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U.S. Troops Supporting Iraqi Force in Fight Against ISIS in Mosul; Leaked E-mails Show Clinton's Opposing Views on Wall Street' Michelle Obama Campaigns in Arizona for Clinton, Trump Not Pulling Out of Virginia; CNN Aboard French Carrier in Battle for Mosul. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired October 17, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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


[13:30:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: They say it's designed to prevent, make it more difficult for these U.S. air strikes. Is that your understanding?

PETER COOK, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Well, Wolf, they may be trying to prevent those air strikes and may be trying to if you will cloud the battle space, but you can be sure that our forces and our -- our air campaign will continue uninterrupted. We have ways to deal with some of those, those efforts to obscure the battle space, and I'll leave it at that. Doing more harm than good to the environment, to the people of Iraq. They certainly aren't doing much to help the infrastructure of Iraq. We'll continue our air campaign no matter what they do.

Peter Cook, thanks very much for us.

COOK: You bet.

BLITZER: And coming up, we're looking into hacked transcripts, stolen transcripts from Hillary Clinton's paid Wall Street speeches, and how her private message differs from her public one. Details and more, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:35:17] BLITZER: Stolen e-mails are raising questions about Hillary Clinton's views on wall street regulating big banks, and who's to blame for the financial crisis? The hacked document released by WikiLeaks suggests Clinton expressed different views in private and in public.

Our business correspondent, Alison Kosik, joins us from New York with details.

Alison, wall us through what the e-mails show.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: OK, the reality with hacked or stolen e-mails, no big bombshell, no smoking gun. As I've gone through the hacked e-mails, it quickly became apparent that Hillary Clinton said certain things in public, and said them differently in private when haven't been TV cameras rolling. Case in point, regulation on Wall Street. Tough regulations put in place after the financial crisis. Listen to how talked about them on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Trump would roll back the tough rules that we have imposed on the financial industry. I'll do the opposite. I think we should strengthen rules so Wall Street can never wreck Main Street again.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: But here's the thing. These hacked e-mails show that in October of 2013 at a speech she gave to bankers paid by Goldman Sachs, she takes a very different tone. Look at this. It's more of a softer tone, saying, "There was a lot of complaining about Dodd/Frank" -- that huge piece of regulation put into effect after the financial crisis -- but she says, "There was also a need to do something because, for political reasons, if you were an elected member of Congress, and people in your constituency were losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press was saying it's all the fault of Wall Street, you can't sit idly by and do nothing, but what you do is really important."

Notice that she isn't holding Wall Street accountable. She's only holding them accountable for political reasons, especially when you look at this next excerpt, she actually empathetic to the banks. She says, "There are so many places in the country where the banks are not doing what they need to do because they're scared of regulations, scared of the other shoe dropping." So here she's actually empathetic about regulations possibly hurting banks.

And on the several excerpts involve the middle class and really call into question her sincerity about how she feels and sincerity. Case in point, on the campaign trail, she said, "The economy should work for everything, not just those on top." You look here, she says, "Now, obviously, I'm kind of far removed from the middle class because of the life I've lived and the economic fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy but I haven't forgotten it."

So she shows she is removed from the middle class and even acknowledges, though, Wolf, that she does take two sides when it comes to politics, saying this, "It's unsavory, but it always has been that way, but everybody is watching, you know, all of the back-room discussions and deals, then people get nervous, to say the least. So you need both, a public and a private position."

So you've got Hillary Clinton admitting she does say something differently in public than she says in private -- Wolf?

BLITZER: How are people on Wall Street, folks you've spoken to, reacting to the release of these hacked e-mails?

KOSIK: A lot of the bankers and the investors and traders I've talked to are not surprised by the fact that Hillary Clinton apparently says, as in these hacked e-mails, shows she talks differently in public than in private. One investor saying this, "She may be a lot of things, but she's not stupid when it comes to raising money and currying favor with those who have it."

They acknowledge that Hillary Clinton is a politician, and at least one of them did say to me that if she is elected they believe she will move towards the center -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Alison, thank you. Alison Kosik reporting.

Coming up, the Clinton campaign is sending one of its biggest surrogates out there, the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, to a state that voted Republican in presidential elections for decades. Our political panel is standing by. We'll break down the race to 270. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:43:40] BLITZER: The first lady, Michelle Obama, is hitting the campaign trail once again for Hillary Clinton, this time in Arizona, a state the Clinton campaign thinks will be critical in keeping Donald Trump out of the White House. Meanwhile, Republican sources tell CNN, despite earlier reports, Donald Trump is not pulling out of Virginia and is buying ads there.

Let's discuss the race to 270 electoral votes with our political panel, our senior political reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson; and Molly Ball, the political writer for "The Atlantic."

Ladies, thanks very much for

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Good to be here.

BLITZER: The new polls that came out, CNN/ORC polls in Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio, shows Trump ahead by four points in Ohio, but close in the other two states. Very close in three states right now. He desperately needs to win all three of these states.

HENDERSON: He does. And he needs to win a bunch more. Right? In some ways the more things change, the more they stay the same with this campaign. Look two, three months ago, this is essentially what the state of the race was in these different states. Ohio tends to be a little more Republican, even in times that Democrats have won that state, they haven't won it by that much. If you look at last go- round, I think Obama won Ohio by about 165,000 votes. But Trump has to grow his support. He needs to be thinking about, can he win states like Wisconsin? States like Pennsylvania? States like Michigan? The truth is, even if he wins all three of these states, Hillary Clinton could very well still win, because of her strength in those traditionally blue states. And you see her even now trying to widen the map looking in states like Arizona and even Texas.

[13:45:16] BLITZER: Are you surprised that in Ohio, even after all the sexual allegations were emerging in recent days, Trump is still ahead now by four points?

MOLLY BALL, POLITICAL WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: The polls out of Ohio have been really interesting this cycle. We see Ohio versus Arizona is an interesting case study. One state that's always been competitive, Ohio, for demographic reasons, looking redder than in previous cycles, an older state. On the other hand, demographics are trending more to the Democrats. A Latino vote that is energized by the, against him, the Trump candidacy, and the Clinton campaign airing a six-figure ad in Arizona, a pretty unusual thing. And the Trump campaign acknowledged they are in some trouble there.

BLITZER: How is the Clinton campaign, Molly, dealing with latest so- called quid pro quo allegations involving the State Department, which he was secretary of state and the FBI?

BALL: The Clinton campaign, of course, says nothing to see here, pointing out the alleged quid pro quo in the e-mails, not to get too far into the weeds, never occurred. What was proposed to have the classification change didn't actually happen.

Beyond that, there's a lot of stuff in these transcripts and in the FBI documents that we can expect Secretary Clinton to be asked about in the third presidential debate on Wednesday and she has had a hard time answering a lot of these questions previously. I think it's part of what's keeping the race close. So many of these leaks and revelations play right into this distrust voters have for Hillary Clinton.

BLITZER: Polls show there is still a very high number of Americans who don't like or distrust not only Hillary Clinton but Donald Trump as well. Both pretty much when it comes to honesty and trustworthiness, don't have good numbers.

HENDERSON: They don't have good numbers. Historically high unfavorability ratings both candidates have. In some ways, they cancel each other out in terms of honesty and trustworthy. Where Hillary Clinton gains something of an edge on Trump is the idea of who is prepared to sit in the Oval Office, who has the temperament, judgment, experience. That's what she's talking about. That's why she's been trying to prosecute this case against Donald Trump as being unhinged, erratic, someone you wouldn't want to have his finger on the nuclear button. That's what her ads are saying. So we'll see. I mean, she -- I think, probably their campaign feels pretty good right now in terms where they are in standings. You hear Donald Trump saying the whole thing is rigged, almost suggesting he already thinks this is going to be a loss for him come November 8th.

BLITZER: The notion he says, the whole rigged, very different than what his vice presidential running mate is saying that he believes in the honesty of the American electoral process. This is very sensitive stuff Trump is discussing.

BALL: You have a lot of Republicans, including Mike Pence, and a lot of others, trying to distance themselves from this allegation by Trump. Really worrying about what could happen in the aftermath of the election if he continues to pound this theme. You know, after Mitt Romney lot the election in 2012 Trump tweeted that he didn't think the results were legitimate and called for a revolution. As the presidential nominee, if he were to do something like that, it could cause serious instability in society. So a lot of Republicans, including his own running mate, are signaling to Trump they want him to back off this attack. The question is, does anybody have the standing to tell Donald Trump to change his tone? And they really don't.

BLITZER: Some are saying it's rigged because the media is in line with Hillary Clinton, not necessarily the voting procedures.

BALL: That's not what Trump is saying.

BLITZER: Not what Trump is saying. Good point.

Ladies, thanks.

Coming up, CNN gets a unique look inside the war against ISIS unfolding right now. We'll bring you aboard an aircraft carrier assisting U.S.-backed force in the battle to liberate Mosul.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:53:06] BLITZER: Turning back to the war against ISIS right now, CNN got a firsthand look at a French aircraft carrier as it joined the battle to push the terror group out of Mosul in Iraq.

Here's our senior international correspondent, Fred Pleitgen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Take off to combat mission over Iraq and Syria. France is one of America's closest allies in the fight against ISIS. But with the aircraft carrier, "Charles De Gaulle," the country is drastically increasing its strikes against the terror group.

The jets carry 4,500-pound guided bombs each, a squadron commander tells me. We can only identify him by his first name in accordance with French military regulations.

UNIDENTIFIED FRENCH SQUADRON COMMANDER: The aircraft are capable of doing a mission to give higher power to the people on the ground. The aim is to help direct Iraqi forces on the ground to fight against Daesh.

PLEITGEN: France has been hit hard by ISIS's terror. Fighters sent by the group killing more than 130 people in Paris last November. That prompted France to unleash its military, flying missions over Iraq and Syria and deploying some ground forces as well.

The squadron commander said his men and women are determined to destroy ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED FRENCH SQUADRON COMMANDER: For me, it's to have to prevent any more terrorist attacks in France where it leaves the families and relatives. That's very important for all the people on the "Charles De Gaulle" and my squadron. PLEITGEN: The "Charles De Gaulle" operates almost exactly the same

way as American aircraft carriers, allowing the fleets to operate seamlessly alongside U.S. forces in the area.

(on camera): The "Charles De Gaulle" is France's most powerful weapon in the fight against ISIS. And its jets play a major role in the effort to liberate Mosul from the terror group.

[13:55:02] (voice-over): And French fighters are already flying bombing missions over the commander over the carrier strike tells me.

"This intensification of French efforts around Mosul had a key moment as the efforts of the coalition are baring fruit," he says. "ISIS is retreating on the ground and has lost big cities like Fallujah and Manbij (ph). The fall of ISIS is our ultimate goal and this goes with liberation of Mosul and Raqqa."

And France has vowed to keep its forces in the region until the goal of ultimately illuminating ISIS is achieved.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, on the aircraft carrier "Charles De Gaulle" in the Mediterranean Sea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back 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 after this quick break.

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