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Wolf

Negative Opinions on Hillary Clinton Rise After Announcing Presidential Run; Interview with Clinton Campaign Adviser Joel Benenson; NTSB Talks Amtrak Crash. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 03, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:32:50] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get to the race of the White House. Negative opinions of Hillary Clinton have gone up since she kicked off her presidential campaign, and that according to the new CNN/ORC poll. Look at this. 46 percent of Americans say that they have a favorable opinion of Hillary Clinton and 50 percent say that they have unfavorable view and that, by the way, a 14-year high.

Joel Benenson is a senior adviser for the Clinton campaign. He's joining us from Brunswick, Maine, right now.

Joel, and we talk about those numbers and we want to show the numbers from our new CNN/ORC poll and you're a pollster, an expert. Only 40 percent says that she cares about people like them. That's down 54 percent from a year or so. Only 42 percent view her as, quote, "honest and truth worthy." That compares to 57 percent that do not. So what is the reaction to the numbers? We have seen a decline in her numbers since she formally announced that she is running for president?

JOEL BENENSON, SENIOR ADVISER, HILLARY CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Well, I think that -- thank you for having me. We have known each other for a while. I take these with a grain of salt. I do not have to remind you or the folks at CNN that the last poll on election day in 2012 had a dead even race and President Obama won by four points in a land slide. We should keep the perspective in all of these. I think that these --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Let me interrupt here. In the polls, there's a margin of error, so they're not that precise. They do show a trend of prospective and at one particular time, right?

BENENSON: They do. I think that they're not going get hung you up on margin of error. It's not a term that I share with a client. We have to win the elections and be right. The reality here is that in the polls that you're talking about, and if you want to talk about the breath of them, Secretary Clinton is out performing everybody on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, as an example, there's a lot of frustration with the gridlock and frustration with politicians generally. Another poll that came out this week had every Republican in the poll underwater on favorable/unfavorable ratings. I think that on some of these on the last poll that was an outlining one, and a favorable one, that's changing. You're talking to adults. We are on our side talk to actual voters. The poll has a sample of 50 percent man and 50 percent woman. But it's 53 percent woman and 47 president men in the presidential election years. There are varying incidences that happen and the sampling that can cause the changes that we're seeing here. The fundamental thing is who are voters going to count on and who can they trust to help them get ahead and stay ahead? And when you look at the array --

(CROSSTALK)

[13:36:01] BLITZER: Let me interrupt.

(CROSSTALK)

BENENSON: In terms of who cares about people, if you look at who cares about people like me, Hillary Clinton has a 6 to 20 percent advantage, and that's the way that voters view this. Through who is going to be working harder for me and who can I trust to get me and my family ahead. That is central to their lives.

BLITZER: So how do you explain the dip that you have seen in the past two months? There are a lot of analysts that think that she is hurt and some of the other issues involving the Clinton foundation and the fundraising that's going on and the stuff that's out there. Have those issues really impacted from the poling that you're doing Joel. Have those impacted the race for the White House?

BENENSON: Well, I think, Wolf, it's important -- and again I do not want to debate you over the poll. You want to treat it as the gold standard. That's not what it is. I think what's happened in this period -- and we know when any person that's been in a role like secretary of state and comes back in as a candidate, you anticipate where someone is in the political arena, and partisans are going to go to their corners, and you're going see the changes. We think that there's a minimal change and looking at and analyzes extensively. That's true in the polls that are out there. Her lead over the Republicans, for example, and any test continues to be in the eight to nine-point range. There's no change in that. Even in our own poll, I believe that it shows you ahead of the challenges.

BLITZER: It does show --

(CROSSTALK)

BENENSON: Our focus is largely --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Let me interrupt because it shows --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: -- with some of these Republican candidates, it shows a tight race. BENENSON: Well, we expect it to be a tight race. Wolf, the races for

president are always tight. There are only six in history where a president has won a race with 50 percent or more two times in a row. We have elections that start out close to 50. We expect it to be close -- you will see her quit a bit coming up because she's out there fighting and earning for every vote. The first step here is winning the nomination and then moving on to a battlefield and make the case that we will do from day one of the campaign on June 13th. You see her in the early states. She's out there fighting. And she'll make a strong case against the Republicans as well.

BLITZER: You helped President Obama get elected in 2008 and 2012. Now you're working for Hillary Clinton. What is the most important thing that she has to do in order to capture the nomination?

BENENSON: Well, I think that every election is different and certainly where we were eight years ago is a different moment in time. She has to do what she is dog. She is going out and meeting with viewers and focused on what is central and the big thing remains the economic future and the future of the families. She is going to go over the country and make the case that she will be the fighter that people want in the corner. Fighting for them everyday and working like he can to make sure that they're families get ahead. that they can make a little bit of money and save a little bit more for retirement, and that they're giving the reward for the hard work that they're getting in and help the country come back from the work crisis that people have seen in the lifetime.

[13:10:03] BLITZER: OK. Stand by Joel. We have more to talk about. It's not often that we get to speak to a senior adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

We have more questions on what is going on, what she needs to do, A, to win the Democratic nomination, and then to get herself elected as the first woman president of the United States.

More with Joel Benenson right after this.

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BLITZER: We're back with more on the race. Joel Benenson is a senior advisor for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Joel, thanks for joining us once again.

Who is it that the campaign fears the most on the Democratic snide.

BENENSON: Well, you know I have been thrown this a couple of times. I don't think that you focus on one person when you're in the primary. Really want to do the candidate and I think that you have to treat every candidate like a serious opponent, and you have to run like a challenger all of the time. I think that's what makes the contests so unique and challenging. I think that the key here is not to focus on one particular interest, but to really go out there in states like Iowa and Nevada because that's the first month of the campaign, and really vote voters where they live. Talk to them about their lives and small events, and some town halls and really be campaigning. I think if you do that and stay true to that mission, then you're going run the campaign that you want the run and be successful. That's what we plan to do.

[13:45:17] BLITZER: Here is a self-serving question as a journalist. We have been complaining and she has not made herself about to answer a full scale interview and major interviews on television and print for that matter. When is she going to start to do that?

BENENSON: And you know Wolf, I am a former journalist, and we share that as well. I hear a lot from the colleagues and former ones in the press. Look, I think -- I understand that people in the media want this to be a sprint everyday. The truth is that a presidential campaign is a marathon. We're more than six months out from the caucus. I think that when we go into a more formal campaign, there's times for the interviews and questions, et cetera.

BLITZER: Her husband, Bill Clinton, in our new poll is up to 64 percent favorable rating. How are you going to employ him on the campaign?

BENENSON: Well, I think that remains to be seen. He is pass nit about his wife and believes strongly in here. I think that we have seen in every election including his own, he is a forceful and skillful advocate not only for the candidate, but for really bringing the argument home to voters in a way that he uniquely can do. He is kind of -- I would say that he has that country lawyer flair of taking complex issues and making them simple and real to voters, and, you know, hopefully will be able to have as much time of his as we can get and need.

BLITZER: Assuming that she is the Democratic nominee and she is the front runner by far right now, do you believe that she could be elected president without capturing Florida and Ohio?

BENENSON: Well, I think, you know, if you look at the Electoral College over the last six years and how the states have fallen out, we obviously on the Democratic side feel that we have a strong position in terms of the map. That's been true of the elections. If we look at states that we did well in, it includes Ohio and Florida. Think the key to winning and the Democratic winning is that we start out with many more things than 270 votes on the Democratic side. I think that the Republican party has played to the right wing of the party and it's more out of touch in if last four and six years than it's been in a long time. They're doing nothing on their side of the equation to change that caulk lass. The way that you have to campaign if we get to be the nominee is that you have the real swing state votes, and then you fight in every one of them. For Democrats all of the states are winnable. We have a lot of paths to get there. In 2012 we had 43 different combinations to get to votes of the 14 battleground states, so we're -- if we get to that point and fortunate enough and do things right, I think that you will expect to see us campaigning in every state that's on the map.

BLITZER: I ask the question because if Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush, you would have problems in both of those states, right? BENENSON: Well, I think both of those states have been close. I

think Florida was the closest state in the last of the battleground states Wolf in the 2012 election. I think that you have to play in those states and expect that they're going to be close. Ohio and Florida as far back as 2004 is challenging. By the way they were there for President Bush and the re-election and where his brother left. He left the account and the votes, so I think whatever side that you're on, those are two big states that are going to be in play and campaign in them and not take them for granted. I think that people on the other side coming from the states should not take them for granted either.

[13:49:54] BLITZER: Joel Benenson, is a senior adviser and major strategist in the Hillary campaign.

Joel, we'll stay in close contact with you. Thank you so much for joining us.

BENENSON: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Please tell the secretary that we're looking for a full- scale interview with her ASAP as well.

Thanks very much.

Still ahead, new details on last month's deadly Amtrak crash in Philadelphia. With no mechanical explanation, the focus is now on the engineer's cell phone. But there's an unexpected complication. The chairman of the NTSB standing by live to join us on CNN.

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BLITZER: Our answers are still hard to come by three weeks after an Amtrak derailment killed eight people and injured 200 passengers in Philadelphia. Preliminary report by the NTSB found no problems with the train's braking system or with the track and the signals at the site of the May 12th accident. So the question remains, what caused the train to go barreling into a 50-mile-an-hour zone at 106 miles per hour?

Joining us now is the NTSB chairman, Christopher Hart.

Mr. Chairman, thanks for joining us.

CHRISTOPHER HART, NTSB CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

BLITZER: We know the answer to that question?

HART: No, we don't. It'll take us several months to determine. When we do cell phone records, it's a very meticulous, thorough examination. It'll take us several months.

BLITZER: When you say cell phone records, what are you looking for?

HART: Well, oftentimes the cell phone is on the site and we take the cell phone with us because it was on scene and we have the phone itself.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: The phone that was with the engineer?

HART: Yes. This time the engineer had the phone. In fact, made a 911 phone call six minutes after the crash. We know he still had it. That makes our search more difficult because now we need to go beyond just the phone and we need to look at an enormous volume of records.

BLITZER: Was the windshield hit by some sort of object that could have distracted him, inadvertently pushed that throttle forward to go from 50 miles an hour to 100 miles an hour? That's one of the theories that's been out there.

HART: That's one of the questions we're looking at. We had the FBI come in. They confirmed it was not a weapon projectile, that it was a rock. We know the train left the station with the windshield intact. It happened sometime between leaving the 30th Street station and the accident.

BLITZER: Somebody threw a rock at the train?

HART: We don't know. It was not a weapon projectile.

BLITZER: We know a couple other trains in the area were also hit.

HART: Right.

BLITZER: With a rock or a projectile?

HART: We don't know that. Still investigating.

BLITZER: And human error. That's one of the possibilities, too, is that what you're looking at?

HART: That's a possibility. We're also looking at was there any malfunction? We know the train was going too fast. That's confirmed. We know the brakes worked because he applied the emergency brake. That's why we now positive train control could have stopped this accident because if the train is going too fast and the breaks work, that's all we know to know for the train control.

BLITZER: But there aren't many ways to go from 50 miles an hour to 100 miles an hour, somebody's got to do something to make the train go faster.

HART: That's a possibility, but it could be a malfunction in the train.

(CROSSTALK)

[13:55:07] BLITZER: So there could be a mechanical failure.

HART: Well, electronic, mechanical. We're still exploring that because the throttle -- we found that the recorder is -- the recording of the throttle position was not as reliable as we hoped.

BLITZER: The engineer, I take it, is cooperating.

HART: Very cooperative.

BLITZER: What is the engineer saying?

HART: We're not at liberty to discuss the interview with him. We don't want to reveal that until we've completed the process.

BLITZER: So let's talk about some lessons that you at the NTSB have already learned. I know a lot of people go from Washington to Philadelphia to New York on that Amtrak up to Boston. They're always worried as a result of what happened. Is this safe? Tell us what you've learned so far to reassure the traveling public out there that they're safe going in one of these trains.

HART: Well, the records speak for itself in terms of safety. This is just a textbook example of why in-cab cameras would be so important. Then we wouldn't need months to find out whether there was cell phone use, for example.

BLITZER: Cell phone use, in other words somebody was distracted and inadvertently the train is going along, going into a curve going way too fast as a result of someone talking or texting.

HART: Correct.

BLITZER: That's a possibility of what happened this time?

HART: That's a possibility. As far as we've gone so far, we know he's not connected to the train Wi-Fi. That was one thing we looked at. We're looking at whether he was texting, talking, using an app. That's going to take some time.

BLITZER: Because it is pretty shocking when you think about it. Right now on these train, there's cameras in front to show where the train is going. But there's no camera inside that cab.

HART: Correct.

BLITZER: And you want that changed.

HART: We've pushed for that for quite a few years.

BLITZER: They're changing it slowly but surely.

HART: Amtrak has said they'd put it in because of this. We're definitely moving in the right direction.

BLITZER: What about the automatic process to make sure if somebody has a heart attack and dies, an engineer, that the train is going to be fine and slow down going into a curve. The technology is there, but it hasn't been implemented.

HART: That's positive train control. That's what has not been implemented.

BLITZER: Why?

HART: Well, lots of reasons. Congress in 2008 passed a law that said everybody needs to do it by the end of this year. Everybody probably will not be able to do it. We're seeing progress in some carriers. In the case of Amtrak, they're installing it on increasing amounts of track.

BLITZER: When do you think your investigation will be complete?

HART: It'll probably take a year or so.

BLITZER: That long?

HART: Yes, yes. We're very detailed in our investigation. We don't leave any stones unturned.

BLITZER: We're counting on you because we want to learn the lessons of what happened.

HART: Well, thank you.

BLITZER: In this particular case to make sure it doesn't happen again. These lessons are going to be critically important.

HART: And I want to know it too because I tried the train myself.

BLITZER: We all want to be safe.

HART: Thank you.

BLITZER: Christopher Hart, chairman of the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board.

Thanks very much for coming on.

HART: Thank you for having me.

BLITZER: Good luck to you and your team.

HART: Thank you.

BLITZER: That's it for me. I'll be back later today 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is coming up next.

For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right after a quick break.

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