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Trump/Bush Feud Escalates Over 9/11; CNN poll: Clinton Wins Debate 63-35% Over Sanders; Benghazi Tops Agenda as Lawmakers Return to D.C.; Soldier Killed, 11 Wounded in Israel Bus Station Shooting. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 19, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

TRUMP: When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time.

[07:00:05] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hold on. That -- you can't blame George Bush for that.

TRUMP: He was president, OK?

JONES: Bush quickly fired back on Twitter, calling the GOP frontrunner pathetic.

TRUMP: You know, dealing with killers.

JONES: Now his campaign is mocking Trump in a new video, using his own words.

CHUCK TODD, HOST, NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": Who do you talk to for military advice right now?

TRUMP: Well, I watch the shows.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's one of the ways that he bones up on our national security.

GRAPHIC: "Not a deep thinker on foreign policy or anything else."

JONES: And fundraising off the dust-up, sending this appeal to supporters, arguing that under Trump's logic, FDR should be blamed for Pearl Harbor.

This as Trump insisted he could have prevented 9/11, because his tough stance on immigration would have kept the hijackers out.

TRUMP: There's a good chance that those people would not have been in our country.

JONES: Meanwhile, Ben Carson made an unusual claim, saying President Bush could have used oil as leverage against Arab states to find Osama bin Laden sooner.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think they would have known where he was. (END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: Interesting comments there from Carson. Carson is also defending George W. Bush, saying it's ridiculous to suggest he's responsible for 9/11. Huckabee is echoing Carson, saying the blame lies with Islamic Jihadists -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Athena. Thank you so much for that.

New polls out this morning weigh the results from last week's record-breaking CNN Democratic debate. Democratic voters say Hillary Clinton was the clear winter, scoring 27 points better than Bernie Sanders.

But did the former secretary of state move the needle when it comes to overall polling numbers? Senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar joins us live in Washington with all the numbers.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Interesting stuff here as we wait to see if Joe Biden perhaps will be on the next debate stage.

Among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, if Joe Biden stays out of the race, 45 percent of those polled saying they want Clinton to be the nominee. Without Biden in the race, that goes up 11 points.

Bernie Sanders, 29 percent of these voters, say they want him to be the nominee. That only goes up four points. The advantage here is to Hillary Clinton.

Look at Hillary Clinton's favorability following the debate: 46 percent right there. Now, that is up from 44 percent in August. Fifty percent unfavorable. That is down from 53 percent.

So the good news here, she's going in the right direction. The good news for her team, of course. The bad news, as you see right there, she's still under water, unfavorable, unfavorable.

But look at the candidates on the issues. The Democratic candidates here, Hillary Clinton has an advantage on a myriad of issues. Foreign policy, gun policy, the place where Bernie Sanders gets closest to her is you see there at the bottom is on income inequality.

And how does Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, stack up against Republican frontrunners? Well, statistically, she's tied with Ben Carson. He fares better against her than Donald Trump, who Clinton bests by five points.

Now there's a margin of error, so give or take three points here. And, you know, you mentioned that Hillary Clinton may not have seen a bump in the polls from the debate, but this may be good news for her.

After that strong debate performance, you have less Democratic voters who say they want Joe Biden in the race. You actually have more people saying they want him to stay out than get in, Chris.

CUOMO: Well, and that is very interesting coming out of the debate. How will that shape the vice president's decisions? What will it mean as we go into the next phase of the campaign? We get answers, we've got more questions, Brianna. That's the problem with this process.

All right. So let's try and get some clarity here. We have Delaware Senator Chris Coons. He's a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and supports a potential Joe Biden run.

Senator, thank you for being here.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D), DELAWARE: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: I want to talk about the reasonable expectations of what could happen with this Benghazi testimony that the former secretary of state is going to give.

But let's talk a little Joe while I have you here. You immediately stuck a big pin in my balloon, saying, "I am not here to tell you what the vice president is going to do."

Let's do this two ways. First, if we look at this recent poll, there is a little bit of attrition, slipping on should the vice president run. There is a high index of satisfaction with the field, according to the recent poll. Seventy percent say fairly or very satisfied. How does this inform what you think the best thing is for the vice president to do?

COONS: Well, I think the vice president is going to make a decision here that's really based on what's best for his family. He and his family continue to deeply mourn the loss of their talented, very special son, Beau Biden, who was our attorney general, who passed away earlier this year.

And I know if Joe Biden had been on that debate stage, if he gets into this race, it will change all of the numbers that we just saw in the poll. The one thing he's got as the sitting vice president, as someone who served in the Senate for 36 years is an undeniable record, as one of America's strongest voices for the middle class, someone who is very authentic. He is who he is.

And you know when he speaks he's speaking from the heart. But he's also got decades of senior experience in national security and foreign policy. He does have the room to make a decision that's really right for him and his family. It is getting late in the fall, and I do think we'll get an answer relatively soon.

CUOMO: What is he saying about where he is in the process and why?

COONS: I think the vice president is deeply torn. He is trying to honor the wishes that Beau expressed to him in his last days. He's trying to respect the fact that this is likely his last opportunity to run for president of the United States. And he knows that he's got a remarkable record as vice president. He's been one of the strongest, most effective vice presidents ever.

But I also think, as a father myself, that the depths of grief that I've heard from him and his family are just -- are stunning. And so the balance between what's right for him, what's right for his family, what's right for the country, I know is weighing on him very hard.

CUOMO: And we both know that Beau wanted him to run for a lot longer period than just at the end of his life. So this is something the vice president was familiar with.

All right. So you're saying we're going to find out soon, but we're not going to know today.

All right. So let's talk about something else we don't know today but is coming soon. When Hillary Clinton gets before that committee, this is going to be the big moment for them to justify their significance now.

COONS: Right.

CUOMO: As someone who understands the foreign policy implications of what happened in Benghazi and what we know, do you believe that this is about evincing new information? Do you believe there is material unknown that can come out in one of these hearings?

COONS: No, I don't. I think they've had more than a dozen hearings on Benghazi in the House and the Senate, open hearings, classified hearings. And I don't see this select committee on Benghazi has done anything other than waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money in continuing to grind over the same ground.

When I was on the foreign relations committee during the time that she was secretary of state, I, on several occasions, got to engage with then-Secretary Clinton.

And she is a very capable, smart, grounded leader. She has an amazing record as senator, as first lady, as secretary of state. I don't think they're going to trip her up or discover any big new surprise. I frankly this is the worst sort of politically-motivated fishing expedition at this point.

CUOMO: Trey Gowdy called not agree with you more, Senator. He says the reason we don't know certain things is because she hasn't told us. That there has been a blockade of information coming here. Is there any merit to that?

COONS: Not that I see. In both open and classified sessions I've gone over the details of what happened. And although truly tragic, the incident in Benghazi that cost the lives of four Americans, including our ambassador, I don't believe have been concealed through a conspiracy led by the secretary.

I think the real question ought to be why did the Congress not invest more in embassy security? Why have we not yet fully addressed some of the issues that were raised in the earliest hearings about Benghazi?

CUOMO: There were reports issued.

COONS: Why did we not address those reports?

CUOMO: The State Department adopted some. A lot of them have been left as open letters.

COONS: Exactly.

CUOMO: So what is the end of the day analysis, though, in terms of why did Benghazi happen and what do we do to make sure it happened again?

COONS: I think in no small part we needed to invest more in embassy security, in human intelligence, signals intelligence, and in making sure that we had some -- some tighter restrictions on ambassadors and on station leaders who, although confident in their assessment of the risk, perhaps were overconfident.

CUOMO: Was there a big risk assessment that had been delivered and was ignored by the State Department?

COONS: There's some debate about that, whether it got to Secretary Clinton or not, whether it was ignored or not. There is a question, I think, that's been addressed, which is whether there was an available rapid response force that could have made some sort of a difference here.

At the end of the day, I think we as a Congress, a now Republican-controlled Congress, have not invested enough in improving embassy security and in training our diplomats, who go overseas to confront very dangerous situations.

The answer can't be to have every diplomat who represents us in difficult and dangerous situations locked in a fortified embassy. The brave and capable people of the foreign service go into tough countries to represent us, knowing that there are real risks there. But we can and should strike that balance more in favor of securing Americans overseas.

CUOMO: Let's end where we're started. How often are you getting on the show right now?

Not as often as I'd like.

CUOMO: Do you wait for him to call? Or do you...

COONS: At this point, I had a couple of opportunities to be with him in person two weeks ago. But at this point, I think all of us who care deeply for him and who want him to run and would support him if he ran, are giving him the space to make this very difficult decision in the next couple of I days or weeks.

CUOMO: Do you think, if Joe Biden runs, he wins? COONS: I believe he will. I think he brings to the stage a

different voice, a unique set of experiences, and a capability that Americans are crying out for right now. They want authenticity. They want someone who understands their experience, and they want someone who's got the capability and the competence to lead.

[07:10:06] The meltdown we're seeing over on the Republican presidential primary, this latest fight between Trump and Bush over who's responsible for 9/11, I think creates a big opening. Whether it's the vice president or Secretary Clinton, I think we will end up with a very capable, very strong nominee.

CUOMO: Senator Coons, thank you for being on the show. Appreciate it -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Let's talk about what's coming up this week. Hillary Clinton expected to publicly testify Thursday before the Benghazi panel. This amid claims that the investigation has become a political ploy to take her down. The head of the committee now telling his colleagues to, quote, "shut up."

CNN's senior congressional reporter, Manu Raju, is live in Washington. Manju, what's the latest?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The Benghazi flap is only the latest episode that reveals internal tensions dogging congressional Republicans as they return this week to Washington.

Of course, this latest round of sniping started a few weeks ago when Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, boasted that the Benghazi committee hurt Hillary Clinton's poll numbers. Yet Republicans on the committee and party leaders told me they were absolutely furious when a rank-and-file congressman, Richard Hanna, made a similar claim on a local radio program last week.

So yesterday, the chairman of the Benghazi committee, Trey Gowdy, did not hold back his frustration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I've told my own Republican colleagues and friends, shut up talking about things that you don't know anything about. And unless you're on the committee, you have no idea what we've done, why we've done it and what new facts we have found.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, that's hardly the only issue dividing the GOP. Congress needs to find a way to raise the debt ceiling by November 3. And I've been told bipartisan fiscal talks between the White House and Hill leaders have not yielded much progress.

Republican Rand Paul told me the GOP should be prepared to let government funding expire to get their way on spending. And looming over everything is this question. Will Congressman Paul Ryan agree to take the speakership? The House GOP meets Wednesday to continue those conversations -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Manu, thank you so much for that.

We have some breaking news for you now. A brazen shooting at a bus station in southern Israel. A gunman going on the attack, killing an Israeli soldier, wounding at least 11 others. CNN's Oren Lieberman is live in Jerusalem with all the latest for us -- Oren.

OREN LIEBERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, police say an Arab Bedouin from Southern Israel went into the central bus station in the major southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva, killed a soldier, took that soldier's M-16, went into the bus station and opened fire, sending at least 11 people to the hospital. Police say that attacker was shot and killed at the scene. But the story doesn't end there.

Police say what they had first thought was a second attacker was, in fact, an innocent bystander but a security guard who shot that suspect or rather that innocent bystander before a crowd surrounded him and started beating and kicking him. That innocent bystander, an African migrant, later died at the hospital. So this has become a complex situation.

But another attack here in what has become its third week of attacks here in Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Chris, as all this is happening, very heightened security measures in and around the old city of Jerusalem. A very destabilized situation.

CUOMO: Very destabilized situation there. Thank you for the reporting. We'll check back with you later in the show.

We also want to tell you this morning that a northern Minnesota community is reeling over the senseless murder of a sheriff's investigator. Steven Sandberg was shot and killed at a Minnesota hospital Sunday after a suspect he was guarding grabbed his gun and opened fire. The suspect, identified as 50-year-old Danny Hammond, also died after a security guard used a Taser to subdue him. Officials say his death was due to a medical emergency during the takedown.

CAMEROTA: All right. Take a look at your screen. We have some breathtaking video to show you. That is a Utah mountain biker. He was riding the Red Bull Rampage when he flirted too close to the edge and, as you can see, he tumbled off of the high terrain. He plummeted over the edge. We have a look from his own helmet cam.

PEREIRA: Even worse.

CAMEROTA: I know.

Oh, my gosh. Look at this.

Here's the good news. He survived. And despite suffering some scrapes and bruises...

PEREIRA: What? He's walking.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. He also had the guts to get back on his bike, and he completed the qualifying ride.

PEREIRA: I think you're going to always call that kind of fall, that move will now be called the Red Bull Rampage.

CUOMO: Want to show the power of that taurine that they put in the Red Bull, that you can get back up on the bike. Well, either that may or it's a dose of crazy.

PEREIRA: They are made of other stuff. But I would have thought he broke bones, for sure.

CUOMO: I don't know if flirting would be the word I'd using. He went in whole hog.

CAMEROTA: I'll have to fix that word for the next hour.

Meanwhile, the political infighting between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush ramping up again over 9/11. What they're saying about each other and all the possible fallout, next.

CUOMO: That was my tease.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:37] CAMEROTA: Donald Trump going after Jeb Bush, Trump claiming that his own immigration stance could have prevented 9/11 unlike George W. Bush.

Jeb Bush firing back at that claim and Ben Carson sharing interesting theories on Osama bin Laden.

With us to discuss all of this this morning, are Matt Schlapp, former political director for George W. Bush; and chairman of the American Conservative Union; and Mercedes Viana Schlapp, former spokesperson for Spanish-language media under President George W. Bush and co-founder of Cove Strategies. Great to have both of you with us.

Matt, it's very interesting to talk to you. Of course, you worked for George W. Bush. So what Donald Trump is saying about 9/11 is interesting to all of us, particularly you.

Let me play for you what Donald Trump has said about 9/11.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Jeb said we were safe with my brother. We were safe. Well, the World Trade Center just fell down.

Now, am I trying to blame him? I'm not blaming anybody. I am extremely, extremely tough on illegal immigration. I'm extremely tough on people coming into this country. I believe that, if I were running things, I doubt those families would have -- I doubt that those people would have been in the country. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right, guys, so much to talk about in just that one statement. Matt, let me start with you. Is it fair to go back and re-litigate 9/11?

[07:20:01] MATT SCHLAPP, FORMER POLITICAL DIRECTOR FOR GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, it's an important historical event, but I mean, Mercy and I ran out of the White House on 9/11. To blame George W. Bush for what happened on that day is going a couple of steps too far.

You know, what Jeb Bush said is, "My brother kept us safe," meaning after September 11. I think we all kind of woke up from a naive dream that there were these people that wanted to kill us and get us. And I think his presidency changed from that moment forward in a way that some people criticize, but his No. 1 goal was to keep us safe. It's fair that Donald Trump was talking about illegal immigration and people who overstay visas. But it's totally unfair and off topic to blame George W. Bush for 9/11.

CUOMO: Well, two things. First, I love that you call your wife, Mercedes, "Mercy." I think that that is what every wife should probably be called.

SCHLAPP: I need it every day.

CUOMO: I like that you got a couple of points in for yourself, Schlapp, on our show. Very nice.

Mercedes, let me ask you something. Let's talk about the risk, OK. You're an expert in messaging. The risk for Donald Trump for going after President Bush, then-President Bush for 9/11. He says he's not blaming him, but he started off blaming him.

MERCEDES VIANA SCHLAPP, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR SPANISH LANGUAGE MEDIA FOR GEORGE W. BUSH: That's right.

CUOMO: And what is the risk? What's the plus/minus in this calculation?

VIANA SCHLAPP: Well, definitely the risk is that there are the Republican voters out there that agree that President George W. Bush kept us safe, just like Governor Jeb Bush has mentioned. I mean, he was focused on making sure, through the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, that there would not be another terrorist attack on American soil. With that being said, Donald Trump is big up a valid point on illegal immigration. We know that some of the terrorists from 9/11 overstayed their visas.

CUOMO: One.

VIANA SCHLAPP: Others had these approved student visas. And so they were allowed to say there was no tracking system of the backgrounds of these individuals that came into this country and ended up committing these atrocities in the U.S. CAMEROTA: Mercedes, I just want to challenge you on that.

Because one of them was here on a student visa that I believe that he overstayed. The others were here on tourist visas and business visas.

So is it fair for Donald Trump to say that those would all go away under his administration? You no longer grant people those?

VIANA SCHLAPP: No, no. But you have to keep in mind, when they are coming from countries like Saudi Arabia, et cetera, that you're looking and you're making sure the background checks are there, that the immigration services are able to track these individuals that could possibly come with some terrorist ties.

That is important. That's one of the reasons why we've got to keep Americans safe, is to ensure that these terrorists don't come into this country.

CAMEROTA: OK. So George W. Bush didn't know to do that, because 9/11 hadn't happened yet.

VIANA SCHLAPP: It's not just immigration. It is several issues. It is also the CIA and the intelligence failure, right? So there's several components that you can take a look at.

But I think that for Donald -- in Donald Trump's case, what he's trying to make is make a link to illegal immigration. Now whether he could have started that or not, that's a totally different subject. Because you can't look back to 9/11 and be like, OK, could he have really prevented this attack?

CUOMO: Well, of course you can. And that's what Donald Trump is doing. Is that he is looking back and saying I would have stopped it because of how I am on immigration. The question becomes is Jeb responding to this the right way? Should he respond at all? And...

SCHLAPP: Absolutely.

CUOMO: A lot of people feel there was an opportunity for him here and he didn't meet it.

SCHLAPP: Mercy and I were talking about this. I think Jeb Bush is full-throated and passionate when people take cheap shots at his family. And you really see he is stirred by the fact that this is unfair. And I think he really connects to people.

At the CNN debate, the No. 1 applause line throughout that whole debate was when Jeb Bush said he kept us safe. And I think that strikes a chord with Republicans, even Republicans who have criticized President Bush and don't think that in every way he -- he lived up to their expectations. They do believe he lived up to his expectations on this. And I think that the American people all gave him credit for that.

CAMEROTA: Another candidate who is re-litigating 9/11 from a different angle is Ben Carson. He's talking -- he's basically saying this weekend that he would not have gone to war in Afghanistan. He would have just made a threat, and that would have had them turn over Osama bin Laden. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARSON: I think they would have been extremely concerned if we had declared, and we were serious about it, that we were going to become petroleum independent, because it would have had a major impact on their finances. And I think that probably would have trumped any loyalty that they had to people like Osama bin Laden.

CAMEROTA: Mercedes, would that have gotten Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia's attention?

VIANA SCHLAPP: Absolutely. Well, first of all, Dr. Ben Carson is sounding incredibly naive on foreign policy. I think that statement is irresponsible.

I mean, the fact is we know that Saudi Arabia, like George Stephanopoulos said, had no loyalty to Osama bin Laden. That would not have stopped Osama bin Laden. We did the right thing by going after this horrific terrorist and trying to destroy al Qaeda.

[07:25:09] It's been part of our mission. And it's our responsibility since they came after us and attacked us. So again, I think for Dr. Carson to say that, it just shows that he is just not equipped to handle these questions on foreign policy.

CUOMO: And yet it's working. He is beating Hillary in the new poll.

SCHLAPP: That's right.

CUOMO: He's pulled ahead of Trump in that matchup. How do you explain that?

SCHLAPP: Well, I think it's disjointed. He's totally right that us, that America marshaling its petroleum resources and becoming energy secure and becoming much more reliant on domestic sources of energy is a great shot at regimes who have kind of held us in a weak spot over our need for oil.

It's a great thing. But it's a step too far once again to then, all of a sudden, assume it would solve all these problems with terrorism. Of course, it wouldn't.

And I think once again, it's good to talk about these questions about 9/11 and these questions about how we're facing the war on terror, because they're very present in our lives and they're very important. I just think, you know, it's really important for the voters to see how the candidates answer these questions.

CAMEROTA: Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, thanks so much. Great to get your insight.

VIANA SCHLAPP: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: What's your take on all of this? You can tweet us using the hashtag #NewDayCNN or post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay.

Let's get over to Michaela.

PEREIRA: Well, as Hillary Clinton gears up for her testimony before the House Benghazi committee, leaders of that committee are fighting their own partisan battles. One member who will be questioning Clinton joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)