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Clinton Testifies for 8 Hours in Front of Benghazi Select Committee; Second Polls Shows Carson on Top in Iowa. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 23, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... security requests. I've lost more sleep than all of you put together.

[07:00:03] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were the search terms? The search terms means terms. What terms did you use?

CLINTON: I did not...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were the date parameters?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: I don't know what we want from the you.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It was such an obviously partisan hearing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's probably hard for Americans to decipher what is exactly going on here.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: We really didn't learn anything that the other eight investigations hadn't covered.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to your NEW DAY. Chris and Michaela are off this morning. John Berman is here with us.

Eleven hours on the hot seat for Clinton. Republicans questioning Hillary Clinton on everything from her e-mails to her relationship with Ambassador Chris Stevens. But how much more is known this morning, now, about the Benghazi attack?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Eleven hours of testimony, by and large Hillary Clinton kept her cool as members questioned her one after the other. So what is next for this committee? And perhaps more importantly at this point, what's next for Hillary Clinton? What affect does this have on her campaign to be the next president of the United States? We're going to go first to senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar, live in Washington -- Brianna. BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I

guess we now know that Hillary Clinton has some stamina, because this was certainly a feat of stamina last night, morning until night.

Her campaign, maybe not surprisingly, but they feel that she did very well. Republicans, John, were very frustrated, clearly finding her evasive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLINTON: I really don't care what you all say about me. It doesn't bother me a bit.

KEILAR (voice-over): Hillary Clinton emerging from her Congressional grilling after enduring over eight hours of aggressive questioning...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not asking what the ARB did. I'm asking what you did.

CLINTON: I followed the law, Congressman.

KEILAR: ... by the Benghazi committee's Republican members.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not answering the question. What were the search terms? Search terms means terms. What terms did you use...

CLINTON: I did not...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... and what were the date parameters? What date did you start, what was the end date, and the e-mails in between there we're going to look at?

CLINTON: Well, Congressman, I asked my attorneys to oversee the process. I did not look over their shoulder.

KEILAR: In the end, the committee broke very little new ground as Republicans tried to paint Clinton as directly responsible or negligent in the assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that claimed the lives of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. They highlighted requests for extra security at the facility that were denied by State Department officials.

REP. PETER ROSKAM (R), ILLINOIS: Here's basically what happened to their requests. (TEARS PAPER) They were torn up.

KEILAR: And questioned whether Clinton was involved enough in diplomatic efforts in the country where she had pushed for U.S. intervention.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you ever talk to Ambassador Stevens when all of this was going on in the hot bed of Libya?

CLINTON: Well...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is a yes or no question, Madame Secretary. I'm sorry.

CLINTON: I believe I did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When was that?

CLINTON: I don't recall.

KEILAR: But there is still no smoking gun. Even committee chairman Trey Gowdy said he didn't learn much more from Clinton.

GOWDY: I don't know that she testified that much differently today than she has previous times she's testified.

KEILAR: Democrats insisting the hearing was a partisan witch hunt.

CUMMINGS: I don't know what we want from you. Do we want to badger you over and over again until you get tired, until we do get the "gotcha" moment that he's talking about? We're better than that.

KEILAR: As the top Democrat on the committee tangled with Chairman Gowdy, Clinton could be seen smiling.

GOWDY: Why is it that you only want Mr. Blumenthal's transcript released? Why don't you...

CUMMINGS: I'd like to have all of them released.

KEILAR: The argument was over testimony from Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton's longtime friend and lightning rod, who frequently sent her unsourced intelligence assessments on Libya while having a business interest in the country.

GOWDY: I think it is imminently fair to ask why Sidney Blumenthal had unfettered access to you, Madame Secretary, with whatever he wanted to talk about; and there's not a single solitary e- mail to or from you, to or from Ambassador Stevens.

KEILAR: At one point, Clinton let her emotions show through...

CLINTON: I've thought more about what happened than all of you put together. I've lost more sleep than all of you put together.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Now, today, a much friendlier venue for Hillary Clinton. She will head over the Potomac River just a few miles outside of Washington, D.C., to Alexandria, Virginia, where she'll hold a campaign event, and she will be side by side with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, who is, of course, a long-time friend and supporter -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Brianna, thanks so much for that.

We want to bring in now Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan. He, of course, is a Republican on the House Select Committee on Benghazi. He had many memorable moments during this 11-hour marathon yesterday.

Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R), OHIO: Good to be with you.

CAMEROTA: You had what was, by most accounts, the defining moment of the hearing. And that is when you revealed -- the first time many of us ever saw this -- some e-mail exchanges between Hillary Clinton and the prime minister of Egypt and her daughter, Chelsea, in which she said, in the hours after the Benghazi attack, this was a terror attack. She said it a couple of different ways. But it seemed unequivocal. She called it a terror attack.

JORDAN: Yes. Yes.

[07:05:10] CAMEROTA: And that's not what the press secretary, Jay Carney, said in the days afterwards. That's not what Ambassador Susan Rice said in the days afterwards. But let me just play for everyone how Hillary Clinton responded to you, apparently catching her in this spin. So listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: There was a lot of conflicting information that we were trying to make sense of. The situation was very fluid. It was fast moving. There was also a claim of responsibility by Ansar al-Sharia. And when I talked to the Egyptian prime minister, I said that this was a claim of responsibility by Ansar al Sharia, by a group that was affiliated or at least wanted to be affiliated with al Qaeda. Sometime after that, the next day, early the next morning after that on the 12th or 13th, they retracted their claim of responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Congressman, do you accept her explanation?

JORDAN: No, because that's not all she said to the Egyptian prime minister. She said to the Egyptian prime minister, "We know," not "I think," "We know it was not the film. It was a planned attack, not a protest." That is as straightforward language as you can get. So in private she was straightforward. She was forthcoming. Publicly it was the video-inspired protest narrative.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

JORDAN: So it was a completely different narrative she told the American people. She could tell her family the truth. She could tell the Egyptian prime minister the truth. She could tell the president of Libya the truth but she wasn't straight with the American people. And that's that part that bothers us, because that is a fundamental function of this country. Your government officials have to give it to you straight.

CAMEROTA: But Congressman, let's say that you're right and that the White House made a political calculation. They made a political calculation not to call this a terror attack, because President Obama was in the middle of a re-election. Now what? Where does this take you now? What -- what's the upshot? Who goes to jail for being politically expedient?

JORDAN: It's not that I'm right. That's what the facts show. And so if the facts show that, relative to what they tried to communicate to us publicly, versus what they were saying privately, then let's go to the situation today.

We know that Secretary Clinton and her legal team got to decide which e-mails belonged to the taxpayer and the public realm and which ones were private. I asked her yesterday. I said, "You know what? The FBI has that server. Let's suppose the FBI finds some deleted e- mails and some e-mails that were wiped or whatever; and they discover that there's information that is actually work-related and specifically maybe even related to Libya. Will you allow a neutral third party, like a retired federal judge, to look at that information and say if it applies to our investigation, give us that information?"

You know what her response was? "I don't think we can do that."

So that's why it's relevant. That's why it's important. We know they misled the American people on the very night of the attack. And now it's -- we know she controlled the information, her e-mails: which were public, which were private. That's why it's relevant.

CAMEROTA: But what's the upshot for you? That some -- I mean, again, I think that, you know, sadly, Americans accept that politicians make decisions that sometimes involve political spin. What -- what do you want to see happen if, in fact, your scenario is accurate?

JORDAN: Our -- our charge has always been to get to the truth, Alisyn. That's what we're trying to do. That's why we want a third party, a neutral third party like a retired federal judge to examine it. That's why we want them to give us -- we just -- just this week, we got 5,000 e-mails from Ambassador Stevens. None of these other committees had access to that information, and we're just now getting it. That's how long this takes this State Department, this administration to get us the record, to get us the information. That's what's so frustrating.

You can't get to the truth if you can't get the record and you can't get tall the information. We're asking them to do it, and she's putting up road blocks; and the State Department is putting up road blocks.

CAMEROTA: See, here's what's interesting, is that even the chairman of your committee, Trey Gowdy, admitted after the 11-hour marathon session, that he wasn't sure that anything new really had come out. Listen to what he said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOWDY: I think some of Jimmy Jordan's questioning -- well, when you say new today, I mean, we knew some of that already. We knew about the e-mails. In terms of her testimony? I don't know that she testified that much differently today than she has the previous times she's testified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So Congressman, I mean, $4.5 million, taxpayer dollars, 11 hours yesterday...

JORDAN: Well...

CAMEROTA: ... and more than a year investigation. What is new now?

JORDAN: But when you started this segment off by talking about breaking news. We broke news yesterday that she was saying a completely different story to her family, a completely different story to the Egyptian prime minister. That was certainly new. The fact that she won't let a neutral third party like a retired federal judge look at her e-mail situation is news.

But the focus is on getting to the truth. And we're going to continue to do that.

Of course she gave the same answers. She stuck to her story. That, I guess, is not that surprising. What we're trying to do is get her to give us the information so we can get to the truth for the American taxpayer, the American people and probably most importantly, for the families of the four individuals who died that day.

[07:10:02] CAMEROTA: This is always the part that confuses me, is because the narrative that you and that many Republicans have stuck to is what happened afterwards in terms of was it a video, was it a terror attack? It's the spin afterwards. It's what Susan Rice said that is so upsetting.

But what about how does that affect before, the cause of this? And how to better protect people and better get the funding that came up to make sure that all of our embassies and consulates are protected?

JORDAN: Alisyn, there were lots of questions about that. I've done questions about that in my role in the oversight committee, as well. Two hundred security instances in Libya leading up to the -- in the 13 months prior to the attack, repeated requests for additional security, and they were denied. So we focused on that issue in a big way, too, and trying to, in the future, make sure there's less chance this kind of tragedy can happen.

CAMEROTA: Sure.

JORDAN: Of course there's focus on that. And this committee is focusing on that.

CAMEROTA: And I don't mean not focused. I mean, Congressman, you're right. You did ask questions. I mean solutions. So have we come out of this where embassies will be better funded, ambassadors will be better protected? Solutions so this doesn't happen anymore. Do you feel that you've made headway on solutions? JORDAN: I think we have. I think that there were some things

that I think were positive in the Accountability Review Board. It certainly was an independent review. But there were some positive suggestions that came out of that that are being implemented as we speak to better protect people around -- around the world who serve in our diplomatic corps. That is -- that is important.

But again, we want your -- we need our government officials to be square with us.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

JORDAN: That's a fundamental hallmark of what -- what our country is all about.

CAMEROTA: So Congressman, how do you think that, ultimately, this has affected Hillary Clinton? Do you think that what happened yesterday affected her chances of becoming president?

JORDAN: Alisyn, that's not my call. That's not my charge. The American people are going to decide that. The voters of this country decide that.

CAMEROTA: But what do you think? Do you think that she was damaged at all by what happened in the hearing yesterday?

JORDAN: I think we have to get to the truth. And it would be a lot easier if they'd be straight with us and the State Department would give us the information we need. The Obama administration would be more accommodating.

You would think the Democrats, instead of just criticizing it, would actually want to help us get the record, get the information. We've interviewed 50 people that the other committees didn't interview. We've interviewed seven eyewitnesses the other committees didn't interview. You'd think they'd want to help us get the record and get the information. We don't have all of Hillary Clinton's e- mails. We know that. They -- Because she got to decide.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but I mean, the Democrats say that you have all of the relevant e-mails and that the Accountability Review Board basically was the final word on this.

JORDAN: And you know -- we may have all -- we may have all the relevant ones as determined by her. That's why I pushed.

We may not have, may not have, and I stress that -- maybe she did give them all to us, but they made some mistakes. We know that they didn't give us 15 that we were supposed to get.

CAMEROTA: OK, OK, so that does lead me to my next question, Congressman. How long does this go on? How much longer does this go on?

JORDAN: You'd have to ask the chairman. But, again, if maybe we'd get a little help and a little more accommodation instead of so many road blocks, we could get this done and get answers to the American people.

CAMEROTA: OK. Congressman Jim Jordan, thanks so much for taking time for NEW DAY.

JORDAN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: We appreciate talking to you.

We will have much more on the contentious hearing throughout the morning. In the next hour, we will speak with presidential candidate Rand Paul and Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez. Stick around for that -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking news this morning. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson with a commanding lead in Iowa over the man who had been the frontrunner there, here, everywhere, Donald Trump. Look at these brand-new numbers from the "Des Moines Register"/Bloomberg Politics. It shows Carson leads Trump by nine points, 28 to 19.

This is the second poll in 24 hours that puts Carson on top there. A Quinnipiac yesterday had him up eight. We're going to have much more on what this means for the self-proclaimed winner, Donald Trump. That's ahead.

CAMEROTA: Another new poll out of Iowa giving Hillary Clinton a boost, just hours after that Benghazi testimony. This Quinnipiac University poll, just released this hour, it shows Clinton leading Democratic rival Bernie Sanders among 51 -- well, there you go. Fifty-one to 40 percent right there.

Compare those numbers to September. And that had Sanders at 41 percent and Clinton at 40 percent. So that is a big change.

The two leading Democrats both have high favorability ratings in this new poll: Sanders at 83 percent, Clinton at 82.

BERMAN: All right. Happening right now, the strongest hurricane ever recorded barreling toward Mexico's Pacific coast. Hurricane Patricia is now a catastrophic Category 5 storm. It doesn't even begin to actually describe what's going on here. Two-hundred-mile- per-hour winds.

Forecasters say this storm is expected to make landfall this evening in Mexico. Just imagine the chaos this could trigger: flash flooding, mud slides, 39-foot waves expected. This is being compared to Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people two years ago in the Philippines. This is a source of serious concern today, folks. We will watch that all day.

CAMEROTA: OK. Two polls in two days now show Ben Carson surging past Donald Trump in Iowa. Can you call two days a trend?

BERMAN: Yes, as a matter of fact.

CAMEROTA: Interesting. That's your opinion. We will break it down with our guests. All the new numbers for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:49] BERMAN: Breaking news this morning. We have some new numbers for you, and they're a little bit of a wow. Look at that.

The second poll in two days which shows Ben Carson with a pretty sizable lead in Iowa, beating a man named Donald Trump, a man who had led there for some time, led around the country for some time. But now he trails in the first voting state by nine points.

This is from "The Des Moines Register," considered the gold standard of Iowa polling, and Bloomberg Politics, as well. What does this all mean now for the Republican side of the race?

John Avlon joins us. He's a CNN political analyst, editor in chief of "The Daily Beast." Oh, we will talk about the Republicans. But first I want to start on the Democratic side, because Hillary Clinton, she had a busy day yesterday. You may have seen.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: A little bit.

BERMAN: Eleven hours in front of Congress, taking questions on Benghazi. John Avlon, you called this a rope-a-dope success for Hillary Clinton.

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: Which suggests...

CAMEROTA: What does that mean?

BERMAN: ... in a way she got what she wanted. What is that?

AVLON: I know John Berman loves a little sports metaphor. So let's go back to Rumble in the Jungle, Ali versus George Foreman. Here's the thing about the rope-a-dope. You wait for your opponent to punch themselves out.

And when you have 10 hours of televised testimony and, look, the grandstanding on both sides. Republicans wanted to cut their little attack ad clip, the Democrats auditioning for a position in the Hillary Clinton administration. There's grandstanding on both sides.

[07:20:04] But when she is the -- on the receiving end of that kind of testimony, at some point, your opponents punch themselves out.

And the key question to understand in the Benghazi hearing, I think, is this: Would we have spent this amount of money on the eighth committee and the ten hours of testimony if Hillary Clinton was not running for president?

CAMEROTA: Well, look, you just heard Jim Jordan say yes. Because the Americans deserve the truth, he said. And he revealed he feels that she did not tell the truth, the administration did not tell the truth in the days after the Benghazi attack. AVLON: Jordan's e-mail about the contradiction between public

statements and private statements is absolutely going to need clarification by the Hillary Clinton camp and is a worthy question.

But the problem is, by doing that in ten hours, as opposed to two or three, it dilutes the impact. By doing this, unlike the way we did things after Beirut bombings, after other previous tragedies, by making it political and partisan, as opposed to bipartisan, that diminishes the credibility and the real honor of the individuals who died.

BERMAN: All right. So from clarification to illumination.

AVLON: Nicely done.

BERMAN: Let's talk about the Republican side of the race, "The Des Moines Register" poll. Ben Carson, 28 percent, Donald Trump 19 percent. Donald Trump says he's a winner. Not in "The Des Moines Register" poll out just minutes ago.

AVLON: Today. That is -- that is, in fact, true.

Look, the Iowa caucus is a strange beast that we all re-acquaint ourselves with. This is a small -- relatively small group of Republicans who turn out. They are overwhelmingly evangelical. Even though Donald Trump has done well among evangelicals, Ben Carson is really their hometown hero, even more than a Mike Huckabee, even more than a Rick Santorum, who won the caucus the last time around, who's basically an asterisk in this poll.

Ben Carson has grown in the poll. He's got deep support with favorabilities that are sky-high. And even his controversial comments about Muslims or Adolf Hitler don't seem to have turned those folks off. In fact, more than 70 percent seem to like them.

CAMEROTA: OK. So is this a true setback for Donald Trump, or is this just an anomaly of Iowa caucuses?

AVLON: This is not an anomaly, because it follows another poll, Quinnipiac poll that showed a similar trend. So the trend is not Donald Trump's friend here. But, you know, he has been ahead in national polls for almost 100 days now.

CAMEROTA: And he still is. This is an Iowa trend.

AVLON: Absolutely. But look, Iowa matters disproportionately. It's the first-out-of-the-gate caucus. It sets the narrative. But, you know, I was not necessarily must-win for Donald Trump. Donald Trump winning Iowa would just frankly be weird, given the demographics that turn out for the caucus.

But this is a challenge. He's got to actually address it and try to turn it around. Because otherwise, the momentum starts shifting.

BERMAN: There is one area where Donald Trump does lead in this poll. When asked which candidate Iowa voters want to drop out the most? Donald Trump actually is ahead, 25 percent.

AVLON: How about that?

BERMAN: They want him to drop out the most. Jeb Bush actually nipping at his heels at 22 percent. One of the few polls Jeb Bush is close to the top. Then Lindsey Graham, George Pataki and Chris Christie, as well.

You know, strong negative sentiment for Trump isn't new either. He's dealt with that all along. And he'll take that as long as he has the strong sentiment in his side.

AVLON: He absolutely will. And look, you know, he's got very high unfaves. Ben Carson has very, very high favorability, minuscule unfavorability right now.

Rubio is doing pretty well with the favorability ratings.

Here's the other thing about Donald Trump supporters, though, in contrast to Carson. They're also the least likely to be swayed away from their candidate at this point. Carson has got a lot of room to grow. But Trump's hard-core supporters say they ain't going anywhere.

CAMEROTA: In terms of Ben Carson's favorability, let's look at what people say are his attributes that they are voting on. This is the new poll. And it says that they like that he's not a career politician, by 85 percent. Guided by his faith in God, just what you're talking about in Iowa, 89 percent. Approaches issues with common sense, 96 percent.

BERMAN: Ninety-six percent.

CAMEROTA: No foreign policy experience. OK, well, that's split. I'm not sure that -- they find -- 49 percent find that unattractive, 42 percent find that attractive.

AVLON: Because it's not really what a president does, foreign policy. I mean, look, this is a surreal moment.

One of the things this poll shows, actually, is actually for, I think, a third of Iowa caucus-goers, no experience that is relevant to presidential executive responsibilities is a net positive. It is a net positive. So this is a bit of a surreal moment we're living through right now.

BERMAN: I think what you're seeing on this poll is a little bit of what we are not seeing, and by we, I mean, sitting here in New York and off in Washington, about what's going on in Iowa right now.

Ben Carson is doing stuff, and we're not always seeing it. It's on social media. It's in mail. It's at churches. There are meetings going on that we are not seeing here. There are supporters talking who are finding his message attractive.

AVLON: Absolutely. And you've got to understand that Ben Carson is a real hometown hero for evangelicals. That his book has been selling for over a decade. The amount of mail he's been sending out is stunning. So for grassroots donors, who are also the vast majority of his donors, for evangelicals, he has been a real hero for a long time. He's much more of a household name than folks in the Beltway can appreciate. And that's the source of his strength in polls in places, especially like the Iowa caucus.

CAMEROTA: John Avlon, great to have you here.

AVLON: Any time.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: We want to know your take on these numbers. Tweet us using the hashtag #NewDayCNN. Or post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay.

CAMEROTA: Well, Republicans tested her time and again during the Benghazi hearing. Hillary Clinton kept her composure. Could the testimony give her campaign a boost? Will it hurt her campaign? We'll look at all of that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[07:28:39] CLINTON: I've thought more about what happened than all of you put together. I've lost more sleep than all of you put together. I have been wracking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well, that was one of the more solemn moments for Hillary Clinton and the panel during the marathon Benghazi testimony. So does her performance mark a turning point somehow in her campaign?

Let's bring in Carl Bernstein, our CNN political commentator and author of "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton"; also Matt Lewis, a senior contributor for "The Daily Caller" and conservative commentator.

Carl, great to see you. What did you think of her composure, of her personality? Everything that came through? I mean, she sort of ran the gamut. There were times that she looked sarcastic. There were times that she -- in fact, let me show you her -- the different faces of Hillary Clinton during this yesterday. You can see she looks bored at sometimes, disconnected. There are times that she looks a little imperious. There are times that she looked emotional. What did you think of how she performed?

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She did a lot more than run the gamut. She ran the show.

And we got a real look at President Hillary Clinton, what President Hillary Clinton would be like. She was in command. She knew the facts as she wanted to recite them. She had real context. She was unflappable. She was competent. She knew the terrain. And that's what we would see in a Clinton presidency.

But the issue of how she bends facts and whether you call that bending...