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Several Women Accuse Trump of Unwanted Advances; WikiLeaks Releases More Hacked Clinton Campaign E-mails. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 13, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want Trump.

[05:58:16] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I see all these "Women 4 Trump" signs. I love this.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Explosive allegations against Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Put a robe or kind of dress yourself. He walked in.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The whole world has heard how Donald Trump treats women. We're not going to let Donald Trump get away with it, are we?

COREY LEWANDOWSKY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This took place years ago. We're first hearing about it 27 days before the election.

TRUMP: WikiLeaks, right? It's big stuff. She has to go to jail.

CLINTON: They're going to use a, quote, scorched-earth strategy. That just shows how desperate they are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, October 13, 6 a.m. in the east, and the election has taken another sordid turn. Donald Trump says his lewd comments about women was just locker-room talk and that he never did what he said. Well, several women have come forward saying he is lying, alleging he made unwanted advances toward them. Two women telling their stories to "The New York Times," another to "People" magazine, one of their writers.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Trump denies these new allegations, and he is threatening lawsuits. This already ugly presidential race becoming now a fight over who has treated women worse. We are just 26 days until election day and only six days until the

final debate. We have it all covered for you this morning. Let's start with CNN's Jason Carroll. He's live in Ocala, Florida.

Good morning, Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Alisyn.

Trump's lawyer says this whole thing is politically motivated. He called "The Times" article reckless and defamatory. CNN has not been able to independently verify the accounts of these women. We should also warn our viewers that some of the language that they are about to hear is very graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): Several women speaking out, accusing Donald Trump of touching them inappropriately.

JESSICA LEEDS, ACCUSES DONALD TRUMP OF INAPPROPRIATE TOUCHING: It was a real shock when all of a sudden his hands were all over me.

CARROLL: Two of these women, Jessica Leeds and Rachel Crooks, telling "The New York Times" they were both groped or kissed by Trump without consent. The incident with Leeds allegedly took place 35 years ago when she sat next to the billionaire in the first-class cabin on a flight.

LEEDS: If he had stuck with the upper part of the body, I might not have gotten -- I might not have gotten that upset. When he started putting his hand up my skirt, that was it.

CARROLL: Crooks telling "The Times" after introducing herself to Trump outside an elevator at Trump Tower, Crooks alleges he would not let go of her hand, then kissed her directly on the mouth, something she says felt like a violation. Crooks says this happened in 2005.

TRUMP: You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them.

CARROLL: That same year, Trump boasted to Billy Bush about how he forces himself on women.

BILLY BUSH, FORMER HOST, "ACCESS HOLLYWOOD": Whatever you want.

TRUMP: Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.

CARROLL: The two women telling "The New York Times" they came forward after watching Trump deny ever assaulting women at Sunday's debate.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Have you ever done those things?

TRUMP: Women have respect for me. And I will tell you, no, I have not.

CARROLL: The Trump campaign says the entire article is fiction, calling "New York Times" story a coordinated character assassination.

Also in 2005, Natasha Stoynoff, a writer for "People" magazine, claims that she was physically attacked by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate while writing a piece on Trump and his wife, Melania's, one-year anniversary. Stoynoff says she was briefly alone with Trump in a room when, "within seconds, he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat."

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but a Trumps spokesperson told the magazine, "This never happened. There is no merit or veracity to this fabricated story."

This as another recording that year reveals Trump bragging to Howard Stern about going backstage at the beauty pageants he owns.

TRUMP: I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant, and therefore I'm inspecting it. They're standing there with no clothes. "Is everybody OK?" And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.

CARROLL: Former Miss Arizona, Tasha Dixon, tells CNN that's exactly what happened in 2001.

TASHA DIXON, FORMER MISS ARIZONA: It was announced Donald Trump was going to come in, and before you could put a robe or kind of dress yourself, he walked in. And you know, some women were half naked. Others were in the process of changing.

It puts us in not only a physical, vulnerable position, but also an emotional state.

CARROLL: Trump's campaign manager refusing to comment.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: There's no way for me to know what happened there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And the Clinton campaign quick to come out with a response, saying, "These reports suggest that he lied on the debate stage and that the disgusting behavior he bragged about in the tape is more than just words." This is a subject that is sure to come up at the next debate next Wednesday -- Chris, Alisyn.

CUOMO: All right. All right, Jason, let's discuss these allegations right now with CNN political analyst and national political reporter for "The New York Times" Alex Burns. And we have political reporter for "The Washington Post" Philip Bump; and CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast" Jackie Kucinich.

Let us replay what happened during the town hall. This was the first time that the allegations about what were on the audio- and videotape with the "Access Hollywood" situation were kind of discussed, and Anderson Cooper pressed to get the difference between talk and action. Here's what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Just for the record, though, are you saying that what you said on that bus 11 years ago, that you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope women without consent?

TRUMP: I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women than I do.

COOPER: So for the record, you're saying you never did that?

TRUMP: I said things that, frankly -- you hear these things; they're said. And I was embarrassed by it, but I have tremendous respect for women.

COOPER: Have you ever done those things?

TRUMP: And women have respect for me. And I will tell you, no, I have not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, Bump, the aftermath of that, even during it, Anderson Cooper, why is he being such a pest? Why is he interrupting? The media is so unfair. He wouldn't answer the question. He pushed him to answer the question. He answered the question. Women heard that answer and said, "That's a lie" and came forward. Where does this go?

PHILIP BUMP, POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It's a great question of where it goes. I mean, I think it doesn't go anywhere good for Donald Trump.

I mean, I think it's worth pointing out that Donald Trump had avoided the press. He's been avoiding the press for a long time, save some softball interviews that he's done with another network. This was the first time he'd been confronted with it, and it was in this huge audience with all these millions of people watching. It was a bad place for him to be presented with that question and then give that answer, from what we're learning from these women who have come forward.

[06:05:10] But Donald Trump is already in bad shape with women. He's in bad shape particularly with white women with college degrees. They may have given him a second chance after hearing his apology during the debate, but with these new allegations coming, it's hard to see how many of them come back to his campaign.

CAMEROTA: Alex, can Donald Trump ever talk about the allegations against Bill Clinton again?

ALEX BURNS, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, he certainly can. I think he's opened an entirely different front in this campaign by trying to argue -- excuse me -- that the words that he has said in the past are merely words, whereas what Bill Clinton has done, that's action; it's deplorable in an entirely different way.

CAMEROTA: Right, but now we have all this... BURNS: Now the story has really changed.

CAMEROTA: Right. Let me read something from "People" magazine in term of the action. This is one of the women, who was a celebrity entertainment reporter; and she was doing the profile on Donald and Melania Trump for their first wedding anniversary. This is in 2005. This is what she says happened.

She and Donald Trump walked into that room alone. "Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat."

That was when Melania had gone up to do an outfit change. There are action -- women have come forward with actions now.

BURNS: And what I think makes it so difficult for the Trump campaign to sort of brush these allegations aside is this is precisely the behavior that he was describing on the "Access Hollywood" tape, and you have multiple women coming forward at exactly the same time, describing those experiences.

So this is not a matter of, you know, a person here, a person there throwing charges that seem to come out of left field. This is entirely consistent with what we've heard Donald Trump say on his own.

CUOMO: It's also contemporaneous. You have this in 2005. You have the "Access Hollywood" tape in 2005, and you have the Howard Stern discussion that we played for you this morning about them joking around about what Trump does with his pageants, 2005.

Jackie, the big pushback from the campaign thus far, other than we're going to sue, this is all a lie, is "Why now? Why did they wait so long to come forward? Conveniently timed to hurt our campaign here towards the end of the election." What do you make of that?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I mean, in "The New York Times" story, what these women said was that after they heard Donald Trump make that denial during the debate is when they felt like they were compelled to come forward.

So, that seems to be the answer to that question. And, if women were calling different news outlets, there's a story in the "Palm Beach Post." There's the "People" magazine story. Once you're seeing that, it does seem to be triggered by what Donald Trump said in the debate.

CAMEROTA: And there's another reason, and that is that women are afraid to come forward -- not afraid. Women are embarrassed; women are humiliated. This is an experience that you do not relish ever telling in public.

KUCINICH: That's true.

CAMEROTA: And that is what this same entertainment reporter from "People" magazine wrote about.

CUOMO: Although the women do say in several of the accounts that they did tell people at that time in their closed circle.

CAMEROTA: Yes, they did. Yes.

CUOMO: That's very important.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. And in fact, I believe she went to her managing editor and told her and wondered whether she should get the whole story about Donald Trump's, you know, domestic bliss killed, because she knew the truth. Here's what she says, though. "Like many women, I was ashamed, and I blamed myself for his transgression. I minimized it: it's not like he raped me. I doubted my recollection and my reaction. I was afraid that a famous, powerful, wealthy man could and would discredit and destroy me, especially if I got his coveted 'People' feature killed." You hear this time and again from women -- Bill Cosby alleged victims, Bill Clinton's alleged victims -- they all say the same thing. That's why they didn't want to talk.

BUMP: That's exactly right. I think we have now had enough experience with situations like this that most Americans who pay even a passing attention to the news should know that this is the pattern that emerges, that there are isolated incidents in which people don't say anything and they feel perhaps as if they are the only ones that experience this sort of activity.

What we saw after the debate was Donald Trump said, "No, this didn't happen." But all of these individual people stepped forward and said, "Wait, but that actually did happen to me." Little did they know there were other people stepping forward at the same time.

But again, we've seen this pattern again and again.

CUOMO: Look, no small irony that he decided to go down an ill-advised road, not because were saying, "Hey, your stuff's going to come out, Donald." Although there was a suggestion of that. You know, he's had a fairly sordid past. What's true, what isn't? We're going to have to figure it out.

But now this election, now we're all in a mess here, Alex. Because what do you do? Do you not go down the road of trying to figure out these allegations with these women? Isn't that a disservice to them and their rights and their lives? Or do you cover the issues that we were supposed to be covering and try and force the narrative back? You know, we're in a little bit of a box here about what do you do now that this is out there.

BURNS: Yes, I think this is, in some ways, a more straightforward choice than some of the questions that journalists deal with in presidential elections when it comes to politicians' personal lives. This is not a question of marital infidelity. Right? This is a question of sexual assault.

[06:10:09] And so that raises a set of legal and character-related issues that are much more profound than the sort of question of, you know, should we cover Gary Hart running off for the weekend for...

CUOMO: This isn't a bad-boy thing. You believe there is a responsibility to follow up on this now, that there is an urgency.

BURNS: Yes, and I think, to Alisyn's point, the -- this idea coming from the Trump campaign that, well, isn't it convenient, isn't it easy for these people to ambush him in this way now a couple weeks before the election. No, it's not easy, and it's not. It's incredibly difficult.

We've seen unbelievable backlash directed at people who criticize Donald Trump in this election, including reporters with very significant news platforms of their own. These are basically private people, for the most part, coming forward now, and they're taking a big risk in doing so. It is our responsibility to be skeptical and to scrutinize all the allegations against the presidential candidate, but, of course, there's a responsibility to go there.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, very quickly, does this come up at the next debate on Wednesday night?

KUCINICH: I think it has to. I mean, it's ultimately up to Chris Wallace, but this does -- this does raise a lot of really important questions, and you have to imagine it would be addressed at the presidential debate.

CAMEROTA: OK, panel, thank you very much. Please, stick around. We have many more questions for you, because there's another batch of hacked e-mails from inside Hillary Clinton's campaign. They've been released. What do they reveal, and could they damage Clinton in the home stretch of her campaign? We discuss that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:42] CUOMO: There is more fruit of that WikiLeaks dump about Hillary Clinton's campaign, and it's getting traction, has the campaign on the defensive. This time, there is a lot of talk about whether or not there is respect for Catholicism within the Clinton organization.

CNN senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns live in Washington with the latest.

That's just one of the suggestions, Joe. What else?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, another day, another drip of stolen e-mails from WikiLeaks. It's a continuing distraction for the Clinton campaign, because they've been forced to respond again and again to the public release of internal messages between some of Hillary Clinton's closest aides.

This time the communications director, Jen Palmieri, in the spotlight for seemingly joking or mocking Catholics and evangelicals. Palmieri in the 2011 e-mails suggesting some people see Catholicism as the most politically acceptable conservative religion, because their rich friends wouldn't understand if they became evangelicals.

Palmieri, by the way, is Catholic. Trump and his campaign pouncing on the messages and the messengers. Campaign chair John Podesta in a statement placing the blame for the stolen e-mails on attempts by Russia to destabilize the U.S. election and accusing Donald Trump of being in cahoots with the Russian government. Quote, "This level of meddling by a foreign power can only be aimed at boosting Donald Trump and should send chills down the spine of all Americans, regardless of political party."

It matters because the Clinton campaign readily admits it's often difficult for them to get their message out to voters over the daily roar from the Trump campaign; and having to respond to WikiLeaks every day isn't making it any easier.

CUOMO: All right, Joe, appreciate it.

All right. So let's do it this way. Let's play -- let's read the actual e-mail exchange, and then we'll play for you what Trump is saying that it's actually about. OK, so let's put up the e-mail if we have it.

CAMEROTA: Let's do that. Let's also bring back our guests, Alex Burns, Philip Bump and Jackie Kucinich, who are going to help us analyze this.

OK. So here is the e-mail exchange, everyone.

CUOMO: There's John Halpin.

CAMEROTA: This is John Halpin. He is a senior fellow for the Center for American Progress, and he is writing to the Clinton campaign. He says, "Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholics, many converts. It's an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations."

Then, Clinton's communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, responds: "I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn't understand if they became evangelicals."

Philip, let's talk about this exchange. Basically, it sounds to me as if Jennifer Palmieri is trying to malign Rupert Murdoch, who this was about being a Catholic, but in the process, she maligns Catholicism.

BUMP: Right.

CAMEROTA: How big of a smoking gun is this?

BUMP: Well, I mean, you know, I think it's important to keep in mind this is a 2011 private e-mail that was -- you know, became public. This is not something that became part of Hillary Clinton's talking points. This is not something that...

CAMEROTA: This is not policy. This is not let's ban all Catholics at the border. BUMP: Right, right. That's correct. It is not that. I think that

the game that we're seeing here is that Donald Trump is here in the polls, and Hillary Clinton is here in the polls. And Trump has not able to get up, so he's trying to get Hillary Clinton down, right? And so he's using things like this to try to get Catholics who are a little concerned about a Hillary Clinton presidency, he's trying to leverage that.

CUOMO: They've picked every winner except Eisenhower in the modern era. The Catholic vote is with the winner in every other election. So there is a little bit of a concern. But here's the problem. It ain't what Trump is making it out to be. Let's play what Trump is going before crowds and saying, that this e-mail that you just heard is about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The new e-mails also show members of the Clinton team viciously attacking Catholics and evangelicals. They attack Catholics and evangelicals. Viciously. Anybody of religion, I really think you have to vote for Donald Trump, to be honest with you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, there is another portion of the exchange, to what Alisyn was saying, that it is about Rupert Murdoch -- you know him. He's the head of FOX News and a lot of other media properties, about how he has decided to raise his kids Catholic. And there's a snarkiness about how he went to some high church to get them Christened, you know, like super Catholic. And they're playing with that idea.

But even taken at its worse, I don't get where Trump gets his, you know, reckoning of the situation. And I am a practicing Catholic. And so I would be very sensitive about it. I don't like people coming after my faith. I don't see it. Is there any legitimate basis for his take?

[06:20:17] BURNS: I think, certainly, his characterization is way over the top. We've seen this as a pattern, that there -- that the way he describes what's in the WikiLeaks e-mails makes them sound much, much more sensational, much, much more offensive than they actually read on paper.

I think this is the -- you know, we alluded to several of the people on that e-mail chain being Catholics themselves. I think people talk about their own faith in private differently than you would expect a politician to talk about it in public.

But Donald Trump is underperforming past Republican presidential nominees with the Catholic vote, which is a really serious problem, particularly in some of these Midwestern state where he has bet the whole farm of his campaign. So if this is just one weapon that he can use to try to bring some -- scare some people back into his corner, he's going to use it.

CUOMO: He wants to talk about what bothers Catholics, he should talk more about the refugees. The polling shows that that is a huge issue with Catholics because of the idea of helping the vulnerable in that faith.

CAMEROTA: OK. Speaking of the vulnerable, Jackie, let's talk about these other e-mails that were released. This wasn't the WikiLeaks stuff. This was from a freedom of information request that came forward. And this, once again, appears to show that there was not a firewall between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department.

During the Haiti earthquake, the Clinton Foundation was trying to flag the State Department to get attention for friends of Bill Clinton so that they could be first in line. For what? Maybe it was for aid to Haiti. Maybe it was for travel to Haiti. But either way, a State Department official responded this way in this released e-mail: "Need you to flag when people are friends of William Jefferson Clinton. Most I can probably I.D., but not all."

Jackie, what do you think of this, that, once again, it does show collusion or a cozy relationship between the two?

KUCINICH: Yes, this isn't good. And this goes back to what we've been discussing about the Clinton State Department, Clinton Foundation narrative this entire time. It does look like people that were close to the Clintons were getting better access to people of power. And people don't like that. It's not playing by the normal rules, and that's something the Trump campaign has effectively used against Hillary Clinton.

So, you have to wonder if they're going to address this more today. But this continues -- this is why the e-mails are a problem for Hillary Clinton, much more so than some of the other things that are coming out of the WikiLeaks.

CAMEROTA: All right. We'll be following it, panel. Thank you very much.

CUOMO: All right. Another story for you this morning: Tensions are rising in Yemen. You have an American warship striking back after coming under fire again in the Red Sea. Who is targeting the U.S. Navy ships? We have the latest, because there's a new denial in the situation, as well, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:26:55] CAMEROTA: We have some breaking news for you. The U.S. Navy retaliating for several missiles fired at a warship off the coast of Yemen. Tomahawk cruise missiles hit three radar sites along the Red Sea coast. This is the first time the U.S. military has directly attacked rebels in Yemen.

The Pentagon says this was in self-defense after rebels fired missiles at the USS Mason in international waters Sunday and again yesterday. The Mason was not hit. The rebels deny targeting the Navy ship.

CUOMO: We have breaking news out of Nigeria. A source telling CNN that Boca Haram has released 21 of those missing school girls to the Nigerian government. The release happening after a series of high- level negotiations involving a group from Geneva. The source says no Boca Haram fighters were released in exchange for the girls. You'll remember the terror group kidnapped more than 200 of them back in 2014.

CAMEROTA: There was a gun battle in Boston overnight. And it's left two police officers critically wounded. The city's police commissioner said the officers were responding to an apparent domestic disturbance that spiraled out of control. The suspect was shot and killed. Police say he had an assault rifle and a ballistic vest. Nine other officers were treated for stress and minor injuries.

CUOMO: The CEO of Wells Fargo is out. The company announcing that John Stumpf will retire, effective immediately. Stumpf has been under pressure to leave since regulators accused Wells Fargo of creating up to 2 million fake accounts just to meet sales goals. Stumpf testified twice before Congress last month about the scandal. There is still no legal action against him or the bank.

CAMEROTA: All right. So relations between the U.S. and Russia are getting chillier after disputes over Syria and hack attacks. Is this a new cold war? We'll dig deeper on that conflict, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)