Sunday-02
Focus On The Battleground States; Dems Take Lead In Florida Early
Voting; Trump, U.S. Officials "Group of Losers;" CNN Crew Inside
Assault In Mosul; Hillary Clinton Rallies With Celebrities; Mexico's
Contingency Plan If Trump Wins; "Saturday Night Live" Gets Serious
About Voting. Aired 6-7a ET - Part 1>
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[06:00:23] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Secret Service rushed Trump off the stage.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Nobody said it was going to be easy for us. We will never be stopped.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump make their closing arguments to the nation. The race has tightened even more.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are all working our hearts out in the final sprint to this election and we need your help.
TRUMP: We need you all to go and vote on Tuesday and we are going to win back the White House.
CLINTON: Tonight I want to hear you roar! Are you ready?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good Sunday morning. It's 6:00 a.m. Dark and early here in Washington, D.C.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Dark and early.
PAUL: We are always grateful for your company. I am Christi Paul.
BLACKWELL: That sounds like a great drink. I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you this morning. Two days now until Election Day. People have already been voting, tens of millions in early voting. This is the final frenzied campaign across the country. Today Donald Trump is making a big play in the blue state. Hillary Clinton hoping to draw more star power for the boost in the battlegrounds.
PAUL: Let's take about the latest poll of polls. CNN showing the race drawing even closer in the home stretch. Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by just 3 percentage points, 46 percent to 43 percent nationally. Think about it, yesterday it was five, we are down to 3 and here's a look what's on tap today. Hillary Clinton in buckeye state in Cleveland, Ohio and joined by none other than the king himself, Lebron James. She'll head to New Hampshire for a concert event with James Taylor.
BLACKWELL: Meantime, Donald Trump holding rallies across five states, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota. Republican presidential candidate has not won Michigan since 1988 but recent Detroit Free Press poll shows the reliably blue state is anything but locked up for Hillary Clinton. The poll shows she's up 4 points, 42/38.
PAUL: It's this moment at last night's rally in Reno, Nevada, though, that had some people talking here. Take a look at that as Donald Trump was whisked away off stage.
BLACKWELL: Secret Service agents rushed him to safety after they say someone shouted gun near the front of the stage. It turns out he was safe the entire time. Agents and police quickly took out a man but they say that there was no weapon found. Steve Nunes has the story for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEVE NUNES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump was at his third campaign rally of the day in the final push before Tuesday's election. During the GOP nominee's speech, an incident broke out in the audience, then the Secret Service rushed the stage.
Trump was unharmed. Screams could be heard from the crowd as supporters started moving away. A man was detained by police officers and Secret Service agents. Some people who attended the event said they saw a Trump supporter raising up a sign.
The Secret Service released a statement saying in part, "Mr. Trump was removed from the stage by his Secret Service protective detail after a commotion occurred in the crowd immediately in front of the stage.
And an unidentified individual shouted gun. Upon a thorough search of the subject and the surrounding area, no weapon was found." Moments later Trump returned to the stage to finish his speech.
TRUMP: Nobody said it was going to be easy for us, but we will never be stopped.
NUNES: In a statement Trump thanked the Secret Service along with local and state law enforcement. The Secret Service uses magnetometers at presidential campaign events and anyone who attends an event like this must be screened before being allowed to enter. In Washington, I'm Steve Nunes reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: No charges filed against the man who was detained at that rally. His name, Austin Crites. PAUL: Now Crites claimed he didn't yell gun, but he said others in the crowd reacted negatively towards his sign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AUSTYN CRITES, DETAINED AT TRUMP RALLY: I just came with a sign. I literally just had one sign that said Republicans against Trump and when I pulled out the sign, people around me were trying to grab the sign. Somebody yelled something about a gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
CRITES: And so that's where things really got out of hand. I mean, people were just, you know, kicking me, grabbing my arms, twisting them. Finally I'm very thankful for the law enforcement who was able to quickly come because had they not been there, it's possible that those people could have strangled me and killed me right on the spot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: In the moments after the incident in Reno, Donald Trump's son, Don Jr., retweeted these unsubstantiated claims that his father had just survived an assassination attempt. He did delete that tweet. It wasn't before it had been shared thousands of times.
[06:06:11]BLACKWELL: And then there's this, while introducing Trump at a rally even later yesterday in Denver, Reverend Andre Mahanna blamed the media for the attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REVEREND ANDRE MAHANNA, TRUMP RALLY OPENING SPEAKER: You attack him every time thinking he raises a speech of hate. Tonight, I think the hate a lot of the media raised against him caused an attempt of murder against him in Nevada.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: All right. Let's talk about this with CNN political commentator and former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz, Amanda Carpenter, and CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," Brian Stelter. So good to see you both so early in the morning here.
Let's talk about first of all Donald Trump's reaction to this because he got on stage afterwards and he said nothing, which was interesting. It's almost as though everybody was talking about it except him. What do you make of that?
AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that was the appropriate way for Donald Trump to handle it. I am very concerned about how these events have been misconstrued by agents of the campaign in the aftermath. We know what happened.
A man went to the stage, raised some type of sign that said Republicans against Trump. Somebody yelled gun, and he was pummeled. In the aftermath his son said it was an assassination attempt. You don't under do a tweet and act like you never said it.
You have to issue a clarification. I heard the son on another network talking about how this is what the left does. You saw that. This is what the media does. They are not telling the truth.
This is a broader example of something I'm very worried about that has happened in this campaign, which is a broad, unending swell of misinformation. At some point, we have to say what the truth is and they're lying about the event that took place last night.
BLACKWELL: Implicating the media here again.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: This sums up the entire campaign. This is the whole year in a nutshell. A protester who wants to appear at a Trump rally who is upsetting people in the crowd, a commotion ensues.
Actually, I thought Trump and Clinton had the best reactions. Trump handled it very well, so did Clinton with a quick response on Twitter saying she was glad no one was hurt. This sums up the entire experience of the past year or so.
People who want to freely protest, that person being disturbed, being harassed by some rally goers, then someone yells gun, we don't know who, this man leaves. Clearly, if this was a real security threat. This person would not be free right now.
He wouldn't be talking to the media last night. It's obvious some Trump members exaggerated this. It does sum up the whole campaign, as you're saying, Amanda, about the campaign of misinformation.
BLACKWELL: We had Frank Buckley here who was a speech writer for Donald Trump Jr. for the convention and he said that this is a son who is concerned about his father. What do you make about that characterization?
CARPENTER: Well, if he was acting as a son of a presidential candidate in this campaign, I would be more sympathetic to that argument, but the Trump children have been major surrogates, agents, people who speak for the campaign.
They should be treated as political operatives, not children. And when an agent of the campaign says on Twitter, it's a massive platform, that there was an assassination attempt on my father, you don't just get to delete that and move on.
STELTER: If we're going to be critical of his son, which I think we should be, we should be critical of some of the people who immediately assumed that was staged. There was a reaction about that from some on the left and talked about a hoax, something that was set up by the Trump campaign. That seems ridiculous also. There was this rush to politicize and polarize people right away when this happens.
PAUL: You know what's different about this campaign is the spotlight Twitter has taken because we just have not seen that in the past. Is there any gauge, any indication as to how Twitter itself and what has been tweeted is going to affect voters?
STELTER: Actually, interesting. Twitter financially, business wise having a hard time these days. It's actually not growing fast enough. There are signs that users are not as committed to Twitter as they used to be.
However, politically speaking and in the media, it's more important than ever. These campaigns are using more effectively than ever especially the Trump campaign.
With that comes some down sides, I think that's what we're describing as well. You can't just delete a tweet and pretend like it didn't happen in the case of Trump's son, by then the misinformation has spread widely --
PAUL: You have to clarify.
CARPENTER: I would argue Donald Trump would not be the Republican presidential nominee had it not been for Twitter. He's a social media candidate, end of story. He's measured on Twitter and Facebook faster than the news can cover it that's driving the news.
That's why when somebody spreads a lie like this on Twitter in the middle of night and it can take hold in all these blogs and in the media atmosphere, no one can catch up to it. That's why they must clarify it and apologize.
STELTER: This election is about alternate universes. What happened at that rally is a great illustration of how people going to have two different narratives about what happened.
[06:10:07]BLACKWELL: All right, Amanda Carpenter, Brian Stelter, thank you both.
PAUL: It's been leading up to what happens in the next 48 hours.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
PAUL: Yes, people, 48 hours and you can go to the polls.
BLACKWELL: Soon that, too, is going to go to hours, minutes and seconds. We're counting down until the last vote is counted so you want to stay with CNN. We'll have every race and every result all day special live coverage on Tuesday.
PAUL: Of course, both campaigns are really bearing down on the battleground states now. We're going to take you live to three crucial states. We're talking about Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.
BLACKWELL: Plus, Donald Trump doubling down on his criticism of the battle to retake Mosul. The Republican nominee saying the U.S. officials behind the operation are, quote, "a group of losers."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Our government has failed our citizens, but we are going to turn it all around and deliver the change and leadership that America deserves.]
CLINTON: I don't need to tell you all of the wrong things about Donald Trump, but here's what I want you to remember. I want to be the president for everybody, everybody agrees with me, people who don't agree with me, people who vote for me, people who don't vote for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Hillary Clinton in Pembroke Pines, the rain started. Both campaigns are bearing down on those battlegrounds. Hillary Clinton trying to maintain several narrow leads while Donald Trump hopes to take each toss up state.
[06:15:03]PAUL: CNN teams are on the ground all across the country for you. We've got Martin Savidge in Cleveland. We've got Boris Sanchez in Miami, and Miguel Marquez in Pittsburgh.
Miguel, let's start with you. This is a state Hillary Clinton has really been counting on. Donald Trump's campaign sees an opening though. Where is it?
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's here in the west of the state. This is Donald Trump territory and the candidates have been in here almost nonstop in the last few days. Donald Trump will be here tonight. Hillary Clinton was here on Friday.
She was in Philadelphia last night. She'll make her closing argument Monday night in Philadelphia as well. Why? Twenty electoral votes, the Democrats feel they can close off Pennsylvania. It will close off lots of opportunities for Donald Trump.
Democratic presidential candidates have won Pennsylvania for the last six elections. So they have a lot going for them. Donald Trump, though, arguing he has momentum, particularly among white men, particularly among those in the mining and (inaudible) industries here in Pennsylvania.
So he is making a play for the rust belt states, not only here but in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin as well. The reason that they are hitting both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia so hard if you look at the states, Philadelphia, the surrounding counties and Allegheny County here in Pittsburgh, almost half of the votes are in these areas of the state.
That's why they're hitting them so hard. It all comes down to Tuesday. No early voting in Pennsylvania so 7:00 a.m. the polls open here, 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m., it will be decided.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Martin Savidge here in Cleveland, Ohio, Cuyahoga County, staunchly Democratic turf and it's an area Hillary Clinton is going to win. You have to win it by a huge margin. There is good news for her campaign and that is county election officials here are seeing a last weekend surge.
In fact, they say in greater numbers they saw four years ago this same time. That's the good news for her. The bad news is that overall early voting results are at least -- the numbers of people showing up are down 15 percent.
Again, she needs all the votes she can get in the northern counties to make up for what Donald Trump is winning from the mid-state on down to the southern part of Ohio. He is doing very well.
As Miguel insinuated there with blue collar crossover Democrats. These are people who have seen their manufacturing jobs go away in Ohio. They've seen their family's economy suffer as a result. They like Donald Trump's tough talk. Hillary's in Cleveland today.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And here in Florida the focus is on communities like this one. Miami-Dade County and really the question here is how many African-American voters are going to come out and support Hillary Clinton. It is a base that she needs in order to take the state of Florida.
So far more than 5 million Floridians have cast their ballots. The numbers of African-Americans voting has to be a concern for Democrats. There's about a 3 percent dip when compared to 2008.
In contrast there's actually a 4 percent increase in a number of Latinos voting. So here in areas like Little Haiti, Democrats are holding several events, soul to the polls events where they bus people from church directly to the polls so they can vote.
This location there are already several people parked outside braving the rain getting ready to early vote. It's also a focus for Democrats across the state not just here in Miami-Dade County.
Last week, we were in Daytona Beach in Volusia County where Representative John Lewis was holding an event trying to get young people out to vote specifically minority voters.
Also today in (inaudible), Florida in the central part of the state, the president, Barack Obama will be holding an event. To counteract that, Donald Trump also holding an event not far from here tomorrow in Sarasota. Mike Pence will be here later in the day in Panama City as well -- Victor and Christi.
PAUL: All right, Boris Sanchez, Miguel Marquez, Martin Savidge, thank you, Gentlemen. We appreciate it so much.
BLACKWELL: And as Miguel mentioned there and Boris, early voting in these battleground states is key. We just got into totals. More than 36 million people have already cast their ballot. How that is tipping this election potentially.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: It's 22 minutes past the hour as we edge towards voting day, less than 48 hours to go now at this point. We have something totals for you, early voting totals this morning. The new numbers, more than 36 million people have already cast their ballots in 39 states.
BLACKWELL: Yes. In the battleground states, the race is even more intense. CNN politics executive editor, Mark Preston, breaks down the numbers for us.
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Good morning, Christi and Victor. Nearly 37 million people in 39 states have already cast early ballots. Two states we'll look at this morning is the state of Arizona where we're seeing about 1.5 million people have already participated in the early voting process.
Which political party is winning? Well, Republicans right now have a 90,000 ballot returned edge, a rather large edge. This mirrors what we saw in 2012 when Mitt Romney won the state by 9 points and picked up Arizona's 11 electoral votes.
Democrats also got bad news this weekend when the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in and said they're going to allow a law to remain in effect that would prevent political organizers from collecting ballots and returning them to election (inaudible).
Democrats said it was important for people who lived on the border and for those who lived on Native American reservations in minority communities. However, Republicans argued that it was an issue of ballot security. The U.S. Supreme Court decided to stay with the idea that the law should stay in effect.
But let's go down to the state of Nevada right now where you can no longer participate in early voting. In the end 767,415 people participated in early voting and Democrats have quite an edge here.
About 46,000 ballots over Republicans and if we look at what happened in 2012, well, this mirrors what we saw in 2012 as well. A year when Barack Obama won the state by 7 points.
Now a couple of other data points that are interesting to note. On Friday, Clark County had its highest early voter participation in history, about 57,000 people participated in early voting.
[06:25:08]I should note that Clark County is heavily Democrat. It is in and around the Las Vegas area, heavily unionized. Perhaps other bad news now for Republicans is in Washau County, which tends to be a little more Republican, which is up in and around Reno, Democrats have an edge in that state as well -- Christi, Victor.
PAUL: Mark, thank you so much. Listen, the war on ISIS going to be front and center for the next commander in chief.
BLACKWELL: Yes. Who do voters think can best take on terrorism? We'll check the numbers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: All right, 6:30 just about on a Sunday morning and I'm Christi Paul. We're so grateful to have you with us. With a nice back drop behind us. BLACKWELL: Beautiful back drop. I'm Victor Blackwell. We are obviously, as you can tell, you know, the White House is behind us. We're in Washington this morning. We're in the final weekend before Election Day.
Now the latest poll of polls shows a tightening race in the home stretch here. Yesterday at this time, there was a five-point lead for Hillary Clinton. It's now down to three, 46-43 nationally. And yesterday on the trail Donald Trump renewed his criticism of a battle to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS' control. Here's what the Republican nominee said about the U.S. officials behind that operation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: One of the reasons we're going to Mosul is we want to get the ISIS leaders. We think they're staying in Mosul and we want to get them.
Well, before the announcement is over they're gone. Whatever happened to the element of surprise, the element of surprise? What a group of losers we have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: So who do voters feel could best handle the war on terror? Here's the recent "ABC News/Washington Post" poll tracking poll here. It gives Hillary Clinton a four-point edge over Donald Trump, 49-45.
Let's talk about this with our panel. We have CNN political analyst and national political reporter for Real Clear Politics, Rebecca Berg; CNN political commentator and Hillary Clinton supporter, Hilary Rosen; and Amy Kremer, Donald Trump supporter and co-founder of Women Vote Trump. Welcome back everyone.
AMY KREMER, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: I want to start with you because we just heard with -- what Donald Trump had to say, Amy.
KREMER: I know.
BLACKWELL: And calling the people who are leading this effort from the U.S. perspective a group of losers. Is that from your perspective the right way to pitch yourself as the next commander-in-chief?
KREMER: Well, Donald Trump sometimes says that we would say in another way. Some of us would say in another way but his point is that who goes out there and gives their strategy before they go in and do it? What does happen to the element of surprise? You know, we could handle this in a different way. And I think that's his whole point and that's why he's calling them losers, because who does that? Who does that?
HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Exactly, who does that? This makes me crazy. PAUL: Go ahead, Hilary.
ROSEN: Donald Trump talking about these men and women fighting in Mosul, fighting in Iraq --
KREMER: No, he's not talking about them. He's talking about --
(CROSSTALK)
ROSEN: He's talking about the generals.
No, no. You're right.
He's talking about the generals, he's talking about the strategists and he's talking about the people implementing the plan, losers. And you know what? You're moving thousands and thousands of troops. You are getting civilians out of harm's way. Of course people are going to be notified.
KREMER: He's talking about --
(CROSSTALK)
ROSEN: No, no, let me finish. You're -- you're -- this is a giant operation so the idea that you could somehow do this in secret is just ignorant.
I mean, he consistently conveys ignorance around these issues and he consistently says, I don't have to have a plan. I don't have to have any other ideas because I'm going to have a secret plan. And he has no plan. He doesn't even have anybody to listen to because he doesn't listen around these issues.
(CROSSTALK)
KREMER: Why does he have the endorsement of all of these high profile military people?
ROSEN: He has a few -- he has a few but not nearly as many as Hillary Clinton as we both know. But the problem is that the consistent degradation of the American military by somebody who is running to be commander-in-chief.
KREMER: He is not talking about the military.
ROSEN: Oh, yes.
KREMER: He's talking about the administration.
ROSEN: You don't think those people over there going through the operation and on TV. And we heard the generals, we heard the strategists say, push back and say, well, he doesn't know what he's talking about if he thinks that this is what we should be doing.
PAUL: And beyond -- beyond that criticism you have to look at, OK, if this is a man who ends up in the White House, how does he now relate to all of these people because that's going to be a big part of what he does? And that is a big part of what the American people care about when they talk about national security.
REBECCA BERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. And Donald Trump has said in the past that he would have better generals than they currently have.
You don't as president come in and put your own generals in charge. The generals are kind of static and of course these are career military professionals. They're not political appointees.
And so Hilary, you're absolutely right. Donald Trump has not gone into detail about what he would do to address some of these problems to actually take on ISIS and it's really, I think, remarkable that we are at a stage in the election where you look at the polling on this and they are neck and neck on the question of, who could better confront terrorism? And Donald Trump hasn't even gone into detail about what his plan --
(CROSSTALK)
KREMER: Considering her -- considering the fact that she was secretary of state for four years, she should be well ahead because of her experience there and she's not. Because the American people don't trust her.
ROSEN: Well, they --
(CROSSTALK)
ROSEN: ... Republicans --
(CROSSTALK)
KREMER: I think...
(CROSSTALK)
KREMER: ... because of the vacuum that was created when we just pulled everybody out without the services -- the service of forces agreement. So, I mean, what is she going to do about it?
BLACKWELL: Hilary, if what Donald Trump is saying and doing is so egregious, why is he within four points of the former secretary of state, former senator?
ROSEN: Well, look, all of these numbers, you know, on virtually every issue are very much tracking now (ph) Republicans and Democrats across the country so I don't think it's unusual at all.
[06:35:00]
I think we've always thought in terms of the bigger picture, this is a three-point race on these issues. Not that big a difference although Hillary Clinton has consistently, you know, pulled ahead of the race as we just saw on the CNN poll. But, you know, here -- if you have somebody who shows such a willingness to name call, such a willingness to go out there and denigrate the very folks who are putting their careers on the line, I don't see how you then come in and lead. It's just -- it's impossible to imagine.
PAUL: Well, but when you look at -- to the question, Victor, you just asked, it's obviously resonating with some people who think it shouldn't be happening. We shouldn't be there. The JV team stands from President Obama early on does not help Hillary Clinton in some regard because it makes it look as though they didn't know that this was coming. And when Donald Trump talks about it and what he wants to do and take it on fully, is that why?
I mean, is it really -- is it really the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton and what they haven't done or is it his different tactic and what he claims he will do?
BERG: Well, I think you raise a very interesting point here because he doesn't have any sort of history or record that we can point to on this.
PAUL: Right.
BERG: As Hillary Clinton does having been secretary of state, having worked with the Obama administration obviously there is an eight-year record of what President Obama has done on foreign policy and national security.
Donald Trump has never been in this sphere. He has sort of misrepresented even some of the things he has said in the past about foreign policy and national security such as when it comes to his past support of the Iraq war prior to the invasion so there isn't a lot we can -- we being voters, there isn't a lot that voters can look at, point to with Donald Trump.