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Kaine & Pence Clash in VP Debate. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired October 05, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. TIM KAINE (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He's called women slobs, pigs, dogs, disgusting.

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Senator, you and Hillary Clinton would know a lot about an insult-driven campaign.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Tim Kaine understands what's at stake in the election.

KAINE: Donald Trump is avoiding paying taxes.

PENCE: He used the tax code just the way it's supposed to be used, and he did it brilliantly.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Why didn't she change the laws?

PENCE: People question the trustworthiness of Hillary Clinton.

KAINE: The thought of Donald Trump as commander in chief scares us to death.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Wednesday, October 5th, 5:00 in the East. An early edition of "NEW DAY" because we had a big night.

Up first, the nominees for vice president, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, sparring over issues, interruptions, insults, using every opportunity to attack their rival's presidential candidate. Kaine may have been out-matched on style, but did Pence fail to defend Donald Trump's most inflammatory statements?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Pence, meanwhile, did attack Hillary Clinton's record and trustworthiness. There are only four days until the next presidential debate. There are 34 days left in this election.

We have it all covered for you. First, in case you missed it, here are some of the highlights from last night's VP debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

MODERATOR: Gentlemen, the people at home cannot understand either one of you when you speak over each other. I would please ask you to wait until it is until the other is finished.

(APPLAUSE)

KAINE: Donald Trump must give the American public his tax returns to show that he's qualified to be president. And he's breaking his promise.

[05:00:00] PENCE: Elaine.

You can roll out the numbers on the sunny side, but I got to tell you, people in Scranton know different. People in Fort Wayne, Indiana, know different. The answer to this economy is not more taxes.

Thank you, Senator.

KAINE: These guys have praised Vladimir Putin as a great leader. How can they defend that?

PENCE: Well, Senator, I must have hit a -

(CROSSTALK)

PENCE: I must have hit a nerve here.

MODERATOR: Why the disconnect?

PENCE: You know, there's an old proverb that says the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates. And the truth of the matter is, the weak and feckless foreign policy of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has awakened an aggression in Russia.

PENCE: If your son or my son handled classified information the way Hillary Clinton did --

MODERATOR: -- one hundred thousand of them children -- Governor --

PENCE: -- they'd be court-martialed.

KAINE: He's called women slobs, pigs, dogs, disgusting. He went after John McCain, a POW, and said he wasn't hero because he'd been captured.

PENCE: There they go again.

KAINE: I have said to Governor Pence I can't imagine how you can defend your running mate's position on one issue after the next.

And yet he is asking everybody to vote for somebody that he cannot defend.

PENCE: I'm just trying to keep up with the insult-driven campaign on the other side of the table.

KAINE: You know, I'm just saying facts about your running mate.

PENCE: Yeah.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

CUOMO: Oh, yeah, Kaine did.

CAMEROTA: All right. CNN's instant poll right after the debate gives the edge to Senator Mike Pence. Forty-eight percent of debate watchers say Pence won the debate, compared to 42 percent for Senator Tim Kaine. About two-thirds of viewers also said Trump's running mate exceeded expectations.

So, what does this all mean to the race? More than half say the debate did not sway their vote. Twenty-nine percent did say it more likely to back Trump, only 18 percent said the same for Clinton.

We should note our poll sample excuse more Democratic than an average CNN poll of all Americans.

CUOMO: Which won't be questioned today because Pence won. So, everybody will be OK with it. So, the polls are perfect.

All right. So, style is always at a premium in a debate. But substance is often what comes back to haunt it.

So, let's go through it with our panel. CNN politics executive editor Mark Preston, CNN senior political reporter Manu Raju, and CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast", Jackie Kucinich.

If you had to pick a moment of the night, and it's not easy, because these two guys were much more professional in terms of what we're used to seeing from Trump, you're always waiting for that big assault. But if you had to pick something, what do you think was the headline from last night?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: I think what Mike Pence had to do in this debate is stop the bleeding and that's exactly what he did. I mean, remember where we were in this presidential race heading into the debate. Donald Trump was, his poll numbers were sliding. He stumbled. He had a really terrible week.

Mike Pence had to articulate a vision for this ticket something that Donald Trump has not been able to do or in the first debate and really take the fight to Hillary Clinton. That's exactly what he did. He did not engage in those fights, tit for tat, over Donald Trump's comments about Mexican immigrants, about Judge Curiel, about his fight with Miss Universe fight. He's going to continue to get hit for not defending Donald Trump's rhetoric. That was his decision going in.

Do not engage in a tit for tat. We set this race as a narrative between a ticket that's about to change Washington, and one that's for the status quo and he was able to do that. So, he took a hit for not defending Donald Trump, but at the same time, he went after Hillary Clinton in a way that I believe Republicans will be happy about going forward really setting the stage for Sunday's debate.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, what jumped out to you?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I was talking to a Pence aide last night, one of the things they told me the preparation that Pence went through. He had several mock debates. Not only did Governor Scott Walker, of course, of partner, he played Tim Kaine but they had the moderator going after Pence. So, it was sort of a two on one situation. It was described to me as pretty brutal.

So, he was really put to it going into this debate. So, I'm not saying Tim Kaine wasn't prepared, but it sounds like opposite Donald Trump. Mike Pence was really ready to go for this debate. But, you know, in terms of what Mike Pence did last night, yes, he really did -- I think he really helped Donald Trump. I don't know that Tim Kaine was the needle much, but it seems like Mike Pence going out there and sounding steady and sane, if you take about substance over style.

His style is very smooth. He was not rattled. There was only a couple times when it came to taxes, and when it came to something else that is escaping me right now.

CAMEROTA: It's too early actually.

KUCINICH: It's too early, actually.

CUOMO: The e-mails. Jackie?

KUCINICH: No.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: He went back and forth about the taxing and about the e-mails where he was really starting to get into it when they moved topics.

KUCINICH: Well, right, I think that was one of the other problems last night. They weren't sort of allowed to play out some of these arguments.

[05:05:01] We won't ever know what happened there because --

CUOMO: Although it was better than the last format in terms of that. It was very interesting. They got to sit next to each other. You got your time. But then they were able to kind of go at it. And that was really fruitful on a couple situations that deserved layers.

There was one incident last night, Mark Preston, that showed why Pence didn't want to get into a tit for tat about what Donald Trump has said. Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PENCE: He says ours is an insult-driven campaign. Did you all just hear that? Ours is an insult-driven campaign? I mean, to be honest with you, if Donald Trump had said all of the

things that you've said he said in the way you said he said them, he still wouldn't have a fraction of the insults that Hillary Clinton leveled when she said that half of our supporters were a basket of deplorables.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, Mark, that was for me the only give me a break moment of the night with Mike Pence where he said something that I thought, you know, he should have not wanted to say. What was your take?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Yes, no, I agree with you. I mean, look, Mike Pence was between a rock and a hard place last night because he had to defend the indefensible for Donald Trump for all the ridiculous crass statements that he has made throughout his campaign.

At the same time, though, Mike Pence had to keep his own morals, and his own political future in mind. I think we saw that last night. He tried to walk a very fine line in order to do so.

Let me just go a different direction, too, when we're talking about winners and losers of this debate. First of all, I think we all kind of acknowledge that, you know, it's a very important debate. They both did what they had to do.

But what Tim Kaine did it last night while he did it articulately and he was too forceful upon it, he did amplify the message time and again, time and again, time and again, about the things that Donald Trump has said. He amplified that message upwards of 50 million people.

Now, you connect that television ads that the Clinton campaign is going to run specifically in key states that they need to win in order to win the presidency. I do think that's very powerful.

Look, Tim Kaine, had he just back it off a little bit, had he taken a deep breath, had he put the cup of coffee down before he had gone out there. He would have done a million times better. But Mike Pence certainly did himself well if he decides to run in 2020.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: One second, let's take a look at the possibly over- caffeinated moments. And Elaine Quijano, the moderator, had a challenge on her hands of trying to keep particularly Tim Kaine from speaking over Mike Pence. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

KAINE: Let me talk about this --

(CROSSTALK)

PENCE: Senator, I think I'm still on my time. KAINE: Well, I think -- isn't this a discussion?

QUIJANO: This is our open discussion.

KAINE: Yes, let's talk about the state of --

(CROSSTALK)

PENCE: Well, let me interrupt -- let me interrupt you and finish my sentence, if I can.

KAINE: OK, now I can weigh in. Now --

PENCE: She had a private server --

KAINE: Now, I get to weigh in. Now, let me just say this --

PENCE: -- that was discovered --

(CROSSTALK)

MODERATOR: Senator, you have an opportunity to respond.

PENCE: -- keep that pay to play.

MODERATOR: The question was about Aleppo, Senator.

KAINE: He wouldn't support troops. He wouldn't -- he wouldn't support -- this is important, Elaine.

KAINE: Hold on a second, Governor.

(CROSSTALK)

PENCE: It's my time, Senator.

MODERATOR: It is, in fact, the governor's time.

KAINE: I apologize. It's your two minutes. I apologize.

PENCE: Thanks. I forgive you.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

CAMEROTA: I don't know what they just said there. But, Manu, was that the format's fault or was it Tim Kaine being overly aggressive?

RAJU: Tim Kaine was being overly aggressive. This was more of an open discussion. They were sitting at a table, they're supposed to be able to go back and forth. But I think this is why voters viewed that Pence won. Pence won narrowly, not necessarily because of the arguments, but because of the style, because of the frequent interruptions.

Viewers do not like that. They want each side to make their point. I think agree with Mark Preston, if Tim Kaine let Mike Pence make his points and then deliver and attack right after that, he probably ends up winning his debate.

That's exactly what Hillary Clinton did in her first debate. She did not interrupt Donald Trump. Donald Trump interrupted her and then she turned around and delivered a counter punch.

CUOMO: That's the trick, right? That's a trick for Mike Pence last night. One, the split screen is what CNN did. Most with the debate didn't have it that way.

And Pence did a very smart thing, he looked at the camera most of the night which was a really smart thing to do especially in the split screen. It was a little weirder in the open format because he wasn't looking at Tim Kaine a lot of the time, and Kaine was always looking at the moderator.

But one of the thing that Pence risked last night, Jackie, was coming off so much not Donald Trump in terms of what he said and how he was. And that had to be a little bit of a balancing test also. At one point, I almost thought he was going to say, look, I would never say anything like that. But the guy is not a politician. That's a lot of what you had to watch last night also.

KUCINICH: Well, that whole "if he's not a politician" thing actually got Pence in trouble. I want to say here, the middle of the debate, when he was trying to say something about what Donald Trump said about -- oh, comments about women and abortion if Roe versus Wade is appealed that women should be punished. And Kaine kept pressing him and then that's when Pence said, "Oh, you're whipping up the Mexican thing again," which immediately the Clinton seized upon.

[05:10:05] I think here's a website already.

But back for a positive thing about Mike Pence that he did last night, he had a little bit Chris Christie moment, where Tim Kaine is using a line he's used on the campaign trail a hundred times about I think it's -- we're going to have you're fired economy or you're hired economy. And Mike Pence looked at him and he said , that's a really nice line, I've heard that on the campaign trail, you guys have a lot of canned lines, don't you? You kind of saw the Rubio deflation from Tim Kaine, and sort of take the wind out of his sails for a minute.

ROMANS: One line that no one can quibble with is, of course, if one of them quote the bible. And Tim Kaine did that some say to great effect last night. So, let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAINE: Great line from the -- great line from the gospel of Matthew. From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.

PENCE: Yeah.

KAINE: When Donald Trump says women should be punished or Mexicans are rapists and criminals --

PENCE: I'm telling you -- KAINE: -- or John McCain is not a hero, he is showing you who he is.

PENCE: Senator, you've whipped out that Mexican thing again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: They combined the whipping out the Mexican thing and the bible, I see, Mark. So, how was that moment?

PRESTON: It was a moment and many moments like that. Look, it showed you that it had gotten understand Mike Pence's skin. He knew he was going into basically a rock fight without any rocks. He was the one that was going to have them hurled at him and he did his best to duck them.

So, when we're talking about style and substance, Tim Kaine came in with almost too much substance. And Mike Pence almost came in with too much style. But in the end, style is going to win over substance.

You know, one thing that is not going to be discussed probably from this debate, and it really happened at the beginning of the debate. I thought it was fascinating, is that in his opening statement, Mike Pence clearly was trying to reach out to the college -- non-college educated white voters.

He mentioned the coal industry in his opening statement which, it was a dog whistle, you know, to those voters. And at the same time, he also mentioned Scranton, Pennsylvania, a state that Donald Trump has to win. So, there were these little moments that if you were connected to him, it meant something to you.

CAMEROTA: OK. Guys, stick around, we do have some fact-checking we want to do. But, first, we want to tell you that Mike Pence may have won the vice presidential debate according to polls, but did he actually help Donald Trump? How did Pence do in defending Trump's statements? We'll discuss all of that next as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: The GOP vice presidential Mike Pence did not take of the bait at last night's VP debate. When his opponent Tim Kaine tried to use Trump's words against him, Pence repeatedly denied them. But here are some of those exchanges and then what Trump actually said.

Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

KAINE: Let's start with not praising Vladimir Putin as a great leader.

Donald Trump and Mike Pence have said he's a great leader. And Donald Trump has business --

PENCE: No, we haven't.

TRUMP: Certainly, in that system, he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.

KAINE: We don't think that women should be punished as Donald Trump said they should for making a decision to have an abortion.

PENCE: Donald Trump and I would never support legislation that punished women who made the heartbreaking choice to end a pregnancy.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle?

TRUMP: The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.

KAINE: They want to go house to house, school to school and business to business and kick out 16 million people. I can't believe --

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

CUOMO: He's shaking his said say I got to defend this question, because Trump actually said. That's all that's going on.

CAMEROTA: Let's bring back our panel -- Mark Preston, Manu Raju, and Jackie Kucinich.

So, when you fact-check it, Manu, Donald Trump did say those things that Tim Kaine was accusing him of. How did it work with Mike Pence saying, no, he didn't.

RAJU: Well, Mike Pence is almost in an impossible position here, because Donald Trump has been on the opposite side of a lot of these issues. Like the deportation. You remember, this summer, he spent several weeks trying to clean up his position about what to do with the 11 million people who are here illegally who are not violent criminals.

And last night, when Pence was pressed on that issue, he didn't even touch that, he actually sidestepped it all. We'll figure it out when we get to it. That happened -- and also punishing women for having abortions right after Trump made that statement, he put out two statements clarifying his position leaving everybody confused. So, in a lot of ways, Mike Pence couldn't do a whole lot other than side step it or try to deny it broadly rather than get it to a specific denial.

CUOMO: And yet the flood of Trump says, Jackie, actually helped Pence out in two cases. One, he got a pass on LGBTQ last night which is going to be a significant weakness with Mike Pence with a big chunk of the independent and center electorate. Any of those people who are open mind. The other was on Syria and Syrian refugees.

What was your take on the points made and how they were handled with Mike Pence because he has a bad court case that just came down from the seventh circuit hanging over his head about his potential treatment of Syrian refugees?

KUCINICH: Well, this is a really tough issue for Mike Pence and he did sort of talk around it. And so, as you said with some of the things that Trump said, he did the best that he could. And this is a good area for Mike Pence.

It was one of the only areas where I felt like he was pressed to a point where he didn't really have an answer and he certainly didn't have an answer. And you saw the same thing with immigration in general, where he was saying we're not going to do that, when in actuality, particularly with Donald Trump's comments about Mexicans and that moment where he said the Mexican thing, he said, well, we're talking about illegal immigrants.

[05:20:07] Well, that's not what Donald Trump was saying. So, he really was in a tough spot last night. But you know what? That's what being a running mate is all about. So, he did the best he could.

CAMEROTA: Mark, Tim Kaine was also fact-checked. And there were some moments where he went too far. So, watch this when he was talking about what Donald Trump had said about Mexicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAINE: We have different views on -- on refugee issues and on immigration. Hillary and I want to do enforcement based on, are people dangerous? These guys say all Mexicans are bad.

TRUMP: I love the Mexican people. I've had a great relationship with Mexico and the Mexican people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, Mark, I mean, Donald Trump never said all Mexicans are bad?

PRESTON: No, and he does love the Mexican people, clearly, he just told us that. What's interesting about Donald Trump the staple that Tim Kaine is refusing to is also referring to when he's talking about rapists and sending us bad people, and I guess some of them are probably good, is what Donald Trump has said.

CUOMO: You could argue that's an overly generous fact-check for Donald Trump, because yes, he said, I love all Mexicans but he said a lot of things.

CAMEROTA: But he was talking about there illegal immigration. And that's when he said they're sending their rapists. I mean, he was making the point that criminals are coming over in his inarticulate way, but never said all Mexicans are bad. I mean, that's just a bridge too far.

PRESTON: Right. And what you are seeing from Tim Kaine, and you know, I mentioned in the last segment about how Mike Pence was reaching out to certain voters in Pennsylvania and certainly in the Midwest. What you saw was Tim Kaine reaching out to the base.

What we saw in the last CNN/ORC poll, our new CNN/ORC poll, is that Hillary Clinton did such a good job in her debate the last time that she was able to close the enthusiasm gap among voters. Meaning, Democrats were more enthusiastic to vote for her than they were prior to the debate.

Tim Kaine was trying to do the same thing, what he's trying to do is energize the Latino community to come out and vote because that is critical for her to win, in a state like Colorado, Nevada, state like Florida, some cases, certain pockets of North Carolina.

CUOMO: Kaine's weakness last nights when Pence kept asking him about defending the state of security. He just kept saying well, we got nuclear weapons away from Iran. And pence would immediately say, no, you didn't. There's a time line on that. And he kept saying, well, we killed Osama bin Laden. That was his strong weak point.

His strong point wound up being immigration and doing a point for point with Pence. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAINE: These guys -- and Donald Trump have said it -- deportation force. They want to go house to house, school to school, business to business, and kick out 16 million people. And I cannot believe --

PENCE: That's nonsense. That's nonsense.

TRUMP: The illegal immigrants, they came over illegally, some wonderful people and they've been here for a while, they've got to go out.

CUOMO: But how do you do it in a practical way? You really think you can round 11 million people?

TRUMP: You know what at some point, we're going to try to get them back, the good ones.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, I mean, he has talked about it, Manu, deportation force at different times.

RAJU: Absolutely. I mean, this is the challenge for Donald Trump on this issue. This is the issue that propelled him from the Republican nomination that set him apart from his rivals in that nomination process because he took such a hard line to the right of Ted Cruz on this issue.

Now, he has to worry about winning Nevada where the Hispanic vote is pretty significant, states like Florida, of course, a major battleground state where the issue plays well, and where more moderate policy plays well, and that is why Democrats are hammering home on this issue. And that's why Mike Pence had a difficult time explaining Donald Trump's position, particularly for the people who are here illegally.

CUOMO: He's also done the same thing conceptually with Syrian refugees, Jackie Kucinich. They just had a court case come down that reviewed Pence's plan as governor of Indiana to keep out Syrian refugees by playing with the federal funding that came in, basically on the premise that Syrian refugees are going to be dangerous. And the court was really provocative and saying, you know, there's no proof saying that these people are dangerous.

It's like Mike Pence wants to keep black people out of Indiana, he's afraid they might be dangerous, not because they're black, but that they maybe dangerous, and that's the same thing, you need proof. And then last night, Jackie, he said, well, there's just no proof yet. I thought that was a moment that you're going to hear again.

KUCINICH: Yes, probably quite a bit, and particularly because it isn't correct, it could take 18 to 24 months to get into this country for refugees. So, it's sort of scaremongering what you've heard from Donald Trump as well. So, I can imagine that the Democrats won't take won't use this, you know?

[05:25:00] Particularly states, particularly all around the country, the only other state I would add to the states that Manu listed would be Colorado where there are quite a few Hispanic voters that they need to vote for them.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. Great to get all of your takes on last night. We appreciate it.

CUOMO: All right. So, we're covering politics but we're keeping an eye on Hurricane Matthew. It just bashed Haiti. Cuba, it's sitting outside seem like the track is going to lead it to Florida and the Southeast. It is a monster storm. We're going to telling you what you need to know next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Hurricane Matthew is packing winds of more than 125 miles per hour and expected to intensify.