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Trump Camp Suggests Media Behind Latest Claim; WikiLeaks Emails Show Plan To Deal With Bill Clinton Accuser; Ninth Woman Accuses Donald Trump of Sexual Misconduct; Economy Important in Swing States; Pennsylvania Key in Presidential Race. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired October 15, 2016 - 17:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:37] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour, I'm Poppy Harlow in New York, so glad you're with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Another woman has come forward accusing Donald Trump of making unwanted sexual advances. This brings the total number of accusers to nine. This new claim comes from a woman named Cathy Heller. She tells "The Guardian" the incident happened about two years ago during a brunch with her family on a family trip and also with Trump. The newspaper says that Heller claims, quote, "Trump grabbed her, went for a kiss and grew angry with her as she twisted away. Oh, come on she alleges that he barked before holding her firmly in place and planting his lip on her."

Moments ago, the Trump campaign responded to this allegation saying, quote, "The media has gone too far in making this false accusation. There is no way something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother's Day at Mr. Trump's resort. It would have been the talk of Palm Beach. The reality is this, for the media to wheel out a politically motivated Democratic activist with a legal dispute against the same resort owned by Mr. Trump does a disservice to the public and anyone covering this story should be embarrassed for elevating this bogus claim."

Let's talk about this and more. Let me bring in my political panel. With me now, CNN host and political commentator Michael Smerconish, also historian and professor of Princeton Julian Zelizer. Thank you both for being here very much.

Michael, I want you to weigh in on something. Aside from these allegations, something that Trump has been hitting hard today, as you know, he's been tweeting, he's been saying in his rallies that this election is rigged. He even tweeted this election is being rigged by the media pushing false and unsubstantiated charges and outright lies in order to elect crooked Hillary Clinton.

Paul Ryan, Michael, just in the last few moments as speaker of the house came out and said, quote, "Our democracy relies on confidence in election results and the Speaker is full of confident that the states will carry out this election with integrity." That's from his spokeswoman. What do you make of this? This is the Republican speaker of the House basically saying, in so many words, no, Donald Trump, this election is not rigged.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I was happy to hear Speaker Ryan say what he said. And I'm paying close attention to all of these charges because like everything else, Poppy, this cycle all roads seem to run through the Pennsylvania specifically Philadelphia suburbs. You've heard so, so much about it. I happen to reside there, I've spent my entire life there.

HARLOW: Right.

SMERCONISH: And when pushed, Donald Trump will talk about what went on, you know, in Philadelphia where his supporters will talk about what went on in Philadelphia in 2008 and they bring up an incident that transpired in a public housing development where members of the so-called new Black Panthers were standing outside a polling place looking rather menacing. I happen to think they should have been prosecuted by Eric Holder, but this was a polling place where 98 or so percent of the residents were both Democratic and African-American.

It is the last place that you ever would have needed to go to intimidate John McCain supporters. And so what he's been saying out on the campaign trail I think is designed to undermine the legitimacy come November 9 of a president-elect Hillary Clinton. And that's bad for all of us. I really am upset about the prospect of him planting those seeds. And I'm happy that Ryan has again, Speaker Ryan, distanced himself from Donald Trump.

HARLOW: I mean, Julian, I think, you know, there's a bridge that Trump is crossing today and that he's not only tweeting and saying this election looks rigged, he's actually in one of his tweets saying it is rigged. And here's what he said at this rally in Maine just a few hours ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect Hillary Clinton president. But we are going to stop it. We are not going to back down. It's a rigged system and they take these lies and they put them on front pages. This is a rigged system, folks. But we're not going to let it happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You know, it's interesting, Ryan Lizza, one of our contributors, Julian, pointed out if you look back to what Trump was tweeting back in 2012 on election night, here's one thing he tweeted. This was four years ago. "This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy." So this is actually not a new line of thought for Trump. He's been saying this for a long time. Give me the historical perspective on this. Have we ever had a major party candidate saying that the system is rigged?

[17:05:18] JULIAN ZELIZER, HISTORIAN: No. You know, we've had Republicans, including the Nixon administration, complain about the media being biased. We've had disputes over elections, such as we did in 2000 where there were disputes in 2004. What we haven't had is a major party nominee with the backing of the pretty who has done pretty well in the media launch an all-out assault on the legitimacy of the entire election one month going into the election. And I think that's what is causing many people concern. It's hard to walk this back with many of his supporters and even others who might listen to some of the message.

HARLOW: I think, I mean, there's no question, Michael, that this, you know, really puts some vigor into his hard-core supporters. But he cannot win with that, say, 37 percent. Right. He can't win. He has to get people on the fence. He has to get undecideds. He has to get more people under his umbrella to win. Does this sound to you like a Trump who is running to win or someone who is starting to make the case for why he perhaps may lose come November 8th?

SMERCONISH: Poppy, it's going to be a long three weeks if we're going to wrap up this campaign with him playing a greatest hits reel that satisfies that hard core base that are prone frankly to buy into conspiracy theory and worse. I mean today on the stump he's talking about the need for her to have a drug test. And I am sure that that is just exciting the bejesus out of his base but he's got, you know, a Florida won't move at 40 percent, but he'll never be able to boost those numbers.

HARLOW: Let's pause and listen to that, because he did make that claim this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Athletes, they make them take a drug test, right? I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

I think we should -- why don't we do that? We should take a drug test prior -- because I don't know what's going on with her. But at the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped at the beginning and at the end, it was like, oh, take me down. She could barely reach her car.

(LAUGHTER)

So I think we should take a drug test. Anyway, I am willing to do it.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What's the strategy there, Michael?

SMERCONISH: None that I can discern. I mean, look, let me float this idea. Maybe he recognizes that this thing has gotten away from him and he wants to protect the base that will probably give him a hard- core 40 percent so that it doesn't dip at any point below that. I mean I would love for the three of us to be able to go into the belly of Trump Tower into whatever kind of a war room they might have and see who can come up with a mathematical model that they are pursuing that gets them to the requisite 270 of electoral votes. It can't exist because not based on this is there any logic to it.

HARLOW: Julian, I mean, give us, again, historical perspective here in terms of campaigns that in the last -- in elections where in the last three weeks, last month, you've seen what we're seeing play out right now.

ZELIZER: Well, look, if we're talking strategically you might argue that he is not trying to win anymore and that he's really trying to protect himself for the post-election period to maintain some ability to be influential in politics, in the media to save face. There's another option, that there is no strategy at this point, that this is someone who's flailing around and he's engaging in a kind of schoolyard politics as he feels that he's on the defense. And that's a different kind of scenario and it will lead to a very turbulent few weeks if his campaign managers really don't have a strategy and don't have any control over what he says.

HARLOW: I think the campaign has a strategy, Kellyanne Conway has a strategy, the question is, is he executing on it.

Julian, thank you. Michael Smerconish, thank you very much more from Michael Smerconish. He will be live at 6:00 p.m. Eastern.

This just in, WikiLeaks releasing what it says are more hacked e-mails from the Clinton campaign, allegedly documenting e-mail exchanges between Hillary Clinton's attorney and her campaign chairman, John Podesta. The focus of the e-mails, how to deal with Juanita Broaddrick, who you know has made claims that the former President Bill Clinton raped her decades ago.

CNN's investigative correspondent Chris Frates is working on this breaking news. Chris, what do we know from these e-mails?

CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Poppy. Well, we know that these hacked e-mails of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta shows really how the campaign jumped into action after this tweet from one of Bill Clinton's accusers back in January. Clinton accuser Juanita Broaddrick, tweeted that she was raped by Bill Clinton more than three decades ago. And that's an allegation the Clinton's lawyer has long denied.

But according to these hacked e-mails, that same night as the tweet, Podesta and Clinton Lawyer David Kendall held a call and later sent an e-mail about the history of Broaddrick's allegations. Kendall sent Podesta several attachments, including an affidavit that Broaddrick signed back in 1998 saying that the rape allegations were untrue as well as later testimony where Kendall says given immunity, Broaddrick stood by those rape allegations. Now, Kendall signed off his e-mail by saying this. Quote, "Please let me know if there's anything else I can provide about this slime fest."

[17:10:37] Now, the Clinton camp is not saying whether or not the e- mails released by WikiLeaks are authentic and from John Podesta's e- mail account but a campaign spokesman put out a statement today and they implicated the Russian government in the hack of Podesta's government and they called on Donald Trump to condemn it.

They said, quote, "There is no getting around it. Donald Trump is cheering on a Russian attempt to influence our election through a crime reminiscent of Watergate but on a more massive scale. We're witnessing another effort to steal private campaign documents in order to influence an election. It's time for Donald Trump to condemn this intrusion by the kremlin and tell voters what did his campaign know and what did they know it."

Now, expect to hear the Clinton campaign continue to make this analogy between WikiLeaks and Watergate in the coming days, Poppy. The surrogates out there likely trying to paint Trump as something between a cheerleader and an accomplice to these hacks and tying it to Russia, making him say that he doesn't have any ties to the Russian government -- Poppy.

HARLOW: All right. Chris, we appreciate the reporting. Thank you very much.

Bring us more as you have it. Again, we're seeing these drops of these e-mails, frankly almost every day in these final weeks of the election.

Ahead this hour, the number of women accusing Trump of sexual misconduct is growing. Trump is denying the allegations. Details on the ninth woman who has just come forward.

Also, could the fallout from these accusations sink Trump's chances with suburban women? They are critical this election. What are they saying? We've got the numbers.

Also, you've heard from the candidates and now you'll hear directly from the voters in the key battleground states.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My whole life is about my four kids, and it is about what the opportunities that they will have and how they will be able to marry, raise a family, get ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think of my grandchildren. You know, when they get older, what are the younger people going to do? I was young, it was easy. You don't get a manufacturing job anywhere in this country. Now where do you go?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think you've gotten to live the American dream?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll let you know in 15 years when I retire how I made out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Clinton, Trump, your money, your vote. Stay with us, you're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:16:20] HARLOW: Nine women have now come forward with accusations against Donald Trump. Women who say that Trump kissed them, grabbed them or groped them without their consent. Trump says they are all telling lies and smears and attacking him.

Back with me, Michael Smerconish and Professor Julian Zelizer at Princeton University. Also with us Clare Malone from the website FiveThirtyEight. Guys, thank you for being here, we appreciate it.

SMERCONISH: Yes.

HARLOW: Let's take a look at some of these poll numbers because these are the candidates' numbers with suburban women. Last week versus now. Clinton is up three points, Donald Trump is down ten points among suburban female voters in a week. That was before this flood of women came out with these accusations of sexual misbehavior, misconduct, aggression on the part of Donald Trump. Claire, can you talk about the important, this significance. So many people say, you know, this election runs right through the suburbs at Philadelphia and the suburban women there. But just talk about the magnitude of their importance come Election Day.

CLARE MALONE, SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT.COM: Yes. I mean, suburban women have always been an interesting vote. George W. Bush way back when had the security mom vote that he was appealing, to the soccer moms --

HARLOW: Right.

MALONE: And this year Clinton has been -- there's a huge gender gap. Clinton has been leading on average about 15 points with women above Trump. She dragged, she lags behind Trump with men by about five points on average but she is doing significantly better with college- educated women than, you know, than I think most people expected. Trump wins women without college degrees, but these white suburban voters, as you said, in places, you know, outside Philly, Atlanta, you know, states that were once -- that are traditionally red, places like Georgia or, you know, places that are sort of turning blue, North Carolina, women that live in those suburbs outside big cities are big votes this year.

HARLOW: Julian, three weeks out, almost three weeks from the election. What are lessons from history that these candidates could both learn from when it comes to gender and elections? I mean, you know, you've talked about Lee Atwater when he worked for Reagan in 1980 as an example.

ZELIZER: Yes, he is one of the first to start talking about the gender gap after 1980 where Democrats, especially after the '90s, were doing much better overall with the female vote. But with married women, Republicans have done very well in the last few election cycles, including Mitt Romney, who I think got about 53 percent of that vote. So this is a crucial vote. Donald Trump basically can't win without that vote. And Republicans realize in the long term that's a vote they want to secure, not lose. So I think this is pretty important three weeks, not just for Trump and what happens, but for the future of the party.

HARLOW: I wonder, Michael, you know, we also know from this polling, the same poll, he's down 19 points among all likely female voters, not just Democrats, but Democrats and Republicans. But bigger picture, you know, when you talk about women being appalled by what was said on that tape, right, or concerned about these allegations, do you believe that it's selling short, you know, what these critical female voters really care about? Should we be focusing more on say, his comments on this election and coming out and saying, you know, the democracy that we live in is rigged

SMERCONISH: I think that there's been a cumulative effect. I don't think it's only about the comments that he has made relative to women and then these nine or so women, and I'm sure it's going to go much higher than that, who all of a sudden have come forward. I think everything that has transpired thus far, about which Poppy, the two of us have often had conversations where frankly I have thought, well, that would be the end of him. For example, the whole John McCain comment --

HARLOW: Yes.

SMERCONISH: -- or Mexico sending us its rapists and on and on and on. I think it's all finally caught up with him. And what makes this different is the fact that on the Billy Bush tape he said here's what I do. And it sounded appalling. And then all of a sudden these women came forward and they said, yes, that's right, because he did it to me. And it's very hard for him to escape this. It's not just that these nine women are making these allegations, it's the fact that he said what he said on the tape and then here's exhibit A, B, C, D, E, F, G, et cetera, et cetera, for that what she told us.

HARLOW: The thing is, Clare, when it comes to who's going to vote, I mean there's no question, although the Clinton camp would refute it, but so many, you know, people say to me and I hear it and I see it a lack of enthusiasm among many Hillary Clinton supporters, right, or many of them going to the polls just to vote against Trump. Talk to me about what the numbers show us in terms of how much women vote, specifically suburban females, versus other voting blocs. Like retirees are a reliable voting bloc that will come out in droves. What about women?

[17:21:16] MALONE: I think that women especially this election are probably going to be pretty motivated to vote. I mean -- and, you know, something that one of your other guests just said about sort of whether or not this is going to sort of -- how it's going to affect people's votes and whether or not it's a deal-breaker for, say, Republicans or swing voters. The sexual allegations against Trump might be a deal-breaker for a lot of these suburban swing voters. But I'd like to point out that Republican women are actually still firmly with him.

There was a morning poll that came out the day after the tape that said that 74 percent of the total party base wanted the Republican leadership to stand by Trump. And 82 percent of Republican women still support Donald Trump, which is exactly on par or in the same neighborhood of support in any other election year.

HARLOW: There you go.

MALONE: So Republican women are sticking with him. Uh-hm. It's a really important point.

HARLOW: Clare, thank you very much. Michael, Julian as well. You'll catch Michael Smerconish on right after me, 6:00 p.m. Eastern. Stay around for that.

Coming up next, Donald Trump hitting back hard against a growing number of women who have come out and accused him of sexual misconduct. He says those allegations are baseless, meritless, completely false. You'll hear from some of his accusers next. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:26:06] HARLOW: A ninth woman is now accusing Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. Her name is Cathy Heller. She lives here in New York City and she told "The Guardian" this incident happened about 20 years ago while she was at brunch with her family and Donald Trump.

Our correspondent Jessica Schneider is with me and she has more. Not only has she first told this to "The Guardian" newspaper, we'll get to that in a moment. You actually just got off the phone with her.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I talked with Cathy Heller this afternoon and I also talked with her friend Susan Kline, and CNN is working to further corroborate her story. But Cathy Heller said it was about 1997. She was at Mar-A-Lago with her family. Her in-laws were members there. She said she was introduced to Donald Trump. And when she went to shake Donald Trump's hand, she says that he pulled her toward him and then actually kissed her open-mouthed, right there in front of a lot of people as well as her family. She said she was quite startled by it, of course. She said her husband was there, her other family members, but she left it as is. She considered it, she said, a family joke.

Now she says she's realizing it's not a joke. In fact she told "The Guardian," we have a full screen here. She said exactly, Trump grabbed her, went for a kiss and grew angry with her as she twisted away. Oh, come on, she alleges that he barked before holding her firmly in place and planting his lips on hers. And that's exactly what she told me when I talked with her this afternoon.

Interestingly, Poppy, she actually belongs to a Mah-Jongg group. You know, a game that they play. And she was up in Connecticut when I talked with her. She said that she told this group, many women, about a year and a half ago that this had happened. This was right as Donald Trump was rising to political prominence. I talked with one of her friends on the phone and she said, yes, she said, Cathy Heller told me and the rest of the women about a year and a half ago.

HARLOW: I think that the question becomes then and this is what the Trump camp is saying, and we'll get to their response in a moment though. The timing, right? A lot of these women started telling their stories about a year and a half ago when he started rising to prominence but they never came public before a month before the election.

SCHNEIDER: Right. We're hearing similar stories from these women. And what we're hearing is that they felt compelled to come forward following the release of that "Access Hollywood" tape and also Trump's subsequent denials in Sunday night's debate. So the combination of those two things made them compelled to come forward. But like you mentioned, the Trump campaign is responding and we have the response to this particular incident.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCHNEIDER: I'll read it for you now. It's from Jason Miller, the senior communications advisor for Donald Trump. He says the media has gone too far in making this false accusation. There is no way that something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother's Day at Mr. Trump's resort. It would have been the talk of Palm Beach for the past two decades. The reality is this, for the media to wheel out a politically motivated a Democratic activist with a legal dispute against this same resort owned by Mr. Trump does a disservice to the public and anyone covering this story.

Now, Poppy, Cathy Heller did say to me that she is a Hillary Clinton supporter, that she did not like Donald Trump from the beginning, so you have to take that into consideration with what she's saying now. And she did say as Jason Miller mentioned that her family had a legal dispute with Mr-A-Lago. It was a matter of trying to get money back that they had spent on the initiation fee. So there is all that to consider. But again, she's the ninth woman now to come forward.

HARLOW: Jessica, thank you very much. Of course we'll bring you more as we have it. But the Trump camp responding there saying this is a baseless claim.

Coming up next, switching gears, we're going to talk about the economy, the issues, with famed economist Ben Stein.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:32:50] HARLOW: Famed Economist Ben Stein says it is time for Donald Trump to go back to Trump Tower. I should note he is a Republican. He wrote this for the "American Spectator," quote, "I disagree with Trump on trade and taxes and Hispanics, but I stood up for him on TV and in print because he was a force for change and washing out the slop-filled stables of D.C. and because he was not afraid to be non-P.C. But this is too much. I do not claim to be a better person than he is. I am not at all. But I'm also not fit to be president either."

Ben Stein joins me now from Los Angeles.

All right. You're not running for president, but you are an economist, and so I thought we'd talk about the issues. We're going to talk about the issues that I heard while I was traveling across the swing states over the last month or so, Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio, from the voters themselves, right?

Ben, here's the first one from a Latino Trump supporter that I met in Pennsylvania.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVAN TORRES: At this particular time, there's a need for change. Fundamentally, he has my support first because I think he has the kind of intelligence that's necessary to come up with the solutions to economic problems. We are not very far from the Appalachian trail and that is probably the greatest concentration of poor folks in the country. Nobody speaks about them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: That was Ivan Torres and he told me that basically he thinks Trump actually has a plan that will help the poorest Americans living in Appalachia, more than Clinton. When you look at the plan, who offers more to the poorest people?

BEN STEIN, ECONOMIST, ATTORNEY & ACTOR: I think Trump's plan offers more to people in the Appalachian region of the country because he would end all controls, regulations and restrictions on the production of coal, so that would help people in the Appalachian region where coal is produced.

In terms of having a plan to help the economy, he has no plan whatsoever and he's not a great expert in economics. And he's not a particularly successful businessman. So with all due respect, I mean I have a lot of respect for Mr. Trump's non-P.C. stand, but I don't think he has a plan at all. By the way, I don't think Mrs. Clinton has a plan at all. The poor are just going to have to be retrained, reeducated, and get to work. I'm sorry, it's hard, but in the meantime, the taxpayers will subsidize them.

HARLOW: Here's a similar concern about the coal and the energy sector. This came from someone we met in Ohio. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:35:15] HARLOW: You're a lifelong Democrat?

CHARLIE SALKIELD, OHIO VOTER: Yes.

HARLOW: So you're voting for Hillary this time around?

SALKIELD: No, I'm not.

HARLOW: No?

SALKIELD: My dad was a coal miner. If you go against the coal miners, that's my heritage. I didn't like that.

HARLOW: What Clinton said?

SALKIELD: It's not just what they said, it's what they do. They put the coal miners out of work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: I mean you heard Hillary Clinton say, Ben, in that CNN town hall six month ago, we're going to put a lot of coal mines out of work. And I felt in Ohio, from these voters, it really, really hurt her among some people who said they have been lifelong Democrats.

When it comes to these good-paying energy jobs, do either of them really have a plan as we sort of transition into newer, cleaner energy sources?

STEIN: Well, Mr. Trump definitely has a plan because his plan is to end regulation of energy sources --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: But that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen.

STEIN: Well, he could end a lot of it because a lot of what's been done, was put in place by regulation and not by legislation. So I think he can end a lot of that. And I think he's right. The whole climate change thing is incredibly complicated. We don't really know if cutting down on coal production, coal burning is going to change the climate for the better. By the way, there's some question about how much the climate has been changed.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, come on.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Ben, you're a very smart guy. Almost all scientific evidence --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: -- points to human contribution to global warming.

STEIN: Well, with all due respect -- well, with all due respect, there is human contribution to something. We don't know if it's global warming. But let's assume there's a negative human contribution to the atmosphere, that's enough. Let's just assume that it doesn't have to do with global warming, but has to do with putting bad particles into the air. That's enough to say let's cut down on it. That's plenty. But if we're getting a huge amount from China and India, I don't think it helps much to cut down on it in the United States. It's got to be a worldwide effort or it's not going to work at all.

HARLOW: That's what I heard from a lot of union, you know, workers that are typically solidly blue that are now on the fence. I mean that's a very important point is they say what China is doing and India is doing.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: But I do want you to hear from one other --

(CROSSTALK)

STEIN: We here in California are getting the pollutants from China. We're not getting pollutants from Ohio or West Virginia.

HARLOW: I want you to quickly listen to what one of the retirees told me in Florida. Roll that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB KUCK, FLORIDA VOTER: I think it really kind of scares us that we're staring at 20 trillion in debt, not knowing how our grandchildren will repay it.

HARLOW: The national debt. Donald Trump, as you know, has said his plan is deficit neutral. Is it?

STEIN: Oh, not at all.

(LAUGHTER)

You spelled "debt" wrong on the screen. It's D-E-B-T, not D-A-B-t --

HARLOW: Seriously?

STEIN: But god bless you.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Oh, good. I hope we end up on "The Daily Show" for that one.

STEIN: Some intern is going to get fired over that.

(LAUGHTER)

But we're never going to pay off the national debt and we don't have to pay off the national debt. All we have to do is service the national debt. Mr. Trump has no plan to reduce the national debt. Mrs. Clinton has no plan.

But let's give Mr. Clinton, her husband, credit. He drastically lowered the national debt. Whatever sins he did in terms of his behavior with women, he was an incredibly good president fiscally and economically. So if we're going to blame him for his sins, let's also give him credit for the good things he did. And I think Mrs. Clinton on the national debt would be incomparable better than Mr. Trump. But it's not a crisis for a long time.

My brilliant father, a really, really good economist, used to say, "If a thing cannot go on forever, it will stop." So the national growth debt will stop, but whether it ends in tears or laughter, we don't know.

HARLOW: D-E-B-T, debt.

Thank you, Ben Stein.

STEIN: They fixed it, great. Thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you. No one is getting fired.

STEIN: Thank you.

HARLOW: Don't forget tonight, 7:30 p.m. eastern, "Your Money, Your Vote, How the Economy is Impacting How Americans Vote"

Up next, a preview. We travel to battleground Pennsylvania.

Stay with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:43:00] HARLOW: Pennsylvania, the Keystone State, has become known to some as fool's gold for Republican presidential hopefuls. While it has elected plenty of GOP governors and Senators, it hasn't gone red since George H.W. Bush ran in '88. Can Trump win? He says yes. In fact, he's said the only way he will lose is if cheating goes on in Pennsylvania. So who has the upper hand in Pennsylvania, and how much does it come down to the economy?

We went there to find out as part of our special series, "Your Money, Your Vote."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: (voice-over): Beth Hamilton is a rarity here. She's a woman in the Democratic stronghold of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, supporting Donald Trump.

(on camera): You're really concerned about the economy?

BETH HAMILTON, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I am. I think so many manufacturing jobs have left.

HARLOW: Do you think there's really any way jobs are actually coming back, given globalization, given free trade, given technological advances?

HAMILTON: I'd like to believe that there is potential -- to just sit back and say all the jobs are cheaper to make something in China or cheaper to make something in Mexico, and not even try to do something to keep some of those jobs. I think that's foolish.

HARLOW (voice-over): Donald Trump has put this state in play with his appeal to white working class voters, like here in Berks County.

We met Hamid Choudry at his bustling restaurant in the heart of Reading.

HAMID CHOUDRY, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER & RESTAURANT OWNER: God bless America, the melting pot, the greatest country in the world.

HARLOW: A Muslim from Pakistan, he immigrated here in 1988. When we spoke with him in late September, his vote came down to one thing.

CHOUDRY: Jobs, jobs and jobs. You go five miles in either direction and there's shut-down plants.

HARLOW: He told us Donald Trump is the candidate who can bring those jobs.

CHOUDRY: He's a smart man. I'm taking a leap of faith.

HARLOW (on camera): You're taking a leap of faith?

(voice-over): That was then. Now he's more hesitant to take that leap after the 2005 video of Donald Trump bragging about groping women surfaced. Choudry questions how he could explain a vote for Trump to his 9-year-old daughter, so now he's undecided.

[17:45:11] CHOUDRY: If you look at today's newspaper, you'll see the paper plant got shut down.

HARLOW (on camera): This is a paper plant closing?

CHOUDRY: A paper plant closing. More jobs leaving Berks County.

HARLOW (voice-over): We went to find that plant.

(on camera): So this is the plant that's closing. The manager here told us 31 jobs are being cut and these are good-paying jobs.

UNIDENTIFIED PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: It's one of the few left in Berks County.

BILL SCHWOYER, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: They gave us the notice two weeks ago that they are shutting the facility down at the end of the year. I started there when I was 19, so I've been there for 37 years.

HARLOW (voice-over): Bill Schwoyer has been a machine operator at the Neenah Paper Factory for nearly four decades. Lisa has been working second shift here for 14 years. In many respects, they're the quintessential voter Donald Trump has been courting blue collar workers and their jobs are disappearing.

UNIDENTIFIED PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: The trade agreements, I fully believe that that is the reason many jobs are leaving.

HARLOW (on camera): But your jobs, for example, aren't necessarily going to Mexico or China, right?

UNIDENTIFIED PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Well, they have to compete in a world market.

HARLOW (voice-over): Neenah Paper told us this plant, quote, "operated at well below full capacity resulting in a non-competitive cost structure, despite the good efforts of the roughly 30 employees there."

The company is vowing to help its workers try to find jobs, possibly at other Neenah sites in other states.

(on camera): Donald Trump says he will throw out what he calls bad trade agreements and save jobs like yours and bring your jobs back.

UNIDENTIFIED PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Sure he will.

(LAUGHTER)

I don't think so. I don't believe he can come through with those promises. He's a businessman. I don't know if that's necessarily what we need to lead the country.

HARLOW (voice-over): Both Lisa and Bill say Clinton has their vote.

SCHWOYER: She's going to get my vote. I'm just -- you know, you don't feel super confident in either of them maybe, but, you know, I really have no faith in Donald Trump at all, none. He's reality TV. And I just don't trust that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Heather Long is with me now. He is a "CNN Money" senior writer and the force, a force behind this entire project.

We've been working on this so long and now it's done and the special airs tonight. But this is your home state, Pennsylvania. So many people have said the key to winning this election runs through the suburbs of Philly and suburban women. Talk to me about the notion that the new soccer mom is the new working mom.

HEATHER LONG, CNN MONEY SENIOR WRITER: That's right, Poppy. You were there. We went and interviewed in Montgomery County one of those very prosperous, wealthy counties outside Pennsylvania. There's been so much focus on the blue collar vote. In Pennsylvania, 20 percent of those votes are going to come from that critical area right outside Philadelphia where people are highly educated, have great job.

It's people like Carolyn and her husband, Adam. They met in graduate school, got graduate degrees. They're scientists and doctors and they have a big Hillary Clinton sign in their front yard. They just cannot vote for Trump. They really think she has the plan for the next --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: And it's interesting because western Pennsylvania, yes, he's had a lock on a lot of that. But that's not enough to win the state. Right?

LONG: That's right.

HARLOW: And he's down, I think, nine points in Pennsylvania in the latest polling. We were there in part of -- not too far outside of Philadelphia that he wants to win that is home to those working blue collar workers.

LONG: That's right. The city of Reading is one of the poorest cities in America. The day we were there, on the front page of the local paper, "The Reading News," it was about that factory closing.

HARLOW: That should be Trump Town, USA.

LONG: Exactly.

HARLOW: And?

LONG: We were surprised at how many people said they were voting for Hillary Clinton there. They said Trump is just reality tv, or even if they thought that they bought into his message that trade, trade with China and Mexico, is taking their job away, and the job that they are losing, by the end of the year, they don't believe that Trump will bring those jobs back.

HARLOW: One question you kept asking in these interviews that we were doing in the field is, what about your American dream. This whole project, Heather, what's your takeaway about whether people think they are getting to live their American dream.

LONG: It's a great question that we got a lot of different responses. I was surprised how many people, when you ask them, even people I thought were having a really rough go, they would say, yes, I believe I have lived the American dream.

But it was different when you asked the question, what about your children, do you think they're going to live the American dream. And you just saw Beth Hamilton in that video, out in one of those counties, very prosperous counties outside Philadelphia, and she's worried. She's worried if her kids are going to be able to have the same life that she did.

HARLOW: They're voting for her children.

LONG: She's voting for her kids.

HARLOW: Thank you, Heather. Great work on this project.

See all of Heather's pieces up on CNNmoney.com.

See al of it tonight, "Your Money, Your Vote," 7:30 p.m. eastern, right here on CNN.

Meantime, every year in the United States, seven million children are bullied either at school or online. When Matthew Kaplan realized that his little brother was one of them, he took action, even though he was only in the eighth grade. During the past five years, his anti- bullying program has been shared with more than 4600 middle school age students. That's why he's this week's "CNN Hero."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:50:26] MATTHEW KAPLAN, CNN HERO: The term "peer pressure" is thrown around a lot. And usually what it is, it's meant as a negative thing. But I believe that we can actually harness peer pressure for good. What if it was cool to be kind and that's what positive peer pressure is all about, creating this culture where being inclusive is the norm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: To see Matthew's positive, positive peer pressure program in action, go to CNNheroes.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Coming up on "Parts Unknown," Anthony Bourdain heats things up in Szechuan with a taste of spicy cuisine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:55:00] ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST, PARTS UNKNOWN: What happens when America's favorite bad boy chef and upright French chef go to China?

Eric's never been to China before. Nor is he used to the elevated levels of, shall we say, heat and spice.

UNIDENTIFIED CHEF: This is sweet and sticky but I like it a lot.

BOURDAIN: In fact, the delicate system, totally can't handle what he's about to get.

UNIDENTIFIED CHEF: Oh my god.

My sinuses, you have no idea.

BOURDAIN: He's so in for it.

UNIDENTIFIED CHEF: Holy cow. Whoa.

That spice prevents me to think right.

BOURDAIN: Spicy.

UNIDENTIFIED CHEF: I feel like my face is changing.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Anthony Bourdain in Szechuan, Sunday, 9:00 p.n. eastern.

I'll be back at 7:00 p.m. eastern.

"SMERCONISH" begins right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)