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National Poll: Clinton Leads Trump by Double Digits; Report: Trump Recited False Info from Russian Government; Billy Bush Suspended from NBC's Today Show. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired October 11, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:31:01] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: A new national poll taken after the release of that vulgar tape with Trump's comments on it -- well, they show Clinton with a double-digit lead. Swing state polls also looking good for Clinton. So, what is Trump's path to victory?

Let's bring in Ron Brownstein. He's CNN's senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlantic."

Ron, great to see you. We're going to be doing some math.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: Get your abacus.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Here are the latest polls we've just been talking about. This is "The Wall Street Journal"/NBC poll. It shows Clinton with a double-digit lead, 46 percent, to Trump's 35 percent. That's in a four-way race.

It is also reflective of the poll from your outfit, "The Atlantic," where she is at 39 percent, he's at 38 -- sorry, 49 percent, he's at 38 percent. That's in a two-way race.

Ron, give us some context here of what this means 28 days before the election.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, it's a huge hurdle. It's a huge hole that Donald Trump is now in. It's especially important, Alisyn, but it essentially reconfirms where we have been. Donald Trump throughout has struggled to get past 42 percent of the vote. He has been closest when Hillary Clinton has come down to his level, but there are very few polls really since he effectively clinched the nomination in May that have shown him winning more than 42 percent. He's established passionate support among many white voters who feed economically and cultural marginalized, particularly blue collar, nonurban, evangelical Christian voters.

But he's facing historic levels of resistance from minority voters, overwhelming resistance from millennial voters. And in particular, he's underperforming any Republican nominee ever among college educated white voters, and that is what has kept him stuck in the low 40s.

Now, what's happened in these latest polls, particularly our Atlantic/PRRI poll is you see the non-college white women who have largely be with him where he's been leading by double digits. They're moving toward the exits, at least temporarily, in the aftermath of this video. And that's what's pushed him down from the low 40s into the mid-30s where you're talking about Republicans really looking at panic.

CAMEROTA: So, Ron, let's look at the real numbers here. Of course, the electoral vote counts. Let me pull that up. The road to 270 -- this is how the math is looking today. It looks like a lot of red, of course, on the map, but it doest get him there to 270.

At the moment, Clinton is at 272. If you look at the blue states. Trump is at 196.

Up for grabs are these yellow states. So, let's tick through a couple of these.

BROWNSTEIN: OK.

CAMEROTA: Here's how she's doing in Pennsylvania. He's at 49 percent to his 37 percent. Let's look at all-important Elon University, North Carolina. She's at 45 percent to his 39.

Now, let's look at some that are sort of obviously in the focus because we need to look a Ohio. That is within the margin of error. What do you see there, Ron?

BROWNSTEIN: Right. So, the most straight forward path to 270 -- first of all, for Donald Trump, there's no path to 270 if you're behind double digits in national polling. There's no chance of reaching it there. It obviously has to be a more competitive race. It's worth noting that only once since the turn of the 20th century have we had a divergence, the loser of the popular vote, win the Electoral College. That was George W. Bush in 2000.

But the most straight forward path for Donald Trump, assuming he can make the national race more competitive again, which is tough. There really isn't a precedent for really overcoming a lead of this magnitude. It's like if you can't make it more competitive, the most straight forward path is to hold all of the 206 Electoral College votes that Mitt Romney won, which includes North Carolina, the one on that list that's the most in danger. And then add to it three mega states, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

In Ohio, he has been very competitive because the state is dominated by the blue collar white voters where he has been strongest. Florida has been tougher because it is more diverse, and he is hemorrhaging support among the growing Hispanic population, particularly the Puerto Rican population. And Pennsylvania, really, is the toughest of all because it is there where you have the modern Democratic coalition of minority voters and socially liberal whites, both Philadelphia and the suburbs of Philadelphia, where he's facing an enormous deficit.

[06:35:11] In that poll that you cited there from Marist, he's losing college-educated white women in Pennsylvania by over 30 points and college educated white men by 16 points. Those are unprecedented and insurmountable numbers. And if you can't make Pennsylvania competitive and it doesn't appear that he can, he has to try to cobble it together with a combination of states like Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire, maybe Wisconsin, where there's more of that blue collar white presence. Again, if those non-college white women are bailing ship also, all of those become problematic as well.

CAMEROTA: OK, Ron, thanks so much for breaking down all the numbers for us. Great to see you this morning.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. There's this new report that claims Donald Trump is being fed Russian propaganda and is repeating it at his political rallies. Can this be true? We're going to talk to the "Newsweek" writer who broke the story and you decide.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:40:02] CAMEROTA: At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania Monday, Donald Trump tried to use e-mails from the latest WikiLeaks document dump against Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One important point has been universally acknowledged by the nine previous reports about Benghazi. This is Sidney Blumenthal. The attack was almost certainly preventable, Benghazi. If the GOP wants to raise that as a talking point against her, it is legitimate. In other words, he's now admitting that they could have done something about Benghazi. This just came out a little while ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: But our next guest says those remarks are not from the Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal and that Russia is behind Trump's mix-up.

Here to explain is senior writer for "Newsweek" and "New York Times" best selling author, Kurt Eichenwald.

Kurt, nice to have you here.

How do you know that Sidney Blumenthal was not behind that quote that Donald Trump was reading?

KURT EICHENWALD, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, VANITY FAIR: Because I wrote it. What's amazing here, Sidney Blumenthal sent an e-mail to John Podesta that attached an article that I wrote. And it is impossible to look at the Blumenthal e-mail and not realize that this 10,000 words that follows are from "Newsweek." They say "Newsweek", "Newsweek", "Newsweek" time and again.

And deep in the article are those two sentences that the Russian government, through a Russian news agency, published as an article saying this was the October surprise and it shows that even Hillary Clinton's, you know, close allies knew that she could have stopped Benghazi.

CUOMO: So what's the assertion? So, is the assertion that not that he misread the e-mail that came out in the WikiLeaks, your assertion is that somehow Donald Trump got ahold of Russian propaganda outside of the WikiLeaks dump and was using that?

EICHENWALD: There are two possibilities. One is that both the Russians and Donald Trump were tricked into believing a manipulated e- mail, or the Russians manipulated it and Donald Trump fell for it. But there's absolutely -- if you look at the e-mail, it's impossible to come away believing that that e-mail, that the part that was just quoted, came from Sidney Blumenthal.

CAMEROTA: I think we have it.

EICHENWALD: My name is in it.

CAMEROTA: Right.

CUOMO: Yes, I read it. I've seen.

CAMEROTA: I think we have it, to just prove the point, to show the viewers. So, up there, you see it comes from Sidney Blumenthal, if you have glass. Then it's just copying and pasting your article there from "Newsweek".

CUOMO: It says, "a comprehensive guide to one of America's worst political outrages." Then has your name in all caps.

EICHENWALD: And if you go down, it says "Newsweek", "Newsweek," "Newsweek." It's impossible to confuse this.

CAMEROTA: OK. However, what your point is, is that this online news service, Sputnik, state-owned in Russia, did confuse it and after that Donald Trump confused it.

So, connect the dots. What do you think happened?

CUOMO: He thinks they manipulated it.

EICHENWALD: What I'm saying is it's impossible to have confused that, to have dug that deeply into that article, which in fact was very critical of the Republican campaign on Benghazi. To dig that deeply into that article, to grab two sentences and to say, Sidney Blumenthal said this, you know, there's no way that any individual is that stupid.

(CROSSTALK) CUOMO: But, Kurt, here's the only problem. Here's the only problem with the theory, is that essentially, you will leave people with the impression that Donald Trump is somehow being motivated by the Russians. Is that what you want people to think, that he's some kind of secret agent for the KGB?

EICHENWALD: No. What I am saying is that there are some very serious issues here that need to be answered. One is, how did Donald Trump end up citing a false document or falsely citing a document on stage attributing it to Sidney Blumenthal when no rational person could have done that?

CUOMO: Well, there's your explanation, right?

EICHENWALD: Then, you have the issue that the Russian government news agency did the exact same thing hours earlier. Again, I think there are only two options -- well, three. One is that they both have the same source of information. One is that Trump followed up on what was on the Russian news agency report and believed it, or the third one is the most astonishing coincidence of all time.

[06:45:02] CAMEROTA: And either way, you say that this is terrifying. What do you mean?

EICHENWALD: Well, you have a terrifying question, which is, you know, here's information that's being put out in Russia, that is propaganda, that is false, and then hours later Donald Trump is putting out that same false information that has been put out by the Russian news agency. And so, you really are left with a -- what is happening here? And again, if Donald Trump is willing to read something he just pulls off of any place and declare it as fact. That really raises some severe questions about his judgment, about what he considers to be real or not.

So, we have so many different problems here. Did it come from the Russians? Did it come from a third party? Or did they just pull it off -- you know, did they just me it up themselves?

CUOMO: Welcome to the election of 2016.

CAMEROTA: Kurt Eichenwald, thank you for sharing that.

EICHENWALD: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: All right. So, "Entertainment Tonight" host Nancy O'Dell is the target of what Donald Trump referred to as his locker room talk on that bus. Now, she is responding to Trump's comments about her. Her message for the audience, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:03] CUOMO: Voters in Florida given at least one more day to register to vote because of last week's hurricane. A federal judge granting the 24-hour extension. The governor was against it. The state's Democratic Party then had to file a lawsuit requesting extra time for last-minute signups, believing many voters were affected by hurricane Matthew, which is reasonable.

The order goes against the state Republican governor, as I said, Rick Scott, because he said no. He thought today's deadline was sufficient.

CAMEROTA: Strike averted. Chicago public schools will be open today after a tentative agreement between the teacher's union and the nation's third school district. The new contract could extend through 2019. It still needs final approval from the union's rank and file.

CUOMO: Flags are flying at half staff in Vermont in honor of five high school students killed in a wrong-way crash. Investigators say the friends were driving home after a concert, and they were hit by a vehicle traveling on the wrong side of the highway. The driver, who has a criminal history in two states, is in critical condition and could be formally charged this week.

CAMEROTA: My gosh.

Samsung is stopping production of its Galaxy Note 7. It says the devices, including the replacements, are still a fire risk. Samsung asking all carriers and retailers to suspend sales and telling users to shut the device off immediately if you currently own one. Last week, a replacement phone caught fire on a plane, leading to an evacuation. An investigation into that problem is under way.

CUOMO: And I thought my kid's phone was just really hot because she uses it all the time.

CAMEROTA: That's a design flaw.

CUOMO: Donald Trump isn't the only person affected by the release of this controversial tape from "Access Hollywood" in 2005. The "Today" show has suspended host Billy Bush. The women they were discussing in that video are now speaking out.

Let's discuss this with CNN's senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES", Brian Stelter, and CNN contributor and author of "War for Late Night," Bill Carter.

So, we have a clip of Nancy O'Dell, who was really the primary target of what was being said on tape by Trump and Bush. Let's hear her response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY O'DELL, ANCHOR, ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT: By now, I'm sure that most of you have heard the audiotape, which became national news and part of the presidential race. My name was mentioned, and unfortunately, the release of it has thrown in the middle of the political arena, of which I didn't ask to be a part. I released a statement on Saturday, and I truly mean what I said. There is no room for objectification of women, or anyone for that matter, not even in the locker room.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: All right. Lousy situation for O'Dell, but she dealt with it. And now hopefully she gets to move on.

So, what is going on in the state of play, Brian, of the fallout from the video?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, Billy Bush is on the bench, and it seems like he'll be on the bench for quite a while. NBC is looking into this in more detail now, making sure there aren't other tapes, trying to figure out when Billy Bush knew about this tape, and trying to figure out whether he can viably come back to the "Today" show. I think the answer is no. Staffers of the show say he will not be back.

BILL CARTER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: And female staffers really spoke out against him coming on.

CAMEROTA: But -- basically, he said he's ashamed and embarrassed by the tape. He put out a statement immediately. He said he played along. He played along. Sometimes when a guest comes on, you curry favor with the guest, and you play along. Why is he being so --

CARTER: He played along in a way a lot of people, seems kind of revolting, because he's laughing, he's snickering, he's pointing out this woman's legs. He called for the hug, which I think really put it over the line, because it's like, let's set up a thing where you're actually touching the guy after he said, you know, I go in for the kiss, I obviously grab people.

I mean, it seemed like he was enabling the situation.

CUOMO: But is it weird -- is this NBC showing that it has to drop the hammer because of what's happened with, you know, fill in the blank, other anchors they've had? Or --

CARTER: I think there's some of that, yes.

CUOMO: But it's a little weird. You had one guy running for the president of the United States. Another guy who's not even on the main "Today" show. He's on the entertainment version later on. He's paying the big price.

STELTER: And there's election context to all of this, right, because this happened a month before the election with a nation that really is on edge about this election. I think that is partly why NBC is reacting the way it did. Come out a year ago, I don't think we see the same kind of reactions we're seeing today.

CARTER: Yes, but I think they're trying to present him as a journalist, they're pushing the narrative that this guy is a journalist.

CAMEROTA: And that he might replace Matt Lauer.

STELTER: That was the idea.

CARTER: That rumor was certainly out there. That really blew that up, clearly.

CAMEROTA: So you know, there are also rumors that another shoe is going to drop and there might be other vulgar tapes and maybe there were some outtakes from "The Apprentice" when Donald Trump was hosting it. What do we know about the status of whether or not there are other tapes?

CARTER: We know other staffers that used to work on the show that said Trump would make sexist and inappropriate comments behind the scenes, talking about camera women, talking about contestants, and things like that.

[06:55:03] There could be transcripts and there could be tapes, but this context is very hard to obtain. This is old video locked away in a vault. And Mark Burnett, the producer of the show, came out last night and said, I don't have the right or the ability to release this material.

CUOMO: Does it --

CARTER: I think there's a complication in this. He said there's a contractual situation that prevents it. And I -- what I understand now is there was no contractual obligation because he was a co-owner, but whatever his settlement was when he left NBC, there could have been something --

CUOMO: Anti-disparagement.

CARTER: Disparagement thing, exactly.

CUOMO: That wouldn't be unusual. It's not unusual in contractual terms when party's are leaving. So, you have the how much does this matter. We have this new poll where Trump took a hit. It's unusual for there to be a yawning gap between candidates at this point in an election.

However, a lot of his supporters don't buy it. They think it's tarring him unfairly, unfair standard, especially compared to the Clintons. And we're starting to get a taste of this being turned back on the media.

We have a clip of what was done with some of the Trump supporters with CNN reporters at one of his rallies. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And this crooked media. You talk about crooked Hillary, they're worse than she is.

CROWD: CNN sucks! CNN sucks! CNN sucks!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, I get why people criticize the media. Often, it is with good reason. I grew up most of my life not liking the media. But I think this is very high on the list of irresponsible things the

guy has done. Katy Tur at NBC had to be walked to her damn car by the Secret Service because of what came out face. He doesn't think about the implications to anybody other than himself.

Have you ever heard of anybody in politics, let alone a presidential nominee, doing anything like this to the fourth estate?

CAMEROTA: This is much, much worse than what we've seen in the past. It's one thing for candidates to criticize the press, say they're getting bad coverage, but Donald Trump is routinely lying to his supporters about the media, in little ways and in big ways. And that has damaging effects for the viewers who are watching and more importantly for the voters who support him because they're being misled.

CARTER: And there's a mob mentality now at stake. These people are yelling and shouting and threatening reporters in a way I've never seen.

CAMEROTA: That's right. They go over to the press pen. I mean, there's the large issue of obviously denigrating the press, but then there's the individual aspect of people going to the press. Press are penned in, and yelling at them, making vulgar gestures at them.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: I dealt with that at the RNC. I get the passion.

But a politician has a responsibility. You shape the passion of people. I don't mean to call supporters sheep. I respect people who want to back politicians. Trust me.

But he makes them angry. And then instead of saying things to you, they want to do things to you. I'm telling you, something is going to happen. Something is going to happen.

STELTER: He needs to help bring the temperature down. Instead, he keeps raising the temperature by lying to them.

CARTER: His whole defense now is to stir his base. I think this is playing into that as well.

STELTER: What we're seeing is denialism as well. He's been citing these online surveys that say he won the debate. Those online surveys are unscientific. If you don't believe me, you can believe FOX, you can believe lots of media outlets.

CUOMO: It started as a joke. I used to joke, Trump is going to get me arrested some day. Somebody is going to say something, and I'm going to wind up getting arrested.

Now, it's not a joke anymore. I got to walk around with Camerota 24/7.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I protect him. Bill, Brian, thank you.

STELTER: Thanks.

CUOMO: What's your take? Tweet us @NewDay. If you don't like this, if you're angry at the media, tweet, Alisyn Camerota, Alisyn with a Y. You can also post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay.

CAMEROTA: I look forward to reading it.

CUOMO: There's a lot of news. A brand new poll that shows potential fallout for Donald Trump. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: Without the media, Hillary Clinton couldn't be elected dogcatcher.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He wants to talk about what we've been doing the last 30 years, bring it on.

TRUMP: Oh, this is a bad one. Needs Wall Street money in order to successfully run her campaign. Okay. So what else is new?

CLINTON: Donald Trump spent his time attacking when he should have been apologizing.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I worry about the future of the Republican Party.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: It is a troubling situation. I meant what I said.

TRUMP: Isn't it too bad we don't have stronger leadership? Isn't it really sad?

CLINTON: He is an equal opportunity insulter if there ever was one.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY.

Up first, the nation's top Republican, Paul Ryan, says he can no longer defend the party's nominee. He's going to focus instead, he says, on protecting the GOP's majority in the House and Senate. Republicans seem to be closer to civil war than we have seen since the Trump effect took hold. And it comes at the same time that Trump's numbers are dropping in the latest poll.

Just as he ramps up attacks against the Clintons. Any connection? There are certainly a lot at stake. Eight days remaining until the final debate. Election Day exactly four weeks away.

CNN has all the news.