CNN/ORC Poll: Trustworthiness Down 6 Percent From Year Ago
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. Our Politics Lead, happening now, as they say, a new CNN poll out right now finds the public's perception of Hillary Clinton's honesty and trustworthiness has dropped after it was revealed she used a personal e-mail account to conduct official business while serving as secretary of state. There is some good news for Hillary Clinton as well. Let's talk about it all and the story behind the numbers with CNN chief national correspondent, John King, and CNN senior political correspondent, Brianna Keilar. Thank you both for being here. So John, Democrats say this is all silly stuff and voters don't care. That is true according to the poll?</s>JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, they do care. Majority voters in this poll, 51 percent say her use of personal e- mail is a serious problem. Now 48 percent say it's not so Hillary Clinton evenly dividing the American people. We should get used to that. Fifty one percent say it's a serious problem, Jake, 51 percent also think she did something wrong. She is taking a hit. How lasting will it be? Will be politically hurtful? We'll see.</s>TAPPER: Brianna, she may announce her candidacy as soon as next month, we are told. As she gears up and gets the campaign going, where are her favorability ratings?</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They are pretty good right now, 53 percent according to this new CNN/ORC poll. The thing is, look at that compared to a year ago. It's dropped from 59 percent, but she after leaving the State Department, it was really considered that her favorability was pretty sky-high as she became more political, it was going to come down. But also look at her unfavorability right now, it's 44 percent. That's actually the highest unfavorable ranking she has had since she was campaigning for president the last time.</s>TAPPER: Wow. That's pretty high considering the 2008, the bruising they took. John, what do Americans think about her explanation as to why she used this private personal server instead of the State Department account?</s>KING: In the view of a majority of Americans, she's not done explaining is the best way to put it. If you look at the numbers, has she explained it, 46 percent say, yes, and 51 percent say no. Again, close evenly divide right there. But clearly, we know that Benghazi Select Committee wants to bring her up at least twice they say. Speaker John Boehner on the Republican side is considering some other investigation. She will give interviews when she announces, we assume. So she has more explaining to do.</s>TAPPER: What about Democrats? What do they think?</s>KING: That's the interesting thing. If you look at the partisan break down, 68 percent of Democrats say yes, she has done enough, but 30 percent say no. If there were a credible challenger to Hillary Clinton, that 30 percent saying no, she hasn't done enough would be an opening. That challenger just isn't on the field right now. We don't see that challenger out there. If you look at the Republicans, 19 percent of Republicans say she has done enough. Eight in ten say she has not. Independents evenly split. If you look deep into the poll she does very well with Democrats. She does pretty well with independents and of course, Republicans don't like her.</s>TAPPER: Brianna, the issue with this e-mail problem is that Democrats fear it will feed into this issue that some people have with her trustworthiness. Where is her trustworthiness on the poll? What do people think about it?</s>KEILAR: It's at 50 percent right now and that is down six points from a year ago. So this may be the e-mail controversy, this could also be the fact that she's becoming more of a political figure, but we look at these dips in poll numbers. And I think what's also interesting is take a look at this one question that really sticks out to us. What would people surveyed say they are proud to have her as their president, 57 percent say yes and 42 percent say no. But that 57 percent is up from 50 percent a year ago. So I think that speaks right now to the kind of historic nature that if she were to be the first female president, that's something that she certainly I think agrees with, we keep hearing her very much --</s>TAPPER: The weird numbers to reconcile because most people saying they don't accept her explanation, she needs to explain more, and yet, 57 percent would be proud to call her madam president.</s>KING: She is viewed as somebody of great stature and somebody of gravitas. You get that without a doubt. You make a key point, whenever you read a poll about Hillary Clinton. There are some numbers that just seem contradictory. People view her stature, but they have doubts about her honesty. Democrats love her. Independents aren't so sure they go back and worth. So I would say the best thing about this poll is it's a great benchmark and great beginning line as she begins to run. Let's look back at six and nine months as she goes through this campaign to see if the honesty and trustworthy numbers change. If that unfavorable keeps going up or if she is static. Most people think they know Hillary Clinton. So my big question is do her numbers move that much, does she go up a little bit and down with the daily news story or can you move her a lot? I don't know.</s>TAPPER: Do the people in her orbit look at how they handled the two weeks of post-story about the e-mail as boy, we really blew it? Even just last week, a bunch of us including me were reporting that she did not individually review the personal e-mails she deleted. That she just went through the e-mails, did search words, found words and assumed which ones were personal and which one weren't, and then deleted the ones that didn't crop up with --</s>KEILAR: And that they weren't reviewing everything.</s>TAPPER: Over the weekend they called me and said, no, that's not right.</s>KEILAR: I think, yes. They said actually we took for granted, right, is what we were told, that people realized that they reviewed every e- mail. I think what they would say is they are sort of a small shop doing a big shop's work and they are not fully equipped as a campaign. This is a complaint I have been hearing from her circle for a long time now, but we are expecting that the campaign could be launching here in the next few weeks and then we will really, they will be tested.</s>TAPPER: Brianna Keilar, John King, thank you. Great work. Appreciate it as always. Coming up next, a chain of islands slammed by a wall of water, most homes and buildings wiped out. Authorities call it the worst disaster to ever hit the pacific. Could the death toll rise as aid workers reach the country's far-flung corners? That's next.