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Speaker Ryan Not Ready to Endorse Trump; FBI to Interview Clinton on E-mails Within Weeks; Heavily armed U.S. Marines Arrive in Baghdad; Clinton Nudging Sanders to Exit Race? Aired 10-10:30a ET
Aired May 06, 2016 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:02] CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "CONAN": When asked why, Trump said opposites attract.
MOOS: New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Are you're going to be so happy? You're going to be so happy. They said you're now the nominee.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: You have the presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. Will you support him?
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), HOUSE SPEAKER: I'm just not ready to do that at this point. I'm not there right now.
TRUMP: You don't have to vote any more. Save your vote for the general election, OK. Forget this one. The primary is gone.
RYAN: I think that he needs to do more to unify this party, to bring all wings of the Republican Party together.
REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: They're both committed to sitting down and actually talking this out.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We can't have a loose cannon in the Oval Office.
RYAN: No Republican should ever think about supporting Hillary Clinton. Let me make that clear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, good morning. Great to have you along with us on what's shaping up to be a very busy Friday morning. I'm Pamela Brown in for Carol Costello. And we begin this hour with a party at odds and efforts to make peace. We're learning House Speaker Paul Ryan and Donald Trump will meet next
week behind closed doors after Ryan told CNN he's not ready to back Trump. He dropped that bombshell on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So, Mr. Speaker, you have said throughout this process that you will support the Republican presidential nominee. Now you have a presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. Will you support him?
RYAN: Well, to be perfectly candid with you, Jake, I'm just not ready to do that at this point. I'm not there right now. And I hope to, though, and I want to but I think what is required is that we unify this party and I think the bulk of the burden on unifying the party will have to come from our presumptive nominee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And as you may have guessed, Trump punched back saying he's not ready to back Ryan's agenda in Congress. Even the unflappable Trump was caught off guard by Ryan's stiff arm. The party chairman Reince Priebus describing the aftermath.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How quickly did Donald Trump call you?
(LAUGHTER)
PRIEBUS: Well, I had talked to him already once that day, but I had talked to Donald Trump and Paul Ryan multiple times yesterday afternoon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But Donald Trump called you within minutes.
PRIEBUS: You're pretty good. I can't lie. No, I wouldn't lie anyway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. That's right. OK. What was his mood?
PRIEBUS: You know, it wasn't like furious or anything. It was just like what do -- what do I need to do? I mean -- and so I said, listen, let me just -- you know, my view is just relax and be gracious, and I'll talk to Paul, and we'll try to work on this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you are --
PRIEBUS: And I kind of like don't get overly hot either quickly, so, I mean, I know Paul really well, and I know he's being honest, and I know how he feels. And so I'm comfortable with the idea that it's going to take some time in some cases for people to work through differences, and so we talked about it and talked about it multiple times, and they're very comfortable with sitting down with Donald Trump.
And it may be at my office, it may be somewhere else, but we're going to have that meeting. Start the process of unifying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: All right. Let's bring in CNN's Phil Mattingly in New York.
Phil, just based on what Reince Priebus there, it seems like Donald Trump is sort of caught off-guard, shaken, by what Paul Ryan told CNN yesterday.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no question about it, Pam. Advisers telling me that they gave -- the Ryan team gave no heads up to the Trump campaign whatsoever. The first he saw and learned about it was in the CNN interview, and obviously, as Reince Priebus recalling there, he called Reince Priebus shortly thereafter.
And it's an interesting kind of place that Reince Priebus, the RNC chairman, stands in right now, essentially trying to broker the peace, if you will, between the top elected Republican and now the party's standard bearer. But it's also interesting to look at what the issues Paul Ryan has, Pam, and that is there are multiple and they are not just on policy grounds. Policy, there's major diversions between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan's agenda, one that many Republicans have staked their elections and campaigns on over the last couple cycles is one that Donald Trump largely disagrees with.
But it's also on tone. And that's something Paul Ryan made very clear in his interview with Jake yesterday. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: It's time to set aside bullying, to set aside belittlement, and appeal to higher aspirations. Appeal to what is good in us, but for this to work, our presumptive nominee, I believe, needs to unify the party for the party to be unified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[10:05:08] MATTINGLY: And how Donald Trump defines unification of the party I think is an open question, and it's also when you talk about the tone issue one that Donald Trump has pushed back on saying multiple times both publicly and I've been told in private with advisers that what he's been doing has been working and working very well at least in a Republican primary.
Listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He talks about unity, but what is this about unity? And you know, with millions of people coming into the party, obviously I'm saying the right thing. And you know, the party was stayed, it had a lot of problems, whether it was the right or the wrong thing, whatever they were saying, wasn't doing it. And now the Republican Party is the talk of the world because there is no place and no party that is, you know, increasing its scope like we have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: And Pam, the reality here is the Trump campaign has started to work very hard behind the scenes to mend fences on Capitol Hill, to get lawmakers more comfortable with the Trump candidacy, with the reality that Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, but Paul Ryan making very clear now more work needs to be done. The big question, though, Pam, is how willing is Donald Trump to do that work and to actually make changes in the campaign he's been running that so far, as he said, has worked.
BROWN: And we're going to discuss that coming up.
Phil Mattingly, thank you so much.
And Trump has to do more, as we know, than just win over the party's leaders. There are lots of lawmakers who worry that Trump and his fiery rhetoric could jeopardize their re-elections.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Why aren't you willing to support him as of now?
SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: Well, some of the positions he's taken make it very difficult to support him. I hope that he -- I hope that he changes.
RAJU: What about on the wall with Mexico?
FLAKE: Well, I mean, that's -- frankly, just in the class of kind of nutty things. You know, I don't know of anybody who really believes that.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: There will be a lot of people just vote straight ticket. We know that from past history, but also -- and that is going to make this an even more difficult election campaign for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And with me now to discuss all of this, Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. He's joined by CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson and radio talk show host John Phillips, a Trump supporter.
Where to begin, gentlemen? Thank you so much for coming on.
BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.
BROWN: I guess I'll begin just with --
JOHN PHILLIPS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Good morning.
BROWN: -- the general reaction, John, to you first on that. We heard through Reince Priebus what Trump's reaction was to Speaker Ryan withholding his support for now. What was yours? This is clearly a rare move.
PHILLIPS: Well, I think it says more about Paul Ryan and his ascent to power than anything else. If you look at how he's attained his leadership positions, it's because everyone around him has collapsed. It wasn't supposed to be him that was supposed to be Mitt Romney's nominee back in 2012. It was supposed to be Marco Rubio and then they found something when they were doing the background check, doing the vetting process they didn't like. Paul Ryan was the last man standing. He became the VP nominee.
If you look at how he became speaker of the House, he was one of the young guns with Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor. Those guys were in better positions to be speaker of the House. They both collapsed and he became speaker of the House. So I think this is a political calculation from Paul Ryan where he's saying to himself, look, Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee unofficially. Officially he hasn't secured the delegates yet, the 1,237.
If he does something to implode, I think Paul Ryan wants to leave the door open to launch a campaign for president himself at the convention in Cleveland.
BROWN: All right, Ben. You're laughing.
FERGUSON: Yes, let me jump in here. I think that's absolutely the most ridiculous thing I have heard since Donald Trump quoting "National Enquirer" saying that Ted Cruz's dad was connected to the assassination of JFK. I didn't know it could be topped, but congratulations, you just did it.
The reason why Paul Ryan is withholding his support is very simple. People -- many people are concerned that Donald Trump is going to do something that will be toxic and it will hurt their re-election campaign. There are many congressmen, many senators, and many people on the state level that are afraid that Donald Trump is going to cross a line and it will hurt everyone who is on a ticket, on a ballot at the same time.
What people need to understand about what Paul Ryan was saying this is, if you want everyone to get behind you, you are going to have to start acting like more of a statesman. You cannot quote the "National Enquirer," throw it out there two days ago and then expect everyone to get around you just because you're willing to go to the lowest form of politics to try to destroy other Republicans.
That's why he said this. And so there does need to be a higher level of professionalism, of decorum from Donald Trump and not only Donald Trump but his campaign staff and others that support him to make sure that everyone is on the same team. Donald Trump supporters have been vile over the last 48 hours, trashing anyone who was not on the Trump train early on.
[10:10:04] That is not how you win a general election. I think Paul Ryan was standing up for many people that have been taking the heat saying, if you've got to set the tone, Donald, for your supporters, for your campaign, and you can't go to the "National Enquirer," the lowest form of politics, and expect everybody to jump on board.
BROWN: Right. OK. So, Larry, you know, on that note, Donald Trump has been able to get to this point, becoming the presumptive Republican nominee without Paul Ryan's support. How much does he need his support, though, in the general election?
This is someone who is the speaker of the House, very powerful and well respected within the Republican Part.
LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Well, the short answer is, of course, he can win without them again just as he won the nomination, but let's broaden this out, Pam, because what's happening is extraordinary. The last time that a former Republican president did not support the Republican nominee was in 1912 when former president Teddy Roosevelt ran against his successor, President William Howard Taft, both for the nomination and then as the bull moose independent in the general election and destroyed his chances of winning.
Even in 1964 when Barry Goldwater, a very divisive candidate on the Republican side, was nominated, former President Eisenhower not only supported Goldwater, but appeared in his advertising. So it's not just Paul Ryan. It's President Bush 41 and President Bush 43 and the last Republican nominee for president, Mitt Romney.
This is a problem for Donald Trump and the Republicans, and between now and the convention, they're going to have to find ways to fashion some sort of party unity that lasts until November or it is going to have an impact.
BROWN: Well, John, in order to get these people on his side, not just Paul Ryan but the others that Larry points out who are not throwing their support behind him, do you think Trump should bend on certain issues and his tone? Tone is something that we keep hearing as a concern from Republicans, including Paul Ryan.
PHILLIPS: Look, Trump is winning. Trump should keep doing what Trump is doing. I think for these people to come around, they just need to talk to their constituents. You played clips of Jeff Flake and John McCain earlier in the segment. Donald Trump won the state of Arizona and he won it going away. Larry brought up Mitt Romney. Donald Trump won the state of Massachusetts going away.
So I think for these people to fall in line, they just need -- they need a little bit of time from the primary. It was a very tough primary, a lot of hurt feelings were out there. As soon as you have some separation, as soon as there's some daylight in between the primary and the general, and Donald Trump shifts his attacks from fellow Republicans to Hillary Clinton, they will find the common enemy and fall in line because he's the only game in town.
BROWN: All right. Larry Sabato, Ben Ferguson, John Phillips, thank you.
PHILLIPS: Thanks. BROWN: And still to come on this Friday, the FBI nears the end of the
investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail server. Why the agency is honing in on Clinton's inner circle?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:17:15] BROWN: Right now the FBI is focused on Hillary Clinton's inner circle as the agency prepares to sit down with the Democratic candidate. It's all part of the investigation into Clinton's use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. CNN broke the news that some of Clinton's top aides, including Huma Abedin, seen right here, have already been pulled in for questioning.
Here's how Clinton responded when she was asked earlier this week about whether she had been contacted by the FBI for an interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREA MITCHELL, MSNBC ANCHOR: You know I've got to just ask you whether, since you last mentioned this to my colleague, Chuck Todd, in April, have you been contacted or your representatives been contacted by the FBI to set up an interview?
CLINTON: No.
MITCHELL: No contact there?
CLINTON: No.
MITCHELL: Any indication that your private server was hacked by foreign hackers?
CLINTON: No, not at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Let's get right to CNN justice reporter Evan Perez.
So, Evan, Republicans are using that as ammo, but we just spoke to Bryan Fallon the last hour. He addressed those comments saying that they're not misleading. What did he say?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Pamela. He dismissed these comments and says that the Republicans are simply trying to grasp at straws to create a new controversy. Take a listen to how he put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN FALLON, PRESS SECRETARY, HILLARY FOR AMERICA: David Kendall is her top counsel and he has been in touch with the Justice Department throughout this review. We've always been very upfront about that. I think the question Andrea was asking was whether David Kendall or Hillary Clinton herself had been contacted about actually scheduling the date for the interview, and she said no because the honest answer is it hasn't happened yet. But whenever they do, we'll be happy to accommodate that and make it
happen. In fact, as I indicated, we've been offering that since last August. So I think Republicans are trying to create a problem here where no inconsistency exists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREZ: And Pamela, we expect that that interview with the FBI will be coming very, very soon, probably in the next couple of weeks, and this investigation clearly is near wrapping up. As you mentioned earlier, they're bringing in these aides, some of her closest aides for interviews quietly to the FBI field office just a few blocks from where we're sitting. It's an indication that this is nearing an end.
And so far, according to the people that you and I have spoken to, there is no indication that the FBI has proof that she willfully violated the law. So now what this means is that the FBI is going to turn over its findings to the Justice Department. The attorney general, Loretta Lynch, is going to make a final call here on whether or not there are any charges to be brought, and it's clear that everybody is keeping an eye on the political calendar with two months to go before the Democratic convention takes place.
BROWN: Yes. Exactly, investigators have to be mindful of that.
Evan Perez, thank you so much for bringing us the latest.
And first on CNN, additional troops have been sent to Baghdad. We have just learned that 25 heavily armed U.S. Marines are now on site at the U.S. embassy in the Iraqi capital.
[10:20:04] Barbara Starr joins us live from the Pentagon with more on this breaking news -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Pamela.
The Marines arriving in the last several hours to beef up security at the embassy. The concern has been since last week when hundreds of demonstrators broke into Baghdad's Green Zone. The pictures were very compelling. These are anti-government protesters in Iraq demonstrating against the government there somewhat at the behest of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The concern had been again Friday today that more demonstrations would break out.
So far the day appears to have been relatively peaceful in the Green Zone where the U.S. embassy is located. That's why the Marines were sent there. But there is -- these pictures of course from last week. But always concern, you know, in the wake of the disastrous attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya some years ago, the State Department taking no chances, requesting this additional security. The Marines are there.
Right now the word is everything is relatively calm. In fact, the U.S. doesn't believe these protesters are really aiming for any demonstration against the U.S., against the U.S. embassy, but the Green Zone is supposed to be the most secure area. The U.S. embassy is there. The Marines are there to make sure they keep it secure -- Pamela.
BROWN: Barbara Starr, thank you for bringing us the latest on that story.
And still ahead on this Friday, she hasn't told Bernie Sanders to end his campaign, but Hillary Clinton is giving her Democratic opponent a nudge.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:26:05] BROWN: Checking out top stories on this Friday. Wall Street edging lower this morning after a bumpy jobs report showed a slowdown in hiring. 160,000 jobs were added last month. That's well below estimates. The unemployment rate held steady at 5 percent.
And bombshell allegations against former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. An insurance company involved in a lawsuit with the university is now claiming Paterno knew his assistant, Jerry Sandusky, was molesting children as early as 1976. That's more than a decade before what was believed to be the first known incident of abuse by Sandusky.
And this morning Canadian officials are leading a convoy with hundreds of cars through a fire ravaged town in Fort McMurray, Alberta. A helicopter is flying above them to help track the flames and they're trying to get men, women, and children who had been trapped north of that fire to emergency services just south of it.
We will find out today if London, England makes history by electing the first Muslim mayor of any major European city. That's after an unusually bitter race between Labour candidate Sadiq Khan, son of a Pakistani immigrant, and conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, son of a billionaire. Goldsmith has been accused of using, quote, "vile race politics" during his campaign.
Well, good morning. I'm Pamela Brown in for Carol Costello. Thanks for being here with me on this Friday.
The frontrunners facing off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The kind of language coming from Donald Trump is hateful.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Here is a person under investigation by the FBI. She's only going to get the nomination because it's a rigged deal, and, frankly, maybe she won't even be able to run.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, we are just about six months out from the big vote, and it looks like we're getting a taste of what's to come. The path now clear for Trump, but on the Democratic side Bernie Sanders is still hanging in there. So Clinton seems to be giving him a gentle nudge and she's using her own '08 loss to do it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I am nearly 300 pledged delegates ahead of Senator Sanders. When I was running against then-Senator Obama, he and I were neck and neck in the popular vote, but I knew that he had won.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: All right. Joining me now is CNN political commentator and former executive director of the Congress Black Caucus, Angela Rye, and CNN political commentator and host, Marc Lamont Hill.
Thank you both for coming on.
Angela, to you first, we just heard Clinton talking there sort of seeming to nudge Sanders to leave the race because essentially it's mathematically impossible for him to clinch the nomination. Is it time for that to happen in your view?
ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's not. And I actually didn't hear her say it in that way. I think that she is telling him what is mathematically plausible at this point and I think that it's something that we all know and can see as well. The reality of this is just as she talked about. In 2008 when it was between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, she stayed in the race through June, and I think that you have the same situation .
There were some tougher races up front, and even on the back end in 2008 she was winning elections that, of course, were challenging and even embarrassing for Barack Obama's campaign when it's clear he's going to be the nominee but he's still losing races to Hillary Clinton.
You're going to have the same situation coming up most likely on this upcoming Tuesday and the Tuesday following with Bernie Sanders likely to win, but it is going to be very challenging for him to clinch the nomination at this point, but I don't hear her nudging him out at all and he shouldn't get out.
BROWN: What do you hear, Marc? Do you think she's nudging him out right there with her comments?
MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I hear a slight nudge. She said, look, when I was running against Barack Obama, it was close, and I eventually had to accept that he won. Essentially she's saying Bernie should accept that she won.
Now when you see nudging on the Republican side, it's a very different thing. Trump was like, you guys are losers, you need to go. Hillary Clinton is not saying that and I don't think -- and I don't think that she'll beat up on Bernie Sanders for staying in. But I do think she would prefer to be able to direct her attention entirely to the Republican field if she thinks she's going to win. But Bernie Sanders has an important point here.
