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Michelle Obama Makes Case for Clinton; No Third Party Candidates Invited to First Debate; Trump Says Obama Born in U.S. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 16, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR:

KATE ANDERSON BROWER, AUTHOR, "FIRST WOMEN": ... What he did was assure this will not go away.

BALDWIN: Kate, we've talked many times and first ladies, you wrote "First Women, The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies." This is a first, correct? That you have a first lady stumping for a former first lady who battled it out with current first lady's husband in the primary eight years ago.

BROWER: It incredible to watch because they had a different relationship? 2008 but Michelle Obama has moved past this, it's about cementing her husband's legacy. It was as much anti-Trump as pro- Hillary. It was much more about how he's erratic and threatening. It's excruciatingly clear he cannot be elected. She was more passionate than I was expecting her to be and the way she referenced the birther movement and the question of her husband's citizenship, it's very personal for her and she made that clear today.

BALDWIN: Beyond her husband and the question in questioning of citizenship, she doesn't love going out -- the politics of all of this, isn't this another piece of why it's so personal?

BROWER: Absolutely. She didn't go out in the midterms in 2014 and Hillary Clinton went out a lot in 1998. She went to over 20 states. Michelle Obama went to a handful of states and when I interviewed Obama staffers they said it was sometimes difficult to get her to leave the White House, to get her to leave her daughters, it's important for her to stay home with them.

So seeing her today do this, it's something that means a lot to her. We have -- other first ladies have campaigned. Laura bush campaigned for Mitt Romney in 2012 but this was such a personal campaign.

BALDWIN: Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta, you know, her husband likes to stay fired up and ready to go. How did she do? Did she fire them up?

ANDRA GILLESPIE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT EMORY UNIVERSITY: She fired them up. One of the things that's effective about Michelle Obama is she speaks the language of youth. She's benefited from the fact she has teenaged daughters. And Hillary Clinton has a concern that young voters won't support her to the same extent they did Barack Obama.

She made a very effective pitch to young voters using their language in a credible way to say they should be voting for Hillary Clinton and working on their behalf.

BALDWIN: I jotted down, Eugene, a note. It was lapped up here because I know a lot of people don't love either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and she said if you want to hide under the bed when it's over you need to get out and use your voice. What did you make of her comments today?

EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, that was a very important point to make to millennial voters. Hillary Clinton needs to do well with millennials, a demographic the Democratic party usually wins but there's some fear in this election that too many could back Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. So I think the first lady made a point to communicate what type of world existed before she believes her president came into office which many of these millennial voters probably don't remember because they were so young when the economic downturn happened.

BALDWIN: Rich Benjamin, we were watching this together and noting -- and I'm thinking they have a couple more months and the big house on Pennsylvania Avenue And she joked about having to move. What do they do post-White House?

RICHARD BENJAMIN, CULTURAL CRITIC: There are interesting reports that the president wants to devote his time to climate justice and climate change so he is really going to work on his library, I think he is going to work on a foundation where he can do and continue a lot the work he has done from within 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

BALDWIN: What about something he has held dearly is the outreach to African American youth, My Brother's Keeper, what do we know?

BENJAMIN: I don't think we know more but I would not be surprised to see him doing a lot with criminal justice reform an issue that I think really speaks to him, speaks to former A.G. Eric Holder, I wouldn't be surprised if he took that on also. And I think it also speaks to the first lady based on some of her remarks in the past.

BALDWIN: That is where I wanted to go next. As far as Michelle Obama is concerned, she says she wants to continue to fight as well. What do you think we'll see from her?

BENJAMIN: She's a hot rod as we just saw in that speech. Just from her personal credibility, her own life story, but just from also her skill or sheer skill in the way she's conducted herself as first lady. She's going to bring her talents to bear and we'll see what issue she takes on, whether she'll do food, health, exercise, whether she'll take on different social justice issues.

BALDWIN: I thought it was funny when they're chanting four more years and she said nope, she's ready to go. Talking about Michelle Obama, the first time we've seen her out beyond the DNC stumping for Hillary Clinton. [15:35:00] Let's move on, we've just gotten some news just in,

involving the first presidential debate just 11 days away. The official invitation has now gone out, hear who made the cut.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just in to CNN, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are officially the only presidential candidates who will be standing on the debate stage at Hofstra University in New York ten days from now. The commission on presidential debates just announced third party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson have not qualified. Let's go to our senior reporter for media and politics. We now officially know it will be the two of them. Remind us of the criteria to make the cut.

DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: There are three criteria, you have to be constitutionally eligible to be president of the United States.

[15:40:00] Second you have to have achieved ballot access in enough states so that you could theoretically get the electoral votes needed to become president. Those are the first two criteria, and we should note that all four candidates met those criteria. The third criteria is what they didn't meet.

You have to have 15% support in five polls that are recognized by the commission on presidential debates all five of those polls well respected, they're led by the top five news organizations in conjunction with various newspapers and opinion polling groups. Jill Stein, Gary Johnson did not meet the 15% threshold so it will be Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in Hofstra just ten days from now.

BALDWIN: I just got handed Dylan that I'm looking at as I'm talking live on TV. Have you read the Gary Johnson -- have you read this statement from their campaign reacting to not being included?

BYERS: I have not but I'd love to hear it.

BALDWIN: Let's do this live. Gary Johnson says "I would say I'm surprised the CPD has chosen to exclude me from the first debate but I'm not after all the commission is a private organization created 30 years ago by the Republicans and Democrats." It goes on "at the time of its creation the leaders made no effort to hide the fact they didn't want any third party intrusions."

How do you think not having Gary Johnson on that stage looking at Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the spotlight/scrutiny will only be brighter for them.

BYER: I'd say my response to Gary Johnson's statement is "what is Aleppo?"

BALDWIN: That wasn't good.

BYER: He demonstrated that he is not probably eligible to be president of the United States. That was a disqualifying statement. There's a reason neither of these candidates will be on the stage and that doesn't have anything to do them being blocked out by the bipartisan commission on presidential debates.

It has everything to do with the fact that they did not run presidential campaigns that appealed to enough people to warrant their presence on what really are

the three most important events of the final two months of the presidential campaign. So what you'll see is the what the majority of people want to see. They want to see Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump.

They don't want any Ross Perot-like distractions. They want to know especially those undecided voters want to know why they should go with Trump or with Clinton.

BALDWIN: Dylan Byers, thank you very much. That's ten days away in New York.

New fallout from Donald Trump's admission that President Obama was born in the U.S. Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the senate calling him a liar. African American lawmakers call him a fraud and we heard from Michelle Obama who directly took on this birther controversy. Let's discuss, stay with me.

[15:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY, UNITED STATES: But back then people had all kinds of questions about what kind of president Barack would be. Things like does he understand us? Will he protect us? Then there were those who continue to question for the past eight years up to this very day whether my husband was

even born in this country.

Well, during his time in office I think Barack has answered those questions with the example he set by going high when they go low. I was pretty confident about where I was born. I think most people were as well.

BARACK OBAMA, (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My hope would be that the presidential election reflects more serious issues than that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Both the president and the first lady addressing this whole birther controversy head on. Today Donald Trump in the spotlight after this news conference in Washington this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. Finished it. You know what I mean. President Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again. Thank you. Thank you very much. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So in admitting the truth that the president was, indeed, born in the U.S., he was born in Hawaii, he offered up not just one but two falsehoods. First, he did not "finish it." In fact, he fed into the controversy three years after president Obama showed his birth certificate and secondly, Hillary Clinton did not start it.

Let me bring back Eugene Scott and Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science from Emory University. Eugene, to you, first, on the falsehoods what did you make of it?

[15:50:00] SCOTT: It was very interesting. I was surprised at the amount of time that it took to get to the issue that everyone was waiting to hear. And we thought we would hear more in terms of how he arrived to this point, I think a lot of people wanted to know if did in fact change his mind what led to him changing his mind. There is some speculation that the need to make significant gains with some demographics such as millennials and black voters was a motivation, but he never explained that, so it's not really clear what made him say what he said when he did.

BALDWIN: On the black vote, professor, let me ask you, in a lot of urban areas there is not entire enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton and there has been discussion from pundits in perhaps that is saying what he did this whole thing will backfire on Republicans or backfire on Donald Trump, fire up Democrats who haven't quite made up their mind and specifically fire up African Americans to vote Hillary.

GILLESPIE: I think that there are caveats to that. I think that this helped mobilize traditional black voters around Hillary Clinton, but there are also some young black voters who say don't want to be told the other guy is racist, and therefore you should vote for Hillary Clinton. So Clinton is going to have to marry the strategy of pointing that Trump is racist with sustained dialogue in the community. And she is going to have to some skeptical black voters that she he intends to engage black voters and their policy interests on November 9 and thereafter.

Thank you both again. Next here I want to talk about this story out of Chicago, this police sergeant rushes to the scene of a shooting. The victim is this young boy. How the officer came to the rescue.

[15:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Not only does the Republican governor of Ohio refuse to endorse Donald Trump, but today do you know where he is? He has been meeting with President Obama helping push for a trade deal that Donald Trump strongly opposes.

Governor John Kasich battled Trump for the Republican nomination and he spoke at the official White House briefing today. Governor Kasich sitting down today in the oval office to help President Obama shepherd TPP through congress.

For the record, Hillary Clinton also has vowed to kill the trade deal which she helped craft as secretary of state. Governor Kasich for his part not apologizing for anything in a sit down with CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You are a governor of major state sitting down with the Democratic president two months before an election. You're not worried about the political backlash from that?

JOHN KASICH, (R), GOVERNOR, OHIO: Oh, frankly I welcome it.

BASH: You welcome a backlash?

KASICH: I welcome the fact that people will criticize me for putting my country ahead of my party. It's time we start doing this in this country. We are not a parliamentary system and we were never taught to hate people because they may be in a different political party. When it comes to the president, he and I have a lot of disagreements. But there are areas where we can agree.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That is just a clip. Make sure you watch the whole thing. Go to CNN.com. And now to this.

It was the end of a busy shift and another busy night of shootings for Chicago police, but as Brian Tomashevsky was heading back to the station the dispatcher's voice echoed over the radio. Quote, "All units caller says her child has been shot.". Rosa Flores reports it is what the officer did next that make his actions beyond the call of duty.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Multiple gunshots ring out in Chicago for at least the fourth time in a day. And this time it's 10-year-old Tavon Tanner who was eating potato chips on his porch who gets caught in the crossfire.

Chicago police sergeant Brian Tomashevsky was on his way back to the station from another homicide scene but responds immediately when he hears the call.

Brian Tomashevsky, Chicago Police Sergeant: I'm a parent. You don't like to see kids get hurt no matter what happens.

FLORES: when the sergeant Tomashevsky arrives, the scene is chaotic.

TOMASHEVSKY: Mom and aunt are crying, I can see blood coming out of his nose and mouth.

FLORES: The great aunt says the boy was banging on the floor saying I'm burning while his twin sister held his hand saying don't leave me, don't leave me.

TOMASHEVSKY: So I run down to the car, I grab my trauma pack and came back into the house. I rip the pack open, took out a compression bandage. After everything got settled at the scene and he was taken to the hospital, he was still in intensive care, but I went up there and seen his mom and he was sitting in the chair. FLORES: What was that like?

TOMASHEVSKY: It's hard.

FLORES: Tavon's great aunt says the bullet impacted the boy's pancreas, spleen, intestines and kidneys and credited the sergeant's immediate response with saving his life.

ANITRA SMITH, TAVON'S AUNT: He's our guardian angel. And I tried not to cry when I met him. Of course I gave him a kiss on the cheek and I says and you're cute, too.

FLORES: And you took a photo with him.

SMITH: Yes, I did. He's my hero. I appreciate him. I appreciate Chicago police department.

FLORES: Some people call you a hero for helping this little boy.

TOMASHEVSKY: You know what, I'm flattered, I'm humbled, it's my job. My job is to be out here and serve the community. Serve the city.

FLORES: Rosa Flores, CNN, Chicago.

BALDWIN: So nice to hear the good story, too. Thanks for being with me.