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Overview of the Presidential Race; Kellyanne Conway Close-up; Pentagon Forcing Vets to Repay Bonuses. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 25, 2016 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN SPICER, RNC CHIEF STRATEGIST & COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: We have the most sophisticated ground game bar none. That being said -

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: You do? Oh, hold on - hold on, I just want to stop you -

SPICER: And, again - and, hold on.

CAMEROTA: Because that's important what you just said. You have as - you have a more sophisticated ground game than Hillary Clinton, who's been at this much longer.

SPICER: Absolute - no, she hasn't. But that's a false - that's not true. We've been in the field now for three years. We've had staffers in the field. We've documented it. The problem is they went and hired a lot of people in the last couple of months and they'll say, hey, we've got a huge ground game. We've been out there touting our ground game since 2013.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, who has the advantage? Let's get to "The Bottom Line" with CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston.

Mark, great to see you again.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: OK, Sean Spicer was here. He made a few different points.

PRESTON: Right.

CAMEROTA: And the reason that they have so much optimism, he says, today for Donald Trump, their ground game is better. You just heard that. He also said that Republicans have requested more absentee ballots and have returned more absentee ballots. And all of those things make them think that Donald Trump is sitting pretty. Let's start with what he said about the ground game. Do they - are they more sophisticated than Hillary Clinton's ground game?

PRESTON: No. And - but I will say about the RNC is that they have put in a ground game that began back in 2013, which was the autopsy of the Republican Party. How do we reach out to minority communities? Dropping people into African-American communities, Latino communities to try to get their support.

The problem is, is that it's the RNC is a standalone right now. When you run a presidential campaign, not only do you have the national party, but you have the presidential candidate bring in his or her operation and it comes together, OK. The only thing right now that is sustaining the Republican Party right now is what the RNC had on the ground. The Democrats, on the other hand, have a very sophisticated ground game, so to speak, but they have the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, and Hillary Clinton coming together.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And let me tell you, I know firsthand, just because the party has people on the ground, doesn't mean they're doing your bidding as a candidate. You know, they play favorites. It's about the local political machines in those places. It's a patchwork. So there is a good suggestion that Trump may not be getting all he should be getting out of that party because they're not fully behind him.

Now, the idea of who's doing better in early voting and absentee ballots. Two very different dynamics. We do know the numbers of early voting. But he wanted to talk about absentee ballots. Here's his sound from Sean.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Think you're going to win Florida?

SPICER: Well, again, let's look at the (INAUDIBLE). We're leading in absentee ballots requested and returned. We've got over 850,000 more Republicans that have requested a ballot than 2012. So that's close to a million so far. And as we head into that early vote piece of it, not just the absentee ballot, we feel very good about the number of Republicans that are either voting in person or have requested and returned an absentee ballot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Early voting, I thought, was edged to the Democrats. Is that why he spun to the absentees? What do you see?

PRESTON: It depends what state you're talking about.

CUOMO: Florida.

PRESTON: Right. But Florida in particular. Let's go back and just look historically at where they were eight years ago, which is a comparable election in - if any election can be compared.

CUOMO: Are you going to give an answer to this or are you going to spin me away with like some kind of history?

PRESTON: I am spinning around in circles and circles.

CUOMO: All right.

PRESTON: Look, in fact, in 2008 -

CAMEROTA: (INAUDIBLE).

PRESTON: Republicans had a 52 to 32 percent advantage over Democrats when it came to early voting, absentee voting, which is basically the same, right? Right now Republicans only have a 1 percentage point advantage. And what the Democrats are saying based upon their review of the data is that they've seen an uptick in Latinos voting, which is a 99 percent increase over 2012, 133,000 more Latinos, which are Democratic voters -

CAMEROTA: Yes.

PRESTON: Are doing that, and also absentee ballots for African- Americans are up 30 percent (INAUDIBLE).

CAMEROTA: OK, but that's different than what he says. He says that Republicans have requested 850,000 more than Democrats.

PRESTON: Well, it all - it all depends how - how you slice and dice the numbers. That might be right about what he has said, but we're talking about specific demographic groups right now that you're going to get to the polls.

CUOMO: I don't know that I completely understand this.

CAMEROTA: I don't know either.

PRESTON: (INAUDIBLE).

CUOMO: I want to talk about Obama being the drunk guy at the bar, because that's funny, from Jimmy Kimmel.

CAMEROTA: So that we can understand.

CUOMO: But I don't get this. so is it that they believe that their turnout, their requests for ballots is more robust -

CAMEROTA: Which is true.

CUOMO: But that relatively, relatively they're not gaining ground on the Democrats? Is that what you're trying to say?

PRESTON: Right. Absolutely. Look, they had an advantage back in 2008. A very big advantage. They don't have that quite advantage. But in Florida, to your point of the question, to bring it full circle, is that in Florida you're going to get more Democrats out to the polls on Election Day than Republicans to the polls. The reason being, a lot of absentee ballots, military in Florida. A lot of these folks are deployed. A lot of these folks are living in Virginia or in New York or wherever they're stationed for a couple years. State of residency remains Florida, so absentees -

CAMEROTA: But you're assuming they're going to get more Democrats out to the polls. That's just -

PRESTON: Well, historical -

CAMEROTA: It's what they're banking on?

PRESTON: Historical data, correct.

CAMEROTA: OK, now do you want to get to the drunk guy at the bar?

CUOMO: Yes. Although Latinos, you can't put them all in the same basket, you know, no pun intended. You know, Cubans are very conservative people and they're a big percentage of southern Florida.

PRESTON: Older Cubans, absolutely. Younger Cubans, though, are -

CUOMO: But with that caveat, let's move on.

CAMEROTA: Now can we get to the drunk guy at the bar?

CUOMO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: OK. Let's do that. Late night -

CUOMO: Did you say Trump guy or drunk guy?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Staying in Washington, D.C., which is unusual for an exiting president.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm like the old guy at the bar, you know, where you went to high school, right?

KIMMEL: Yes, exactly. Hanging out.

OBAMA: Just kind of hanging around. It's like - it's like shirts buttoned a little too low. Still thinks he's cool.

[08:35:04] KIMMEL: That's one of your friends, hey, you're going to be hanging out with there.

OBAMA: Yes. That's - yes, me and that guy working at the Capitol Hill bar.

KIMMEL: Revving the corvettes.

OBAMA: When's that guy leaving?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Can you button a shirt too low, by the way? Is that - is that a thing?

CAMEROTA: You don't think so, but -

CUOMO: I'm an Italian guy from Queens. (INAUDIBLE) that's what you're supposed to do.

PRESTON: He's like Matthew McConaughey in "Dazed and Confused."

CAMEROTA: Yes. Exactly, that guy.

PRESTON: Right? Right? Right?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: He's got to be feeling good about himself, though, no, right? I mean, look, if the election goes the wrong way, everything changes. But right now, he must be feeling like he's going out on a high.

PRESTON: He's going out at an approval rating of about 52, 53 percent. That's not too bad given the division in this country.

CAMEROTA: We have higher approval ratings.

PRESTON: Although the Obamacare numbers are not a good way to go out, we'll say that.

CUOMO: Right.

CAMEROTA: Good point. Things could split (ph).

PRESTON: Right.

CUOMO: You're spinning that. you didn't help us with that today. You avoided that, Preston.

PRESTON: I don't even know what you -

CUOMO: You want to rename this segment from the bottom line to the top line, you better bring you're a-game.

PRESTON: (INAUDIBLE).

CUOMO: It's all I'm trying to say.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

CUOMO: So, Kellyanne Conway, we've all come to know her, at least you have in this campaign, as Donald Trump's campaign manager, but she's a lot more than that. You know, she's got four kids. She's got this big business that she built. Dana Bash goes to her home. That's her mom right there helping out. Why? You'll find out next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:08] CAMEROTA: Well, you know her as Donald Trump's campaign manager, but now we're getting an inside look at Kellyanne Conway's life. What is it like being the first woman to manage a Republican presidential campaign? CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash has the story.

You spent some time with her?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I did. And, you know, it looked very familiar to you as a working mom. It certainly did to me. The question is, how does she does it. She has a lot of help and she admits that she's lucky that she can. But so many people, Alisyn, are fascinated by her, how she comes on this network and others constantly to defend and explain her boss. And people wanted to know, what is she really like? Well, she invited us to her home in New Jersey so we could find out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): Morning on the Conway's.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, DONALD TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well, sweetheart, how's this. And then which jacket?

BASH: Scrambling to get the kids ready for school. Familiar chaos for any parent, though Kellyanne Conway is not any parent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Where Kellyanne Conway bluntly acknowledging the uphill climb.

BASH: The mother of four young children is Donald Trump's campaign manager. On TV so much explaining and defending her boss, "Saturday Night Live" dedicated an entire bit to imaging her day off.

BASH (on camera): This is so weird. This is exactly the way the "SNL" house looked.

CONWAY: Do you have the same pajamas?

BASH: Where's "Walking on Sunshine"?

CONWAY: In my head.

The pancakes are true to life.

BASH (voice-over): These days, her mother, who moved in to help, makes the pancakes. Conway's only been on the job since August, Trump's third campaign manager, but the first woman ever to run a GOP presidential race.

CONWAY: I wasn't hired because of my gender. But it's a special responsibility.

BASH: And often a difficult one, like this weekend when Trump went off script attacking the women who say he groped them.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.

BASH (on camera): Did you just tear your hair out when you hear him say that?

CONWAY: It's his campaign and it's his candidacy. And, in the end, he has to feel comfortable with is voice and his choice every single time he gets there.

BASH: But you're the campaign manager. Do you feel uncomfortable with that?

CONWAY: I think Donald Trump is at his very best, at his very best when he talks about the issues.

BASH (voice-over): Translation, going off message hurts his campaign. Conway insists she's tough on Trump in private.

CONWAY: I don't sugar coat at all. And I think he really appreciates that.

BASH (on camera): So example an example. I'm Donald Trump and you're Kellyanne Conway and I say something that really makes you mad at my rally.

CONWAY: I told him yesterday on the plane, you and I are going to fight for the next 17 days. And he said, why? And I said because I know you're going to win and that comment you just made sounds like you think you're going to lose and we're going to argue about it until you win. And -

BASH: And what's his response?

CONWAY: He's like, OK, honey, then we'll win, you know.

BASH (voice-over): For a time after Conway took over, Trump was disciplined, but not anymore, especially on Twitter.

CONWAY: Literally people will seriously say, can't you delete his Twitter app?

BASH (on camera): That was actually one of my questions.

CONWAY: Of course. It's not for me to take away a grown man's Twitter account.

TRUMP: And I moved on her very heavily.

BASH (voice-over): When tape from 2005 came out of Trump describing lewd behavior, Conway canceled Sunday TV appearances, but still helped with damage control.

CONWAY: And I felt like Rapunzel in the tower all weekend. And I told Mr. Trump in private what I've also said in public, or a variation thereof, I found the comments to be horrible and indefensible. And he didn't ask anybody to defend him, by the way.

BASH (on camera): Did you consider quitting?

CONWAY: I did not.

BASH (voice-over): She says she thought his apology was earnest.

BASH (on camera): The women who have now come forward and said, it's not just talk, Donald Trump groped me, do you believe them?

CONWAY: I believe - Donald Trump has told me and his family and the rest of America now that none of this is true, these are lies and fabrications. They're all made up. And I think that it's not for me to judge what those women believe. I have not talked to them. I've talked to him.

BASH (voice-over): She was raised in New Jersey by a single mom, aunts and grandmother, all women. As a political pollster, she chose to work in what she calls a man's world, especially as a Republican. She recalled a potential client, a man, asking how she balanced kids and work.

CONWAY: It's like, I just hope you ask all the male consultants, are you going to give up your wicked golf game and your mistresses, because they seem really, really busy, too.

BASH (voice-over): Still, like most working moms, time with her kids is precious.

CONWAY: You going to play them.

BASH: The question is whether she'll have more time in two weeks after Election Day.

CONWAY: Because we're going to add two seats -

BASH: When she was hired in August, she told Trump he was losing, but could still win.

BASH (on camera): You think at this point it is still possible to win?

CONWAY: It is still possible to win.

BASH: Probable?

CONWAY: I think that we have got a very good chance of winning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: OK, so fascinating insight into who she is and her life. Donald Trump has run such an unconventional campaign. Does she have a conventional campaign manager role?

[08:45:00] BASH: No, and would you expect anything different? She doesn't. She doesn't do a lot of the things that let's say Robby Mook does on the Democratic side or her predecessors on the Republican side have done. She is much more focused. She is focused on strategy and polling, of course. That's her expertise. She is a pollster. And on getting the message out. But when it comes to behind the scenes, the budgeting, the how are we going to spend resources, coordinating with the Republican National Committee, which is incredibly important because the Trump campaign is relying so much on the RNC, Alisyn, that is largely the son-in-law.

CAMEROTA: Jared Kushner.

BASH: Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump's husband.

CAMEROTA: Why is that?

BASH: It's just a role that he's taken on. He is so involved. And when it comes to the nuts and bolts of running the campaign, that part of it, I'm told, he is the guy who is pretty much in charge.

CAMEROTA: Well, really interesting to see that profile of Kellyanne Conway. Dana, thanks so much.

BASH: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Chris.

CUOMO: All right, so one of the reasons this election matters so much is there are a lot of things that need to get done. And we're dealing with them ourselves this morning. In particular what you're looking at on your screen right now. The Pentagon says that thousands of U.S. soldiers need to repay their reenlistment bonuses because they screwed up. The military, not the men and women fighting for your rights. We're going to talk to a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee next. What's Congress going to do about this? It's already been too long.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:00] CUOMO: Thousands of soldiers are being ordered by the Pentagon to repay millions in reenlistment bonuses given to them erroneously, it's a fancy word for wrongly, by the National Guard during the Iraq War. The California National Guard released a statement claiming it does not have the authority to unilaterally waive these debts. I can't even get it out of my mouth it's so disgusting objectively. So, who's going to fix it? The Department of defense? Congress motivating the Department of Defense?

Let's discuss it. Congressman Mark Takano is the acting ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Congressman, thank you very much for joining us this morning.

Let's start with giving the audience an appreciation for how we got here. How did the military decide that its screw-up needed to be fixed by taking back the bonuses?

REP. MARK TAKANO (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, Chris, mistakes and misconduct did occur at the California National Guard. An extensive audit did uncover some wrongdoing and the wrongdoing parties were disciplined.

The - there was a policy of a claw back for these improperly paid bonuses, but let's be clear that for the vast majority of these guardsmen who stepped forward and re-upped, they re-upped in good faith. And I don't believe that they should be having to pay the price eight to 10 years later for the mistakes and misconduct made by some of the management of the guard.

CUOMO: Yes, here's the problem, congressmen, they are. Do you know the expression in the law, equity of horrors of forfeiture? It's one of the things you learn in law school about - that certain situations, when they're wrong, just need to be made right. This one smells on several levels. The first one is, the DOD had the authority to deal with these claw backs differently. They could have canceled them. They didn't need Congress to get involved with this. I have to believe they knew that and didn't need you to cite USC code to them about variability. So why do you think they chose to stick this to the fighting men and women instead of just owning the mistake themselves?

TAKANO: Chris, I can't speculate on what went on at the Pentagon, what went on at the various levels of the military. We've been trying to sort that out ever since this story has - was broken over the weekend. Not clear whether or not the - we weren't clear whether the department had authority on its own or whether we actually had to address this statutorily. But whatever - whatever is the case, I'm urging the Department of Defense to cease its policy of clawing back these bonus, give time for Congress to get back in November and to full address this statutorily.

But if indeed the Department of Defense can handle this on its own, they should. And I think members of Congress, I think, would be pretty united in supporting the Department of Defense in addressing this in a much different way. These service members should not having to go - should not have to go through a lengthy appeals process. They should not - and we need to repair the damage that's been done to those service members who have, you know, really sacrificed financially over the past two years.

CUOMO: So you have two problems. One is, it's not just about stopping the claw back, you have to figure out how to reimburse the people that you forced reimbursement from. Now I'm saying you, right, and you're going to say, well, no, it wasn't us. It's not us in Congress. Yes, but here's why it is. You're the senior member of the Veterans Affairs Committee. You are from California. How did you not know about this when it's been going on for years, congressman? The people that Alisyn has talked on to. This didn't happen this weekend. This didn't happen last week. This is years that you've had to deal with this and you haven't. How do you justify that?

TAKANO: There isn't a single - Chris, there is not a single member of Congress who wishes that we hadn't handled this sooner, myself included. I -

CUOMO: But you didn't. I want to know why you didn't. What made you think, we can ignore this?

TAKANO: We shouldn't ignore it. We should not have ignored it. The guard did come forward with a proposal. The proposal languished. I believe part of the reason why it did languish is this philosophy of extreme austerity that comes over the Congress. Look, we've languished - we've allowed Zika funding to languish because of a lack of an offset. My understanding is that there was initial Congressional Budget Office ruling that this would be new spending, which makes no sense to me because this is money that's already been spent and that's being - that the department's trying to claw back. But whatever this -

CUOMO: Well, why didn't anybody fight for it then? I mean, you know, they just don't fit into the me category as everybody else, I mean our veterans.

TAKANO: I -

CUOMO: You know, everybody puts their ribbons on and says we support the troops, we want to help them. And if you talk to the IAVA or any of these groups that represents veterans, they talk about stuff like this all the time. They say -

TAKANO: Chris, I -

CUOMO: They don't care about us at home. This is an ugly example of that.

[08:55:01] TAKANO: Chris - Chris, I completely agree. This - our veterans should be right up there with emergency funding, such as Zika or what's going on in Flint. Protecting our veterans from harm is certainly our top priority and they didn't get treated as our top priority. And this is very regrettable. But I'm telling you that we need to get over any kind of austerity philosophy which says we need to find an offset even for this kind of - this kind of financial decision that we've got to make in Congress. We need to just settle this problem once and for all in the lame duck Congress if, indeed, Congress needs to act. But certainly at the Department of Defense has this completely within their authority, they need to stop the claw backs now and we need to take a look back and redress - redress the harm that was done to other service members.

CUOMO: We're going to give everybody a chance to weigh in on their side of this as it evolves, but the obvious point is, if they could have done it, they would have or should have done it already. We'll stay on this, congressman. I'll be checking with you right after the election to see what you're proposing to make this right. Thank you for joining us, Congressman Mark Takano.

TAKANO: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you for having me, Chris.

CUOMO: Appreciate it.

All right, a lot of bad stuff in the world, so you know what we need, "The Good Stuff," and it's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right, let's get some "Good Stuff" going. A day at the beach takes on a new meaning for a group of special needs students in Texas. You can see them surfing here, swimming, splashing in the ocean, having fun, like all kids should. The students are taking part in a program called Waves of Impact. Some kids have autism. Others are in wheelchairs or dealing with physical disabilities. But when you're in the water, that all vanishes, literally, right, because of buoyancy and psychologically. And this is a group of people raising money to do the right thing for kids who need it a lot.

[09:00:11] CAMEROTA: The beach solves a lot of problems. I've always known that as a Jersey girl.