The debate over transparency on the campaign trail

GWEN IFILL: She calls him a loose cannon.

He calls her disrespectful.

In between,

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump talk the economy, child care, and each other's health.

Another dizzying week in politics, tonight on Washington Week.

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)

The next 53 days will shape the next 50 years.

DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)

It's time to free ourselves from the baskets that

politicians try to put us into, and always have put us into.

GWEN IFILL: What a week!

The birther debate was back.

Both candidates - one 70, one

68 - were forced to prove they are healthy.

And the president took to the trail.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From video.)

If you're serious about our democracy, then you've

got - you've got to be with her.

She's in the arena, and you can't leave her in there

by herself.

You got to get in there with her.

GWEN IFILL: If you thought this election could not get any more unusual, you were wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (From video.)

It's just kind of a weird time, a weird election.

Sort of sad in a sense, I guess, tragic.

But mostly it's just weird.

GWEN IFILL: But listen closely, past the talk of birtherism and who started what, and

you might just hear policy being debated.

DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)

Under our plan, the economy will average 3.5 percent growth

and create a total of 25 million new jobs.

HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)

Fighting for kids and families.

That's been the cause of my life.

It will be the passion of my presidency.

GWEN IFILL: Even as the head-to-head polls steadily tighten.

Covering the week, John Harwood, chief Washington correspondent for CNBC; Alexis

Simendinger, White House correspondent for RealClearPolitics; Jim Tankersley, economic

policy correspondent for The Washington Post; and Jeff Zeleny, senior Washington

correspondent for CNN.

ANNOUNCER: Award-winning reporting and analysis.

Covering history as it happens.

Live from our nation's capital, this is Washington Week with Gwen Ifill.

Once again, live from Washington, moderator Gwen Ifill.

GWEN IFILL: Good evening.

If you were thinking that this campaign is playing out

like a reality show, let me make a different suggestion - a game show: Truth or

Consequences.

You remember that one?

By now it has become almost cliche to say that

both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are challenged when it comes to transparency.

By this time last week, Clinton had already been diagnosed with pneumonia.

But we didn't hear of it for another 48 hours, and only after video captured her nearly

collapsing in public.

Today, she tried to make the best of it.

HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)

As the world knows, I was a little under the weather

recently.

The good news is, my pneumonia finally got some Republicans interested in

women's health.

GWEN IFILL: As for Donald Trump, we knew even less about his health,

his finances, and his oft-stated belief that the president was not born in the U.S.

Now his doctor says he is healthy, but he still refuses to release his taxes.

Today, he said belatedly, and with none of the gusto he's used for years to promote the

opposite, that the president was, indeed, born in the U.S.

This was then.

DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)

He gave a birth certificate.

Now all we have to do is

find out whether or not it was real.

Show his birth certificate.

I think he probably -

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: (From video.)

Why should he have to?

DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)

Because I have to and everybody else has to, Whoopi.

I want him to show his birth certificate.

There's something on that birth certificate

that he doesn't like.

If he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility,

then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics.

GWEN IFILL: This was today.

DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)

Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther

controversy.

I finished it.

I finished it.

You know what I mean.

President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.

GWEN IFILL: So, tonight we don't necessarily want to focus only on which candidate is

more transparent.

We want to talk about those truths and the consequences.

John, is that a reasonable measure?

JOHN HARWOOD: Yes.

And the birther controversy was untrue from the get-go.

GWEN IFILL: A perfect example.

JOHN HARWOOD: It's a perfect example.

It was never in serious doubt by serious people

who looked at the facts, that President Obama was born in Hawaii.

Donald Trump spread that, nevertheless.

He built a national political profile on it.

He said something that wasn't true today in ending - trying to put a punctuation mark on

it today, because he said Hillary Clinton started the birther controversy.

That is not true.

There were some allusions to Barack Obama's upbringing and whether

or not he was - had American roots as deep as Hillary Clinton, and emails her staff

sent to each other, or one that a volunteer forwarded -

GWEN IFILL: But he - JOHN HARWOOD: Hillary Clinton herself never did any of this.

GWEN IFILL: And he didn't end it, either.

He kept it going after 2011.

JEFF ZELENY: Well, if he would have ended it, I would have thought he would have taken

credit for ending it at the time.

But the reality is he only talked about it today because it's 53 days before the

election, and suddenly it is politically not wise for him as he tries to expand a little

bit.

But his line saying - if you fact check that one sentence today, he had a couple

falsehoods.

As John said, she didn't start it.

But he didn't end it.

The president finally, reluctantly, before his reelection put out his long-form birth

certificate - you know, and then has joked about it over the years here.

But Donald Trump

as recently as, you know, a few months ago has started talking about it again.

And as

recently as this week, to The Washington Post, would not answer the question, which is

why it was being discussed today.

So he was on the verge of - just when you think -

just when Republicans think he's on the verge of kind of normalizing, this happens.

GWEN IFILL: Well, and that gives Hillary Clinton an opportunity to raise the bar higher

than he will go, which is to say he should apologize to the president, which she had to

know was not in his nature to apologize to the president.

Now, speaking of what's in his nature, let's talk a little bit about what he did just

maybe an hour ago tonight here - Friday night - in Washington.

He wasn't in Washington, but he was making an observation he makes a lot about gun

control, which is that, you know, you take away the guns, only the criminals will have

the guns.

Except, this is the way he put it.

DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)

I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons.

They should disarm, right?

(Cheers.)

I think they should disarm immediately.

What do you think, yes?

Yeah.

(Cheers.)

Take their guns away, she doesn't want guns.

Take their - let's see what happens to her.

GWEN IFILL: OK, there's a couple things there.

Where do we begin?

One is that she doesn't say take their guns away, Alexis.

And the other is, that

last line - she what happens to her - sounds like an assassination threat.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: Well, one of the things that's interesting about this is, is this an

effort to watch Donald Trump kind of meander back to the old Donald Trump?

That was a question that was being asked today.

Is this his effort to move away from

the fire he started earlier today with the comments about the birther?

Is this an effort to put the onus back on Hillary Clinton in some form or fashion about

Second Amendment, with the base of his supporters?

You know, with Donald Trump, you can ask a million questions about this and, you know, he

might have an explanation for this tomorrow in a different way.

But it was clearly interpreted as almost inviting violence toward her.

JOHN HARWOOD: I've got an idea for why he might have done it, though.

GWEN IFILL: Go ahead.

JOHN HARWOOD: Look, Donald Trump, when he's interacting with a crowd, likes to do things

and say things to engender a reaction that makes him feel good.

I don't think it

particularly made him feel good to stand up and say: Barack Obama was born in the

United States, period.

GWEN IFILL: I think you could kind of see that in his delivery.

JOHN HARWOOD: I think you could see it.

I think it was something that after he said what he said to Robert Costa of The

Washington Post the night before, the political pros on his team told him he had to do

this.

He's got to add voters, and this is one way they thought to do it.

GWEN IFILL: So he waited to the end of a long, very celebratory news conference at which

he was praised by -

JOHN HARWOOD: That's right.

So he did this, it didn't feel good.

And I think when he got in front of that crowd he was getting feedback that he liked, and

he let it rip, just like he let it rip the time a few weeks ago when he said, oh, maybe

the Second Amendment people can do something about Hillary.

GWEN IFILL: OK.

But the other thing it changes the subject on is other weaknesses,

which is the consistent questions about his taxes, Jim, and whether he will ever, ever

reveal what he earned, what he spent, what he gave to charity, and what he's paid in

taxes to the federal government.

JIM TANKERSLEY: I mean, Trump has had so many controversies in this campaign that we

have, like, forgotten some of these.

And this is one of them.

GWEN IFILL: (Laughs.)

This is one of them.

JIM TANKERSLEY: In any other campaign, a candidate would be hounded by the media -

GWEN IFILL: Well, he hopes we've forgotten about that.

JIM TANKERSLEY: - constantly about this.

GWEN IFILL: Yeah.

JIM TANKERSLEY: But he has been giving shifting - he and his associates have been giving

shifting reasons why he won't release his taxes.

He's under audit, which he says.

But then also, maybe that people couldn't understand it.

Maybe they couldn't handle

it.

Maybe there's something in there.

But the question is, what is it?

And if every other candidate in modern history has released at least some summaries of

their taxes, it is worth asking this question.

As my colleague David Fahrenthold has

very meticulously reported, there are big questions about his charitable giving.

And he could clear that up with some top-line things from his taxes.

He doesn't even need to show all the details.

But again, he does not see it in his

interest to release them, so it looks like he's not going to.

GWEN IFILL: Well, and what is the truth - getting to this idea of truth and consequences

- and what are the consequences about health scares?

For instance, we might not know that Hillary Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia last

Friday unless we had seen the video - kind of the shaky video of her near collapse.

And I wonder if the truth there was her illness, and the consequence is that people will

always wonder whether she's fully healthy.

JEFF ZELENY: I think that's exactly right.

And we wouldn't have known about the pneumonia had a normal onlooker with an iPhone,

presumably - or some type of smartphone - not shot that video of her.

It certainly was not offered up by the Clinton campaign.

She has now acknowledged that that was a mistake.

Her campaign aides have said

that they should have acted, you know, swifter on that Sunday.

But the reality is, by trying to walk the line of not feeding into the conspiracy

theories that Rudy Giuliani and others have been raising about her health, they ended up

feeding into the conspiracy theories about her health in a big way.

You know, I was with her as she flew - made her first debut, I guess, back on the road

on Thursday, flying from White Plains to Greensboro, North Carolina.

And her aides were sort on pins and needles, hoping she didn't have a coughing spell

which, you know, would have just been a normal coughing spell.

But of course, that would have been magnified, you know, a lot.

So the reality here is I think that she ended up releasing more health information.

She wasn't planning on doing that.

We learned a few things, but not everything.

But Donald Trump, you know, he released a bit of his medical information, but on Doctor

Oz.

Who would have thought of that?

And he still -

GWEN IFILL: (Laughs.)

Donald Trump would have thought of it.

JEFF ZELENY: And he's still - he still in the transparency war with her is far behind on

medical and certainly on taxes.

GWEN IFILL: But it does seem like this week was health week.

This week was birther week.

And then who knows what next week.

But let's talk about the consequences because

there are polls out there which show that this race is really, really tightening.

Take a look at the RealClearPolitics average of polls, taken by The Los Angeles Times

and USC, Fox News, CBS News, and The New York Times and Quinnipiac.

Hillary Clinton is

still ahead, but by less than 2 percentage points.

What's driving these numbers, Alexis?

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: Well, one of the things that we're noticing is that Secretary

Clinton, if you're talking about why she's dropped, and we can see Donald Trump has risen

in the RealClearPolitics average by the same amount, about three points each - going

each way, Secretary Clinton has a vulnerability about young people on trust, right?

We know that she's trying to shore up some of the vulnerables that she's got in trying to

rebuild the Obama coalition.

You could see her trying to pivot at the end of this

week, very much to appeal to African-American voters and women.

We saw Michelle Obama out there really trying to gin up support among Millennials.

And we know that Secretary Clinton next week is going to be really trying to hit that

demographic hard, Millennials.

So, you know, she - this is one of the reasons why

Jeff is describing the campaign's misery of seeing her have to go off the trail for

three days, because of their concern that after Labor Day instead of building on

some bulwark that she had built, she was losing ground.

GWEN IFILL: Jim, you're a policy guy.

I don't mean that as an insult.

I mean it as a compliment.

JIM TANKERSLEY: Yeah, no, pejorative, yes.

GWEN IFILL: So, how - (laughter) - but how do we know that any of the things they say -

which are based in policy, actual truths, what they would do as president - how do we

know that any of that is sticking this year?

JIM TANKERSLEY: I don't know that we do.

I mean, I think that there are certain

very broad-brush policy things that are sticking.

People - Trump voters know that he

wants to build a wall with Mexico.

And they like that.

And they seem to be responding at least -

GWEN IFILL: And that Mexico will pay for it.

They always say those two things together.

JIM TANKERSLEY: Well, but if you look at our most recent poll, even Trump voters are

pretty skeptical that Mexico's going to pay for it.

But they like the idea, maybe, that they

might.

And then his trade policies - he hits them over and over and over again.

He's been

very consistent on that.

And he's gotten - I hear that a lot when I talk to Trump voters.

They like the idea of trying to make other countries play by the rules or, you know, beat

them in trade.

With Hillary Clinton, she has a million policy ideas.

She has not had an incredibly focused message on it.

And I think one of the things she is going to look to do between now and November is make

that sort of proactive policy case, especially to young people, to sort of say, OK, this

is what is going to happen if I'm president.

And this is why you should affirmatively choose me and not just negatively reject Trump.

GWEN IFILL: She's actually been saying that a little bit this week, trying to turn that corner.

JOHN HARWOOD: That's right.

I think the other thing that's been happening is that

Donald Trump in the last few weeks - until the last couple of days - had been

communicating in a more polished way, in a more under control way.

That tamped down some of the controversies that followed him, plagued him, that he

initiated himself after the two conventions, that drove down his numbers, especially

among those college-educated white voters who were going to Hillary Clinton in numbers

that they had not done to Democratic candidates for a long time.

Those numbers have

evened out a little bit.

And the high that Hillary Clinton had come down and Donald

Trump's bringing some Republicans home.

That's making this a closer race.

And the question is, now we're 10 days out from the first debate, you know,

how is that big moment going to be processed by voters, including some who've

oscillated a little bit in the middle of the spectrum?

GWEN IFILL: Does it resonate at all with voters when Donald Trump comes out and gives a

big policy speech - assuming he doesn't step on it with three other things, does it

resonate with them if it doesn't add up - for instance, if he says: I'm going to cut your

taxes and I'm going to rebuild every bridge in America?

JEFF ZELENY: Not among his supporters, I think.

His supporters - it seems whenever

Donald Trump talks about policy - which hasn't been a ton.

I mean, this has not been a policy-free election, but they've not been - the other side

has not been giving a lot of weighty policy speeches, although she has offered a ton more

on her website.

No, I think that when he does that it does make him look more

presidential.

I don't think they care if it adds up.

Like Jim just said about building the wall, they like the idea of the wall.

They know he's probably not going to do that, but it makes him look strong.

Anything that makes Donald Trump look strong, I think, his supporters like.

The Clinton campaign has been worried in the last 10 days or so, I would say, when I

talk to a lot of the advisors who sort of reluctantly admit that they're worried that

he's becoming more acceptable to some voters.

That's always been their worry, that

they - you know, they wanted to make him sort of unacceptable and unfit.

They think he's become - you know, becoming more acceptable with the Republican base and

others.

But when he does things like this today, and they're able to, you know,

revive the birther stuff, they're hoping that it reverses that.

We don't know.

We'll have to see what the polling happens a week from now, which is -

GWEN IFILL: Which is what happened with the deplorables, the debate that happened this

week - it feels like weeks ago.

But in fact, she doubled, tripled, quadrupled down

on that, because she liked the idea of reminding people of who he was associated with.

JOHN HARWOOD: Well, and I think that's the reason that - to your question about how much

does policy influence the vote - I think not very much in this election.

I think this is a highly personal choice that has polarized the country with, as my

colleagues have said, many, many people don't care for Hillary Clinton on the Republican

side.

And Hillary Clinton's trying - the broadest possible argument she can make

is that this guy just does not belong in the White House.

And that is a gut level decision about a person, not about his tax plan.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: One other thing I want to add is how policy is being used by the two

candidates, which was really interesting to watch.

Donald Trump is using policy to say, look, I can look more presidential, even though his

campaign is very personality-driven, as Jeff says.

Secretary Clinton is using it

to argue: I have an optimistic vision.

I have experience and you should trust me.

Those are three things that she feels vulnerable on, and she's trying to use the policy

display to shore up support for herself.

GWEN IFILL: Well, here's something that should have helped her this week but, once

again, a lot of things got lost in the wash.

And it's the Census - the department of - Census came out with numbers which showed the

poor are actually doing a little better and the rich are doing a little better.

Everybody gains, which was highly unusual and very - and rare.

So why - how could that in some way perhaps help?

JIM TANKERSLEY: Well, we had the best year in 2015, according to the Census, for middle

class income growth since they started keeping track in the '60s.

Five percent income growth in the middle, and even better for people below that.

So this bolsters Secretary Clinton's case that, hey, things have been getting better

under President Obama.

Maybe not as fast as we want them to.

A lot of work left to

be done.

But they think that in her campaign that this really helps their narrative.

Donald Trump has been painting a more dystopian, shall we say, view of the American

economy.

And the Clinton campaign I think was really hopeful that this would kind

of undercut that.

But he just moved onto a new talking point.

GWEN IFILL: Well, here is what the president had to say about it this week, because this

is - if it helps him, theoretically it helps her.

And he was on the campaign trail for her this week.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From video.)

More Americans are working.

More have health insurance.

Incomes are rising.

Poverty is falling.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (From video.)

And gas is $2 a gallon.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From video.)

And gas is $2 a gallon.

(Cheers, applause.)

I didn't even - thank you for reminding me.

(Laughter.)

Thanks, Obama.

GWEN IFILL: Thanks, Obama.

So the president's popularity has gone up.

He's at 58 percent last -

JOHN HARWOOD: This is the point.

The income gains reflected in that Census report,

long before the Census report came out, were being reflected in President Obama's

approval rating.

And the higher President Obama goes, given the fact that the

overwhelming majority of people who approve of the job that he's doing are

voting for Hillary Clinton, the better it is for her.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: One of the other things that we've noticed - and many of us have sat

through focus groups with voters and some who say they're undecided.

And it is interesting to listen to what they're talking about because the moderators ask

them, how are you doing, in states like Ohio and Arizona and Wisconsin.

And you know what they say, in these focus groups?

Well, we're doing OK,

actually.

We're doing OK.

I'm OK.

GWEN IFILL: They say I'm doing OK, but they come across with - they still feel that the

whole country isn't doing OK.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: Exactly.

GWEN IFILL: And that's what resonates for Donald Trump.

JIM TANKERSLEY: Well, for his core supporters there's just this huge difference between

how they see the country, and even their own financial situation, compared to Clinton

supporters.

We just had a poll come out this week on this.

It's double, Trump supporters who say they're getting worse than their parents for a

standard of living than what the Clinton people say.

And it's like totally reversed for those who think that America is not great anymore,

versus the Clinton supporters who think that it is.

GWEN IFILL: Your colleague, Karen Tumulty, our friend, called it a funhouse mirror

today in a story, which I kind of liked.

JEFF ZELENY: Yeah, so the Clinton campaign's challenge - Hillary Clinton's challenge is,

and we're seeing it now, she's talking more about children and families and other things.

She is trying to sort of get back to the very beginning.

And she is doing more proactive, positive policy things.

Again, when I was with

her in Greensboro, North Carolina on Thursday, she didn't mention Donald Trump's

name one time, which is a bit of an unusual thing.

Of course, she has since then.

She knows that she has to get her positives up just a little bit by talking about more

how she would lift families and other things.

Donald Trump has cornered the market

on sort of angst and anger and, you know, restlessness out there.

And that's something that she's trying to get back.

But, you know, the numbers

indicate in the polls, all she has to do is rebuild that Obama coalition.

And if she does that - and I think Donald Trump at the end of the week helped her do that

more than anything she's done herself.

GWEN IFILL: Well, and, of course, we know what we're all waiting for are the debates.

And there will - we discovered today, we heard today - only wo people on that stage for

sure, because neither Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, nor Gary Johnson, the

Libertarian candidate, are going to be in these debates.

So it's going to be head-to-head.

What is - is everything we're seeing now just

building up to that, just laying the groundwork?

JOHN HARWOOD: It is.

But I do think the fact that they're not going to be on

that stage is significant, because their numbers are relatively high right now.

The history of third-party candidates is they go down closer to the election.

The fact that they're not on the stage, I think, contributes to that decline.

GWEN IFILL: That was their argument for getting on the stage.

JOHN HARWOOD: That's right.

And it is true that this is a year where there's

more dissatisfaction with both nominees, so maybe it doesn't follow the

historical pattern.

But it's also possible that those numbers shrink.

And as we were discussing before, the - Gary Johnson especially is taking young voters

disproportionately from Hillary Clinton.

If they go down, and if he goes down, that will help her.

JEFF ZELENY: Which is why that is mission one, job one, over the weekend to get those

young voters.

Elizabeth Warren's out there.

Bernie Sanders, Michelle Obama

was doing it today.

She needs young voters.

GWEN IFILL: Popcorn, people.

Popcorn from now on until then.

Thank you, everyone.

We have to leave you for now, but the conversation will continue online on Washington

Week Extra, where we'll pick up where we left off here, perhaps talk a little bit about

Vladimir Putin, maybe a little bit about Michelle Obama.

Those two names have never been in one sentence.

While you're there, check out video of my chat with Colorado College students last week

about the difference between objectivity and fairness.

Yes, there is a difference.

It's all at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek.

Keep up with developments with me and

Judy Woodruff over on the PBS NewsHour.

And we'll see you next week here

on Washington Week.

Good night.