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War of Words Between Ryan and Trump; Trump Threatens to Retaliate If More Tapes Released; Flooding Damages Increase in North Carolina. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 11, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I meant what I said, and it's still how I feel.

[05:58:28] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: People that can't fix the budget, but then they start talking about their nominee. Isn't it really sad?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I no longer support Donald Trump.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINE: Did any of you see that debate? I'm not sure you'll ever see anything like that again.

TRUMP: If they want to release more tapes, we'll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton.

CLINTON: He just doubled down on his excuse that it's just locker- room banter. That is just a really weak excuse.

TRUMP: WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks.

CLINTON: We know who Donald Trump is, but the real question is who are we?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, October 11, 6 A.M. in the east. Up first, House Speaker Paul Ryan says he can no longer support Donald Trump for president. So of course, Donald Trump is attacking him.

Now, the war of words is irrelevant, but the fate of the GOP majority in the House and Senate is not. We're going to look inside that fragile situation.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So with his poll numbers dropping, Trump is promising to ramp up attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton if new videos are released about him.

There's eight days until the final presidential debate. And election day is exactly four weeks from today. CUOMO: What?

CAMEROTA: Yes. CNN has every angle covered for you. Let's start with chief political correspondent with Dana Bash. She is live in Washington. The clock is ticking, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it can tick a lot faster for all of us.

The question at this point, among a lot of Republicans who I talked to, is is there another shoe to drop? Is there another videotape that even Donald Trump suggested might be out there? And that is one of the many reasons why the House speaker, Paul Ryan, did a conference call with his rank and file yesterday morning and said every man for him or herself. And I know -- I know what I just did there, but let's keep going.

He said that he cannot defend her -- him anymore; he cannot defend Donald Trump. He cannot and will not campaign with him. He never did. He had one appearance scheduled and canceled it.

And this whole thing did not sit well with the Republican nominee. Not only did he put a tweet out directly going after Paul Ryan, he actually went on the stump and not so subtly attacked him. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You have people that can't fix a budget, but then they start talking about their nominee, but they can't fix the budget. Isn't it too -- isn't it really sad that we don't have stronger leadership on both sides?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, that is kind of vintage Donald Trump in that he really went after Paul Ryan where it hurts him the most. Because yes, he is the House speaker, but there's nothing he wants to do more than balance the budget. He is a policy wonk before a politician.

The fact, Alisyn and Chris, that we are at this point about a month before election day and you have barbs being traded between the Republican nominee and the Republican House speaker is nothing short of stunning.

CUOMO: Paul Ryan thought that not getting appropriations bills through was his biggest problem.

BASH: Exactly.

CUOMO: Now he's got the big dog coming down on him. Dana, stay with us. Let's bring in CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston; and CNN political analyst and "The Daily Beast" Washington bureau chief Jackie Kucinich.

Paul Ryan is a young lion in the party. You also have an old lion in the party, John McCain, who -- you know, who steps away from nobody and no fight, also sounding off about this.

Let's listen to what Senator John McCain said in the midst of his own re-election fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: When Mr. Trump attacks women and demeans the women in our nation and in our society, that is a point where I just have to part company.

It's not pleasant for me to renounce the nominee of my party. He won the nomination fair and square. But this is -- I have daughters. I have friends. I have so many wonderful people on my staff. They cannot be degraded and demeaned in that fashion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. Now, John McCain, certainly as politicians go, straight shooter. OK? What does his words -- what do they mean about what's going on right now in this final sprint to the finish and the concern about down ballot and where to be with Trump within that party?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: You know, I think this goes beyond, literally, the self-destruction of the Republican Party, which has its own problems, between social conservatives and the more centrists.

This is somebody, Donald Trump being that somebody, who in some ways is like lighting himself on fire and trying to take the whole party down with him. Either they're all going to be with him or they're not going to be with him.

And that's why Paul Ryan we saw yesterday provide just a little bit of room for those who want to stay with Trump to stay with Trump by not revoking his endorsement of him, but basically telling everybody, you know, "Run if you want to run. Go shelter in place," as I was told last week by a GOP strategist. That's what they were telling their candidates. Because the bottom line is, in many cases, if you tie yourself to Donald Trump, then you're not going to win in November.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about this, Jackie. What does this mean for the next 28 days, the fact that Paul Ryan and John McCain are distancing themselves? Is there any way to predict what effect this will have?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's hard to say, but it's interesting. When you look back to 2012, it was not uncommon for Mitt Romney to be doing rallies with these candidates, for them to be kind of surrounding them. You will not see that, especially in places like Ohio. I can't imagine Pat Toomey, really, appearing with him. I can't imagine a lot of these very vulnerable senators, even the ones who haven't gone full retaking their endorsement, appearing with Donald Trump. So we're looking at a very different and unprecedented, what I can think of, dynamic right now.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Thirty-two -- down to 32 detectors. Let's put it up on the screen. There are 32 known GOP defectors right there. We won't go through all their names.

CUOMO: Depending on which side of the party you're on right now, the top banner of that picture is either heroes or wanted, based on what's going on. Dana, how do you see the state of play?

BASH: That's -- that's absolutely true. And Jackie talked about 2012. Let's go back to 2008 when John McCain was the Republican nominee. And he was surrounded by his brethren, pushing to try to get elected to the White House. Obviously, it didn't go his way, but now he's just trying to get re-elected to the Senate.

And let me just tell you the flip side to your point, Chris, of the wanted part of that equation. Even though it looks like this is something that, obviously, he had to do to get re-elected to the Senate and get Democrats and wavering Republicans on board, there are people who are worried in John McCain's world -- just to keep him as an example, and he's not alone -- that he could have hurt himself, because there are people in the base, particularly in a state like Arizona, who say, "Really, John McCain? You're not going to stick with our guy? We're not going to vote for you."

[06:05:23] PRESTON: You know -- you know what's an interesting point, David Gregory brought this up last night. Just very quickly, there's been a lot of talk about where's the loyalty to Trump? Where's the loyalty from Trump to the party? He has not shown one bit of loyalty to the Republican Party. And as the Republican nominee, you would expect that to happen.

CAMEROTA: What does that mean? What would that look like if he were to show it to the party?

PRESTON: Well, one day he wouldn't say, "Oh, I don't like Reince Priebus," who's the chairman of the Republican National Committee, "and they don't like me. They don't like me."

KUCINICH: Or Paul Ryan.

PRESTON: "Or Paul Ryan." The next...

CUOMO: He called the leadership a bunch of hypocrites.

PRESTON: And last night he said again the system's rigged; the system's rigged. Let's see what happens on election night. If he loses, will he say the system is rigged?

CUOMO: What's interesting, Jackie, is I have Republican friends who are both asking the same questions, but they're coming from opposite points of view. Some are "never Trump" Republicans and some are "only Trump" Republicans. They're both saying, "I want to the know where all these people stand. I want to know."

Everybody says you can't shelter in place. You either own Trump or you reject Trump. But there will be an accounting. Do you believe that?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I do. Particularly we'll be looking at -- you know, Trump has to work with a lot of these people. So if he does become president, we'll see who he wants to work with. We'll see if someone wants a cabinet position. They're not going to get it if they were anti-Trump. So there will be an after -- if Trump loses, you have to imagine the Republicans, where they stood in this whole debate. It's going to matter. It'll matter for the re-elections. And I imagine it'll matter down the line.

CAMEROTA: Panel, stick around. We have many more questions for you.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump threatening to retaliate against the Clintons if more tapes about him are released. This as a new national poll shows Hillary Clinton with a double-digit lead after Trump's Tapegate.

CNN's Joe Johns is live in Detroit with more. Good morning, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

There's been a lot of rhetoric in this campaign, but I think now we can say it's showing signs of becoming increasingly bitter.

We have that threat of retaliation from Donald Trump. The Hillary Clinton campaign accusing Trump of trying to intimidate his opponent.

We also have Trump acknowledging that there may be other inflammatory tapes of him that exist. He says, if they are released, he will attack even harder, with Hillary Clinton trying to keep the focus on the 2005 tape released over the weekend, showing him making crude comments about women. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If they want to release more tapes saying inappropriate things, we'll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things.

CLINTON: He just doubled down on his excuse that it's just locker- room banter. Well, I'll tell you what. Women and men across America know that is just a really weak excuse for behaving badly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: The Hillary Clinton campaign is showing signs of becoming increasingly confident, with the latest polls out, that "Wall Street Journal" poll that shows her up by 11 points.

But one thing is clear. The campaign continues to say, as they have said throughout the campaign, they don't want to become overconfident and that they do believe by the time we get to November, this will still be a close election.

Back to you.

CUOMO: Well, it is certainly still up for grabs. It doesn't matter what any poll says. This is tight. They've been moving all over the place. Joe Johns, thank you very much. So the state of play we're talking about this morning. Donald Trump

is threatening to turn this into one of the most ugly races in presidential history ever. Too late. He's already done that. The question is, what else can he do with his veiled threat to go deeper on Bill and Hillary Clinton? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:13:10] TRUMP: If they want to release more tapes saying inappropriate things, we'll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things. There are so many of them, folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. That was Donald Trump threatening to retaliate against the Clintons if more videotapes of him surface, like that of the 2005 tape where he was bragging about groping women.

We are joined again by our panel: Mark Preston and Jackie Kucinich. Guys, let's first go to the national poll that has come out. This is interesting, because it is post-tapes. So it's after voters saw the tape, but it's before the debate. This is when this was taken. This is an NBC poll. So she has a double-digit lead here, Mark. She has 46 percent to his 35 percent in a four-way race.

Can you give us some context? Twenty-eight days before past elections, has there ever been a candidate who's made it back from that kind of deficit?

PRESTON: I don't think so. In fact, what we're seeing right now is obviously she's going in the right direction. He's going in the wrong direction. But if you look at those numbers right there, 35 percent, I don't think we've ever seen him drop that low. He usually does hover around 40, 41 percent, which means that after that tape, assuming that that poll captured it correctly, that not only, you know -- not only did he not gain any support, obviously, but he lost, like, core support. And that's critical right now, you know. He needed to build on.

And now he's starting to erode underneath his foundation a little bit. And that's a bad place to be.

CUOMO: Do you want to ask the fly from the debate a question? Or do you...

CAMEROTA: That debate fly has been here since then. Chris booked him.

CUOMO: Yes. Or I say that, because it keeps landing on me. It never goes near

Alisyn, which raises another very damaging prospect for me. The truth hurts.

So the poll is only as good as its cross tabs. Right? And the CNN audience is sophisticated. You know what that means. Which numbers within which group of demographics went which way? So we're going to want to digest that later.

But it's not the best thing in the world to have a big lead as you get towards the finish line. And I'll tell you why. It sounds counterintuitive. But it's about motivating your base to get out and vote.

The Obama people couldn't talk enough in the last cycle about how it was pretty close near the end. You've got to come out and vote. Clinton, I think, is probably looking at it that way, as well. No?

KUCINICH: Well, absolutely. It's one of these reasons you see the e- mails, the fundraising e-mails you get from both parties. And it's like, it's almost the end. They're catching up; they're going to win. Because they do want people to get out there. They don't want to think she's safe. They don't want to think that she's so far ahead that they don't need to stand up and be counted. And I'm sure you're going to hear the same thing.

Donald Trump has the -- has the, "OK, guys, we're against the wall. You've got to get out there." And Hillary Clinton needs to create the same thing, even though it does look like she's pretty far ahead at this point.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about some audio that has surfaced of Bill Clinton from 1996 where he supported the Defense of Marriage Act.

PRESTON: Don't know.

CAMEROTA: OK. Let me play the audio for you, and then we can talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Clinton wants a complete ban on late- term abortions, except when the mother's life is in danger or faces severe health risk, such as the inability to have another child. The president signed the Defense of Marriage Act, supports school uniforms to teach our children discipline. His Crime Bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins. Bob Dole opposed him and is resorting to untrue, negative attacks. President Clinton has fought for our values, and America is better for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. So this was a radio ad that aired on Christian radio stations where he's touting his support for the Defense of Marriage Act. Does this in some way come back to bite Hillary Clinton in terms of her support, or her late support for same-sex marriage?

PRESTON: No, but it just goes to show you where we were back then and where we are now, where our values were. And it wasn't just Bill Clinton. It was almost every Democratic leader in the Senate, including Tom Daschle, who was the Senate majority leader at the time. Obviously, this was terrible, and this was something that, actually,

the gay community really struggled with a lot, continuing to support the Democratic Party at that time. But they've since reconciled that. and where we are now is where they want to be, obviously. So while there should be some concern about why they flipped and why we were at that position, it's probably not going to hurt them.

CUOMO: They play with the word "evolve." But, you know, look, you know, you say that was horrible. It wasn't horrible then, and it's not horrible now if you have a certain set of values about what marriage means. But it's a reflection of the Clintons move of the Democratic Party to the right; they moved it to the center. There were a lot of hard-core Democrats -- I was raised by one of them -- who thought it was a complete betrayal of the party.

So that was what they did then to move the party to be more effective. Hillary Clinton, you could argue, is doing the same thing now. She's taking the positions to make her more effective. Isn't that what politics is?

KUCINICH: To an extent. But also, look, if you're someone that really hated DOMA, look at the alternative. Republicans -- the Republican platform isn't for same-sex marriage. So it is...

CUOMO: You talk about a guy picking a position. Donald Trump had always said he didn't really care about anything like that. Now he's got to take it because he wants to be the GOP nominee.

KUCINICH: Well, exactly. And that's another reason, to Mark's point, that I don't think this is going to hurt her.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, Mark, thank you.

All right. A state of emergency we have to tell you about in North Carolina. There's epic flooding from Hurricane Matthew sending thousands of people to shelters. Their communities are under water. Look at the picture on your screen. We'll get a live report next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:22:30] CUOMO: Hurricane Matthew is not over. Do not forget your brothers and sisters in North Carolina. There is terrible flooding there. Rivers are spilling over their banks. Communities are under water. Thousands of people are now in shelters.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is live in hard-hit Tarboro, North Carolina. The rule of thumb is, as you are learning there first hand, more than three days in water, walls need to be rebuilt. And they're looking at a week and a half down there.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's very rough here, Chris. What you don't realize is when you take a look at the damage that has happened, North Carolina didn't get a direct hit from Hurricane Matthew, yet it is feeling the pain because of so much water that has drenched this state. And it has run off into the creeks, into the canals, and into the rivers. And it is now forcing people out of their homes.

Take a look behind me here, where you can see behind me, this is a canal that feeds into the Tar River. And you can see that there are buildings already under water, and this water continues to rise right now.

This is an area that has already seen massive damage here from Hurricane Floyd in 1999. And many of these communities just never have recovered from that. So this is another hard hit.

Across the river, or across this body of water here, is Princeville. And that town is basically in a basin. Mandatory evacuations throughout this part of North Carolina, in Edgecombe County, and other parts, as well, as they're dealing with many -- huge numbers of people who have been evacuated.

Also, another concern for a lot of people is what this will mean for the election, especially in states like Florida and North Carolina. In Florida, the Democrats sued to get voter registration extended. They got it for one more day, until Wednesday at 5 p.m. That's going against what the governor wanted.

And taking a look at here in North Carolina, they continue to assess the situation based on all of the storm-ravaged areas. But as for now, things will remain the same. And they're looking at Friday being the end of voter registration there -- Alisyn and Chris.

CAMEROTA: Just so many ramifications of what happened there this weekend, Stephanie. Thanks so much for the reporting.

All right. On to something lighter. The San Francisco Giants stormed back to beat the Cubs in extra innings that dragged into the early morning hours. Coy Wire has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report."

Hi, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS: Hi, Alisyn.

This game lasted until almost 3 in the morning. Took it till the bottom of the 13th inning to end it. Totally worth the wait for Giants fans, though.

Joe Panic delivered the Giants' first walk-off winner in postseason elimination game history since 1911 World Series. This was a double off the wall in right center field. Brandon Crawford would saunter on in for the game winner. The Cubs still lead this series 2-1. They just -- need just one more win to advance to that National League championship series. But have the Giants found some magic? We shall see. Game four tonight at 8:40 Eastern.

Monday night football action. Buccaneers, Panthers. Cam Newton out. Rough season thus far for Bucs rookie kicker Roberto Aguayo, but he delivers. A thirty-eight yarder, time expiring. It's good. It's all god. Tampa Bay, a 17-14 win. Now, after reaching the Super Bowl last season, Carolina drops to 1-4. And since 1990, teams with that record have just a 6 percent chance of even making the playoff. Powerful moment. The Atlanta Hawks and the defending NBA champion

Cavaliers bowing their heads, standing arm in arm ahead of their preseason game in the first ever unity game. The purpose of this message was not just to set aside differences but to celebrate them, help bring people together. The hawks organization played videos of players from both teams speaking out about what unity means to them. Chris, athletes using their platforms to create positive change in the communities. We're seeing it more and more, buddy.

CUOMO: And we talk about it all the time. The need for it, done the right way in this case. Always a pleasure, Coy. And saunter, quality word. Quality word.

All right. Donald Trump taking a beating in the polls after taking a beating on the hustings. Does he have a path to victory? There's a lot of math on this. And Professor Ron Brownstein makes it oh, so easy, next.

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