'This Week' Transcript: Eric Trump, Joel Benenson, and Evan McMullin

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT FOR 'THIS WEEK' ON October 23, 2016 and it will be updated.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC HOST: OK. We are going to bring in Joel Benenson, now chief strategist for the Clinton campaign also the top pollster as well.

And, Joel, thank you for coming in this morning. You just heard what Eric Trump had to say. And I want to show a video that gets into what he was talking about, these charges of inciting violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're there and you're protesting and you do these actions, you will be attacked at Trump rallies.

That's what we want.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, so -- oh, oh, so that's part of the process of getting -- of eliciting the reaction.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: the point is we know that Trump's people will freak the (INAUDIBLE) out. His security team will freak out and his supporters will lose their (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: This is pretty shocking stuff. Now I know there have been questions about these O'Keefe (ph) videos in the past, about the editing --

(CROSSTALK)

JOEL BENENSON, CLINTON CAMPAIGN SENIOR STRATEGIST: (INAUDIBLE) questions of O'Keefe (ph).

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet, yet both those operatives who were in these videos have now resigned and they did receive money from the DNC. They were subcontractors.

Isn't this exactly the kind of behavior you all have been complaining about?

BENENSON: Well, it's a video of somebody who has a track record of doctoring videos. These people have resigned; whether they were talking to him on camera or whether they had some snippet there that's been manipulated and taken out of context, I don't know.

It's actually the first time I've seen the video, George.

But what's been going on throughout this campaign, in Donald Trump's own words, we have video of Donald Trump saying, punch him in the mouth. I want him carried out on a stretcher.

I mean this is a candidate running for President of the United States. So if the Republicans and Donald Trump or Eric Trump want to talk about James O'Keefe instead of the words of the nominee of the Republican Party, I think it's showing a sign of desperation here in the last weeks of the --

STEPHANOPOULOS: But are you confident you don't have other operatives out there doing exactly the same thing?

BENENSON: I'm pretty confident. I mean, I think, as I said, we're talking about a guy who has a track record of doctoring videos. These people resigned, as you said.

And if this was happening day in and day out, we would know about it, number one.

And number two, Donald Trump, day after day, on the stump, was inciting people at his -- he said, I'd like to punch him in the mouth. I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and I wouldn't lose a single vote.

I mean, let's be honest about who here has been inciting violence day in and day out at Trump rallies. It's been Donald Trump. And I think it's part of the reason why he's been lagging in the polls, why he's been unable to reach beyond his base, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You saw our poll out this morning, 50-38, that's the biggest margin we've shown in any of our polls.

Number one, is that what you all think is happening with the race right now?

Is it over?

BENENSON: Well, look, I don't think it's -- I've been in this for a while. I don’t think it's over until the people vote. But what I think has been happening consistently -- and especially from the conventions on and through the debates -- is that Hillary Clinton is the only candidate in this race who's been talking to people beyond their base.

Yes, we have a strong Democratic base. It's stronger than the Republican base but she's been reaching out to Republicans, independents, moderate voters.

I think your poll shows that. And the reason why is because these people believe in America. They're optimistic about America and they want a president who will lift each other up, not tear each other down.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The poll also shows that almost 60 percent, 59 percent of voters still are having a hard time with how Hillary Clinton is handling this whole e-mail issue.

Can you put that behind you?

BENENSON: Well, I think when you look at your poll numbers, I think it is one factor that people are putting into their whole decision and what your poll shows is hat voters have put it behind them. They're making a decision now between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

And they're factoring in everything they know about the people. There's a lot of things in there about Donald Trump that people are very unsatisfied with, including the fact that he's calling the election rigged and says he won't accept the results.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We've also had a lot of focus on these WikiLeaks e-mails in recent days.

Donald Trump, yesterday in Gettysburg, talked about banning contributions from lobbyists who register for foreign -- for foreign -- either foreign governments or corporations.

And there was an exchange in the e-mails between Jennifer Palmieri and Robby Mook, where you guys debating whether or not to take money from foreign lobbyists.

Robby Mook, "I'm OK just taking the money and dealing with any attacks.

Are you guys OK with that?"

Jennifer Palmieri, "Take the money."

Does Donald Trump have a point right there?

Should this kind of should these kinds of contributions be allowed?

BENENSON: Well, first of all, I'll tell you something, I haven't spent a lot of time reading through WikiLeaks e-mails.

But I will tell you this, what we know is that many are not authentic. We know that this is a hack, 17 of Russians -- no, because these e-mails, we have no idea whether they are authentic or not or whether they've been tampered with once the Russians, which 17 American intelligence agencies say are responsible for these hackings, have been manipulated. I have seen things -- I'm not going to go into details --

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you're not suggesting that those are --

BENENSON: They may well be. I don't know. I know I've seen things that aren't authentic, that we know aren't authentic. And it's not surprising. What's ridiculous about this whole conversation is that 17 intelligence agencies have said the Russians are responsible for this. Donald Trump refuses to accept it, refuses to condemn them.

They are meddling in an American election for the first time in history, as far as we know, and we have a Republican nominee for president who refuses to acknowledge what the American intelligence agencies have confirmed or condemn the bad actors here, who happen to be the Russians.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's take a look at the strategy for the last two weeks.

How explicit is Hillary Clinton going to be in saying give me a Congress I can work with, number one?

And as you allocate resources -- we saw you go into Arizona this week -- how are you going to divide time between trying to run up the electoral map and trying to get a Senate and a House on your side?

BENENSON: Look, I think you make these decisions almost day by day, George. You're in the last, you know, two weeks of a campaign basically, 16 days at this point and you know what it's like in those days. You want to make sure you solidify the votes in the states that you have and reach out where you can.

I think, in terms of going forward with the Congress, I mean, Hillary Clinton has made it clear that she wants to bring this country together. She wants to unite people, as she's said --

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: How is she going to do that?

BENENSON: Look, you were in the White House with her. You know how she does it, the same way she worked with Tom Delay, a Republican, the Whip of the floor of the House of Representatives, to get reform on foster care, to get more kids adopted, so that they could get adopted out of foster care.

She worked with someone who is a bitter archenemy to find common ground on issues you agree on and move the ball forward to make progress that will make a difference in people's lives.

It's what she did when she got, you know, defeated on health care in '94, went back to work, worked with Democrats and Republicans to get CHIP, insurance for kids, passed that now ensure 8 million kids.

She has a track record of doing that. Look, no one's here going into this with rose-colored glasses, saying it's going to be easy. But I think there's only one candidate in the race and that is Hillary Clinton, who is talking about the need to bring the country together, to be building an economy that works for everyone, not those at the top, and make sure that is a country -- we create the country we want to be, living up to our values, where we do have each other's backs, not turning our backs on each other.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But your biggest worry right now?

BENENSON: Last couple of weeks, your biggest worry is something unexpected. You know, the first race I did, George, on the consulting side when I left journalism, was with Governor Mario Cuomo.

And he said to me, the first day I worked for him, Benenson, you know, in every election, there are going to be three things no matter how well prepared you are you can never anticipate.

And how you deal with those three things and how each candidate does is going to determine who wins this election.

We probably had more than three things we couldn't anticipate in this one. But I think we just have to stay steady, stick with our plan, keep delivering the message that Hillary Clinton is delivering about, building the country we want to be and the people that we want to be for the future of our children and the next generation.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Joel Benenson, thanks for coming in.

BENENSON: Thanks for having me, George.

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