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New Day
Pelosi Addresses Birther Issue; Victim Stranded In Abandoned House With Captor; Turbulent 24 Hours For Trump's Children. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired September 16, 2016 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00] PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He has persuaded half -- he has persuaded half of his party to believe this race is claptrapping. It's flat earth garbage and --
BORIS EPSHTEYN, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: This is the same as the deplorable comments.
BEGALA: -- he needs to renounce it, denounce it, and apologize.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Here's the tragedy of all of this. It could be ended in --
EPSHTEYN: It was ended.
CUOMO: -- in four seconds.
EPSHTEYN: It was ended last night.
CUOMO: I think it was obvious --
EPSHTEYN: And, by the way, calling our campaign racist is the same thing that Hillary did when she called us deplorable.
CUOMO: All right, we're good on this. Boris, thank you very much.
EPSHTEYN: Thank you.
CUOMO: Paul Begala, as always.
BEGALA: Thanks.
CUOMO: Alisyn, to you.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Chris, what does the Democratic leadership think about all of this -- all of these issues today? House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will share her take on everything that's in the news, all of the hot-button election issues. That's next.
[07:30:45] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:34:40] CAMEROTA: So, while you sleeping Donald Trump's campaign releasing a statement trying to put the birther controversy to rest. It reads, "Having successfully obtained President Obama's birth certificate when others could not, Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States." So far, Trump has refused to say those words publicly.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joins us now to talk about this and so much more. Leader Pelosi, great to have you here.
[07:35:00] REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CALIFORNIA, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: My pleasure, good morning.
CAMEROTA: I know you don't want to get bogged down in sort of the birther controversy but does it have a ripple effect, do you think, in the country and in Congress that you're seeing?
PELOSI: Well, there's nothing that Donald Trump has said, whether it's about birther, whether it's about immigrants, whether it's about Mexicans, as he said, whether it's about Muslims. None of the -- women. None of the things that he has said that members of Congress haven't said over and over again on the Republican side. Not all of them.
And so this issue, whether it's put to rest or not, the damage is done as far as his evoking a response from a certain element in our country.
CAMEROTA: But, meaning that you think that Republicans in Congress are following his lead?
PELOSI: No, I think he's following theirs. I think that in Congress there's no -- if you look at the record -- the public record on, for example, immigration, there were worse statements made by members of Congress for a long period of time that they tried to implement into law in terms of Muslims into our country. Shocking language used by Republicans in Congress.
So he's a reflection of them, which is why I think that some of the establishment Republicans are unhappy with Trump for what he says. But also, he's pulled back the veil. You have a Speaker of the House whose budget will -- goes further. His budget will remove the guarantee of Medicare.
You have the committee that oversees Wall Street saying we're going to overturn Dodd-Frank and put us back where we were in '08. You have a Congress -- a Republican Congress that refuses to bring up issues that relate to gun violence prevention. The list goes on and on. And so what Donald Trump is saying is not shocking to us.
The people have to know that the election is more about -- is more than the presidency. It's also about what happens in the Congress of the United States. He calls climate change a hoax.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
PELOSI: That's what they -- they're in total denial on it. So, especially appealing to millennials to say this election is important, it has ramifications, and if you care about some of these issues you really have to consider Hillary Clinton.
CUOMO: So why do you think that he's doing well if it's such an obvious case to you? Why are the polls so tight and why is there such an enthusiasm gap between Clinton and Trump? People much more enthusiastic about voting for him than those who say I'll vote for Hillary Clinton are enthusiastic about this.
PELOSI: Two reasons. First of all, I think that the polls are a reflection of some voters going to the third party -- the third and fourth party. The tightening that some of these undecideds have gone to that place. Some of the millennials.Secondly, fear is a big driver and he's a fear monger. That's what he is in terms of he wasn't born here, I'm going to build a wall, immigrants undermine our society.
CUOMO: He says he's a change agent. That the status quo is unacceptable. You can't put somebody in the office who is an author of the status quo. I am from outside, I am the change agent. You hear that about -- from a lot of his supporters of his, as well, that they like the idea of a change agent.
PELOSI: I think -- I think that a woman President of the United States is more of a change agent statement than anything. But I think that it's really important for us to get around to what that change means in the lives of the American people. And that's -- people vote as to what it means to them. Yes, they want to be attracted to the candidate, but at the end of the day what does it mean to them?
So all this birther stuff and all the rest of it -- if you're a breadwinner and holding down two jobs trying to make ends meet for your family, and the rest are like what does this mean to me? And what it means to them is -- what we have to explain is what was said on here earlier.
This trickle-down economics does not work. That is the main -- that's what attracts a lot of Republicans to vote, even for somebody like Trump, because they believe in trickle-down. We believe in an economy that works for everyone. That's what Hillary Clinton will put out there.
CAMEROTA: And yet, the battleground state polls are tightening.
PELOSI: Yes.
CAMEROTA: He's leading now in Ohio. I believe that they're neck-and- neck, if he hasn't leapfrogged her, in Florida. If Donald Trump becomes president how will you work with him?
PELOSI: I don't -- he's not going to be president. Let's be very clear.
CUOMO: Where's the confidence come from?
PELOSI: My confidence comes from the trust and faith I have in the American people. They -- the American people are not negative. They're not bigots. The American people want to see some respect for the American people. It's about them. They are our bosses. And when we have the debates and when we actually focus on the issues as to what it means in their lives, I think that Hillary Clinton will win. [07:40:00] But what's important here, and you pointed out, is that people cannot make a protest vote for a third-party candidate and then be surprised when that has an impact on the numbers in the race.
My confidence also comes from the fact that as one who is hoping that we can win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate that we're going to own the ground. We're out there -- for all that you say about Donald Trump he's the gift that keeps on giving. Every time he says something it increases our registration, strengthens our mobilization, increases our fundraising, and makes the contrast in the message clearer.
So again, we have -- if you're a senior, do you want Medicare to be -- the guarantee to be removed from Medicare and you're going to get a voucher and go shop for your health care? Eighty percent of the American people want background checks for guns but it's not going to happen in a Republican Congress. They all are in denial about climate.
But it's always about the economy, and the economy that this president inherited and what he turned around -- President Obama, remarkable, remarkable, and a Democratic Congress has helped him do it. And some of the Census Bureau results spring from some of the actions that he took and the legacy that he will leave.
CAMEROTA: I don't have to tell you that Congress' approval rating are not good and what people always say they're frustrated is the gridlock. So what are -- is going to be able to be accomplished in Congress in the next term?
PELOSI: Well, let me just say it isn't about gridlock -- I know that's a term that is used -- it's about obstruction.
CUOMO: What's the difference?
PELOSI: The difference is gridlock is where we can't come to terms. Obstruction is we're not going anyplace. And the Republicans -- they have said when President Obama -- when they won the majority, the most important thing we can do is to make sure he does not succeed.
CUOMO: The perception is both sides will do that based on who is in power at the time --
PELOSI: That's not true.
CUOMO: -- and that's what fuels a lot of the distaste for the status quo.
PELOSI: That's not true. When we had the majority and President Bush was president, we worked with him. We opposed him on privatizing Social Security, which the Republicans still want to do, and we opposed him on the war in Iraq.
But on every other issue we tried to find common ground. We passed the biggest energy bill in the history of our country, which he proudly signed. We worked on helping to have refundable tax credits for working people in the lower-income bracket. We did many things. HIV-AIDS with -- he wanted to do that, we wanted it big. We had a wonderful success with that.
We have a number of -- many things that we have done with President Bush. For a party to say we don't want the president to succeed is just unfathomable. I guess they don't have confidence in what they believe in, so they just have to obstruct. But I think it's really important to make that point because President Obama has extended the hand of friendship over and over again, which they have rejected.
CAMEROTA: Leader Nancy Pelosi, thank you so much for being here on NEW DAY.
PELOSI: My pleasure, thank you.
CAMEROTA: It's nice to get your perspective.
PELOSI: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: We have to tell you about this story because this kidnapped woman makes a chilling 911 call.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CALLER: I've been abducted.
911 OPERATOR: Where's he at now?
CALLER: I'm in the bedroom with him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: We'll play that call that saved her life, next.
[07:43:30] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:47:00] CAMEROTA: We have an incredible story for you right now. Police in Ohio releasing this chilling 911 call of a kidnapped woman who was desperately pleading for them to find her. The victim held captive in an abandoned house in Ohio and begging to be rescued as her captor was sleeping in the very same room.
CNN's George Howell has more on this incredible story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR: This is the story about a woman rescued after being abducted and forced to engage in sexual activity by a man who is charged with killing multiple women. Her plea for help captured in a very chilling 911 call -- listen.
DISPATCHER: 911, what is the address to your emergency?
CALLER: Right across the street from the 4th Street laundromat.
DISPATCHER: What is it? CALLER: 4th Street laundromat.
DISPATCHER: What's the problem?
CALLER: I've been abducted.
HOWELL: The 911 call is chilling.
DISPATCHER: But you're at the laundromat?
CALLER: No, I'm the bedroom with him.
DISPATCHER: Do you know what color the house is?
CALLER: No. Please hurry.
HOWELL: A woman pleading for help. Her accused abductor sleeping in the same room.
DISPATCHER: Does he have a weapon?
CALLER: He's got a Taser.
DISPATCHER: Are you injured?
CALLER: A little.
HOWELL: Speaking in a whisper, the woman's fear is palpable.
DISPATCHER: Is there any way you can get out of the building.
CALLER: I don't know, without waking him, and I'm scared.
DISPATCHER: Is there a bathroom in the house?
CALLER: His bedroom is closed and he made it so it would make noise.
DISPATCHER: So if you told him you had to go to the bathroom, he would do something to you?
CALLER: Yeah, cause he had me tied up.
DISPATCHER: Are you tied up now?
CALLER: Well, I -- yeah, but I kind of freed myself.
HOWELL: This dispatcher encouraging the caller to stay on the line until police arrive at the abandoned house.
CALLER: Oh, s**t, I woke him up.
DISPATCHER: You can set the phone down.
HOWELL: Then silence. Minutes pass as the woman waits desperately.
DISPATCHER: Are you still there? CALLER: How much longer?
DISPATCHER: Do what?
CALLER: How much longer?
HOWELL: Finally, officers arrive and the caller works up the courage to leave the bedroom.
DISPATCHER: Can you get out of the house?
CALLER: It's locked.
DISPATCHER: It's locked? Are you at the door?
CALLER: Yeah, I am.
DISPATCHER: She's at the door. Is there a window there?
CALLER: Yeah, I'm looking out of it. Tell them to come back.
DISPATCHER: She said --
CALLER: Hurry, hurry.
DISPATCHER: She said to hurry up and come back.
HOWELL: After some 20 minutes on the line the woman is rescued.
POLICE: Come out, come on out. Hurry up, hurry up. Get out of here. Where is he?
CALLER: He's in the bedroom sleeping.
POLICE: Still sleeping?
CALLER: Yeah.
DISPATCHER: OK, they have her.
POLICE: Show me your hands. Put up your f*****g hands right now. Do it.
HOWELL: Inside, police arrest 40-year-old Shawn Grate, before finding two bodies, including the remains of Stacy Stanley, a grandmother who went missing last week. Grate, also leading police to a third body in the rubble of a burned-out home nearby.
Grate is charged with kidnapping and two counts of murder. He was being held Thursday in the Ashland County Jail awaiting a bond hearing that's set for 3:00 p.m. Friday. It wasn't clear whether he had an attorney and CNN was unable to reach anyone in his family. Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CAMEROTA: Oh, my God. Twenty minutes she had -- I mean, obviously the police were there for some of that time as she was trying to redirect them for how to rescue her. That's one of the most chilling 911 calls I think we've ever heard.
CUOMO: The whispering, when she must have wanted to scream with every fiber of her body, and the waiting. But great work by the police. Having to use that GPS location to find the exact house and take that guy down, bravo -- wow.
All right, so back to the campaign. Donald Trump's strongest surrogates have been his kids. There is an upside and a potential downside to that. Some of the interviews now are creating controversy, next.
[07:50:55] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:54:45] CUOMO: OK, Donald Trump's kids, they play an all- important role. They're the most visible and, you could argue, most effective surrogates for their father's campaign. But, you know, there's a compromise with this. It's hard to be a surrogate when you love your father and then you have to do the job at the same time and we've seen that come up, especially in the last couple of days. The kids going off message, expressing frustration. And let's be honest, they're not kids, they're full-grown adults.
[05:55:00] So let's discuss the plus and minus of having the Trump surrogates also be his children with CNN political commentator and senior writer for "The Federalist", Mary Katharine Ham. Let's start up top on this, M.K., which is you know, obviously, I understand this. I grew up as a politician's kid. My -- but I was a kid so they kept me out of it and my parents were very protective of us in that way.
Trump's kids are not kids, and I probably shouldn't even keep saying that. It just shows how old I am. They're late 20s, 30s, adults, families. But it is hard to defend the man you love as a father against legitimate things and that's increasingly come their way. The veil has been pulled off -- that child protection.
MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, SENIOR WRITER, "THE FEDERALIST": Yes, it's not an easy job. They've been walking this line and they've done a really good job of it. I think Donald Trump, Jr.'s speech at the RNC was one of the better ones. Ivanka has always had a great image and sort of risen above what's going on in the campaign. But that can't always last if you're getting some nitty gritty policy questions, as we saw this week.
I think what I would say also is you know who's also a grown kid who's a surrogate? Chelsea Clinton. But because she was a kid in the White House people are very kid-glove with her. The same interviewer who did the "Cosmopolitan" interview with Ivanka and grilled her gave Chelsea an interview that was like so do you think you'd live in the White House if your mom was there? I mean, it's like --
CAMEROTA: I mean, do you see a real difference in how the media treats kids? HAM: I do, and I think that might be because the media has an institutional memory of Chelsea as a child. But Chelsea is now on the campaign trail and she was on the campaign trail this week when Hillary was getting better.
CAMEROTA: What you're referring to is this "Cosmo" interview where the interviewer asked Ivanka, look, your father, in the past, said that women being pregnant is inconvenient for a business. It's highly inconvenient. It's great for the family, highly inconvenient for the business. How can he now say that he has this great child care plan that women should take off six weeks paid leave? Isn't that a fair question for her?
HAM: Yes. No, I think it is a fair question. I just wish that Chelsea got just as hard questions about, for instance, the foundation that they say she's going to run when her parents -- might run when her parents are back in the White House.
But I think that -- I was a little bit surprised, actually, that Ivanka went to 'you shouldn't ask me that question' route because she's very good in interviews. She's -- they are really good at being disciplinedpublic figures. They're actually sort of the opposite of --
CAMEROTA: Yes.
HAM: -- their father in that way.
CAMEROTA: She found getting a lot of negativity from --
HAM: Yes.
CAMEROTA: I mean, just from reading the transcript -- I mean, it's hard to know what the vibe was in the room, but from reading the transcript that was a fair -- that wasn't a negative question, that was a fair question.
HAM: No, it fine. And I think if you're going to be helping with policy, which she clearly is, then know the policy and then talk about it.
CUOMO: But it's more than that, right, because I would argue that all of us are soft on the kids. You do not ask Ivanka Trump the kind of questions that you ask Boris Epshteyn, OK, no matter what they say because they're the kid. But now, they're having it both ways because a lot of what you hear out of the Trump children is very negative about Hillary Clinton and that starts changing the calculus. We're not used to hearing that, M.K.
You know, like now we have Donald, Jr. on "GMA" this morning trying to explain what is just an ugly situation for his father with this birther situation.
HAM: Right.
CUOMO: It's hurting him, he's got to find a way out, he sends his son out. Here's what he had to say this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, JR., SON OF DONALD TRUMP: That is coming from him because I was involved in those conversations. He's going to put -- the head of his campaign spokesperson, he's putting it out. That's from the campaign. What he has said in the past -- hey, don't believe what you read when someone says a source close to the campaign. And don't believe what those people say because those are guys trying to get media.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: That's a tough position for him because there's a simple fact. Donald Trump doesn't let anybody speak for him until this, and now. It's a hard spot to put your son in.
HAM: It is, and I think that Donald Trump often contradicts his spokespeople after the fact and I think that's going to continue to happen, even with his kids. Although I think his kids have more influence on him than others do. But look, I think they're part of the campaign, they deserve tough questions. I think they can handle tough questions. I think Chelsea can, too, and we should give them to her.
CAMEROTA: Great point. Mary Katharine Ham, thanks so much.
HAM: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: It's great to have you here in the studio.
CUOMO: All right, there is a lot of news this morning, including a live interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders. What does he think is going to decide this race? Let's get to it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.
CAMEROTA: All right, good morning, everyone. Welcome to your new day. We do begin with breaking news at this hour because CNN has learned that Donald Trump will likely address the controversy that he has reignited by refusing to say President Obama was born in the U.S.
CUOMO: Now so far, Trump has refused to do so publicly. Uncharacteristically, he has refused to take this question. One of the things that has distinguished Trump is his desire to take on everything. He's often said his campaign doesn't speak for him, but now he's saying they do.
So let's get right to chief political correspondent Dana Bash with the breaking details -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. What we have heard since last night was a statement -- a lengthy statement from Donald Trump's campaign in the name of his top spokesman, Jason Miller. But I am told that in some form or fashion it is likely that Donald Trump, himself, will be the one to address this issue and say those magic words in some way, shape or form.
