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Clinton & Sanders Clash at CNN Debate; Clinton's Campaign Reacts to Debate. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 14, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It may have been the first Democratic debate, but it was clear it was not Hillary Clinton's first rodeo, running down a debate checklist with surgical precision.

[07:00:04] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would not ask anyone to vote for me based on my last name.

BERMAN: Her name, check. Her appeal to the grassroots and pragmatic wings of the party, check, check.

CLINTON: I'm a progressive, but I'm a progressive who likes to get things done.

BERMAN: Her gender, check, check, check.

CLINTON: I think being the first woman president would be quite a change from the presidents we've had up until this point.

BERMAN: Even apparently joking about an extended trip to the bathroom during commercial.

CLINTON: You know, it does take me a little longer. That's all I can say.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: That's right.

BERMAN: But on what might have been the biggest must-do on her list, addressing the questions surrounding the use of her private e-mail for national business, she had a surprising assist from her leading opponent, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.

CLINTON: Thank you. Me too, me too.

BERMAN: Even earning a smile and a handshake.

Clinton didn't exactly return the favor, in one of the sharpest exchanges in the night, when asked about Sanders' record of voting against certain gun control measures.

COOPER: Secretary Clinton, is Bernie Sanders tough enough on guns? CLINTON: No, not at all. I think that we have to look at the fact

that we lose 90 people a day from gun violence.

SANDERS: What I can tell Secretary Clinton, that all the shouting in the world is not going to do what I would hope all of us want. And that is keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have those guns.

BERMAN: Sanders, the self-proclaimed democratic socialist, touted his battle against income inequality.

COOPER: You don't consider yourself a capitalist, though?

SANDERS: Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so few have so much and so many have so little, by which Wall Street's greed and recklessness wrecked this economy? No, I don't.

BERMAN: Former Maryland governor, Martin O'Malley, looking for a breakout moment, hit hard on foreign policy.

MARTIN O'MALLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Leading us into Iraq under false pretenses and telling us, as a people, that there were weapons of mass destruction there, was -- was one of the worst blunders in modern American history.

BERMAN: As for former Virginia senator, Jim Webb, polling in the single digits and barely campaigning, he fought to be noticed.

JIM WEBB (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've been trying to get in this conversation about ten minutes. I've been waiting for ten minutes. I will say this...

COOPER: You're over your time.

WEBB: Well, you've let a lot of people go over their time.

COOPER: Former Rhode Island governor, Lincoln Chafee, seemed to struggle to answer questions about his record.

LINCOLN CHAFEE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Glass-Seagall was my very first vote. I'd just arrived. My dad had died in office. I was appointed to the office. It was my very first vote.

COOPER: Are you saying you didn't know what you were voting for?

BERMAN: Perhaps the most telling moment, maybe aspirational, was when Hillary Clinton was asked to list her enemies.

CLINTON: Well, in addition to the NRA, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the Iranians, probably the Republicans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: You know, quite a few times during the debate, you know, even when it was in some tough spots, Hillary Clinton tried to turn the focus to the Republican Party, to the general election. More than any other candidate, she did a little bit of looking forward. Although she has to get through the primary process first, to be sure.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: True, but this was the first step last night, being measured against everybody else.

Stay with us. Let's get some analysis going on now. Now we've got CNN political reporter Maeve Reston. We have CNN senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny; and in New York, Mr. Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor at New York One.

So what was the perspective from New York? We were out here in Vegas. Berman was gone most of the night. Nobody knows where he was. Errol Louis, when you looked at it last night, what was the bar for success? Who made it? Who fell short?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, the bar for success was really the burden of success where the breakthrough moments that we all were watching for and didn't quite see from O'Malley and the other candidates.

And O'Malley in particular, I was a little surprised by. I thought the most obvious thing that he could have said is that it's time to turn the corner, and he represents a younger generation. He came across as old and almost stiff. He came across as sort of almost solemn in his approach. And I don't know that that's really the right way to break through.

I mean, I was waiting to hear from him about what it was like to be a young vigorous executive who had run around outside of Washington, you know, trying to get things done and trying to make some change. He didn't -- he didn't use that opportunity.

Lincoln Chafee had just an awful night. He's not somebody who has been a Democrat for very long. I think that that showed. He is not somebody who has debated or campaigned much.

And the same was true for Webb.

So I thought of this as really sort of a one-on-one debate between Clinton and Sanders. And it looked like the others were sort of trying to get in and you were kind of waiting, in my case almost hoping that they were going to bring something new to what has been a debate that is sort of locking into a pattern. And we didn't see that last night.

[07:05:05] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Jeff, do you agree with Errol's assessment that the other -- lower three-tier candidates had sort of a lackluster performance?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I don't. I think that Martin O'Malley had a good performance. And I think that he was trying to use this as an opportunity to introduce himself to the biggest audience that he's had.

Now, we -- I hate to keep going back to 2007, that campaign. But by this point, there had been so many debates. So this is the first one here. So he was just introducing himself. So I think Martin O'Malley actually did pretty well. He did himself a

lot of good. You do not want to introduce yourself by being the angry person, sort of taking down Hillary.

CAMEROTA: You were saying by being youthful, that he should have been more...

MAEVE RESTON, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: He did make that generational argument, you know, that -- which was a soft blow, you know, against the Clinton candidacy.

I mean, I really do think that when it's your first introduction he really needed to hit all the points on his record, and he did that. There was not necessarily a big breakthrough moment for him, but it was a smooth, even performance.

CUOMO: Well, you've got do no harm versus you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. You know, you think of Marco Rubio. He talks about being generational with every answer he gives. Martin O'Malley did not do that last night. Is that an unfair critique?

BERMAN: You know, I think Martin O'Malley has got a hard job. Martin O'Malley was Hillary Clinton's biggest supporter on the campaign trail in 2008, something she was only too happy to point out on the campaign trail.

CUOMO: He said things change.

BERMAN: He did. And he has to explain why things change in a clear, concise way at the same time that he's presenting himself to an America that hasn't seen him before.

I think he -- Jeff has got a point. I think America saw him last night, like oh, there's this guy from Maryland that we're going to look at. They're going to give him a chance, but he's got to seal the deal and he's got to do it soon.

CAMEROTA: Errol, Hillary Clinton's challenge last night was to seem approachable, to seem sort of spontaneous. We played that moment where she was asked -- she couldn't have known that she was going to be asked about who her enemies were. And she seemed to almost relish it. She sort of took her time. She smiled and then she gave the zinger, "The Republicans."

There was another moment that she couldn't have predicted. And that was when Lincoln Chafee talked about her character; and Anderson asked if she wanted to respond. Watch this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHAFEE: I think we need someone that has the best in ethical standards as our next president. That's how I feel.

COOPER: Secretary Clinton, do you want to respond?

CLINTON: No.

COOPER: Governor...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Errol, what did you think about her performance overall?

LOUIS: Well, I mean, it was a cutting moment, of course. She essentially was saying, "You don't belong on this stage with me. I don't have to answer these kind of questions."

On the other hand, Lincoln Chafee, you know, put his finger on something that -- that is important. And one of the issues about Hillary Clinton and so-called Clinton fatigue, is that she's been involved in a number of sort of ethical scrapes that go back decades at this point.

It's a real turnoff, we know, for independent voters. There are some core Democrats who are also feeling as if, you know, they've heard too much of this stuff. And there are too many instances in which you have to deal with it. But Hillary Clinton knows how to deflect that stuff. And she did it right there with one word.

CUOMO: So how did -- so how did she do with the Hillary bar? Because it's specific to her. No less than Carl Bernstein wrote a book about her relationship with the truth. And it really came down like a hammer. So did she check the box of how she deals with the negatives, Jeff?

Bernie gave her the gift last night.

ZELENY: Right.

CUOMO: Did she check the box of being able to inspire people? You know, that's a big thing.

ZELENY: That is a big thing. And that has been one of the central frustrations of her candidacy, that she's been unable to spark this enthusiasm that really should be out there for someone who's -- you know, who's in the best position to be the first woman president.

So I think she tried to do that last night. We heard her a few times trying to say that she would be different from Barack Obama, because she would be a woman in the White House.

But there are some moments from the debate last night that are going to live on for her, specifically Keystone. That position, Republicans are just chomping at the bit to use that against her. She said, "I didn't give a position on Keystone until I gave a position on Keystone." That really sounds like it came from the heart. You know, I mean, it's like...

CAMEROTA: It sounds a little bit like "I was against it until I was for it."

BERMAN: Totally. That John Kerry moment, right. RESTON: It was like that Clinton -- that Clinton legalese that a lot of Democratic voters -- you know, Jeff and I have been out on the ground in New Hampshire and Iowa a lot. That's what they bring up a lot. They don't like that legalese. The fact that she often seems kind of in a defensive crouch, certainly on the e-mail issue, for example.

But I did think that, you know, to the enemies moment, for example, that was the point in the debate where you were, like, she's having a good time.

CAMEROTA: Drop the Mike moment.

RESTON: She knows...

BERMAN: Last round. Last call.

RESTON: Yes, exactly. I mean, she seemed very comfortable in a way that she hasn't a lot of times during this campaign on the trail when she's been defending over and over again e-mails, Benghazi, et cetera.

ZELENY: It was a bit of a Xanax moment. One of her supporters told me that, wow, she's back. She has this. Because they've been worried all summer. I think now she reassured her supporters. Did she win over any new people out there, inspire any new people, like you asked? I'm not sure she did.

[07:10:06] BERMAN: How could she? This is why, again, Hillary Clinton's graded on a different curve. She's been in the public eye for 24 years. If you don't have an opinion on Hillary Clinton already, where have you been? So where she is...

ZELENY: There's a whole new generation of young voters. And that's when I see these young voters at Bernie Sanders rallies, young women. I'm like "Why aren't you with Hillary Clinton?"

They're like, "I don't know." They're looking for someone new. So I think she still has to inspire people, and I think that's what her challenge is, going forward.

CAMEROTA: Errol, did Bernie Sanders win over new people last night?

LOUIS: I think he might have, to tell you the truth. I mean, he's really been mostly a name that's floating out there for those who don't follow politics closely or who haven't had a chance to see him on the campaign trail, which is most voters. And I thought he made a very strong case for what he believes in.

Now, there are some who are going to say it's pie in the sky. We're never going to get a $15 minimum wage. We're never going to get free college tuition for everybody who goes to a public university. But there are also those who say, well, at least that's the right idea. And whether or not he can pull it off is a question that maybe we'll tackle later on in the campaign.

So I thought he did himself a pretty good -- he had a pretty good night. And he did himself a really good service by letting everybody know exactly what he stands for, including not ducking his very unpopular title of socialist. I thought that was the right thing to do...

RESTON: But...

LOUIS: ... not to play games with it but just to say this is what I believe. And if you like it, then , you know, give me -- give me a try.

CAMEROTA: All right. We've got to leave it there. Errol. Maeve, hold that thought. John, thanks so much. Panel, it's great to talk to you. We'll have much more coming up on NEW DAY.

Coming up in this hour, stick around, because we have Democratic candidate, former Maryland governor, Martin O'Malley. He will join us to answer even more questions.

Also, Bernie Sanders' campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, joins us to tell us what he thinks the big moment was last night.

We will also speak with Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, John Podesta. We have all that coming up. Stick around. He's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:25] CUOMO: Here we are at the Wynn Casino in las Vegas. And last night was a big gamble for the Democrats on stage. How would they be received? How would they do with each other?

Hillary Clinton and her team feeling good and strong after this first debate last night. Hillary Clinton had to come out, and she had to show why she is the front-runner. So how did she do? How did she do with the criticism? How did she do with the complaints? How did she do with the bar for being No. 1?

Joining us now is chairman of her presidential campaign, Hillary for America, and former White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, Mr. John Podesta.

John, good to have you on the show.

JOHN PODESTA, CHAIRMAN, HILLARY CLINTON FOR AMERICA: Good morning.

CUOMO: Let's do the job. I am the proxy for the American voter. Let's see how you believe Hillary made the case last night. The first bar was prove why you're in the lead. Do you believe Hillary Clinton did that? Why was she the best on the stage?

PODESTA: Look, I thought she crushed it last night. You know, she laid out her vision for where she wanted to take the country. And I thought she really connected quite directly with the people she was trying to help. She really, I think, brought the policy down from a level of talking about the people she's met along the way. The students she met here in las Vegas who needed affordable college. The DREAMers that she met, again, here in las Vegas and what it meant for immigration reform.

So she took those policy issues, and she brought them right down to the kitchen table. And I think that's what she need to do to really connect with people in their heart. And I thought she just crushed it.

CUOMO: Now, I want to hear, I want play some sound for you, then I want to you to tell me how big a fruit basket you sent Bernie Sanders for what he said last night. This is being called the gift that was given to Hillary Clinton last night by Senator Sanders. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: I'm going to say something that may not be great politics, but I think the secretary is right. And that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.

CLINTON: Thank you. Me too, me too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Said like a true Vermonter. So in the room played very well, Anderson Cooper astutely pointed out, not outside this room. How do you deal with the legitimate questions from the e-mail and Benghazi? Different issues.

PODESTA: Yes. Well, first, Bernie, I thought he was quite gracious, but I thought he was also voicing the frustration of many Democrats. They want to hear about their lives and what's going on in them. So I think he helped us, I think, but he also helped himself. Because he really did voice what was going on.

CUOMO: But you know there's concern for your Democrats. You know what it is when it comes to this stuff, that will she be so injured by this that she'll be hobbled in a general election?

PODESTA: Yes, and I think she's answered that. She's been out there. She's answering questions. She's done just a ton of interviews. She -- as she said, she made -- and she said it last night, she made a mistake. She's taken responsibility for it. She's asked to get all these e-mails be disclosed. When they are disclosed, I think they actually help her, because they show her as secretary of state, projecting values around the globe.

Next week we'll finally get a chance to testify in public in the so- called Benghazi hearing. I think that the -- Chairman Gowdy and the other Republicans on that committee go into that hearing hobbled because of what the majority leader, Mr. McCarthy, said, that this was a political exercise designed to hurt her and drive her number down. So they go in hobbled.

But they'll have a quick -- chance to ask her any questions they want, and she'll answer them. And think at that point we're kind of beginning to put an end to this.

CUOMO: Benghazi, they've been banged up because of what happened with McCarthy and then a little bit of the intrigue with Gowdy. The e-mail is something very different. What's, you could argue, unfair is the speculation that she may be indicted. The Department of Justice came out and said the criminal reference is not to Hillary personally, but that is not what the FBI is saying. What is the best answer to that question, that hey, this could wind up being criminal where Hillary Clinton is involved?

PODESTA: Well, you know, we've been -- my answer is we've been through a lot of speculation over the course of the summer. But the facts are the facts. Which is they're doing a security review. We've cooperated fully. She's turned over everything. She's answered questions.

And as the Justice Department has indicated, this is not a criminal inquiry directed at her. It's a security review. And, you know, it's in their hands. We've done what we can do. She's done what she can do. She's tried to be transparent here. She's answered questions.

[07:20:08] And ultimately, the public is going to have to judge. Is her e-mail practice as secretary of state -- matter more to them than the job she can do for them going forward? And I'm pretty confident, and I think she is, too, that they'll render a judgment about that that will favor her, because she's the person who can fight and succeed on behalf of working people.

CUOMO: Fair criticism that Keystone Pipeline, the trade deal is Hillary Clinton picking spots to disagree in a way that will play to her advantage right now?

PODESTA: No. You know, I think, again, last night she talked about how much it meant the to her to serve the president of the United States. They had had that tough fight in the primaries. He respected her judgment, asked her to be secretary of state. She was glad to serve him.

And I think she thinks he's done a remarkable job on the economy, on healthcare, et cetera. But there are a few differences.

I think with respect to Keystone, I wonder whether, at the end of the day, there will be a difference. I think she just got tired of waiting for the process to unfold. Wanted to give him the time to make a decision. But I kind of have the feeling maybe he'll end up in the same place she is, rather than vice versa.

CUOMO: Guns. We saw Hillary Clinton, one of the things that makes her potentially more attractive in a general election is her attitude toward the banks and banking in general. Certainly not as strong as Bernie Sanders or even O'Malley in terms of what they want to do with the banks. Some pragmatism there in terms of getting independents and Republicans.

However, on guns, does Hillary Clinton believe that gun manufacturers should be able to be sued by people in a way that other companies are not?

PODESTA: No. What you're really talking about, Chris, is exactly the opposite. What the bill that Bernie voted for...

CUOMO: You're talking about the Bush law in the '90s?

PODESTA: The Bush -- no, in 2007.

CUOMO: Oh, the more recent one. OK.

PODESTA: Yes. So the -- the bill that he voted for does exactly the opposite. It gives special immunity to gun manufacturers that most companies don't -- no companies -- no other companies actually have.

CUOMO: Is it they...

PODESTA: They have special protection, not -- it's not that we're looking to give them a, you know, special obligation.

But I think that people judge that and say what's that all about? How could somebody be for accountability for every other business in America but not for gun manufacturers? So I think that's a -- that's a clear difference. I think that Senator Sanders has moved, really, just over the weekend, to saying he wants to revisit that.

But that's a clear difference and one that I think we'll hear more about in the weeks and days to come.

CUOMO: We'll plum that. And also, as you know, the secretary is always invited on NEW DAY. We invite all the candidates to come on to do issue-oriented discussions. Some accept, some don't. We're looking for the secretary.

PODESTA: We'll have to do that when we're on the East Coast.

CUOMO: Whenever you want. We'll come wherever she is.

Thank you for getting up early. I got the code there, Mr. Podesta. Thank you for being with us.

PODESTA: Thanks.

CUOMO: Appreciate it. Congratulations on last night.

PODESTA: Thanks. Take care.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Coming up, we are going to talk about all of the hot issues that came up last night during the debate. And our panel is going to break it down. Who came out ahead? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:27:29] CAMEROTA: The candidates tackling major issues last night, like gun control and the conflict in Syria. So what differences have come out now between the candidates?

Let's talk about all of that with our CNN national security commentator and former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers. Also founder of Correct the Record. That's a research team designed to defend Hillary Clinton. David Brock is here. And CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen. Great to see all of you after our long night.

What a fascinating debate, particularly on the issues. Mike Rogers, let me start with you. Martin O'Malley and Hillary Clinton did differ on how they see what should be done in Syria. Let me play for you the moment they talked about the no-fly zone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'MALLEY: I believe that a no-fly zone in Syria at this time actually, Secretary, would be a mistake. You have to enforce no-fly zones. And I believe, especially with the Russian air force in the air, it could lead to an escalation because of an accident that we would deeply regret.

CLINTON: What I believe and why I have advocated that the no-fly zone, which would of course be in a coalition, be put on the table, is because I'm trying to figure out what leverage we have to get Russia to the table. You know, diplomacy is not about getting to the perfect solution. It's about how you balance the risks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

David Brock, Who was right in your mind in this conflict?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Well, From my perspective, Hillary is exactly right. She -- I thought this was interesting. This probably didn't sell well with her Democrat base. It clearly didn't on social media when they were doing the scoring on these issues. It did not score well at all. I mean, she -- Bernie Sanders' points went way up at that point. Her numbers went very -- way down. So I thought it was a little gutsy to do it. But she told the truth about a real problem in Syria, and I give her...

CUOMO: Why is it the real truth?

ROGERS: You're going to -- if you want to be able to stop their ability to recruit, train and finance people, including trying to encourage operations in the United States, you have to take some concrete action. If you want that coalition, you have to get your Arab League partners back together.

What she said is one concrete thing we can do to get that Arab coalition back together is show that we mean business. And a no-fly zone means business.

CUOMO: All right. Now it's good that I have you here next to me, because I feel I'm about to get double-teamed on this one. Let's play Bernie's -- what we're calling -- I'm calling the gift to Hillary Clinton last night about the e-mail situation.

All right. Well, I'll tell you what he said. He said it may not be politically correct -- OK, good, he'll say it better than I did. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: Let me say something that may not be great politics. But I think the secretary is right. And that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.

CLINTON: Thank you. Me too, me too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)