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Report: George P. Bush, 41 and 43 Could Vote for Clinton. House GOP Plots Future in Secret Meeting Today; Obama Speaks for Clinton in NC. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired November 2, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Love that song. Chapel Hill's native son and Hillary Clinton supporter James Taylor there giving a little concert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The moment we are waiting for, the president of the United States set to speak to the crowd in Chapel Hill, a very important battleground state for Hillary Clinton, six days away from election day, major moment, we'll take it live, stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: As we wait to hear from president Obama, he is just about to take that podium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and, of course, stump for Hillary Clinton.

[15:35:00] I wanted to bring Lanhee Chen back in just to continue our conversation here on this race to the White House.

One note, it's possible Jeb's son that both bush 41 and 43, the last two Republican presidents in this country, said they could be voting for Hillary Clinton. The family has stayed mum. What do you make of that?

LANHEE CHEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's a remarkable statement about where the Republican party and the change it's gone through. Think back to four years ago, Mitt Romney won 93% of the Republican vote. In this election cycle Donald Trump is polling mid-80s on a good day, so even if he gets up to 87% or 88%, he's losing 5% of Republican voters off of 2012 and those are still numbers he needs in a competitive race

So, I think what's happening with the Bush family is emblematic of the fact that within the Republican party there are significant divisions regarding Donald Trump. I think those will last after the election, even.

BALDWIN: Your point on Republicans and, again, you were with the Romney team four years ago. We've heard Mike Pence, even speaker Ryan saying in the last couple days it's time for you Republicans to come home. How much of that do you think might happen in the final day?

CHEN: I think you will see a lot of Republicans coming home. That explains in part some of what you've seen in Trump's numbers and the surge he's having. A lot of that has to do with Republicans saying "I can't vote for Hillary Clinton, I'll put the lever for Donald Trump because even if I'm not enamored with the guy he represents a view that's closer to my own." I think a lot of this is about Republicans coming home.

The other reason you make that argument is because it helps down ballot Republicans. People in tight senate races, whether it is Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Richard Burr in North Carolina, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire. Making that argument helps them as well so for Paul Ryan it's a win-win. He doesn't have to say Trump's name by name but he can say I voted for the nominee. Still come home and vote for Republicans.

BALDWIN: On Paul Ryan, we know the House Freedom Caucus had this meeting today and there have been other names floated. Folks who could potentially go up against him to be speaker. I think the final vote is the beginning of January. Do you think he wants to hang on to that speakership?

CHEN: I think Paul Ryan has been in the toughest position in Washington. As the speaker, he has done a great job of leading the Republican conference, outlining a positive policy decision.

BALDWIN: Threading the needle between --

CHEN: And it's a tough position to be in. I think being a little uncomfortable with the brand of Republicanism that Trump represents. So, the question for Paul Ryan going forward is, is this a conference he wants to continue to lead? In my mind, there's nobody else that is better position to lead it than Paul Ryan. He's the only one that I think can unify the troops.

BALDWIN: Thank you, Lanhee. The president is speaking momentarily at UNC Chapel Hill. He'll be introduced by North Carolina student Isobel Trumbull and that should happen any second now. We'll be right back.

[15:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, DEMOCRATIC VICE PRESIDENT: They won't lend it to me, honey. I'm so ashamed. I'm so ashamed. These guys don't get it. They don't get my father and millions of Americans the indignity they're put through because we have a tax system that is corrupt because we have a system that does not reward work.

We used to have a basic bargain in America, the bargain was -- and Republicans signed onto it too, the bargain was if you increased the profitability of the enterprise, you got to share in the benefits. That's not there today, man. That's not there today and guess what?

We finally got us through this god-awful recession in a sense we've gone from crisis to recovery. We are now on the verge of a genuine economic resurgence in America. We are not there yet. We have created 15 million jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: In the battleground state of Florida, to the president we go, here he is. Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the moment has arrived. Let's dip in.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hello, North Carolina! Hello tar heels. are you ready to go? It is good to be back.

It is good to be back. It is good to be back in Chapel Hill. I love me some North Carolina. I've said this before, I love North Carolina. I love the state, I love the people, I love the basketball. I always say North Carolina, that's one place where even the people who don't vote for me are nice.

[15:45:00] We have a beautiful summer day in November. I know you're hot so make sure everybody bends their knees, stiff. If anybody faints just give them a little room, they'll be OK. Hydrate. I don't mean to sound like your mom and your dad. So, can everybody please give Isabel a big round of applause?

We have a couple of outstanding members of congress here. GK Butterfield is here and David Price is here. One of the finest public servant sin North Carolina history, your former governor Jim Hunt is in the house. Your current attorney general and your next governor Roy Cooper is here.

And your next United States senator is here! And you're here too. Somebody hollered "what about me?" you guys are here too and I'm going to talk about you and how much this country is going to depend on you. I want to thank all the organizers who are here. I know you've helped rally tens of thousands of volunteers and registered more than 100,000 voters right here in North Carolina.

And it's that grass-roots work that led us to win North Carolina in 2008 and you are why we will win North Carolina in 2016. We have six days. Six days I love you, too, but I've got some business I have to do here. I'll give you a hug on the way out.

Right now, we've got to focus on some business. Not business, but "bidness". It's about deciding the future of this country that we love and the good news is you don't have to wait until election day to do the right thing. You can vote right now. You have until Saturday to register and vote at any one stop location in your county. If you don't know where to go then go to iwillvote.com. Iwillvote.com. You can find the one-stop location near you and we can finish what we started eight years ago.

Now, some of you eight years ago were 10. You know who you are. So, you may not remember exactly where we were as a country when I visited Raleigh in the final days of the 2008 campaign. We were living through two long wars. We were in the early days of the worst economic crisis in 80 years. People had lost their homes, their jobs, their 401(k)s, their home values were sinking.

The economy was teetering on the edge of a great depression. But we turned the page. We've seen America battle back. Last year incomes rose faster than at any time since 1968. Poverty fell at the fastest rate since at least 1968. Businesses turn job losses into 20 million more, people have health insurance who didn't have it before. We kicked our addiction to foreign oil, doubled our production of renewable energy, became the world's leader in fighting climate change, brought home more of our men and women in uniform, took out Osama bin Laden.

[15:50:00] Made sure that in all 50 states people have the freedom to marry who they love. That's what we did made sure that in all 50 states people have the freedom to marry who they love. That's what we did over these last eight years. That's what you helped to make happen. And as I have traveled across all 50 states, as I've gone to big cities and small hamlets, what I have always seen is what and that is people.

I have seen you, Americans of every faith, every race, every party who know that we're stronger together. People young and old, men, women, gays, straight, black, white, native American, folks with disability, all pledging red, white and blue. That's the America I know. That's the America we love. There is only one candidate in this race who has devoted her entire life to lifting up that better America and that is the next president of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

She's the right person -- she's the right person at the right time. But keep in mind, North Carolina, all of the progress we've made over the last eight years, all the progress we hope to make over the next eight years, all of that goes out of the window if we don't win this election. And if we don't win this election, potentially, if we don't win North Carolina. So, I hate to put a little pressure on you, but the fate of the Republic rests on your shoulders.

The fate of the world is teetering and you, North Carolina, are going to have to make sure that we push it in the right direction. Now, I know that at the end of a campaign, you must be tired of TV commercials. There are so many negative ads and there's so much noise and there's so many distractions and everything is -- every day is just hysteria and at some point, there's a temptation to want to tune it out.

You kind of feel overdosed. Even those of us in politics sometimes feel like, I've had enough politics. I understand the feeling, I promise you. But I want you to push away the noise for a second and just focus on the choice you face in this election, because the truth is all of the noise and distractions and hype, all of the nonsense, this choice actually could not be simpler, it could not be clearer. It really couldn't. OK. We got somebody who fell, which is what I expected. Give them a little room and make sure they get some water. If emergency medical is available, you know somebody is down right here in the middle. They will be OK. It happens all the time. Now -- OK.

But hold on a second. I'm still focused on business. This choice, actually, is pretty clear because the guy that the Republicans nominated, even though a bunch of them knew they shouldn't nominate them, the guy they nominated who many of the Republicans he was running against said was a con artist and a no-nothing and wasn't qualified to hold this office, this guy is temperamentally unfit to not be commander in chief and he is not equipped to be president.

This should not be a controversial claim. It really shouldn't. I mean, it's strange how over time what is crazy gets normalized.

[15:55:00] And we just kind of assume, well, you know what, he said 100 crazy things so the 101st crazy thing, we don't even notice. Think about it. This is somebody who claims to be a great businessman. I will tell you, I know a lot of great business people right here the country who have done really, really well without stiffing small businesses or workers out of what they owed them.

We don't have a history of somebody who refuses to release any tax returns at all and he may not be rich as he says he is. Maybe it's because he hasn't paid federal income taxes in years. Now, this is something he said. This is not -- this is not me making it up. He hasn't paid a dime. Not for our troops or our great universities, not for our community colleges, not for building roads or maintaining our national parks, not for any of the things that helps keep us the greatest nation on earth.

He says he'll be his own foreign policy adviser. He says he can do that because he has a good brain. Now that is contestable. But what I can tell you is, we can't afford a president who suggests that America should torture people or we should ban entire religions from our country. We deserve better than someone who insults POWs or attacks a Gold Star mom, denigrates our troops.

We have had a Republican senator -- not me -- a Republican senator say we can't afford to give the nuclear codes to someone so erratic. Now, if a Republican senator says that about the guy, why would we consider giving him the nuclear codes? It's like Hillary said, a man you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons. You can't do it.

And yet, look, we have to remember, he's got support. He's got support in North Carolina and in other states, and part of it is because he's been able to convince some people that he's going to be their voice. Now, keep in mind, this is somebody who has spent 70 years on this earth showing no respect for working people. Working people weren't invited to his hotels or golf courses unless they were the maid or mowing the fairway.

This is somebody who vilifies minorities, vilifies immigrants, vilifies people of Muslim faith, makes fun of American with disabilities. How is that person going to be your voice? Do you want somebody to be your voice who, on tape, brags about how being famous allows him to get away with sexual assault? Who calls women pigs or dogs or slobs and grades them on a scale of one to ten. That is not the voice of America.

That's not the better angels of our nature. And we have a choice. We can choose that or we can choose to teach our kids that our diversity is our strength, that women are full and equal citizens capable of doing everything that a man does. That our job, particularly when we have positions of authority, particularly when this country has blessed us, is to treat everybody with dignity. Treat everybody with respect. To treat everybody with generosity and kindness.

We have to stop thinking that his behavior is normal, that it's within the bounds of what has, up until this point, been our normal political discourse. And you hear some folks now justifying it and making excuses. You hear some Republicans who they know he's not qualified but they say, well, you know what, character doesn't matter, knowing the issues doesn't matter, policy doesn't matter, so long as he supports the Republican agenda.

[16:00:00] But I have to tell you, this office, you know, it's about who you are and what you are, and it doesn't change after you occupy the office. It just magnifies it.