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CNN Poll: Trump Up by 2 Points; Trump Pivots Again on His Immigration Plan; Biden Reveals 'Truth' About Clinton's Trust Issues; Obama Cancels Meeting with Philippines President. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 06, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Every time I think about Trump, I get allergic.

[05:58:37] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We're going to stop the drugs, get rid of the bad ones. Build the wall.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm absolutely confident she is doing it by the book.

CLINTON: Making a political contribution to the Florida attorney general. There are so many things that are questionable about that.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The remnants of war continue to shatter lives here in Laos.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama overseas trip overshadowed by a diplomatic spat.

OBAMA: I always want to make sure that if I have a meeting, it's actually productive.

RODRIGO DUTERTE, PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES: Who is he? You must be respectful.

COLIN KAEPERNICK, PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYER: The media painted this as anti-American. That's not the case at all.

OBAMA: He's exercising his constitutional right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has created a big division that didn't have to be there.

KAEPERNICK: This is really about human rights. It's about the people.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Wow, that's new for Labor Day. Alisyn Camerota just agreed with me.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: It's a new era.

CUOMO: I feel good.

CAMEROTA: I'm starting fresh.

CUOMO: Good morning. It is a NEW DAY, Tuesday September 6, 6 a.m. in the East. And up first, the post-Labor Day push. This is the sprint to the finish in the race for president. And that race is tight. We have for you this morning a full accounting of what is driving this race, rightly and wrongly.

And we have a look at what happened when Hillary Clinton took questions from the press this weekend.

CAMEROTA: OK. So this morning we have this new CNN national poll, and it shows the race is as tight as possible.

We are nine weeks away from election day, but early voting begins in just 17 days in some states. Also, mark your calendars for this. The first showdown between Trump and Clinton, it is 20 days away. That, of course, will be their first debate. So we have all of the political headlines covered for you beginning with the breaking news.

CUOMO: So our new CNN/ORC national poll shows a statistical dead heat. In fact, Trump has a slim lead on Hillary Clinton in this poll. Clinton's post-convention bounce therefore gone. Let's get right to the numbers. CNN political director Dave Chalian live in Washington to break it down. Some headlines, my friend.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Good morning, Chris.

Let's get right to that topline horse race, that four-way race, we're showing basically a margin of error race. Trump with a two-point lead, 45 percent, Clinton at 43 percent. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, at 7 and Jill Stein, the Green candidate, at 2 percent. Remember, this is a national poll right now.

Let's look, though, at what is underneath those numbers. Let's look at some key voting groups. Look at independents. Donald Trump has a 20-point lead in this poll among independents, 49 percent to 29 percent. Remember, Mitt Romney won independents in 2012 by about five points and still lost the election, but a 20-point gap is huge; and that's work that Hillary Clinton is going to have to do.

Take a look at women. This is one of the most fascinating findings in the poll. Hillary Clinton is winning woman overall by about 15 points. But look how single women and married women differ. Donald Trump has about a 17-point lead among married women. Hillary Clinton, 53-point lead among single women. So difference in marital status dictates sort of where your vote is right now.

Another key factor that campaigns look at is enthusiasm. How enthusiastic is the electorate? Well, look, now 46 percent of the voters are telling us they are extremely or very enthusiastic, versus 57 percent who said that at this time in 2012; 60 percent in '08; 64 percent in '04. So this may raise some questions about possible turnout heading into November.

And let's look at how that splits by candidate. This is key. Fifty- eight percent of Trump voters say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting; 46 percent of Clinton voters say that. The Clinton camp is going to want to boost that if they're going to hit the kind of turnout projections that they're looking to have.

And finally, let's take a look at the issues that are driving this race. On the economy, Donald Trump is walloping Hillary Clinton by about 15 points. It's been a strong suit of him for much of the campaign. Fifteen points is a pretty wide gap on the No. 1 issue for voters.

He's got a six-point lead on terrorism. Immigration, big topic in the last week, it's about a draw, 49 percent Clinton, 47 percent Trump and on foreign policy, this is Hillary Clinton's strong suit, 16-point lead on who would better handle foreign policy.

So this race now is returning to sort of where it was prior to the conventions, which is basically a margin of error race, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Fascinating findings, David. Thanks so much for breaking it all down for us.

I don't know where to begin. The fact that the convention bump has evaporated. I guess we were expecting that. But there you see it in print. And then the enthusiasm dip. It's the lowest enthusiastic voter base since 2004, at least.

CUOMO: It was interesting that, even when they asked that question, it was "Are you enthusiastic about voting," not about Trump or about Clinton. What if they asked it that way, those numbers may well be even lower.

CAMEROTA: Well, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton mixing things up in Ohio. Trump using retail politics and once again trying to explain his immigration plan. Clinton answering questions from the press for the first time in a long time.

CNN's Phil Mattingly joins us now with the battleground blitz. Give us the headlines.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Both candidates inviting the press onto their planes. A first time for both candidates. And look, as you talked about that post-Labor Day sprint, that manes battleground state after battleground state; and Ohio was ground zero yesterday.

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and their running mates all making stops in the states. In fact, take a look at this picture. Their planes actually just cross the tarmac from one another. Something you're going to see a lot if you live in Ohio, if you live in Florida, if you live in North Carolina, going to see TV ads. You're going to see web ads. And yes, you're likely going to see the candidates also.

But Alisyn, as you noted, the big question for Donald Trump is still on immigration policy. We're almost a week since that major immigration speech; and there's still a key issue that no one can really figure out. Primarily, is the possibility of legal status for undocumented immigrants something Trump is willing to consider? This is what he said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: No, I'm not going to allow legal status. No. To become a citizen, you're going to have to go out and come back in.

[06:05:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But a lot of people felt that the plan talked about letting people have a legal status. Just bring in to live here, to work here. They've lived here for a long time and contribute to society.

TRUMP: We're going to make that -- we're going to make that decision into the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, guys if you go back to that Arizona speech, Donald Trump was explicit. There was no pathway to citizenship, and there was no pathway to legal status.

Ever since then, Trump and his advisers really muddying the waters on that.

Now, Hillary Clinton also in Ohio yesterday, and she's making a series of allegations, both on Russian involvement in the election and Donald Trump's ties to the Russians. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: We've never had a foreign adversarial power be already involved in our electoral process with the DNC hacks. We've never had a nominee of one of our major parties urging the hack more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And Clinton advisers say those attacks are going to continue in earnest going forward, again, trying to paint Trump as temperamentally unfit.

And guys, Ohio yesterday, battleground states again, North Carolina and Florida among them. Expect that every single day going forward to November -- Chris.

CUOMO: Appreciate it.

So, with this post-Labor Day push here to the finish, we see what the battleground is, the state of play. With Trump, "I don't know if he can do the job". And with Clinton it's, "I don't know if I can trust what she'll do in the job." And we see that reflected in the new CNN national poll.

Voters find Donald Trump more honest and trustworthy than the former secretary of state. And one of the Clinton's major supporters, Vice President Joe Biden, is talking about what he calls the truth about Clinton's trust issues as the vice president joined Tim Kaine on the campaign trail. Both sat down with CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He joins us now.

Good opportunity.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys.

I mean, seeing Joe Biden back on the road for his final campaign, he says he and the president are all in for this, and they want to keep the White House in Democratic hands, of course.

He is trying to improve on one of Hillary Clinton's biggest weaknesses, those white, working-class voters. He and Tim Kaine, of course, who wants to succeed him in that job, were in Pittsburgh yesterday when we caught up with them. Biden had some very blunt advice for Secretary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Hillary knows it's a problem. And she's trying to figure out how to remedy it. And my advice to her is the best way to remedy it is talk about what you care about and talk about it with some passion. And people will see through it.

And -- but this is going to be -- and you know it better than I do, Jeff, this could be the most negative campaign in the history of modern politics, I think.

And so my question is, is anybody going to be able to break through what has just, you know, sort of a notion -- that's why you hear her talking more about explicitly what it is she's going to do, how she's going to change things.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEES: We're making the case on issues. We feel like talking about our small business backgrounds and these points to the economic plan, to people that are looking for -- people are looking for a ladder. They want to see there's a ladder that they can climb. And that's what Hillary and I are talking about. And at the end of the day, that will -- that will pose a comparison that's very, very stark.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: And that, of course, is their challenge, making voters see those stark comparisons. But as the vice president said, it's an open question of how much those issues will even break through in this negative campaign, where I think he rightly said some voters do indeed see this as a pox on both of your houses.

CAMEROTA: They have their work cut out for them.

ZELENY: No doubt, especially with the new poll this morning.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. And, you know, Joe Biden just spells it out there in Bidenesque style. ZELENY: No one does it better.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for that.

All right. So the woman known as the first lady of the American conservative movement has died. Activist and author Phyllis Schlafly famously led grassroots campaigns against communism, abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment through the conservative group she founded more than 40 years ago, the Eagle Forum.

Most recently, she endorsed Donald Trump for president. Schlafly was 92 years old.

CUOMO: Boy, oh, boy. Another institution. And amazing that she leaves right in the middle of this race, where at play are so many issues that mattered so much to her. Regards to her family.

President Obama rearranging his schedule in Asia. A face-to-face with the new president of the Philippines canceled after that country's leader made a vulgar threat towards the president of the United States.

Let's get more from CNN's White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski. She's traveling with the president live in Laos -- Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Chris. How do you overstate how bizarre this situation is? I mean, any world leader tries to put the best face on these kinds of meetings, especially in this setting, even when there are glaring differences.

Now you have another world leader, the president of the Philippines, on what would have been his first meeting with President Obama, who is a treaty ally, calling Obama a son of a whore to reporters, then threatening to curse him further if Obama so much as brought up the vigilante-style killings of thousands of people just over the last few months during the Philippines -- the Philippines drug war.

[06:10:21] So listen to Duterte's comments and then later, how President Obama responded in the press conference.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUTERTE: Who is he? I am a president of a sovereign state, and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any muster (ph) against the Filipino people. Nobody but nobody.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just heard about some of this, but I have seen some of those colorful statements in the past, and so clearly, he's a colorful guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: White House, of course, canceled that meeting; and they told me today after President Duterte made those comments, there was no way that this was going to be constructive, and that furthermore, it would do a disservice to the Filipino people to have this meeting now.

Duterte today then apologizing. His regrets that his comments were taken as an attack on President Obama, though it's tough to see how they could be taken otherwise.

He said he wants to have a constructive meeting some time in the future.

Today, though, here in Laos, the president is trying to focus on this relationship, starting with a big commitment to try to remove some 80 million unexploded bombs of the more than 270 million cluster bombs that the U.S. dropped on Laos during nine years of the Vietnam War. Those bombs continue to cause casualties to this day. And tomorrow President Obama will meet with some of those victims -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Michelle, thank you very much for that.

Yesterday, it was still an open question as to whether or not the president would actually meet with the president of the Philippines after those comments. It seems like that would have been awkward, that meeting, so the president decided, as Michelle said, to cancel.

CUOMO: That's one of those apologies that is not about being sorry for what you said. You're sorry for the consequence of what you said in losing the bomb. But Michelle buttoned that up the right way. The unexploded ordnances is a huge issue in the Philippines. Hopefully, that gets attention, you know, dismissing the politics.

CAMEROTA: All right. We need to talk about this new CNN national poll. It has Trump and Clinton locked in a statistical dead heat, but the real story may be what's behind those numbers, and we show you that next on NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:36] CUOMO: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are locked in a statistical dead heat in the final stretch of the campaign. Here's the proof: CNN's ORC new national poll shows Trump with actually a slight edge among likely voters.

Many in the media were saying that this race was all but over; not us, and now you know why. It is a new game with 63 days to go. Let's bring in to discuss our political director David Chalian; political reporter for "The Washington Post," Philip Bump; and CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

Mr. Chalian, I start with you. You laid out the numbers for us very well. I appreciate you unpacking the poll. How would you describe the state of play in this election?

CHALIAN: I would describe this as a margin of error race right now, that the sort of August convention bump for Hillary Clinton and the swirl of controversy around Donald Trump specifically coming out of the Democratic convention with the Khan controversy, the Gold Star family, that created an elevated August for Hillary Clinton. And now I believe this race is returning to sort of the tight race that, quite frankly, both campaigns have sort of predicted that it would be.

CAMEROTA: Let's dive into some of the numbers. Phil, let's look at independents. The all-important voting block that both candidates need. Donald Trump is winning with them right now. Let's pull up those numbers. Independent voters, he gets 49 percent to Hillary Clinton's 29 percent. Then the other candidates, you see 16 percent and 6 percent. That's a huge margin.

PHILIP BUMP, POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Yes. Not only is that a huge margin, it's also a big change from the last CNN/ORC poll at the end of July. It's -- you know, these are brand- new numbers, so it's a little hard to figure out exactly what made that sort of movement, but the fact that Hillary Clinton has lost so much support from independents, that's a big problem for her. And in part because the percentage of Republicans in the House say they're strongly behind Donald Trump has increased. That was a big problem for him, again, in July, as well. Republicans were kind of soft coming out of the conventions. If she's going to lose independents and Republicans are going to be strongly behind Donald Trump, that's bad news for her candidacy.

CUOMO: They're also dealing with a mood election. That is now proof positive in these numbers. We can look at it a few different ways.

Let's look at it with women. The presumption there, they'll be for Hillary Clinton, and they're right. But it depends on how you break down the women? If you look at the difference between single and married, it tells you something, Jeff. What does it tell you?

ZELENY: It tells you that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic candidate traditionally does much better among single women. But it shows you the Clinton campaign still has, A, an opportunity there among some married women, some older women voters, particularly in those swing states. But it shows that she has not yet sealed the deal.

And the nature of this historic candidacy has still not yet broken through. It's one of the frustrations to some supporters and advisers on the Clinton campaign that no one is talking about this being an historic election, that she -- that some women voters are not moved by the fact that she could be the first woman president here.

She has sort of struggled with this herself with how much she talks about it. She does not want to make that the thrust of her candidacy. But some voters simply are not inspired or excited by that. But excitement is the key here. The Clinton campaign worried about complacency, worried about enthusiasm, and you see why when you look at these numbers inside the poll.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about the honest and trustworthy numbers, because obviously, that plays into the narrative on both -- both candidates. Look at this. Who is more honest and trustworthy, David. Donald Trump gets 50 percent to Hillary Clinton's 35 percent. Neither gets 15 percent. What does this mean going forward, David?

[06:20:13] CHALIAN: Well, this is a really interesting finding in the poll, Alisyn, because they had been a little bit closer sort of negatively on this score, equally viewed through a negative prism on this by the voters. But Donald Trump now opening up a gap there in a significant way.

We should remember, of course, this poll was taken Thursday through Sunday, and a lot of the news regarding Hillary Clinton was about the FBI investigation, their report being released, the notes of her interview being released. So that may have had an impact there.

But clearly, the Clinton campaign knows -- look at how they've been dealing with it -- that honest and trustworthy has been a problem for Hillary Clinton and one that she needs to be sort of working on on a daily basis on this campaign. And what we're seeing here is that Donald Trump is now actually being able to turn that into a bit of an advantage for him.

CUOMO: And again, you know, very often when we look inside the numbers, you start looking at how things were asked. Who's more honest and trustworthy? Not is he or is she honest and trustworthy? That's where you get those big spike negative numbers. So in a relative assessment, that's where this becomes a war of attrition. That's why, you know, this last heat is going to be about who's less bad. Not a great proposition for the voter but certainly the state of play.

And the big issue for that right now seems to be immigration with Trump. He just can't seem to get it right, the same way Clinton can't seem to get it right with convincing people that she has trust.

We have a mashup of his sound and evolution on this. Still after the big speech where he laid it all out, it's not clear. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: They're illegal immigrants. They've got to go out.

CUOMO: But how do you do it in a practical way? You really think you can round up 11 million people?

TRUMP: You know what? At some point, we're going to try getting them back, the good ones.

You're going to have a deportation force, and you're going to do it humanely.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you going to send in officers, a force of people into people's homes to get them out?

TRUMP: We're going to be giving notice. We're going to be saying you have to go.

We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out. They will come back -- some will come back, the best, through a process. They have to come back legally.

(END VIDEOTAPE) CAMEROTA: Yesterday he changed yet again.

CUOMO: Right. And what was the flash point? The flash point wound up being, are you open to the suggestion that people who are here illegally, undocumented, may be able to change that status while they're here? And he said he was open to it.

You can't be open to this and maintain the position that made him such a star in the primary.

ZELENY: Are we sure this is a mistake, though? Look at his numbers among Republicans. If these numbers begin -- you know, there are a lot of polls out there. This is a snapshot. But he has consolidated his Republican base, which she has in this poll, I'm not so sure that him sort of offering a buffet of issues on immigration is such a bad thing electorally for him.

Yes, we don't know where he stands. I'm not sure he understands all the nuances of this issue, but boy, he has softened his edges on this for some voters. Some of those married women voters and others here. So I'm not sure that this is as big of a mistake for him politically as it may see when we watch all those iterations.

CAMEROTA: Smorgasbord on issues? He actually said yesterday, in terms of the deportation of the undocumented immigrants who are here, "You know what? We're going to make that decision in the future." Is that OK for voters?

BUMP: Yes. I mean, I think we tend to overestimate the extent to which voters are particularly concerned about these nuances of policy. I think it's worth noting, though, that in this poll, Hillary Clinton actually matches Donald Trump on immigration, where she doesn't on some of his other issues.

I don't think it's a big strong issue for him in the way that he thinks it is. You know, and this is a poll of likely voters, as opposed to registered voters. That's a more Republican-friendly group. And yet Hillary Clinton is seen as better on immigration.

So I don't know that talking about immigration really does him a lot of good.

CUOMO: Hillary Clinton has been dogged by the press really more by the Trump campaign for not giving a press conference. She opened it up. She actually got some questions from the media. What did you make of it, Chalian?

CHALIAN: I think she was trying to lance that boil, being told that there's a certain number of days, a clock running since her last press conference. So she got her plane and she wanted to be able to get in front of press and take some questions so that that story line can die.

But listen, I think that, if you look at what she was talking to the press about, I think it's a lot of the issues, quite frankly, that we're talking about in this poll. The targets that she's trying to make, the issues she's grappling with on her honest and trustworthiness, all of that was very much present in the questions that reporters were asking.

CAMEROTA: But hold on a second, Jeff. Doesn't that -- she took 12 questions from the reporters on her press plane. Doesn't that count as a press conference, or no?

CHALIAN: It does in my book. I think we get caught up in press conference, what's a gaggle -- yes, she took questions. Now, if that's the only time she does it for the next month, you know, we'll be sort of raising this again.

CUOMO: We know why. We know what she's doing. She has an opponent who, the more oxygen you give him, the more turns it into a flame. You know, that's why she's doing it.

[06:25:07] CAMEROTA: But the poll numbers don't seem to suggest that it's hurting him. That, in other words, if her strategy was to step back and to let him be hoisted on his own petard, not working.

CUOMO: Well, it depends. Because remember, this is a mood election. And she could be in a big hole against somebody who actually was capturing the enthusiasm of the American people.

CAMEROTA: Sure.

BUMP: And I think it's worth remembering, too, that Hillary Clinton is happy to have this be a closer race as November rolls around. She wants her voters to feel like "I need to go out and stop Donald Trump." If she's up by ten, that's not going to...

CUOMO: She got her wish.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. Great to talk to all of you.

So with Hillary Clinton's convention bounce all but gone this morning, CNN is asking two of her top surrogates the tough questions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Some working-class voters still are not sold on Hillary Clinton. Why do you think that is?

CAMEROTA: That was our own Jeff Zeleny right there. I called you CNN. Oh, no, you're Jeff Zeleny.

CUOMO: He is all of us.

CAMEROTA: You are. Vice President Joe Biden and Tim Kaine on the record about the challenges facing Hillary Clinton.

Plus, what they think of the Clinton Foundation controversy. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)