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New Day
Joe Biden's Window Closing?; Interview with Ivanka Trump. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired October 15, 2015 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:30:37] JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I thought every one of those folks last night, I'm mildly prejudiced, I thought they did all well.
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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That was Vice President Joe Biden offering his two cents on the first Democratic debate.
But what does that mean for his own decision whether or not for his own decision to get in? Is the window closing for him?
Joining us now is Nomiki Konst. She's a Joe Biden supporter, an executive director of the Accountability Project, that's a nonpartisan investigation journalist organization.
Nomiki, great to see you.
NOMIKI KONST, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST & JOE BIDEN SUPPORTER: Nice to see you as well.
CAMEROTA: So, everyone is trying to read the tea leaves of what Joe Biden is going to do. Let's look at something else he said, his response to the Democratic debate and try to parse his words.
So, watch this next sound bite.
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BIDEN: I was proud of, I thought, they all did well and you know, part of what has to be done, tell you the whole view, part of what has to be done is we have to actually make the system work. You know, we got to make it work.
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CAMEROTA: OK, Nomiki, he's saying, but, you know, he didn't say "but." He said, we have to actually make the system work. We have to make it work. That's different than I thought they were all fantastic and any one of them would be a great choice? What's he saying there with that added disclaimer of, but we have to make the system work?
KONST: Listen, a debate that brought up on array of issues that's going to represent the Democratic Party for 2016. I think what Joe Biden represents is they fixed the economy, now it's time to fix the system so it doesn't happen again. And what better person than -- there's a reason why Barack Obama chose Joe Biden, instead of anybody else. His the former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations. He wasn't secretary of state.
He was chosen as vice president and he was there during the Great Recession, had the president's ear. He was there while Osama bin Laden was taken down.
CAMEROTA: But, Nomiki, you're saying that he could do something that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and the rest couldn't do? What would he bring that's different?
KONST: Well, I think he has a unique perspective coming from within the White House. If he hadn't been in every single situation that the president has had to make a calculated decision, assigned legislation that has changed Americans' lives from Lilly Ledbetter to renewing the economy. I mean, that -- he has a unique perspective that no other person on that stage, whether they were in the administration or not, whether they were in the Senate or not, he's the only person that brings that perspective.
CAMEROTA: So, when you hear him saying "but we have to make it work", did that tell you, I mean, you've studied him, that he's going to get in?
KONST: Well, I hope so. I really hope so. I mean, listen, he's going across the country. He's doing what he was doing before he was first elected. He's talking to American families. He's finding about the issues they're most concerned with.
And I think in terms of viability here, he's the most viable candidate at this point.
CAMEROTA: Let me put up the latest poll for you to show where Democrats are in terms of their decision making. Clinton, this the latest poll, October 10th through 12th. Hillary Clinton gets 54 percent.
Well, I don't know if this is actually the number that I have, 45 percent. Sanders gets 25. . And Biden gets 19 percent. It doesn't look there as if the American electorate is clamoring for him to get in.
KONST: He's not running yesterday. Over 227,000 people have signed a pledge saying they want Joe Biden to run for president. This is just organization on his side. Once the campaign starts, if it starts, which we hope, I have no doubt he's polling pretty well without being in the race. He's polling well than real candidates that were on stage.
And, you know, there was an ad that came out, I don't know if you saw this, but Draft Biden put up an ad --
CAMEROTA: During the debate.
KONST: During the debate.
So there was a poll afterwards, they had a focus group, of Iowa Democratic voters. And half of the voters came out and said they wanted Joe Biden to run after seeing that ad.
CAMEROTA: Let me play for you what Hillary Clinton's response yesterday when she was asked about whether or not she thought Joe Biden was going to be getting in. Listen to this.
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HILLARY CLINTON (D): I'm going to continue to run my campaign. And make my case for my candidacy. And everyone else, whether they're in or they're not in, will have to make whatever judgment is best for them.
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CAMEROTA: Look, pundits and voters alike felt that she turned in an impressive performance during the debate. And if there was -- if his rationale for getting in was her vulnerability, that's gone away.
[06:35:01] KONST: I don't know if that's his rationale. I think he's focusing on what Americans need. And if there's a path to move forward, also he can do it at this point. I mean, we've all talked about the fact he's had an incredible tragedy. That's a lot.
I mean, campaigning, going across the country, you're on the trail, meeting with people every day. It's exhausting. You're not with your family as much.
I think there's an opening. There were a lot of issues that weren't brought up. They barely talked about what Obama accomplished. I mean, he was a big part of getting over the great recession. I think he can bring that perspective and say, all right, you've done this, now, let's fix this system like Bernie Sanders says, like Hillary Clinton says, like the rest of the Democrats on the stage say, except I have the experience to really make this happen.
CAMEROTA: Well, Nomiki Konst, if he gets in, we know you should be a major part of his campaign. Your enthusiasm --
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CAMEROTA: Exactly. Nomiki Konst, thanks for being on NEW DAY.
KONST: Thanks so much.
CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Michaela.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alisyn.
Ahead, you're going to hear from a woman who knows Donald Trump better than most, his daughter Ivanka. She speaks exclusively to CNN about her dad's ambitions. Her own passions and what it's like having a daughter like father like the Donald.
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[06:40:06] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Tough news to hear. No one is going home. That is the hard reality President Obama will tell you U.S. fighting men and women in Afghanistan, and their families. There will be a second delay in the drawdown of some 9,800 troops committing the U.S. to at least 2016 to try to stop the Taliban.
The president had said troops would be pulled out. But it seems the political pressure to keep U.S. troops out of foreign conflicts is fading.
PEREIRA: Donald Trump interrupted by protesters at a raucous campaign event in Richmond, Virginia. But he was able to speak, Trump slammed Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for, quote, "giving things away," especially to illegal immigrants. The Republican also called Sanders a socialist/communist. This as new CNN/ORC poll reveals Trump has a double-digit lead in Nevada and South Carolina.
CAMEROTA: Former NBA star Lamar Odom on life support this morning. Police say he had been using cocaine before being found unconscious this week. According to employees at a Nevada brothel, where he was staying, he was also taking a national herb to increase sexual performance. Odom's estrange wife, Khloe Kardashian, reportedly by his side. A source close to the family tells CNN that she is now in charge of his medical decisions.
CUOMO: Growing up Trump. Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka speaking exclusively to CNN, wading into the perilous political waters, to talk about what it's like to have the Donald as a dad. How does the daughter see the father? Next.
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[06:45:50] PEREIRA: Well, we have seen some things, haven't we, Donald Trump going from political novelty to political contender. Now, we are hearing from someone who knows him not as the Donald but as dad, his daughter Ivanka Trump. She spoke exclusively to our Poppy Harlow.
And Poppy joins us now.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was a fascinating discussion.
Look, we haven't heard from her since that podium in June and introduced her father to the world as a presidential candidate. We sat down at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit to talk about her father's run, to talk about her business and this initiative she launched Women Who Work, empowering women all over the world. She said that her father, Michaela, gave her moral compass. That really stood out to me.
What she also said to Fortune is the level of interest and scrutiny is beyond anything she's experienced.
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HARLOW: Let's begin with this. We are at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. And Michael Cohen from the Trump Organization said that the company employees, 57 percent men and 43 percent women. But there are more female executives than male within the Trump organization.
How can we see that translate across corporate America, so that more women are at the upper echelons?
IVANKA TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S DAUGHTER: Well, I think it's incredibly important. And I think companies who had aren't prioritizing, ensuring that women are at all levels within the organization and that this disproportion of men versus women and gender and equality, you know, anyone who is thinking in those terms and who is not being very proactive to ensure that there are company is being thoughtful about the gender mix is simply going to fall behind.
So, I think it will be a self-selecting thing. I think in ten years from now, that companies who hadn't evolved will not be the companies that they are today. And, you know, I think my father recognized this a long time ago.
I wouldn't be the person I am today, I wouldn't have the ambition, the drive, the passion, the commitment to what it is that I'm doing both for the Trump organization and for my own brand, if he hadn't encouraged me, emboldened me, given me the confidence that I could do whatever it is that I set my mind to accomplish if I had the vision, the energy, the passion and the work ethic to match.
So, I think, really, it's -- leadership is about action. Leadership is about setting an example. And he's very much done that within the context of the Trump Organization. And that's why, you know, my brothers and I are -- are equally at the same level, at the highest ranks within the context of that company.
HARLOW: You started Women Who Work, it's an initiative you pushed to empower women at all levels to work and to follow their dreams. But Pew found that an increasing amount of American women are staying home from 23 percent in 1999, to 29 percent in 2000. And some of that is in part due to rising child care costs.
TRUMP: Yes.
What's your message to these women?
HARLOW: Well, so my campaign is about the fact that women are working at all aspects of their life. And I think there's this tendency to talk about working women, the working women. There's this caricature of what that looks like. We represent 50 percent of the population. We're all working at different things. We all have different priorities.
And those priorities change through the course of their lives. My priorities today as a mother of two with one on the way are different from what they were 10 years ago, and will likely be different ten years from now.
So, I really want to create a brand that will celebrate the fact that women are multidimensional that we're working really hard at architecting lives that we want to live and lives that are consistent with out personal priorities. And I do think there's this unfortunate and prevailing depiction of the working women as, know, wearing a black pantsuit and being solely focused on her professional role. And that's just not true.
And, hopefully, I can be a small part of changing the narrative around what it looks like to be a woman who works today. And that's the purpose of the campaign.
[06:50:00] It's not to tell people they should work or they shouldn't work.
HARLOW: Right.
TRUMP: It's not to push people in a certain direction. It's to celebrate the fact that we're all figuring it out. And we're all work very, very hard.
I know, for example, I'm more exhausted on a Monday morning after a weekend home with the kids than I am on a Friday afternoon. I work really hard during the week.
HARLOW: Yes.
TRUMP: And it's really about just enabling and supporting women and architecting this ideal lives for themselves.
HARLOW: Your father points to you telling him that he's been on the campaign trail, quote, "really misunderstood on his views about women." He has said some things that have -- about women that have shocked many people about Carly Fiorina. He said, "Look at that face, would anyone vote for that?"
About Megyn Kelly's questioning about him in the first FOX debate, "There was blood coming out of her wherever."
Ivanka, what was your reaction to that?
TRUMP: Well, I think a lot of the sensationalism around this was orchestrated largely by the media. Look, my father is very blunt. He is very direct. He is non-gender specific in his criticism of people, and people that he doesn't particularly like, or people that he does like but thinks they are wrong on a particular issue.
So, you know, I don't think that he's gender targeted at all. Like I said, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't be high- level executive within his organization if he felt that way. So, he's always supportive and encouraged women and truthfully, he's proven that through decades through his employment practices, through his hiring practices.
HARLOW: What would President Trump do for women in this country?
TRUMP: He'd be amazing for women in this country. He would be incredible for women in this country. And he's starting to articulate his positions.
It's not my place to articulate those for him. I'm not part of the campaign. I'm very busy and he's kept me very busy working alongside my brothers and running the organization now that he's taking this step, and in terms of his efforts to try and make this country great again, as he says.
So, you know, I'll leave policy to him.
HARLOW: Yes.
TRUMP: But I can speak to him as my vantage point as a child, and also from vantage point as a colleague, and somebody who works for him.
He's been an amazing parent. He's given me every opportunity to succeed. He's been loving and supportive. He's pushed me. He's corrected me. He's disciplined me.
And I think as a parent now myself I appreciate how hard that is more than ever before. When I was 15 or 16, I was a little less impressed by how tough he was and how strict he was with us as children.
As a parent now, I see just how hard it is to raise children with drive and with passion and with energy who have a well-set moral compass and he's very much did that for me in his role as a father and then as an executive. I have seen what an unbelievable leader he is. He's the most formidable negotiator I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of great negotiators.
He is also somebody who really encourages people to achieve at their highest level. He sets very high goals for everyone who works for him and who works with him but really he helps them raise the bar for themselves in terms of what they want to accomplish.
HARLOW: What are your business goals for Ivanka Trump as a brand, as a business?
TRUMP: Oh, I have far-reaching goals. I think my goals are less specific and more general now. I want to continue to grow the Trump Organization footprint throughout the world. We have a hotel company, the Trump Hotel collection, which I'm incredibly proud of which is now the fastest growing luxury hotel brand.
We have many very, very exciting property openings in the year to come here in Washington, D.C., with the old Post Office building, an iconic building right on Pennsylvania Avenue, in Rio de Janeiro, in Vancouver and many, many others in the pipeline for the years to come.
So, I think the opportunity on the hotel side and on the real estate side is huge. And I almost don't want to limit myself by giving a specific goal, but the growth potential there is enormous.
In terms of my own business, I feel like I'm just getting started. I am creating product in many categories that has been very well-received, that I'm deeply proud of, and I'm looking forward to other opportunities in other categories and in international markets to grow that brand.
Of course, my most important priority -- my family is growing and hopefully will continue to grow.
HARLOW: Congratulations. You are five months pregnant.
[06:55:01] TRUMP: I'm five months pregnant --
HARLOW: The third.
TRUMP: -- with my third.
HARLOW: Congratulations.
TRUMP: So, it's an amazing time and it's an exciting time for me in my personal life as well.
So, I feel incredibly blessed and incredibly fortunate that I'm so happy personally and professionally, and I hope that all of this continues.
HARLOW: You are very good friends with Chelsea Clinton, and she gave a recent interview and she said, quote, "I love Ivanka", and she said both of your parents running potentially against each other in a general election has not affected your friendship.
How do you guys navigate that? Do you talk politics? Do you talk kids?
TRUMP: We -- it has not been an issue for us. I have great respect for her. She's been a great friend to me. I've been a great friend to her.
So, you know, the politics of our parents is not relevant to our friendship.
HARLOW: I asked a lot of the women here at the summit and sat down with a group of them at the Democratic debate last night. I know you watched.
What did you make of the debate and who do you think would be the most formidable candidate against your father who is leading still in all of the Republican polls?
TRUMP: I thought the debate was excellent. I thought the debate was interesting to watch. So I enjoyed watching. Like I said, I'm a business person, not a politician. So, I'll leave politics to other members of the family and the many, many people who are involved in the race on both sides. So, we'll see who emerges.
HARLOW: Ivanka Trump, thank you very much.
TRUMP: Thank you.
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PEREIRA: Poppy joins us now in studio. He's quite a formidable young woman, an expectant mother.
I'm curious, though, the point of interest for many, she knows her father in a different way than the public knows him.
HARLOW: Right.
PEREIRA: But what -- but I'm still struggling with understanding how she sees -- how she feels about how her father's make something people in the female community, Latinos, they are struggling with the words that he's saying.
HARLOW: Right.
PEREIRA: She seems to sort of say well, he's just blunt.
HARLOW: Well, you heard us ask her that and she said this has largely been sensationalized by the media, and so -- right? That is what she said when I asked her specifically about the comments about Carly Fiorina and about Megyn Kelly. She said, I know how my father feels about women.
She did say he's very blunt about people had he doesn't like. So, you don't know what those conversations are behind the scenes. She was asked on stage at the Fortune Summit as well. What was your conversation after that FOX debate and she did not let us into that window.
It's still a very private thing. We'll see, this is the first time we've heard from her and you wonder how involved she's going to be.
PEREIRA: Do you think we'll see her in the campaign trail?
HARLOW: I didn't get that sense. She said multiple times, I'll leave politics to other parts of the family. I'm not part of the policy. I'm not an adviser. I thought we'd see more. We will see what happens.
But I didn't get the sense that she's going to be at least talking about his policies. Maybe we'll see her by his side on the trail. But we haven't yet.
PEREIRA: Yes, she's her own woman.
HARLOW: Yes, for sure.
PEREIRA: For sure.
Poppy, great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us.
HARLOW: Thanks.
PEREIRA: Certainly a lot of news to get to on this Thursday. Let's get right to it.
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REP. RICHARD HANNA (R), NEW YORK (via telephone): I think that there's a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people.
CUOMO: A second Republican congressman says yes, the Benghazi committee was designed to go after Hillary Clinton.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This committee is basically an arm of the Republican national committee, to drive down by poll numbers.
CUOMO: U.S. troops are remaining in Afghanistan longer than planned.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a big reversal for the White House.
CAMEROTA: What does this turnaround mean for that drawdown?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Somebody said, why do you talk about the polls? I said, because I'm winning.
PEREIRA: Donald Trump back on the attack and on a roll in the latest CNN/ORC poll.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we saw from Democrats is a serious debate.
TRUMP: We can't have these politicians any longer. We just can't do it. We can't do it.
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.
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CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to your NEW DAY.
Up first, another Republican congressman with a candid revelation about Benghazi. He claims the committee investigating it was designed to take down Hillary Clinton.
CUOMO: So, what will this mean, will it change what Hillary Clinton when he testifies against the committee next week? Will it affect the campaign in a real way?
CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is live in Washington with the latest.
Sunlen, what do you know?
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Chris, the Clinton campaign really jumping very quickly on this, hoping to capitalize on the new comments made by Representative Richard Hanna of New York in this radio interview.
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REP. RICHARD HANNA (R), NEW YORK (via telephone): I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and get an individual, Hillary Clinton, and I think there's also a lot of it that's important that we needed to get to the bottom of this. But this has been the longest investigation, longer than Watergate.
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SERFATY: And the Clinton campaign really holding this up.
