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Interview with Representatives Doug Collins and Gregory Meeks; How Deadly Police Shootings Impact 2016 Race?'; Trump and Clinton to Face Off in First Debate; Trump and Clinton in Battleground North Carolina; Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 23, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:01] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: They have to know what to do in a situation like this and not feel as scared as it seems Officer Shelby did in Tulsa. Would you be willing to fund that? Is Congress -- does Congress have the appetite for funding better training for local police officers?

REP. DOUG COLLINS (R), GEORGIA: Well, I think right now that is -- all the things are on the table and I think there are several issues, not just in the training of officers. And this is something that we need to understand. You just brought this up. When officers are going out and feeling like they're under siege or they're concerned for their own safety, that heightens not only their policing and their concern on how they view their situations, but then it maybe takes away from the possible de-escalation. Other things that they can use.

My father was a state trooper for 31 years. I lived in a state trooper's household, a trooper's kid. I know what it's like to see your dad go out for work and you have those concerns, would he come home? He had been, you know, in many fights and many other things. But we've got to give them -- and he has always told me that training is one of the most important things that we can do.

I think that's where the federal dollars in programs that we can get to these locals to train them in all aspects, not just the physical aspects, but the mental aspects that they try to solve.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

COLLINS: The mental aspect of going to a domestic violence situation. These are issues in which they are put in a position, sometimes of no win, but they need to have those tools for de-escalation so that we can have a positive result.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Meeks, on a brighter note, there is a historic moment in Washington happening this weekend. The National Museum of African-American History and Culture opens tomorrow on the National Mall. I know this was years in the making. Tell us the significance.

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D), NEW YORK: Let me tell you, it is amazing. I had a chance to do a quick preview. It is an American story. The American story. Great for all Americans. When you look at from the beginning of slavery in America to where we are today, all of Americans get to see the progress and the contributions that African- Americans made to this great country of ours.

It makes you fill with pride. If you're African-American but for all Americans when you look at the progress that has been made over that time. And all Americans will have a chance on the Federal Mall to come and see this great American story of the contributions of African-Americans to this great country of ours. It is absolutely amazing. It is very well done. And I think that for generations yet unborn, people will then get to see the American story and the greatness of it as how it has evolved and continues to evolve and attempting to be a more perfect union.

CAMEROTA: President Obama will be there tomorrow. I look forward to bringing my kids there.

Congressman Meeks, Congressman Collins, thanks so much for being here.

MEEKS: Thank you. Appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The battle of messaging is going to be in full effect for this last stretch of the campaign. Hillary Clinton is making a statement about Donald Trump in a new ad without saying a word. We have it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:36:48] CUOMO: You know what's in the news. We had bombings. We've had two racially charged shootings. Who's making it better? Who's playing it to advantage? Who's making it worse in this election?

Let's discuss. David Gregory, CNN political analyst and author of "How's Your Faith," which is now in paperback.

Thank you very much. Still waiting for my signed copy. It is very good to have you here. The situation with the shootings. What do you see from both candidate in terms of who seems to be dealing with this situation better?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think there is a fiction on both sides. That somehow at the presidential level you're going to offer this solution and going to be able to solve something that's so complicated. Number one. And two, that is a complex and a protracted problem that we have of violence against African-Americans in this country at the hands of the police. So what's going on in these communities has to be dealt with that, you know, perceived threat. A sense of injustice on the hands of the police by so many African- Americans across the country.

So I think if you're running for president you try to set a tone. You try to put some kind of frame around this discussion. Around the idea of who can provide more order. Who can try to bring some order to this unstable situation. And I think both are trying to address it.

Donald Trump in particular is kind of -- is trying to have it both ways. I think both trying to attack Hillary Clinton and somehow feeding the sense of institutional racism, while at the same time, trying to empathize as he reaches out to African-American voters. So it's a bit chaotic.

CAMEROTA: Well, Hillary Clinton has put out on her own campaign Web site her plan for how to bring this kind of order that you're talking about. Let's pull it up and we can go through it and whether or not this is realistic.

Develop national guidelines on use of force. That one sounds tough because it's a moment-by-moment decision, you know, when you're in the heat of the moment as a police officer. Commit $1 billion to fund training programs. So we've heard how important that is for police to be better trained. Support legislation to end racial profiling. And provide federal matching funds for body cameras. We just heard two of our lawmakers there say that that would be important.

So she's spelling out what a president can do or at least guide Congress towards.

GREGORY: Right. And whether Congress goes along with something like that, we don't know. We know that there is a federal aspect to this. The Justice Department is looking into a lot of these shootings. The FBI certainly has a role to play, but so much of this has to do with what's going on inside communities and those relationships between the police and the communities that they serve. And that's where a lot of this work has to be done.

I do think there is room for certainly national discussion about it and for the federal government to be involved. But it's probably at the end of the day going to be more limited. It's going to be much more important to work inside the communities. And I think in a presidential campaign, that's one element. Social media is another that tends to exacerbate the tension around all of this instead of always making it better.

CUOMO: She's missing probably the most important thing that the federal government can do in that plan, which is to create a national registry of these shootings. We do not keep track of them in this country right now. It has been proposed, but the Democrats who propose it and establish high ground on this issue.

CAMEROTA: Right.

CUOMO: Then lard on all of these gun control measures and other things that they know are politically unacceptable so it doesn't get through.

GREGORY: The other thing is that neither one of them make a real point of saying, look, our police are vital and they do a great job, and this is not about making an easy binary debate that, you know, this is bad, and, you know, these people are good, and these people are bad.

[07:40:12] But we have a situation. You cannot have African-Americans being shot and killed at this rate and not look up and say -- CUOMO: She says that.

GREGORY: She says that.

CAMEROTA: Well, Donald Trump also says that. He says our police are great people, they do a great, great job.

CUOMO: Yes, but he ping-pongs.

CAMEROTA: You're saying they don't do it at one --

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: But they wrestle with the complexity of it within the political context.

CUOMO: I think. But don't you think that she tries to, whereas he has a different approach which is the ping-pong, which is at one point condemn Black Lives Matter and say our cops are under siege and then say, with this Tulsa cop before we even knew anything --

GREGORY: Right. Maybe she choke.

CUOMO: She -- yes, she seemed to choke. You know, he seems to go back and forth with the African-American vote. He says I want to help you, then he says, it's the worst ever, when it clearly isn't.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

GREGORY: Right.

CUOMO: He said you need stop and frisk in Chicago which is not only not acceptable in a lot of communities but they already have it. You know, I wonder if he's getting a --

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: OK. Let's pivot quickly because Hillary Clinton has just put out a new ad that plays on our daughters and what we want for them. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'd look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers. She's a slob. She ate like a pig. A person who's is flat-chested is very hard to be a 10. Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat (EXPLETIVE DELETED)? Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you treat women with respect?

TRUMP: I can't say that either.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CAMEROTA: Your thoughts?

GREGORY: Well, I mean, these have been very effective ads up until now because it's really about desqualifying Trump as someone who is intemperate, who's risky and who's, you know, really unacceptable as a person. I mean, she's obviously reaching out to a constituency that she struggles with, and that's men. To say look, you may not like me but think about this in terms of your daughters. What does it mean to have a woman president, what does it mean to have someone who normalizes this kind of talk and puts it the public square in a way that becomes acceptable in a way because it happens over and over again. So I think this is a specific kind of appeal to people's decency to say, can't have this guy.

CAMEROTA: David Gregory, great to see you.

GREGORY: Good to see you.

CAMEROTA: Have a nice weekend.

GREGORY: OK. You two.

CAMEROTA: The first presidential debate is just three days away and our next guest says it may be the most watched event on television. James Fallows break down what to expect next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:45:55] CAMEROTA: We are just three days away from the first presidential debate. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton face-to-face for the first time. I see you're getting ready.

CUOMO: I have my chili ready.

CAMEROTA: I like that and bring nachos. They have different styles, to say the least. So how will it all play out? James Fallows wrote this week's fascinating cover story in the "Atlantic" this month about the debate rivalry. He is a national correspondent for "The Atlantic" and a former chief speech writer for President Carter. He joins us now.

No one understands debate better than you, Jim. Thanks so much for being here.

JAMES FALLOWS, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTIC: My pleasure.

CAMEROTA: So how is this going to go in your estimation?

FALLOWS: Boy, if only I knew that I would be a lot wealthier than a working journalist, but I think that we can see the traits each candidate has brought in here. Hillary Clinton knows this field cold, she's done head-to-head debates many times in her career, Donald Trump never has before. So she needs to show the traits we know she has, factual mastery, and the ones we would like to see she has for her supporters, the sort of calm confidence in batting Donald Trump back.

CAMEROTA: Conversationally, not being too wonky.

FALLOWS: Yes. Exactly.

CUOMO: Who will win as a proposition comes down to your premise of what wins in general? What do you believe creates advantage on that stage?

FALLOWS: My experience both in seeing debates way back in the Jimmy Carter when I worked there and studied them since then is that it's a matter -- the debates are sort of conducted in logic, but they are received in emotion. People see how candidates carry themselves, who looks ill at ease, who looks confident, who looks comfortable.

When Ronald Reagan debated my former boss, Jimmy Carter, the main thing that conveyed that Ronald Reagan was comfortable in his role as the leader of the nation and Jimmy Carter seemed a little bit beset. So I think that same degree of who seems comfortable in this role between these two extremely opposite figures we're going to look at.

CAMEROTA: So does that mean that style wins over substance? We've been having that debate here? What do people take away? Do they look at the zingers? Do they look at the style, the comfort level or are they looking for real ideas and substance?

FALLOWS: You're setting up that question where sort of only one obvious answer. I can think of one time in history where substance mattered in a debate, that's when Gerald Ford in 1976 got wrong the fact that the Soviet Union was controlling Poland. And that caused some problems. The rest it is substance as a vehicle for style. You know, that we think of Lloyd Benson and Dan Quayle, and those Lloyd Bensons --

CUOMO: That's what I've been saying, by the way. He just said it right. Fallows got -- that's what I've been trying to say.

CAMEROTA: I don't recall you saying it with quite the eloquence.

CUOMO: I agree with you that the style is what people remembers. The one liners, the courage, and these things, the poise, but what creates those moments, what creates that perception is going to be unique in this contest thus far.

FALLOWS: Yes.

CUOMO: This is the first time and maybe the last time that people will have an opportunity to get a first impression of Clinton and Trump who owns this space as potential president better.

FALLOWS: And I think owning is a very crucial word here because one of Trump's strongest traits in the primaries was simply his dominance over the other people. I have a clip from wrestling in my article about when he shaved the head of Vince McMahon. That's sort of a proxy for what those debates were like. So you have a blustery man and a strong woman. And every single thing about them is different.

Also the fact that Donald Trump is not usually at his most blustery when there is a woman this close to him. You know, think of the pastor in Flint a week or so ago when he sort of meekly backed off and Carly Fiorina? And so I think that dynamic of how a -- somebody who prides his strength will deal with a tough woman right there.

CAMEROTA: We have that moment of Carly Fiorina, and the reason we want to play it is because that did seem to be one moment where he was back on his heels. He had famously said, look at that face. Who would vote for that face? He tried to say I meant her persona, not her face, and here's what she said, how she responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLY FIORINA (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, it's interesting to me, Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what Mr. Bush said. I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: She won that one, that point, and even that debate. And so Hillary Clinton has to somehow manufacture or wait for or find a moment like that.

[07:50:02] FALLOWS: I think she might be able to assume there'll be attack moments from Donald Trump. And so I'm sure they're planning now of how she rebuts the attack as Carly Fiorina did there or as Hillary Clinton did in the Benghazi hearings numerous times, and then having established that role, pivot back to, but what really matters for America is the blah, blah, blah, the blah being all the substance points of the debate.

CUOMO: This conjecture about whose debate it is to win, whose it is to lose, something I keep picking up that I don't understand, maybe you can help me understand it, is the notion that, well, Clinton is going to be held to a higher standard. This is really -- I don't get it. Because I feel like this is his last chance, this first huge moment next to her to prove he belongs on that stage as a potential president, not as an entertaining guy and a one-liner and an insult machine that can move through the primary field.

FALLOWS: Well, certainly for members of his base, he's already proved that long ago. But there is this historical pattern of challengers feeling they have to establish that. That was part of what John Kennedy, then a novice, was establishing with Richard Nixon, with Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, and I say even with George W. Bush when he was going against Al Gore in that first debate. So there is that threshold for people not already on the train.

Are they going to think, yes, Donald Trump can handle all these questions about substance and can deal with a very experienced woman and come out --

CUOMO: And how many of those people might you have? If the estimate of 100 million is even close, and even if you build in 70 percent confirmation bias that they're only listening -- they've already made up their mind, you still have a huge number. FALLOWS: Sure. You got tens of millions of people, certainly you

have enough to make a difference in an election that seems to be this close in this many states. So that's why it matters, that's why I'm going to be watching, too.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about a wild card and that is Roger Ailes, the former head of FOX News, ousted during sexual harassment accusations. He's a master sloganeer as everyone knows and he knows a lot about debate prep, and he's given some of the most famous lines have been originated with him. What do you think he's doing with Donald Trump right now?

FALLOWS: It's really hard to imagine what debate prep camp would be like in the Trump team because he seems to have, you know, gone this far by just going with himself. When he's scripted, he's not as vital as he is when in impromptu. So imagine Ailes, if anyone, is trying to challenge the channel, the raw Donald Trump to the prepared Donald Trump and have him say, OK, this is the way you can provoke her, that might get her mad and sink to his level. I don't think she'll do that but I think that's what they'll try.

CAMEROTA: James Fallows, thanks so much. Great article in the "Atlantic." Thanks so much for sharing all of it with us.

CUOMO: You must come back after the debate because we have to hear what your take is. You just -- you understand it too well.

FALLOWS: I'll look forward to it. Thank you.

CUOMO: All right. So Clinton and Trump, in terms of the state of play, they're duking it out, that's what they're doing. And there are states that are up for grabs that we haven't seen before, one is on your screen right now, North Carolina. The latest poll, they are statistically deadlocked, within the margin of error. Who might have the edge and what does this state really mean? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:56:37] CUOMO: Be informed. That is the mandate for you as voters, and you have just 46 days until Election Day. The battleground states are looming larger than ever. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, locked in a dead heat in North Carolina. This is a huge state, especially for Clinton, if she can find a way to get this state the way Obama did.

We have CNN's Sunlen Serfaty live in Washington with more. What do we see there?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Chris, well, you know, the ongoing unrest that we've seen in Charlotte really does set a powerful new backdrop for what has already been a very polarized race in North Carolina. This could, potentially, become a game changer for voters on the ground, in a race that has been locked in a dead heat for weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SERFATY (voice-over): In battleground North Carolina --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My understanding is that we will see your support in November. Is that correct?

SERFATY: -- a sense of urgency from both campaigns.

TRUMP: Come on, let's go. Who are voting for?

SERFATY: The candidates are flooding the state.

CLINTON: It's great to be here at UNC.

SERFATY: As their campaigns ratchet up their respective ground games.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Make sure we're taking some voter registration forms, as well.

SERFATY: Initially lagging far behind in infrastructure, Trump's campaign is now moving in on the Tar Heel State, looking to capitalize on what it sees as an enthusiastic base of supporters.

TRUMP: Early voting starts here, October 20th. So, ideally, you get out and you vote, right? You get out early. Don't wait.

SERFATY: In the past six weeks, bolstering its resources as part of a coordinated effort with the RNC, opening its first field offices, nine now in all, and adding more than 100 paid staffers on the ground. Trump and his allies are spending more than $3 million on the airwaves, but it's still no match for the Clinton campaign's North Carolina footprint, which is still growing.

It's added 21 field offices in the past six weeks and expanded its staff to 300. And it's going big on TV, dropping a combined $17 million on ads with affiliated groups.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald trump's plan tear families apart.

SERFATY: The Clinton campaign sees North Carolina as a must-win for Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that we have a really good chance to really slam it or shut if we win here.

SERFATY: The Trump campaign isn't going that far.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a critical state. Victory will come through North Carolina.

SERFATY (on camera): Is it a must-win?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going to say must-win, but it is a critical state.

SERFATY (voice-over): Both sides are in search of any persuadable voters, including those who are still on the fence about voting at all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know if there's necessarily anything they can say, just because of all the negativity that's been surrounded by both of their campaigns.

SERFATY: There aren't many undecided voters left in North Carolina, just 6 percent in the latest CNN poll, but they could tip the balance for either candidate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At first, I would say I was for Trump, at first, but then as time has gone on, my -- you know, that's why I'm undecided. Because it's like as time has gone on, and the more I've heard, the more my opinions change.

SERFATY: The campaigns are facing a dual mission, battling for voters who are up for grabs, as they try to energize their core supporters essential in the final stretch. For Clinton, that's the Obama coalition of young voters, minorities, and women. This week, the campaign dispatching Mothers of the Movement, women who lost their children to gun violence.

MARIA HAMILTON, MOTHER OF DONTRE HAMILTON: We're in a bad place right now. And they're not going to give us what we want. We have to take it. And we do that at the polls. We vote.

SERFATY: Team Trump traveling to the --