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"Saturday Night Live" Recreates First Presidential Debate; SNL Parodies 2016 Presidential Election; The Media And The 2016 Presidential Election; Fact-Checking The Presidential Candidates; NYT: Trump May Have Legally Avoided Taxes For 18 Years. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired October 03, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: -- impact on the race, Bill?

BILL CARTER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: I don't know if you can one to one and say it will change anybody's opinion. But it certainly confirms sort of a narrative in people's heads. Is Trump kind of buffoonish? Is he kind of saying outrageous things?

Yes. I think what Baldwin brought was not just an impression. Everybody does an impression of Trump. He's doing a caricature which is another level, you know, like a cartoon, but now a caricature of him.

CAMEROTA: Satire.

CARTER: Exactly. Brings it to the level of satire.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Brian, one of the big things, well, first of all, what's your take on "SNL." I want to move on to reality, but what did you think of this?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: He is doubling down on what we believe is true we see every day, which is the Trump strayed so far from the truth that he exaggerates so often and that was the fundamental take away from Alec Baldwin's performance I thought.

CUOMO: Trump is saying to supporters, the media is out to get me. You are seeing that just like every other institution in America today. The media has suffered a credibility hit in no small part thanks to the efforts of Donald Trump telling everybody that we're bias. What do you think of that play by him and what is the possible positive and negative aspect?

STELTER: It is a selfish act what he's doing over and over again saying you can't trust anything you read or anything you hear except what comes out of his mouth. He is delegitimizing many institutions in America, most recently the debate commission and Google, but he's been delegitimizing the media all along.

And I think Jay Rosen (ph) has done a good work on this, the media critic at New York University. He says what's happened is some GOP voters are opting out of journalism. They have concluded that all journalism is really just about trying to elect Hillary Clinton. The four of us, we know it's not, but we have to do an even better job trying to convince people what we really stand for and why we're really here.

CAMEROTA: I don't know how we do that, Bill. It's before Trump. People, obviously, have found their echo chamber. They go to because now you can go to conservative media and liberal media and you can go to main stream media.

CARTER: You go for your opinion to be reinforced.

CAMEROTA: Everybody gets their opinion reflected back at them. What happened is we have this wildly bifurcated journalistic system. Now here's the latest poll. This is Gallup from September 7th through 11th.

STELTER: Don't say it, it is too depressing now.

CUOMO: How few people trust journalism right now, so 32 percent have a great deal or fair amount of trust. That's good. But 14 percent of Republicans only 14 percent express trust is down from 32 percent just last year.

CARTER: Yes, well, always been that narrative. The media is out to get the Republicans. They use that narrative over and over again. But this race is different because this started out with the media being attacked for supporting Trump for building him up. So, you have a double whammy here. First we build him up and now we're tearing him down. Instead of just saying we're covering the guy. You know both sides --

STELTER: The coverage when he entered the race was actually quite skeptical. There was a lot of aggressive coverage, but a ton of it.

CUOMO: There are two things, right? There's always a little bit of truth in everything. One is there is a lefty bias. I would argue that this is much more right skewed than bipartisan. I don't think it's just echo chambers for the left the way it is for the right.

There is a known echo chamber for the right. There's not a known one for the left. MSNBC has some commentators who are that way, but there is still a news organization at the end of it. NBC News is a real organization, but there is a lefty bias that the media has not dealt with.

But within it, I believe there is an opportunity. If you want to be a hammer and get after people, there is an opportunity when others will not. I see these numbers in a way as an ability to play to an advantage.

CARTER: I do think if you look at this race, clearly the media has reacted to Trump in a way that we've not seen before, but Trump is a candidate. He's never been vetted the way other candidates have been vetted.

So everything about him including now, his financial background is fodder, and I think you also have to remember something else. What is the worst constituency for Trump now? College educated people, right? Who in the media hasn't been to college? That constituency is already there in the media, I think.

CAMEROTA: Even there is a built-in bias.

CARTER: To be skeptical of the guy.

CAMEROTA: Built-in skepticism.

STELTER: Some commentaries are treating Trump like he is an infection and journalists are acting like a body trying to fight off that infection. There is no doubt about that. A lot of journals. Most journalists very, very concerned about the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency.

CAMEROTA: That's because in the media, in journalism, our job is to point out hypocrisy. Our job is to point out inconsistencies. Our job is to point out lies.

STELTER: This is not a 50/50 race.

CAMEROTA: That's not bias. That's actually our mission statement.

STELTER: Donald Trump sounded unhinged at that rally on Saturday night. If we don't tell viewers that, we are advocating our responsibility. I also found him to be very interesting. He had compelling points to make. He's also very entertaining, but there were times where he sounded unhinged.

CUOMO: But he has awakened the suspicion in the big part of this country that the media is lefty and ignores things of the left and ignores Hillary Clinton's things. The media saying, hey, these two aren't equal. What he says is way more absurd than anything we heard before, but in a lot of people's minds, that's equally true the other way that you're protective of her and exposing of her.

[06:35:05]CARTER: That doesn't give him any votes because all those people I think are going to vote for him anyway. I don't know how that gets new voters.

STELTER: I want the audience to hold us accountable on that point. That's one of the benefits of the last 20 years, although, social media in some ways has eroded trust in media. We can win people back one by one.

CAMEROTA: We certainly hear them every day. Bill, Brian, thank you very much.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton making plenty of claims on the campaign trail. What can we believe? Up next, we try to do our part and we check in with "Politifact" to separate fact from fiction.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: A powerful hurricane, Matthew, is expected to slam Jamaica, Haiti and Eastern Cuba today. The storm packing winds of over 130 miles an hour and the torrential rain that goes along with it, 4 million living on the east coast. They're waiting to see whether this storm comes their way afterwards.

CNN meteorologist, Chad Myers, tracking the very latest. Obviously we are worried about these vulnerable communities in the Caribbean. But what could happen here in the overall track?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You got millions of people at risk here in the Caribbean from a catastrophic hurricane. Storm surge wind and rain 30 inches.

[06:40:08]Significant loss of life, I think, here in the Caribbean as Matthew comes up across Haiti into Cuba. But here's where we are right now. Here's what we're talking about.

We are talking about a storm that may impact the U.S. east coast. All the way from northern Florida maybe all the way up as far south as Florida. So this is not out of the woods yet. We are not out of woods as U.S. citizens here as this storm continues to be a major significant hurricane as we work our way into the end of the week.

So where do we go from here? We start to see the storm roll through the Caribbean. This is the spaghetti models and we talk about how the models are all different, very few hit the U.S. except the U.K. model very close.

I'll just talk about the European model and then the American model slightly farther offshore, but look how close. We cannot take our eye off the ball here because this is going to be a storm with a slight left turn with a major impact on the U.S.

Regardless, Alisyn, the waves and the swells could be 12 to 15 feet crashing onshore from Florida to the Carolinas even with a miss and that could cause loss of life in that water. It will be a dangerous week on the east coast.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chad, we know you'll keep an eye on it for us. Thanks so much for that forecast.

Well, in this campaign one party's truth is often another's fiction, but there are organizations designed to keep things fact based to help voters make informed decisions and one of those is "Politifact."

We have the editor, Angie Holan, with us. She will walk us through the latest candidate claims. Good morning, Angie.

ANGIE HOLAN, "POLITIFACT" EDITOR: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about Hillary Clinton up first. She was on the trail. No, this is actually during the debate and she was talking about what caused the recession eight years ago. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Remember where we were eight years ago. We had the worst financial crisis, the great recession. The worst since the 1930s. That was in large part because of tax policies that slashed taxes on the wealthy, failed to invest in the middle class, took their eyes off of Wall Street and created a perfect storm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. Angie, how do you rate that? That the recession was caused in large part because of taxes.

HOLAN: We rated this mostly false. Now, this caught our attention because we hadn't heard this argument before. We went to the economists that we talk to on these matters and even the left leaning ones said tax policy, not really the issue.

It was the housing bubble and poor regulation of financial markets and banks taking on too much risk, but nobody thought that tax policy was an issue. Maybe it contributed to some income inequality. You could criticize the tax policy on other grounds. But contributing to the financial crisis, nobody seemed to buy that. Mostly false.

CAMEROTA: Right. And so it's curious that Hillary Clinton used that at the debate because, as you say, that has not been the narrative for years and the fact that she went there against what, sort of traditional economists say is just curious at the debate. Do you guys look into anything like that in terms of why?

HOLAN: You know, it's hard to know their motivation sometimes. Maybe it was a spur of the moment, turn of phrase. I'm not sure. It will be interesting to see if she repeats this. Sometimes we fact check these things and you wonder if the candidates say, that didn't work. I won't say it again. We'll see.

CAMEROTA: All right, so next up, Donald Trump at the debate. He talked about Hillary Clinton giving uranium to Russia. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She even gave up 20 percent of America's uranium supply to Russia, to Russia. You know what people do with uranium, don't you. It's called nuclear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Angie, how do you rate this?

HOLAN: This one is mostly false. It's a complicated story, but I'll boil it down here. There was a private company based in Toronto that wanted to sell itself to a Russia-controlled company. The Toronto company owned uranium mines in the United States. So they had uranium capacity.

So, Trump said supply. That's not right. Well, there's a regulatory process that happens for this kind of thing. The U.S. government has to approve this kind of sale. It went through the process. Nine federal agencies had to review it. The State Department was one.

It did get approved. Now, that -- what role Hillary Clinton had in all of that is very small. Trump is over personalizing a long bureaucratic process. And I should finally add Russia can export uranium from the United States because it doesn't hold the proper licenses.

Russia wanted the company most likely because of uranium holdings in Kazakhstan, but another country entirely. Mostly false.

CAMEROTA: Got it. Angie Holan, thank you very much. We appreciate you doing all of this fact checking and then sharing it with us on NEW DAY. Nice to see you.

[06:45:09]HOLAN: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: Hopefully the facts still matter. Here's another one, Donald Trump may have avoided paying federal tax for nearly two decades. What does this mean to his campaign, next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: In an odd twist Russian officials are warning the U.S. not to interfere in Syria. They say it would have negative consequences across the Middle East and they insist trying to depose Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad would create a power vacuum filled by, quote, "terrorists."

This as Russian-backed forces in Syria made gains in Aleppo after bombing another hospital. The beleaguered city now has one remaining fully functioning hospital.

CAMEROTA: A woman who lost her husband in the 9/11 attacks has filed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. The first suit filed against the Saudis following a congressional vote to override President Obama's veto of a law allowing such legal action. She claims the Saudis were aware of al Qaeda's plot to attack the U.S. and are partially responsible for the death of her husband.

[06:50:08]CUOMO: Columbian leaders meeting this morning to figure out what to do next after voters shockingly rejected a peace deal with the Marxist's FARC rebels. It took four years for both sides to hammer out that deal and now negotiators have to go back to the drawing board. The conflict has lasted more than 50 years. It cost an estimated 220,000 lives.

CAMEROTA: Kim Kardashian West robbed at gunpoint in her Paris hotel room. Authorities say she was locked in the bathroom while armed men posing as police officers stole cell phones and jewelry worth millions of dollars. The reality star is said to be shaken but uninjured. Her husband, Kanye West, abruptly left the stage during a New York music festival. He told concert goers there had been a, quote, "family emergency."

CUOMO: So we're just five weeks out from the election now and Donald Trump has yet another political mess to clean up. The "New York Times" obtaining tax documents that show a loss of $916 million in 1995. What does that mean?

Well, it means a lot about his business practices, but also his tax existed. He may not have had to pay for close to two decades. Let's discuss.

We have Errol Louis, Alex Burns, and Bill Carter. We want to point out that Trump surrogate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is supposed to be sitting where they are. He has not showed up yet for the interview. We hope the mayor is OK and that he comes to the show soon.

So, let's discuss in his absence. Thank you for the quick call to duty here. Errol, nothing illegal about finding ways to net operating losses and this is an unusually large one. But what are the implications in terms of the campaign of Donald Trump?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, a couple of implications. One is that the Hillary Clinton campaign has teed up, ready-made argument that they're going to use again and again. We saw it in the debate. We'll hear a lot more of it.

I think it's also important for us to understand that when Donald Trump talks about tax policy, there will be an instant rejoinder. So it may have taken away one of his key selling points.

He has talked about the way that he as an insider can understand the tax code, tweak it, change it, transform it and overhaul it to the benefit of working class Americans. He has an extra burden now to prove that he both can and will do that.

I mean, what he really could have done all along is disclosed this and other sort of unpleasant information and said, look, I understand the tax code. Here's how I'm going to change it so that nobody can do what I just did, again.

Because it's not right and it's not fair. It's not the right way to run the country or the tax code. He hasn't said any of that. So, by saying so little, I think he'll create a lot of problems for himself.

CAMEROTA: But Alex, isn't he sort of saying that. His surrogates are saying he's genius. Who wants to pay more taxes? Who volunteers to pay more taxes? This is legal. He found a loophole and in fact, they go further. He had a fiduciary duty to his employees and their shareholders they're saying. Not to pay more taxes. How does that argument wash with voters?

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that last argument is really just questionable on a factual basis. We're talking about his personal taxes.

CUOMO: It's wrong. These aren't corporate taxes. They are personal taxes. He did nothing to benefit any employees by taking this loss on his personal income.

BURNS: Talking about not paying taxes on personal income, which benefits him and his immediately family members. If that's the case he wants to make --

CAMEROTA: They are making it.

BURNS: They're making the dishonest case that he did this to protect the shareholders and investors in his company, which is just not the case, right. I do think that, you know, if Trump is going to persuade voters that all of this ultimately reflects well on him, he has a heck of a sales job.

Because just on its face, people are offended when investors and people who are in finance like Mitt Romney pay a lower tax rate than the average American. Romney's tax rate was something like 15 percent or 16 percent, which is a good deal lower than somebody like you or me who are paying taxes on a regular income.

People are typically offended by that. So the idea of voters for somehow applauding you for paying zero, this is a political matter. We've never seen any precedent for that.

CUOMO: Well, it's important to note that only his staunchest supporters are calling this genius. Nobody is and it hasn't been handled well politically because as Errol said, he should have gotten out in front of it.

They are saying two things now in response. One, Clinton did the same thing. They, on their 2015 tax return, they have a carry forward loss of some $700,000. It's legal. People do it. That's right.

But to do it where it lasts for two decades is unusual. The second thing they're saying is it's illegal and it shows that the media is bias because "New York Times" is committing a crime by publishing this. Is that true?

CARTER: Well, technically, you're not supposed to publish private, you know, tax returns.

[06:50:04]But it's also been proven in previous cases like the Pentagon papers that when you have a national interest and you get information this way, which is, you didn't break into the IRS and steal these documents.

They came to the attention of the "New York Times" and they felt that it was in the national interest to do it. We think the "New York Times" went out and paid for this. That would be a problem. Of course, I worked at "New York Times" and that's not ever going to be the case.

CAMEROTA: They got it in their mail anonymously with a return address of the Trump Foundation.

CUOMO: Trump Tower. So, somebody could have just dumped it in the mailbox. CARTER: Somebody just walked into there and dropped in the mail box.

CUOMO: So that doesn't really mean anything.

CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton has also been in the news, also, obviously, this weekend. There was a leaked audio file that the "Washington Free Beacon," a conservative website put out where Hillary Clinton is talking out, this is back in, I think, February, talking about Bernie Sanders supporters that some see in a derogatory way. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Some are new to politics completely. They're children of the great recession and they are living in their parents' basement. They feel that they got their education and the jobs that are not at all what they envisioned for themselves.

And they don't see much of a future. I think we all should be really understanding of that and we should try to do the best we cannot to be, you know, a wet blanket on idealism. You want people to be idealistic and set big goals and take what we could achieve now and try to present them as bigger goals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Bernie Sanders responded to this, Errol, over the weekend, where she's right. They don't see much of a future. He sort of did her a favor by saying he didn't take offense at this. What is the impact?

LOUIS: It's interesting. You know who else said that, Paul Ryan. Go back to listen to his 2012 convention speech he said quite similar. People living up in their old room with an Obama hope poster falling off the wall and wondering when their life was going to start and so forth.

Look, Bernie Sanders pointed out that he knows what fueled his rise. What fueled his rise was exactly what Hillary Clinton was just talking about. The children of the great recession, burden with student loans.

No job opportunities or nothing, nothing close to what they felt that they had been promised. I mean, it's genuine. The polls pick it up. The voting behavior picks it up.

I don't think there is any political fallout for her other than the fact that these people might now become Jill Stein or Gary Johnson voters, which depending on the state we're talking about could be a big problem.

CUOMO: The reason that the "Washington Beacon" put this out is that there is an opportunity to say she is disrespecting the burners, throwing cold water on their dreams and make they seem like a (inaudible) stats. Does it take?

BURNS: I think it's always uncomfortable when people and groups hear themselves described to third parties behind closed doors like this. We heard a little bit of it with the whole deplorables speech that she gave. This is not something that was even remotely as incendiary of those comments about Donald Trump supporters.

But we forget part of that speech was talking about Donald Trump's support coming from people who don't see an economic future for themselves and the need to empathize with those people.

I just think the feeling appearing in audiotape inside a fundraiser with a lot of rich people talking about you and people like you in general terms is always unsettling for people and Hillary Clinton's job to reassure Sanders supporters as it was before this audio file that she really does get them and want to support them.

CAMEROTA: And he did her favor by saying she does get (inaudible). Our panel, thank you very much.

CUOMO: Bill Carter, free breakfast for you if you find Rudy Giuliani.

There's a lot of news this morning, the whereabouts of Rudy Giuliani just one story that we are covering here on "NEW DAY. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Ask yourself. Why won't he release his tax returns?

TRUMP: You don't learn that much from tax returns that I can tell you.

GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE, NEW JERSEY: There is no one who has shown more genius in their way to maneuver around the tax code.

CLINTON: If not paying taxes make him smart, what does that make the rest of us?

TRUMP: She's supposed to fight all of these different things and she can't make it 15 feet to her car. Give me a break.

CLINTON: Remember, friends don't let friends vote for Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both parties are trying to brain wash the American public into thinking everybody has to vote RRD.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The wasted vote is voting for somebody that you don't believe in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. Up first, a bombshell about Donald Trump's taxes. The Republican nominee, his campaign is now in damage control after the "New York Times" revealed that he may have legally skirted paying federal income taxes for nearly two decades.

CUOMO: Now, some of Trump's staunch supporters are calling him a genius from figuring out how to do his taxes this way. Hillary Clinton says Trump's returns confirm he is a business failure. A lot at stake and only 36 days left in this election. There's only one day until the VP debate just six days until the presidential debate. So we have all --