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Some GOP Politicians Distancing Themselves from Donald Trump; Hurricane Matthew Threatening North Carolina; Interview with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 11, 2016 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: CNN has every angle covered for you. Let's begin with chief political correspondent Dana Bash. Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. That 11 point deficit is exhibit A in why Republicans and the House speaker is now telling his rank and file he will not defend Donald Trump anymore and they shouldn't feel compelled to either.

GOP strategists I talked to say they're starting to see indications in polling that Trump's spiral is threatening House Republicans. Plus, there is real concern that that "Access Hollywood" tape is not the end of it, that more is coming. So Congressional leaders have now fully and publicly shifted into self-preservation mode. Privately they're saying that the way things are going the House may be the only place for Republicans to keep a check and balance on Democrats.

But a lot of conservatives are angry about what the new message is from the speaker, Paul Ryan. They voiced that to Ryan and other leaders on a conference call yesterday. They argued that Ryan is waiving the white flag of surrender, making it a sure thing that Hillary Clinton will win and likely be able to stack the Supreme Court, the ultimate concern for social conservative. So they aren't happy.

They're not the only ones. Take a look at what the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, tweeted himself this morning. Here's what he said. "Despite winning the second debate in a landslide, every poll, it is hard to do well when Paul Ryan and others give zero support."

Now I should say for the record Trump is alluding to online surveys that are not even close to scientific. But putting that aside what is important is he is laying the groundwork to blame Paul Ryan and other leaders if he loses. Team Ryan calls that ridiculous, as you can imagine, that Trump is doing all of that on his own, thank them very much. But Trump has a lot of clout with the Republican base that Ryan needs, too, that the GOP is on the precipice of an epic mess.

CAMEROTA: OK, Dana, on that note, thank you very much for all of that reporting.

Donald Trump is threatening to retaliate against the Clintons if more tapes are released. CNN's Joe Johns is live in Detroit with more. Hi, Joe. JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn. After a quick trip here to

Detroit and on to Columbus, Ohio, Hillary Clinton is campaigning in Florida today. Donald Trump is there as well, with only the latest signs that this often ugly race could get even worse before Election Day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton back on the campaign trail after what many are calling the ugliest debate in U.S. story. A bitter tone from Trump toward his opponent, the media, and his own party.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She's crooked folks. She's crooked as a $3 bill. Lock her up is right.

JOHNS: The Republican nominee again promising to investigate his rival if elected.

TRUMP: I said we are going to get a special prosecutor to figure this deal out.

JOHNS: While acknowledging that other inflammatory tapes of him may exist, but warning if they're released, he'll attack even harder.

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

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Friends don't let friends vote for Trump. That is exactly the case, right?

JOHNS: Hillary Clinton ignoring Trump's warnings and attempting to keep the focus on the 2005 tape where Trump is hear vulgarly bragging about sexual assault, something he said was just words, not actions.

CLINTON: The whole world heard him talking about the terrible way he treats women. 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.

JOHNS: The Democratic nominee increasingly confident despite thousands of hacked e-mails released by WikiLeaks concerning the inner workings of her campaign and apparent excerpts from her Wall Street speeches.

TRUMP: Wikileaks, I love WikiLeaks.

JOHNS: Clinton defending herself against Trump's attacks on her decades of public service.

CLINTON: On the day that I was in the situation room watching the raid that brought Usama bin Laden to justice, he was hosting "Celebrity Apprentice." So if he wants to talk about what we've been doing the last 30 years, bring it on.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: The Clinton campaign says the candidate is happy with her performance in the last debate and happy with polls that show her in the lead, but they continue to say they believe that by the time we get to the November election this will still be a close race. Chris, back to you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Joe.

Trump loves WikiLeaks. It's a felony. Let's discuss what's going on in the party and the state of election. We have former political director for George W. Bush, Matt Schlapp, he supports Donald Trump, and CNN political commentator Symone Sanders, former national press secretary for Bernie Sanders, no relation, now a Clinton supporter.

[08:05:15] So let's put up the tweet. Let's see what's going on. Trump puts up a tweet saying despite a big win and a landslide every poll -- not true. The scientific poll, the CNN poll he did not win. He lost handily. He's talking about online surveys. They're garbage. So he is laying blame there, Matt Schlapp, because look what's happening in your party. Put up the faces, 32. This is a wall of heroes or this is a wanted poster depending on your perspective. What's going on within the GOP?

MATT SCHLAPP, FORMER POLITICAL DIRECTOR FOR GEORGE W. BUSH: Chris, I think you've got it right, we're not unified. And it makes it awfully tough to win a nationwide election when you're not unified. But by the same token, one of Donald Trump' biggest strengths is he's taking on Washington. And he's fairly critical of Congress including Republicans in Congress. So it's always been an icy relationship between Donald Trump and Congress. And when this tape came out politicians do what politicians do, they did what they thought was in their best interests, and that's what's happening here. Politicians are trying to navigate the situation so that they can win November. I can't really say I blame them for that, but as a Republican, I'm sad that we're not more unified.

CUOMO: Well, quick follow on that.

SCHLAPP: Sure.

CUOMO: Do you believe that Donald Trump is somebody that should galvanize support? Are you proud to get behind him given all that's come to light?

SCHLAPP: I'm disgusted by what came out in that tape. I said it immediately.

CUOMO: Then why say it's just a political calculation? Maybe they're making a moral calculation, an integrity based calculation.

SCHLAPP: Because the problem with that, Chris, as you know, is we're running against a candidate who has been involved in scandals for 25 years that are incredibly serious in nature, starting with -- I mean, if you go through all of that, you didn't even bring up in your two stories, one of the things about that debate that was so interesting is he brought those four women to the debate. We might not like to talk about it but that is part of the record. And Hillary Clinton has her own scandals, everything from stealing $20,000 of White House furniture to lying about her server, lying about her emails, lying to the families of the Benghazi victims. Chris, it's fair to say that the Clintons have their own checkered past of scandals that are incredibly more serious and in the process they've gotten rich.

CUOMO: So Schlapp says it's OK to back Trump because the Clintons are just as bad as he is, and he references those four women that were brought connected to Bill Clinton's sexploits. Do you see that as a fair equivalence?

SYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't. I like Matt Schlapp but --

CUOMO: Not me.

(LAUGHTER)

SANDERS: Unfortunately, it's not OK. Donald Trump has disparaged every single person possible in this election, women, African- Americans, or the blacks as he likes to call us, the Hispanic community, the disabled community, the Muslim community, gold star families, veterans, Republicans and Democrats. So I -- I really don't see how anyone can say that Donald Trump is a candidate worth getting behind, but, again you know, I'm not a Republican. That's not my fight.

CUOMO: It's a relative assessment. We're talking about the unity on the GOP side. You have a little bit of the same problem on the Democratic side.

SANDERS: We're unified.

CUOMO: Manifested differently, though. So Trump gets up there during the debate and says, Bernie was right, bad judgment. Bernie was right, bad judgment. You would usually expect Bernie Sanders to come out and say, no, good judgment compared to Trump. Haven't heard it. Is part of the reason because of what came out in WikiLeaks more proof that that party was tilted in favor of Hillary Clinton's campaign? Tough spot for you, Sanders, because now you're trying to be objective as a Democrat but you were in that campaign. Proof comes out they were against you.

SANDERS: I was in that campaign. I've noted that, Chris, that there were definitely people within Democratic National Committee that didn't stay objective, that did pick sides. And lots of those people are no longer at the committee anymore and are no longer leading the party.

Look, I think our party is united. I definitely think the senator noted that he did have some issues with what was in those e-mails and what he saw in the WikiLeaks. But the fact of the matter is we have the most progressive platform in the Democratic Party's history. And what's in that platform is what Secretary Clinton and the Clinton campaign and the Sanders campaign and Bernie Sanders have said that we're going to fight for as Democrats all across this country. So we're not concerned. And I don't think we have the same issue that the Republicans have. They're in a civil war. They are fighting for the life of their party right now. We know we are as Democrats. The Republicans have no idea who they are.

CUOMO: Matt?

SCHLAPP: Yes, well, I just would say -- Symone, by the way, I like you, too, Symone. I don't know about Cuomo either.

(LAUGHTER)

SCHLAPP: But I think your platform of the Democratic platform is a great example as to why conservatives and most Republicans believe that this election is incredibly important. We all know we're sitting here right now with the Supreme Court deadlocked at four-four. The next president is going to have their first decision be who is that ninth Supreme Court justice.

[08:10:02] And I don't want to get personal, but there are several other justices that are a little long in the tooth. And you could see two to four picks by the next president of the United States.

You also see the Obama administration, which Clinton wants to continue, this war on our own energy production, this war on coal. If you go through issue after issue after issue, the Obama agenda scares a lot of people in this country. Obamacare has never been a popular initiative, and we're all seeing the impact in our pocketbook. And furthermore, the economy is weak.

And so as a conservative and a Republican, how could we do anything that would allow for a third Obama term? That is the moral question and the political question we're faced with, Chris. I don't think it's actually that complicated.

SANDERS: Chris, wait. We have had job growth. Actually, we've had, what, 25, 26 straight months of job care growth in this country. Obamacare, the Affordable Health Care Act, has led to 25 plus million Americans having insurance, people that previously had preexisting conditions that could not get health care, people in Matt's party actually that have benefitted from the Affordable Health Care Act. So let's not sit here and act as though the Obama years have been horrible. President Obama pulled this country out of the ditch that the Republican Party drove it into, and Hillary Clinton is going to take that to the next level. The Republican Party is bleeding out, they are bleeding out, they're hemorrhaging. And I just want to remind people that today is the last day to register to vote in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

CUOMO: You have 500,000 people who have already voted.

Matt, put a quick button on this and I have a last question for you.

SCHLAPP: Quickly, there's a big differential between Obama's popularity and Hillary Clinton's popularity. And I'm not talking about just what I think about these issues. Look at the polls. A majority of Americans, 70 percent of Americans believe that we're on the wrong track and they think the economy is in the ditch. This isn't me saying this. This is the American people saying this. There is a deep discontent in the American electorate, which is why Bernie Sanders did so well and why Donald Trump did so well. Let's be honest.

CUOMO: Last question last question. You're about to roll the bones here, Matt Schlapp. You're coming into the final four weeks. Donald Trump seems to believe that he can win this election if he can tear down Bill Clinton and take Hillary along with him. Do you back that proposition?

SCHLAPP: I think both candidates believe that. I was called deplorable and I think that was a big mistake on Hillary Clinton's part.

CUOMO: She didn't call you deplorable. You know she wasn't talking about you. You know she was talking about the alt right, and you do not identify as that.

SCHLAPP: She said -- I am not a bigot. She said 50 percent of his supporters.

CUOMO: And then she corrected it and said that was too big a number. I shouldn't have said that. But there is a group. You know what she said. But go ahead. Make your point.

SCHLAPP: OK. My point -- my point is this, which is the candidate will win who is able to connect with the discontent out there in the electorate, and that's primarily in the economy. It also involves our national security and it involves a broken Washington. Yes, Donald Trump is pushing back on these allegations, but in the end he will only win this race if he connects to voters on the central issues.

CUOMO: Matt Schlapp, Symone Sanders, good to have you both. Schlapp, you know I love you. You're always welcome on this show, but your wife is nicer.

(LAUGHTER)

SCHLAPP: Fair enough.

CUOMO: Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: He agrees.

North Carolina is still reeling from significant flooding in the aftermath of hurricane Matthew. Rivers are spilling over their banks and they're leaving communities under water. Thousands of people are still in shelters. CNN's Stephanie Elam is live in hard hit Tarboro, North Carolina. What's the situation there, Stephanie?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, when you take a look at the fact that North Carolina did not get a direct hit from hurricane Matthew, you might be shocked that of the 21 deaths in the United States from the hurricane, 11 of those related to the storm have happened here in North Carolina. Governor Pat McCrory actually estimating that there are about 1 million people that are without power here.

And take a look behind me just to give you an idea of what this looks like here. We've been watching this canal which connects to the Tar River which runs between Tarboro and Princeville, the next town over, and it has been rising. We've been watching it rising a little bit this morning as well. This is the problem that is affecting people here, a mandatory evacuation. In other parts of the state you're also seeing people being evacuated by boat, by helicopter to get them to safety. President Obama even declaring a major disaster here in the state so federal funds are available to people in 10 counties including this one here.

There's another concern though besides just this. It's also voter registration. In Florida they've extended the voter registration deadline to one more day till tomorrow. That was against the governor's wishes but the Democrats sued to get that. And here in North Carolina things are staying the same but the people who are in charge of voting here are checking county to county to make sure everything is OK. If there is deemed an issue, they will review that, but for now early voter registration will end on Friday, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Good to know, Stephanie. Thanks so much for that reporting.

To learn how you can help the victims of hurricane Matthew go to CNN.com/impact.

[08:15:04] CUOMO: Hillary Clinton may be up in the latest national poll, but Donald Trump is threatening to take her down by getting even nastier. Hey, it's easy to dismiss this strategy. It hasn't worked in the past. Now, it's a different time.

We'll discuss the potential, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Did anybody see that debate last night? Well, you never saw anything like that before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That's fair to say.

Hillary Clinton is back on the campaign trail talking about her debate performance. This as Trump vows to launch more personal attacks on the Clintons if more videos of him are leaked.

A new national poll shows her beating Trump by 11 points today. But many say it is too soon for a victory lap.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. He's a Clinton supporter.

Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY), HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTER: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: So, how are you feeling? Is it too soon to start counting all of the chickens before they're hatched?

JEFFRIES: Well, it's definitely too soon. You know, at the end of the day, the only poll that matters is the one that takes place of the American people on November 8th. She certainly has had a solid two weeks in terms of her performance.

[08:20:02] She's presidential. She's prepared. She's poised. Donald Trump, you know, has continued to show himself to be rude, reckless and reprehensible.

But at the end of the day, he still has managed to rile up his base. He's got a committed group of supporters. The intensity of that support is significant. And so, Hillary Clinton, the entire Democratic Party have to continue to move forward, press our message of improving upon what Barack Obama has already done in keeping the country moving forward.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask you about the substance of some of the e- mails from John Podesta, one of her top advisors, that were released in this WikiLeaks dump. They were hacked. Heaven forbid, any of our e-mail be hacked. I know this is a very uncomfortable position to have of sort of see the dirty laundry out there.

However, it's a front page "New York Times" article about just how managed Hillary Clinton is, just how much debate in her campaign goes in to sort of everything that comes out of her mouth. There was a debate among her advisors about whether or not she should tell a joke at a dinner.

Why do they manage her to within an inch of her life?

JEFFRIES: Well, look, the Hillary Clinton that I know I've seen spontaneity, I've seen someone who's incredibly personable in a one- on-one interaction, in small groups.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And because of that, it's all the more curious that there's always -- that her top advisors, there's all of this handwringing what she should say here and how much the message will be perceived here. I mean, is it too much?

JEFFRIES: Not at all. She's the one ultimately that decides what she projects in the information that she communicates to the American people. And I think the fact that there's precision and there's preparation in the Hillary Clinton campaign suggests that we'll see precision and preparation in terms of her presidency. And that's a good thing, given all that challenges that she'll face domestically and across the world.

CAMEROTA: Here's one of the excerpts from one of her speeches. This was at a luncheon. And Donald Trump is using this to suggest is that she has not been completely honest about the vetting of refugees.

Let me read it for you. She said, "There's a discussion going on now across the region to try to see where there might be common ground to deal with the threat posed by extremism and particularly Syria, which has everyone quite worried, Jordan, because it's on their border, and they have hundreds of thousands of refugees, and they can't possibly vet all of those refugees, so they don't know if, you know, jihadists are coming in, along with legitimate refugees.

That seems counter to her confidence about letting in Syrian refugees.

JEFFRIES: Well, first of all, you know, the Middle East has been a mess for centuries. And we have made some tremendous progress under this administration, particularly as it relates to the most significant threat that our country, and Israel, and the gulf states confronted which is the situation with Iran.

CAMEROTA: Sure.

JEFFRIES: I agree.

Now, on the refugee issue, I think that we've got the most significant, robust screening process that is already in place that takes anywhere between 18 and 24 months background checks, extensive. They aren't let into the country until we have a reasonable degree of confidence and the proof is in the pudding in terms of the fact that we haven't seen any meaningful problems of the refugees who have been let into this country.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And in fairness, she was talking about Jordan here, OK? So, Donald Trump is acting as though she was talking about the U.S. and that we're not vetting them properly. She was talking about Jordan. However, we haven't heard her publicly ever talk about her fear with people infiltrating the refugee population.

JEFFRIES: Well, it's a reasonable concern for anyone to have. I would think that actually it would be irresponsible not for her to think through all of the possibilities, all of the potential vulnerabilities as it relates to the refugees who may be let into this country.

But again, I think we can always look at how we can improve upon the process, but the reality of the situation is that those who have come to this country have largely been women and children and the elderly, and that will continue to be the case.

CAMEROTA: Your House speaker, Paul Ryan, publicly announces that he can no longer defend Donald Trump. He is going to focus, he says, on preserving the House. Do you think you have a chance of taking back the House?

JEFFRIES: Absolutely. You know, House Republicans are in self- preservation mode right now because they want to distance themselves from the party of Trump when in reality they created this phenomenon. It's been House Republicans for instance who recklessly shut down the government in 2013, caused the American economy $24 billion in lost economy productivity. They've adopted the harsh immigration positions that Trump now --

CAMEROTA: But you think you're going to pick up 30 seats?

JEFFRIES: We picked up 29 in 2006. And so, in the context of a wave election, there's historic precedent. And a significant number of seats currently held by House Republican were won by Barack Obama. If Hillary Clinton can improve on Barack Obama's performance slightly, as she looks like she'll do right now, we'll be in the House majority. That will be good for the American people.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Jeffries, thanks so much. Great to have you here in studio.

Let's get over to crisis.

CUOMO: All right.

So, Trump is promising to unleash more vicious attacks on the Clintons.

[08:25:03] It's a nuclear strategy. It hasn't worked in the past. Maybe this time it will. We're going to debate this. We have former White House speechwriter, David Frum. He's going to talk about it here, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Oh, it's on now. Bill and Hillary Clinton going down in a flood of their own dirty deeds if anymore tape comes out of Trump being himself. Trump literally just promised this tactic as you saw. That was at a Pennsylvania rally just the other day and the crowd went wild.

Will it work? Joining us to debate, the senior editor of "The Atlantic", David Frum. Not only a fully minted conservative but I followed your reporting closely in the '90s even though you look younger than I do today where you were going very hard on the issues that were presented by Bill Clinton's impeachment process.

So, let us debate whether this can work or not. I'm going to take the side that Trump is advancing. Here is his rationale in sound. Let's play it.