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AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Trump Camp Responds to "WaPo" Article on Foundation; Trump Goes on Overnight Twitter Rampage; Recorder on Crashed Train Found; Gary Johnson Luring Millennials Voters from Clinton. Aired 11:30-12p ET

Aired September 30, 2016 - 11:30   ET

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


[11:30:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: While we have you here, I don't know if you are up all night, many of us were, Donald Trump was on Twitter going after Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe. One of the things he said was "check out sex tape," among other things. Is that presidential?

BORIS EPSHTEYN, SENIOR ADVISOR, DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: I'm not going to talk about the dispute between Mr. Trump and Ms. Machado. She has obviously dead set on smearing him.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: What's he set on?

EPSHTEYN: He's set on responding for himself. He won't be bullied by the Clinton camp like the women of the '90 were bullies and he will protect himself just like he protects this country once he becomes president.

BOLDUAN: What's he protecting himself against? Why --

EPSHTEYN: A smear campaign from the left.

BOLDUAN: At 5:00 in the morning, three tweets in the middle -- this is the very same time Shimon Peres' funeral was going on and that's where the focus was on the early hours on television because that's when he's watching tv and Twitter and that's what wants to tweet about?

EPSHTEYN: He's a private person. He thought his personal background was attacked. Hillary Clinton attacked him at that debate and tried to surprise him with this Machado story.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: So he turned around and tweeted about Alicia Machado.

EPSHTEYN: He turned around and responded to his accusers. Alicia Machado is out there accusing him of these things. There's no proof of any of it. And it's her word against his. He's putting out his story.

(CROSSTALK) BERMAN: There's proof we have Donald Trump on a workout video with this woman when she was Miss Universe, working with her to lose weight.

EPSHTEYN: Have you seen the whole video?

BERMAN: I have watched much of it, yes.

EPSHTEYN: Do you see where he says she looks beautiful, that she likes to eat? Again, he didn't force her in the video, right? She chose to be part of this pageant. She chose to be in the video.

BOLDUAN: Here's the key. Here is the key in this whole thing. Donald Trump has not denied any allegation she has said against him. Donald Trump has not denied he called her Miss Piggy. Donald Trump has not denied he called her --

(CROSSTALK)

EPSHTEYN: Absolutely he has.

BOLDUAN: I have not heard him say that.

EPSHTEYN: He has over and over again.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: He's called her disgusting.

EPSHTEYN: We at the campaign have said that's a smear campaign that is baseless.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: You can say something's a smear but you are still not denying the allegation.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: He has not said that.

EPSHTEYN: Absolutely he has, including on Twitter. He said, to paraphrase, these are baseless, you know, to paraphrase, these are baseless allegations.

BOLDUAN: Do you like the focus of that, where the campaign is right now 39 days out? You like that he's focusing on this?

EPSHTEYN: What I like is we have a candidate who's not backing down. We will have a country that doesn't back down anymore once he's president. I'm sick and tired of our country backing down.

BERMAN: Doesn't back down from former Miss Universe Alicia Machado?

EPSHTEYN: Doesn't back down from the smear campaign by the Clinton camp. If I were Hillary Clinton, I wouldn't bring up treatment of women.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: The tweets were about Alicia Machado.

EPSHTEYN: The tweets were about everything the Clinton camp has brought up.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Alicia Machado.

BOLDUAN: You think the argument of she started it, you think that's a strong argument?

EPSHTEYN: It's not about who started it. It's about --

(CROSSTALK)

That's exactly what --

(CROSSTALK)

EPSHTEYN: Hillary Clinton is painting herself --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: That's exactly what you said.

EPSHTEYN: Hillary Clinton is painting herself as a champion of women while she spent a lot of the '90s bullying women. She hired private investigators to look into women's personal lives. She told her lawyer to peddle naked pictures of women to threaten them in order to keep quiet. So Hillary Clinton cannot be the one that's putting herself out as a champion of women.

BOLDUAN: Boris Epshteyn, it's interesting this is where the Trump campaign chooses to go with 39 days left.

We appreciate you coming on.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: And if you want to open up the foundation's books so we can look for that check mark in that one box, we will look at the certification that would be transparency.

EPSHTEYN: We would open it up to attorneys. David Fahrenthold is not one of them

BOLDUAN: But you are.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSHTEYN: I am an attorney. I'm not an attorney for the foundation. (CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: You call his reporting innuendo but did not dispute the facts.

EPSHTEYN: What I'm disputing is any conclusions that he has drawn. There are no facts in there.

BERMAN: But you have nothing to prove --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: I just want to be clear.

BOLDUAN: It would be very easy to get information from the foundation's accountant if you wanted to dispute it before coming on here.

EPSHTEYN: The key is this. David Fahrenthold is dead set on somehow disparaging this foundation. Why are we talking about where the money has gone? The foundation isn't used for restaurants or votes or overhead like 90 percent of the Clinton Foundation --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: That's not the point of where this conversation is today.

EPSHTEYN: Do you know where that money went, John?

BOLDUAN: Here's the thing. You guys --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Here's the thing --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: That is not. Boris, that is not where the conversation is at this moment. The conversation today --

(CROSSTALK)

EPSHTEYN: Has it ever been about where money from the foundation has gone, that it's gone to --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: That's not where this conversation is.

BERMAN: Boris, we have to go.

Appreciate you coming on.

EPSHTEYN: Thanks for having me.

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much. So we are awaiting Hillary Clinton to speak live in Florida. She's

expected to take the stage at any moment. We are looking at live pictures from there inside the hall. We will bring you her remarks when they begin.

[11:34:31] BERMAN: Plus, searching for answers in the train crash in New Jersey. Investigators located the train's recording device. The train had a black box. That's what they found. We will discuss the clues on it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New details this morning in the horrific and deadly train crash in New Jersey. The train's event recorder has now been found.

BOLDUAN: The recorder could shed some light into what may have caused the train packed with passengers to burst through that barrier at the Hoboken terminal, killing a woman and injuring more than 100 people in that crash.

Rene Marsh joins us with much more information on this.

Rene, what will investigators, what are they hoping, what do they believe they will learn from this recorder?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION & GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: The recorder is critical because it will tell them things like how fast this train was going, did the engineer apply the brakes, when did the engineer apply the brakes. Those are all going to critical data points that investigators need to kind of draw this full picture of exactly what went wrong. It's important to point out they do have one of the two event recorders on this train. This train comes with two event recorders so they were able to pull out one. They still have not reached that second one.

But, again, crucial step for them because we know that they are starting to download that data as we speak.

[11:40:20] BERMAN: All right. Rene Marsh for us, thank you very much.

We will keep you updated on what we learn about that information.

BOLDUAN: Plus, coming up for us, in a little bit, Gary Johnson is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Team Clinton is having a tough time winning over a chunk of voters and supporters that Gary Johnson seems to have support from right now. How will they convert Millennials to Hillary Clinton's side? Why is she having such a hard time there?

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:45:07] BOLDUAN: Welcome back. You're looking live at a campaign event for Hillary Clinton in Florida. She will be speaking any moment. We will take you there live when does.

BERMAN: All right. Here to discuss the goings-on in the campaign today, and there are quite a few, Ron Nehring, Republican strategist, former chair of the California Republican party, worked for Ted Cruz in the primaries; Guy Cecil, co-chair and chief strategist for Priorities USA, the Hillary Clinton super PAC and former executive director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Hilary Rosen, CNN political commentator, Hillary Clinton supporter; John Phillips, CNN political commentator, radio talk show host and Donald Trump supporter.

You know, Ron, you are relatively new to your Trump support. I'm just curious what you make of what's going on today, this five-day back and forth over a former Miss Universe that now includes an early morning tweet storm from Donald Trump. Is this where you want to see the campaign 39 days until Election Day?

RON NEHRING, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, if you look at the debate, I think the strongest 20 minutes that Donald Trump had was at the beginning of the debate when he was focused on economic issues, growth, economic competitiveness. That's his core strength when he's focused on those issues and most Americans believe he's better equipped to defeat is. Any other issue other than that is a distraction. So if we are 39 days out from the election we need to be focused on those issues, economic growth, defending and supporting America's free enterprise system. These are the core strengths we have. You never see Hillary Clinton or the Democrats defending or supporting the American system which is the most powerful and most generous in the world. This is a real weakness on her part. Anything other than focusing on this issue of core strength at this time, look, in California we are going to be voting in two weeks, early voting starts within two weeks and half the ballots in California will be cast by males. Now is a decision time for people. We need people focused on these issues of core strength for the Republican Party.

BOLDUAN: So, no. Ron does not think this is where should be focusing -- Donald Trump should be focusing 39 days out.

Hilary Rosen, is this what you want Hillary Clinton to be speaking about when she takes to the stage? Do you think she should be continuing to push it?

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, Hillary made her point, she, Alicia Machado is a good spokesperson for women who have felt abused by Donald Trump and the sort of fat shaming sexist behavior but look, Hillary Clinton today is out there announcing a new proposal for national service for volunteerism, for Americans coming together. Yesterday she was focused on college affordability and student debt. That's what people really care about. That's what she cares about. That's the campaign she's running. So I think, you know, all of the rest of this from her perspective is really just a bunch of nonsense.

BERMAN: Guy, I want to change subjects here. Hillary Clinton's not just running against Donald Trump right now. It seems that over the last week, there's been a lot of focus on Gary Johnson and the reason being because of Millennial voters, softness with younger voters right now. Gary Johnson is at 29 percent among Millennials and that may be why you have Clinton's surrogates speaking at colleges. That may be why you have Hillary Clinton speaking at colleges talking about national service today.

What's not going right here? Why does there appear to become reluctance among Millennials, younger voters who were part of the Obama coalition, to hop on board with Hillary Clinton?

GUY CECIL, CO-CHAIR AND CHIEF STRATEGIST, PRIORITIES USA SUPER PAC: First, I think it's important to point out that Hillary Clinton actually leads among Millennials in every single battleground state.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Not by nearly as much. Not by nearly as much as President Obama did.

CECIL: If you look over the course of the last week, Gary Johnson's vote has actually declined significantly. I think that's in part because he's been getting more attention and young voters, frankly all voters are starting to see that the election is essentially a choice between one person who literally can't name one world leader, one candidate who has spent four days body shaming and insulting an American woman, and another candidate who spent the week talking about national service and college affordability. So I'm confident in part because Hillary is focused on these issues that over the course of the next 39 days, you will see the margin amongst Millennials grow and you will see Gary Johnson continually decline, by the way, which is historically the norm. We have seen over the course of the last 20 years that third-party candidates typically over perform in polls compared to where they end up on election day in large part because voters recognize that in this and in almost every case, there are really only two candidates that have a chance to be president and that the stakes are too high to risk voting for somebody

BOLDUAN: So, John Phillips, if Hillary Clinton is losing young Millennial voters to Gary Johnson she's not losing them to Donald Trump is what it appears. What is Donald Trump doing to win over Millennial voters?

[11:50:07] JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's not a vote Republicans typically get. They typically lose the Millennial vote. Gary Johnson serves two purposes on the ballot now. He serves as the guy that occupies the real estate of "none of the above," and he also is the guy that's running on a single-issue campaign. He's running on the legalization of marijuana, which they're voting on in the swing state of Nevada, and is a hot button issue in other states. So I think he's going to be a perennial problem for Hillary Clinton, because people have about the same enthusiasm for her, young people do, as they do for traffic school.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: John Phillips, Guy Cecil, Hilary Rosen --

BOLDUAN: I love that.

BERMAN: -- Ron Nehring, thanks for being with us.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, guys.

BERMAN: Appreciate it.

BOLDUAN: Any moment now, Hillary Clinton will speak live from the battleground state of Florida. Clinton, looking at live pictures, from the stage right now. Just responded to Donald Trump's early morning Twitter storm, responding with her own Twitter storm of sorts. A preview of things to come? We'll bring the event live to you when it begins.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:55:05] BOLDUAN: More than 25 million senior citizens live in poverty in our current. A segment of this population is particularly at risk of falling outside any safety net into homelessness.

BERMAN: This week's "CNN Hero" is shining a light on this forgotten group. Meet Aisha Desell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AISHA DESELL, CNN HERO: When you're older, living on the street, it's a very scary place. You're much more vulnerable. The people who are in twine the ages of 50 and 62, society views them as too old for working and too young for social security. They need help. Like, you don't exist, and that's wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: She's doing something about it. To see how Aisha is lifting elderly out of homelessness and giving them new beginning, go to CNNheroes.com and see many, many stories as well.

BERMAN: New polls out, one out from Florida and also one from Nevada releasing in a few minutes. Going to make some news. Take a look at that. What will the candidates say?

And Hillary Clinton taking the stage. How will she respond to Donald Trump's overnight tweet storm? Live pictures. We'll take you there, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)