Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Early Voting Begins in All-Important Florida; Trump and Clinton Polish Their Closing Arguments; Trump Vows to Sue His Accusers after Election; Trump Dismisses Polls, Big Clinton Lead; Source: Clinton Mulls Administration Hires. Aired 9-9:30 ET

Aired October 24, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:21] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: That made me laugh. And there's no such thing as happy Monday. You guys have a great day. NEWSROOM starts right now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Election Day just two weeks from tomorrow. Can you believe it?

A key development taking shape right now. Early voting under way across much of Florida, a state that Donald Trump has to win to have a shot at the White House. And as our own new poll shows he's struggling campaign is falling even farther behind, Trump is in the middle of a three-day blitz of that state. His running mate, Mike Pence, is in North Carolina.

Among the Democrats, Hillary Clinton teams up with Senator Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine stumps in south Florida, and Vice President Joe Biden has two stops in Ohio.

I got lots of people with me myself. CNN's Jason Carroll is at a polling place in Miami. Jeff Zeleny looks at the two weeks spread ahead. But, Jason, I want to start with you because early voters are already on hand. Jason, can you hear me?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I can hear you, Carol. You know, if history serves as any guide, half of all voters here in the state of Florida expected to cast their votes during the early voting. The candidates know this. They know how important this state is. You have Tim Kaine campaigning in this state today. We saw Donald Trump in Naples yesterday, making two stops here in the state today.

Behind me, you can see some of the voting stations set up here in downtown Miami. We've seen a steady stream of voters coming in this morning. I want to bring one of them in for you right now, Olivia Martin.

Olivia, step right in. I know that you made a very good point to me. You said you wanted to come out here on Day One of early voting given all that you've seen and all that you've heard during this campaign.

OLIVIA MARTIN, EARLY VOTER FROM CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA: That's right. I sure did. CARROLL: Tell me why. I mean, you said you wanted to vote for

Hillary Clinton. You wanted to make a statement about women and voting.

MARTIN: That's right. I wanted to be here on the first day that we could do it, and I really am patriotic to my country and I've been for Hillary since the get-go. I'm so happy she's running and I know that she's going to win.

CARROLL: And give me your sense, also, if you will, about the nature of the campaign. We were talking about that a little bit earlier. You were saying some things about the discourse between the candidates.

MARTIN: I think that, unfortunately, it's turned so negative, and so many people are so disappointed with our elections now because, unfortunately, I think Donald Trump has really made such a statement of negativity. And I really am positive about our country.

CARROLL: And Hillary Clinton's trustworthiness, that was not an issue for you that she's been criticized --

MARTIN: Not really, no. I think he is far less trustworthy than Hillary.

CARROLL: I see. Thank you very much, Olivia Martin, coming in. One of those early voters here that we've been talking to out here, Carol.

Election officials say that, at this point, what they are expecting could be record turnout here in the state of Florida. Obviously, you've said it -- you heard it here from Olivia, Florida, a key state in order to win the presidency. Carol.

COSTELLO: Now, that is absolutely true. Jason Carroll reporting live from Florida this morning.

Neither Trump nor Clinton are taking their foot off the gas, though, as they barrel into the last two weeks of campaigning. They're racking up the miles and presenting their best argument to shore up support and win over those undecided voters, if indeed there are any undecided voters still out there.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is here with the final stretch of their campaigns. Good morning.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Hillary Clinton is heading to New Hampshire today with Elizabeth Warren at her side. It's part of this all-out push by Democrats to keep one eye on the White House, and the other on down- ballot races across the ticket here.

But this morning, we're also learning that Clinton is looking ahead. She's talking more about steps to plan what she increasingly believes will be her transition to the presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ZELENY (voice-over): A two-week fight to the finish. It's time for closing arguments. Hillary Clinton striking an optimistic note.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want to be the president for every American. Democrats, Republicans, independents, people who vote for me, people who vote against me because we've got to bring this country together.

ZELENY (voice-over): Donald Trump, less so.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Are we glad that I started? Are we happy?

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Well, I'll let you know on the evening of November 8th whether I'm glad.

ZELENY (voice-over): With 15 days to go, Trump no longer talking about when he wins, but if.

TRUMP: If we win on November 8th, we are going to fix our rigged system. It's a rigged, broken, corrupt system.

CLINTON: Some people are sore losers and, you know, we just got to keep going.

[09:05:01] ZELENY (voice-over): A wild weekend with Trump visiting Gettysburg for an unusual Gettysburg address, overshadowing the plan for his first 100 days in office by pledging to sue the women accusing him of inappropriate behavior.

TRUMP: Every woman who lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign, total fabrication. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.

ZELENY (voice-over): Trump Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway bluntly acknowledging the uphill climb.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR DONALD TRUMP: We were behind. We were behind one, three, four points in some of these swing states that Mitt Romney lost to President Obama, Chuck. Our advantage is that Donald Trump is just going to continue to take the case directly to the people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY (voice-over): Trump undermining that acknowledgment.

TRUMP: "Investor's Business Daily," the most accurate poll from the last election and the two elections before that, just announced that we are leading nationally by two points. Numbers are looking phenomenal in Florida. Don't believe the media.

ZELENY (voice-over): But a new ABC News national poll shows Trump trailing Clinton by 12 points.

Meantime, CNN has learned Clinton is increasingly moving beyond Trump and turning her attention to her transition to the presidency. A Democrat close to Clinton saying she's not being arrogant, she's being diligent. Clinton is sizing up candidates for White House Chief of Staff. One top contender, Ron Klain who led her debate team. All these as President Obama is tying GOP Senate candidates to Trump visiting Nevada, one of the hottest senate battlegrounds.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You're for him, but you're not for him. But you're kind of for him. What the heck?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: Now, as Donald Trump continues a three-day swing through Florida today fighting for those 29 electoral votes he needs to stay viable, Hillary Clinton is heading there tomorrow in hopes of blocking his path. But she's also multitasking. I'm told she's already started quietly reaching out to old allies on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans whose help she will need. Her team is loath to talk about any of this publicly.

Carol, over the weekend, she told reporters superstitious. I don't want to talk about it. But she is planning for the transition. And Trump is too, we should say. He has a big transition team. We'll see which one gets to use this.

COSTELLO: Is he reaching out to Democrats?

ZELENY: I don't think so. He has too many rallies to do that.

COSTELLO: All right. Jeff Zeleny, I had to ask. Thanks so much.

So, is the election over with two weeks still to go? Let's talk about that. With me now, Mark Preston, he's the executive editor for CNN Politics, and Abby Phillip, as a reporter for the Washington Post. Welcome to both of you.

So Mark, Clinton leads Trump by 12 points in that new ABC poll and by nine points in the new CNN poll of polls. Isn't it premature, though, to say this race is over?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Yeah, look, I mean, the bottom line is, is that if the race -- you know, if electoral were to held -- to be held today, Donald Trump would lose. And we've seen that in these electoral maps, not only CNN's, but just about every other news organization shows that she would surpass the 270 electoral votes needed. But, you know, there is still some time for Donald Trump to make up some ground. I think it would be very difficult right now for him to actually win this election. But who knows, I think this has been a campaign of surprises. And who knows what's in store of the next few weeks.

COSTELLO: It certainly has been a campaign of surprises.

So, Abby, Kellyanne Conway, who is Trump's main woman, right? She's his campaign manager. She said over the weekend that Trump is behind. She admitted that, but did she say that they're sort of energized, those Trump voters? Or did she say it in a depressing kind of way?

ABBY PHILLIP, WASHINGTON POST NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, I think Kellyanne is -- tends to be a little bit more realistic about some of these things and perhaps her boss, Donald Trump. And I would add to what Mark said which is that the Election Day is being held today.

You know, people are going to the polls right now. They're casting their ballots right now. And so in some ways, the project of turning this campaign around for Donald Trump leads to have begun maybe yesterday and continue on until today because everyday that goes by, people are making determinations about where they stand and how they want to vote.

[09:10:08] And the Trump campaign, I think Kellyanne Conway, in particular, knows that and understands that it's going to take a really significant event in this campaign to turn that around. It -- you know, with just 16 days left before November 8th.

COSTELLO: So everybody keeps talking about this enthusiasm gap, but if you look at the numbers in that new ABC poll mark, Hillary Clinton's voters are now more enthusiastic than Donald Trump's. How important is this?

PRESTON: It is very important. But you got to peer it to what is going on in the ground and to get up the vote operation, and Democrats have invested an incredible amount of time and incredible amount of money over the past couple of years, trying to build operations and organizations in these key battleground states.

We haven't seen the same on Donald Trump's side. Now, he will be buttressed by the fact that the Republican National Committee, Carol, has tried to do so. You know, they have tried to put organizations up but still Democrats have an advantage when it comes to getting phone banks together, you know, folks who are out on weekends knocking on doors and what have you. That really matters. And you peer that with enthusiasm, that's pretty powerful going in the closing days.

COSTELLO: OK. So Abby, what can Mr. Trump do to bridge the gap?

PHILLIP: Well, you know, it's about getting out his base. And I think that's probably what you see him doing so much right now on the campaign trail. He's spending a lot of time in these last few days at rallies.

Over the past weekend, he visited, you know, maybe a handful of states, eight or nine rallies. That's all an effort to sort of get his people out because those are the folks who are actually showing up. He's filling very large rooms, thousands and thousands of people. That's not enough to win an election, but it's certainly an important part of the sort of get-out-of-the-base effort.

And also, his rhetoric on Twitter is so much about kind of ginning up this sense that the game is being rigged against him and that, you know, that there is sort of like this secret weapon that his supporters can be for him. And I think that might very well be effective for that, you know, 30 percent to 35 percent of the people who are Donald Trump's core supporters.

The key really to win an election, you have to do more than that. You'd have to get out people who are not in your base. And you have to reach out to sort of the more moderate parts of the electorate. And that's the part that we haven't seen yet from Donald Trump.

COSTELLO: Yeah. And in talking to voters in Ohio last week, some people are completely turned off by Trump's talk of a rigged election. And that he's not going to like listen to, you know, the results of the people after November 8th. So, there's that, too.

Mark Preston, Abby Phillip, thanks for joining me this morning. Still to come in the "Newsroom".

Ahead of Election Day voting, the scrambling, some Republicans not just facing their opponents, they got some major reinforcements.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:17:01] COSTELLO: With Hillary Clinton leading in the poll, she's shifting focus launching a full-court press to make sure she's able to get things done in Washington if she becomes president. To do this, her campaign unleashed its powerhouse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't elect Hillary and then settle her with cameras that has do nothing, won't even try to do something, won't even get their own stuff pass much less the stuff you want pass.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: President Obama now expected to endorse 150 Democrats of who would like to serve in Congress.

Two of those key Senate races that Mr. Obama is focusing on are in Florida and New Hampshire and they involve names you know, Marco Rubio in Florida and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire. Rubio is in a dead heat with his Democratic rival, Patrick Murphy. It would be astonishing if Rubio lost.

Not just that, but if Rubio does lose, can he ever credibly run for president of the United States again?

With me now to talk about this is Steve Bousquet of the Tallahassee bureau bhief of the Tampa Bay Times and Paul Steinhauser, an anchor and political director of NH1. Welcome to both of you.

(OFF-MIC)

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. So Steve, this is why Florida voters are unsure of Marco Rubio. You're going to hear Rubio ripped Donald Trump in the primary and then embrace him at the Republican National Committee, or Convention rather.

STEVE BOUSQUET, TAMPA BAY TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU CHIEF: As the guy has (ph) said earlier, that has literally one of the worse spray tans I've ever seen. It's not just absurd, it's offensive, it's ridiculous. And I do think it is a disqualifier as commander in chief. Whenever there's a bad poll, he kind of gets weird and does these sorts of things. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: Donald Trump is committed to cut taxes, curb spending and get our national dead under control. Donald Trump takes seriously the threats from Islamic radicals and is committed to rebuilding our military. It's time to come together and fight for a new direction for America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So Steve, our Florida voters saying, what?

BOUSQUET: They sure are, you know, Rubio's in big trouble.

The polls are tightening. I just left the library in Boca Raton, Carol, it's the first day of early voting here. People are standing in the darkness to vote early at a little library in Boca Raton. I find Democrats energized on the first day of early voting here.

Rubio's in a very tight race and keep in mind, in the presidential primary here, you know, Rubio got solidly defeated by Trump in every county except Miami-Dade, which is his home base. So Rubio has got soft spots around the state where he's up against a really powerful democratic force here in Florida.

COSTELLO: And your paper endorsed the Democratic candidate, Patrick Murphy, and said this of Marco Rubio, "a Senate seat should not be a consolation prize for a failed presidential candidate killing time until his next run for the White House", ouch.

[09:20:00] BOUSQUET: In the last debate they had last week, Rubio had a chance to really partly seal the deal. He kind of hedged on the question that's been haunting him for months which is really serve a full six-year term if he's reelected, he said he would, God willing.

Patrick Murphy is not the perfect candidate, young, inexperienced, made some missteps along the way, but President Obama has been very strong in pushing Murphy and in peering with them in TV ads down the stretch. You know, the President has also endorsed a whole bunch of down-ballot legislative candidates here.

And so, we're going to see, this is going to be one of the best places in the country to see what kind of ground game Hillary and the Democrats have.

COSTELLO: It's just fascinating.

So, Paul now, it's your turn. Kelly Ayotte, she was in a debate with her democratic challenger. She said that Donald Trump would be a good role model. Later, she issued a statement saying, "No, I didn't really mean that, he wouldn't really be a good role model." So she's sort of having the same problem as Marco Rubio is having in Florida, right?

PAUL STEINHAUSER, NH1 POLITICAL DIRECTOR: She has been dancing a very delicate dance, Carol, for months now when it comes to Donald Trump. She said she would vote for him but not endorse him.

And then two weekends ago, that's what she broke with him after that recording, the audio recording of those extremely lewd comments came out. She broke with Trump and said she would vote for Mike Pence when she comes to vice president.

But you know what, the Democrats continue to hit or not just the Hassan campaign but state and national democrats and the Super PACs, flooding the airways up here, Carol with that, going after Ayotte, tying her to Trump even after she's broken with him. They still blame her for previously supporting Trump. And it's hurt because Ayotte is a very popular incumbent senator here, but it is heard and now she's slipping a little bit in the polls. Hassan, who's a popular Democratic governor up here, has opened up a single-digit lead.

Carol, the next debate is Thursday night. I get to moderate it. I'm looking forward to it.

COSTELLO: Oh, I can't wait. I'll watch it online.

I just want to emphasize. Kelly Ayotte was a rising star in the Republican Party. A lot of Republicans were pinning their hopes on her, you know, for bigger things than even the Senate. So this is astonishing.

Can anything help because I hear New Hampshire Republicans want Ohio's Governor John Kasich to come and campaign for Kelly Ayotte. Is there any possibility of that?

STEINHAUSER: There's been talk. Kasich was up here about late August, campaigning in the governor's race up here. There has been talk for him to come here.

Again, just like we're seeing across the country, Carol, Donald Trump is doing no favors to some Republicans facing some very tough reelection battles and New Hampshire is a perfect example of that. And this is Trump country in the Republican side. Remember, he won the primary here big, it was his first -- and was the first big push that helped him eventually won the GOP nomination. But, that was then, this is now and Donald Trump is doing no favors to Democrats here in the state where the Democrats have a strong machine.

And we saw last week, former president Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden up here, not only campaigning for Hillary Clinton, but also campaigning for Maggie Hassan and the other down-ballot races.

Today, we've got -- well, who else? Hillary Clinton and Senator Elizabeth Warren here, they're campaigning obviously for the White House race, but also for the Senate race, Carol.

COSTELLO: And a last question for you, Steve. Marco Rubio, if he does lose his Senate race in the State of Florida, what does that mean for his political future?

BOUSQUET: It doesn't look very good for Rubio if he loses the Senate seat. We haven't had two Democrats, by the way, in the United States Senate in the state for about 15 years. So, that would be a major event.

You know, Rubio would be really, really wounded badly and he'll never get off among to (ph) these comments that you played a few minutes ago about him saying these things about Trump.

I have to say, to turn that coin on its head for a second, if Rubio can somehow pull this thing out, he's up against the incredible drag that Trump is placing on other Republicans down the ballot and, you know, he's up against the fact that we're seeing Democrats who've illuminated the traditional deficit in returning male ballots in the state. There's still a question, an open question, about how enthusiastic Democrats are going to be in the big counties of Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

Rubio has to do strong not just in Miami, but in all of South Florida and along the I-4 Carter (ph).

Carol, the extent of the voter registration period down here because the hurricane judge (ph) demanded it. And we've seen more than 100,000 new voters join the roles, many of them are Hispanics. Rubio is going to need those folks to win this thing and to pull it out, but it looks pretty questionable at the moment.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there.

Paul Steinhauser, Steve Bousquet, thank you so much. Still to come in the "Newsroom". While Donald Trump fights with members of his own party, Hillary Clinton is quietly reaching out to Republicans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:28:55] COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. On the trail, Hillary Clinton staying close to President Obama and continues to hammer Donald Trump.

Behind the scenes though, we're hearing about another tactic, Clinton quietly reaching out to Senate Republicans in an effort to show them she's willing to work with them if she wins the White House.

Although some Democrats may think she already sounds like a Republican heard that (ph). Do we have the Saturday night live clip? No. Oh, bummer, so we don't get the laugh at that, but maybe we'll show it to you later. But you get the gist of what I'm talking about. So let's talk about that with our CNN political commentators, Bill Press, a Hillary Clinton supporter, and John Phillips, who's a Trump supporter and a TalkRadio host. Welcome to both of you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Carol.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Hi. So, John, as a Trump supporter, how does it strike you that Hillary Clinton is quietly reaching out to Senate Republicans?

JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I believe about half of it because as we come to find out, Hillary Clinton is the Democrat's Nixon, she's secretive, she's paranoid. And I just can't envision a scenario where she's going to invite Mitch McConnell over to the White House at 10:00 at night to make s'mores and braid each other's hair.

[09:30:04] I think there are issues that do have overlap with Corporatist Democrats and Corporatist Republicans. We've seen in the Wikileaks document dumps for example, John Podesta wants her to flip on TPP.

We heard what Terry Mcauliffe had to say at the Democratic convention, which is to suggest that she would switch the day that she's elected. So you could have a situation where she is elected, and then meets with Corporatist Republicans and flips on TPP and has some kind of bipartisan resolution on a major piece of legislation. But that's the only thing I can think of maybe open borders as well.

COSTELLO: So Bill ...

BILL PRESS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I ...

COSTELLO: So, go ahead, Bill.

PRESS: First of all, I have to say, there's no greater insult to anybody than to compare them to a Republican President Richard Nixon. Republicans are attacking their own here which I find very, very funny. But look the truth of it is if you look at -- first -- two things, one, this shows that Hillary Clinton recognizes she's got this in the bag.