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Trump & Clinton Face Off in Final Debate Tonight; Video Suggests Dem Operatives incited Violence at Trump Rallies; Pentagon: ISIS Using Civilians as Human Shields in Mosul. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 19, 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: When it comes to Washington, D.C., it is time to drain the damn swamp.

[05:58:26] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You start whining before the game's even over?

TRUMP: We've just begun to fight. They even want to try and rig the election.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (via phone): Despite all of the terrible things he has said and done, he is still trying to win this election.

TRUMP: She's home sleeping, and I'm working. The way it's going to be in the White House, too.

OBAMA: Whenever things are going badly for you, you start blaming somebody else? You don't have what it takes to be in this job.

(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 Wednesday, October 19, 6 a.m. in the East. It is a big day. The final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in Las Vegas is tonight. Can Trump turn around his poll numbers? And how much time will be spent on the claim of a rigged election versus the accusations of sex assault against him?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Now, there's no question that Trump floods the zone with outrageous comments and actions, but Clinton can't just stay out of the way tonight. She has her own challenges. How does she explain what's in that latest batch of stolen staffer e-mails?

And new undercover video suggesting a Democratic operative may have been inciting violence at Trump rallies.

Zero days until the next debate, 20 days now until election day. We have it all covered. Let's begin with CNN's Manu Raju live in Vegas -- Manu. MANU RAJU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. Now, Donald Trump

has sustained one of the worst months of any presidential candidate in recent memory. Not only these allegations of sexual misconduct but also those two rocky debate performances and those ugly spats with his own party.

The question today is whether or not Donald Trump can reverse this downward trajectory.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (voice-over): Ahead of tonight's final debate, Donald Trump throwing a "Hail Mary," going after Washington and intensifying his unfounded claim that the election is rigged.

TRUMP: They even want to try and rig the election at the polling booths.

RAJU: Even calling on his supporters to monitor polling places.

TRUMP: People are going to be watching on November 8.

RAJU: And doubling down on his media conspiracy theories.

TRUMP: There's a voter fraud also with the media, because they so poison the minds of people by writing false stories.

RAJU: The GOP nominee pledging to shake up Washington.

TRUMP: It is time to drain the damn swamp.

RAJU: Now promising, if elected, he will push for term limits for members of Congress, a populist proposal that has yet to succeed.

TRUMP: Decades of political failure and special interest collusion must and will finally come to an end.

RAJU: Trump opting not to respond to President Obama, who ridiculed the billionaire's voter fraud accusations.

OBAMA: He started whining before the game's even over. If, whenever things are going badly for you and you lose, you start blaming somebody else, then you don't have what it takes to be in this job.

RAJU: Instead announcing that he's bringing Obama's Kenyan-born half- brother, Malik, a Trump supporter. to tonight's debate.

Trump and Hillary Clinton head into tonight's debate with looming controversies. Undercover videos released Tuesday, produced by discredited conservative activist James O'Keefe, suggest it was Democratic operatives working for the Clinton campaign instigating violence at some Trump rallies.

SCOTT ROYAL, NATIONAL FIELD DIRECTOR, AMERICANS UNITED FOR CHANGE: Honestly, it is not hard to get some of these assholes to pop off. RAJU: Both the DNC and the Clinton campaign deny any involvement.

And those on the tape deny any of the proposed schemes ever took place.

Meanwhile, Trump is facing accusations from at least nine women who say he made unwanted advances without their consent.

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MINORITY LEADER: These are people who are trapped. Puts his hands under somebody's skirt on an airplane.

RAJU: Trump rejects those claims, but Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid blasting Trump's behavior.

REID: It is kind of a sickness.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

REID: Now, Clinton has been off the campaign trail -- Clinton has been off the campaign trail for several days as she has done -- dealt with debate prep, trying to fine-tune her message to conservative and moderate voters in the hopes of turning a lot of these red states blue in the final weeks of the election.

But, also, Chris and Alisyn, having to explain to the American public all -- what's in all e-mails released by WikiLeaks that paint her and her campaign in a rather unflattering light.

CUOMO: She may be prepping, Manu, but she also likes to stay out of the way when Trump is having a bad spell. But not tonight. Tonight she's going to have to bring it, so let's bring in our panel: CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis; CNN political commentator and senior contributor for "The Daily Caller," Matt Lewis; and CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich.

Part of the battle, my friends, is who they bring with them tonight. My five against your five. Let's put up a graphic. Here's who Clinton and Trump are bringing to the debate. So you've got Mark Cuban and Meg Whitman. Meg Whitman giving a little business cred, I guess, and Mark Cuban is the antagonist of Trump.

Now Trump, interestingly, he's bringing one of the Benghazi moms, Patricia Smith, but he's also bringing Obama's half-brother. Who do you think wins...

CAMEROTA: What is that?

CUOMO: Who do you think wins the...

CAMEROTA: How does that work?

CUOMO: Looks like everybody has got that one cousin, you know. You forgot about him, didn't you, Alisyn? And the guy's like there, scratching his head. So who do you think wins the battle of optic intimidation? ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Everybody is going to go to

Malik Obama, because he is good copy. He says outrageous things. He asks for money in order to give an interview. He's changed his name. He's changed his story. He's changed the facts of his own biography. He'll go there and basically be a spectacle. That's what he does, that's who he is. That's why he's there. The thing I can't figure out is how does this in any way, shape or form help Donald Trump?

President Obama is not running for a third term. So this might somehow unsettle President Obama but not Hillary Clinton.

But in any event, Matt, let's do a little bit more of the stagecraft before we get to the substance, because there's another interesting development. Maggie Haberman is reporting from "The New York Times" that they will not -- President Clinton and Melania Trump will no longer have to endure the awkward handshake. They have gotten permission to have the spouses be able to avoid each other.

And of course, the question is, will Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have their handshake, as they did the first time but they didn't the second time. How's all that going to look?

[06:05:06] MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think that, for one thing, it's changing what we came to expect of civility. You know, we used to pretend, at least, that we liked each other and people would come out and hug and shake hands. And maybe you were staring down your opponent, but at least you did it. So I mean, I can't help but think it's a very small thing. I don't think the viewers at home are going to notice. But maybe this is one more step away from the old rules of civility, toward the new rules of incivility.

CAMEROTA: Clearly. I think that that is what it illustrates. That we've dispensed with that.

LEWIS: At least pretending is better than not pretending.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And it's a little sad the fact that you have someone like Mark Cuban and Malik Obama as their guests now. I mean, the trollingness of the guests, married with the fact that, if they don't even shake hands, it's just -- it's kind of sad, frankly.

CUOMO: The whole thing is sad. I mean, look here -- anyway, so, tonight, Chris Wallace is going to be there. You know, there's just nothing negative to say about the guy. I worked with him for years at ABC News. He's a top-notch journalist, and he can be a hammer. So it will be interesting to have him as the referee tonight.

Immigration supposed to be a big topic tonight. What do you expect comes up, and what do you expect to be, you know, the big ticket tonight?

KUCINICH: I mean, Hillary Clinton is going to go hard after the wall. Donald Trump has talked this entire campaign about how he's going to build a wall. And you have to imagine that's one of the things Hillary Clinton is going to bring up from the get go, attacking the plan, attacking the cause, attacking the lack of cause. You have to imagine that's going to be something that she really zeros in on fairly quickly tonight.

CAMEROTA: OK. What do you think Donald Trump needs to do, Errol, tonight in terms of substance?

LOUIS: He needs to, and it would be a long shot. But he needs to try an actual apology. He needs to quell this whole issue of all of these women who have come forward and said that...

CAMEROTA: Apologize to the women?

LOUIS: Well, no. Apologize -- there's a way to do this. Arnold Schwarzenegger did this in 2003. Ted Kennedy did this in 1991. You apologize to your supporters, saying, "I know I let you down. What I thought was harmless banter, I realize now in retrospect was actually deeply offensive and wrong." And sort of try to really pivot and dispense with it once and -- once and for all.

It's really his only hope, because getting up and saying all of these people are liars and all the witnesses that they talked to at the time of the incident, they're all liars, too, and the media's liars and everybody's liars, it gets him completely mired down. He could a good two minutes, and he should almost read word for word what Arnold Schwarzenegger said back in 2003 might just do it.

CUOMO: Matt Lewis, an equal chance that he will come out on the stage on a unicorn, you know, is that he's going to do that. This -- that is just not Trump strategy. We even saw with the Melania interview, you know, as difficult a situation as she was in, it reintroduced the whole topic. People had moved onto rigged-ness, you know? And they were not talking about that as much.

So what do you expect out of him tonight, best-case scenario?

LEWIS: I think the best-case scenario for Donald Trump is that he does what he did the first 20 minutes of the first debate, which I think he won the first 21 minutes, and that was talk about how Hillary Clinton is part of the status quo, and he is a change agent. If you like where America is and what America has done the last 30 years, vote for Clinton. If you want to change, vote for me.

If he could do that for an hour and a half, which I have no reason to believe he can't. But if he can do that for an hour and a half, he can win the debate.

CAMEROTA: OK, Jackie, let's talk about what she needs to do. So obviously, all of these WikiLeaks stuff of John Podesta's e-mails has come forward, as well as the FBI exchange with the State Department. Does she need to get into any of that and address it head on, or can she sort of move on past those now?

KUCINICH: Oh, Chris Wallace is going to ask her about it. And she needs to have a good answer that doesn't sound lawyerly and doesn't sound like she's trying to get out of anything. But you know, Hillary Clinton just needs a steady performance and to

not mess this up. She's ahead right now. If she can -- not coast, but if she can actually talk about her policies and not get dragged down into these various controversies, she's going to have a good night. But Chris Wallace is very tough, a very good interviewer, and he's interviewed Hillary Clinton several times in the past. So we'll see.

CAMEROTA: Yes. We're in good hands with Chris Wallace. He will go back for a second follow up, things like that. He's know for it.

CUOMO: You think that not to lose is enough for her tonight? Because I felt like that's what got her in trouble in the second debate. Was these optics that she's just kind of coasting, and she's got to make the case. A lot of people out there are undecided on her also.

KUCINICH: But did her poll numbers really drop after the last debate?

CAMEROTA: People thought that she won.

CUOMO: But the narrative. The narrative. Our polls showed that she won, but the narrative was what Matt was saying: wow, the guy came out of the box first 20 minutes, was hammering her about her record. She had nothing for him.

KUCINICH: She just has --we don't know which Trump is going to show up tonight.

CAMEROTA: All right. Panel, thank you. Stick around, please. Stay with CNN for live coverage of tonight's debate. It begins at 4 p.m. Eastern.

Also, of course, be sure to watch the debate here. Nine p.m. on CNN.

CUOMO: Up next, a new video is creating controversy. What a Democratic operative is accused of doing at Trump rallies; why he is no longer helping Hillary Clinton's campaign, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:14:09] All right. There is fallout from this new undercover video that come to light. It appears to show Democratic operatives, high level, hired by the DNC, explaining how to provoke Donald Trump supporters into violence at his rallies. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROYAL: And, honestly, it is not hard to get some of these assholes to pop off. It's a matter of showing up to want to get into the rally in a Planned Parenthood T-shirt or, you know, "Trump is a Nazi." You know, you can -- you can message to draw them out and draw them to punch you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. So, this video comes by way of the conservative activist James O'Keefe. He has a checkered history of his own, which we'll get into.

So let's bring back our panel. We have Errol Louis, Matt Lewis and Jackie Kucinich.

Errol, back when there was violence at Trump rallies, some of the Trump supporters were saying these are left-wing activators, and we met with that skepticism, because it seemed as though the people at the Trump rallies, the Trump supporters were being violent.

Well, this is damning. I mean, if this media...

LOUIS: I don't agree with you.

CAMEROTA: If this video is to be believed.

LOUIS: Well, that -- that's the first problem.

CAMEROTA: That is the first problem. But let me just spell out the thing, and then you can shoot it down. If this video is to be believed, it means that there were agitators sent by these Democratic operatives to provoke people outside and inside Trump rallies. That was their sole purpose.

What do you see as the problem with that?

LOUIS: Well, the first problem, again, is you know, James O'Keefe is a known liar. Right? He did the ACORN videos. He had to paid $800,000 to some of the people. He broke the law in the process. He got arrested...

CAMEROTA: He also brought ACORN down in the process. I mean, he did expose things that were happening with ACORN.

LOUIS: It only works if we take his narrative and repeat it over and over again as if it were true. Wearing a Planned Parenthood T-shirt to a Trump rally is not grounds for criminal violence. It wasn't then; it isn't now. It should never be interpreted as "Oh, well, I saw somebody in a Planned Parenthood T-shirt. I had no choice but to go and assault them."

CAMEROTA: You don't think they were picking fights? So you think that, whoever they sent over to the rallies, if, in fact, they sent people over to the Trump rallies, that they weren't picking a fight; they were just wearing a T-shirt?

LOUIS: What -- I mean, let's be clear. What constitutes picking a fight? Mercutio Southall, who is a well-known activist, who's one of the first people I think we all saw on television being beaten at a Trump rally. Trump the next day said he approved of all of it. You know, from the -- remember, from the podium, he was saying that he would pay people's expenses and so forth.

I don't remember there being any kind of, you know, talk about something that he did. When we saw journalists being assaulted at Trump rallies, I don't remember that being about wearing the wrong T- shirt. CAMEROTA: Agreed. The journalists are different. So in other words,

you just disagree; you don't believe what you hear on this video?

LOUIS: No, what -- I haven't seen the whole video and, again, I begin very little of what comes out of this particular shop, because they're proven liars. But if -- even taking them at the word, the little clip that you showed. Wearing a T-shirt is grounds to commit violence? No, never.

CUOMO: Matt. There's no question it's an angry environment. There's no question that, if you go to a Trump rally and there's going to be trouble if you get in people's faces.

LOUIS: Right.

CUOMO: You know, that's agitation in a political environment.

What do you think the value of this is because, O'Keefe is doing something with the idea of destabilizing the Democratic side of the race. So what is the value in this?

LEWIS: Right. I would say two things, though. One, look, the videos seem to indicate that these Hillary Clinton supporters, Democratic activists went with the intention of stirring up trouble and instigating violence. That is unconscionable. What we need in this country is not more violence, is not more...

CUOMO: It's not unconscionable, though, right? It happens all the time on both sides.

LEWIS: But here's the point that I think nobody is making. What were their motives? Why would they want to stir up violence and unrest? And I'll tell you why, to help Donald Trump. These things that happened in Chicago and in Arizona were in the midst of the primaries, right?

If you look at the WikiLeaks, they show that Hillary Clinton was afraid of Marco Rubio. Who did Hillary Clinton want to run against in November? Donald Trump.

CUOMO: So you think...

LEWIS: And the riots and unrest...

CUOMO: Hold on, hold on. I want to get it, because it's early in the morning. People may not be spinning as fast as you are. You think that these guys that don't work for the campaign but let's say the Clinton sympathizers or whatever...

CAMEROTA: Who worked with the DNC.

CUOMO: Maybe. Right? Donna Brazile put out a statement where she says they had no formal arrangement with these guys. So we wouldn't want to advance their case any farther than we can with the fact.

But let's say -- let's just make all the right assumptions here. You think Hillary Clinton wanted these guys to go and start fights so that it would help Donald Trump become the nominee?

LEWIS: I don't know about Hillary Clinton. I would say that the left and the Democratic Party wanted Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee. And I believe they engaged in all sorts of activities, including President Obama trolling us, to help elevate Donald Trump.

If you look at the polls, what happened after Chicago? The rioting in Chicago and the unrest led people, led Republicans to support Donald Trump as the law and order candidate. Democrats helped stoke all of this activity to propagate a Donald Trump candidacy, to elevate him. And it worked sadly; and I think it's bad for America, and I think it's horrible for the Republican Party. The Democrats and the left did not want to face Marco Rubio or even Ted Cruz. They wanted Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: OK. We need to move on to another controversy right now. We'll be talking about this a lot in the program.

The other controversy is what the "People" magazine reporter said Donald Trump did to her. He said that -- she said that when Melania Trump went up to change that Donald Trump basically accosted her in a room. Donald Trump has said that she's a liar, this never happened.

In 2005 she told people about this experience and now those people are coming out to support her and say, yes, in real time she came back to the office and told us. Here is one of her professors, a mentor who said that she called him about this in 2005. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:06] PAUL MCLAUGHLIN, PROFESSOR, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: She wasn't in 2005 calling me in anticipation of doing something negative to him in 2016 during a presidential campaign. That's preposterous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. So he's there trying to defend her and talk about her motivation. Six people have come forward to say that they know that story.

CUOMO: He said -- he said she came to him and talked to him about it, and he was actually counseling her about the negatives of going forward with this and what might happen. But it shows a contemporaneous proof of something having happened to her, which is, in the law, at least, effective.

KUCINICH: Right. And again, this goes -- all of these women coming forward, Donald Trump saying they're all liars. I believe it was a "People" magazine person. He said, "Look at her Facebook page. She's not someone that, you know, I would assault."

CAMEROTA: He suggested.

KUCINICH: He suggested. Yes, exactly. So this isn't good for Donald Trump. But I have to say, throughout -- one of the things that struck me about all these people coming forward, one of them was her editor. And they still ran the story, which I just -- I don't understand. As a woman, as a reporter, how that could happen to you and you still write and publish that story. I don't understand it. I really don't.

CAMEROTA: It was 2005. You know? I think that there was a...

KUCINICH: It's not that long ago.

CAMEROTA: It's not that long ago, but it was a different conversation about sexual assault and what it constituted back then. And I think that what they've said is that they were afraid of Donald Trump coming after them.

KUCINICH: Right, right. And that in and of itself.

CAMEROTA: I mean, there you go. Panel, thank you very much.

All right. Meanwhile, we have to tell you about this other important story. Iraqi and Kurdish forces are taking the fight to ISIS in Mosul, but the Islamic State is putting innocent civilians in harm's way as human shields. We have a live report from Iraq on these developments, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:25:48] CUOMO: All right. A real problem is developing in the battle for Mosul. ISIS seems to be using a familiar, from al Qaeda, but horrific strategy. They are using the civilians there as human shields. We saw this in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but it really complicates what's already a very challenging battle.

CNN's senior international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, live near Mosul. You've reported on these types of events before, whether it was going to places of worship or using humans as shields. What are you hearing about what's happening on the ground?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, so, Chris, we're here at the Kurdish Peshmerga forces' nearest frontline position to the city of Mosul. The city of Mosul is about eight miles behind me.

But if I just step out of the way, you can see this town, which is really just about 800 yards down the hill there. That is still under ISIS control, and since last night there has been a steady barrage -- you can hear it now -- of outgoing artillery as Kurdish forces, along with their coalition allies, essentially try to soften that target.

They're trying to tire out the militants by bombarding them throughout the night. We also been hearing them bombarding them throughout the day, as well, before they go and try to push on in to take that town.

Now, the main area that is seeing heavy clashes today is actually towards the south of Mosul. Those clashes are between the Iraqi army, the ninth division, and it's a battle for a Christian town called Karakosh (ph). So, the Iraqi forces are embroiled in those clashes.

They say that they have now liberated 13 villages. But I think what you're seeing here, Chris, essentially, is that, really, this is a marathon, not a sprint. It is going to take a long time. This is the easier part, in many senses: softening these villages. Once you get into the central part of the city, that is where you are going to start seeing the real resistance.

And as you mentioned, al Qaeda, ISIS, they're all operating from the same playbook, using the same sort of tactics. Humans as shields, suicide bombings and, of coursed tunnels, as well -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Clarissa. We do know this is just the beginning. Thank you for your reporting from there. We'll check back with you.

All right, back here at home, what should we expect tonight? What each candidate needs to do in their final faceoff. So we have two of our best Clinton/Trump stand-ins for our own mock debate. The Hoovalon is next.

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