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Clinton & Trump Clash in First Debate; Poll Shows Big Debate Win for Clinton. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired September 27, 2016 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You've been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now?
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald, I know you live in your reality, but that is not the fact.
TRUMP: I will release my tax returns when she releases her 33,000 e- mails that have been deleted.
CLINTON: I call it Trumped up trickle down, because that's exactly what it would be.
TRUMP: Hillary has experience, but it's bad experience.
CLINTON: At least I have a plan to fight ISIS.
TRUMP: No, no, you are telling the enemy everything you want to do.
CLINTON: No, we're not.
TRUMP: I have a winning temperament. I know how to win.
CLINTON: Whew, OK.
Join the debate by saying more crazy things.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is "NEW DAY" with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. We want to welcome our viewers in United States and around the world. You're watching NEW DAY.
Up first, the highly anticipated showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was must-see TV. Clinton called Trump a racist and put him on a defensive for much for their first debate, while Trump tried to paint the country's problems her, painting her as a, quote, "typical politician".
[05:00:04] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: This certainly lived up to the hype. Now, who won, right? That's a tricky question.
We have a CNN post debate poll that shows it wasn't even close. Big night for Clinton. So, how will this result play into the overall race especially as the candidates get back on the trail?
We have it all covered for you.
Let's begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly -- Phil.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.
Going into this big night, we knew both candidates had a specific message they wanted to get across. Hillary Clinton -- ready, prepared for office. Donald Trump, the breaker of the status quo. As you well know, that doesn't mean there would not be punches throw and a few haymakers that landed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I have a feeling by the end of this evening, I'm going to be blamed for everything that's ever happened.
TRUMP: Why not?
CLINTON: Why not? Yes, why not?
(LAUGHTER)
MATTINGLY (voice-over): The highly anticipated duel between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton begun with an exchanging of pleasantries.
TRUMP: Secretary Clinton -- yes, is that OK? Good. I want you to be very happy.
MATTINGLY: But it didn't take long for the gloves to come off.
CLINTON: The kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle down economics all over again. I call it Trumped up trickle down.
TRUMP: NAFTA is the worst trade deal may be ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country. Now you want to approve Trans- Pacific Partnership.
MATTINGLY: Trump repeatedly casting Clinton as a typical politician while attempting to portray help self as a change agent.
TRUMP: You've been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now?
MATTINGLY: Clinton putting Trump on the defensive for much of the debate, pinning the GOP nominee on his business record.
CLINTON: Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said, back in 2006, "Gee, I hope it does collapse, because then I can go in and buy some and make some money." Well, it did collapse. TRUMP: That's called business, by the way.
CLINTON: Nine million people lost their jobs.
MATTINGLY: Challenging him on his refusal to release his tax returns.
TRUMP: I will release my tax returns -- against my lawyer's wishes -- when she releases her 33,000 e-mails that have been deleted.
CLINTON: Maybe he doesn't want the American people to know he has paid nothing in federal taxes.
TRUMP: That makes me smart.
CLINTON: If he paid zero, that means zero for troops. Zero for vets. Zero for schools or health.
MATTINGLY: Trump pouncing on Clinton about the private e-mail, but not dwelling on it.
CLINTON: I made a mistake using a private e-mail.
TRUMP: That's for sure.
CLINTON: If I had to do it over again, I would obviously do it differently.
TRUMP: That was more than a mistake. That was done purposely.
MATTINGLY: And insisting she can't be trusted.
TRUMP: Well, I have much better judgment than she does. There's no question about that. I also have a much better temperament than she has. Behind the blue screen, I don't know who you were talking to, Secretary Clinton, but you were out of control. I said there's a person with a temperament that's got a problem.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: Whew, OK.
MATTINGLY: Trump on the defensive over years of false claims that President Obama wasn't born in the U.S.
TRUMP: I think I did a great job and service, not only for the country, but even for the president in getting him to produce his birth certificate.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton?
MATTINGLY: Clinton hitting him hard, dubbing his crusade racist.
CLINTON: We tried to put the whole racist birther lie to bed. But it can't be dismissed that easily. So, he has a long record of engaging in racist behavior and the birther lie was a very hurtful one.
MATTINGLY: Debate moderator fact checking past statements on the Iraq war.
TRUMP: I did not support the war in Iraq.
HOLT: 2002 --
TRUMP: That is a mainstream media nonsense put out by her.
HOLT: The record shows otherwise.
TRUMP: The record does not show that. The record shows that I'm right.
MATTINGLY: But asked about the invasion before the war, Trump said this.
HOWARD STERN: Are you for invading Iraq?
TRUMP: Yes, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly.
MATTINGLY: The fiery debate ending on a personal attack of Clinton.
TRUMP: She doesn't have the look. She doesn't have the stamina. She doesn't have the stamina. I don't believe she does have the stamina. To be president of this country, you need tremendous stamina.
CLINTON: As soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal or cease-fire or release of dissidents and opening of new opportunities in nation's around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.
[05:05:03] TRUMP: Hillary has experience, but it's bad experience.
MATTINGLY: But the veteran debater fought back at Trump's critiques.
CLINTON: I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president. I think that's a good thing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: And, guys, I think the interesting facts is there's no question. Donald Trump was on the defensive for more of the debate than Hillary Clinton. But one of the primary reasons why, some of Donald Trump's wheel house issues never even came up. There's no discussion about the Clinton Foundation. He never brought up Benghazi, even though he had one of the terror attack survivor in the audience. You did not hear about immigration or border wall, things with two debates left, you can be sure he's going to bring up.
Now, today, candidates back on the trail. Hillary Clinton, swing state, North Carolina. Donald Trump, swing state, Florida. You're gong to see a lot of that in the days and weeks ahead -- Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: OK, Phil, thanks so much for all of that. Let's talk about the instant polls. Hillary Clinton registering a decisive victory over Donald Trump last night. This is according to the CNN/ORC post- debate poll. Take a look at these numbers, 62 percent of debate watchers polled thought Clinton won the debate, only 27 percent thought that Trump did better night.
The poll sample of debate watchers does skew slightly in favor of Democrats, we should say with more Democrats responding. Even a majority of independents who were watching the debate deemed Clinton the winner.
CUOMO: All right. So, let's discuss.
What does this mean in the overall race? That's the real purpose of this debate. We have never seen anything like it.
So, let's bring in CNN senior political analyst, senior editor of "The Atlantic", Ron Brownstein. CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast", Jackie Kucinich, CNN politics executive editor, Mark Preston, CNN national political reporter, Maeve Reston, and CNN political analyst David Gregory.
Professor Brownstein, you say that there was something that Trump needed to accomplish last night and he failed. What is it?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: There was one overriding tests for Donald Trump in that debate, and I think he flunked it pretty emphatically, and that was to reduce the historically high share of people who say he is not qualified to be president. We have never gone this deep in the election with close to 60 percent of voters saying one of the nominees is not qualified to be president. In the CNN poll last night, 55 percent of those watched the debate, based on his performance, he was not prepared. The number was even higher among college educated whites.
We talked about many times before, Trump is in danger of being the first Republican nominee ever to lose college educated whites, and they are the voters who are in between where he is and where he needs to be. You never will get a second chance to make a first impression. This was his best chance to resolve those doubts.
I think it is likely not necessarily insurmountable, but this makes it harder to grow his vote and it is likely he goes through with the majority of those college whites saying he is not qualified.
CAMEROTA: Jackie, your impressions?
JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He started out okay. We started with teleprompter Trump and then we went to Twitter Trump, and then we went to rally Trump. And he sort of unraveled as the debate went on. So, the fact he could not get back to his talking points, the fact that Lester Holt did not have to ask about Benghazi. He should have brought it up.
The way Hillary brought up his comments about women at the end. He did specifically asked about that, she found a way to talk about it, because that is what happens when you're a good debater, when you practiced, when you want to bring something up. So, he kind of looked unprepared and not up to the job.
CUOMO: Preparation counts. Hillary had a great moment last night for her when she said, "I did prepare for this debate. And you know what else? I prepared for president of the United States." He didn't have an answer on it which is always a bad sign for where Trump is head on something, because he likes to respond in kind.
What do you think, Mark, stood out in terms of the moments where your eyebrows go up and say this is a problem for him going forward?
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, I mean, first of all, as Jackie said, he did OK out of the gate and then he went downhill very quickly. I think when he made the turn and he brought up Bill Clinton's infidelity shows he is a raccoon pushed into the corner, and he's just going to clawing out. If he brings that up in the debate, that would be a fatal blow for him. That is not a good issue if he addresses it on stage to Hillary Clinton.
Now, of course, he has addressed it and he has the deniability because he said he didn't address it. The fact of the matter is, that is an explosive subject right now that's going to only hurt him more with women voters and perhaps independents.
CUOMO: Our Dana Bash interviewed Trump about this afterwards. Here is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm very happy I was able to hold back on the indiscretions with respect to Bill Clinton, because I have a lot of respect for Chelsea Clinton. And I just didn't want to say what I was going to say --
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Which is?
TRUMP: Which is I'll tell you maybe at the next debate. We'll see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PRESTON: Let me say one thing, clearly he doesn't have that much respect for Chelsea Clinton because he did go there.
CUOMO: Yes, I don't think it's a virtue when you suggest that you're going to say something very insulting but then don't say it.
[05:10:02] CAMEROTA: But that wasn't during the debate.
CUOMO: He said the same thing during the debate.
CAMEROTA: He planted that seed.
CUOMO: No, it wasn't a seed. He put a whole plant in a pot and said, I was going to say something that was really and I forget the word. He said rough on Hillary Clinton and her family, but I'm not because -- I said there are two people. He is having a conversation with himself and decides to do the right thing. I don't know that that's virtue.
PRESTON: One more point to make, impulse control. He is proud of himself for not going there. He's proud of himself for doing that. Well, if you are the commander in chief, I'm proud I did not push the button. I'm proud of myself, you know, that I didn't go head-to-head with a foreign leader or what-have-you. So, he's proud of himself.
CAMEROTA: Maeve, you know, we've heard the theory that debates are won or lost in the first half hour. If you look and isolate the first half hour, a lot of viewers thought he was strong.
MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I absolutely did. He came out sounding like a fighter for the working people. That was sort of the vintage Trump that has brought so many people to his campaign.
And then, it just sort of disappeared like Jackie said. He trailed off into answers that were sometimes totally incoherent, sort of stringing different points together that didn't make sense, bringing up Sean Hannity over and over again, getting into the weeds on his position on Iraq. There were a lot of missed opportunities for him there.
I do think she clearly did what she needed to do last night in the sense that it was such a smooth performance. She never really got rattled by him. You know, maybe some people will say little bit too robotic, you know, smiling through the insults. But she really was in command on that stage.
CAMEROTA: Here is the moment that people thought was strong when he talked about trade at the beginning. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Your husband signed NAFTA, which was one of the worst things that ever happened to the manufacturing industry.
CLINTON: Well, that's your opinion. That is your opinion.
TRUMP: You go to New England, you go to Ohio, Pennsylvania, you go anywhere you want, Secretary Clinton, and you will see devastation where manufacturing is down 30, 40, sometimes 50 percent. NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.
And now, you want to approve Trans-Pacific Partnership. You were totally in favor of it. Then you heard what I was saying, how bad it is, and you said, I can't win that debate.
But you know that if you did win, you would approve that, and that will be almost as bad as NAFTA. Nothing will ever top NAFTA.
CLINTON: Well, that is just not accurate. I was against it once it was finally negotiated and the terms were laid out. I wrote about that in --
TRUMP: You called it the gold standard.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: You called it the gold standard of trade deals. You said it's the finest deal you've ever seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RESTON: Trump's best moment, right? Fighter in interjecting over and over again, and she seemed a little bit, you know, knocked off her heels in that moment. But we never saw that Trump reemerged.
CUOMO: Well, David Gregory, you're up in Boston. Thank you for joining us this morning.
You made this point many times, where you say he is the master of the complaint. He jokes and says he is the whiner in chief.
America has anxiety. It is angry about things. It wants things to change. He brought that to bear last night. It was that next phase of what would a president do about it where it seemed to level out and go down for him.
DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I agree with what's been said. I think the first 30 minutes to an hour for me, Donald Trump exceeded expectations. He was mostly disciplined. He did appear prepared.
He took a very strong outsider message and really painted her as the ultimate insider who has been around the issues for decades and hasn't been able to get things done. That was a bit of hyperbole because she was not quite in power for all those 30 years, but she's certainly been part of the establishment.
And then, he unraveled. He unraveled on taxes. He unraveled on the birther nonsense, and talking about women, interrupting her, hectoring here, getting too hot.
And through it all, Hillary Clinton looked presidential. She sounded presidential. You could imagine her in the role.
And she was unflappable. You know, she kept her tone, the same, she could smile through insults. And I thought the devastating line from her, toward the end, which is, just listen to what you've heard. People say he talked more than she did. I think she was happy to have him keep talking. And I think ultimately that's it.
So, the tale of two Trumps here and I think that he did unravel to the point that goes to what Ron was saying, which is where does he add last night? Who did he reach that he can turn things around with? With college educated whites, moderate Republicans and women? I don't see it despite that strong start for him.
CAMEROTA: Panel --
BROWNSTEIN: I was going to say, it was a big piece of his electorate that wants someone who is not conventionally qualified. Someone who's going to go in and break the windows. That is not enough to win. And the question is, can he grow? And I don't think he made that any easier last night. In fact, he probably made it harder.
CAMEROTA: All right.
[05:15:00] Stick around. We have many more questions for you, panel.
Coming up on NEW DAY, we'll hear from both sides. In our 7:00 hour, we will speak to interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile, as well as Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.
And then in our 8:00 hour, we have Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and Trump's running mate, Governor Mike Pence. A big show for you.
CUOMO: So, last night was a biggie, right? You only get one first. But there will be two more. So, what opportunities will have to be built on for the next time? Who is better at getting under the skin of their opponent?
We have the best political team on television. They have the answers, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:20:01] CAMEROTA: The candidates own words used against them during last night's debate. First example, Donald Trump talking about his stance on the war in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLT: You had supported the war in Iraq before the invasion. What makes your judgment --
TRUMP: I did not support the war in Iraq.
HOLT: In 2002 --
TRUMP: That is a mainstream media nonsense put out by her, because she -- frankly, I think the best person in her campaign is mainstream media.
When I did an interview with Howard Stern, very lightly, first time anyone's asked me that, I said, very lightly, I don't know, maybe, who knows? Essentially.
I then did an interview with Neil Cavuto. We talked about the economy is more important. I then spoke to Sean Hannity, which everybody refuses to call Sean Hannity. I had numerous conversations with Sean Hannity at Fox.
And Sean Hannity said -- and he called me the other day -- and I spoke to him about it -- he said you were totally against the war, because he was for the war.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CAMEROTA: All right. Let's bring back our panel to discuss this and more. We have Ron Brownstein, Jackie Kucinich, Maeve Reston, Mark Preston, and David Gregory.
Ron, we have never seen those clips from Sean Hannity.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
CUOMO: They're not clips, they're conversations. He said called Sean Hannity. You worked with Sean Hannity. I call him a friend. I don't know that the Hannity defense is going to be sufficient --
CAMEROTA: Is it legal?
(CROSSTALK)
CAMEROTA: Beyond that, isn't this a weird rabbit hole? He wasn't --
(CROSSTALK)
BROWNSTEIN: There were several weird rabbit holes. There were the taxes, there was the birther, there was the Iraq, there were his comments about women.
He could not find a way to transcend the personal controversies in his past, which was important for Clinton to bring up because they were fearful that he would essentially slough off everything that had had happened before and kind of emerged as a new Donald Trump, which is not the case. But he could not find a way out of that, kind of look forward.
That's why about really a half hour of the debate, not the full hour, he was kind of lost in this kind of very peeve-filled arguments as much with Lester Holt and kind of the public broadly, as with Hillary Clinton. And I think that is what deepened the questions. He faced questions about qualifications and temperament.
Despite what he said about temperament, last night, he looked kind of peevish. He kept getting wrapped around the axle around these old disputes and was unable to get to the points that Republicans wanted to hear him in prosecuting the case against Hillary Clinton.
CUOMO: David, you know, you often say that, you know, one of the reason you get in this, it's not simply a gotcha game, this is a rehearsal for how you handle the job. You have to own your words as president.
The birther moment really stuck out for me as much more than a rabbit hole. He had an opportunity from Lester Holt. He said what do you say to the people who are offended by this? People know this wasn't a sham. It was, you know, done because President Obama is being defined as an other. And he says, I say nothing.
Were you surprised by that?
GREGORY: No. I held out the idea there may be elements of humility of Donald Trump. But it didn't come, and certainly not there.
In fact, he thought it was a good idea to double down on this nonsense. A racist lie that he perpetuated to get into national politics and then well after it was cleared up by his -- on his terms and it was cleared up because it was part of him playing footsie with those -- as part of the alt-right, white nationalists, who wanted to delegitimize the president as not being legitimate president because he is African-American or some would say erroneously that he was Muslim and on and on and on.
I think this is really the point. People watching this say, how do you handle the scrutiny? How do you handle yourself on the world stage? And you saw two different people.
Again, at the beginning, I thought Donald Trump was different. I think he showed a certain measure of discipline. He got too hot for the room. You heard it in the exchanges, interrupting Hillary Clinton. Saying wrong, wrong, jousting with Lester Holt who also kept his cool and did a very good job.
So, everyone else, namely secretary Clinton, had the cloak of the presidency around her. Unflappable. A kind of steel magnolia. He looked the outlier, just too hot for the room for too long and going in to pass are just opposite of presidential.
CAMEROTA: Jackie, as expected, Hillary Clinton was asked about the e- mails. Let's listen to that response and how Trump responded to it. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I made a mistake using a private e- mail.
TRUMP: That's for sure.
CLINTON: And if I had to do it over again, I would, obviously, do it differently.
TRUMP: That was not a mistake. That was done purposely.
When you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the Fifth so they're not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the Fifth, I think it's disgraceful. And believe me, this country thinks it's -- really thinks it's disgraceful, also.
As far as my tax returns, you don't learn that much from tax returns.
[05:25:03] That I can tell you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: How did that exchange go, Jackie?
KUCINICH: He should have stayed on the e-mails instead of turning it back to the tax returns. Why would you do that? That said, her answer on the e-mails, much shorter, concise. Didn't go into the legalese that makes her look untrustworthy, frankly, that over-explains what happened. So, she got in, she got out, and then he changed the subject, which is exactly, I mean, that was great for Hillary Clinton that he did that.
CUOMO: I thought she missed an opportunity there because one of the things for sure, Mark, about Hillary Clinton, is that you know it all. You know, it has been laid bare. The 11 hours of testimony. She used that brilliantly when she was talking about stamina.
But this is an opportunity for her to look at Trump and say, what do we know about you exactly? You want to talk about intentional mistakes. What happened with your fugazi school, an accident? You know, is your charity an accident? Is this an accident? Is this an accident?
She didn't. Do you think that was part of the design? Let him hang himself. Let's not get into a brawl.
PRESTON: Well, let's remember, this is halftime of the first quarter or whatever metaphor you want to score. We have two more debates coming.
You know, there might have been a decision and perhaps we'll find out in a next day or so in the campaign to hold back a little bit. The debate is going well right now. Maybe we don't unload everything right now. Maybe just hold a little bit back.
To your point, that would be a knockout blow for her to turn and say, well, if there isn't much in your taxes, why not release them?
BROWNSTEIN: She did in the taxes. She said, what don't we know? There must be a reason. You don't pay taxes. You have foreign entanglements.
I mean, she was tough on the taxes. She didn't go beyond it in the way that you're talking about. But on the taxes itself, she was.
PRESTON: It becomes a jumping off point, Chris. I think you are right. Could have been a knockoff blow. But two more debates.
CAMEROTA: Yes, go ahead
RESTON: Clearly she is saving some ammunition for later. The fact she dl not bring up the names he has called women until the end of the debate. That seemed like a strategy to not get him too hot at the beginning, but have her moment and be able to move into the stamina.
BROWNSTEIN: In terms of holding back, have we ever heard a presidential candidate say to another presidential debate, you have engaged in a pattern of racist behavior?
CUOMO: No.
BROWNSTEIN: No. CAMEROTA: We're going to go out on a limb and saying no.
Panel, thank you very much. We will check back in with you.
The CNN fact checkers were up all night, dissecting the claims of both presidential candidates. Was Trump truthful about climate change? What about Clinton and her position on the Trans Pacific trade deal? We will separate fact from fiction, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
