Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Who Won The First Debate?; Clinton Puts Trump On Defense In First Debate; Trump & Clinton Clash Over Economy & Trade; Clinton Slams Trump For Not Releasing Tax Returns; Trump: "I'm Smart" For Not Paying Taxes. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 27, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:32:35] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Moments ago, you heard from interim DNC chair Donna Brazile and Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. All right, so let's get beyond the spin and see what is going to matter coming out of last night's debate.

Let's bring in CNN senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlanta", Ron Brownstein. CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast", Jackie Kucinich. CNN national political reporter Maeve Reston, and CNN political analyst David Gregory.

David Gregory, we begin with you. What popped out in terms of each side's spin?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think Kellyanne Conway is an effective advocate for Donald Trump, but I think some of the things that she's saying are really just not going to pass muster.

I mean, the notion that Donald Trump is going to get points from women because he refused to attack Bill Clinton's infidelity and promised, perhaps, to do it the next time, and that's something that women will respond to. I think that's a pretty thin argument. She also said about Hillary Clinton that she will say things that aren't polite and are not true, which is rich for someone who works for Donald Trump.

So I think she is right and effective when she says Trump had a very strong outsider message, particularly in the first 30 to 45 minutes of the debate. I think had he been better prepared, more disciplined, he would have been able to amplify on that throughout the debate and keep driving that home. What happened, I think, is that he really unraveled, getting caught up by not releasing his taxes, birtherism, attacks on women and so forth, on Iraq, where he simply didn't look good.

And his -- the shallowness -- one other thing, his shallowness on Iraq -- the notion that leaving forces in Iraq created ISIS is an important point. But the fact that he doesn't acknowledge, as well, the fact that the progenitor of ISIS, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was in Iraq and fermented civil war and is really the creator of ISIS and was there before the Iraq War means he doesn't understand the complete history.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Ron, what did you hear from Kellyanne's interview?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: She made some news that is almost certainly going to be discussed in that next debate, wherein she said that Donald Trump responding to his earlier tweets describing global climate change as a hoax, saying he believed that the climate was changing through a natural process but not through human activity.

And that is a big hanging fruit now that I think is going to be very much in the focus for Hillary Clinton, especially given -- as we've talked about before, probably her biggest single problem in the electorate right now is that she's underperforming with millennials.

[07:35:00] MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: And this is an issue she can use both against Donald Trump and not, incidentally, against Gary Johnson --

RESTON: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: -- who was drawing a lot of them and has a similar position to Donald Trump on the issue.

CUOMO: Kellyanne tried to button that up by saying and we don't really know what Hillary Clinton thinks about global warming. That's just not true. It's all over her Website. She's talked about it in many different interviews. She believes that it is manmade and has to be stopped at home and abroad. In fact, she, if anything, may exaggerate its significance in the minds of some by saying it's the number one threat that we face as a civilization.

CAMEROTA: And that's a real distinction that you see going forward --

BROWNSTEIN: No. Well, absolutely. I mean, Trump -- look, Trump, you know -- Trump is running an argument that -- on all of the above energy strategy, the one that talks about the revival of the coal industry. Clearly, the Obama Clean Power Plan does envision that the EPA is promulgated on climate change and does envision a reduced role for coal. Market forces are also driving that as people shift to natural gas.

Donald Trump is -- this kind of solidifies Donald Trump's non-urban kind of red state energy-producing appeal but adds to his problems both, I think, with younger voters and those college-educated white voters.

RESTON: And it will be so easy for her now to activate all those surrogates that she's going to send out on the trail to make the case that a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Donald Trump. I think that climate change and that exchange, right there this morning, will be one of those driving issues that can help the Clinton campaign do that.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And maybe they'll finally get Al Gore out of hiding.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. RESTON: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Then we'll know his location.

CUOMO: Another one that may be very helpful to the Clinton campaign going forward was what was not said last night about birtherism and the racial nature of it -- a racist nature of it. Donna Brazile took this very hard, not politically but personally, and she says that Trump just doesn't get it. Here's her explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONNA BRAZILE, INTERIM CHAIRWOMAN, DNC: He owes us an apology and I know it's not forthcoming so I know I'm speaking into the wild darkness of Donald Trump. But I think he should be ashamed of himself to bring that up and to say -- and this is what he said. "I am the one who got him to produce the birth certificate." It's amazing.

CUOMO: You don't think he's the one that got him to produce the birth certificate?

BRAZILE: I think it's a shame that we put the President of the United States through this. It's just awful. And every time we talk about it, it's the wound. It's the wound that won't heal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, the context of this statement matters that we don't get from that sound bite, that she's saying blacks in this country with slave history -- that documentation is an issue of sensitivity to generations back that they couldn't have them. That it just wasn't able because they didn't come from here. And she said that for him to say "I say nothing" -- that was his quote last night -- "I say nothing" to the people are offended by this shows he doesn't get it. How big a deal?

KUCINICH: This was a way that Donald Trump and other people use to try to delegitimize the first African-American president. Of course, that's offensive. You heard one of your -- one of your focus group members say that that was offensive.

This is a big deal, particularly because Donald Trump has been trying to -- well, trying to reach out to the African-American community. But that makes all of his -- just words. I mean, does this totally -- all of the weeks that he's spent doing this, it just -- it makes it theater rather than --

RESTON: It's just a puzzling strategy --

KUCINICH: Right.

RESTON: -- why --

KUCINICH: Why do that?

RESTON: -- he can't let it go. I mean, all of his advisors have told him to let it go. He had a moment where he could have made an apology that may have gone a long way to convincing some of those softer Republicans who are not sure whether -- about his racist rhetoric, you know, and just --

BROWNSTEIN: A big chunk of his coalition still believes it --

RESTON: Yes.

CUOMO: And --

BROWNSTEIN: -- and Donald Trump's appeal is that he says the unpolitic thing. It's hard for him to go beyond where he is.

CAMEROTA: Last word, David Gregory.

GREGORY: Can I just say -- look, Donald Trump -- his effectiveness on trade, his effectiveness as an outsider who's really calling for fundamental change, who is blaming the Obama years and the administration, including Sec. Clinton, for the fact that the Middle East is on fire -- these are strong arguments for a change agent but it's getting lost in some of these other areas that he delved into.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much.

CUOMO: A quick programming note. President Obama sits down with Jake Tapper for a CNN town hall to talk about his legacy and issues facing U.S. veterans. That will be Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m.

CAMEROTA: Donald Trump looking to make up ground with women and minorities, as we've been talking about, in order to overtake Clinton in the polls with them. How will some of his words last night affect them? We will discuss that next.

CUOMO: We were just discussing it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:42:55] CAMEROTA: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton trying to woo female voters in last night's debate. It is, of course, a critical voting bloc that they both need to win, so who made a dent?

Joining us now, CNN political commentator and senior writer for "The Federalist", Mary Katharine Ham -- oh, and a cameo there by Phil -- as well as Maureen Dowd, award-winning columnist for "The New York Times".

CUOMO: Nothing says woman voter like Phil.

CAMEROTA: She's also the author of "The Year of Voting Dangerously". Great to have both of you here.

What did Donald Trump do to win over women last night, Mary Katharine?

MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think if you're looking for him to win them over on specific women's issues, I don't think he's going to be doing that. I think his greatest chance is in that first presidential debate when he was not off message when he was talking about trade and talking about people's economic insecurities.

CAMEROTA: The first half hour.

HAM: Yes. That might be the area where some women might say well, I wasn't sure about this guy but he was doing OK. The problem is if they see the clips from later in the night, even if they tuned out, I think it may reverse that trend.

CUOMO: One of the things that may stick out, Maureen, is what he said that he was going to say but didn't say, but then mentioned it anyway and tried to pass it off as a virtue. Confusing? It won't be in a second. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary is hitting me with tremendous commercials, some of it said in entertainment, some of said somebody who has been very vicious to me, Rosie O'Donnell. I said very tough things to her and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her. But do you want to know the truth? I was going to say something extremely --

LESTER HOLT, DEBATE MODERATOR: Please, very quickly.

TRUMP: -- rough to Hillary, to her family and I said to myself, I can't do it. I just can't do it. It's inappropriate, it's not nice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The problem is we all know what he was talking about so he really effectively did do it.

MAUREEN DOWD, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Right, exactly.

CUOMO: What does that show us?

DOWD: Well, I think Kellyanne Conway, and maybe even Roger Ailes, had a plan for him to come in and be the gracious Donald Trump but that was, obviously, a stretch. And so he tried it by calling her Madam Secretary or -- and then she was calling him Donald or Don and a little diminishment there. But, I checked with the women in my family -- my basket of deplorables --

[07:45:00] CAMEROTA: Because they're Trump -- so your family are Trump supporters.

DOWD: Well, they're on and off the train. And my sister thought he won and my niece said well, I'd rather have anyone than this knucklehead but he didn't do anything to make me vote for anyone else. So, I mean, it seemed like she won but she didn't have that Captain Queeg moment with him where it such a crazy meltdown that -- but, you know, you would worry about him with the nuclear codes.

But on the other hand, the psychologists did do their job. She got under his skin a lot, I think, and more and more as the debate went on. It just looked like he wanted to really go back to Miss Universe contestants -- anorexic women.

CAMEROTA: What did you think? I mean, did you think that it was her use of Donald? What did you think were the moments that she was able to that?

HAM: I think they were right in perceiving -- and Donald Trump does this a lot and has done it throughout that campaign -- that he will take a premise and run with it. So she was like here are some rabbit holes, would you like to go down them? And he was like sure, I'm game for that.

And I think he was able to contain that for about 30 minutes, which is what we often see from him is that he can be the more disciplined Kellyanne Conway-directed Donald Trump for a little while but then the lid sort of boils over, and that's what happened in the second half.

And because he wants to defend himself on every single point instead -- he lost so many opportunities to go after her on the emails, for instance, and just command the facts, and that's where she gets a little upset. But he didn't come at her nearly enough on the details to make her go there.

CUOMO: How much does it matter, you think, what we saw last night?

DOWD: I think it matters because she was able to -- I'm sure the people who think she's a know-it-all still think that, you know, and the people who like him still like him. But it was sort of interesting to see that she so cleverly was able to control it. As you say, she lured him into these places so he could have gone after her on the Iraq War. Her vote for the Iraq War was much worse than the timing of when he was against it.

He didn't -- you know, the trouble with narcissists is it's like a funhouse mirror. They either see themselves as larger or smaller, so he couldn't get beyond his ego with her.

CAMEROTA: So back to women -- back to the female voters. What about that moment where he decided not to say anything about Bill Clinton. Kellyanne Conway was just on our show. She said I think women will really appreciate how they handled that. Does he have the high moral ground when it comes to marital fidelity?

HAM: Yes, I'm not sure he gets credit for that. What he does get credit for voters with, if he's going to go down this road, is just saying things that other people are too polite to say. And some voters do like that, even some women voters. But I'm not sure he's going to get credit with the women voters he needs credit with for sort of saying but not really saying this thing. It's classic Donald Trump to bring up an attack and say but I'm not going to go there. Well, you kind of did go there, you know? I'm not sure that that wins you any votes.

But I agree with Maureen. I don't think there was a huge change moment in this debate. They were good -- they were both good in the ways they're usually good and both bad in the ways they're usually bad. CAMEROTA: Minority voters? Did either of them win -- do something

that would have reeled in more minority voters?

DOWD: Well, that was awful when he was defending himself on the birther thing and then tried to act like he was doing it in the service of President Obama and the African-Americans. I mean, it's just so tone-deaf. And then he kind of admitted for the first time that he hadn't paid taxes and bragged about it. And then went back and bragged about Rosie O'Donnell and said she had it coming. And then he was bragging about stiffing his customers.

CAMEROTA: So, African-American voters not -- daunting?

HAM: I thought -- I thought the icing -- it's not a good sound bite -- that will be used in ads in the future. But she also has the challenge of getting people very excited about her. I'm not sure that happened last night but they may be turned off -- minority voters, in particular, may be turned off enough by that birther segment that they will --

CUOMO: Quickly, Maureen, do you think he can be better? Do you think that there's a chance that if he's like oh, forget this no preparation stuff, you actually have to do some homework for this, that he can come out and be the Trump he needs to be?

DOWD: Instead of eating cheeseburgers with Roger Ailes at the golf club and coming up with zingers. She got him off -- at the very beginning she got him off his game because she brought up his father and suggested that his father --

CUOMO: Bankrolled him.

DOWD: Yes, which he's very sensitive on, so right away. And then she cleverly acted like her father in the drapery factory would have been the type of person he would have stiffed. So she had a lot of layers, psychologically, going on there.

CAMEROTA: Maureen, Mary Katharine, thank you very much for your analysis this morning.

[07:50:00] CUOMO: Now, the good news for you is that in the first 15 minutes or so they really went deep on the economy -- the idea of why there are no jobs. Now you could argue there wasn't a lot coming about how they would restore jobs but it was a lot of talk about it. More than we've heard in any other point in the election so we'll take you through it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump clashing over the economy, trade, jobs, tax returns. Who came out on top?

Steve Forbes, the chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media is here. He ran for president in 1996 and 2000, endorses Donald Trump. And Tony Schwartz, Donald Trump's co-author on "The Art of the Deal". He was advising Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to debate. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here.

TONY SCHWARTZ, CO-AUTHOR, "TRUMP: THE ART OF THE DEAL": Good to be here.

CUOMO: So, Tony, we had you on the show and you said here's what Hillary Clinton needs to do that will derail any effort by Donald Trump to stay on message. Do you think she did that and do you think that was a good thing for the health of the debate?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I think it was a good thing for the health of her candidacy and I think it was a good thing for America and it worked 100 percent.

CAMEROTA: What was the device she used?

SCHWARTZ: Well, let me just say this. There are two things -- there are two things that Donald Trump did last night that I think are extraordinarily revealing. Number one, he didn't prepare. Why didn't he prepare? Because he can't prepare because he is incapable of paying attention for long enough to prepare. So that forced him into repeating and being circumloquacious -- a huge word meaning go round and round and round --

CUOMO: Alisyn will explain it to me later.

SCHWARTZ: -- and not say --

CAMEROTA: Got it.

[07:55:00] SCHWARTZ: Got it -- and not say anything of substance. So that was very important. Number two, he was -- he was -- he choked. You can put it no other way, he choked. It was funny to see Bobby Knight walking around there because Bobby Knight would have -- if he would have been honest, would have said he choked.

CAMEROTA: On what? What did he choke on?

SCHWARTZ: Well, he choked on the fact that what gets Trump the most is anything that makes him feel small. Anything that makes him feel small makes him feel the need to respond, and to respond by doubling down. So he doubled down on birtherism, he doubled down on Rosie O'Donnell.

What does double down mean? It means that you say something outrageous, you get criticized for it, but then when you get the criticism you say it again in an even more intense way. So what he showed was his character. Forget about ideology for a moment. His character is such that he made it clear that he's not suited to be president.

And I don't know what Steve is going to say but I will say that this is a bright man. Deep down he knows that this is a man unsuited to be president.

CAMEROTA: Let's see what Steve Forbes will say about all of this.

CUOMO: I don't think Steve Forbes believes that on any level of soul.

CAMEROTA: What did you -- what was your reaction?

STEVE FORBES, CHAIRMAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, FORBES MEDIA: Tony's trying to do what she did to Trump last night and bait me so I'm going to take you, not him.

CAMEROTA: OK, well, what were your impressions?

FORBES: Well, she did on points. What was amazing -- after the debate, with your pollster, who pointed out that there was a real Democratic skew, 41 percent versus the normal 31 percent. On the economic issue it was a virtual tie, which means that if he presses the economic issue and not get sidetracked in these various rabbit holes or whatever, he's got a winning issue. She put nothing on the table that would ensure people the next four years will be different from the previous eight years.

CUOMO: Now, let's discuss this a little bit more. We want to play some sound of this back and forth they had about taxes and I thought it raised a really interesting issue. Let's play the sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: 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.

TRUMP: That makes me smart.

CLINTON: So, if he's paid zero that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health. And I think probably he's not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are because it must be something really important, even terrible, that he's trying to hide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Forget the returns. That's not -- well, hold on, Tony. Forget the returns, it's not my question. We all know he could put out an audit letter. We all know he could put out the taxes. I'm sure his attorneys are telling him not to. It's who matters more, them or the American people? That's that.

The idea -- your flat tax has, as part of its virtue, everybody should contribute to society. We need to do that and the more you make, the more you'll contribute on a legitimate basis. He's making a different case. He's saying I'm smart to give nothing. Do you think that could be a concern for voters?

FORBES: Well, this is where he missed a huge opportunity. He could say, like Joe Kennedy did back in the 1930s, stock market plunges and Roosevelt appoints the first head of the SEC. Kennedy said I know what's wrong with Wall Street because I was part of it and I'm going to fix it, and he did.

What Trump should have said -- I know the complexity and the corruption of the tax code. I know better than anyone else how to fix it and clean it up and that's what I'm going to do. So that why's I have a tax simplification plan. He should have pivoted on that and said because I know it, I can cure it.

CAMEROTA: Why didn't he do that, Tony?

SCHWARTZ: Well, it's preposterous. First of all, look, Steve, you know that what he suggested is that the best way to sort of reform the tax code is to give massive tax cuts to people like yourself -- to the wealthiest people in America. Is that what Americans want to hear? That the wealthiest are going to get tax cuts and they are going to get nothing? I don't think it is. I don't think it is. Let me say this.

CUOMO: Hold on, hold on. What's your -- let's counter point-by- point. What's your counter?

FORBES: The counter is, whether it's the John Kennedy's across the board, tax cuts or Reagans, you do it for everybody. He should have pointed out with his deduction he's going to remove millions of people from the federal income tax roll.

SCHWARTZ: No.

FORBES: And make --

SCHWARTZ: That's a -- that's not true, Steve. What he's going to do is he's going to prompt the rich to pay less and the middle-class to pay more, and you know that's true.

FORBES: No, because if he --

SCHWARTZ: That's in his --

CAMEROTA: Hold on, hold on, let him say.

CUOMO: Wait, hold on. So you --

CAMEROTA: Go ahead.

FORBES: Let's look at the facts. If you reduce tax rates and you increase deductions you're automatically giving the middle-class and people striving to get a start in this economy a break. That's what Kennedy did, that's what Reagan did, it worked.

CUOMO: So why the harsh review from Moody's? You respect them as an outlet. Why?

FORBES: Well, they have this Kennedyesque way of looking at the economy. They trashed -- back in the early 1980s economists trashed Reagan's tax cut. They worked. Kennedy's tax cuts -- in those days Republicans --

CUOMO: Well, we wound up being left with one of the biggest deficits we've ever had.

FORBES: Hey, look, one statistic on the 1980s. Most of that increase in the deficit, $1.7 trillion national debt, came from the big military buildup, which worked because we won the Cold War. The wealth of the nation in the 1980s -- debt went up $1.7 trillion.