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Clinton Turns Focus from Emails to Trump's Character; Cubs Rout Indians, Force World Series Game 7; More Than 24.4 Million Early Votes Cast in 38 States. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired November 02, 2016 - 05:00   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 CANDIDATE: I'm only a messenger. But you have to say I'm doing a pretty good job as a messenger.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: By the time you add up all the people he's insulted, that's more than half the population of the United States.

TRUMP: If we don't repeal and replace Obamacare, we will destroy American health care forever.

CLINTON: When I listen to Donald Trump dark and divisive vision, I sometimes, don't know what country he's talking about.

TRUMP: You can change your vote for Donald Trump. We'll America great again, OK?

CLINTON: This is a big deal. He cannot take anything, anybody, anywhere for granted.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, November 2nd, 5:00 in the East.

Up first, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump making what sounds like their closing arguments. Clinton going after Trump's character and lashing out at his divisive vision.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump in particular staying on script and off news shows, blasting Obamacare, calling Clinton crooked. And he has a new pitch to voters who've already cast their votes in early balloting. He says, change your vote if you didn't vote for me. Now, only seven states allow that. So, please check first.

We only have six days to go. Let's begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly, live in Orlando.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. Look, when it comes to the last five or six days, it's all been about

one thing, Jim Comey's FBI letter to Capitol Hill.

[05:00:05] Clinton campaign attacking him repeatedly. Now, turning the page.

The reality is this, when the Clinton campaign looks at the race, it looks at the dynamics of the race, they realize they do better when it's a referendum on Donald Trump. That's exactly what Hillary Clinton was going for yesterday here in Florida. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: He calls women ugly, disgusting, nasty, all the time. He calls women pigs. Rates bodies on a scale from 1 to 10.

Why does he do these things? Who acts like this? I'll tell you who. A bully. That's who.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, guys, there's a very specific target, obviously, in that message. In her message yesterday down here in Florida, women voters. Women voters who really locked into the Clinton campaign after she brought out in the first debate Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe, kind of set that for Donald Trump that walked right into.

The Clinton campaign saw a huge boost in their international numbers, in the wake of bringing her up kind of disappeared of the campaign. That debate seems a long time ago, guys.

Well, Alicia Machado was back on the campaign trail, introducing Hillary Clinton yesterday, repeating her message attacking Donald Trump. The Clinton campaign also rolling out a new ad targeting women voters, kind of laying out the incendiary things Donald Trump has said about women up to this point.

But also, guys, an unscripted moment here in Florida is Hillary Clinton really went after a protester that interrupted her rally, kind of echoing what you're hearing from campaign ads across the board. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I am sick and tired of the negative, dark, divisive, dangerous vision and behavior of people who support Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Guys, it's one area where we saw a crowd get more riled than we've seen over the last couple of weeks. Now, here's what matters today -- where Hillary Clinton is going. She's going in Nevada. She's going out west. Obviously, Nevada, a huge swing state.

But also going to Arizona, a traditional red state that the Clinton campaign says is not their effort. They really believe because of early vote, Hispanic turnout, it is a true battleground state.

You kind of go through the electoral map, if Donald Trump loses Arizona, they feel like this race is completely over. Her surrogates also over the place, guys. Clinton campaign, trying to get away from that FBI review, trying to get back on the message they thought was winning before that letter from Jim Comey ever came -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right. Sure sounds like it, Phil. Thanks so much for laying that out for us.

Donald Trump vowing to repeal Obamacare and slamming Clinton's e- mails. And Trump has a new message to early voters supporting Clinton -- change your vote.

CNN's Sara Murray is live in Washington with more.

Hi, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, Alisyn.

That's right. Well, Donald Trump was on the campaign trail yesterday in Wisconsin, he's basically told the crowd, look, we have learned a lot in these last couple of days. And it's not too late to change your mind even you already cast a ballot. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This is a message for any Democratic voters who have already cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton and who are having a bad case of buyer's remorse. You can change your vote to Donald Trump. We'll make America great again, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, Wisconsin is one of a handful of states that allows voters to do that if they've already cast their ballot. And it's also a relatively new target for the Trump campaign. In addition to stumping in some of these states that are tilting blue, the Trump campaign says they're putting $25 million up on the airwaves. And a lot of this money is going to target states that really have been more friendly to Democrats in recent elections than to Republicans.

Now, if you look at Donald Trump's running mate, Mike Pence's schedule today, you really get a sense of how they're trying to play both offense and defense at the same time. Mike Pence is going to be on the campaign trail in Arizona. Of course, that's a state that's been tilting red but is newly looking like a battleground. But he's also going to be in New Mexico, as well as Colorado, both states tilting blue where the Trump campaign trying to make a late play. As for Trump, he'll be in the much more traditional battleground state of Florida.

Back to you, guys.

CUOMO: All right, Sara. Appreciate it. Let's discuss. We have CNN political commentator and political anchor

of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Lewis. We have national political reporter for "The Boston Globe", Matt Viser. And we have CNN political analyst and "Daily Beast" Washington bureau chief, Jackie Kucinich.

It's good to have you all this morning.

So, what do we see in the state of play, Errol. The FBI letter from Comey, what has been a massive nonevent, right? Because he didn't give any new information -- has allowed Trump to read into it.

So, he's saying, wow, look at what we learned. Boy, it's all so terrible, and hoping that people don't read that next sentence which is Comey didn't say anything. But Clinton is using this moment as well, how?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She's using it to sort of say, this dark divisive, all of those different things she said in that big rally, the system is sort of against her, too. Up until now, Donald Trump has tried to own this sense of the system is rigged and there are things that are not right and the institutions are all working against --

[05:05:05] CUOMO: He's saying it right now, by the way.

LOUIS: Well, by the way, yes. Director Comey, FBI, not so bad, all of a sudden. But now, Hillary Clinton gets a little bit of that as well.

And, look, frankly, there has been I think this resentment that's been building. She hasn't really tried to play on it and drawn on it to the open. You mostly see it in her fund-raising letters and so forth. But there are other Democratic partisans out there. They don't like Donald Trump and they don't like their how the candidate and party has been portrayed. And they're starting now I think to sort of see a certain amount of resentment.

You're also starting to see when it comes to like early voting, some of the basic rules of the game where you got early voting that was cut off, cut short, confined to one place, instead of 16 places in a key county in North Carolina. Where people are starting to say, well, wait a minute, this isn't right. I want to express how this is being played against me, my party and my candidate by making sure I go out and vote.

CAMEROTA: So, Jackie, what it sounds what Hillary Clinton is doing is going back to things that were very popular a few weeks ago, and that was the Alicia Machado, Miss Universe, the attacks that she says Donald Trump made on her as well as other women. So, let me play for you what Hillary Clinton said yesterday, going back to those.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: He called her Miss Piggy, called her Miss Housekeeping because she's a beautiful Latina. He brought a bunch of reporters to a gym to watch him order her around to exercise. Now, you know, he also said this is somebody who likes to eat. I'd like to say, who doesn't like to eat?

But you've got to ask, why does he do these things? Who acts like this? I'll tell you who, a bully.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. So, Jackie, we've heard those things before. Why is she going back to the well?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This is a play that has worked for the Clinton campaign. But it's also very notable that they're going negative again. It shows that they're a little worried, because if she - if they had been switching for a day or two, it feels like a week, but it's only a day, to a positive message, to more aspirational-type message.

And now, we're back to Alicia Machado, because she wants to remind women in particular why they don't like Donald Trump. Why they don't want to vote for Donald Trump, particularly in the state of Florida. So, the fact that they are back to that message just shows that the tightening of the polls has them a little nervous.

CUOMO: Well, Matt, look, what's one of the immutable truths in politics, as much as the voters pretend not to like it, negativity works best. And that's why both these campaigns are doing that.

What's your take on the Clinton calculation? They believe they win on the likability contest. They believe that ultimately, despite the high negatives on both sides, that Donald Trump plays as the worst person than Hillary Clinton. What's your take on that strategy?

MATT VISER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, BOSTON GLOBE: The polls definitely bear that out. I mean, Trump like to lasts than Clinton, not by much. The whole campaign has been about e-mails and women. And to the extent we're talking about see mails, Trump is doing better. To the extent we're talking about women, Hillary Clinton is doing better.

So, I think Hillary Clinton is really trying to change the message back to women. After a couple days of e-mails, fair or not, you know, she is reinserting Alicia Machado into the narrative. You know, I think using Donald Trump's own words to hang him has been quite an effective strategy agency their new ad is quite effective in that regard.

CAMEROTA: Hey, Errol, let's talk about another surprising thing the FBI did yesterday. They put out what is being described as a surprise tweet on say a little-used account, from a little used account where they published 129 pages of internal documents about Bill Clinton's pardon years ago of Marc Rich. That raised eyebrows. And the Clinton campaign said, what is this about?

And the FBI basically said, well, this is this sort of in response to maybe a FOIA request. We were allowed to release public documents. Here's their statement that they put out yesterday: "The FBI Records

Management Division receives thousands of FOIA requests annually, which are processed in a first-in, first-out basis. Per standard procedure for FOIA, these materials become available for release and were posted automatically and electronically to the FBI's public reading room in accordance with the law and established procedures."

That is an account that had been dormant for a year.

LOUIS: It had been dormant for a year and got fixed just recently and all of a sudden, came back to life and again to sort of spout these things. And, lo and behold, one of the first things is documents related to former President Clinton.

You know, I saw on Twitter it being described as open mike night at the FBI. People are just funneling out all kinds of different things.

[05:10:00] I think this is in a more sober moment probably after the election, this needs to get looked at, you know? I mean, there are different procedures to sort of be in e to have the FBI pull back closer to Election Day. That has to get looked at again, because 60 days before an election doesn't have much meaning in the era of early vote, where most states are actually voting early, so that you're actually talking about on Election Day.

It also needs to get looked at. Shouldn't there be some human intervention before your organization starts spouting out documents that could have a potential sensitive or political impact, as they very well might in this case? I mean, as I started looking through this stuff, trip down memory lane.

I mean, Marc Rich, I hope you don't spend too much time explaining to your viewers, he's dead. I mean, this is -- these are not relevant or timely documents. It would best be sort of maybe held back from another month from this dormant, formerly dormant account.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. Stick around. We have many more questions for you.

CUOMO: All right. There's a huge historic moments looming in sports. 1908 versus 1948. One of these marathon World Series droughts ends tonight. The Cubbies and the Indians play game seven of the World Series, winner take all.

Scholes live in Cleveland with the best job in the world for the "Bleacher Report."

ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: Not bad right now, Chris. And it's time for the greatest two words of all of sports -- game seven. This is the cover of "The Plain Dealer" this morning. It says, "Buckle Up".

Fitting that these two teams that have the longest drought in all of baseball, in terms of winning a World Series, would take the World Series the distance. Here last night in game six, Progressive Field, the air let out of the building from the get-go. Top of the first, Addison Russell and then this ball. The ball drops in two more runs for the Cubbies, they take a 3-0 lead.

And then Russell back up in the third with the bases load, he crushes this to left center. That's a grand slam. Russell, 22 years ago old, youngest player to hit a grand slam in the World Series since Mickey Mantle did it for the Yankees.

Russell tying a World Series record with six RBIs in a game as the Cubs win big 9-3, to force a winner take all game seven tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRIS BRYANT: Anybody who plays this game, you know, grows up dreaming of winning a World Series. You know, to play in a game seven tomorrow, that's pretty special.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: So, it all comes down to this. The Indians have their ace Corey Kluber on the hill tonight. He's already won two games in the series. The cubs countering with Kyle Hendricks.

You know what, guys there were a lost of Cubs fans in the stands last night. And ticket prices have soared for game seven. Cheapest tickets going for is 1,000 bucks right now in the secondary market. I'm guessing, Alisyn, even more Cubs fans are making the five and a half hour drive here in Cleveland in case they get to witness history tonight.

CAMEROTA: Very exciting, Andy. Thanks so much for all of that.

All right. Nearly 25 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting. And there's say troubling trend developing for Democrats in some key battleground states. We'll delve into the numbers, next.

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[05:17:32] CUOMO: You spare no expense or energy at the end of an election. And Trump and Clinton are living that reality, hitting the battleground states as often as they can. More than 24.4 million Americans have already cast ballots in early voting. So, what does that mean? Who has the advantage?

CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston live at the decision desk with a look at the numbers.

What do you have, my friend?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Hey, good morning, Chris. Yes, you know, Election Day is a week from now. But as you said, 24.4 million, a little more than that have actually voted already in 38 states.

Look at this right here, more than 12 million in the 12 battleground states that we're following. Basically, this is the path to 270 electoral votes that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton needs to get. But let's take a look at one specific state in particular. It's a

state that Barack Obama is going to be in today. It's a state of North Carolina. We saw Joe Biden there yesterday; 1.6 million people have voted in North Carolina.

Who has the advantage when it comes to registration now? These are Democrats who have already cast their ballots. Republicans cast their ballots. Look at this number down here, 26.1 percent. These are folks who are independents or aligned with another party.

So, looks like Democrats have a pretty good lead. In many ways they do, it's 220,000 vote lead. But let's look at 2012 right here. Look at the advantage they had at this time back in 2012, Chris. Right there, they had a 291,000 vote lead at that time.

So, clearly, we're seeing a tick-down. The question is -- where's it coming from and where are they losing votes?

Let's go into three different demographics. Now, this is the Obama coalition that he used to win in 2008 and 2012. Right now, 73 percent have been white voters who have voted so far. Black voters, 23 percent, just a little bit more than that. Of course, the African- American vote overwhelmingly goes for a Democrat.

So, at 23 percent, where were they back in 2012? Look at this number right here. This is troubling right now for Democrats -- 28.4 percent at that time. So, we're clearly seeing a downtick right now in the turnout of African-American voters in North Carolina.

Let's look at gender. We talked a little bit about men and women in this race. Look at that right there. There is a 12 percent difference. Women now, of course, are overwhelmingly going for Hillary Clinton, or at least she has a very strong lead to men.

[05:20:00] Again, these are the early votes we're seeing in North Carolina. We go back to 2012 -- it's just about the same. And then if we go to the millennial vote, just very quickly right there, these two columns predominantly would be Democrat. These two columns would predominantly be Republican. We're seeing a downtick right now, Chris, as you can see in the younger voters.

So, Hillary Clinton has got work to do in North Carolina. Donald Trump needs North Carolina in order to win the election.

CAMEROTA: OK, Mark. Thanks so much for all of that.

Let's talk about it, who has the advantage in other early voting states? We want to bring back our panel, Errol Louis, Matt Viser and Jackie Kucinich.

Errol, why is the black vote down in, let's look at North Carolina, what Mark was just telling us about. Is it just because Hillary Clinton's not black or is there more going on with black voters?

LOUIS: I think there are a couple things that are going on. I mean, one, without Obama there, which is really the whole thing, not so much that people are turned off by Clinton, but that, you know, you had, look, you had historic numbers because you had historic candidacy the last time around.

The other thing that's going on and that it doesn't get talk about a lot, but, you know, there is a conservative streak within black communities, especially those tied to some of the Pentecostal or Holiest churches, they've had doubts about some of this stuff. You know, this hasn't been an easy time for them around same-sex marriage, around some of the talk about the women's right to choose.

This is not something that goes over easy with them, and to a certain extent, them simply, you know, not going to the other side, not voting Republican, not working for the Trump campaign, but may be just deciding, this isn't for me. I'm going to stay home, or I'm going to spend more of my time on a different kind of politics, that wasn't always something that Democratic strategists could have anticipated. They didn't quite find the answer that they were looking for, it seems like.

CUOMO: Matt Viser, something else that's going on, Donald Trump talking it's happening to him, but it's happening in pockets of Democratic early voting areas, which is that the system is being made difficult for them. Lines are long. The number of precincts where you can go to vote early have been reduced. The timelines have been shortened and you're hearing about it in a lot of key places.

What's your take?

VISER: Yes. I mea, if you talk to Democrats, certainly that is one of the differences from 2012, and why you may be seeing lower numbers in a state like North Carolina. There are fewer places for them to go. Atlanta, another in Georgia, another state that Hillary Clinton had her sights set on at one point, huge lines of voters. You know, trying to cast ballots.

So, that may be a difference in the early voting figures that we're seeing right now. That it's made more difficult over the past four years in a state like North Carolina, controlled overwhelmingly by Republicans at the state level right now.

So, those numbers could shift, as more people are able to cast ballots and on Election Day. Certainly, that's why President Obama's there today, trying to drive up, particularly, the African-American vote in North Carolina.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, let's look at the states and see who has the advantage in each of these. These are the early voting, Dems lead in Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada. Republicans lead in Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Utah. These are important, obviously, battleground states.

What do you see here?

KUCINICH: I mean, Utah -- Utah is an addition to that list. I mean, we should note that particularly with Evan McMullin being the independent candidate there. One thing I wanted to mention, we're talking particularly black voters as the Obama -- as a key part of the Obama coalition, Hillary Clinton, the silver lining for her is that she's sort of putting together her own coalition in a way. It's more female, college-educated women. There's also more Hispanics in the Hillary Clinton coalition.

So, they're hoping in some of these states where it is close, that they can make up perhaps some of where the black turnout has fallen off, they can make it up with Hispanic voters and women.

CUOMO: Well, you know, the nice thing about this is the campaigns know, they know better the numbers internally, where they're strong and when they're weak than where the media does because they spent more time out on the hustings analyzing and crunching numbers.

So, let's look at the maps of where they're spending their time, and you will see the prophecy of this not just coming down to a few states, but handfuls of counties across the country. You'll see Clinton being in Nevada and Arizona, a lot of controversy with that. Can she really win? Is this the best chance with resources?

Trump more focused on Florida. His campaign believes if he doesn't win Florida, it's really tough. Now, surrogates also important here. Where are they going?

CAMEROTA: A lot of places, as you can see. I mean, they've basically cloned themselves.

CUOMO: This is the Clinton side. They're stretching out.

Now, so you have a different strategy. You send the big dog, Hillary Clinton, into places where you're trying to make room. You send your surrogates into places where you're trying to keep the space that you have right now. And you'll see that reflected.

Now, Obama, President Obama being North Carolina speaks loudest to me.

[05:25:04] CAMEROTA: Errol, what do you th&1k?

LOUIS: Absolutely. I think also for North Carolina, in particular, for Obama, it's personal. He won it in 2008. He lost it in 2012. It was the narrowest loss that he had.

The Obama team has wanted sort of revenge on that outcome. And the spent a lot of time, arguably, an inordinate amount of time, trying to make sure they get that particularly state in their column. So, you know, fine, he's in his last few weeks, let the president sort of play out his politics the way he sees fit.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much.

Meanwhile Election Day is almost here. Join us next Tuesday for "Election Day in America". We'll have every race, every result covered. Stay with CNN until the last vote is cast and beyond.

CUOMO: All right. We have news from the war front for you. Iraqi forces pushing forward towards Mosul ready to clear out ISIS extremists. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are still there, and many of them are being used opportunistically by ISIS as shields and as cover.

How you take the city without killing innocents. Very hard, especially here. We'll tell you why, next.

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