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Pence, Kaine Prepare to Debate. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired October 4, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:42]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Parts of South Florida are under a hurricane watch right now. Hurricane Matthew is a powerful Category 4 storm, slammed into Haiti this morning. Cuba is next, could make landfall there at any moment now, top winds at 145 miles per hour.

And from those pictures here, this is the projected path right now of Hurricane Matthew. You can see how it's expected to skirt the East Coast later this week.

And for ways you can help those affected by this hurricane, please go to CNN.com/impact.

And we continue on, top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

We're thrilled to be coming to you live on this beautiful Tuesday afternoon from Longwood University. This is the site of tonight's vice presidential debate, the number two names on the ticket taking the stage for their one and only debate in this presidential race just a couple of hours from now, Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence squaring off as Hillary Clinton regains some momentum in the polls and Donald Trump fends off more questions about his taxes.

I can tell you voters right now, they are evenly split over which V.P. candidate will do a better job in tonight's debate. You can see for yourself. These are the new numbers we have, CNN/ORC polling; 38 percent Kaine to come out on top; 38 percent also say the same about Mike Pence, dead heat in a race so close that any slip-up could spell disaster.

Let's begin the hour with Jim Acosta. He's our CNN White House correspondent standing by here outside of that debate arena.

Let's talk strategy. What should awe expect tonight, Jim?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

Well, I don't think it's going to be a war of the bores, Brooke. These are two political professionals who are going to be prepared for this debate tonight. I'm told by advisers to Mike Pence that he has been preparing for this vice presidential debate since he was tapped as Donald Trump's running mate way back in July.

So that shows you just how seriously Mike Pence has taken these debate preparation sessions with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. I will tell you, Brooke, from talking to one of Mike Pence's aides, he is ready for these attacks on Donald Trump's tax returns. They know that that is coming.

I did talk to a Democratic strategist who said if climate change comes up, expect Tim Kaine to talk about the tax returns. If immigration comes up, expect Tim Kaine to talk about the tax returns. The Republicans know this, the Republican ticket know this, and Mike Pence has been preparing for this.

Having said that, I will tell you that they feel like inside the Trump campaign that there is a target-rich environment when it comes to Hillary Clinton, that she's really been sort of unscathed the last week-and-a-half because so much has been focused on Donald Trump, whether it's his fight with Alicia Machado or those tax returns.

And so expect Mike Pence to be very aggressive on that tonight. He also has been preparing to defend himself. He was a top House Republican in Congress for many years and governor of Indiana, so he has to come into with that expectation as well.

And I think there's also a lot of pressure on Tim Kaine. He is the governor of this state. This is his home state that we're in right now, Brooke. And the last thing that he wants to do, the last thing the Clinton campaign wants him to do is blunt momentum Hillary Clinton has on her side right now.

If you look at the polls, and you have been talking about them, she and Tim Kaine are riding into this vice presidential debate with a little bit of an edge after that debate at Hofstra. And that is why when I talk to people inside the Trump campaign they say Mike Pence has one mission tonight. To sum it up in one word, it is to win.

They want a win. They want to change this narrative heading into the rest of the week, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Hillary Clinton's post-debate surge comes with Donald Trump losing support among certain types of voters and the shift in numbers bodes well for the Democratic nominee when it comes to the electoral map.

"INSIDE POLITICS" anchor John King shows us Clinton's possible path to victory.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Let's look first at our new CNN national poll.

And look at this, a five-point lead for Hillary Clinton in the national poll, 47 percent to 42 percent. You see the third-party candidate getting a combined 9. That's a boost for Hillary Clinton in national polls, but we elect presidents state by state.

Is it carrying over to the key swing states? And the answer at the moment is mostly yes. Look at these, new polls showing Clinton plus- five in Florida, Clinton plus-three in North Carolina, Clinton plus- four in Pennsylvania.

[15:05:01]

Trump still leads in Ohio by five. That's important, but Clinton comfortably ahead in Colorado and Virginia as well. There's no way to draw a path for Donald Trump to 270 without Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, so while Ohio is encouraging, this is a problem for Donald Trump and good news for Secretary Clinton after debate number one heading into the V.P. debate.

Now, why is this happening? A number of reasons. But here's one. Donald Trump will win among white voters who lack a college degree. The challenge for Hillary Clinton is to try to keep it close. And, look, back in September in our poll, 68 percent of white voters without a college degree are for Trump, 24 for Clinton. You see that right there, more than 40 points, 44 points.

Now look. She's narrowed the gap. She's still losing, but she's narrowed the margin there, very important gain for Hillary Clinton among white voters who lack a college degree.

Here's another important one from our new national poll, independents. If you go back to our poll in early September, Donald Trump up 20 points among independents. Now Secretary Clinton leading among independents by seven points. If she wins among independents on Election Day, you can bet the ranch she will be the next president of the United States.

Watch these numbers after the vice presidential debate and after the second presidential debate Sunday night. Heading into that contest, listen to Secretary Clinton on the road. She seems pretty certain we are going to have a few more momentum swings.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: All right, let's analyze all of this with chief political correspondent Dana Bash, Philip Rucker, national political reporter for "The Washington Post," CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel and senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

Hello, everyone.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello.

BALDWIN: Let me just begin to you first on my first.

We heard Jim Acosta say no small potatoes for Mike Pence, he just needs to win tonight. When you look at the polls, and we will throw them up on the screen, talk about the pressure Pence faces tonight and then of course the next five days for Trump in Saint Louis.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I think Michael Pence does face more pressure here.

BALDWIN: You call him Michael Pence?

ZELENY: Governor Pence, let's call him that.

(CROSSTALK)

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A very formal guy, Jeff Zeleny.

BALDWIN: You. Whatever.

(LAUGHTER)

ZELENY: The best thing he could do is flip the script here and change the narrative that the Clinton campaign is not running away from -- and I think that Governor Pence is probably pretty equipped to do that.

He is the candidate who gives Republicans calm. All the Republican angst and unease out there that we talk to, that Dana talks to all the time, Governor Pence makes them feel slightly better about Donald Trump's candidacy here. So I think that he does have a slightly higher burden here, but that's why Tim Kaine is going to go immediately after Governor Pence, not only on his record in Indiana, but on Donald Trump specifically,

I think that that is why the burden is slightly higher for Pence tonight.

BALDWIN: OK. Let me move on to some of the issues and on to Dana and Jamie. I just want to play sound because, yes, Alicia Machado came up in the debate. Hillary Clinton is the one who brought her up, Miss University. And then we saw the Twitter rant from Donald Trump at 3:00 in the morning last week.

Now just today Hillary Clinton was asked a question by this 15-year- old girl about women and body image. Here she was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At my school, body image is a really big issue for girls my age. I see with my own eyes the damage Donald Trump does when he talks about women and how they look.

As the first female president, how would you undo some of that damage and help girls understand that they are so much more than just what they look like?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You're right. My opponent has just taken this concern to a new level. Think about it. My opponent insulted Miss Universe.

(LAUGHTER)

H. CLINTON: I mean, how do you get more acclaimed than that?

But it wasn't good enough. So, we can't take any of this seriously anymore. We need to laugh at it. We need to refute it. We need to ignore it. And we need to stand up to it, and especially the bullying. There are too many young women online who are being bullied about how they look and being shamed and mistreated.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: How smart a strategy -- to the ladies here, how smart a strategy is this for Hillary Clinton to keep this in the bloodstream, this issue, and then also secondly how should Trump ultimately address this?

BASH: It would be political malpractice for her not to keep this in the bloodstream, as you put it so well, not just because it's about women, it's about women who were once girls and remember what it's like, women who currently have body image issues just because of society, but also men who have daughters.

It hits so many demographics and hits home so intensely for so many people about the realities of what's going on not just in society, but maybe in their own families, people they love who are dealing with these issues. So, of course, she is going to keep bringing it up.

And what better whey to do it than in a setting like this with her daughter and with this young girl, this 15-year-old girl, who is asking it in the setting because she says she feel this way?

[15:10:08]

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And this is an obvious problem with a history for Donald Trump. He needs women voters.

He needs these women to do it. So we have had a whole history from going back to the early debates where Megyn Kelly brought up names he called women and all of this. And now you have this. It plays right into it.

I spoke to four very senior GOP establishment people who have been involved with debates. They felt that Trump just not only got trounced in this last debate, but that having this Miss Universe thing, when these are the very women with how many days to go that he needs before election, is devastating for him.

And the other thing I was told about Governor Pence tonight is in addition to P for pressure on him, pivot. You're going to see him pivot, pivot, pivot all night long. Wherever something like this comes up, he is going to go to Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

BASH: Exactly what Donald Trump didn't do.

GANGEL: Exactly. Exactly.

BALDWIN: OK. Let me play sound, as I'm sure taxes will come up. And it will be interesting to see how Mike Pence threads that needle, because he did say, here are my tax returns, Philip Rucker. But let me play some sound. This is Vice President Joe Biden talking to Chris Cuomo precisely on that, taxes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As my dad used to say, it's a small price to pay.

Since when does somebody who lives at the top of the world in a penthouse overlooking the world be in a position where he doesn't feel any obligation at all to pay any federal income tax to support the military, to support education, to support our foreign policy? Since when is that a patriotic thing to do? Can you imagine any other president, any other president to just -- to ever say that and be proud of that? I can't fathom it."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And the Democrats are piling on. How does Pence address that tonight?

PHILIP RUCKER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, I think he's probably going to do something along the lines of what Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani did over the weekend, which is say...

BASH: Exactly.

BALDWIN: Call him a genius?

RUCKER: ... look, this is an example of a brilliant man who manipulated a system legally to take advantage of it.

But the problem there is twofold. One, he had a nearly $1 billion loss in his business, so he's out there running as a guy...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: To me, that's the bigger takeaway.

(CROSSTALK)

RUCKER: Yes, he lost a billion dollars. That's a huge sum of money.

And then the second problem is, it's a broken system in the minds of a lot of voters. People make a lot of sacrifices to pay their tax bill every year, and here is a guy who takes advantage of loopholes that are available to ordinary workers. And that's the point I think...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: But can't Republicans say, well, it's the Democratic administration with these -- with said loopholes and they could have fixed it, but they didn't?

RUCKER: They can, but I don't know that voters are going to be able to separate a system from the guy who took advantage of it.

ZELENY: It's also what the taxes pay for. I was out with Hillary Clinton yesterday in Ohio. That's what I was sort of struck by and that seemed to be resonating with voters. That pays for the weak military that Donald Trump talks about, those

airports, the infrastructure that he talked about as broken. So it's what taxes pay for in this country. And he can afford it. So, yes, his base, Donald Trump's base is OK with this, but those voters in the middle, particularly those Democrats who the Clinton campaign believes that they have lost over trade in Ohio, may just be offended by this.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Just real quick, I was just going to add that it's not just that. It's also just kind of when you think about the theatrics of tonight, so many times over the past three months, we have seen Pence do cleanup for Trump and kind of follow...

BALDWIN: Captain Cleanup is what Brianna called him.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Captain Cleanup.

And then Trump kind of picks up on the way that Pence phrases something and says oh, yes, yes, yes, that's the way I should say it. I think actually what Trump said yesterday or today about the fact that, at the time, he was working for Trump and now he is going to use those skills to work for you, I wouldn't be surprised if we hear something like that from Pence tonight.

BALDWIN: OK. Thank you all so much. I appreciate it.

You have a spider.

ZELENY: Ah, thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: There we go. You're welcome. Live television. Love you, Jeff Zeleny.

ZELENY: What a friend.

BALDWIN: Michael Pence and all.

Coming up tonight, as the running mates face off, will the phrase sex tape come up at all? Why the chances are actually quite high.

Plus, I will speak live with a Republican congressman and Trump supporter who grilled Wells Fargo recently over its outrageous scandal. Does Donald Trump think someone should go to jail over all of this?

And once again, Gary Johnson gives an interesting interview, this one on CNN. Hear his new explanation for his most recent gaffe.

You're watching CNN, spiders and all, here in beautiful Farmville, Virginia. We're thrilled to be here on the campus of Longwood University. We will be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:18:30]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But the people who are getting killed in this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies.

Why? Because they're not organized, they don't have any bargaining power with insurance companies, and they're getting whacked. So you have got this crazy system where, all of a sudden, 25 million more people have health care, and then the people that are out there busting it sometimes 60 hours a week wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half.

It's the craziest thing in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, let me bring my panel back. We just heard Bill Clinton back. All the A-team Hillary Clinton surrogates are out and about the, but it's making news when you hear crazy and Obamacare coming from Bill Clinton essentially in the same breath.

Dana Bash, let me just defer to you. A, is he right? And, B, how much cleanup needs to be done?

BASH: Is he right on the policy? This is basically the talking points from Republicans since before Obamacare was passed, and even more so as they claim that people are becoming more and more uninsured because of Obamacare.

I still can't believe what I just heard came out of Bill Clinton's mouth. I just can't -- it's almost as if he forgot that Obamacare passed and he was talking about the need for health care reform, like pre-Obamacare. I honestly can't explain it. I'm just flabbergasted.

GANGEL: I'm not surprised. I think it's Bill Clinton being Bill Clinton and we have seen him do this over the years.

[15:20:01]

We saw it when Hillary ran against Obama the last time. He sometimes goes a little Krakatoa. Here was an example of it. And the reality is that I'm not sure it's so bad for her, because there are so many people, both on the right and in the center and on the left who are not happy with Obamacare.

BALDWIN: Right. But don't you think Republicans are already like slicing and dicing this sound for the next ad for Donald Trump?

RUCKER: A little bit. I talked over the weekend to Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign

manager. And she said, look, we want to talk about health care. It's an issue they don't see Hillary Clinton talk about very much on the trail. It's not in her TV ads. And the Trump campaign seems to believe that that could be something that could give him a little momentum out of this...

(CROSSTALK)

ZELENY: Shockingly, it's not talked about as much by Donald Trump, though, either.

So, I think now that this has been injected into the bloodstream, I would suspect that Governor Pence will bring this up or Senator Kaine will be asked about it perhaps, or at the next debate on Sunday, but the reality is whoever becomes the next president will have to deal with this.

So I'm actually shocked, after covering the legislation for so many years, as we all did, that they're really not talking about this, because that is one of the big challenges waiting for whoever becomes president.

BASH: But he's so good at turning policy needs and necessities into language that people can understand.

BALDWIN: He being Bill Clinton?

BASH: He being Bill Clinton. The fact that he called it -- what did he call it, crazy system, and not, you know what, this needs to be fixed, and when Hillary Clinton becomes -- I'm not going to pretend to be Bill Clinton, but in a more calm, kind of understandable frame, as opposed to handing the Republicans an issue on a silver platter.

BALDWIN: So, I actually just wanted to quote something from your paper. This is my favorite thing I read all day today. This is from Ben Terris and Krissah Thompson in "The Washington Post."

The headline is, "Being V.P. is dreadful," of course ahead of the debate tonight, "Being V.P. is dreadful. Running for it is so much worse."

OK. This is what they wrote in "The Post." "Pence looks like he'd blush at the word sex tape, and yet could be asked to defend Donald Trump's tweets alleging a former Miss Universe had been in one. Kaine could keep every e-mail he's ever gotten in a scrapbook in a public library and still have to talk about Hillary Clinton's secretive correspondences. Meanwhile, millions of people will be watching at home mostly just to see whether everyone says something stupid."

How do they do this tonight?

ZELENY: Well, in many respects, they're up there, but it's not about them. It's about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: They have the worst jobs, in essence,. ZELENY: Worst jobs, but also they're better than the jobs that they

currently have.

One of them will be the vice president. So I think, look, they both have a job to do here. Being vice president is never sexy. Sex tape, I mean...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Blush, blush.

RUCKER: And the one thing I don't think viewers are going to be looking for is whether they meet the commander in chief test, because on paper both of these V.P. candidates are very qualified.

And Mike Pence is actually more qualified in a traditional sense than Donald Trump on the ticket. So it's not like a Palin debate, where people are going to be watching to see, can this person really fit in the big chair someday?

BALDWIN: Let's remind everyone, though, that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, aren't they the oldest...

RUCKER: They are.

BALDWIN: This is so totally important that we should be paying super- duper close attention to these vice president potentials because they really would be a heartbeat away.

What else? Just reading so much, I find what's interesting with this race is it's been divide a bit of social issues. We haven't heard a lot about same-sex marriage or abortion, something that has been pervasive in years past. These are two men tonight, faith is very important to both of them, with the Honduras missionary journey that Kaine went on, and Mike Pence likes to say, what is it, he's a Christian, conservative and then Republican in that order.

Do we expect to hear more on social issues and faith tonight?

GANGEL: I think certainly you're going to hear it from Governor Mike Pence, because that's what he's trying to also shore up for Donald Trump.

So he's going to speak about it for two reasons. He has this -- whatever happens -- let's assume that Hillary wins. Then he has his own ambitions down the road. And he wants to cement those. But for this race, he is trying to shore up Christian conservatives for Donald Trump, so I think we are going to hear a lot about those things from him.

BASH: And the irony is that you're probably going to hear social issues coming out of Tim Kaine's mouth with regard to the law that Mike Pence pushed in Indiana that got pilloried even by some self- described Christian conservatives with regard to LGBT issues.

So, the whole goal of the Clinton campaign in general is to paint the Trump ticket as out of the mainstream and not serious in 2016 social and political life. And so that is actually maybe the one issue that Tim Kaine, if he wants to go there, could do, which is kind of ironic because, Mike Pence is to the right of Donald Trump on social issues like gay rights.

RUCKER: It also helps Kaine activate young voters, right, millennials.

[15:25:00]

BASH: That's true.

RUCKER: Hillary has had a hard time with them.

BASH: That's a great point.

RUCKER: And by Kaine talking about, look, you have got a social conservative warrior in Mike Pence...

BALDWIN: He could reach them, potentially.

RUCKER: Exactly.

BALDWIN: All right, thank you all so much. Thank you.

Again, the vice presidential candidates face off only this one time this evening here in Virginia. Do not miss it. Tonight, watch with us live 9:00 eastern here on CNN.

Coming up next, a vocal Donald Trump supporter and the Republicans' top watchdog over Wall Street joins me live. We will talk to Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling on what he thinks of Trump's tax controversy.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back to Farmville, Virginia. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You are watching CNN.

We're thrilled to be here, a couple hours away...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BALDWIN: You hear the students behind me.