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Clinton Puts Trump on Defensive in First Debate. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired September 27, 2016 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. You know what else I prepared for? To be president.
[05:58:38] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: She doesn't have the look. She doesn't have the stamina.
CLINTON: As soon as he travels to 112 countries or even spends 11 hours testifying, he can talk to me about stamina.
TRUMP: I will bring back jobs. It's going to be a beautiful thing.
CLINTON: He tried to put the whole racist birther lie to bed.
TRUMP: I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate. I think I did a good job.
CLINTON: Why won't he release his tax returns?
TRUMP: Why did she delete 33,000 e-mails?
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: Yes, why not?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, September 27, 6 a.m. in the East.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump finally face to face in their first presidential debate. Wow, it was worth the wait. It lived up to the hype. Clinton's jabs had Trump playing defense much of the time, but he certainly gave as good as he got. There were big issues discussed: racism, sexism. Trump painted Clinton as a typical politician, calling her out for 30 years of bad experience.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We know what you're asking this morning. Who won? A new CNN post-debate poll shows it was a big night for Clinton.
Coming up, we will speak to a panel of voters. There they are now. Hello, voters. Thank you for being here. How did the debate affect their choice for president? A couple of them are undecided. We'll see how they feel this morning.
We have it all covered for you. Let's begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly. Hi, Phil.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Alisyn. We know both candidates were going in with the specific message they wanted to convey to the tens of millions of people watching. Hillary Clinton: prepared, ready for the Oval Office. Donald Trump: the change maker, the one that's there to break the status quo.
But that doesn't mean that they weren't willing to take a few swings at each other. And I think, if you ask them, land a few haymakers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLINTON: I have a feeling that, 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?
MATTINGLY (voice-over): The highly-anticipated duel between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton began 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 maybe ever signed anywhere but certainly ever signed in this country. And now you want to approve Transpacific Partnership.
MATTINGLY: Trump repeatedly casting Clinton as a typical politician while attempting to portray himself 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, baiting 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 -- 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, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes.
TRUMP: That makes me smart.
CLINTON: He's paid zero. That means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health.
MATTINGLY: Trump pouncing on Clinton about her use of private e-mail but not dwelling on it.
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 more than a mistake. That was done purposely.
MATTINGLY: And insisting she can't be trusted.
TRUMP: I have much better judgment than she does. There's no question about that. I also have a much better temperament than she has.
CLINTON: Woo! 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 a great service, not only for the country but even for the president in getting him to produce his birth certificate.
MATTINGLY: Clinton hitting Trump hard, dubbing his crusade racist.
CLINTON: So he 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 Lester Holt fact checking in real time, Trump insisting he did not support the Iraq War, despite proof that he did.
TRUMP: I did not support the war in Iraq.
LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS: In 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: The fiery debate ending on a personal attack of Clinton.
TRUMP: She doesn't have the look. She doesn't have the stamina. I said she doesn't have the stamina. And 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, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.
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, and I think that's a good thing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: And guys, there's no question: for large portions of the debate, Donald Trump was on the defensive, more so than Hillary Clinton. And there might be a good reason why. Some of his wheelhouse issues didn't even come up. There was no talk of immigration, no talk of a border wall, no talk of the attacks on Benghazi, even though Donald Trump, one of his guests in one of the front rows of the audience was a survivor of the Benghazi attacks. No talk of the Clinton Foundation.
There are two debates left. And you can pretty much be rest assured that those issues will come up in the future.
As for the candidates themselves, well, it's all about the swing states. Once again back on the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton in North Carolina today, Donald Trump in Florida. Two states that both desperately need if they want to win on November 8 -- guys.
CUOMO: Phil, very simple instruction on display last night. Everything you see on this show today is a function of preparation. We work our butts off to try to get things right and communicate with you. We saw that on display last night with the two candidates, as well.
So just after the debate ends, CNN polled debate watchers. They overwhelmingly chose Hillary Clinton as the big winner. Here are the numbers for you: 62 percent of the respondents thought Clinton won the debate. That is an unusually high number. Most debates are usually kind of a wash, 27 having Trump on top.
The poll sample of debate watchers, no question, skews slightly in favor of Democrats. More Democrats responding than Republicans. That's not unusual. When supporters feel that they won and did well, they usually respond more to these different analyses that are presented to them. But it was a big night. The race is going to be different as a result.
CAMEROTA: OK. So let's bring in our panel. We have CNN political analyst and presidential campaign correspondent for "The New York Times," Maggie Haberman; CNN senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlantic," Ron Brownstein; CNN Washington analyst and Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich; CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis; and CNN political analyst David Gregory. Great to have all of you.
Maggie, let me start with you. So we've heard from a few -- many people who felt that Donald Trump came on strong the first half an hour. In some ways he owned, or he at least did a very aggressive and strong job and then sort of wilted. What was your analysis?
MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN ANALYST: Something close to that. I thought he had a couple OF very good lines at the beginning, particularly on trade, where I think that Clinton had a not great answer. She was not forthcoming and clear about TPP, the Transpacific Partnership.
CUOMO: Let's play it, Maggie, because we have it. And then people will get the context. Here it is. Wait for it. Wait.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Your husband signed NAFTA, which was one of the worst things that ever happened in 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 manufacture 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 Transpacific 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 -- 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. You called it the gold standard of trade deals. You said it's the finest deal you've ever seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: He owned that exchange.
HABERMAN: Well, I think he owned it to a point. I actually think that at the end there when he was talking over her and sounding like he was bellowing, I don't know that the style of that was good. I think the substance was good. I think the substance, when he painted the outsider case at another point, saying, "She's been there for 30 years, I haven't," was also good for him.
But those were really the two moments. I think that, in a general election debate for president, the -- it is up to the nominees to bring their case. And if you are, like, basically waiting for the moderator to ask the question and lead you there, you are going to be lost. And that is what we saw with Donald Trump.
He didn't talk about Benghazi. He didn't talk about e-mails more than once. He did not talk about immigration, his signature issue. There were a lot of things he could have done. And I think overall, he did fade in the back end. I think Clinton got in the hits, especially at the end, that she wanted to get in.
And most of this is going to be set by who we all say are winners today. For the last 12 -- however many hours it's been since that debate -- I can't even remember anymore -- nine, eight, basically the takeaway has been that she won. And I think that if you're Donald Trump watching this takeaway, I'm curious how it will impact his view of the upcoming debates.
CUOMO: The good news is the voters won last night. They got a really good look at these two people. They're really contrasting styles. They talked about a lot of the problems.
And to your point about preparation, Hillary Clinton was ready for a good hammer that Trump has used on her, which is stamina. We know about her recent health problems with the pneumonia, what that projects. Here's how that exchange went.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLT: ... party earlier this month, you said she doesn't have, quote, "a presidential look." She's standing here right now. What did you mean by that?
TRUMP: She doesn't have the look. She doesn't have the stamina. I said she doesn't have the stamina. And I don't believe she does have the stamina. To be president of this country, you need tremendous...
CLINTON: Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: And she stood very strong on that stage last night, barely drinking any water, seemed to have the right vim and vigor for it. How does that play?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it neatly refuted the case that he was trying to make. I mean, that was always the weakness of that attack. Saying that, you know, she might collapse, that she's not ready and she doesn't have the stamina and so forth. All she has to do is simply stand there, and then that sort of cancels that -- that argument.
I thought all along it was kind of a mistake for the Trump organization -- for the Trump campaign to get into all of that, because she's going to be on the campaign trail. And once you put that out there, all a crowd has to do is see her come bounding out of the plane and give an energetic performance of the kind she gave last night, and the issue is moot.
JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But they did feed it for a minute, when they were covering up the pneumonia, when they weren't been honest and forthright about that she actually was ill that entire time. They did sort of feed Donald Trump's argument that she was sort of wilting on the campaign trail.
CAMEROTA: But last night, didn't they put that to bed?
KUCINICH: But last night was a different story.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Better than having an answer about stamina was having stamina.
KUCINICH: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: I mean, he kind of faded in the -- in the final third. And it really got to me what was the largest point about this debate. I mean, Donald Trump had one overriding test in this debate. And by all indications, he failed it.
I mean, he is laboring under the fact that he is in the final month facing the highest proportion of voters ever, I think, for a nominee who says that he's not qualified to be president. And this was his single best chance to reduce those numbers.
In the CNN instant poll, 67 percent of those surveyed said that Clinton showed that she had what it takes to be president. Fifty-five said Donald Trump did not convince them, and that number was even higher among the college-educated white voters who are the principal barrier between where he is and where he needs to go.
And look, this may not change the horse race that much overnight or even in the near term, because the country is so polarized, but what this does, I think, is it makes it tougher for him to grow from where he is to where he ultimately needs to be.
CAMEROTA: David, of course, Donald Trump's taxes came up, the ones that he has refused to release. He says that he's under audit. So it's hard to tell if he won this point or lost it. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. So...
TRUMP: That makes me smart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: There you go, David. Does that -- if he avoided paying federal taxes, which is everyone's dream, let's admit it: Does that make him smart or does that make him selfish?
GREGORY: It makes him a prime target for her next ad that I -- no doubt will be coming in the next day or days. Because this is a huge opening.
This is what happens when you buck convention as a presidential candidate and you're not forthcoming with something that other candidates in history have done since Nixon. Release your taxes that can show whether you are as wealthy as you say you are, whether you pay taxes like other people do, whether you give philanthropically the way that you would be expected to do.
I thought this was a very strong moment for Hillary Clinton, because he's created this area of question and doubt, and she drove right through it. And I think she extracted from him a key debating point that she can amplify on, which is it appears that he was conceding that he has not paid federal income tax. I did hear him say later he's paid federal taxes. Has he paid federal income tax? I think that may continue.
Look, I think what Ron said is important. These were two candidates on the world stage last night. And the fundamental test is, can you see this person as president of the United States? That's the test on the world stage. I think Hillary Clinton looked much more presidential.
He, I thought, exceeded expectations for the first 30 minutes, maybe even the first hour. And then he just unraveled. Taxes, birtherism, attacking women, the worst of Donald Trump that we've seen in the course of the campaign.
CAMEROTA: Panel, stick around. We have many more questions for you.
Coming up on NEW DAY, we will also hear from both sides in our 7 a.m. hour. We're going to speak to the interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile. We're also going to speak to Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. How did they both think the night went?
And then in our 8 p.m. hour, we have Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and Trump's running mate, Governor Mike Pence.
CUOMO: Jam packed. No question one of the big reasons we get excited about these debates is because the opportunities that are presented for both candidates to make big scores but also to miss big scores. It's a test of how they work under pressure. Who took the bait last night? Who is in control? Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:18:57] CUOMO: One of the things that came up during the debate that became a real flashpoint was when Donald Trump was asked directly about his role in the birtherism controversy. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLT: In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years: the president was born in the United States. The question is, what changed your mind?
TRUMP: Well, nobody was pressing it. Nobody was caring much about it. I figured you'd ask the question tonight, of course. But nobody was caring much about it.
But I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate. And I think I did a good job. And I think I did a great job and a great service not only for the country but even for the president in getting him to produce his birth certificate.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Now, the moment that came out of that, that you didn't get to see there, is that Lester Holt said to the people who were offended by what that was -- and remember, it wasn't just a sham trying to delegitimize the president. It was the motivation for it. It was seen as being inherently racist. So he says, "I say nothing."
Joining us again, Maggie Haberman, Ron Brownstein and Errol Louis, Maeve Reston and David Gregory. Errol Louis, he's given an opportunity to recognize the racist motivations there, put it behind him, and he says, "I say nothing to those people." How big a deal?
LOUIS: Huge blown opportunity. It certainly helps to cancel out much of what he is talked about in the last few weeks about how he's going to do all of this outreach to black communities and so forth. It made clear that those were not really genuine assurances, that that wasn't genuine outreach, and that he hasn't really thought this through.
I mean, even just in the clip that you played, he did not answer the question. He wasn't listening for the question. You know he was going to have to say something about birtherism, so he had this sort of concocted answer, which was involving, you know, sort of falsely accusing Clinton of having started the whole thing without ever addressing why did you go on for five years. You know, what does this say about your relationship to these communities? What do you want to do to be something of a healer?
You know, race relations at a time when people are being killed, when people are burning stuff in the streets in Charlotte, demonstrating on a daily basis, this is a big national conversation. A president has to be conversant with this and able to talk about it. He missed that opportunity.
RESTON: And it was such a big moment, because it was so important for Hillary Clinton in a sense that she has to activate those pieces of the Obama coalition who have been slow to warm to her, African- Americans. And in that moment, he just blew it.
CUOMO: But did she seize it?
BROWNSTEIN: If you look at polling that's come out in the last week, the national polls, very consistently Hillary Clinton is leading among all voters of color -- African-Americans, Hispanic, Asian-Americans, mixed race combined by about 45 to 50 points. That sounds like a lot. It's not enough. Usually, Democrats win by about 60 points. Obama did and the predecessors really going back into the '90s.
The reason is she's suffering a lot of defection among younger voters of color, just like white millennials, toward those third-party candidates. Trump's not doing that well, but she's not getting all that she needs.
And I think that last night that exchange and also her very emphatic embrace of criminal justice reform and her kind of somewhat risky and striking talk about implicit bias was all efforts to reach -- she really put her chips down in basically saying, "We are a changing country, and we have to adapt to this." It was a very focused effort to speak to that Obama coalition, particularly, I think, those millennial voters who have been and are remaining a significant challenge for her.
CAMEROTA: Maggie, what was remarkable is that, of course, you knew birther was going to come up -- hold on, David -- of course, he knew that birther was going to come up and be asked by Lester Holt. And he didn't have a sort of just hit it out of the park answer. What if he had done something completely unpredictable and unexpected and, say, apologized?
HABERMAN: One of the things I was struck by in his performance throughout last night, particularly in that exchange, but the various points, is that this is the Donald Trump we know. There was not some, you know, Donald Trump 8.0 who showed up.
Donald Trump 8.0 would have apologized and done something that we did not expect. Donald Trump does not like to be apologize. We know that very well.
He has also been, just based on all my reporting around the campaign, he is enormously frustrated by this conversation; genuinely does not want to listen to urgings from aides that he deal with it differently. That whole effort that you saw from Rudy Giuliani and Kellyanne Conway and others, publicly saying, you know, "He believes that now. He's put it behind him," was an effort to speak to him through TV, which as aides do, ahead of the debate. He is just not there.
He said to "The Washington Post" when he was asked about it two weeks ago that he thought this was not an issue that black voters cared about; this was an issue reporters cared about.
CUOMO: To paraphrase Donald Trump last night, wrong.
HABERMAN: Right. Based on extensive reporting. And so I think that that moment, to chest bump the president of the United States should have produced his birth certificate a long time ago. That was the quote. "And I did a great job of getting him to do that," I don't think that -- Trump certainly is not aware -- I'm not sure anyone around him is, either -- how damaging that moment was.
CUOMO: He talked about it for years later.
David Gregory, up in Boston, you have talked about the idea of an issue that's often a metaphor as well, a test of the candidate, how they'll deal with the pressure, as Errol said, how they'll be conversant on discussions you have to have as president. What did you see on this?
GREGORY: To Maggie's point, I think this is so important. Here you have his top advisers trying to speak to him through the media, basically saying, "Stop it. This is lunacy. This birther nonsense is a racist lie. You're only hurting yourself."
It reminds me when he attacked Judge Curiel for his Mexican heritage and said that he was really unfair when it came to deciding this legislation. Right? His own lawyer in court never made any complaint about that judge, never suggested that he was unfair, said he was doing his job. That lawyer, Dan Petrocelli, one of the best in the country.
What did it show? Donald Trump didn't care, didn't listen to the top people that he had around him. This is a temperamental test. How would you handle the rigor of the presidency? And the fact that, on the debate stage last night, he takes on the moderator for asking the question about this racist lie perpetuated over five years.
And after he already produced the birth certificate, which he said was the litmus test, he kept on and then tried to insinuate that Hillary Clinton, and Patti Solis Doyle and Sidney Blumenthal, on and on. I mean, does anybody know who these people are? Talk about going down a rabbit hole.
[06:25:14] It was a complete unraveling after a very solid half an hour to 45 minutes of a more disciplined and prepared Trump. That's what the rigor of these debates can uncover.
Cuomo: Quick question for you, Ron Brownstein. Something came up last night that was a head scratcher for me. So how much taxes do you pay? She says, "you pay none and that's why you're hiding your taxes."
He says, "that makes me smart." Now, Nobody wants to pay taxes. But there was an interesting thing at
play. And I wonder about the college-educated whites that you caution us about all the time. The idea that one of the wealthiest men in the country brags about contributing nothing to society through taxes, which Clinton made that point last night -- nothing to Social Security, nothing to the feds, nothing -- how does that play? We don't want to pay taxes, but the idea that he pays none when he makes so much, what's the plus/minus?
BROWNSTEIN: I think the idea that he's gaming the system is not popular. And I think, look, they must --they are taking on water for not releasing the taxes. And as she accurately pointed out, there must be a reason why they are choosing to take on that water.
CUOMO: He won't even put out his audit letter.
BROWNSTEIN: Right. So -- But on the other hand, part of Donald Trump's appeal to the voters who like them is that, because he is from inside the system, he is more likely to be able to shake it up. And, you know, he often makes the case, like -- it's sort of analogous to what he said about lobbyists. "I hire lobbyists; I know how to curb lobbyists." Maybe it's the same thing on taxes. "I know how to work the system. I'm the one who can make it more fair."
CAMEROTA: We're going to ask our voter panel how they feel about that claim when we talk to them soon. Thank you, panel.
CUOMO: That's what it was all about. Right? You can't get enough of this. Seeing the actual candidates next to each other, going at it on the issues that matter to you.
So when's the next debate? Twelve days away. Those are going to be a heavy 12 days for both. Their running mates are going to debate just one week from tonight. What's that going to be about? We'll discuss.
CAMEROTA: Up next, CNN vets some of the claims made by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in last night's debate. Our reality check is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
