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CNN NEWSROOM

The Final Countdown; Trump Office Vandalized; Iraqis Trying to Liberate Mosul; Huge Crowds Celebrate the Cubs. Aired 2-2:30a ET

Aired November 5, 2016 - 02:00   ET

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


[02:00:00]

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CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Down to the wire, with three days until the U.S. presidential election, the campaign trash-talking is increasing but so is the star power.

Iraqi forces continue to push deeper into Eastern Mosul and now they are finding children in their crosshairs.

And what a sight in Chicago as 5 million people gathered to celebrate the best team in baseball.

Hello. I'm Cyril Vanier and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

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VANIER: Just three days to go. It's the final countdown to one of the most contentious U.S. elections in recent memory. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are crisscrossing the battleground states in a frantic push this weekend, both are trying to convince American voters to give them the keys to the White House.

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HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Imagine having a president who demeans women and mocks the disabled, who insults African Americans and Latinos and Muslims, who personally engages in busting unions and preventing people from having the right to bargain collectively.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If she were to win, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. This will go on for years, folks. If she ever got into the Oval Office, Hillary and her special interests would rob our country blind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: And a new FOX News poll shows Clinton with a 2-point lead over Trump, 45 percent to 43 percent. That is within the survey's margin of error. Our related CNN Poll of Polls, which includes those FOX numbers, shows Clinton ahead by 5 points, 47 percent to 42 percent.

However, our electoral map has her slipping just below that magic number that she needs, 270 electoral college votes to get into the White House.

Clinton pulled out the star power at a rally Friday night in Cleveland, Ohio. Jay Z and Beyonce headlined a concert to get young voters excited.

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VANIER (voice-over): Beyonce and her backup dancers, as you can see, wore pantsuits in Clinton's honor. The singer says she wants her daughter to grow up in a country where women don't have limits.

BEYONCE, SINGER: Less than 100 years ago, women did not have the right to vote. Look how far we've come, from having no voice to being on the brink of making history.

JAY Z, ENTERTAINER: I would like to introduce to you the next President of the United States (INAUDIBLE).

VANIER (voice-over): Hillary Clinton told the crowd she needs them to help crack the glass ceiling once and for all. Chance the Rapper and Big Sean also performed, other celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Mark Anthony, Katy Perry and Jennifer Lopez have been lending their fame during the campaign. That's something that Donald Trump says he does not need.

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TRUMP: I hear we set a new record for this building. And, by the way, I didn't have to bring JLo or Jay Z, the only way she gets anybody. I'm here all by myself. I am here all by myself. Just me, no guitar, no piano, no nothing.

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VANIER: Joe Johns is on the Clinton campaign trail with more on her final push through the swing states.

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JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hillary Clinton is closing out the campaign with a final argument aimed at Donald Trump.

HILLARY CLINTON: When you debate in front of 60, 70, 80 million plus people, you got to -- you have got to have a sense of preparation, readiness, calmness, composure and, I'll tell you, some of what I heard coming from my opponent, it was really hard to go, what did you say?

JOHNS (voice-over): The Democratic nominee is largely scrapping the traditional campaign playbook of ending on a more optimistic note, instead going hard against her Republican rival.

HILLARY CLINTON: Think about what it would mean to entrust the nuclear codes to someone with a very thin skin, who lashes out at anyone who challenges him.

JOHNS (voice-over): Clinton is amplifying that message with television ads and seizing on Trump's own words.

TRUMP: Our military is a disaster.

When Mexico sends its people, they are bringing drugs, they are rapists.

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JOHNS (voice-over): Her campaign schedule reflects the tightening race in key sections of Clinton's blue firewall. She is focusing on Pennsylvania and Michigan before turning her attention to battleground Ohio.

HILLARY CLINTON: I know that if we have a big win on Tuesday, we will have a big wind behind our backs going in (INAUDIBLE).

JOHNS (voice-over): Clinton plans to return to Pennsylvania and Ohio this weekend with additional stops in Florida and New Hampshire. Before closing out the campaign with a rally in Philadelphia on Monday night, with her husband and daughter as well as President Obama and the first lady.

The president keeping up his heavy campaign travel, barnstorming battleground North Carolina, where he slammed Donald Trump.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We can't elect a president who vilifies minorities, mocks Americans with disabilities.

JOHNS (voice-over): But he admonished the crowd of supporters after they shouted down a man holding a Trump sign.

OBAMA: Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. Hey, hold up. Hold up.

We live in a country that respects free speech. So, second of all, it looks like maybe he might have served in our military and we got to respect that.

Third of all, he was elderly and we got to respect our elders.

And fourth of all, don't boo, vote.

JOHNS (voice-over): But the president is far from the only surrogate on the trail for Clinton, Bernie Sanders focusing on Iowa, Chelsea Clinton in New Hampshire and former president Bill Clinton rallying supporters in Colorado, where he took note of Melania Trump's speech on Thursday.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And yesterday, I never felt so bad for anybody in my life as I did for his wife, going out, giving a speech, saying, oh, cyber bullying was a terrible thing.

I thought, yes, especially if it's done at 3 o'clock in the morning against a former Miss Universe by a guy running for president.

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VANIER: Poll after poll shows Donald Trump with little support among women voters. But don't tell that on the other the women at Trump's rallies. They say the polls are simply wrong. With that story, here's CNN's Randi Kaye.

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RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This woman may love Donald Trump but he needs more women to support him, especially here in Pennsylvania, where polls show Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by double digits among women.

KAYE: What do you think the trouble is?

Why is Donald Trump so far behind Hillary Clinton among women in the state of Pennsylvania?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think he is. I think they portray that he is. I don't think he is.

KAYE (voice-over): Not a single woman we spoke with trusts the polls, including this woman, who switched from Democrat to Republican to vote Trump.

KAYE: White suburban women could be the key to Donald Trump's victory here in the state of Pennsylvania. And you think that he has them. He has their back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely, absolutely.

KAYE: You think the polls are wrong?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely. I think everybody here thinks the polls are wrong.

KAYE (voice-over): Wrong, they say, because Trump is better for women than Hillary Clinton.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come down to Earth, ladies, and think about what that woman has done for you in the last 12 years, nothing, nada, zippo.

KAYE: For those women who might be on the fence and they are not sure about voting for Donald Trump, what do you say to them?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Safety first. They got to be safe. And he will keep us safe.

KAYE (voice-over): This woman is one of those that still needs convincing.

KAYE: How does it feel to be undecided four days before Election Day?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Scary and sad.

KAYE (voice-over): Lisa Cuddy (ph) still isn't sold on Donald Trump even though this is her fourth Trump rally.

KAYE: How does Donald Trump win your vote at this point?

LISA CUDDY (PH), UNDECIDED VOTER: It's not how he's going to win my vote. It's how Hillary's not going to win my vote.

KAYE: So it wouldn't be necessarily a vote for him?

It would be more of a vote against Hillary Clinton?

CUDDY (PH): Yes.

KAYE: So what is it about Donald Trump that you have questions about?

CUDDY (PH): His experience with foreign mostly, the foreign policies and how he said that he knows more than the generals and I just don't -- you know, I know that -- they're saying things he shouldn't say.

KAYE (voice-over): Her son, Josh, isn't old enough to vote but is pressuring his mom to vote Trump.

JOSH, LISA'S SON: I feel she will make the right decision Tuesday. I know she's going to make the right decision Tuesday.

KAYE: You will work on her until then.

JOSH: Oh, yes, she's going to vote for Trump. Believe me, she will vote for Trump.

KAYE (voice-over): The Republican nominee has just days to convince more women to vote for him.

How does he do that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think probably for him would be maybe to keep his mouth shut about the women.

KAYE (voice-over): Randi Kaye, CNN, Hershey, Pennsylvania.

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VANIER: Vandals struck Donald Trump's campaign office in Denver, Colorado, twice on Friday. Police say they have one person in custody after a rock was tossed --

[02:10:00] VANIER: -- through a plate glass window on Friday evening. It is not yet clear if that same person was also responsible for anti-Trump graffiti painted on an exterior brick wall. The graffiti was discovered Friday morning.

National polls show Hillary Clinton with a modest lead over Donald Trump ahead of Tuesday's election. But the final outcome will depend on just a handful of battleground states. CNN's John King takes us through the electoral map.

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JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So we're into the final weekend. Hillary Clinton at 268, Donald Trump at 204 in the electoral votes. The gold states are the tossups. Donald Trump is in the hunt. Advantage Hillary Clinton.

Let's ask this question. How does she look compared to President Obama four years ago? Is she in the position the president was in when he won a big victory back in 2012. Well, let's look at some way to judge. First way to judge is the national polls. That's much better than where the president was four years ago. A lot of people forget this because of the outcome, the finish on Tuesday. But heading into the final weekend, this race was a dead heat, 47 percent to 47 percent. That's the national perspective.

But we pick presidents by states. So let's go back to the map and think about the key battleground states. Compare Clinton then -- Obama then, excuse me and Clinton now. Let's look at the states. In states where Clinton is running just about even with where the president four years ago, they include Nevada and Arizona, they include these important blue Midwestern battlegrounds, Wisconsin and Michigan and they include one of our tossup states, New Hampshire.

Now the gold states are tossups heading into this final weekend. President Obama won one, two, three and Nevada, four of these states. Hillary Clinton in the same position the president was heading into the final weekend. She thinks she can win all four of these, too. We'll see what Tuesday brings. But she heads into the weekend about even with four years ago.

These are the states Clinton has to worry about. She's underperforming President Obama significantly in big battleground Ohio and a smaller but important Midwest state, Iowa. We lean these to Donald Trump because he is running much better than Mitt Romney did four years ago. He has a lead heading into the final weekend. Clinton is underperforming Obama in those two states and just by a bit in Pennsylvania. She still has a lead in Pennsylvania, it's just not quite as big as President Obama's was heading into the final weekend four years ago.

But even though she's underperforming in those, she's over performing, she's stronger than the president was heading into the final weekend in Colorado by a little bit. In Virginia by a bit. And significantly in North Carolina and Florida. This is very important. President Obama trailed in North Carolina in 2012 heading into the final weekend. He trailed in Florida by a bit heading into the final weekend.

He ended up winning Florida by a tiny margin. The closest race in the country, state by state perspective. He lost North Carolina a bit. But again, he was trailing heading into the final weekend. One of those two, she's ahead in both of them. And that's a big deal as we go back and look at the map and say, how does Clinton get to the finish line? How does she compare to the president four years ago. Well, she thinks she's going to hold these blues up here. She hopes to turn Ohio. Let's see what happens. We still lean that one in favor of Trump.

There's some talk in the Democrats they can pull back in Iowa. We're going to leave that one leaning Donald Trump. We'll see what she does on Tuesday. But significantly, they believe especially because of early voting they can win out in Nevada. Most Republicans in Nevada are starting to think that, too. That would get Clinton over the finish line. That's enough. But they also think again because she's in better position than the president was four years ago, they think she can possibly win both of these.

And they still think, even though this one has become very close at the end and Trump is closing here, they think they can win that. If that were to happen, if Clinton could win Florida and win North Carolina and add New Hampshire, that puts her in the ballpark of where the president was four years ago. Now is that guaranteed? Absolutely not. Donald Trump is fighting in those states to the end. But if you're asking the question, how does she look now compared to the president then, especially because of these two states as she enters the weekend, sure. In a contested race with Donald Trump, but confident the outcome will look a little bit just like it did in 2012.

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VANIER: John King there with the magic screen. That's it for our political coverage for now. But don't worry, you won't miss a sliver of the American election. Do stay with CNN for all-day coverage on Election Day, that's Tuesday.

Coming up, Iraqi troops are inside of Iraq's second largest city for the first time in two years and now ISIS is using children to fight back.

Plus: ISIS claims responsibility for a deadly blast in Turkey but Ankara lays the blame on another party. The latest on the Diyarbakir bombings ahead.

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VANIER: In Iraq, the battle for Mosul is taking place street to street and house to house. Iraqi forces are trying to drive ISIS out of neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city and that's what the fighting looks like on a daily basis right now. Iraq's elite counterterrorism units were the first to get inside Mosul.

We want to show you a detailed map of Iraq's second largest city so you get a good sense of where the fighting is happening and a good sense of the geography. That's where the counterterrorism units arrived on the eastern edge of the city and they started pushing through these neighborhoods.

Now of course their ultimate goal is to get to the very center of the city, reconquer all of Mosul, the country's second largest city. This right here is the center where most of the important government buildings in the center, just on the western part of the Tigris here.

But the fighting right now taking place here, across those eastern neighborhoods as we are saying, house to house, and they are encountering heavy resistance. CNN's Nic Robertson has more from Northern Iraq.

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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The Iraqi army says they've gone into about six different neighborhoods on the eastern side of Mosul. They say that they're facing fierce resistance, that they were using airstrikes earlier in the day to target ISIS positions.

They've been using artillery as well. For their part, ISIS, the army says, have been using rooftops of buildings, where civilians were in the buildings, using those rooftops as sniper positions to fire down on the army.

Also they say ISIS has been launching mortar attacks on the army units as they move forward, those mortars, small tubes which fire artillery sort of almost vertically upwards and come down a couple of streets nearby. That has been causing civilian casualties as well.

But perhaps the army, in one of the neighborhoods, the army faced its biggest threat of the day and that was suicide bombers, two suicide bombers, targeting the convoy, two Humvees destroyed, three damaged. Three soldiers were injured in that particular attack, seven wounded.

And in that one neighborhood, the army quite literally had to say, we're going to pull back, we're going to reassess. So ISIS putting up a very, very tough resistance, the U.N. now reporting as well that not only is ISIS forcing civilians to become human shields in some situations, they have been trying to get boys as young as 9 years old, take them away from their families and use them to fight on the front lines.

Of course ISIS in the past has been training its own young fighters, the cubs of the caliphate, they call them. Now they are stealing children as young as 9 years old, young boys, and sending them potentially to the front lines -- Nic Robertson, CNN, Irbil, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE) VANIER: ISIS has claimed responsibility for a blast that killed nine people in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir on Friday. The claim of responsibility came through the terror group's media wing. Turkish officials earlier blamed the explosion on the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK.

According to state-run media, a car bomb targeted a police station, killing seven civilians and two police officers.

Turkey's prime minister says 100 people were wounded during the attack. The bombing came hours after more than a dozen lawmakers from a pro-Kurdish political party were detained by authorities.

State-run media say members of the HDP, the People's Democratic Party, have been detained as part of a terror investigation. Ankara has been cracking down on dissidents since the coup attempt last July.

When we come back, a celebration more than a century in the making. Millions of Cubs fans pour into the streets of Chicago to cheer on their World Series champions.

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[02:20:00]

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VANIER: It's looking like there could be some severe weather on the way for parts of Europe. Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is joining us with the latest from the International Weather Center.

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VANIER: And the sun has been shining you know where, on Chicago, regardless of the actual weather, the sun has been shining on Chicago. Cubs fans still feeling the high from the historic World Series win. An estimated 5 million people swarmed the streets of Chicago for Friday's celebratory parade. Ryan Young reports from Chicago.

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RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One of the biggest American sports stories ever, the Cubs, who have waited 108 years to finally win a championship, well, now the city gets a chance to celebrate like no other time.

In fact, if you look behind us, fans have been pouring in to see their team. They have been doing this for hours. Of course, not everyone gets a chance to get a World Series ticket. So for many fans, this was their chance to be able to show their appreciation for the team that they love so much. And I can tell you, this city loves its Cubs. They even turned the

river blue. You look at the crowd, you look at the fans and you could hear the players' appreciation for the city and their team.

BEN ZOBRIST, WORLD SERIES MVP: I've been blessed far more than I ever deserve or expected in this game. God has given a lot to me. And I'm so thankful for that. He gave me the opportunity to hold a trophy just like that last year and hoist it up.

And I thought, how can I ever top this?

And then I started thinking about Chicago. I started thinking about Wrigley Field, 108 years, and I said, I want to be a part of that. So I literally, I promise you, I prayed during free agency last year to be a Chicago Cub.

And thankfully, God and the Cubs -- thank you, Theo -- made it happen. And I embarked on a journey with these guys, to bring this elusive championship to the North Side.

YOUNG: So of course in America, there is a big election next week. But right now Cubs fans are under the red, white and blue of Cubby Blue because they are loving the fact that this team has brought the city together.

If you look out there, there are generations of people, folks who love the Cubs and they're holding hands and standing next to each other, celebrating this victory. In fact, there's already talk about next year's Cubs team, because they're already favored to win the World Series again -- reporting in Chicago, Ryan Young, CNN.

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VANIER: For one Cubs fan, skipping the celebration was simply not an option. Kayla Adams had class on Friday.

So she e-mailed her criminal justice professor to tell him that she would be going to the parade. Well, her professor responded by saying that he admired Kayla for being so dedicated to criminal justice that she was spending her time seeing how the Chicago police would handle large crowds.

He also told her to be safe.

Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Cyril Vanier. I will be back in just a moment with the headlines. You are watching CNN.

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