Trump, Clinton Trade Barbs at Charity Dinner; Trump Defiant at Post-Debate Rally.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I will totally accept the results, if I win.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That is dangerous. That undermines our democracy.</s>HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's amazing I'm up here after Donald. I didn't think he'd be OK with a peaceful transition of power.</s>TRUMP: We want fairness in the election.</s>MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: He is threatening the very idea of America itself.</s>TRUMP: This is the first time ever that Hillary is speaking to major corporate leaders and not getting paid for it.</s>CLINTON: Donald, after listening to your speech, I will also enjoy listening to Mike Pence deny that you ever gave it.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, October 21, 6 a.m. in the east. Chris is off this morning. John Berman is here. We have a funny show.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We just barely made it, too.</s>CAMEROTA: They don't need to know that. Up first, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton trading barbs at this charity dinner just hours after their last debate. The political rivals got big laughs, but Trump also got booed repeatedly for abandoning decades of tradition with some blistering attacks on Clinton.</s>BERMAN: Yes. Folk who have been to this dinner say they have never seen a reception like this before. And it comes on the heels of Trump's continued refusal to say he will honor the results of the election. Now he says he will do it if -- if -- he wins. We're just 18 days now until election day. We're covering this for you from all angles. We're going to begin with CNN's Brianna Keilar on the event last night -- Brianna.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: You can see ahead of the remarks here at this dinner maybe how the night was going to go. Hillary Clinton, it was definitely more her crowd. She had more visitors coming up to her than Donald Trump. Donald Trump ended up with more boos as both candidates abandoned some of the usual decorum for a tone that reflected what they've taken in this bruising election battle.</s>TRUMP: Hillary is so corrupt, she got kicked off the Watergate Commission.</s>KEILAR: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were supposed to play nice.</s>CLINTON: It's amazing I'm up here after Donald. I didn't think he'd be OK with a peaceful transition of power.</s>KEILAR: Casting aside the night's traditional good-humored joking, both candidates delivering brutal takedowns of each other.</s>TRUMP: This is the first time ever that Hillary is sitting down and speaking to major corporate leaders and not getting paid for it.</s>CLINTON: People look at the Statue of Liberty, and they see a proud symbol of our history. Donald looks at the Statue of Liberty and sees a four, maybe a five if she loses the torch and tablet and changes her hair.</s>KEILAR: Trump starting his speech strong.</s>TRUMP: The media is even more biased this year than ever before. Ever. Michelle Obama gives a speech, and everyone loves it. It's fantastic. My wife Melania gives the exact same speech, and people get on her case.</s>KEILAR: But losing the room after changing his tone.</s>TRUMP: Hillary accidentally bumped into me, and she very civilly said, "Pardon me." And I very politely replied, "Let me talk to you about that after I get into office."</s>KEILAR: Trump even booed at times for crossing the line.</s>TRUMP: Hillary believes that it's vital to deceive the people by having one public policy and a totally different policy in private. That's OK. I don't know who they're angry at, Hillary, you or I. Here she is tonight in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.</s>KEILAR: Clinton landing her own sharp barbs right back at Trump.</s>CLINTON: Donald, after listening to your speech, I will also enjoy listening to Mike Pence deny that you ever gave it. Donald really is as healthy as a horse. You know, the one Vladimir Putin rides around on.</s>KEILAR: And poking fun at herself.</s>CLINTON: This is such a special event that I took a break from my rigorous nap schedule to be here.</s>KEILAR: The candidates did end up shaking hands, but they also avoided each other when they could. Ahead of the event, they were both in photo receiving lines, and they seemed to go to lengths to not shake hands. And I have spoken to a top Hillary Clinton aide on the plane coming back from Las Vegas. We saw real animosity there, that aide saying, "Enough is enough. At a certain point, you draw the line" -- John and Christine [SIC].</s>CAMEROTA: Thank you very much, Brianna. Very interesting juxtaposition of what happened last night with all the tension. So let's discuss it with CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis; CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston; and CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich.</s>BERMAN: Yes, we all shook hands before the segment, just so you know.</s>CAMEROTA: But it's going to get nasty now.</s>BERMAN: It is.</s>CAMEROTA: Errol, I don't know. This is such an interesting night. You know, it's comforting that they could come in and laugh and have this levity for three hours, but there's also something strange about why can't they do this on the campaign trail? Why can they -- why can they do it there last night and then it's so vitriolic and hateful on the campaign trail?</s>ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, let's keep in mind, they didn't quite do it last night. I mean, there was a little bit of humor. But they also had something that doesn't normally happen, which was the booing and the digs and the sort of vicious, caustic jokes, as opposed to jokes that sort of gently poke fun at each other but sort of keep the overall tone of this is the elite, all showing the country that we all come together.</s>CAMEROTA: It was more harsh last night.</s>LOUIS: It was. And that's not, you know -- look, the reality is, you don't want to just put on a show. You don't want to put on a complete illusion, but I think this does demonstrate that there are deeper divisions than we've seen in previous races.</s>BERMAN: Look, I've been to one of these dinners before, and the idea, for the most part, is to have self-deprecating humor. But this was less self and more just flat-out deprecating humor. You take the case of Donald Trump here making a joke about WikiLeaks.</s>TRUMP: I wasn't really sure if Hillary was going to be here tonight, because I guess you didn't send her invitation by e-mail. Or maybe you did, and she just found out about it through the wonder of WikiLeaks.</s>BERMAN: So Mark Preston, you were watching this in real time, and it did feel at a certain point Donald Trump lost the room.</s>MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Right.</s>BERMAN: And crossed a line.</s>PRESTON: From the beginning. Almost that he didn't have a delivery. In fact, if you would compare to Hillary Clinton, how she delivered it to how he did, he read; his head was straight down the whole time. He read off the cue cards, as she was, but at least she was looking up. She was laughing. She was kind of looking around the room. He was straight down line for line. I mean, this is the only time, quite frankly, he might have ever worked directly off a script. Right? I mean, like, we all laugh about how he goes off script oftentimes. But he was straight on script. The thing with her, though, her speech was very politically infused. I mean, the way that they wrote her speech and her jokes, everything had a little weave of politics and a dig at him. And I don't think that she has much criticism, because it was so crafty and well done. Donald Trump was not as well done.</s>CAMEROTA: Do we know who wrote them? Who wrote the jokes?</s>PRESTON: No. Look, we'll find out today, but oftentimes, and John and I know this. I think Errol does, as well. There's a handful of Democratic speech writers who are in their, like, 40s and 50s that are fantastic.</s>BERMAN: A lot of times actual comedians, they will write in single jokes.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>BERMAN: They will mail them in. Sometimes former speech writers like Jon Favreau. I don't know if he was involved last night, President Obama speechwriter. But he'll send joke ideas, and it's a group effort.</s>CAMEROTA: OK. So Jackie, let's -- let's play one of Hillary Clinton's jokes that seemed to go over well. Listen to this.</s>CLINTON: I am so flattered that Donald thought I used some sort of performance enhancer. Now, actually, I did. It's called preparation.</s>CAMEROTA: What did you think -- what did you think of the tone of the night, Jackie?</s>KUCINICH: Little of a burn, wasn't it? You know, these are two people that don't like each other. And I think that came through. It's not just -- these aren't just competitors. Obviously, she was referencing there Trump's comment that she -- they should do a drug test for the last debate, because she might -- she may have taken performance-enhancing drugs. You know, there was an interview with Cardinal Dolan after the event, and he said that they sort of-- they were chatting; and they were more pleasant to each other when they were sitting around him. But it's very clear that this is a nasty race and it's taken its toll on both of these candidates.</s>BERMAN: You know, Errol, I'm a little sensitive to criticism over, you know, bad jokes. Right? I mean, bad, bad jokes -- it shouldn't be disqualifying at a certain point. So I do wonder if we're making a lot out of this. It's a weird night, though. Right? We've got 18 days left. Last night was the last break. I mean, there is nothing left now between, you know, now and election day to inject moments of levity here. This is going to be all-out sprint until November 8.</s>LOUIS: That's right. I mean, look, when it works, it really works well. If you go back and read a lot of the transcripts that are online and you read what, you know, John McCain said in 2000, or you read -- or 2008. You read what Mitt Romney said just four years ago, it's really quite nice. Where he says, "Look, I respect the 44th president of the United States. I respect his family. I'm glad we live in a democracy where we can do this and move forward together. There's life outside of politics. The values that bind us together are more important than the politics who divide us." Somebody has to say that, and this is an elaborate stage during which you sort of just demonstrate that. Elsewhere on that -- on the dais, there were bitter political rivals who were sitting together. The governor and mayor of New York, who have not been getting along. Rudy Giuliani and David Dinkins, who both beat each other at least once in the 1990s, sitting there together sort of chatting together. It's nice for the rest of us to see that.</s>CAMEROTA: Right. I agree with you. And I mean, and I don't want to have rose-colored glasses on, but there is something comforting about that night when it's done right that, OK, we can put this aside. And humor still prevails, and we can all come together. But I don't know if last night captured that. Let's play one more moment where Hillary Clinton did a little bit of self-deprecation about her "basket of deplorables" comment.</s>CLINTON: I have to say there are a lot of friendly faces here in this room. People that I have been privileged to know and to work with. I just want to put you all in a basket of adorables.</s>CAMEROTA: I liked the basket of adorables.</s>PRESTON: Smart.</s>CAMEROTA: You're not defying (ph).</s>PRESTON: NO, no, no. Look, I think it was smart. If you compare both speeches, again, like her speech was so well done, so well- crafted and fairly well-delivered. She did bomb a few times, though. I mean, certainly towards the end, she did bomb a few times. But her -- but her jokes were clever. They were tight. They were spot on, and when they went after Donald Trump, they were stinging to him, as well. She played it right, I mean, the whole basket of deplorables/adorables was a smart, smart thing to do.</s>BERMAN: Preston hasn't laughed since the Reagan administration, right?</s>CAMEROTA: He is not amused.</s>BERMAN: So if you're expecting -- if you're expecting more than that, you know, you're going to be...</s>CAMEROTA: That was him laughing.</s>BERMAN: Jackie, the thing about this is that neither of these candidates are known for their biting wit. You know, Hillary Clinton and she made a joke of it. She's seen as someone who's very serious. She said she was the life of every party she's been to, all three. That was the joke.</s>CAMEROTA: Right</s>BERMAN: And it was funny, because it was true. You know, but Donald Trump not known for being self-deprecating, too. So there are different types of candidates than we've seen who have been known for their sense of humor.</s>KUCINICH: Well, sure. You know, one of the things about Mitt Romney's speech is that he did have the sort of, you saw it once in a while the deadpan. President Obama throughout, I just think of all the White House correspondents dinners that he's done, and he's always very funny. So this is a moment where you can sort of see, maybe in glimmers a softer side of them. But I also wanted to mention that this event did achieve something that even the debates, that the last debate didn't. And that is they actually shook hands. So, little victories, I guess. To Alisyn's point, it is sort of comforting to see them not at each other's throats for once.</s>CAMEROTA: Right. I mean, the handshake. They can do it at this charity dinner, but they can't do it on the national stage.</s>BERMAN: It was ridiculous.</s>PRESTON: It was hard to do for them.</s>CAMEROTA: OK. Let me see, let me see. Wait, hold on. Watch this. Is it about to happen?</s>KUCINICH: It just happened.</s>CAMEROTA: Can we rerack that and slow-mo it?</s>LOUIS: You know, they did -- they did chat. It was up before the event started.</s>CAMEROTA: There you go.</s>LOUIS: You can see them talking.</s>PRESTON: It took them, basically, the head of the Catholic church in the United States to make them chat and to have that hand shake.</s>CAMEROTA: And did they wipe their hands afterward, like, "Oh, cooties?"</s>PRESTON: Right. I think they went and did a couple "Hail Marys" and maybe an "Our Father."</s>CAMEROTA: There we go.</s>BERMAN: Handshake by papal decree. They should have done it on the debate stage. That's my thinking.</s>CAMEROTA: Errol, thank you.</s>BERMAN: Up next, Donald Trump hearing it from both sides after refusing to say he will accept the election results at the last debate. That was when that happened. We have his new extraordinary condition that he's laying on this, and critics aren't liking that either.