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Trump Escalates 'Rigged' Election Claims; Melania Trump Speaks Out. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 18, 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: This is a criminal act. A conspiracy.

[05:58:26] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald Trump is unqualified and unfit. And every single day his campaign proves that.

JON HUSTED (R), OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE: I want to reassure Donald Trump the system is not rigged.

MELANIA TRUMP, WIFE OF DONALD TRUMP: He was egged on from the host to say dirty and bad stuff.

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I have no doubt the national media is trying to rig this election.

M. TRUMP: Don't feel sorry for me. I can handle everything.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Sometimes the interior conversation must come first, people. This is how you get all the chemistry on air. We've got to talk it out. We've got to figure out what's happening.

Yes, I will have the eggs, and this time you pay.

Good morning. Welcome to NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, October 18, 6 a.m. in the east. There's a new headline from the election. New documents released by the FBI, and they show a State Department official pressing the bureau to declassify an e-mail about Benghazi.

And Donald Trump doubling down on his claims of a rigged election and blasting Republican leaders, who deny those allegations of large-scale voter fraud.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And Melania Trump speaking out in a new interview with CNN. She says that her husband was, quote, "egged on" to say those lewd comments. And she believes that Trump never accosted his accusers.

We are now just one day away from the final debate and 21 days until the election. So let's begin our coverage with CNN's Manu Raju. He is live in Las Vegas. Hi, Manu.

MANU RAJU, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Yes, Donald Trump needs a stellar debate performance here tomorrow night in the hall right behind me to turn around his campaign. Polls continue to show him struggling in the battleground states and nationally, which is one reason why he may be painting himself as a victim of an unfair system.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

D. TRUMP: They even want to try to rig the election at the polling booths. People that have died ten years ago are still voting. Illegal immigrants are voting.

RAJU (voice-over): Donald Trump ramping up his unfounded claim that the election is rigged.

D. TRUMP: You look at what's going on in St. Louis and many other cities. There's tremendous voter fraud.

RAJU: His willingness to accept the election results if he loses now in question.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN CHAIR: Mr. Trump would, if there is -- absent overwhelming evidence of any kind of fraud or irregularities.

RAJU: Trump frustrating many Republican leaders, who have rejected his allegations of rigging.

HUSTED: As a Republican, I want to reassure Donald Trump and all Ohio voters and voters across the country that the system is not rigged.

RAJU: The Republican nominee also intensifying his feud with House Speaker Paul Ryan after he said he wouldn't defend Trump.

D. TRUMP: Maybe he wants to run in four years, or maybe he doesn't know how to win. Maybe he just doesn't know how to win. I mean, who can really know?

RAJU: Trump taking his rage against the establishment, and Hillary Clinton, a step further in Wisconsin.

D. TRUMP: It is time to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.

RAJU: Trump proposing a package of ethics reforms, aiming to tackle corruption in Washington, including tighter restrictions on members of Congress and White House officials taking on jobs as lobbyists.

D. TRUMP: This will go a long way to ending our government corruption.

RAJU: A proposal sparked by his accusations that the FBI and State Department engage in a criminal conspiracy.

D. TRUMP: This is felony corruption.

RAJU: After newly-released documents suggest a top State Department official pressured the FBI to declassify an e-mail about Benghazi that was on the private server Clinton used while secretary of state, possibly in exchange for offering to help station FBI agents overseas.

MARK TONER, STATE DEPARTMENT DEPUTY SPOKESMAN: The allegation of any kind of quid pro quo is inaccurate. There was no quid pro quo.

RAJU: Clinton is not commenting. She's been off the campaign trail for days, preparing for tomorrow's final debate.

Clinton's campaign now setting its sights on historically conservative states, as she widens her lead in the polls, deploying her daughter Chelsea, Michelle Obama, and Bernie Sanders to Arizona in hopes of turning that red state blue.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Now, as part of that effort to go after red states, the Hillary Clinton campaign announcing yesterday that it would spend $2 million in Arizona as well as another million dollars in Missouri and Indiana. Also part of an effort to help turn back the Senate to Democratic control. Illinois and Missouri two key states for Democrats as they try to get back the Senate majority.

But the question, Chris and Alisyn, is how long, or short, will Hillary Clinton's coattails be, come November.

CAMEROTA: OK, Manu. Thank you for all of that.

Let's discuss it with CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich; and CNN political analyst David Gregory. Great to see both of you.

So Jackie, Donald Trump continues to say that, you know, the election is rigged. He said there's tremendous voter fraud. Every think tank, every university, everyone who's ever looked into this says no, there isn't; there are isolated incidents. There is certainly not tremendous voter fraud in this country.

Is -- it sounds as though he's trying to, if he loses, obviously, plant the seed of doubt in terms of what happened. Is it also possible that it will have the unintended consequence of suppressing the vote for him, suppressing the vote for all of them, if people think that their vote is not going to count?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And that's the question. Right? That's why his undermining of the system over and over again is a dangerous -- it's a dangerous precedent, but it's also a dangerous strategy for him, which is why I think you hear some people in this campaign say, "Oh, no, no, no, we're just saying the media is rigged. We're not saying the actual election is rigged."

But they sort of even have gone back and forth on that. So there isn't a cohesive message here coming out for the Trump campaign, because you have the candidate saying one thing and the surrogates saying something else.

GUTFELD: Well, he got Pence to flip. Right? Pence had come out very strongly in the first instance, saying, "We'll absolutely accept the results of this election." He's hoping that they're favorable for him, that he becomes vice president of the United States.

Now, he's saying, well, there is fraud. And he is saying -- do we have the actual sound? Let's play what the vice president [SIC] is saying now, the Republican nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PENCE: We will absolutely accept the results of the election. Look, the American people will speak in an election that'll 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.

There's a lot of talk about rigged elections out there today. I have no doubt the national media is trying to rig this election with their biased coverage. I said it before, and I'll say it again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:05:07] CUOMO: Mike Pence learning to play the Trump game, Professor David Gregory. What do you make of that?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, this is tried and true. I mean, this is well-worn, this idea of going after the press and the coverage of the press.

I don't remember Donald Trump or Mike Pence complaining when they got all kinds of access to the media and had their events covered live when they hurled insults at other people and won during the primaries. But now things don't look quite as good.

There's no evidence that there's any kind of rigging going on. You have Republican secretaries of state like in swing state Ohio, saying it's an irresponsible charge, that he'll be happy to certify the election. So we have no idea what the impact will be.

I think what's important to know is that there's no evidence to back this up. You have, in Mike Pence, somebody who's all over the place on this. They're not actually making a specific charge. They're using loaded language to go after the media, which is their right to do. Not a lot to see here. This is a campaign that's losing, that's pulling out all the stops.

CAMEROTA: And yet, there is a challenge in terms of voter registration systems. And in fact, the director of the FBI has talked about how there could be a threat, because there were machines in Arizona and Illinois that appear to have been hacked. The entire system was not compromised, but somebody's user name and password was stolen.

And James Comey of the FBI tried to sound the alarm bell about this, but it wasn't because of the media. It is possibly because they think there are Russian actors who are doing this. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: We have seen indications of efforts to penetrate or scan voter registration databases. Those happened in July and August in the main. And there's still an active investigation on that going on right now by the FBI and our partners.

With respect to the vote count itself, we're looking carefully. We don't see any indication of an effort to change votes, nor would that be a likely scenario in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The irony that, if there is any rigging going on, it's by the Russians, you know, who presumably are trying to help Trump.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I mean, and this is what the Trump camp doesn't want to talk about. They don't -- they've never said anything possibly negative about what Russia is doing and whether Russia is meddling. But this is what the director of the FBI says is going on, Jackie.

KUCINICH: That's...

GREGORY: By the way, he's not sounding the alarm. He was responding to a question that was raised, because Donald Trump is out there saying everything is rigged without any kind of evidence. There's lots of potential penetration of critical infrastructure, whether it's voter rolls or other things, that, you know -- that they're going to investigate, which doesn't mean that there's actual evidence that they see anything affecting the count or certifying the election.

CAMEROTA: Why doesn't Donald Trump want to talk about this?

KUCINICH: I mean, it doesn't go, really, to his narrative that, you know, the media and the Clinton campaign or the Democrats are trying to rig the election.

But even on -- but even on Russia, he and Mike Pence have sort of diverged. Mike Pence has talked about punishing Russia. Donald Trump has said -- in terms of WikiLeaks, Donald Trump has said that, you know, Russia might not be involved. So even there, you see a schism between Donald Trump and his vice-presidential nominee.

CUOMO: So what do you think about what came out from the FBI, these e-mails with Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary at the State Department, trying to get them to declassify an e-mail that belonged to Hillary Clinton as part of this evolving dispute about what she had on the server and the allegations of a quid pro quo. Yes, the FBI came out and said there was no quid pro quo. But what's the impact?

KUCINICH: This reminds people of the Clinton e-mail scandal. And any time voters are reminded of the scandal...

CUOMO: Reminds or substantiates? KUCINICH: I mean, because you have the FBI and the State Department

denying this, I mean, they're saying it isn't substantiated. But it does -- again, it reminds people why they don't like Hillary Clinton and why they might not vote for her.

CAMEROTA: David, what's your take on the fact that Patrick Kennedy appeared to be asking for a favor and for a quid pro quo?

GREGORY: Well, it's not clear to me exactly what happened. I mean, first of all, I think people need to understand that there are bureaucratic fights over classification of documents within the government all the time.

I think there's no question this is new fodder for Donald Trump to try to make a case about the e-mails during this last debate against Hillary Clinton, if he can try to stay focused enough to make that case.

I don't know what's being discovered here that the Benghazi committee wasn't able to find through grilling Hillary Clinton for some 15 hours on the Hill or their final report, which didn't find any of this impropriety.

And I think it's also striking and worth pointing out how unprecedented it is that the FBI would release what are called 302s, which is how this was discovered, which are interviews with witnesses in a case where they found no criminality whatsoever. It's only because of political pressure that Jim Comey, head of the FBI, is releasing this. Completely unprecedented when you don't bring any kind of criminal case. I don't think that's pointed out enough, that he's bending to that political pressure.

CUOMO: He got bashed for not bringing the case. People say it was political pressure. Now he's releasing these 302s. He's getting bashed for bowing to political pressure. It is not a good time to be, really, in any kind of public service right now.

CAMEROTA: Panel, stick around. We want to talk to you about Melania Trump coming up.

CUOMO: Well, tomorrow is a big night. Camerota, please try to...

CAMEROTA: I'm going to.

CUOMO: ... restrain your disappointment.

CAMEROTA: Huh?

CUOMO: You have a big party for tomorrow night, the big debate party?

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. And I'm going to try to stay up. It's well past my bedtime.

CUOMO: No, stop it.

CAMEROTA: I'm going to take a power nap so I can watch this. CUOMO: You are going to step off (ph) the whole debate, the whole

debate?

CAMEROTA: I don't know about that.

CUOMO: All right. Let's keep it honest here, a little bit. All right, so tomorrow night is the big night. This is the last chance to see them both together going at it, hopefully on what matters to you. Four p.m. Eastern is when our coverage starts.

CAMEROTA: I can stay up for that.

Meanwhile, Melania Trump speaking out in a new interview with CNN, her first public comments since that 2005 tape surfaced of her husband making lewd comments about women. Why does she think he said those things?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. TRUMP: He was lead [SIC] on, like -- egg on from the host to say dirty and bad stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. More of that conversation next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:21] CAMEROTA: Melania Trump is breaking her silence in an interview with Anderson Cooper. She addresses the leaked audiotape of her husband making those lewd comments about women. She also responds to first lady Michelle Obama's blistering takedown of her husband. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

M. TRUMP: I said to my husband that, you know, the language is inappropriate. It's not acceptable. And I was surprised, because that is not the man that know. And as you can see from the tape, the cameras were not on. It was only a mike. And I wonder if they even knew that the mike was on, because they were kind of boy talk. And he was lead [SIC] on like -- egg on from the host to say dirty and bad stuff.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: You feel the host, Billy Bush, was sort of egging him on?

M. TRUMP: Yes. Yes.

COOPER: Is that language you had heard him use before?

M. TRUMP: No. No, that's why I was surprised, because I said, like, I don't know that person that would talk that way.

COOPER: He described it as locker-room talk. To you -- I mean, you sort of alluded to that, as well. Is that what it is to you, just locker-room talk?

M. TRUMP: Yes, it's kind of two teenage boys. Actually, they should behave better. Right?

COOPER: He was 59.

M. TRUMP: Correct. And sometimes I said I have two boys at home. I have my young son, and I have my husband. So -- but how some men talk, and that's -- that's how I saw it, yes.

COOPER: Michelle Obama, who you, I know, have spoken positively of in the past, she said last week about what your husband said on that tape, she said this was not just a lewd conversation; this wasn't just locker-room banter. This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior and actually bragging about kissing and groping women.

In terms of what he actually said on the tape, not saying he did it, but what he said, the behavior described to you, is that sexual assault?

M. TRUMP: No, that's not a sexual assault. He didn't say he did it. And I see many, many women coming to him and giving phone numbers and, you know, want to work for him. Or inappropriate stuff from women. And they know he's married.

COOPER: You've seen that?

M. TRUMP: Oh, yes, of course. It was in front of me.

COOPER: In front of you?

M. TRUMP: In front of me, and I said, like, "Why -- why you need to give your number to my husband?"

I'm very strong. People, they don't really know me. People think and talk about me like, "Oh, Melania. Oh, poor Melania." Don't feel sorry for me. Don't feel sorry for me. I can handle everything.

And for this -- for people talking like that, I see in the press a lot, almost like celebrities or people they think they're celebrities, I would suggest to them to look themselves in the mirror and to look at their actions and to take care of their own families.

COOPER: In terms of what Michelle Obama was saying, she was saying that, essentially, any unwanted advance toward a woman, kissing a woman, touching a woman without consent, that is sexual assault. That's the definition.

M. TRUMP: Yes, I agree with that, but every assault should be taken care of in a court of law. And to accuse, no matter who it is, a man or a woman, without evidence, it's -- it's damaging, and it's unfair.

COOPER: She went on to say, Michelle Obama, she talked about that feeling of terror and violation that too many women have felt when someone has grabbed them or forced himself on them and they've said no, but he didn't listen.

M. TRUMP: Who didn't listen? My husband didn't do anything.

COOPER: No, no, I think she was just talking general about...

M. TRUMP: Oh, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. I mean, she should also look maybe the -- the people who supported her, what they're doing. So I'm not surprised she said that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[06:20:05] CUOMO: Let's bring back our panel: Jackie Kucinich and David Gregory. Let's start with what ended that conversation, that piece of the conversation. Michelle Obama should worry about the people who support them. She's probably referencing the Clintons.

What is your take on Melania Trump wanting to come out and dealing with these difficult allegations for the wife to deal with? But how does it come across?

KUCINICH: I wonder why she didn't come out sooner. After, you know, the damage is sort of done at this point. But no, she's an important surrogate for her husband, particularly on issues like this. Because who knows him better than Melania Trump. and her standing up for him and standing up so strongly for him, I mean, that -- again, I'm just surprised it didn't happen a little bit sooner.

CAMEROTA: David, it's the double standard on both sides that's so confusing and hard to get your mind around. Because there are striking parallels between what the accusers of Bill Clinton from the '90s say he did and what the accusers of Donald Trump from, you know, the past 20 years say he did.

And yet, both sides say, well, there's no -- there's no evidence of what those other women say, and you should have taken it be to a court of law if you really wanted to be believed. I mean, it's so interesting to hear both sides sort of disavow the other side but say that their person is telling the truth.

GREGORY: Right. Look, there's no question -- I don't know. Is there a double standard? Did Bill Clinton get a pass in some ways by voters? May have had something to do with the timing. It may have had to do with -- meaning a lot of those allegations came out initially when he was first running for president in the primaries early in 1992, as opposed to the end of the race here.

But you know, Bill Clinton is not on the ballot now. And Donald Trump is facing this. The reality is that it's not just these charges. But they have come at a time when women are moving away from voting him -- for him in huge numbers. And I think the singular reason why Trump is most likely headed to lose this election is because women won't vote for him.

And so Melania Trump offering testimony on behalf of her husband is fine. And I think people can see it for what it is, as the support of a spouse, but I don't think it's going to have much impact here. The more that becomes known, the more that he simply ignores it and says that it's all lies.

CUOMO: Also, you do have this dynamic. And look, it is he said, she said. Unless you have proof corroborating the time, the date, the behavior.

CAMEROTA: With sexual assault, it's always he said, she said.

CUOMO: It's hard. Even if you believe 100 percent with all of your heart and your head, "I did nothing to this woman," it's hard to make that case as the politician without casting this kind of pall over someone making a claim, right, because you don't want to do that. You want to encourage women to come forward when they've been violated.

So it's a tricky situation, even if you're 100 percent in the right. And that's something we see the Trump campaign dealing with. Donald Trump decided to deal with it directly, doing something we haven't seen him do much lately, which is talk to the media directly. He did an interview with ABC surrounding one of his events. Here's a portion of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. TRUMP: I have great respect for women. I have tremendous respect for women. These people come up maybe for a little fame, or maybe for some other reason, or maybe because they're part of the Clinton campaign, and I think a couple of them were involved somehow with the Clinton campaign.

The one that I met on an airplane 30 or 35 years ago, I mean, nobody can believe that's a believable story. Listen to that story. In addition to that, there's even a witness. But I mean, can anyone really believe that a thing like that took place? That's ridiculous. The point is, it's lies. Pure lies. And the media shouldn't be playing that up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The witness to that event that he's referring to isn't particularly helpful. They have their own credibility issues. But this is the line for Donald Trump. In fairness to him, he wants to say, "I didn't do this," but you have to be careful, because if you really bash the women, and she did start down that road originally...

CAMEROTA: Yes.

KUCINICH: Start down that road? He was there.

CUOMO: I mean, he talked about the looks of one of the women. But there's going to be a recoil from people, because we don't want people who come out who allege this situations be treated that way.

CAMEROTA: Look, he's also saying they're part of the Clinton campaign, which they're not. These are not women who knew each other. This was not coordinated. The Clinton campaign...

CUOMO: Sounds like the Cosby defense from when you were covering that.

CAMEROTA: It's very Cosby-esque. When the flood gates open, the flood gates open, David.

GREGORY: Look, this is part of a pattern for Donald Trump. I think voters can make up their own minds. This is a man who says he respects women and accused a female questioner, Megyn Kelly, of menstruating while she was asking him a tough question about the fact that he refers to women as pigs and dogs. Women can make up their own minds. Voters, and it's not just women, who are being impacted by this, can make up their own minds.

So this is part of a pattern of behavior, and the way he talks publicly about women and others, that is one of the reasons we're seeing the biggest gender gap that we've seen in decades.

[06:25:06] CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. Great to talk to both of you.

We have to get to another top story now, because the fight to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS is under way.

Are Iraqi and Kurdish forces making any progress? We'll give you a status report, and we'll take you to the front lines next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right. There's a battle raging. We're going to take you right to the front lines. CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is there with Kurdish forces, seeing firsthand what is happening on the ground. He joins us live near Mosul.

Nick, what's the situation?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Chris, progress here is not as fast as they want but perhaps not as slow as the pessimists have thought it could be. Plumes of smoke still on the horizon behind us. That is oil fires, airstrikes maybe, suicide car bombs we saw ourselves, used by ISIS to push Peshmerga back.

As they move down the key roads here, it's slow progress, because they're never sure quite how safe they are, either side, as we saw getting pot shots taking at them, finding the suicide bombers popping out of holes in the ground.

An interesting piece of news we're just hearing, according to the AFP news agency. Turkish prime minister has said that their jets took part in coalition airstrikes over the city.