[Mike Shields, President, Congressional Leadership Fund & Former Chief Of Staff, Republican National Committee:] She's going to announce something today on gun control. In 2000, she was for gun control. In 2008, she was against gun control. Now again, she's for gun control. And what we know is like within 14 hours, that story will be out of the news anyway because there will be another e-mail revelation that comes out. I'm sure she's going to try to lean into this. She has to keep coming up with answers for Benghazi. But the fact is, this is damaging to her campaign. The polls you just talked about reflect how poorly her campaign is going. I think the only people that see Hillary Clinton as a good candidate are the people in her campaign and all the Democrats in Washington that seem to be blindly following her.
[John Berman, Cnn Anchor:] She's leading in every national poll.
[Shields:] Right, right.
[Berman:] So the people that think she's
[Shields:] Well, she's leading, but when you add up the numbers, when you add up the numbers look at one of the polls, she has 33 percent. Sanders has 28 percent and Biden has 22 percent. That's 33 percent for Hillary, 50 percent for someone not Hillary.
[Brad Woodhouse, Former Communications Director, Democratic National Committee:] Biden -Joe Biden's not in the race. Joe Biden's not even in the race. Look, on this Benghazi thing
[Shields:] Not yet.
[Woodhouse:] this is an abomination what the Republicans have done. The Republican Select Committee in the House has become an annex of the Republican National Committee. Seven previous congressional investigations found no wrongdoing but they had to set up one more to try to go after Hillary Clinton. Kevin McCarthy said what it was about. It was about to bring her about bringing her poll numbers down. It wasn't about substance.
[Bolduan:] Mike, what do you say about that? That's a pretty strong charge.
[Shields:] Well, look, the fact of the matter is, that committee was set up because the administration and Hillary Clinton weren't answering questions. We find out about these e-mails. This is a perfect example. Hillary Clinton believes those are her e-mails. When you work for the government, those are not your e-mails. Those are the people's e-mails. And the people get to decide whether they get FOIA'ed. They get to decide whether or not they're classified. She violated all those rules because she plays by her own rules.
[Woodhouse:] You know what? Mike, that is wrong.
[Shields:] So
[Woodhouse:] The Justice Department said that she, like every public employee, gets to decide what names are personal, what are business. She turned over
[Shields:] She's never explained why she did it. She's never explained. We know why she did it. We know why she did it. She doesn't want people to see her e-mails.
[Berman:] Look, if there's a political argument like this before that committee, then I think Hillary may have a point there, right?
[Bolduan:] But, Brad, what is Hillary Clinton what your advice, if you're advising her, what's your advice when she goes in before that committee? Because after this debate, that is a huge moment for her when she goes before this committee.
[Woodhouse:] I think she should continue to be transparent. She's been more transparent than almost any public official has been with respect to releasing e-mails. We didn't get a single e-mail released from either secretary of state in the George Bush administration. She's released 33,000 pages. I think, be transparent, be forceful, you know, be contrite. She's apologized for the confusion it's caused. But don't let these people play politics as they have with the lives of four dead Americans.
[Bolduan:] Mike, she just turned her biggest liability into a big net positive for her. Because how are Republicans going to combat that charge if she levels it at them before this committee?
[Shields:] I think you'll see a committee trying to get to the truth about what happened in Benghazi. You'll see it isn't political. All the political stuff we're talking about is not what's going to be in front of that committee. This is an investigation to find out exactly who knew what and what happened when an ambassador and four Americans were killed in Benghazi. We still haven't gotten to the bottom of that. There's been stonewalling. There's been obfuscation. The administration has not been transparent on this. This committee would not have any ground, it would have Democrats on it, working with Republicans, if they had actually told the truth and we got to the bottom of what happened. So I actually look forward to seeing the committee proving it's not political because they're going to ask substantive questions. And the last time she went in front of a committee is when she said, "What difference does it make." So Hillary's performance in front of these committees is not what I would call transparent.
[Woodhouse:] Kate, they cannot prove it's not political because by the time this hearing takes place, the Republicans will have a speaker of the House that said that's what it was entirely about.
[Shields:] We'll see.
[Woodhouse:] So they can't disprove
[Bolduan:] We'll see.
[Woodhouse:] that it wasn't political. It absolutely was political.
[Berman:] Brad Woodhouse, Mike Shields, we'll have to see, because that charge has put Kevin McCarthy in hot water and perhaps won him a new challenge from Jason Chaffetz. Gentlemen, thank you much.
[Woodhouse:] Thank you.
[Bolduan:] Great to see you both. Thank you. A reminder for all of you, the first Democratic presidential debate airs one week from tomorrow, Tuesday, October 13th right here on CNN at 9:00 p.m. eastern.
[Berman:] Very exciting. Any minute now, we'll hear from South Carolina's Governor Nikki Haley on the flooding there. The one in a 1,000-year rainfall. Desperate rescue efforts under way. First responders searching for people that could be trapped by these waters. We'll speak to a storm chaser who filmed just a stunning rescue ahead.
[Bolduan:] And a face-off on Capitol Hill as the battle for speaker of the House heats up. Will anyone have enough votes to win the position?