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Third Presidential Debate Reviewed; Donald Trump Makes Controversial Comment During Debate about Possibly Not Accepting Election Results; Trump & Clinton Spar Over Experience. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 20, 2016 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump refusing to say whether he would accept the election results if he were to lose. He chose instead to say he was going to keep the country in suspense. Those comments overshadowing much of the final debate and casting a shadow over America's democratic process.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Trump's decision draws immediate rebuke not just from Hillary Clinton but from Republicans. His own party was trying to clean up his words very quickly by saying of course they will accept the will of the people. But that is not what Donald Trump said last night.

There couldn't be more at stake. It's 19 days until the election. Let's begin our coverage with political reporter Manu Raju live in Vegas. I'm sure that your fingers started going on the keyboard as soon as Trump said I'll keep you in suspense.

MANU RAJU, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, that's right. Republicans were hoping that Donald Trump would have a command performance last night helping to revive his candidacy and help those down ticket Republicans. At the beginning of the debate Republicans thought he was doing just that when he was talking about issues such as the Supreme Court and the Second Amendment and abortion. But then Hillary Clinton needled him, and then he made this election remark that has everybody talking.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Donald Trump refusing to stay he will accept the election result.

TRUMP: I will look at it at the time. I'm not looking at anything now. I'll look at it at the time.

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Are you saying you're not prepared now --

TRUMP: What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, Chris, let me respond to that, because that's horrifying. Every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction he claims whatever it is is rigged against him. RAJU: Trump suggesting Hillary Clinton's e-mail use is disqualifying.

TRUMP: She shouldn't be allowed to run. She's guilty of a very, very serious crime.

RAJU: Clinton changing the subject of her Wall Street speeches to Russia and pressuring the GOP nominee to condemn Russia for hacking and stealing Democratic records. Trump taking the bait.

CLINTON: Will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this and make it clear that he will not have the help of Putin in this election, that he rejects Russian espionage against Americans, which he actually encouraged in the past?

TRUMP: I don't know Putin. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good. He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president. And I'll tell you what, we are in very serious trouble. From everything I see has no respect for this person.

CLINTON: Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president.

TRUMP: No puppet. Nope

WALLACE: You condemn their interference?

TRUMP: Of course I condemn it.

RAJU: Throughout the night Trump repeatedly interrupting and attacking her.

CLINTON: It's pretty clear --

TRUMP: It's wrong.

CLINTON: A very clear fact --

TRUMP: Wrong.

Excuse me. My turn.

CLINTON: The plan is --

TRUMP: Such a nasty woman.

RAJU: Trump did have a strong start, sparring with Clinton on issues that play well with conservatives, like abortion.

TRUMP: Based on what she's saying and based on where she's going and where she's been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day, and that's not acceptable.

CLINTON: Using that kind of scare rhetoric is just terribly unfortunate. You should meet with some of the women that I've met with, women I've known over the course of my life. This is one of the worst possible choices that any woman and her family has to make. And I do not believe the government should be making it.

RAJU: Trump even going as far as claiming his pro-life Supreme Court picks would automatically overturn Roe v. Wade, something he can't guarantee. Later Clinton hitting back on immigration.

CLINTON: When it comes to the wall that Donald talks about building, he went to Mexico and had a meeting with the Mexican president, didn't even raise it, he choked.

TRUMP: First of all, I had a very good meeting with the president of Mexico. Very nice man.

RAJU: Trump raising eyebrows with this response to the question of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.

TRUMP: Once the border is secured at a later date we'll make a determination as to the rest. But we have some bad hombres here and we're going to get them out.

RAJU: And once again rejecting the growing number of accusations from several women of making unwanted advances.

TRUMP: Because their stories are all totally false. I have to say that. I didn't even apologize to my wife who is sitting right here because I didn't do anything. I didn't know any of these women. I didn't see these women. These women, the woman on the plane, the woman -- I think they want either fame, or her campaign did it. And I think it's her campaign.

CLINTON: Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self-worth. And I don't think there is a woman anywhere who doesn't know what that feels like. So we now know what Donald thinks and what he says and how he acts towards women. That's who Donald is.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[08:05:07] RAJU: Now, Republicans close to the Trump campaign moving quickly to try to clean up his remarks that he may not accept the election results, including Reince Priebus coming to the spin room immediately afterwards and the RNC chairman saying of course Donald Trump will accept the election results.

But other Republican critics quick to jump on Donald Trump, including Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican senator, tweeting last night that Donald Trump's decision not to accept the election results were, quote, "beyond the pale." Other senior Republicans not yet talking about this yet, including the congressional leaders Paul Ryan, the House speaker, and Mitch McConnell the Senate majority leader, both no comment at this point, and that silence, Chris, is deafening.

CUOMO: Let's be honest, sometimes a campaign doesn't know whether it's coming or going, and that's where they are on this right now. They keep saying they'll accept it, but that's not what Donald Trump said. That leads us to the question, why would Donald Trump refuse to say if

he'll accept the election results? Moments ago we took this question to his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. She is usually very much on the game of telling you what Trump meant. But this is a tough one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: What Donald Trump has said over time, if you take all the statements together, Chris, he has said that he will respect the results of the election, but everybody, including Al Gore in 2000, waits to see what those election results are. You wait to see what the results are, if they're verified, if they're certified. Al Gore called to concede that race in 2000. He called George W. Bush and congratulated him for being the victor, and then called back and retracted the concession.

CUOMO: Right, but Kellyanne --

CONWAY: And we went on for six weeks.

CUOMO: Right, but that's the problem, though, is that we all do know what happened in Florida and this is different. Donald Trump is saying right now with weeks to go, I think it could be rigged against me, so I'm not going to say I will respect it. That's not what happened in 2000, as we both know very well. There was an auto recount triggered. There was a legitimate issue as to who had won the state in a context where we knew at the time that the popular vote was against then governor George Bush. And it was a state that was run by the GOP at the governor and secretary of state level. It was George Bush who wound up having to appeal to the Supreme Court to decide the matter. And when they did, that's when Al Gore took the step of conceding the race. This is not an analogy to that. This is Donald Trump saying, if I don't like the outcome --

CONWAY: I disagree.

CUOMO: You can disagree except you said something different.

CONWAY: I'm his campaign manager -- his running mate, his daughter, we've all said the same thing, absent widespread fraud or indices of irregularities. But please don't say he said, quote, "Unless I win --

CUOMO: He said I won't tell you until then. He didn't say what you said either. There's a huge irregularity or something like that like Florida then we have to look at it. He didn't say that. He said I don't know. I'll look at it when it happens. I want to keep you in suspense. He didn't say what you said.

CONWAY: He was supposed to give 10 or 12 different hypotheticals to prove --

CUOMO: No. He was supposed to say I accept the outcome of the election because we want a peaceful transfer of power, and then if there's some, God forbid that happens like in 2000, you deal with it when it comes. You don't undermine the system before you come to that. Isn't that a fair statement? CONWAY: Chris, I think you're just asking me the same question over

one long segment, so I'm sure if I turn on CNN all day that's basically what I'll see. But I think the voters learned a lot last night in 90 minutes. I answered it. His daughter answered it. His running mate answered it. And more importantly, he's answered it.

And honestly, if you're going to just let Hillary Clinton lie her way through last night's debate and talk about one issue today from a 90- minute debate, I think the voters will decide for themselves. But they saw a real contrast last night, real choice. Hillary Clinton was on her heels for her extreme, outrageous position on abortion, abortion anytime, anywhere. Every pro-choicer I know doesn't support abortion in late term the way she does.

She -- she was on her heels on the Second Amendment. She was held to account for her position with the hot spots all over the globe. I mean, if you've been there for decades you own the problems we have. Every time she talked about poverty and health care, and hot spots around the globe, my God, who's been there for decades? And Donald Trump is right. All talk, no action. People have a real choice here -- change or more of the same.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Let's discuss with CNN political analyst David Gregory and CNN senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson. Look, the goal was to give Kellyanne her say. It's her right to make these arguments. There were a lot of points of contrast. But it is hard to run away from the reality of what Trump said last night, which is fundamentally different than what his campaign has been promising, his family's been promising over the last 24 hours. The question is why he did it.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, the whole notion of complaining about a rigged system is not unique to Trump, right? Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren have been marinating in that same stew for months talking about the economy being rigged against average Americans, the political system, the Democratic -- the process on the Democratic Party side of the nominating contest. So Donald Trump is echoing that.

[08:10:08] In this case, he is making a broad claim that has no merit. You have Republican governors, and Republican secretaries of state who said he's completely off base. What Kellyanne Conway is introducing is somebody who was in Austin, Texas, the night of the 2000 recount when Al Gore called back, the election, there was a question of whether the votes were counted. There was a question of who actually won the state of Florida, which would be decisive in the race as to who would be the next president. No one would begrudge Donald Trump if it was a photo finish like that from pursuing litigation, from questioning the veracity of the result.

As you pointed out, that's not what he said. He said, well, we'll have to see, because he's been out there around the country saying that it's all rigged, suggesting at the precinct level, suggesting at the media level that this whole thing is rigged against hi that there will be widespread voter fraud. There's no evidence for that. And he is bucking a democratic tradition of peaceful transfer of power. Not a good move, particularly when you want to expand his base of support among those voters who are questioning whether he has the temperament or the qualification to be president.

CAMEROTA: Nia-Malika is it possible we are overthinking what the strategy behind why Donald Trump said that is? Maybe this is just personality trumping policy and he doesn't want to see even consider the fact that he might lose.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, in some ways that was probably true. I mean, he is in some ways a very impulsive guy. He's predictably unpredictable in a lot of ways.

But I do think there is strategy to some extent here in terms of how he talks about the way in which he thinks the election will be rigged. He talks about it in racialized terms. And Rudy Giuliani talks about it in racialized terms. Their notion is that the rigging will go on in cities. And whenever they talk about cities, they talk about Democrats, and they talk about African-Americans living in cities.

When he goes to these audiences that are overwhelmingly white he tells those audiences that they need to check the polling places in other places, not in their own precincts, but in other places. So I do think that is, you know, a dangerous line of rhetoric. But it is in keeping with the way Donald Trump has run this campaign. It is a very us versus them campaign all about white grievance politics. And now he's sort of the chairman of the white grievance party in some ways.

And this idea now that he's going to be the ultimate victim, right, he's going toe the ultimate victim of this, you know, rigged system that is going to be rigged, in his mind, by African-Americans in cities I think is the culmination in some ways of what we've heard from Republicans all along about -- about elections. This idea that they need to, you know, introduce voter I.D. laws because there's all of this voter fraud when in fact there's no proof that there is any widespread in-person voter fraud because it would be a very inefficient way to rig an election.

GREGORY: There's also just a lot of tire rant talk from Donald Trump. Let's remember in the last debate he threatened to imprison his political opponent should he become president. He openly sides with Vladimir Putin, admires a tyrant of Russia who has stolen documents and hacked e-mails from Hillary Clinton and --

CUOMO: He refuses to acknowledge that.

GREGORY: Refuses to acknowledge --

CUOMO: He said last night the U.S. doesn't know. We don't know. She doesn't know.

GREGORY: And they have no compunction about referring to it and really getting into it.

And then to not accept the results of a democratic election, these are things that are undermining American democracy. And it's striking to me that conservatives who support Donald Trump seem to have no problem when he talks down American democracy or talks about the weakness of American leadership, talking about invading Mosul to help Hillary Clinton, talking about how all the leaders sit around and laugh about how they've outsmarted our a think us stupid, our American leadership is. If a democrat did that imagine the uproar on the part of Republicans and conservatives. I'll wait to see if I hear that today.

CAMEROTA: Nia-Malika we also had V.P. Democratic V.P. nominee Tim Kaine on, and we asked him if he and his camp are concerned about the possibility of Donald Trump not accepting the outcome? Here was his take on it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM KAINE, (D) VICE PRESIDENT NOMINEE: Whether or not he concedes is probably irrelevant. The question is, is the mandate clear on the 8th of November? I'm in North Carolina today, early voting starts here today. We're doing -- today we're doing everything we can to encourage everybody to participate so that the mandate will be very clear. Donald is still going to whine if he loses. But if the mandate is clear I don't think many people will follow him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, so Nia-Malika, that's fair. If it's a landslide obviously this argument goes away. But if it is -- I mean if it's very, very tight race then it could be maybe a bigger problem than Tim Kaine is allowing for.

[08:15:03] HENDERSON: Yes, I think that's right. I mean, if you look at the map right now, it doesn't look like it will -- it will be close and it seems like one of the things the Democrats are trying to do in states like Arizona, in states like Texas, in states like Georgia even, is even if they don't win those states, they want to swell the turnout, right, so that the popular vote isn't so competitive.

So, yes, and that's why they are strategically in these states now. We'll see. I mean, everybody -- Trump obviously wants us to play his game and -- and wait with bated breath to see what he's going to say on Election Day. I don't think it will matter in terms of the endurance of the democracy.

GREGORY: The question of her legitimacy as leader will be questioned and Trumpism and the Trump part of the Republican Party which could be 40 percent is going to be around. She's going to have to deal with that --

HENDERSON: But that happened with John McCain. John McCain conceded with 30 percent, 40 percent of Republicans thought that Obama was born elsewhere. So, I mean, I think that's going

CUOMO: Who's driving that again? Ah yes, Donald Trump, was driving that effort then and now.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you. So, both candidates finished the debate with a message to Americans

about why they are fit to be president. Who made the best case to voters? We discuss with supporters on both sides, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: So, the debate ended with a question of which presidential candidate is more fit to lead.

[08:20:03] Clinton and Trump sparring over their experience. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I say the one thing you have over me is experience, but it's bad experience, because what you've done has turned out badly.

For 30 years, you've been in a position to help.

CLINTON: Back in the 1970s, I worked for the Children's Defense Fund. And I was taking on discrimination against African-American kids in schools. He was getting sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination in his apartment buildings.

In the 1980s, I was working to reform the schools in Arkansas. He was borrowing $14 million from his father.

And on the day when I was in the Situation Room, monitoring the raid that brought Osama bin Laden to justice, he was hosting the "Celebrity Apprentice." So I'm happy to compare my 30 years of experience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. So, who made the better case?

Let's discuss with our panel. We have Scottie Nell Hughes, she is a Trump supporter and the political editor of rightsalerts.com. We have Symone Sanders, a Clinton supporters, who is the national press secretary for Bernie Sanders primary campaign, and Tim Miller, former communications for Jeb Bush's presidential campaign.

Great to have all of you.

Tim, I'll start with you, since you don't have really a horse in this race anymore. Who do you think made the better case?

TIM MILLER, FORMER COMM. DIR., JEB BUSH PRES. CAMPAIGN: Boy, tough call. Both have pretty tough arguments to make on that front. I think Hillary did on this one. Because Trump hasn't been successful in anything. I don't know if your viewers have heard of the Tour de Trump or Trump airlines or Trump mortgages probably not because they all were miserable failures. The only thing he's done well is "Celebrity Apprentice" --

CAMEROTA: And he's made a lot of money and people -- MILLER: I guess he started with a lot of money and he's lost a lot of

money. He's gone bankrupt three times. Trump has never also done anything for the public good. He's 70 years old. He's never done one thing. His charity doesn't give money to anybody --

CAMEROTA: Hold on a second, tim. Hold on his foundation does give money to people. What the investigation --

MILLER: He doesn't give --

CAMEROTA: He hasn't personally contributed to the Trump Foundation.

MILLER: He's a billionaire. He's a billionaire.

CAMEROTA: But the foundation gives money.

MILLER: He gives no money to charity. A billionaire. All of us give more money to charity than he does. I'm not anywhere near a billionaire.

He's never advocated for a political issue. You know he's never been out in the public space saying this is what we can do to make the country better. He crapped on Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama and said they were all terrible. And that he could do better without doing anything. He's done nothing except for fail his whole life.

CAMEROTA: You've given a lot of thought to this I see and been waiting to get on the air, Tim.

Scottie, you do support him obviously. Scottie, so when you hear all that, what is Mr. Trump's best argument that he is the most fit to be president?

SCOTTIE NELL HUGHES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, his best argument, and Tim actually just made it for him, because the reason why the Republicans have lost is because of what Tim just went down there. Mr. Trump has done a lot of public good. In fact 32,000 jobs, that is called public -- giving 32,000 people jobs in America. That's why the Republicans have lost the two last two election seasons because I guess they don't value jobs unless it's their own in Washington, D.C. and growing the burr crease.

But I think why Donald Trump won last night, why he had the most fitness to be president, is because he's never looked in the camera and lied to the American people. And he's never actually --

MILLER: What? He lies all the time.

HUGHES: -- American lives at risk.

MILLER: He lies all the time. He literally lies every time he opens his mouth. When it comes to job creation Donald Trump has stiffed vendors. There are thousands of venders who did work for him, hardworking people. He asked them to do a job. They did the job. He didn't pay them. He said s me if he want to pay him so this is not a guy that's created -- give me a break. (CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Hold on. Hold on. Let me bring Symone in.

I know you're enjoying watching this, Symone. But you need to participate, as well, because that is something that all of his supporters say, which is he creates jobs. She has been a public servant. She has never created a job and we need job creation.

That's an argument you hear over and over for why he should be president.

SYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I have to agree with my buddy Tim here in that one Donald Trump has capitalized on he talks about the bad trade deals but Donald Trump has benefited from the cheap foreign labor. If Donald Trump cares so much about creating jobs in America, why has he stiffed people that have worked for him? Why have people actively completed the services and don't get paid from Donald Trump? Job creation is definitely important and that's why under President Obama we have had many months of job creation.

CAMEROTA: He's not running for office again, Symone.

SANDERS: I'm just saying under President Obama we have. Hillary Clinton is going to build on the progress President Obama has made.

The question was who made that better closing argument? And Secretary Clinton went in there and she closed the deal, OK? "Celebrity Apprentice" to -- "Celebrity Apprentice" to in the Situation Room when we got Osama bin Laden. That is a concrete argument. And if you're asking who is ready on day one to go in there and get the job done, Hillary Clinton made her case last night. It's her.

CAMEROTA: OK, Scottie, I know you're itching to get back in here. Your response?

HUGHES: Concrete evidence. What she forgot to say is maybe during the '70s when she was actually defending a child rapist and laughing about it --

CAMEROTA: That's been debunked.

HUGHES: No, we have the tape where she actually -- she was assigned to the case she laughed about it, said she had lost all faith in polygraphs and all faith in the service --

CAMEROTA: -- about a lie detector, she's laughing, not about the victimization.

HUGHES: She ruined a child's life and now that adult child says it's because of her. She stood by her man as we went through one of the most horrific experiences in American history --

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: The Trump people are not talking anything about people standing by anybody when Donald Trump is currently being --

CAMEROTA: Can I finish?

SANDERS: On the topic of sexual assault --

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Address that, what sounds like hypocrisy?

HUGHES: Well, but what I'm going to say here is we went through that early '90s and she continued to stand by, once again, another -- why she did not close the deal last night? Because nobody has more faith and trust in her after last night. Once again Donald Trump proved and brought to the forefront the ideas that her campaign has been encouraging people to come and encourage violence at his rallies --

MILLER: Wait though, wait though, wait though you're going to attack Donald Trump --

HUGHES: Can I finish?

MILLER: No! No, you can --

HUGHES: Can I finish --

MILLER: You are attacking Hillary Clinton for the fact that her husband cheated on her. When your candidate sexually harassed --

(CROSSTALK)

MILLER: Give me a break. Why would you even go there? Is this the best argument you have for Donald Trump, Bill Clinton's behavior?

CAMEROTA: Scottie, look, there is a question about why --

HUGHES: Do we let Jeb Bush's losers go back?

MILLER: You --

HUGHES: Because there's a reason why Hillary Clinton herself actually pointed out to her friend Linda Blair that her husband had a problem. Maybe if she would have put more alerts to that problem, we would not have --

(CROSSTALK)

MILLER: -- about your own candidate, Scottie.

SANDERS: I'm sorry, Alisyn, but I am not going to sit on this network and allow anyone to make Hillary Clinton or any other woman for that matter responsible for the behavior of someone's husband. That is not what we're doing here. The question is --

HUGHES: No, how she handled the situation.

SANDERS: We are running for president of the United States o4 America.

(CROSSTALK)

MILLER: I'm not concerned about what Bill Clinton does in his personal time. I'm concerned about who can govern. I'm concerned about the economy. Criminal justice down the line.

CAMEROTA: All right, panel --

HUGHES: No, I'm concerned about --

CAMEROTA: Scottie, I mean, look, you can say same about Melania Trump. We'd be happy to leave it here. They've been rapping me for a solid two minutes.

Panel, thank you very much for that.

MILLER: I have more.

CAMEROTA: For that very fiery debate. Great to talk to you.

All right. So, the biggest head line in the debate is Donald Trump refusing to say if he'll accept the results of the election. How will those comments and last night's debate, affect the race going forward? We'll get the bottom line from CNN's political director next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)