FBI Investigates Newly Discovered Clinton E-mails; How Will Barack Obama Address Clinton E-mail Problems; Carl Bernstein Predicted Clinton E-mail Problems Months Ago
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>BALDWIN: Welcome back to our breaking news. We are live at the Tampa Museum of Art in Florida. We'll talk the significance of Florida for both Donald Trump's and Hillary Clinton's path to the White House through this state. But first, the breaking story from the FBI today. FBI Director James Comey is reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private e- mail server. He's allowing his investigators to review e-mails -- we don't know whose e-mails they are, by the way -- to determine whether they contain classified information and assess their importance in the investigation. It's unlikely we will get any his investigation before Election Day. Reminder, it's 11 days away. Michelle Kosinski is our White House correspondent. She is standing by. Also a reminder to everyone, the president of the United States will be back in this crucial battleground state of Florida in just a couple of hours from now. Obviously, stumping for Hillary Clinton, and I'm sure he'll mention the Senate race as well. But, Michelle Kosinski, on this breaking news, the president himself has said Clinton has flaws. How will he address this?</s>MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's the big question here. You know the White House is working on how to respond to this. They haven't said anything yet. they're not responding to requests at this point. President Obama just left the White House en route to Florida. Reporters were yelling a barrage of questions at him on the subject and he didn't answer them at this point. But you know, this reminds me of the first time he appeared on by side with Hillary Clinton. It was in North Carolina. And that, remember, was on the very same day that James Comey announced his findings of that initial investigation. Neither the president, nor Hillary Clinton mentioned any of that in their address to the crowd that day. And it could be a similar situation today. It's interesting to look out, though, how the president has spoken about this as recently as yesterday. Not specific to her emails, but he said, yes, Hillary Clinton -- the way he framed this, this was on a radio show, he said she gets a bad rap but that she has flaws. Quote, "She's made mistakes in the past just like everybody has, but these are nothing," he said, "compared to the daily ongoing transgressions Mr. Trump engages in." And he said, "Whether it's cheating people who work for him by not paying them, his attitudes towards women, his attitudes towards minorities, his attitudes towards civil rights, and his attitudes toward Muslim Americans." So it tells you a lot about how he could frame his response to the news that everybody knows is out there as he's campaigning for her in Florida today. So he needs to make a strong case for her and for the good qualities she has. And you know he's going to want to hit upon hardworking and honest and having the best of intentions. And he wants to make, as bad a case as possible, against Donald Trump. In fact, he was in Florida just about a week ago and that's where we heard one of his most energetic takedowns of Donald Trump, using words like "crazy and "toxic, erratic and dangerous." And the president has sort of become looser on the campaign trail speaking what seems to be more from his heart, wanting to say what's on his mind. So it will be interesting to see how he, without addressing specifics related to Hillary Clinton's e-mails, that's likely going to be the case, but how he addresses the entire situation through the words he chooses to say -- Brooke?</s>BALDWIN: Michelle, thank you. Michelle Kosinski. On Hillary Clinton, you're looking at live pictures. She is speaking at her rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We have a lot of ears listening in. As soon as she mentions or addresses this breaking news that we've been discussing from the FBI, we will take it live. Carl Bernstein -- Carl Bernstein is on the phone with me. Carl, we have been talking for months and months and months about the election. You wrote the definitive book on the Clintons, on Hillary Clinton. You've been saying that this is drip, drip, drip that could ultimately haunt her.</s>CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR (voice-over): Well, there's no question that the e-mails have always been the greatest threat to her candidacy for president, that her conduct in regard to the e-mails is really indefensible. And if there was going to be more information that came out, it was the one thing, as I said on the air last night, actually, that could really perhaps affect this election. We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the director of the FBI would take would action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of Congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation. So that's where we are. Is it a certainty that we won't learn before the election? I'm not sure it's a certainty we won't learn before the election. One is it's possible that Hillary Clinton might want to on her own initiative talk to the FBI and find out what she can, and if she chooses to, let the American people know what she thinks or knows is going on. Because, obviously --</s>BALDWIN: But, Carl --</s>BERNSTEIN: -- people need to hear from her.</s>BALDWIN: Carl, I'm sitting here in Florida and reminding myself that early voting has begun here. And this will be, for folks paying attention to this campaign, or folks who are either undecided or not, this will be a big early voting weekend here in Florida. What can, what should Hillary Clinton say to address this for voters in these key swing states?</s>BERNSTEIN: I think if she has information available to her from the FBI or any other source as to her knowledge of what these e-mails might be, hopefully. she will let us know what they are and what is under discussion here. Right now, we're all talking in a vacuum. But I want to add here that in the last, oh, 36, 48 hours, there has been an undercurrent of kind of speculative discussion among some national security people that something might surface in the next few days about e-mails. And I think the expectation in this chatter -- and I took it as just chatter, but informed chatter, to some extent -- was that it would relate to another round of WikiLeaks e-mails, which our Justice Department people seem to be saying is not the case. But there has been some noise in the national security community the last day or two of this kind of possibility of some kind of revelation.</s>BALDWIN: OK.</s>BERNSTEIN: But this is her Achilles heel and we have to remember that it also comes on the -- back to the word heel -- of the revelations about the Clinton Foundation. So the confluence of all of this is bad for her as it stands now. But with some knowledge, she might be able to stop, turn things around, and give us some idea of what's going on in a way we might not otherwise know. And also, it's very possible that some members of Congress very quickly are going to get an idea of what these e-mails are and what this is all about and, for whatever purpose, put some information out there.</s>BALDWIN: All right. We will see because, thus far, we don't know a heck of a lot. Just to be clear, we don't know if these are even Hillary Clinton's own e-mails in question. We just know Director Comey said these are pertinent to the investigation. Carl Bernstein, thank you so much for calling in. Always love having your voice in these sorts of conversations. Next, we are getting breaking information on how the State Department is reacting to this news from the FBI.