad they're worried about security and safety issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Alina Machado has been following this story. Good morning, Alina.

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You know, Ahmed Mohamed says he is very grateful for all of the support he's received following Monday's incident. The 14-year-old says he created a digital clock using a pencil box and was excited to show it off at his school. One of his teachers became concerned and eventually police got involved. The Irving, Texas, police chief says because of the, quote, "suspicious nature" of the device, Mohamed was taken into custody and accused of having a fake bomb.

Now the teen said he was interrogated, he was handcuffed, and he was taken to a juvenile detention center where he was held until his father picked him up. As you mentioned, the incident sparked outrage online, on social media, that hashtag #istandwithahmed began trending nationwide, with high-profile names chiming in. I want to read some of those posts for you.

Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook saidsaid, "Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I'd love to meet you. Keep building". Even President Obama weighed in, tweeting, "Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great."

Now Ahmed considers himself an inventor and he was even invited to MIT. Watch this from last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can come visit us at MIT. I would love to give you a tour of the Center For Theoretical Physics and the Kavli Institute for Astropphysics. And I'm hearing from my former advisers at Harvard College that they would love for you to come to the Center for Astrophysics, the Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. So I really hope you'll come visit us in Cambridge. It would be fantastic to have you. You are the kind of student that we want at places like MIT and Harvard.

CHIRS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Ahmed, are you -- obviously, it's a plane flight and such, but maybe you can go check it out. I know it's early for college, you're only 14, but, you know, these things start early these days.

MOHAMED: Yes, yes, that's -- that's a fact right there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACHADO: Now, lots of invitations for him to consider. Yesterday, by the way, police announced that the case is closed and they will not be pursuing any charges against the teen. It is unclear though what will happen next because we know that his family has legal counsel and they are contemplating what steps, if any, what steps they will be taking, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Alina Machado, thanks so much.

Today Republican candidates are cooling off after a heated debate, but how much of what they said was just hot air? Up next, we'll separate fact from fiction.

[09:54:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It was hard to turn away from last night's GOP debate. Republican rivals came out swinging, unleashing insults and challenges over policy against one another. But how much of what they said was actually true? CNN's Tom Foreman separates fact from fiction.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump says he has so much wealth, you don't have to worry about him mixing money and politics. But in this debate Jeb Bush said, too late, Trump himself has already tried to buy political influence.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He wanted casino gambling in Florida.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I did not.

BUSH: Yes you did.

TRUMP: Totally false.

BUSH: You wanted it and you didn't get it.

TRUMP: I would've gotten it.

BUSH: Because I was opposed to casino gambling before, during, and after.

TRUMP: I promise you, I would have gotten it.

BUSH: And that's not -- I'm not going to be bought by anybody.

TRUMP: I promise, if I wanted it, I would have gotten it.

BUSH: No way.

TRUMP: Believe me. I know my people.

BUSH: Not even possible.

TRUMP: I know my people.

FOREMAN: The facts, Trump did hold a fund-raiser for Jeb Bush in the late '90s when he was trying to get a casino deal down in Florida. Bush later blocked it. So on this issue, it appears that Trump had to say things that were false and Bush was saying something that was true.

On the issue of Iraq --

TRUMP: I am the only person on this dais, the only person, that fought very, very hard against us, and I wasn't a sitting politician, going into Iraq.

FOREMAN: Many of the candidates say if they knew then what they'd known now, they would have opposed the war. Some say they even resisted it way back then, including Rand Paul. But Donald Trump was a big public figure. He did speak out in a big way within a week of the invasion saying that it was a mess. So give him credit here, what he had to say was true.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: All right. We'll have more fact-checking for you a little later.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

(MUSIC)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you for joining me.

[10:00:02] Donald Trump tones it down and most of his GOP rivals it step it up; together they target the front-runner in the CNN debate.