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CNN NEWSROOM

Undecided Voters in Ohio Weigh In; ISIS May Be Using Families as Shields in the Battle for Mosul; Chicago Cubs are Just One Win Away From the World Series. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 21, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:30:45] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. And thanks so much for joining me from Columbus, Ohio, from German Village. This is The (INAUDIBLE). A very bustling breakfast place here. I'm Carol Costello.

Indulge me for just a second, I beg you. I'm going to take you back to my roots. To the place where I spent my - my high school years in this battleground state. I grew up here. And I love Ohio. And I'm not alone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We are going to win the state of Ohio. And we are going to win the White House.

I worked in Ohio. And I love Ohio. I can tell you that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And a lot of Ohioans, where I spent my high school years, they love Mr. Trump, too. But the battle for the swing state is fierce and so is the battle for undecided voters. I sat down with a couple last week, in Carroll County, that's northeast of Columbus. I sat down with the Daniels and they're still not sure who they support.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): This is God's country. Carroll County, Ohio, a proud patriotic community 70 miles west of Pittsburgh, named after Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

It's a place where hard work is supposed to pay off. Where independence is prized. The Daniels embody that. They started a greenhouse business two years ago. It's not easy. And what they see on the political stage isn't reassuring.

COSTELLO (on camera): How would you characterize this election?

HEIDI DANIELS, UNDECIDED VOTER: Interesting is my catch-all word.

COSTELLO: David? DAVID DANIELS, UNDECIDED VOTER: Oh, it's just a zoo. It just seems

kind of crazy.

COSTELLO: I spent my high school years here in Minerva, Ohio, not far from the Daniels. It's about as rural as you can get. Take a look. Isn't it gorgeous? I grew up riding horses and hunting. It's a decidedly conservative place. And as I look around, decidedly Trump.

COSTELLO (voice-over): Trump won the Republican primary and also got 1,700 more votes than Hillary Clinton did in her race. People are not just supportive of Trump here, they show it. One reason, fear.

COSTELLO (on camera): What do people really fear?

D. DANIELS: Economic collapse.

H. DANIELS: I think that's the biggest fear.

COSTELLO: If you look at the numbers though, the economy has gotten better for much of the country, but why don't people feel it here?

D. DANIELS: Without the oil boom, the fracking industry, people would have been hurting. That's brought money into the area. It would have been a lot more depressed economy without that happening.

COSTELLO (voice-over): Carroll County is eastern Ohio's most drilled region. An oil and gas company leases land from the Daniels to pump natural gas. It supplements their income. But at the height of the shale boom, it made many farmers here millionaires. But oil prices tanked, reinforcing fears of government overregulation and a Middle East oil glut, and Mr. Trump tapped in

TRUMP: We're going to not let the EPA destroy our companies for natural gas and shale and all other things. Not going to let it happen.

COSTELLO (on camera): So when Donald Trump says he wants to make the United States energy independent, that really resonates here.

D. DANIELS: I can't imagine why any American wouldn't - that wouldn't resonate with any American. Why would we need to depend on anything? I'm not saying we need to be a closed society, but independence of your own destiny is a pretty powerful thing.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: First of all -

COSTELLO (voice-over): Hillary Clinton claimed during the second presidential debate that America is already energy independent. In fact, three quarters of all oil consumed in the United States produced domestically.

CLINTON: We are now, for the first time ever, energy independent. We are not dependent upon the Middle East.

COSTELLO (on camera): What about Donald Trump do you think that resonates with voters here? H. DANIELS: Knowing the folks, a lot of the folks that have those

signs in their yard is the break from the status quo.

D. DANIELS: Maybe a mentality of being American first, and then worry about if you're a Republican or a Democrat, that, let's be an American and get things fixed.

[09:35:01] COSTELLO (voice-over): The Daniels are no different. They're undecided. And like many Americans, deeply troubled over their choices.

COSTELLO (on camera): So are you guys definitely going to cast a vote for someone?

D. DANIELS: Oh, absolutely. My opinion is, if you don't vote, shut up. You ain't got a right to complain. A lot of young men died for that right.

COSTELLO: So, Heidi, you will definitely vote for someone?

H. DANIELS: I will vote for someone. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Who that is yet remains to be determined.

COSTELLO: Do you think you might go all the way to the ballot box not knowing?

H. DANIELS: It's possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And as of this morning, the Daniels still don't' know who they're going to vote for.

One more note about Carroll County, Ohio. It will be very, very hard to change people's minds there about Mr. Trump. They are passionate about him. Part of the reason for that is their intense distaste for Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump won his primary battle in Carroll County. So we'll just have to see how - how things come out in the general election.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the battle for Mosul rages on. ISIS forces now using drones to keep their city under control.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:31] COSTELLO: The United Nations says ISIS could be using more than 500 families around Mosul as human shields. The terrorists that were trying to fend forces Iraqi and Kurdish forces as they made gains in the offensive recapture of Mosul. CNN's senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh live on the front lines near Mosul.

Hi, Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Today, increasing details about one of the first U.S. casualties in this Mosul assault. A soldier killed by an IED, a mine to you and me. We're not quite clear exactly where it was. We know it was in northern Iraq and it may have been - potentially involved in this assault against Mosul.

We've seen ourselves, U.S. troops, so close to the very front line. Often in the first convoy of Peshmerga armor that go in against ISIS. An instance we saw repeated in the first clashes at dawn yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH (voice-over): Day four, and perhaps the biggest push yet from the north into the plains around Mosul. Trying to dislodge the determined and deranged remnants of ISIS, but the Peshmerga backed with staggering air power.

But now common sight of American special forces, who the Pentagon says are advising, not assaulting position in front of the attack. The work is slow, destructive. Begging the question, what becomes of the wreckage under new masters?

Suddenly, in the sky, a hail of bullets. They've spotted a drone. Trace rounds dance around it and finally take off its nose. ISIS used them to spot targets for artillery, even drop small bombs. This one tumbles down. Its wreckage, picked over. It's still unclear whose it is.

Yet progress down the road is Horsabad (ph) is agonizingly slow.

WALSH (on camera): This is a source of so much they're fighting this morning, but still full of ISIS. And, in fact, we've heard that Peshmerga have listened to those militants on their radios this morning discussing how they should wait and only launch a counterattack once the Peshmerga are inside.

WALSH (voice-over): Two Peshmerga are killed by a mine and others injured in intense clashes when they flank the town, heading left across barren farmland. ISIS, still here, haunting the dust, pushed back moments earlier.

We reach one unit pinned down on a hill. They say the drone is observing them, but also dropping tiny bombs on them, like grenades, we are warned. Rocket after rocket lands. Over the hill, there is fiercer fighting. And, still, the rockets come in. Exposed, trudging through land turned arid in the fight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH: Now, ISIS trying to change the focus of the fight today by attacking the unconnected town of Kirkuk, oil rich, held by the Peshmerga, too. Thirty militants attacking security buildings there. Six of them, seven of them killed so far, we understand, but a lot of heavy fighting in the sense of that town not part of the Mosul offensive here.

It really does seem as though these initial stages that were supposed to, in the eyes of some tacticians, to be an easier fight against ISIS are proving very difficult indeed. The outlying settlements on the edge of ISIS territory, still places ISIS are willing to fight bitterly for.

Carol.

COSTELLO: Nick Paton Walsh reporting live for us from Mosul, Iraq. Thanks so much.

[09:44:41] Much more from Columbus, Ohio, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. We're live in Columbus, Ohio.

I'm (INAUDIBLE). A very busy breakfast place. And we're talking about Ohio politics. A critical swing state. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump neck and neck. Each have 45 percent support in this state of Ohio.

With me now is David Schultz. He's a professor of political science at Hamline University.

Thanks for joining me at The Stashiavera (ph). It's crowded this morning, right?

DAVID SCHULTZ, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, HAMLINE UNIVERSITY: It's amazing. It's really packed inside with all the rain outside. So everybody's in here. It's a great place, though.

COSTELLO: It is. Are people enthusiastic about voting in Ohio?

SCHULTZ: Not as enthusiastic I think in some years because I think clearly with the unpopularity of the two major candidates, it's kind of depressing, I think, some of the enthusiasm. And I think that's one of the big questions this year, to what extent are people, because of not really liking the two major candidates, are they not going to turn out to vote, or are they going to turn out to vote because they hate the respective candidates? And so that, I think, is the biggest variable so far this year to think about.

[09:50:07] COSTELLO: Well, President Obama and his wife are very much trying to get out the vote because they want to carry on their legacy, frankly, but do their words resonate with people who are just so horrified by the choices this year?

SCHULTZ: Well, I think it's - it's helping a little bit, in the sense of trying to motivate some people, but I'm not sure that's completely going to do it because at some point at the end of the day the research will tell us and evidence will tell us that candidates stand or fall on their own merits, on their own personalities in terms of how people judge them. Others like Sanders or Michelle Obama can help a little bit, but ultimately it's the candidates, do they inspire passion themselves that get people to come out to vote.

COSTELLO: OK, so Hillary Clinton is going to be in Cuyahoga County, in Cleveland. Really strongly Democratic. Donald Trump was in Delaware County, that's the county next to Franklin County, Republican. SCHULTZ: Right.

COSTELLO: So should they be campaigning at those particular places or they - should they be doing something different?

SCHULTZ: Well, the thing that's interesting about it, is if you think about what the presidential election is all about, it's really all about the swing voters and swing counties and swing states. It's about moving small numbers of people. And they both have identified critical states. Our critical state of Ohio and critical areas, that Cuyahoga County, a lot of Democrats there, Franklin County, which we are, a lot here also. And so they're keying in. And in these last two weeks, the whole logic is to narrow down those few undecided voters to be able to kind of move them. And so the campaigns know where those undecided voters are and they know the geographic locations.

COSTELLO: Yes, but they're not in Delaware County or Frank - or Cuyahoga County.

SCHULTZ: They're not - oh, there's a few there. But what they're also talking about is mobilizing their bases because politics is first, get your base to come out to vote, and they're both going for their bases, and then - then go for the swing voters that are out there. And that's typical strategy here. And in a place like Ohio, places like, for example, Franklin County and then Hamilton County, Ohio, where Cincinnati is, are really the two places that oftentimes you need to concentrate to move those swing voters. Yes, Clinton going to Cuyahoga, it's about moving the base. Getting them to come out in large numbers.

COSTELLO: OK. So everybody is saying - most analysts are saying that Hillary Clinton's going to win in a landslide and that Ohio won't much matter this time around. Do you agree with that?

SCHULTZ: Not necessarily. I mean first off, I think Trump has to win Ohio. Has to win Ohio to win the presidency. If Clinton were to lose it, might not be critical, but certainly it would make her equation a little bit more difficult.

But you hit at a bigger question here in terms of the fact that for so many years Ohio has been such a perfect battleground and bellwether state nationally that whoever wins Ohio wins the presidency. In fact, it used to be, whoever wins Hamilton County, Ohio, wins Ohio, wins the presidency. Ohio has not changed as much nationally as, say, to still be reflective of that national demographic, but it's still important. You still don't want to write off all the electoral votes.

COSTELLO: All right. David Schultz, thank you so much for joining me for breakfast this morning. I appreciate it.

SCHULTZ: No problem. Thank you very much for having me.

COSTELLO: We'll be right back with much more from Columbus, Ohio.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [09:57:31] COSTELLO: Oh, the Chicago Cubs are just one win away from making it to their first World Series in 71 years. Andy Scholes has more on this morning's "Bleacher Report."

Oh, it could be the Cubs and the Indians? That would be awesome.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: It would be amazing, Carol. You know, the Cubs one win away from meeting the Indians in the World Series. Five wins away from ending pretty much the longest drought we've had in all of sports.

Game five against the Dodger last night. Legendary broadcast Vin Scully on hand pumping up the crowd before the game, but, unfortunately, he watched his Dodgers come out on the wrong end of this. And with the game tied at one in the 6th, Addison Russell, huge two run home run for the Cubs. Then, in the 8th inning, the flood gates really opened. Bases loaded for Javier Baez and he hits a bases clearing double. That made it 8-1. The Cubs would go on to win final 8-4. Game six is Saturday night in Chicago. And Cubs manager Joe Maddon knows the city is going to be pumped.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE MADDON, CUBS MANAGER: Obviously it feels good. I - you'd much rather go home under those circumstances than the other. And you want to get it done as quickly as possible. It's going to be a formidable event. Our guys will absolutely be ready for the moment, I promise you that. It's great. The city of Chicago's got to be buzzing pretty much right now. I expect a sellout at Wrigley. It will be a lot of fun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: And good thing Chicago fans have the Cubs because the Bears aren't doing very well right now. They were playing the Packers last night and it was definitely a rough night for quarterback Brian Hoyer. He took that huge hit right there from Clay Matthews in the second quarter, had to leave the game with a broken arm. Despite that, though, the Bears were actually winning this in the third, but Aaron Rodgers got hot late in this one, threw three touchdowns. Packers win by the final 26-10.

The Cleveland Indians back in the World Series for the first time since 1997. And immediately fans began posting on social media they wanted possibly the greatest Indian of all time to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in game one. That's right, the fans want "wild thing," Ricky Vaughn, Charlie Sheen's character from the hit movie "Major League" to throw out that first pitch. And Charlie Sheen actually responded to this on Twitter, Carol, posting yesterday, "'Major League' continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. If called upon, I'd be honored." And I've got to tell you what, I think that would be so awesome if he - if they - they - the speakers hit and start playing "Wild Thing" and Charlie Sheen walks out there to throw out that first pitch.

COSTELLO: That would be so much fun.

Andy Scholes, thanks so much for bringing a smile to our faces this morning. We appreciate it.

[10:00:00] The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.