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Obama Visiting Flood-Ravaged Louisiana Today; Battle Against ISIS Intensifying in Iraq; Clinton Battles Rumors on Her Health. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 23, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:02] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama heading to flood ravaged Louisiana today to see the catastrophic devastation firsthand.

Meanwhile, people who live in the flood zone are returning home to salvage what they can and do what they do too often there, rebuild.

CNN's Nick Valencia is live and hard hit Denham Springs, just outside Baton Rouge. Good morning.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. Just about six hours from now we expect that visit from U.S. President Barack Obama to some of the more heavily damaged areas. It has been about a week since that heavy rain event caused major flooding in and around Baton Rouge.

Here is Livingston Parish it is among the hardest hit. As you can see, nearly every home and structure suffered some sort of damage. We got a firsthand look at one of the homes, that Todd Chrisel (ph) who's lived in this are for 32 years. And he said he's been through hurricanes and severe weather. But nothing has ever been this bad. In his home alone, he had nearly 7 feet of water, and among the prized possessions that he lost was a family bible entrusted him. That bible was from the 1800s. He also lost a couple classic cars and a lot of other prized possessions.

Now getting back to that trip from President Obama, there has been no shortage of criticism for the president here in this heavily republican state. He was criticized for choosing not to cut his vacation short last week to visit the victims here. It was during that time we did see a trip from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence. The Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton also said she plans to make an expected visit here. No scheduled time just yet, but everyone waiting for President Obama to show up here 12:50 p.m. eastern.

When you talked to people here one-on-one though, about the politics, they don't care about that. They're focussed on the cleanup. They have months and months of that ahead. Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Right Nick, their lives obviously supersede any politics that are going on. And they just want attention, they say. Thank you for that report.

Was it defining moment in the fight against ISIS. Iraqi forces inching closer to Mosul. Their mission to force the terrorists out and reclaim that city. We have a live report for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:36:07] CAMEROTA: This morning the battle against ISIS is intensifying in Iraq. Troops are laser focussed on the key city of Mosul to get rid of the terrorists there, but of course it's a challenge because innocent families are caught in the crosshair.

CNN Senior International correspondent Arwa Damon has more from the front lines in northern Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Under apocalyptic skies blackened by thick smoke is Gayara. The next target for Iraqi forces. ISIS used to move around 100 oil tankers of crude a day out of these fields, now set aflame by ISIS fighters to decrease visibility from above. We are some 65 kilometers or 40 miles south of Mosul, lands Iraqi forces have not stepped in since ISIS took over more than two years ago. There corpses left to rot in the sun and the commander tells us that ISIS appears to be weakening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before, as I told you the majority of fighters attacking us were foreign fighters. Now they put some foreign fighters with local fighters. I think they have lack on the foreign fighters.

DAMON: On display, weapons troops found in residential homes. Among them homemade mortar tubes and mortars larger than anything the Iraqis have at their disposal. Another significant gain this area, the Gayara air base, the third largest in Iraq, much of it destroyed by ISIS fighters as they withdrew. Leaving we are told explosives under piles of dirt on the runways that need to be cleared. This will be a vital forward base for the Iraqis and potentially U.S. forces. Families were only haul what they can, stumbling away from the fighting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (Through Translator): They took half of our men. They forced them to fight for them. They killed my father.

DAMON: Tears for all that they lost. Loved ones gone in a war that few can fully comprehend. The lives they knew and loved disintegrated years ago. To the southeast of Mosul, the Kurdish Peshmerga has pushed their front line forward as well. The Peshmerga defensive line snakes its way along the east and north, the villages controlled by ISIS visible in the distance. Here too they have noticed ISIS weakening. Showing us how ISIS moves within nondescript building like this.

The Peshmerga fighters did initially drop down and take a few steps into what appear to be some sort of tunnel, but rather than take their chances, they decided to then withdraw and seal off the entrance.

The choke hold around Mosul is tightening. And the government pledged to liberate the city by the end of the year is still the goal. The battle there with over a million civilians will potentially be starkly different from the ones out here. But success will be defined in land gained, not lives destroyed or lost.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAMON: And of course the difficult thing in all of this is the toll that it's taking on the civilian population. You see that thick cloud of back smoke, you may be able to hear those explosions rumbling in the distance, that's been going on for at least the last seven hours. And there are around 10,000 families, families, that are believed to be trapped inside the town, Gayara exactly two miles around from where we are standing right now.

CAMEROTA: Arwa, thank you so much for that reporting. We would not be able to see those pictures and understand the situation if you were not there on the front lines.

[06:40:01] I mean, to see the shambles of those towns and how devastated the people are there, that's just -- you know, Arwa makes it look easy and it is not easy for her to be traveling there.

CUOMO: And, you know, some of the most powerful images for you to look at there, you know, you get captivated by the sights and sounds of war. We understand that. And we understand why. But what happens when it's over? You know, Arwa started a foundation called INARA, I-N-A-R-A for the children largely who wind up being left behind after these battles, because that's your next generation of problem.

So you win the battle for Mosul, let's say that happens, which probably will. Well now what, there's no building, there's no infrastructure, there's no education, there's not opportunity? What's going to happen there? What's going to tack root? That as much of a problems that battle going on there today.

CAMEROTA: I will tweet out her foundation so that all of you can look it out.

CUOMO: I-N-A-R-A. It's a great foundation she just started it and it's for all the right reasons.

So let's go from the heaviest type of politics what we're just seeing war to the lightest. The comedy couch gets a visit from Hillary Clinton. She talked a little bit about debate strategy with Jimmy Kimmel. And what she told the late night host about how she's prepping for Trump and her health next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:45:06] CAMEROTA: The son of notorious drug lord "El Chapo" Guzman now reportedly free a week after being kidnapped in Mexico. Sources tell CNN the 29-year-old Jesus Guzma was released over the weekend. He was kidnapped along with five others at a restaurant in Puerto Vallarta. Authority suspect a rival cartel battling El Chapo's in a lower cartel for dominance of the drug trade was behind that kidnapping. CUOMO: Bernie Sanders, haven't heard from him for a while, but he is not going away. He's continuing to fight what he sees as the good fight taking on the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

Now Sanders is demanding that the company lower the cost of its new prostate-cancer drug which is Xtandi. Pfizer is selling the drug after buying the San Francisco firm that developed it for $14 billion and trying to make their money back too aggressively, says Sanders. U.S. hospitals and pharmacies are reportedly charged $129,000 for Xtandi. That's more than four times the cost in other countries.

CAMEROTA: A party on the water takes are wrong turn. More than 1,000 Americans washed up illegally in Canada. Gusty winds took their inflatable tubes and rafts off course. They were apparently part of the annual Port Huron Float Down, which is a floating party that runs in a river between Michigan and Ontario. The Canadian coast guard helped rescue those who were stranded and caught a few of them trying to swim back to the U.S. fortunately no one was hurt. Those can be fun.

CUOMO: What's the chance that alcohol was not a huge accelerant of the entire situation? The control room says move on.

Hillary Clinton revealing how she plans to take on Trump when they go head-to-head on the debate stage. Check out what she told ABC's Jimmy Kimmel in our late night laughs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: How do you prepare for a debate with Donald Trump?

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm here to ask for your help. You've got to be prepared for like whacky stuff that comes at you. And I am drawing on my experience in elementary school.

KIMMEL: You talk ...

CLINTON: You know, the guy who pulled your ponytail.

KIMMEL: Yeah, the ponytail puller, but that meant he liked you really so you have to think. Maybe Donald Trump has a secret crush on you. This is his way of expressing it.

CLINTON: This is how great rumors get started.

KIMMEL: Are you enjoying being a grandparent?

CLINTON: It is the best.

KIMMEL: Do you wish you had more time, that this campaign didn't coincide with the kids being so little?

CLINTON: Well, I think I'd be distraught if we didn't have facetime.

KIMMEL: Oh, you do that a lot? CLINTON: All the time. And you know ...

KIMMEL: Have you considered using facetime instead of e-mail?

CLINTON: Actually, actually I think that's really good advice. Not a bad idea. It's a good idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:48:11] CAMEROTA: Clinton also laughing off, the latest conspiracies about her health, but what is behind those conspiracies? What's the strategy there? We'll discuss all that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Now you take my pulse while I'm talking to you.

KIMMEL: Oh, OK.

CLINTON: So make sure I'm alive.

KIMMEL: Oh my god, there's nothing there.

CLINTON: There's nothing there. Back in October, the National Enquirer said I would be dead in six months.

KIMMEL: Oh what, oh boy.

CLINTON: So with every breath I take I feel like it's a ...

KIMMEL: You have a new lease on life.

CLINTON: Yeah, a new lease on life.

KIMMEL: Well, it's funny, you know.

CLINTON: I don't know why they are saying this. I think on the one hand its part of the whacky strategy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right Hillary Clinton firing back at conspiracy theories put out by the Trump campaign over her health. She told Jimmy Kimmel last night that she's fine and even opened a jar of pickles to prove it.

Joining us now CNN Senior Media correspondent and host of "Reliable Sources" Brian Stelter, and editor of commentary Magazine John Podhoretz. Great to have you Both.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST, "REALIABLE SOURCES": There will be no strength test.

CAMEROTA: I hope not because I'm not sure I would have been able to open a jar of pickles. Those things are though.

JOHN PODHORETZ, EDITOR, COMMENTARY MAGAZINE: You don't know if it's wasn't preopened.

CUOMO: Exactly right.

STELTER: A new conspiracy theory.

CAMEROTA: A new conspiracy theory starting right here.

CUOMO: Planted pickles.

CAMEROTA: John, look, obviously I think we know the strategy behind planting the seed of doubt about her health, then voters would feel nervous about having her in the White House for next four years. But is there anything to there to hang their hat on from the Trump campaign?

PODHORETZ: Probably not. I mean, all we know is that she had this incident where she tripped and hit her head ...

CAMEROTA: Years ago.

PODHORETZ: But four years ago or something like that. And then, at some point a year later bill Clinton said that she -- it had been a difficult recovery from whatever it was that had happened to her. She had got a concussion and concussions can take a long time to recover from. Having said that, I think there is -- while, you know, impugning or suggesting that somebody is sick who is not sick is a pretty terrible thing to do, Mrs. Clintzn has summoned some of this upon herself by being so secretive and unresponsive to press inquiries and unresponsive ...

CAMEROTA: About her health or other things?

PODHORETZ: About everything. If you're going to spend 280 days not answering reporters' questions and not having press conferences, people can then start flinging all sorts of stuff that you don't answer. And if, you know, it comes out as kind of meta-issue how involving her secretiveness and her refusal to talk.

CUOMO: So you have it as a metaphor but then you have it in the main. When it comes to health, she was there, she was in the hospital. There was never a full accounting of what had happened to her or what had not happened to her, what it was and what it wasn't. So, how do you deal with a story like this?

STELTER: I think you look straight into the camera and you said there's no evidence at all to support the idea that she's secretively sick and covering up an illness ...

CUOMO: Should she have a letter from a doctor who says that he is the healthiest person in the history on the world like Trump had?

STELTER: There should be more reporting on that letter actually. Should be, I mean the claims from Trump's doctors should be scrutinized in the say way that Clinton's health should be scrutinized. But there's difference between reporting on Clinton health and believing and by now this conspiracy theories. And somebody's conservative websites these are right website have promote these theories. They really just driving for click bait at the expense of what voters should actually know about it.

[06:55:10] I think the difference with Trump is that a lot of conspiracy theories Trump is promoting have nothing to do with Clinton. He's mainstream in conspiratorial thinking in America among politicians. Americans have been always been inclined to believe conspiracy theories. I've also love a good conversation about Rasvo (ph) or UFO.

But it's different to have a political nominee, a presidential nominee promoting this stuff. That is new in American politics.

CAMEROTA: This is a fact-checking bonanza for journalists. You know, we're constantly having to go back and fact check all these innuendos. And suggest ..

CUOMO: It's hard to, though. The idea of the system being rigged.

STELTER: Yeah.

CUOMO: Yeah. I mean, you can't fact check that. Go out and watch on Election Day. You better sign up to be a watcher.

PODHORETZ: Right. So part of the strategy here is if you throw enough of this stuff out, then everyone just gets dizzy. And the idea will be, well, if there's smoke, there's fire, you know, which is how conspiratorial lists work. I don't know that it's successful. I mean, look where he is now. He is, you know, the latest poll survey monkey poll has him eight points down. It's not clear that it's helping him. What it does is it re-enforces the intensity of his own support with his base.

But, you know, there's 80 days to the election. He needs to be reaching out to people who are not his base, who might be thinking, I don't know. That's not really nice talking that way about Hillary Clinton. What did she ever do to him?

STELTER: President Obama, let's remember the birther movement did not start with Donald Trump, but he is to most prominent.

CUOMO: He said it started with Hillary Clinton. Now that something we were able to fact check and it's just not true.

STELTER: Right. But he did mainstream it some way in 2011. It's continued to -- by not really coming out and denying it today. I think the rigged election one, though, you mentioned is the most important one. It's the most troubling one.

CUOMO: You must watch or they will take it that much.

STELTER: I think that's he what said it again last night.

CAMEROTA: You can't trust democracy. You can't trust our government. You can't trust our media. All of that has been his drum beat.

CUOMO: Let's play it. I think we're making it up. So here's what he said about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You've got to get everyone of your friends, you've got to get everyone one of your family, you've got to get everybody to go out and watch, and go out and vote. And when I say watch, you know what I'm talking about, right? You know what I'm talking about. I think you got to go out and you got to watch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PODHORETZ: OK. This is one Democrats have to own. Because in Ohio in 2004, there was a broad conspiracy theory after the election that Ohio Republican officials had shut down polling places and that Kerry actually won Ohio.

STELTER: But John Kerry didn't promote that theory.

PODHORETZ: No, that's right. That is the difference. And you're absolutely right. I'm saying that the idea of rigging elections rises out of Democratic paranoia about the voting machines and this line that was pedalled by Christopher Hitchens among others that Ohio had somehow been rigged.

STELTER: But to have a nominee saying, I mean this is the foundation ...

PODHORETZ: It's worse. I'm not disagreeing that it's worse.

STELTER: This is the foundation of the house. And when you start to challenge the foundation of the house, the walls start to shake. This is why I think a lot of Americans are worried about November 9th, about what's going to happen the day after election, because Trump every single day now, is setting the stage to delegitimize the results.

CUOMO: Who can make him be responsible for the implications of what he says? I can't tell you how often -- I'm only half joking when I say they won't believe us. If you don't show what he says, they won't believe he said it. That's the big question.

CAMEROTA: John, Brian, thank you.

STELTER: Thanks.

CUOMO: Lot of news coming out of the election and around the world, so let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I've become increasingly shocked by Hillary Clinton's criminality. CLINTON: We've released, I don't know 30,000 plus, so what's a few more?

GOV. MIKE PENCE, (R-IN) VICE PRESIDENT CANDIDATE: Hillary Clinton is in hiding and Donald Trump is everywhere

TRUMP: We need to protect American safety. We're going to build a wall, folks.

CLINTON: I'm not into deporting anybody except violent people.

TRUMP: The Democratic Party, they have produced only poverty, failing schools and broken homes.

CLINTON: It's part of the whacky strategy. Just say all these crazy things and maybe you can get some people to believe you.

TIM KAINE, (D) VICE PRESIDENT CANDIDATE: Is there anybody here who believes one word Donald Trump says? No.

TRUMP: What do you have to lose? I will straighten it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

CUOMO: You look little gauzy there that one is that effect with Trump.

CAMEROTA: I'm trying to look gauze. Good morning. Welcome back to your NEW DAY. We do begin with Donald Trump demanding the Clinton Foundation be shut down. He's calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the charity and the candidate immediately.

CUOMO: Now, that won't be the only headache for Hillary Clinton today. 15,000, that's going to be the buzz phrase you hear. That's the number of newly discovered State Department documents that may soon be released. What's in them? What isn't in them? We have every angle covered.

[07:00:10] Let's start with CNN's Jessica Schneider. Jessica.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn and Chris, a federal judge is now calling for the State Department to release ...