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Hillary Clinton's Pneumonia Jolts 2016 Race; Clinton Regrets Making the Comment About Trump's "Basket of Deplorables"; Hillary Clinton's Strategy To Defeat ISIS. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 12, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Let's begin with senior correspondent, Jeff Zeleny. He is near the Clinton home in Chappaqua, New York -- Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. Hillary Clinton was set to leave on a three-day west coast swing today with stops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, but she is at home in Chappaqua this morning on doctor's orders. Her health concerns have gone from conspiracy theories to a genuine campaign issue.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY (voice-over): Hillary Clinton off the campaign trail this morning as she recovers from pneumonia, canceling a two-day trip to California. His health thrush into the spotlight after her aide said she became overheated and dehydrated while attending the 9/11 ceremony at Ground Zero.

This video shows Clinton leaving early and as she tries stepping into her van, she wobbles and slumps. Secret Service agents and aides quickly grab her and hold her up.

Two law enforcement sources telling CNN she appeared to faint. Then Clinton taken to her daughter Chelsea's apartment three miles away. More than an hour later, Clinton emerged smiling.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's a beautiful day.

ZELENY: Even taking a picture with a young girl before climbing into her motorcade and heading home. Her campaign says she was even playing with her two grandkids inside.

Yet hours later, her doctor revealed the 68-year-old was diagnosed with pneumonia two days earlier after an evaluation for her prolonged cough.

Despite the diagnosis on Friday, she continued a grueling schedule, holding two fundraisers in New York City, a large national security briefing and press conference along with an interview with our own Chris Cuomo and other media outlets.

Donald Trump just feet away from his rival at Ground Zero unusually quiet over her diagnosis after speculating about her health for months. DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think she doesn't have the stamina. Hillary Clinton does not have the stamina. Watched Hillary who doesn't have the strength or the stamina.

ZELENY: Republicans close to the Trump campaign telling CNN, they want to be respectful of the health issue. Staff and campaign surrogates instructing supporters not to post anything negative on social media.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: Now, American voters know less about these two presidential nominees than most in history. She, of course, is 68 years old, Donald Trump is 70 years old. They have both have only released scant information about their medical history.

We do know more about the secretary's than Donald Trump's, but the reality here is this. We are two weeks before the biggest moment of this campaign, the first debate, which is two weeks from tonight. That's why this health issue is a real issue and a real concern -- Chris.

CUOMO: Hey, Jeff, it's brought it into very sharp focus whether you're talking about their health records or Donald Trump's taxes. Don't have the voters have a right to full information on the person who may be the next leader of the free world? Thank you very much for the reporting.

As we mentioned Trump so far has been doing the right thing. He hasn't been talking about Clinton's health and we don't really know what's going on. His campaign, however, is not silent. Relentlessly going after Clinton for another stumble.

Not related to her health, but related to what she said. Clinton expressing regret after half of Trump supporters are, quote, "a basket of deplorables."

CNN's Jason Carroll joins us now with more -- Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Chris. This is just one of the many points that Trump campaign will continue to criticize Hillary Clinton for in the coming days. Clinton says she regrets making the comment about Trump's so-called "basket of deplorables."

She made the comment while speaking at a fundraiser in New York City on Friday night. She told the audience there should be empathy for a number of Trump supporters who feel let down by the government and the economy.

But Clinton took heat for saying that half of Trump's supporters fit into that so-called basket of deplorables who have racist and xenophobic leanings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLINTON: Just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump supporters into the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic. You name it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Well, after an outcry over Clinton's comment, she released a statement clarifying her remarks saying, quote, "last night, I was grossly generalistic and that's never a good idea. I regret saying half that was wrong.

But let's be clear, what is really deplorable is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called alt-right movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values."

The Trump campaign quick to criticize Clinton for her remarks. Trump who we all know likes to tweet. He tweeted the following, "Wow, Hillary Clinton was so insulting to my supporters millions of amazing, hard-working people. I think it will cost her at the polls."

[06:05:06]Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, also called out Clinton saying she was disrespectful for their supporters and said it's more proof she is unfit to be president.

Clinton, we should point out, is not alone in expressing regret for comments made out on the campaign trail. Trump, who has made a number of comments his critics say are offensive said in a speech just last month that he regrets some of the things that he has said in the past saying that sometimes he just says the wrong thing -- Chris, Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Jason, thank you for that background so let's talk about it. We have CNN medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN political analyst and national political reporter for "New York Times," Alex Burns, and CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich.

Great to have all of you here this morning. Sanjay, let's talk about Secretary Clinton's health. Have you seen the health records or the note that her doctor has released?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

CAMEROTA: What did that outline? Why is that not satisfying to many people?

GUPTA: Well, you know, it's a summary essentially. It's a two-page letter that sort of a summary of her health. It talks about the fact that she had a deep venous thrombosis, for example back 1998 and then again in 2009. It talks a lot about --

CAMEROTA: That's a clotting disorder.

GUPTA: That is a blood clot in the legs than can sometimes --

CUOMO: DVT. You can't fly with it and stuff like that. GUPTA: It could break off potentially and go to the lungs. That is a pulmonary embolism. That was a concern. She was on a blood thinner at least since 2009 because of that DVT. But the thing in 2012 sort of the biggest concern where she fell and hit her head and had a concussion, a type of brain injury and also developed a blood clot around the brain at that time, as well.

CAMEROTA: Is there anything that jumps out at you as particularly abnormal for her age?

GUPTA: No, I mean, I think the thing in 2012 is not a common thing to certainly hit your head and certainly develop this blood clot around the brain. There was nothing about it that didn't make sense. It certainly was possible for that to happen.

She was on a blood thinner already even before she hit her head so that was the one thing that was a little bit curious. If you're on a blood thinner, you're at more risk of bleeding as a result of that as opposed to clotting. She actually developed a blood clot after that injury in 2012. Other that, it fits, it makes sense.

CUOMO: So here's the larger question that this raises and raised in a comedic sense with the Trump doctor that put out that letter about him. These people, one of them, is going to be the next leader of the free world.

Do you think we need to know more in general? You know, just like we're going after Trump for his taxes. We want to know what you are financially. Do you think the time has come in America to know more about the physical wellbeing of the person who may lead you?

GUPTA: I think absolutely. I think that time was probably come a while ago. It's remarkable how little we do know about our presidential candidates as I think you're pointing out.

It's coming into much clearer focus in this particular election in part because of the age and in part now because of this health issue. Whether it's an independent group of doctors separate from their own doctors.

Because there is this collegiate relationship between the doctors and they're friends and so you get these summaries as you pointed out, but sometimes they're full of colloquial language not the objective data that you just would want.

So, maybe it's independent doctors back in 2008. Senator McCain invited a group of reporters to come evaluate his medical records for several hours. I was one of those reporters. That's how he decided to handle it.

But we know very little about these two candidates and I think the time has come, maybe the time may already come even some time ago.

CAMEROTA: I'll ask a campaign strategy, what are you hearing about why the campaign did not disclose that she had pneumonia until after the stumble into the van, until after she seemed faint and all that stuff that raised a lot of questions when, had they said it 24 hours earlier, that would have been answered.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think there are a lot of questions about why exactly the Clinton campaign decided to disclose the information at a rather slow pace, not just over the weekend, but even hour to hour yesterday was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday.

Why not just say it immediately after she left the World Trade Center site? I do think it's important to remember here and Sanjay kind of alluded to this, these are people, the candidates with their private health issues and very personal inclination about how much they want to share and only so much their staff can do to counteract that.

If your candidate doesn't want to share something about their physical wellbeing or if they're uncomfortable answering that kind of question, your campaign strategy isn't necessarily in a position --

CUOMO: Maybe it shouldn't be their call, though. You want to get a contract to play professional sports with a team, they put you through a battery of physical exams to make sure you're worth the investment by them and that's for like a football player.

BURNS: In a way we do, though, right? These people --

CAMEROTA: (Inaudible) campaigning.

BURNS: She has to maintain a pretty campaign schedule and I don't think --

CUOMO: But we have to know, we don't know what's going on with them physically. Even once they're in office, you don't know. You harken back to Dick Cheney, you know, God bless him and his continued health.

[06:10:00]But you know, heart attacks, when you learn, what you didn't, what was going on, you would have to have someone like Sanjay going in and deep investigating to figure out little clues. That's the larger issue.

We get to the good point that Alisyn is raising, which is this is about her health and also about the nature of the Clinton campaign's disclosure.

Oh, it was too hot. Oh, it is the hyperthyroidism. Oh, she stumbled off the curve, and by the way, she had pneumonia. That is the criticism is that you only hear what they want to tell you when they have to tell you.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. That's why this is an unforced error. If they came out and said she had pneumonia and toughs it out and goes to a 9/11 memorial and she faints, that's really understandable.

Judging by my Twitter feed, a lot of people had pneumonia. It's just that balance that they haven't really achieved as to what the public needs to know that this person is sick.

Pneumonia, doctor knows better than I do, it is serious. What they can keep hidden until they absolutely have to until she faints into a van. It really didn't look good yesterday.

CAMEROTA: OK, back to another unforced error. That is something that she said where she talked about Trump's supporters. Instead of talking about Donald Trump which she has done for many months, she decided to talk about his supporters. Let's listen to that comment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: This was at a fundraiser and Alex, in what campaign playbook is it wise to go after your opponent's supporters?

BURNS: You know, the interesting thing is she has said variations on this before. She said something very similar on Israeli television last week. So this was not just some off the cuff, you know, gaffe where the candidate stumbled into saying something she didn't really --

CUOMO: She wasn't talking about the working man either, right? Somewhat of a defined criticism.

BURNS: One set of Donald Trump supporters is this basket of deplorables or whatever you want to call them and the other half you need to take more seriously their concerns about government. I don't know if we're going to see Clinton prosecute her own defense here in the way we would have if not for this health incident.

I think as of Friday evening talking to a lot of Democrats, they were very happy to have an argument over exactly what share of Donald Trump supporters are racist. But if she can't make that case herself in an aggressive and textured way that really emphasizes the more sympathetic part of her statement, I don't know that we'll ever see that play out the way Democrats want to.

KUCINICH: Yes, it's something that is very easily taken out of context and use in an ad. Also the fact that it was said --

CUOMO: It was and it will be used in an ad. We have it this morning.

KUCINICH: There you go. It's also that she said at a fundraiser because then it looks like she's saying it to her rich friends and behind closed doors, even though it is on camera and not to the public. Also in terms of the perception isn't that great.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. We appreciate all the insight.

CUOMO: Sanjay, thanks for raising this bigger issue about what we know about these people who want to be our leaders and when we should know it.

GUPTA: And the right to know, absolutely. CUOMO: Sanjay Gupta. You guys, you'll be back. So, Hillary Clinton's health care certainly a headline for you today. Remember on 9/11 she gave an interview about what had happened on that day and her thoughts about ISIS, how to fight it and why Donald Trump isn't right to do the job. Here's a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: What, unfortunately, Donald Trump has done is made our job harder. Given a lot of aid and comfort to ISIS operatives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: So, we always want to know what will you do, not criticize the other side what is your plan. You'll hear it on a number of threats to America, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:17:53]

CUOMO: Prior to the line about deplorables, prior to the health scare, Hillary Clinton sat down with us for an interview about 9/11, her experience there and what her plan is and her thoughts on how to keep you safe from the biggest threats facing this country, ISIS, Russia, North Korea.

And let's now discuss with our panel what happened in there, Jackie Kucinich and Alex Burns. We are also joined by CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis. Here's what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Do you think that the next president needs to level with the American people that words like destroy and defeat ISIS that your opponent loves to use all the time how quickly it will happen that that is not the reality.

The reality is this is generational and there is no quick win against ISIS. That this is going to be a very, very long time. Do you think it's time the American people are told that?

CLINTON: I think it is time for a candid, honest conversation about what we face because it's not just ISIS. I actually think that intensifying our efforts against ISIS could lead to their defeat. By that I mean, depriving them of territory including their headquarter city, Raqqa in Syria.

Taking back the cities they seized in Iraq, but that's not the end of the struggle. The struggle is against a violent ideology. We have to protect our country by working with one another and that most certainly includes the American-Muslim community.

What, unfortunately, Donald Trump has done is made our job harder and given a lot of aid and comfort to ISIS operatives, even ISIS officials who want to create this as some kind of clash of civilization, a religious war. It's not. We can't let it become that.

CUOMO: But it sounds like strength when he says it and people when they're afraid like and need the idea of a strong leader. What do you say to the supporters of him who resonate with that message?

[06:20:11]CLINTON: Well, there's phony strength and real strength. And it's phony strength to not know what you're talking about and to make outrageous statements that will actually make our job harder.

No matter how in the moment it sounds. Real strength is leveling with the American people and making it clear, we will defeat ISIS. I do believe that.

But that we've got to make sure that here at home we're not opening doors to people who feel that somehow they want to be part of this global movement because Donald Trump has said it's a war between us and them.

We are a nation of immigrants and we should be proud of that. It's a great asset. So we can't let Trump or anybody of his undermine our greatest strengths.

CUOMO: ISIS, you said focus on Baghdad and you also said recently we will not put troops on the ground in Iraq or Syria to take and hold land. Tell us why. Why not flip it and not worry about the leader of the organization as much as the home of the problem and get on the ground and make it safe for the people there?

CLINTON: We have to do both. I do not think putting American ground troops in Syria to hold territory, to become occupiers, to try to govern people is at all the right strategy.

So, I feel very committed to depriving is of their so-called caliphate. That's a huge, symbolic recruitment message that we should pull from them.

I also believe that Baghdadi is a central figure in the promulgation of this ideology and it really helped our efforts to organize against Bin Laden. Now, it's true that al Qaeda's not dead, but they are nothing like they were.

It's also true that we collected an enormous amount of intelligence in the raid on Bin Laden's home. So, we've had some big advantages by using as an organizing principle going after the leader that I think would also work to our benefit with Baghdadi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: So, what do you hear in there, Errol? She went a little bit further than usual in terms of why she wants Baghdadi? Why you do have to be on the ground and why yet why ground troops should not be part of that formula?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I hear her as trying to steer a middle course between what Donald Trump talks about, which is almost as tradition sort of, you know, open up the bomb base and bomb them into submission and let's just sort of take care of them in that way.

And the thing that gets Democrats in trouble at times which is to say as President Obama has said, we've got to make this more like sort of a chronic illness. We're going to sort of control this. It's going to be more like a police action.

The right wing goes crazy when you say that. I hear her as try to steer a middle course and say we can do something that will be sort of satisfying to the public.

We'll find the bad guy and kill the individual bad guy, but yet and still she is trying to place this in the context of a half century of American policy where diplomatic and military aims are aligned.

And it is a slow, frustrating process, but you have to bring in other nations. It is a very tough sell and she can I think I really be criticized and Trump will criticize her for not just going to the easy solution in saying let's just go and bomb them.

Let's use American force and power and that will solve all of our problems. What I hear her telling you, that's not going to be something that she will gives in to.

CAMEROTA: But that was different, hearing her justification for why taking out al-Baghdadi would make a difference and hearing her justification for why the caliphate and going after it is so important. What did you hear in this interview?

BURNS: I think a lot of what Errol heard. I think I heard a candidate who recognizes that she has a persistently in polls, she has had an advantage on the issue of national security and advantage on the issue of foreign policy, but on a really narrow issue of who would you rather have dealing with ISIS.

Donald Trump has consistently had an advantage. What Hillary Clinton is trying to do here is give voters something concrete that they could imagine the new president doing differently from Barack Obama.

Because he has not talked about, you know, let's hunt down and kill their leader the way we did with Bin Laden. Give their voters some way that they can imagine things being a little different, a little more aggressive under her without going as far as Donald Trump has.

CUOMO: You know, maybe a little bit too in the weeds for the viewers, but I was very interested in hearing her unpack why you go after Baghdadi. Part of what edited out there was I said, you know, this isn't a snake.

It's a worm. You chop off one part of it. It grows in a different direction, they have a new leader. Look at what happened with Bin Laden. You got rid of him. He is the badest man in the world. Look where we are today.

And she says, no, it's an organizing principle. When we did that for Bin Laden and allowed everybody to get on the same page and focus our energies and take it out and allow the American people to understand what we were doing and why.

That's where her head is on these things. It's not just about satisfying that visceral impact.

KUCINICH: She's also a student of all of this and she also wants to show the American people that she has been in the room. She's received a lot of criticism for her time as secretary of state, but she also needs to turn it into a positive and that's what we saw here.

She's talking about how well she knows these issues and you can see that by the level of detail she talked to you about this. The more she does that, people can start to picture her as commander-in-chief, rather than as someone who is running and someone who may have had a checkered record as secretary of state.

CUOMO: Right. Now when we were talking and we wanted to get to the health part. I did not pick up that she had pneumonia.

CAMEROTA: Did you think she looked a little low in your interview?

CUOMO: She's definitely dealing with a health problem. We talked about allergies for a while and I'm also an allergy sufferer and, we were talking about the (inaudible) drugs that you get on so that you can keep going because you don't have time to be sick.

She never talked about pneumonia. Now it turns out that she does. But again, Errol, I don't think the question is how big a deal of her having pneumonia.

As Jackie pointed out, it's like, you know, who doesn't have it these days, but the way they disclosed this. The phasing of it, is that more instructive of what should be an issue?

LOUIS: I think. I don't know if it should be an issue, but it does show how their team works. I saw and I was a little confused by all --

CUOMO: Why wouldn't it be an issue?

LOUIS: Well, I mean, I see all this Twitter traffic about why would it take them 90 minutes to tell us she had pneumonia. Should have been 70 minutes or 9 minutes of 10 minutes, I'm not --

CUOMO: Why is so wobbly getting into the van? I'm on all these drugs from having pneumonia. Why didn't it work?

LOUIS: Well, she could have said that, but my sense of it is that it doesn't matter until it matters. When you have to leave an event, you stumble and it's on video and now it matters and let's talk about it. I'm not sure I want to hear about all the aches and pains and different problems that either candidate is going through right now.

I want to know what matters and what matters is not that she had pneumonia, but if she has pneumonia to a point where she has to take stuff off her schedule and leave a high-profile public event, now it matters. Should they have just told the press or let the traveling press be there and maybe encourage the kind of relationship so that somebody could have quietly told the press? Yes. She has some health issues and it got to a critical point today and that's why she's leaving.

That, I think, is the more important underlying problem. Not some sort of formal sense of when does the information get let out of the cage. That's why they have a core of media people traveling with her every day.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about that. Is it time for the core of media people and journalists to demand the full disclosure of their medical records. These two candidates have not released as much as all the previous candidates have. Why is that OK?

BURNS: I don't know that it is, but I think that we are seeing in a lot of ways in this campaign and not just when it comes to health. The limitations of what the media can force candidates to disclose.

If we want to go see their full health records and Donald Trump's tax returns. We can talk about it every day and make sure voters are aware of what they're disclosing and not disclosing.

You hear from a lot of media critics, why don't you make him disclose his tax returns? Why don't you make him and her disclose their health records? We actually can't do that. Ultimately if voters decide that one or both candidates are not disclosed enough, it's up to them to punish them.

CUOMO: No subpoena power, I always say that. But Jackie, here's the point, the FEC makes you fill out this big financial disclosure, right, when you do it. Why?

Because they decided over time it's good to know if there are going to be any conflicts. What matters more than health? If you're going to do that, what matters more than taxes?

If you want to know of their financial conflicts, look at the person's taxes. If you want to find out if there is a real compromise of their ability to be president, look at their health.

KUCINICH: But to Alex's point earlier, there is only so much the staff and reporters can do if the principal does not want to release his information. Both of these are very top down campaigns. Everything floats from the person who is running.

And if they don't want to disclose information, taxes, more medical records, they're not going to do it. There is nothing that staff and we can do to force them.

It's going to be up to the voters to say if they think that they have given enough information at the end of the day.

CAMEROTA: Right. All we can do is just keep telling them you don't have the full information. Here's the best we can do. Thank you, panel. Great to talk to you. CUOMO: All right, so that was part of Hillary Clinton's thinking on ISIS. There is also North Korea especially in light of these recent tests to show they are on much more accelerated time frame to get a weapon that could hit us where we live and we expect it and Russia. We'll show you more of that coming up.

CAMEROTA: All right, so, do Hillary Clinton's supporters think her health will affect her on the campaign trail? The New York congressman who supports Clinton will join us with his thoughts, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)