Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Trump Ramps Up Attacks on Clinton; Clinton Campaign in Iowa as Early Voting Begins; Obama Faces Military Families at CNN Town Hall. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 29, 2016 - 06:00   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: We have six weeks to make every dream you ever dreamed for your country come true.

[05:558:15] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's not just my name on the ballot. Every issue you care about.

TRUMP You see all the days off that Hillary takes? Day off. Day off. Day off.

MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: We need an adult in the White House.

TRUMP: Bernie Sanders could have gone down in the record books. Now he's supporting her.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is imperative that we elect Hillary Clinton.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We heard a lot of promises. And the only true change was that I am now a widow.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've got to meet the sacred vow that we make to our troops.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Men and women serve in combat theaters four or five, even six times. What can we do to increase the number of citizens that serve our country?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, September 29, 6 a.m. in the east.

Up first, after criticism about his debate performance, Donald Trump intensifying his attacks on Hillary Clinton. Trump once again mocking Clinton's health; and his surrogates now being told to use former President Bill Clinton's infidelity.

CUOMO: So much for the courage to stay on the high road. How is Clinton going to respond on the campaign trail where she's getting help from some of the biggest names in the party? The provocative question is, is this election about to become even worse, even more of a distraction from what really matters to voters?

There is so much at stake. Just 40 days to the election, only ten days until the next presidential debate.

We have it all covered for you. Let's begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly, live for us in Council Bluffs, Iowa -- Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

Publicly, Donald Trump remains defiant. He believes he was the overwhelming winner in Monday night's debate, but behind the scenes, Trump's advisers are moving quickly, both to sharpen Donald Trump's debate prep but also to sharpen his attacks on Hillary Clinton. The types of issues that they feel he left out during that debate on Monday night.

And it doesn't just extend to Donald Trump. Those attacks, which are going to be focused heavily on what they call Clinton corruption -- her ties to Wall Street, her ties to corporate interests -- they also include the surrogates.

Now a surrogate call last night, I'm told a private call, the point was made. It's time to go on offense and, frankly, they want surrogates to stop talking about any type of debate failures that might have existed. They want them on script and on the attack. Even if that means, as you noted, bringing up Bill Clinton's infidelities. The exact thing Donald Trump took credit for, for not bringing up.

So, Trump, two speeches in swing states yesterday, more events today. Mostly scripted, but, of course, it's Donald Trump. So occasionally, he goes off script, including talking about Hillary Clinton's health. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You see all the days off that Hillary takes? Day off. Day off, day off. All those day offs, and then she can't even make it to her car. Isn't it tough?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, guys, Donald Trump in Iowa yesterday, and I'm here in Iowa today, because this is a very important day here. Early voting starts in Iowa today. Hillary Clinton will also be in Des Moines later. There's a serious effort on ramping up the efforts to get that early vote out. Iowa a swing state. A purple state that President Obama won multiple times, that Donald Trump is doing very well in. So that effort is going to increase about tenfold in the days ahead. That early vote is crucial, as campaigns try and bank those votes, guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, Phil, thanks so much for all of that.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, campaigning today in the battleground state of Iowa, where early voting begins today. This comes after a big push to court millennial voters with the help of the first lady, Bernie Sanders and Chelsea Clinton.

CNN's Chris Frates is live in Washington with more. Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Alisyn.

Well, Hillary Clinton trying to dip a little bit in the political fountain of youth, urging millennials to vote for her in November. Now remember, Clinton's had some problems closing the deal among young voters, many of whom passionately supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.

At a campaign stop at the University of New Hampshire yesterday Sanders tried to use his mojo to help his former rival and Clinton worked to make the election less about her and more about issues that resonate with young voters, things like college affordability and climate change.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: This election is enormously important for the future of our country. It is imperative that we elect Hillary Clinton as our next president.

CLINTON: It's not just my name on the ballot. Every issue you care about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: But she has a lot of work to do. A recent Bloomberg poll shows Clinton leading Trump among young voters by just four points, with third-party candidate Gary Johnson grabbing 11 percent.

Now, four years ago, President Obama won young voters by 29 points, according to exit polls.

And yesterday first lady Michelle Obama told a crowd in Pennsylvania that a vote for a third-party candidate was essentially a vote for Donald Trump.

And the Clinton camp is set to turn up the volume on that message in the coming months. Sanders is planning to ramp up his campaigning in the final month, hitting key battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as the Clinton campaign tries to turn out young voters.

Chris Alisyn, back to you guys.

CUOMO: All right, Chris. Appreciate the reporting. Let's discuss it with our panel of CNN experts. We have political analyst and "New York Times" national reporter Alex Burns. We have "Washington Post" political reporter Philip Bump; and CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston. So, here we go, Alex. He said, "I'm not going to go there. I'm not

going to talk about it. I'm not going to talk about" -- and now that's exactly what he's doing. Can we explain this simply by who he has telling him what to do? You have Bossie and Bannon, Citizens United and Breitbart. This is the business they're in, is attacking the Clintons on a personal basis for some, what, 25 years?

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. I mean, this is not just a function of this particular campaign and this particular moment in this campaign. The people around Donald Trump, you named a couple of them -- I would add Roger Stone to that list, a guy who's been around Donald Trump longer than anyone, who has written an entire book about Bill Clinton and his affairs and Hillary Clinton's alleged involvement in helping cover -- cover them up and respond to them.

Look, I think it's also clear that Donald Trump himself, whenever he's faced with adversity, likes to escalate the conflict to the greatest extent possible. And in this kind of situation, I think it's very difficult for someone like that, who likes to fight, likes to fight harshly and in personal terms, to resist the impulse to just go there and go there fast.

And I think we saw him pretty publicly wrestling with that all of yesterday, all the day before. First saying, "I'm not going to go there, because that wouldn't be nice," and then kind of going there. And then he didn't bring it up again in his speeches yesterday. But it feels like it's only a matter of time.

CAMEROTA: Philip, let's talk about all the reporting this morning that his aides and advisors around him are trying to figure out how to gently break it to him that he did not win the debate and that they are delicately dancing around the idea that he may have to prep more next time. Can't anybody tell the emperor he has no clothes?

[06:05:16] PHILIP BUMP, POLITICAL REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": No. I mean, we've seen repeatedly, he's had staff that have come in. They've tried to work with him. They've tried nuance and massage what he's been doing and what he's been saying out there. You know, the most recent team with Kellyanne Conway and Bannon, they have done a decent job of keeping him on script, talking teleprompters, you know, being -- being a more traditional sort of candidate.

But then you saw something like Monday night, where clearly he didn't do well during the debate. I mean, clearly, he didn't do well during the debate. But, you know, his take-away from that was, no doubt, frustration. And now he feels as though, to Alex's point, he needs to do something to lash out. He's very angry at Hillary Clinton, clearly. And so now I feel as though they're sort of losing control of Donald Trump, his ability to constrain himself, and I think that's a risk.

CAMEROTA: Let's play how he sees his performance in the debate. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We had the debate the other night, and every single online poll had me winning by sometimes a landslide.

And I'm winning by massive margins in many cases; and one was 80 percent to 20 percent. But I'm winning all of these polls. How many were there, seven or eight or nine? Hundreds of thousands of votes. And then I have to sit back and you have to sit back and hear how those polls don't mean anything, but when they poll 300 people, that means a lot, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Here's what matters about this. It's not that he thinks he did well and people -- that's his prerogative. I mean, it's rare for a politician to think that they took a beating. It's that he doesn't understand the difference between a poll and an online contest, and he seems to be free to tell people this, which is completely inaccurate.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Yes. So he has no problem lying. Right? I mean, that's clear -- clearly what we're seeing. We've seen this throughout the campaign. And when we get to this point right here, when you're talking about these polls, what I think happens is that he looks at these polls. And he sees them, and he starts to believe them. And then he believes it more, and he believes it more. And then he goes out to these rallies. Then he says it. Then he's...

CUOMO: Why shouldn't he believe it? Because for people out there who aren't in our business, you say, "Well, you had a million people vote. He won 70-30." Doesn't he win?

PRESTON: Right. So we'll take a step back. Whenever you see a poll from a news organization such as us or FOX News or NBC, or "The New York Times" or "The Washington Post," there's a scientific methodology about how you get respondents to answer your questions. And then they weight it, and it's way above my head about how they all do it. But there are smart people who do it. It is a science.

These online polls are, click, let's go on to "The Drudge Report" and who won? Click. And you can keep on clicking and clicking and calling your friends and clicking. That is not scientific.

CAMEROTA: Right.

BURNS: This is how, for the entire 2012 Republican primaries, online polls showed that Ron Paul won every single debate. Right? It's about who has the most motivated online presence on these specific websites, right? So, you know, when you think about Trump winning only -- Trump winning 80 percent of the votes of people who visit "The Drudge Report," I'm surprised it was only 80 percent of the people who visit that particular website. It's a self-selecting sample.

CAMEROTA: OK. But so let's talk about October 9, the next debate. This one in St. Louis. So who is going to box him in and tell him that he might need a new strategy for that one?

BUMP: I mean, there's literally no evidence that anyone can do that. Right? I mean, you know, when you get him in a speech, and he's got the teleprompters and he can read off the teleprompters and he can riff a little bit, he seems to be doing OK with that. But there's no teleprompters during this. It's a town hall.

Clearly, Hillary Clinton has done a very good job or did a very good job in the first debate of getting under his skin and recognizing that she can put him on the defensive, and he will stay there. He will not get out of that box. And he will keep punching from a defensive position.

But then, secondarily, you saw the Clinton campaign also lined up this attack with the beauty queen right at the end. I mean, so they are very strategic in how they're using these debates. No one has been able to contain Donald Trump. They've not shown any ability to change who he is, and I don't think they can do that in a week.

PRESTON: You know, and Philip's right. I mean, everyone that they brought in who has been a hired gun has been unable to get him to be disciplined and to be a politician, quite frankly, or a very good politician. The only ones who potentially, potentially could do it is his children.

BUMP: That's right.

PRESTON: And I used the word "potentially" in quotes, underlined, bolded, because they haven't been able to get him there yet. And of the three, probably the daughter. Right? Probably the daughter.

But the question is at this point, has he gone so far over the cliff right now, has he gone so far that he can't come back?

CUOMO: Well, I'll tell you what. Here's the good news for Donald Trump today. He ain't Gary Johnson. What a horrible time the Libertarian nominee had. First it was Aleppo, and then this happened with Chris Matthews last night. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Name a foreign leader that you respect?

GARY JOHNSON (L), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I guess I'm having an Aleppo moment, in the former president of Mexico...

MATTHEWS: But I'm giving you the whole world.

JOHNSON: I know, I know.

MATTHEWS: Anybody in the world you like. Anybody. Pick any leader.

[06:10:00] JOHNSON: The former president of Mexico.

MATTHEWS: Which one?

JOHNSON: I'm having a brain -- I'm having a brain freeze.

MATTHEWS: Well, name anybody.

How about you? Who's your favorite foreign leader? Get him off the hook. Name a foreign leader.

Any foreign leader.

BILL WELD (L), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Merkel.

MATTHEWS: OK, Merkel. OK, fine. Save yourself. Can't argue with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: It went on.

PRESTON: OK, if you're Bill Weld, what are you thinking to yourself, if you're Governor Bill Weld?

CUOMO: I think you take the mike off. You get up and say, "Gary, Chris, I'll see you next time" and walk off.

CAMEROTA: OK, so he couldn't name a foreign leader. Does this just tell you, Alex, that, as former governor of New Mexico, he has not spent a lot of time paying attention to the outside world?

BURNS: I think it does tell you that. I think it also really surprisingly tells you that, you know, in some ways, similar to the way describing Phil and Mark were just describing Donald Trump, Gary Johnson has not necessarily done the kind of hard prep work and homework that's required to run for president of the United States.

And it really is just a gigantic missed opportunity in this election, when you have two major party candidates who are so broadly disliked and distrusted for different reasons and different ways, that you have this third candidate, who on paper seems like he should be a credible alternative.

CUOMO: And in person, also. He's a nice guy. Doesn't carry the animus that we see. Very smart. Successful in business. But it's just more proof that change is not always good in and of itself. Just because you put somebody else in there, doesn't mean that it's going to have good results. That's the concern. You've got to know what you're talking about to be president of the United States.

CAMEROTA: But, yet, millennials are responding to him, and his poll numbers have ticked up a little bit. So will this be an eye-opener to them?

BUMP: Well, I'm not sure millennials are responding to him so much as they are responding to there is another guy on the ballot. Right? I mean, if you -- if you have a choice between someone you hate, someone you hate and somebody you never heard of, you're going to think of somebody you never heard of. I think that's where Gary Johnson is right now. You know, what Clinton was doing was just very smart. He's trying to get millennials to realize it's Clinton versus Trump. That's their choice.

CAMEROTA: Guys, stick around. We have many more questions for you. Thanks so much for being here. President Obama facing tough questions from the military and veterans about their quality of health care at the V.A. and why their commander in chief will not say the words "Islamic terrorism." We have the most dramatic moments from that exclusive CNN town hall event, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:16:20] CUOMO: This was a really big moment. President Obama coming face-to-face with military vets and their families at a CNN town hall last night. Everyone checked their politics at the door for this. The president was tackling really intense questions about terrorism and deadly healthcare delays that face vets all too often.

There were plenty of raw and powerful moments. We have CNN White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski. She's got the highlights for us -- Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Chris.

Yes, this was different. At times it was unexpected. I mean, I think this was the first time in a very long time that the talk didn't immediately go to politics. There was not a single question about Donald Trump or the election. These were tough questions to the president and, at times, extremely emotional.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI (voice-over): In an intimate, solemn space. Members of the military and their families addressed their commander in chief directly.

MAJ. JONATHAN YOST, WEST VIRGINIA AIR NATIONAL GUARD: Are we doing anything now greater to combat Islamic jihadists?

KOSINSKI: Discussing some of the thorniest challenges of our time: Iraq, Syria, terrorism. President Obama asked this by a Gold-Star mother.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you still refuse to use the term "Islamic terrorist"?

KOSINSKI: Eliciting one of the most thorough, blunt explanations we've heard.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Do I think that, if somebody uses the phrase "Islamic terrorism," that it's a huge deal? No. But I don't want to validate what they do. I don't want to -- if you had an organization that was going around killing and blowing people up and said, "We're on the vanguard of Christianity," well, I'm not -- as a Christen, I'm not going to let them claim my religion and say you're killing for Christ. I would say that's ridiculous.

KOSINSKI: The president emphasized that worldwide terror attacks haven't increased substantially, though little comfort after the horror of Paris, Belgium, Orlando, Bangladesh, Turkey and the list goes on. But this group has witnessed its own suffering, too. And it quickly became personal, emotional.

DONNA COATES, WIDOW OF U.S. ARMY VETERAN: Mr. President, I stand before my husband's flag, because it was always his desire to meet you.

KOSINSKI: Donna Coates, wife of Army veteran Barry, who lost his battle with cancer after waiting more than a year for a colonoscopy at a V.A. hospital.

COATES: The only true change that's come is we began talking, was that I am now a widow; and my family, we will never be the same.

OBAMA: We now have a situation where about 80 percent of individuals who interact with the V.A. are satisfied that they're getting timely treatment. I want that to be 100 percent. And that requires more work.

KOSINSKI: And Amanda Souza, who lost her Marine veteran husband to post-traumatic stress and suicide.

AMANDA SOUZA, WIDOW OF MARINE VETERAN: This was his livelihood, and he was too scared to go get help, because he did not want to risk being labeled as unstable or weak.

KOSINSKI: There was this surprising question about women in combat from Marine Lauren Serrano, who earned a Bronze Star in Iraq.

CAPT. LAUREN SERRANO, U.S. MARINE CORPS: A study by the Marine Corps revealed that mixed-gender combat units performed notably worse and that women suffered staggeringly higher rates of injury. Just one of those statistics showed that mixed-gender units took up to 159 percent longer to evacuate a casualty than all-male units.

As the wife of a Marine who deploys to combat often, that added time can be the difference between my husband living or dying. Why were these tangible, negative consequences disregarded?

[06:20:10] OBAMA: I don't think any of -- any studies are going to be disregarded. I don't want a military, an institution that starts with the premise that women can't do something. If it turns out they can't do something, then we'll deal with that specific situation. But I don't want to start off with that assumption.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: This is not an easy crowd for the president. I mean, depending on which recent poll you look at, the approval rating for the president among U.S. troops is anywhere from 15 to 30 percent. They support Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton 2 to 1.

And in a poll at the beginning of this year, one-fifth of U.S. troops who responded felt like they didn't even want to vote at all, given the choices. They don't feel like either major party really has their best interests in mind.

The president wanted to make the case that his administration does and that there are policies that reflect that -- Alisyn and Chris.

CAMEROTA: Wow, Michelle. What a thought-provoking night and material that you've just laid out there. Thank you for that.

We're back with our panel now. We have Alex Burns, Philip Bump and Mark Preston.

Heartrending questions, you know, from the crowd there. I mean, wow. What moments. And let's just start, let's just dive in and start with one about his answer on Islamic terrorism and whey he's been reluctant, Alex, to use that term. He's been dogged by this for years. Why didn't he say that six years ago? I mean, he has a reason, but he's never really spelled it out before.

BURNS: He's mentioned from time to time that he doesn't want to give any kind of validation or legitimacy to the claims of the people who call themselves Islamic terrorists. But it certainly hasn't stopped it from becoming just an article of faith on the campaign trail for Republicans that the president won't call the problem what it is.

CAMEROTA: Because they feel that he's protecting the -- you know, he's protecting Islam. I mean, they feel they've turned it, instead of what his answer was. He should have been saying that every single time.

BURNS: Well, and I do think we'll probably hear more about this in the presidential debates at some point, on the presidential campaign trail, because Trump brings it up almost every event that I hear him -- almost every speech that I hear him give.

There is this sort of, I think, far-fetched idea that, if you only called it "Islamic terrorism," it would be so much easier for us to confront it. What it really is, is this larger narrative about the president shying away from conflict, and I think what you heard last night was him really trying to take that notion off.

CUOMO: Look, simplicity sells, right, and a lot of this stuff is complex. But when you're sitting with an audience of the people who pay the price. You know, the old saying, war is old men talking and young men dying. It's very simple for the people in that room. They're the ones who have to pay the check of our politicians. And when they hear hedging, they don't like it, because they don't get to hedge when they go into war. And that's one of the things that's easily politically manipulated. But not always genuine.

You know, these people have not been done right. They're not done right in terms of how we send them away, and they're not done right when they come back home. And that really came through last night. Does the president deserve a little credit for even going there? You know, his time is done. There's no good news in that room for him.

BUMP: I don't know that he deserves credit. He's commander in chief. Part of his responsibility is facing the military, you know, dealing with the military and commanding the military.

It's very clear, though, that's not what Obama envisioned at the end of his presidency. He came into the presidency, he was the guy that was going to end the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan. He was going to get us out of that, focus on the economy, focus on health care. But he gets dragged back in for a variety of reasons. You know, never left Afghanistan. He gets dragged back into Iraq by the Islamic State.

And, you know, this isn't the conversation he wants to be having right now. But absolutely, it's his responsibility. It's his duty to have that conversation.

CAMEROTA: Mark, they're trying to make it a nonpartisan night, but things sneak in. So here is a moment where the president is talking about why a religious test is so anti-American. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: You're an American and you are, you know, subscribing to the ideals and the creed and the values that we believe in as a country. You know, that we don't have a religious test in this country.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Just to interject, you were clearly talking about the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, just now.

OBAMA: No, I wasn't. But because no -- no, I would just say this, Jake, because...

TAPPER: Religious tests? Aspiring to this office?

OBAMA: But it's not -- it's not -- it's not unique to the Republican nominee. And, again, I'm trying to be careful. We're on a military base. I don't want to -- I don't want to insert partisan politics into this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: How do you avoid partisan politics during -- in this climate?

PRESTON: Right. A lot to unpack there. Clearly, he was talking about Donald Trump and the fact that Donald Trump is trying to keep Muslims out of the country.

You know what was interesting about this setting, and we've done about 20 of these town halls, political town halls, this year, roughly. This is one of -- this is probably -- not probably; this is the most moving one. And what's interesting about it is we've never really seen men and women in uniform asking questions of their commander in chief on national television, yet alone international television. You know, and to your point, Chris, these are the ones who have to pay the check.

[06:25:10] But I will say this. This past weekend, I was with several higher-ranking military officials, and they still think that we all get it wrong about what they're doing over in Iraq and what they're doing in Afghanistan. That we in the media are not telling the story correctly and that the civilians who are making decisions back here have no clue, really, what's going on. So there really is a big divide right now, still.

CUOMO: I really hope people watched it last night, because there was something that is political and policy-based that people should be painfully aware of after last night.

Syria is not going away. The president is a very nuanced thinker, and he has really been put through it on Syria. I mean, I don't know if you'll remember, but early on, he was thinking about bombing after the first wave of alleged chlorine attacks by the Assad regime. And he's gone from there to now saying last night, "I don't know what we can do, short of finding a way to make these people stop killing each other over there. "

The president of the United States inherits that problem day one. It's going to get bad, and there is going to be huge pressure to send the people in that room back into a hellhole to create some notion of stability, Alex, that will be as much farce as it is fact.

BURNS: Well, and I think this is where you see one of the big tensions in American politics. It's not unique to this election, not unique to Syria really play out. And that Americans, poll show that they do not want the United States getting involved in new foreign wars right now.

At the same time, when they turn on their television and they see images of these atrocities happening in a place like Syria. They do feel that this shouldn't be happening in a world that the United States leads and the next president is going to have to unpack that.

CAMEROTA: Gentlemen, thank you. Great to talk to you this morning.

Also, coming up in just a few minutes, we're going to talk to two of the people who were at CNN's military town hall last night who posed provocative questions to the president.

CUOMO: Up next, disturbing new videos just released. The capture Louisiana marshals firing multiple rounds at a man in an SUV, killing the man's 6-year-old son. They say it was self-defense. Take a look at the video, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)