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270 Electoral College Votes Needed to Become Next President; Paul Ryan Unaware Trump Campaigning in Wisconsin; NYT Report: Trump Used "Dubious Maneuvers" in Taxes; Obama Campaigns for Clinton in Ohio; Flashback 2008: McCain, Obama 7 Days from Election. Aired 1:30- 2p ET

Aired November 1, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:33:24] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We're talking about a week from today, the race for the White House at stake. 270 Electoral College votes needed to become the next president of the United States.

Matea, you're looking at three states now critically important. Which ones?

MATEA GOLD, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: One, North Carolina. Donald Trump absolutely has to win North Carolina, if the map follows what we've seen historically, and we are seeing President Obama go that state twice this week. They're practically taking up residency there. Something the Clinton people believe they can cut him off very early if they are able to lock down North Carolina. Two states that are warning signs for the Clintons, however. Michigan, where seeing the Trump campaign put in money and we really, Clinton is going to have to really drive up her share of enthusiasm among African-American voters in that state in order to win. And Colorado, where the Clinton campaign went back on the air in a state where they thought they had locked down.

BLITZER: Mark, you're looking at three states too?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Really conventional, though, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida. Donald Trump doesn't become president without them. He needs to win those three states. States that will see results. Certainly, not final results, but see results early on. And no mistake we see Joe Biden there today. Barack Obama in Ohio today, Biden in North Carolina. Of course, the Clintons in two separate events down in Florida. Three huge states.

BLITZER: Loses any one of those, states, Trump, can he be president?

PRESTON: I mean, you have to run the board on a different set of scenarios. Difficult.

BLITZER: Nia, you're looking at three states, too.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: And with Michigan, Wisconsin and -- states people thought Donald Trump would do well in, doing well among blue white blue collar workers. See Melania in Pennsylvania we'll see what he's able to do in any of these states. We see tightening in Wisconsin with in a Senate race particularly. They're going back in. The Democrats are. Trying to shore that up. But this was the original claim of the Donald Trump campaign that he was going to be able to eat into that blue wall. Hasn't happened so far. If he does that he's going to have to pick up a lot of other states, too, but would be a start if able to pick up any of those states.

[13:35:30] BLITZER: David?

DAVID CATANESE, SENIOR POLITICS WRITER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT: With North Carolina, Ohio Florida. Ohio, North Carolina, Florida. Hillary Clinton needs to win only one of these three to become president. All three states will close between 7: 00 and 8: 00 on election night and North Carolina, she has her biggest advantage there right now. Trump is leading in the other two states for averages. I think that's why President Obama is going down there. What I hear from the Clinton campaign, African-American turnout. Obama obviously is there to jack that up, and she needs to get to Obama's levels in 2012 to flip North Carolina. Do that early in the night, she's president.

BLITZER: Can he do that, raise that African-American turnout? President Obama, of course, was our first African-American president. He had enormous support, but can Hillary Clinton follow suit?

HENDERSON: I doubt it. I think the Clinton and Obama coalition are very different. The Obama coalition is deep in a way that the Clinton coalition is broad. She's able to make up some of the drop-off in terms of millennial voters with a college educated white voters and older voter. Over-performing Obama in those groups. She has to do adequately among African-Americans, carry level support, but unrealistically, she'll do as well as Obama did. We saw drop-off with black millennial voters between 2008 and 2012 anyway. It's hard to see her being able to jack up those numbers.

BLITZER: Guys, don't go far away.

Donald Trump's taxes back in the spotlight. New questions raised after a report offers insight how he may have avoided paying millions of dollars in taxes. A Trump advisor, Pete Hoekstra, is standing by live. He will discuss, when we come back.

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[13:41:38] BLITZER: Welcome back. There are now seven days left until Election Day here in the United States. Millions have already cast ballots, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan, saying he voted for Donald Trump. But he also said this about a Trump appearance in Ryan's home state of Wisconsin later today. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FOX ANCHOR: Speaker, before you leave your state this morning, Donald Trump and Scott Walker will be there, campaigning in your state. Will you be with them?

SEN. PAUL RYAN, (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: No. I just heard about it about 10 minutes ago, actually. I didn't know that. I'm on my way right now to Indiana with one of our members running there, then I'm going to Michigan, then I'm going to New York and then Virginia. I'm just crisscrossing the country right now fighting for congressional Republicans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Now from Grand Rapids in Michigan, former Michigan Republican Congressman, Pete Hoekstra, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and now a senior adviser to the Trump campaign on national security matters.

Congressman, thanks for joining us.

The speaker of the House, you saw that interview on FOX earlier this morning, didn't know that the Trump campaign and Donald Trump were coming to Wisconsin, his home state. What does that say about their ability to co-exist, to work together?

PETE HOEKSTRA, NATIONAL SECURITY SENIOR ADVISOR, DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN & FORMER MICHIGAN CONGRESSMAN: Oh, I think Speaker Ryan and Mr. Trump -- I was on the plane and traveled with Mr. Trump yesterday. They're going to be able to work together as the next president, as the speaker of the House. As a matter of fact, it's kind of what the -- Mr. Trump laid out today when he was talking about his health care proposal. Recognizing that he's going to have to get this through Congress, and that's why he had a bunch of members from Congress there with him today.

BLITZER: Well, if he's trying to win Wisconsin, you would have thought, Congressman, he would have had the speaker, who is very popular in Wisconsin, out there campaigning with him when he visits his home state. That would make a lot of sense, but it's not happening. Why?

HOEKSTRA: Well, I mean, earlier in the program today you talked about different surrogates out there around the country for Mrs. Clinton. Paul Ryan is going around the country. He's -- he's energizing the Republican base. Someone who comes out and votes for a Republican member of the House is going to vote for Donald Trump for president. In Wisconsin, today, they're going to have Senator Ron Johnson, Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee. They will have Sean Duffy, the congressman and Governor Scott Walker, who's enormously popular. You don't put all of your resources in one basket. You do spread them out to make sure that, like what Paul is saying. Mr. Trump's in Wisconsin. Paul's going to be in Indiana. He'll be in Michigan and other places doing what we want to accomplish, maintain the Senate, maintain the House, and elect a president.

BLITZER: You're right, the speaker, Paul Ryan, is out there campaigning for Republicans running for re-election in the House of Representatives but he avoids speaking about Donald Trump when out there on the campaign trail. That's sort of underscoring the tension that probably exists.

Let me talk about another key state, Ohio. No Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. And now the governor of Ohio John Kasich says he actually did early voting and he wrote in, he voted for John McCain for president of the United States. That's a powerful message he's sending Republicans and others, you know, in Ohio, don't vote for Trump. What does that say to you?

[13:45:05] HOEKSTRA: Well, I mean, John has been here for the last, at this point, for the last three or four months. Ever since the convention when he didn't show up at the convention. I supported John Kasich through the primary process. He was my candidate. John has made it clear that Mr. Trump was not. John cast his vote today. But every day since the convention, Donald Trump has been doing very well in Ohio. He's leading in the polls. We are going to win Ohio. We're going to win Ohio. We're going to win Michigan.

You know, John Kasich is one vote. We had huge turnouts for Mr. Trump yesterday, one in a solidly Republican area and another in a solidly Reagan Democrat region of the state of Michigan. Donald Trump is bringing a lot of other people into the Republican coalition who are going to vote for him as president. And, yes, he lost John Kasich yesterday, but clearly he's bringing a lot of other Republicans, or a lot of other independents and Democrats into this coalition.

BLITZER: Trump hasn't said publicly -- he said a few times it was smart for himself avoiding paying federal until tax back in 1990s. "The New York Times" has another story saying he used supposedly less than scrupulous methods to avoid paying federal income tax. He could clarify this quickly by releasing his tax returns. Yet so far, he's refused to do so. Do you think there's a chance between now and next Tuesday he'll release those tax returns?

HOEKSTRA: I don't think so. I mean, you know, and the easy -- less than scrupulous -- either Donald Trump followed the tax code or he did not. If he did not follow the tax code, the IRS probably would have flagged it, audited it, and Mr. Trump would have been responsible for back taxes. None of that happened. He followed the tax code. He has paid his taxes, or in some years, he may not have had a tax liability. All of us -- I would think that most Americans are looking for way to use the tax code to fairly pay their taxes and not over pay and not to cheat the system and to underpay.

BLITZER: Pete Hoekstra, the former Republican Congressman from Michigan, a Trump adviser, thanks for joining us.

HOEKSTRA: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: And a reminder, CNN will have all-day coverage of the presidential election. That's next Tuesday, November 8th, right here on CNN. Please join us.

Still to come, President Obama stumping for Hillary Clinton in a key battleground state of Ohio. Can president help drive enthusiasm for the Clinton campaign amid some recent controversies? We'll have a full report on that, when we come back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:51:44] BLITZER: President Obama is making a late campaign swing for Hillary Clinton today. He'll be in Ohio for a "get out the vote" event and then head to North Carolina and Florida later this week. President Obama has been very business out there on the campaign trail, putting in at least one campaign event each week since the beginning of October.

Our White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski, is joining us. She's traveling with the president in Columbus, Ohio.

Michelle, is the president expected to address, for example, the e- mail controversy today, and is it complicating those campaign stops?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Wolf. I think that will be a big no. He's not likely to tackle this head on. In the news cycle, the fact this broke on Friday, that seems like eternity ago to us, probably, but it's been a few days, just think we have not heard the president himself weigh in at all. And yesterday was the first time the White House was questioned at length about the latest in the e-mails.

That said, he's not likely to anything directly about it. What the president often does is address the situation, whatever it is, without really addressing it. He might focus on, for example, Hillary Clinton's integrity. A few days, in an interview, we heard the president talk about how he told voters early on for himself, he's not a perfect person, he won't be a perfect president everybody makes mistakes. That's the kind of thing he might say where, if you want to, you can read in that he's talking about some of the challenges that Hillary Clinton has been facing throughout.

He's likely to try to rev up the base. That's what he's expected to do. And when you look at the appearances he's made and will make, they're at places like college campuses, where we are today, doing a lot of radio appearances on shows popular among African-Americans. Those are the people he wants to get excited, hoping to use his popularity to shore up Hillary Clinton, especially a place like Ohio, where not only has it been razor close, now polls are showing Donald Trump in the lead. It was funny walking over here with a group of students they were chanting, "Obama, Obama, Obama." One of the students had to mind the crowd, no, we should be chanting "Hillary Clinton" -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Ohio, a critically important state.

Michelle, thank you.

Coming up, as this election unleashes more twists and turns, we examine what other presidential cycles were dealing with around this point in the campaign.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This morning we were offered a stunning bit of straight talk, an October surprise.

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[13:58:30] BLITZER: We're exactly one week out from election day, right in the middle of the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton closing arguments to the American people.

Let's visit a past election. October 28, 2008, seven days out, Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, and Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, were in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Virginia attacking each other on issue number one, the economy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R), ARIZONA & FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Senator Obama is running to be redistributionist-in-chief. I'm running to be commander-in-chief.

(CHEERING)

MCCAIN: Senator Obama is running to spread the wealth. I'm running to create wealth.

OBAMA: In the closing days of this campaign, my opponent is trying to distance himself from President Bush despite the fact that he's faithfully supported him 90 percent of the time. John McCain's ridden shotgun has George Bush has driven our economy towards a cliff. And now he wants to take the wheel and step on the gas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And just like this political campaign, which has featured several famous people on the campaign trail, a celebrity of sorts was out on that same day stumping for McCain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE WURZELBACHER, KNOWN AS JOE THE PLUMBER: I want to let you know, my choice in this is McCain. I plan on voting for a real American.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: That was Joe the Plumber, who now supports Donald Trump.

That's it for me. Thanks for watching.

The news continues right here on CNN.

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