Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Clinton, Trump Enter Final Stretch of Campaign; National Poll: Clinton Leads Trump by 12 Points. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 24, 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: We are going to drain the swamp of corruption.

[05:58:04] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The United States is bigger than Donald Trump.

TRUMP: Every woman lied. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You don't have to be a husband or a father to stand up for women. You just have to be a decent human being.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: We are behind. Donald Trump is just going to continue to take the case directly to the people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is shaping up to be one of the biggest media deals in history.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up on NEW DAY the CEOs of Time Warner and AT&T discuss the huge merger.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, October 24, 6 a.m. in the east, and guess what? The election is finally about you.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump making closing arguments to voters in the home stretch to November 8. The new national poll shows Clinton with a commanding lead, a double digit by these predictions. But remember, they are only as good as the voter turnout.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, Clinton is intensifying her push into the red states and reportedly starting to focus on her transition team. We are now 15 days until election day. We have it all covered for you.

So let's begin with CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

Good morning, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Hillary Clinton is heading to New Hampshire today, but not just for herself. For the third straight day, she's visiting a battleground state that also has a competitive Senate race. She's working to maintain her edge over Donald Trump and trying to help Democrats win control of the Senate.

This morning, we are learning she is looking ahead as we well, taking more steps to plan what she increasingly believes will be her transition to the presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY (voice-over): A two-week fight to the finish. It's time for closing arguments. Hillary Clinton striking an optimistic note.

CLINTON: I want to be the president for every American: Democrats, Republicans, independents; people who vote for me, people who vote against me. Because we've got to bring this country together.

ZELENY: Donald Trump less so.

TRUMP: Are we glad that I started? Are we having -- well, I'll let you know on the evening of November 8 whether I'm glad.

ZELENY: With 15 days to go, Trump no longer talking about when he wins but if.

TRUMP: If we win on November 8, we are going to fix our rigged system. It's a rigged, broken, corrupt system.

CLINTON: Some people are sore losers and, you know, we just -- we just got to keep going.

ZELENY: A wild weekend, with Trump visiting Gettysburg for an unusual Gettysburg address. Overshadowing the plan for his first 100 days in office by pledging to sue the women accusing him of inappropriate behavior.

TRUMP: Every women lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign. Total fabrication. All these liars will be sued after the election is over.

ZELENY: Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway bluntly acknowledging the uphill climb.

CONWAY: We were behind. We were behind one, three, four points in some of these swing states that Mitt Romney lost to President Obama. Chuck, our advantage is that Donald Trump is just going to continue to take the case directly to the people.

ZELENY: Trump undermining that acknowledgment.

TRUMP: "Investors Business Daily," the most accurate poll from the last election and the two elections before that, just announced that we are leading nationally by 2 points.

Numbers are looking phenomenal in Florida. Don't believe the media.

ZELENY: But a new ABC News national poll shows Trump trailing Clinton by 12 points.

Meantime, CNN has learned Clinton is increasingly moving behind Trump and turning her attention to her transition to the presidency. A Democrat close to Clinton saying she's not being arrogant, she's being diligent. Clinton is sizing up candidates for White House chief of staff. One top contender, Ron Klain, who led her debate team. All this as President Obama is tying GOP Senate candidates to Trump. Visiting Nevada, one of the hottest Senate battlegrounds.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You're for him, but you're not for him. But you're kind of for him. What the heck?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: Now, it's not just President Obama making that case. Michelle Obama returning to the campaign trail this week, appearing together with Hillary Clinton for the first time in North Carolina.

Now, Trump is all in, in Florida. He's spending the next three days in the state. He has virtually no path to the White House without those 29 electoral votes. Hillary Clinton heading there tomorrow, hoping to block that path -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Jeff, thank you very much.

Let's bring in our panel: CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner News, Errol Louis; political reporter for "The Washington Post," Philip Bump; and CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich.

The closing arguments, all about the voters. Trump goes first, basically saying, "I'm going to lay out the first 100 days. I'm doing it at Gettysburg," and what happens?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, and he steps on his own message. He spends the first five minutes promising to settle scores.

And let's keep in mind, apart from the sexism that's involved, and the tawdriness of the sexual assault allegations, for a president or even a presidential candidate to try and settle personal scores using the platform that he has if such a...

CUOMO: When you say personal scores, what are you saying he was going to do?

LOUIS: He said he was going to sue all of these liars, and we know that that's not going to happen. He said he's going to sue "The New York Times" in some other settings. He talks about suing. It's a way of blowing off steam, I suppose. But again, talking about personally settling scores, as a president of the United States. I mean, that's essentially what he was saying. He stepped on his own message. The rest of it actually was kind of an interesting summary of a lot of promises that he has made. He doesn't have it really together. He didn't issue a campaign book the way the Clinton campaign did. He doesn't have it, really, all together on his website. So it was really, actually, a nice, compact description of the things that he says that he wants to do.

Again, though, he made sure that that would not be the headline by saying that he was going to sue a bunch of people.

CAMEROTA: So Kellyanne Conway admitted that they are behind in the polls. That's something that Donald Trump has not admitted. In fact, he keeps citing polls that show he's ahead. Are people not breaking it to him on his campaign that he is actually behind in the polls? Why do they have such different messages?

PHILIP BUMP, POLITICAL REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": No, I mean, the extent to which anyone on his campaign can tell him anything and have it sink in is something that's worth asking.

But yes, he likes to -- he's always liked to cherry-pick polls. He liked to cherry pick polls in the primary, as well. You know, if you look at polling averages, consistently, Hillary Clinton has been in the lead if you look at, for example, "The L.A. Times" poll. He's been this huge outlier, and Trump with massive leads. Hillary Clinton is leading in that now.

Every indicator is that Donald Trump is losing. For Kellyanne Conway, her background is polling. I think she acknowledges that. She is aware that after this election, she is still going to have to be working politics. And I think what Trump was doing yesterday or doing over the weekend in Gettysburg, I think he understands that the odds are low right now. And I think that he knows that he needs to change the perception of himself after the election, as well. Which may be one of the reasons why more of the priority was protecting his own personal brand and less on the election itself.

[06:05:14] CUOMO: So Trump, other than saying that he's going to sue the accusers, which he's not going to do, because it would open him up to discovery that, you know, a process where he has to give information and be talked to under oath that I don't think he wants.

He is doing something very different than Clinton, though. He's saying, "I'm going to change the following things that are problems with this corrupt system. Here's what I'm going to do."

The Clinton campaign is shifting away from that, and they're starting to move into this broader sense of, what do we do with Congress? There's risk in that, isn't there, Jackie?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There is, Chris. Particularly if Congress can just reject her. And there will be a lot of friction immediately, because if Trump doesn't win, as much as we hate to say it, the shift is going to focus to 2020 with a lot of Republicans who are going to start talking about their own personal brands. I mean, look at Ted Cruz. I'm sure he's already gearing up for that.

But the other thing they're talking about is healing, and how they're going to heal the rift in the country at large.

CAMEROTA: And what is the plan for that one?

CUOMO: Free ice cream.

CAMEROTA: Exactly.

KUCINICH: Well, that would go a long way. Kittens, puppies. No, no, but it is. He was talking about it on the North Carolina, just, you know, how -- how much everyday people are going to be part of that, trying to heal the rift that this election has really opened up in this country.

CAMEROTA: Errol, is it too a little bit too early to measure the drapes in the Oval Office. We hear reportedly he's already thinking about her transition team. She's thinking about who her chief of staff is. She's sort of dispensed with Donald Trump. I mean, this is the reporting. Fifteen days, anything can happen.

LOUIS: Yes, well, I mean, look, the reality is both campaigns have transition offices. Donald Trump says -- has one, as well. It's about a block from the White House. There was some great reporting on what goes on.

Any new president has about 4,000 positions that they have to fill. They have a couple hundred, 250 that are absolutely essential that have to get filled immediately just to keep the lights on.

You know, Melody Barnes, who used to run the Domestic Policy Council for the Obama administration, said her first day when she finally found her office, the phone was ringing when she walked in the door. The government continues.

So, it would be irresponsible not to have something in motion. They probably ought to try and kill any of the speculation and reporting, because it's not just a distraction, but it really starts to cast her as maybe a little bit more self-assured than she wants to portray herself as being right now.

Cuomo: Christie had been saying the reason he wasn't doing more media is because he's so busy with the transition team. You know, so ostensibly the Trump people are doing the same thing, but not as outwardly. And I guess the question becomes, so why so much confidence in the turnout projections? Why the confidence that the Democrats will get more voter turnout than they did in 2012? Why would that happen?

BUMP: Well, I think there's a few things. I think we're likely to see higher turnout this year than 2012, probably just because of population growth. I mean, this is 2012 and didn't have high turnout compared to 2008. We've added a lot more people since then. So that's one reason why. Another reason is because Hillary Clinton is leading by so much. I think the Democrats feel more confident with turnout once you're ahead by that much. It becomes less of an issue.

CUOMO: So, you think if you're up more than people vote, because I would think, intuitively, you're up, maybe people stay home.

BUMP: Turnout makes a couple percentage point difference, as a general rule. So the Democrats also have a stronger field program, which is the turnout operation. That makes a small difference, as well. But theirs is better than the Republicans. They're less worried about it, and Donald Trump's core strength is with white men without college degrees. They actually vote less than most white voters do. White college graduates are the highest propensity voters, and they're leaning toward Clinton.

CAMEROTA: You know, in 2012 Mitt Romney and his team were confident that he was going to win. And the reason was, in part, because they had this internal polling that suggested that they were up in battleground states.

Is it - is there any way that the polls are wrong and that they haven't sort of fastened on the demographics that are now this country or some other special sauce that they're missing?

KUCINICH: That is certainly what the Trump campaign is banking on right now. They're hoping. You hear a lot about their silent majority of people that aren't being polled, people who aren't answering pollsters' questions accurately. But this lead is so big that you'd have -- I would be surprised.

Also, the Clinton campaign isn't taking any chances, and that's why you see this huge emphasis on early voting and getting people out and, you know, to the polls, not just on November 8, to make sure that they can have a good lead going into election.

CAMEROTA: Five million votes, I believe, already counted in early voting.

KUCINICH: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And we are told that they are leaning towards Clinton.

CUOMO: The trending is suggesting that it's better for Clinton thus far. But you don't know. It's still early on. So that's why Hillary is bringing out the big gun in Michelle Obama. Certainly, the media has embraced Michelle as the star player in this surrogate campaign.

What does it mean to have her with -- so the first lady with the former first lady, who is now running to be president in North Carolina?

[06:10:06] LOUIS: Well, what it says to me, among other things, is that they're worried about black turnout, especially among millennials in North Carolina. They're really pulling out all of the stops.

The state itself, I think, is one that the Obama team feels like they should have won last time. It was their narrowest loss in 2012, and they won it in 2008. They want to really redraw the map. They want to settle some old scores. They want to sort of put that in the Democratic column of going forward. And Michelle Obama is their best bet to try and do that.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you. Stick around.

Up next, Hillary Clinton surging, Donald Trump dropping in the polls. So what is behind those numbers? Do they signal the end for Trump, or is there another way to look at these numbers? Our panel discusses that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Early voting is underway, including in the key swing state of Florida. That's where Donald Trump will be campaigning today. This new ABC News national poll has Hillary Clinton with now a double- digit lead.

Our latest CNN poll of polls has Clinton at 48 percent and Trump at 39. Can Trump turn things around with these two weeks left in the race?

[06:15:00] Let's bring back our panel. We have Errol Louis, Philip Bump and Jackie Kucinich. So Philip, let's look at the -- let's dive in this ABC News poll that came out yesterday.

Let's look at gender. I mean, the all-important question that has, you know, bedeviled the Trump campaign this whole time. At the moment, Clinton is leading by 20 points. She has 55 percent with women, likely voters. He has 35 percent. With men, Hillary Clinton is also now leading in this ABC News poll, 44 percent to Trump's 41.

So was this all the Billy Bush tape? I mean, what happened that turned the tide here?

BUMP: Well, I think -- I mean, I think it's important to note this is something of an outlier. This may be ahead of a trend that we're seeing here. But no, it's not all the Billy Bush tape. You know, one of the things that we've seen with Trump's campaign so far is he's got this -- this floor of support that he hasn't gone above very often. When he has gone above, it's because Republican women and independent women have come onboard; and then he loses them again. He lost them after the Democratic convention. He lost them, actually, starting at the first debate, which overlapped with the Billy Bush tape.

So the question has always been if these women will ever come onboard team Trump. At this point they're very much off-board team Trump, and it's hard to imagine what will happen over the next 15 days, where they might come back.

CUOMO: The -- I guess when you look at the polls, more and more the number that really has stuck out is his overall. He hasn't been able to get over that 40 percent. There have been different moves in those, you know, in those interior cross tabs, you know, whether you talk about gender or different economic strata and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, this was that he has to grow the base. He has to expand the tent. So the explanation for the numbers being static to down, is his lack of expansion, which you can attribute to a bunch of factors, whether it's the tape or 15 things just like that tape.

KUCINICH: I mean, that's when the -- that's when the issue, as Phil said the whole time. But I will say this also. This is about the time Trump started beginning to be Trump, again, and it has failed. Everyone one of the -- so he's down with people with the rigged election message.

CAMEROTA: We have that. Let me just interrupt you for one second, because this is interesting. ABC asked, "Trump saying the election might be rigged through voter fraud among likely voters." Do you find that legitimate? Thirty-nine percent say yes. Fifty-nine percent...

CUOMO: Same as his base.

CAMEROTA: ... consider him to be making excuses.

KUCINICH: But when you look at the Trump voters, when the poll dives down just to Trump voters, Trump report -- Trump reporters. Trump voters are all in on that message. So again, he's speaking to his base. And we've said this story in the debates. There really isn't a willingness to expand. We're seeing it reflected in the polls.

CUOMO: You know, also, this is the time polls start to matter, when you get closer to election day, because people start to think about it more seriously. You know, there's a big change. Sometimes it's whimsy and sometimes it's just a snapshot of a moment. But right now, you start to get a better read on where their heads actually are. That's why these numbers are more troublesome to the Trump campaign.

LOUIS: Well, not just that. Look, 34 states where early voting is happening right now. So today is election day in 34 states. You know, it starts to look more, in some ways, almost like an exit poll, right? I mean, if you're -- if you're polling in a state where lots of people are going to the polls, you're capturing real behavior of reporting it as we're seeing today is going to influence a lot of people who are going to the polls today. It really is; it's crunch time.

You know, and the Trump campaign and Trump himself, we've been saying this for about a year now. If he's going to build on his base, there's -- you've to ask the question, where? Geographically, where is it going to be? Demographically, where is it going to be?

And you can fight against the establishment, but he fought against so much of all establishments, you know, that he's shedding Muslim voters. He's shedding immigrant voters. You know, he's insulting the black community. He's insulting women. At some point you have to -- you know, you basically run out of runway, and I think that's where we are now.

CAMEROTA: There's also now polling for the first time about how voters feel about his rigged election claims. So, ABC News asked the question, "Trump's refusing to say whether he'd accept the outcome if he loses." Likely voters approve of that, 29 percent; disapprove, 65 percent. So it seems as though this is also hurting him.

LOUIS: Yes, I mean, it's a weird claim. It is an outlier claim, meaning the history of American politics, this simply doesn't happen. There's nothing comparable to it, despite the arguments that he himself makes. And I think that when people assume that it is because he's making excuses, I think that's a fair assumption. Right?

We are 15 days away from election day. There's essentially nothing he can do at this point. He's had lots of opportunities to compel the American voters to come to his side. All of those opportunities have been wasted, because he's focused on his base. Seems like what they're trying to do is just get that base and push as many of them to the polls as they can. There just simply aren't enough people there to actually make the difference here. And so I think that people see this for what it is, which is him having an excuse for why he did it.

CAMEROTA: It's also about the team he built. Right? He built a very specific team, especially with Bannon, the Breitbart guy, in there. Which is this is -- your campaign start, what are you for. Then the whole middle to two-thirds is what you're against, which is usually the other person. And then you shift back to what you're for at the end. He didn't build a team to deal well with what he's for.

This is an attack team that he has in there. So, now, what he needs most is what he set up least, which is the argument to the people about why he'll make their lives better, positive, strength. Not his strength.

[06:20:07] KUCINICH: Well, we were talking about enthusiasm during the break. Twelve percent of Republicans -- it's dropped for Trump. Twelve percent of Republicans, and those are mainly the ones that were supporting someone else during the primaries.

So, again, he can't expand from his base. And if you don't like some '90s conspiracy theories, if you don't like some of the scandals of the Clintons. I mean, some of these debates are basically a '90s fever dream. So if you don't like that message the we're pushing out during critical parts of the campaign, you're not -- you're not feeling real good about this right now.

CAMEROTA: One last thing, and I don't believe we have the graphic for it. That is how white voters are feeling. And it's very instructive to look at this. Trump's lead among white voters is not just at four points. Romney won, I believe, by 20 points.

LOUIS: Yes, that's right. And this reflects women breaking against Donald Trump. White women in particular, college-educated by a huge margin. So if he would find the discipline to stop talking about those sexual assault allegations. If he would stop insulting, you know, Hillary Clinton...

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LOUIS: ... in particular ways, it might have gone in a different direction.

CAMEROTA: OK. So let's say he stops that today.

CUOMO: If he stops today and says, "Look, let's be honest. We had a horrible thing with the recession. Obama did what he could. He didn't do what he promised, and he created a huge new problem with Obamacare. Clinton is going to extend all of these. Do not reward them for mediocrity. Let me get in there. Let's do it differently. I'm the only person who can get the GOP to work in Congress. That why you pick me. Nobody's perfect."

CAMEROTA: Who wants to vote for Chris right now, because -- but also, they're looking to cut his mike off and shove him off stage. Because when he goes off script is when he gets a problem.

LOUIS: Also, Obama just hit a new high in Gallup approval points.

CUOMO: I wonder how much of that is reaction formation, you know? People have real problem in this country on a lot of different economic strata, with social issues, as well. But compared to these two, you know, Obama looks like Michael Jordan all of a sudden. You know?

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you.

CUOMO: All right. So you want to be part of history? Of course you do. So you want to see that Cubs/Indians World Series game? How about in person for game one. Guess what? "The Bleacher Report" is talking about how you get there, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:25:01] CAMEROTA: ... national poll. She is reportedly starting to focus on her transition team.

The Trump campaign acknowledging it is behind. Today, they're focused on Florida, a state he must win.

CUOMO: Thirteen people killed, dozens more hurt when a tour bus returning from a casino crashes into a big rig in California. The bus driver is among the dead. The driver of the semi suffered minor injuries. The cause is under investigation.

CAMEROTA: Kurdish forces and a coalition of nearly 100,000 soldiers are just five miles away from entering Mosul. The Iraqi city has been under ISIS control. The gains on the ground come as Secretary of Defense Ash Carter returns to Iraq to see commanders and assess the Mosul fight.

CUOMO: Police in Oklahoma say a gunman who shot and wounded two officers Sunday night also killed two other people. The victims' bodies were found during the manhunt for Michael Vance, who is still on the run, believed to be armed and dangerous. Look at that picture.

CAMEROTA: People in western new Mexico say a suspected drunk driver crashed into a medical helicopter and a firetruck responding to a rollover crash on a highway. The chopper was not running, and its rotors were not spinning, so no injuries reported. All right. For more on the five things to know, go to CNN.com/NewDay

for all of the latest.

CUOMO: The World Series begins Tuesday, and what a matchup. If you want to see the Cubs and Indians play in person, you're going to need some serious cash. Coy Wire has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report." No problem for you. You've got that cash as long as train smoke.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS: Not trying to be like you, Cuomo.

Forty-one thousand seats at Wrigley Field, and the average ticket price for the three scheduled games there, more than 3,500 bucks for a single seat. Seven hundred for standing room only in game one.

Now, no matter which team wins this series, they're going to send their respective city into a frenzy. These clubs of Major League Baseball, two longest baseball championship droughts. The Cubs haven't even made it to the World Series since 1945. That's before color TV, microwaves and even hula hoops were invented. And they haven't won it since 1908. It's been 68 years since Cleveland has won it. And if they do, the city's going to claim their second pro-sports title in the same year.

Here's the moment Hillary Clinton, a Chicago native, saw her Cubs advance to the World Series, streaming the game on her phone while out on the campaign trail. Yes, she's hyped.

Even President Obama caught Cubs fever. He tweeted yesterday, quote, "I'll say it. Holy cow, Cubs fans. Even this White Sox fan was happy to see Wrigley rocking last night," end quote.

NFL game ended in a tie, say what? Cardinals and Seahawks, they go into overtime last night. Both teams had short field goal attempts to claim victory, but first it was Cardinals' Chandler Cantazaro off the upright, or is that the up left? It's no good.

Hauschka of the Seahawks would then get a shot to claim the victory. But he's real wide left.

And so this is the first time in NFL history, on record, I should say, the lowest tie ever to end in overtime, 6-6. No touchdowns scored since 1972. This was people saying this was a terrible offensive game. But I say this is a great defensive game. Rock 'em, sock 'em awesome game.

CAMEROTA: Chris is enjoying your sports cast very much, Coy. He's giggling like a school girl.

CUOMO: Is it the upright or the up left? That's good.

CAMEROTA: We like that. Thanks, Coy.

WIRE: You're welcome. CAMEROTA: All right. We have to tell you about this mega merger.

It's between AT&T and Time Warner, our parent company. What does it mean for you the consumer? What does it mean for our CNN viewers?

CUOMO: What does it mean for us?

CAMEROTA: What does it mean for Chris and me?