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New Day

Trump Steps Up 'Rigged Election' Claims; U.S.-Led Coalition Begins Fight for Mosul. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 17, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Remember this. It's a rigged election.

[05:58:13] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The disturbing stories keep coming.

TRUMP: The media collaborates. It conspires directly with the Clinton campaign.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Donald Trump's words don't make me sick anymore. They make me furious.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They made it clear that it was just talk, not actions.

CLINTON: This is who Donald Trump really is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the final battle to drive ISIS out of Iraq.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Iraqi forces beginning the offensive to recapture Mosul.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well over million civilians still remain. They are expecting the worst.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, October 17, 6 a.m. in the East.

Up first, Donald Trump continuing to claim that the election is rigged. He doesn't offer any evidence, other than that the media continues to report on sexual assault allegations against him. So what will this mean for the election process?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And questions about Trump's intentions. Once again, his running mate tries to make sense of the situation, saying he will absolutely accept the result.

This morning, we have a new CNN poll of polls showing Hillary Clinton widening her lead over Trump to 8 points: 47-39. So much at stake. Just two days until the final debate, 22 days until election day.

We've got it all covered. Let's begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly.

Good morning, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

Donald Trump pushing something a rigged? That's not exactly new. He's been doing it over the course of the last 16 months, whether it's the political system or Washington, D.C. But his new focus, his new focus is unsettling politicians on both sides of the aisle. It is a dark turn to the campaign in its closing weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: Remember this, it's a rigged election.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): For Donald Trump, there's only one reason he's trailing in the polls: a conspiracy to keep him out of the White House.

TRUMP: The election is being rigged by corrupt media, pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president.

MATTINGLY: In rally after rally, tweet after tweet, Trump pushing the theory, without any evidence or recent historical precedent, that the electoral results will be rigged.

Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, trying to tone down the rhetoric, saying Trump doesn't mean literal electoral rigging.

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R-IN), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We will absolutely accept the results of the election.

The American people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. That's where the sense of a rigged election goes here.

MATTINGLY: But Trump undercutting that very message only minutes later, tweeting explicitly that the election is, quote, "absolutely being rigged" at, quote, "many polling places."

This part of a Trump Twitter storm that included against multiple personal attacks against House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Ryan pushing back on Trump's rigged election theory. A spokeswoman telling CNN, the speaker is, quote, "fully confident the election will be carried out with integrity."

Hillary Clinton's running mate Tim Kaine calling on more Republicans to speak out against Trump's allegations.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He started to make wild claims, kind of scorched-earth claims about the election being rigged, et cetera. So we have to keep putting out a message, and we need to call on

everybody to speak out about the fact that we run elections and we run them well here. And we ask the GOP leaders also to stand up for the integrity of the electoral process.

MATTINGLY: Trump also continuing to fire back at allegations of sexual assault and unwelcomed sexual advances, now, accused by nine women. Trump attacking their veracity, their character and their looks.

TRUMP: Believe me, she would not be my first choice. That I can tell you.

MATTINGLY: And unleashing one new line of attack on Hillary Clinton, that she's taking performance-enhancing drugs.

TRUMP: We should take a drug test, because I don't know what's going on with her.

MATTINGLY: The Clinton campaign calling this a shameful attempt to undermine the election.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, guys, as Chris noted, just a couple of days away from that debate, and Donald Trump actually taking a rare day off the campaign trail on Sunday to do debate prep. Hillary Clinton doing the same and really repeating what her team thinks worked so well for her in the first debate. Two days at a hotel just a few minutes away from her home in Chappaqua.

Obviously, all eyes will be on Las Vegas on Wednesday. It is the last debate, a crucial debate, Chris, as you noted, with only 22 days left -- guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, Phil, thanks so much for that.

Let's talk about all these new developments with CNN political analyst and national political reporter for "The New York Times," Alex Burns; and CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich. Great to see both of you.

Alex, this is a new argument from Donald Trump, that the election is rigged, ever since his poll numbers have faltered. Back when his poll numbers were high and he was doing well, he said that he would accept the election results. Let me remind our viewers and you what he said during the first debate at Hofstra about the election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Want to make America great again? I'm going to be able to do it. I don't believe Hillary will. The answer is if she wins, I will absolutely support her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: "I will absolutely support her if she wins," he said three weeks ago. So now what's happening?

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, what a difference just a couple weeks make. We've heard him sort of throw out the rigged election talk before. The last time he did it like this was back in August when he -- previously when he was down by a massive margin in the polls, really sort of flailing out there, and he was making the same kind of incendiary warnings that, you know, he went into central Pennsylvania and said, you know, "They're going to rig the election. You know where I'm talking about. Right?"

And for a lot of civil rights groups, they hear that, and they think it's incitement for his white supporters from rural and outer suburban areas to go into cities like Philadelphia and hassle people at the polls. And they're pretty concerned about this. The head of the Maleo (ph) Education Fund, the Hispanic civil rights group, said yesterday he's going to contact the Justice Department to ask them to sort of get involved in this preemptively, because who knows what could happen on the day of the vote.

CUOMO: So why he would do this, is an exploration of the mind not worth our time, Jackie. But in terms of the substance of what he's saying, we direct people to the Brenton Center for Justice, 2007, to News 21, to the "Philly Inquirer." All of which have vetted the idea of there being rampant fraud at the polls and the conclusion of each and all is it's just not true. What's your take?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, right. There's also that study that Loyola did where it found maybe 30 instances of actual voter fraud out of billions. I mean, this isn't a thing, but that's not stopping Donald Trump and Mike Pence, frankly, from spreading this.

[06:05:06] Yesterday on "Meet the Press," Mike Pence was asked whether they would accept the election results. But he said, yes, but almost in the next breath he went back to the fact that this election is being rigged.

CUOMO: Let's play it for people, Jackie, so they can get a sense of what Trump's running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Here's how he dealt with it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PENCE: We will absolutely accept the results of the election. Look, the American people will speak in an election that will culminate on November the 8th. But the American people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. That's where the sense of a rigged election goes here. One of the great, great traditions of America is the peaceful transfer of power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Peaceful transfer of power. That is not what you are helping to motivate when you keep spreading doubt about the legitimacy of the process. KUCINICH: Exactly. And to Alisyn's point earlier, they haven't

really offered any evidence. And so people are sort of filling the blanks themselves. And so that's why you see that -- you see people quoted in various states that there might be violence. They're going to make sure that people who don't look like them are vetted or that they're going to watch them. It really is -- it's a troubling, troubling rhetoric coming out of the Trump campaign and coming from down on the ground, going into election day.

And let's not forget people are actually voting right now. So, it's not that there might be some fracas at the polls, but this is already happening.

CAMEROTA: Let's dive into the facts, OK, because as Chris said, there's this organization, this group, News 21. It's all the top journalism students from universities around the country, and they did this exhaustive study to look at one issue for the year. They looked at it over a decade, of voter fraud. And they really dove in, and here's what they found.

You know what's interesting is, yes, there is -- there are isolated incidents, Alex. Everybody has an anecdote of some kind. Maybe an urban myth but some anecdote of seeing a bus full of people coming -- crossing a state border. But here's what they truly found. And let's put it up again for people. A hundred and forty-six million total registered voters. Out of those there were 2,068 alleged voter fraud cases. OK? So it does happen. It's not Big Foot.

CUOMO: The allegations happen.

CAMEROTA: OK. The allegations happen.

Then there were ten cases of voter impersonation reported. That's what, you know, voter I.D. is supposed to...

CUOMO: Dead people voting.

CAMEROTA: Sure. So, ten cases. OK. Out of the 146 million people. There's more.

They -- they drilled down on Arizona, Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Kansas. That's where attorney generals actually prosecuted cases. OK? So beyond allegations, they prosecuted 38 cases of voter fraud. So 38 out of millions.

In Arizona, there were 13 cases of people prosecuted for double voting. Thirteen. OK? And this is over ten years, by the way. This isn't in one year. This is over ten years.

Then the national Republican National Lawyers Association also looked at it themselves. They found 200 allegations of election fraud, again, over ten years.

CUOMO: Reported by news outlets.

CAMEROTA: By news outlets. So they basically got a compilation. All different news outlets from around the country, 50 states, and they found 200 cases. So, does it ever happen? OK. Occasionally it does happen, but it doesn't happen on a national scale...

CUOMO: Doesn't affect the outcome.

CAMEROTA: ... that would affect the outcome.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And what you see in those numbers, as well, is that when it happens it's usually not the kind of voter fraud that people imagine when they think of what happens when somebody steals an election. It's not people in a county courthouse, stuffing ballots into a box or even showing up and, you know, me saying, "Hi, I'm Chris Cuomo. I'm here to vote."

It's people voting in a jurisdiction where they're no longer technically registered, or they haven't updated their registration. Or they're in a primary where they're not supposed to be voting in a primary. And each of those infractions is something that authorities, of course, ought to look at. But there's simply no indication that there's any kind of systemic problem with voting in this country.

I spoke to the Ohio secretary of state yesterday who's a Republican who is saying, you know, we're trying really hard to run a fair election here, and this kind of talk just takes time away from doing our actual and difficult jobs.

CAMEROTA: Alex, Jackie, thank you.

CUOMO: All right. So in other news, federal authorities are investigating the apparent firebombing of a Republican county headquarters in North Carolina. No one was in the building, thank God. But there was some flammable substance thrown through a window.

The vandals also spray-painted a message on the building: "Nazi Republicans, get out of town or else."

There have been no arrests, and police have not said anything about any suspect's affiliations. But in a tweet, Donald Trump pounced on it, saying, "Animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina just fire-bombed our office in Orange County, because we are winning."

[06:10:05] Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton condemned the attack, calling it "horrific and unacceptable. Very grateful to see everyone is safe."

Democrats have launched a fundraising effort, raising thousands to help reopen the GOP office.

CAMEROTA: OK. So the next debate is just two days away. What's changed in this race since that lewd video, the audio of Trump talking has come out?

Plus, the growing list of accusers. Our political panel is going to weigh in on what the latest polls tell us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CUOMO: Just 22 days until election day. Hillary Clinton widening her lead in the latest national polls.

Our new CNN poll of polls -- that is the average of the last four polls -- shows what you see on your screen. Clinton at 47 with Trump eight points behind. Clinton has gained two points. Trump has dropped two since the last poll of polls.

All right. Let's bring out the state of play here with our panel: Alex Burns, Jackie Kucinich. So poll of polls is just the average. You know, most of them are around four points. It's stable to growing.

[06:15:09] Do we believe that this is the cause of the impact of the tape, somewhat cemented arranged between the two candidates?

BURNS: We sure do. I mean, I think when you look at the -- you know, each poll that comes out, you can see a varying lead for Clinton: four points in one, 11 points in another. That's a pretty stark difference.

But the trends that we've seen all along are that Trump is sort of stuck in the high 30s, low 40s. Clinton is stuck or, you know, happily stuck in the mid-40s to high 40s. Not over 50 percent, which would be the point at which we really say, you know, stick a fork in; Trump has no path to victory.

But at this point in the race, there's really only one major event left that would help Trump break out of that zone that he's been stuck in. That's the final debate on Wednesday.

CAMEROTA: Unless there's a surprise.

BURNS: I mean, certainly. There could be unanticipated events. But that's the last arena where a candidate, based on his own superb performance, could change base.

CUOMO: If Clinton fails the drug test...

BURNS: Exactly.

CUOMO: If they get her on the 'roids, and she's somewhat suspended.

CAMEROTA: Right. Jackie, let's dive in a little bit to the findings in these polls. This is the ABC/"Washington Post" poll about whether or not voters believe that -- the women who have come forward to say that Trump made these unwanted advances.

Sixty-eight percent say, yes, they do. Fourteen percent say, no. Nineteen percent say they have no opinion. But it, you know, when we've heard from Republicans who have been interviewed about this, voters for Trump supporters, they sort of say, "I'm still voting for him."

KUCINICH: Well, right. And one of the striking things in these polls is that it showed that the tapes really didn't make much of a difference. The allegations of these women coming forward seem to have, and people believe them.

But on the other hand, it's not the tape that seems to change our mind. It seems one of the polls -- you forgive me, is about 53 percent -- said it didn't make any difference. Much less said it did change their opinion.

CUOMO: This makes more sense. You get "no" and "no opinion" together, you get 67 percent. That seems closer to what could be the truth to me, because if you go to Trump supporters -- I haven't met one -- who cares, my sample is only like 15, 20 people. But none of them moved off of him. And 88 percent, it was reported this morning on the 1010 Wins news, that 88 percent are locked into their choice, Jackie. They're not going anywhere, no matter what happens, I guess.

KUCINICH: Well, and we're at the point in the election. Let's not forget, this always ends up a fight over a sliver of voters. And that seems to be the point where we see them kind of ticking back and forth between the two of them.

And, yes, absolutely right. The debate is really the only expected thing that we know in between now and election day. I mean, who knows? This race has been so crazy -- that he could sort of use to get those numbers turned around and get those people who maybe aren't so sure what happened with these -- with the women and this tape back to his side.

CAMEROTA: Yes, let's look at the all-important women's vote, because we have that from NBC/"Wall Street Journal." Fifty-five percent of women voters now say that they support Hillary Clinton. Thirty-five percent say they support Donald Trump. What does that mean on election day?

BURNS: Well, it's very, very hard or maybe impossible for a candidate who loses women by that kind of margin to somehow make it up with men. We've never seen somebody in a presidential election overcome a deficit of that size.

And, Alisyn, I think when you go through the fundamentals of the poll, what you really see is, I think back four years to 2012 coming out of that election. The message that Republicans felt they took was we need to do better with women. We need to do better with Hispanic voters, black voters, Asian, young voters. You go down those categories, and in almost every single one, they are underperforming Romney in 2012.

The one exception is young voters, and that's really a function of Clinton losing support to third-party candidates, not to Donald Trump.

CUOMO: And what has been a big deal for Trump has been excitement. We have a couple of indicators on that, as well. A dip in honesty, a dip in excitement, if we can put those up on the screen for people. You can see the change under time. The excitement was over 90 percent.

CAMEROTA: Right. Ninety-one percent two weeks ago. CUOMO: Now 79 percent. His honesty number took a hit, as well. Jackie, these personal indicators are probably more relevant for Trump, because the choice seems so personal for people.

KUCINICH: Absolutely. And you've seen Clinton's enthusiasm pick up. And, you know, we talk a lot about the ground game. We talk a lot about voter enthusiasm.

And at the end of the day, on election day, that's what going to matter, to make sure your people get out and vote. And if people are feeling discouraged, as a result of these -- as well as these allegations, as a result of maybe some of his debate performances, that's going to affect him.

But again, I'm going to say it again, people are already voting right now. So every day matters in this race. Increasingly.

[06:20:04] CAMEROTA: OK. So, let's talk about debate prep, Alex. Both candidates yesterday spent a chunk of time preparing. It's going to revert back to the format of the first debate, the Lester Holt debate, where they're standing at the podiums. So what do we think they're doing differently or how are they preparing?

BURNS: I think if you're Hillary Clinton, you don't do anything particularly differently. Her folks like she did very well the first two debates. If anything, you're probably preparing for the sort of difficult portion of the debate about Trump's personal conduct and his conduct towards women. But that's a tough thing.

CAMEROTA: And does she go after him harder on this, this time, than she did in the second debate, where people felt that she was a little hands off?

BURNS: Well, there's a lot more information now than there was in that second debate, right, that you -- at the time of the second debate, we had seen the "Access Hollywood" tape. We had not heard any of these specific allegations of sexual assault, unwanted advances from now nine women. It could be more by the time the debate actually happens.

And if you're Hillary Clinton, you know, that's something you have to be comfortable talking about. I do think that, you know, it's probably a safe bet that the moderator brings it up, and it's really Donald Trump who the burden is on to explain himself in a really convincing way. Not go after his accusers' looks, not say those kinds of things, as he did over the weekend.

CUOMO: Alex, Jackie, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

WikiLeaks has a new batch of offerings, stolen from different private servers of accounts. We will take you through them, what they say and how they're being used. Often, there's a great disparity.

CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, the battle for Mosul begins. Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led coalition troops moving to wipe out ISIS's last major stronghold in the country. What is at stake? We are live on the frontlines for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:26:02] CUOMO: Battle to retake the last ISIS stronghold in Iraq is now underway. Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition, it is being called a defining moment, months in the planning, to retake this strategic city of Mosul.

CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is with Peshmerga forces near Mosul -- Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Chris, we are, in fact, just meters away from the main road that is basically the prize in this first moments of the assault against Mosul, and it leads right down to that city where the U.N. fear 1.2, 1.5 million people could be caught as this assault gets under way, desperately in need of assistance.

It has been a long morning so far. They began at dawn, pushing through the berms here, the Peshmerga spreading out amongst the desert, eventually moving down to this road here.

When we got here, though, two staggering scenes emerged. We would have broadcast live from the road itself, but, in fact, a firefight broke out between the Kurds and some ISIS pockets that are seen to still be somewhere around this town. There's a tunnel network where they might be hiding. But another very bizarre moment occurred 30 minutes earlier on the hill behind us here. It appeared that an ISIS fighter popped up from somewhere, began to be chased by the Peshmerga, with whom he exchanged fire, and then, as far as we can tell from this distance, blew himself up and then they continue to search foxholes here. This potentially a lengthy assault. They had hoped that moving along the plains outside the city would have been an easier task to some degree. This morning has proven that optimism may be misplaced.

We have seen, of course, a lot of coalition air power in the sky piling in here, a lot of ISIS of suicide bombers.

But two, while the Pentagon says there are no troops on the ground here, I've seen today, this morning, a lot of foreign presence within the convoy. So certainly assistance being given to the Peshawa as they move.

This remains a volatile place, but it is the most important fight in Iraq so far against ISIS, maybe the last chapter. When they're kicked out of Mosul, it was the prize of their caliphate here. That's, some say, really the end of them in Iraq. We're beginning now that lengthy, bloody process, Chris.

CUOMO: So the concern, Nick, is at what price victory when it comes to the humanitarian situation that may come as a result. You reported over a million people may be locked in or trapped here. Are there any situations being set up in advance to help those people? Is there any aid at the same time as the military action?

WALSH: Yes. There are counts all around the city that hopefully will find these refugees going into them. But they leave a very troubled city, and the route out is, frankly, unknown.

The U.N. and aid agencies have asked for potential corridors, but given the brutality of this fight here and the nasty sectarian nature of the war here, the trust is minimal. The major concern is which particular militia end up doing the fight here if it doesn't end up just being the Iraqi army and some paramilitaries, as the U.S. and Iraq had, in fact, hoped would be the case.

So many questions unanswered, but a million lives in the balance here, Chris.

CAMEROTA: Nick Paton Walsh, thank you for all of that reporting. We couldn't get it without you there. Please stay safe. We will check back in with you.

So this Mosul offensive is being called a decisive moment in the fight against is. Why is Mosul so important? Our military experts are here to explain, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)