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Two Former CIA Chiefs Come Out Against Trump; Trump Posing as Own Press Spokesman?; Questions About Clinton Foundation. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired May 13, 2016 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[15:00:02]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: It's just awful. It really drives home -- his death drives home the epidemic that is playing out in Chicago and other major cities across the country where homicides are on the rise.

Ryan Young, thank you.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No easy answer.

BROWN: I'm Pamela Brown, in for Brooke Baldwin on this Friday.

And just one day after Donald Trump -- quote -- "found common ground" with Republican leaders in Washington and made his case to those undecided in his party, the presumptive nominee is confronting new questions about his policies and his past.

We're going to start with an audio recording from the 1990s that raises questions about whether Trump may have posed as his own press spokesman. "The Washington Post" obtained recordings of phone interviews conducted early in Trump's real estate career and on separate occasions two alleged media reps named John Miller and John Barron speak on behalf of Trump.

In the exchange we're about to play for you, John Miller discusses Trump's divorce from Ivana Trump and his relationship with future wife Marla Maples. Curious thing is, the voice might sound pretty familiar.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it is just that he really decided that he wasn't -- you know, he didn't want to make any commitment. He didn't want to make a commitment.

He really thought it was too son. He was coming out of a -- you know, a marriage and he's starting to do tremendously well financially.

As you saw, he got his license 5-0 the other day, and totally unanimous. And he's really been working hard and doing well. And probably, as you, know there's a real estate depression in the United States. And he's probably doing as well as anybody there is.

And, frankly, he wants to keep it that way. And he just thought it was too soon to make any commitment to anybody.

QUESTION: So, what is going to happen to -- is she being asked to leave or is she going to be allowed to stay?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, she can -- he treats everybody well. And you don't know him, but he's a...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: No, I have met him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you met him?

QUESTION: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a good guy and he's not going to hurt anybody.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

BROWN: But on "The Today Show," Trump said that was not his voice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Is it you?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No. I don't think it -- I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time and it doesn't sound like my voice at all.

QUESTION: "The Post" said that you acknowledged a couple of decades ago that in fact was you, but it was a joke.

TRUMP: I don't think it was me. It doesn't sound like me. I don't know even what they're talking about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right.

Let's talk about all of this with CNN political analyst, chief political analyst Gloria Borger, CNN national political reporter Maeve Reston. And David Catanese, he's a senior political reporter for "The U.S. News & World Report."

Thank you to the three of you for coming on.

Gloria, first off, just kind of break it down for us. How relevant is a tape like this to the race?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I think at this point in a political race, when you're narrowing down your choices, you start and we in the media in particular, you start looking at a candidate differently.

And one of the things you look at in a candidate is who they are, what their character is, what their history was, what their background is. Trust is a big issue when you look at a political candidate.

This is a story that "The Post." It's been well-known for years because Trump himself admitted it, as "The Post" points out, back in the -- back in the early '90s that he on occasion had posed as a spokesman and he called it a joke gone awry.

And I think today he was kind of confronted. Maybe he was caught a little bit off-guard by it. But it was something that the journalists who worked for "People" magazine even wrote about at the time.

And let me read you the headline of her piece. She says: "Trump says goodbye to Marla, hello Carla, and a mysterious P.R. man who sounds just like Donald calls to spread the story."

So this was kind of well-known and, you know, in a way, it would have been easy for Trump today to say, look, that was something that was decades ago and it was a joke and it was something I used to do. And now let's get on to the serious stuff.

But he denied it completely, so we're just going to have to watch to see how this plays out.

BROWN: And if it comes out, David, that it is him and that he, in fact, lied about it today on "The Today Show," how much damage could that cause?

DAVID CATANESE, "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": Well, listen to what he actually said in the quote.

He said, I think it's not me. I never heard this before. He's very careful with his words. First of all, of course this is him. He admitted it in a court deposition in 1990 that it was him.

But I actually disagree. I don't think this matters a lick with voters. I think people look at this and they sort of laugh at it. It would be different if he was maybe a governor and doing these things, but he was talking to gossip reporters about his dating life.

And I think most voters have sort of rendered their judgment on Trump. They know he's a different guy and different candidate who had a very spectacular and flamboyant life. I think most people on the face of it will look at this, they will roll their eyes, and they move on.

(CROSSTALK)

[15:05:05]

BORGER: I don't think it's going to change any minds, David. I don't think it's going to change anybody's mind one way or another, but I do think it's something that you pay a little bit of attention to as you continue to evaluate candidates.

(CROSSTALK)

CATANESE: Oh, we -- we're going to pay attention to it, but I don't -- I just don't think -- the biggest mistake he made is not admitting it.

He should have went on "The Today Show" and laughed it off and said, look, this was a hoax, hoax. I fooled a bunch of reporters. People probably would have just laughed it off.

I think he did get in a little problem there, but I think the story and the substance of itself will not be remembered in a week from now, when we're on to the next big Trump-Clinton story.

BORGER: Right.

BROWN: Right.

It seems like, you know, we cross a corner every day with something new and this comes on top of Trump's former butler writing on Facebook that Obama should be killed, earlier this week, the campaign saying it was accidentally -- it accidentally added a white nationalist delegate to the roster.

Maeve, does this give Republicans who are right now on the fence pause? Is this why they're so nervous, because they're worried about what is going to happen next?

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

I mean, it seems as though there is kind of another one mine field after another. And Trump does a good job of navigating those mine fields as he makes his way through.

But there are a lot of donors who are still sitting on the sidelines and waiting to decide whether or not it's -- we're going to see a calmer Donald Trump, someone who is more the Donald Trump of yesterday on Capitol Hill.

People are a little bit worried about putting their names on checks just yet. There's still a lot of people that are kind of waiting the see the next thing that's going to roll out. And I don't think that these stories are helpful to him, because there's always another chapter or another sort of sensational thing from his background that maybe has been written about before, but then is resurfacing now and causing people to think about it.

BROWN: And, Gloria, on that note, is that why, in your view, rank and file Republicans, Republican leadership like Paul Ryan is so reticent to come out and throw their support behind Trump, because, essentially, if they endorse him, then no matter what happens from here on out, what he says, does, they will essentially have to own it because they're throwing their support behind him?

BORGER: Well, I don't think -- even if Ryan were to endorse Trump, I don't think he owns him, you know, to use your words.

I think Paul Ryan is enough of an entity unto himself. And, you know, Paul Ryan's objections to Donald Trump partly, I'm told, are tone, but also partly are driven by issues, right, and are driven by the fact that the issues on Paul Ryan's agenda that he cares about very deeply are issues that Trump has not paid an awful lot of attention to, such as the federal deficit, entitlement reform, et cetera.

Ryan's on a different page on immigration and trade, for example. So I think all of these things wrapped in together, sure, but I think Ryan, even if he were to endorse him, he's the leader of the party, they want to win down ticket. They have to do what's best for the Republican Party.

But I think, given what Ryan has said in the past, it will be easier for him to say, look, I don't agree with him on this, I don't agree with him on that, but these are the general areas the Republican Party does agree on. And he's got to get his people reelected.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Oh, go ahead, Maeve.

RESTON: I just also think that it gets to this issue with Trump that he is -- seems somewhat unknowable. You know, he -- it's very hard to define him.

He, you know, in some cases says one thing a couple of months ago, then, for example, with the Muslim ban this week is saying that he didn't say it. I mean, it's just hard to pin down exactly who this guy is and so to have a story like the "Post" story just raises more questions.

BROWN: And on that note, let's listen to what he said about his taxes and the Muslim ban.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's a routine audit. I want to get through the audit first. And that's what I will do.

There have been many presidents that have not shown their tax returns.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Actually, every single nominee since 1976 has released their tax returns.

TRUMP: Right. But, before 1976, people didn't do it. It used to be a secret thing. I don't want it to be secret, but I do want the audit to get finished.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What is your tax rate?

TRUMP: It is none of your business. You will see it when I release.

But I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible. I'm not the president right now. So anything I suggest is really a suggestion. And if I were president, I would put in legislation and do what I have to do. I'm not softening my stance at all, but I'm always flexible on issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right. There you heard it. Everything is a suggestion. David, what do you make of that?

CATANESE: Well, look, I think the policy stuff is where he is more vulnerable.

It's going to be interesting to see if his hard-core supporters, these people that have come out in droves for him by the thousands because of this, because of the Muslim ban that he called for, whether they see him wavering, whether his trip to Washington and these meetings with establishment figures doesn't wear well with them.

[15:10:16]

CATANESE: I think that is what we're going to have to watch here with Trump.

But this is the most malleable candidate that we have seen, I mean, in decades. This is a guy who flips his -- flips positions, changes his mind in a week and just puts his hand -- his hands up. I think that is the problem that he's going to face in unifying the Republican Party, because we don't know where he is on these big questions, on tax reform, on foreign policy, because he can change his positions so quickly, and he's gotten away with it.

I think now we're in a general election atmosphere and that is going to change.

BORGER: I think that's the problem that he faces with the Republican establishment and with conservatives, because they want a candidate who is predictable on the issues and not erratic on the issues. They want to know where he stands.

CATANESE: Right.

BORGER: But with his voters, I don't think they really care. I think he's a general message candidate to his own voters and what they see...

CATANESE: But if he backs off -- but if he backs off that Muslim ban, do his voters start to care? Does he look like more of a conventional, general election, centrist politician, and does he lose some of that?

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Seventy percent -- I don't know the answer to that, nor do you.

But 70 percent of Republican voters are in favor of the temporary ban on Muslims. And while -- we will have to see, but it's part and parcel of a message that he's got that he is a strong candidate, that he's a leader, that he says what he believes.

BROWN: Right.

BORGER: And, you know, so they're voting for him because of his larger message

And I think, you know, they will take a look at his shifting positions and say, oh, he's just doing that to get along with those guys, but he will really do what he wants once he gets in office.

BROWN: All right. We will have to wait and see. No doubt will be an interesting few months ahead of us.

Gloria Borger, David Catanese, Maeve Reston, thank you.

BORGER: Sure.

CATANESE: Thanks a lot.

RESTON: Thank you.

BROWN: Coming up right here in the NEWSROOM, the Clinton Foundation faces some tough questions amid allegations that it steered millions of dollars to a company owned by friends of the family. The former president responds.

Plus, President Obama's former defense chief calling Donald Trump a risk to America, but General David Petraeus now speaking out about the man in line to win the Republican nomination.

And George Zimmerman wants to sell the gun he used to shoot and kill Trayvon Martin. The first auction site turned him away, so he took his case to another one. Hear what they're doing up ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:53]

BROWN: The Clinton Foundation playing defense today, denying claims it steered millions of dollars to a company owned by friends of the family.

And now the powerful charity is bringing in a watchdog to try to put an end to questions about transparency. It's all in response to a "Wall Street Journal" report that the Clinton Global Initiative arranged for millions in private and federal money to go to a clean energy partially owned by close friends of the Clintons.

The former president denies any laws were broken.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Regarding the "Wall Street Journal" report did the CGI break the law?

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. I haven't had a chance to read it carefully, but I think my foundation is answering it.

QUESTION: Do you deny the CGI broke the law?

CLINTON: Oh, God yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN money correspondent Cristina Alesci has been looking into this story for us and she joins me now live with more.

Cristina?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think it's important to point out that the nature of this allegation is very different than prior questions about the Clinton Foundation.

In the past, several reports, mainly by conservative -- by the conservative press, have suggested the foundation took money from rogue regimes to curry favor with the U.S. while Hillary was the secretary of state.

Now, this story alleges the Clintons, as you mentioned, helped enrich their friends by arranging a donation from a private individual to a for-profit company owned by Clinton friends.

And, by the way, charity rules say you're not allowed to funnel money into causes or missions that might result in a personal gain.

Now, the Clinton Foundation response is very simple. Most people don't understand the way CGI actually works. It's a middleman. It is not accepting the money directly. It's only linking up the two sides of the deal. And because the foundation isn't actually handling the money, it's sometimes connects for-profit companies with donors who think that approach is the best way to solve complicated problems, like the one we're talking about, which is climate change.

And in an official response, "The Wall Street Journal," same thing that the former president said. The foundation, it's not breaking any laws.

And the problem here is, though, because I have been reporting on the Clinton Foundation for the past couple of weeks, all of this creates perception problems for the foundation. Why is this incredibly powerful couple putting itself at the middle of all of these dealings? It potentially creates the appearance of a conflict.

BROWN: Which then can extend to Hillary Clinton.

And you have also learned through the course of your investigating, your reporting, that a well-known charity watchdog may be changing its stance on the foundation. Why now?

ALESCI: Yes. It's called Charity Navigator, and since 2014, it hasn't rated the foundation. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL THATCHER, CEO, CHARITY NAVIGATOR: There was a decision made that we would not rate the foundation, and no one's actually questioned that. ALESCI: No one's questioned that until when?

[15:20:02]

THATCHER: Until this discussion.

ALESCI: No one's called you about this before?

THATCHER: No one's asked me to rate the Clinton Foundation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALESCI: Now, the conservative press has pointed to the absence of a rating from Charity Navigator as a piece of evidence that the foundation has something to hide.

But Charity Navigator says it dropped the rating because the Clinton Foundation changed its structure making it hard to do a historical comparison. But now the two sides, the Clinton Foundation and Charity Navigator, are trying to make it work. They're trying to make a rating possible. We are going to have to just see if it actually happens. But I will stay on it.

BROWN: Of course. And I -- it's all because you're asking the right questions.

Cristina Alesci, thank you very much for bringing us that report. We do appreciate it.

And up next on this Friday, not one, but two former CIA chiefs come out against Donald Trump's foreign policy agenda, Leon Panetta calling his positions crazy. We are going to debate live up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:35]

BROWN: Well, U.S. foreign policy veterans not mincing words when comes to their disdain for Donald Trump's plans, among them Leon Panetta, President Obama's former U.S. secretary of defense and Bill Clinton's chief of staff.

On CNN, he's ripping Trump's lack of experience. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEON PANETTA, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Trump is talking about the world in a way that takes us back to the 1930s.

I mean, he is talking almost isolationism, America first. He is talking about distributing A-bombs around the world.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But you know people better.

(CROSSTALK)

PANETTA: Those are crazy positions.

CUOMO: You know people better.

I have known you my whole life.

PANETTA: Yes.

CUOMO: You know people as well as you know anything you have done, and you know that people are responding what he's tapping into about their fear.

PANETTA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: We can be attacked at home. ISIS seems to get stronger by the second. Everything that we seem to have done is counterproductive. NATO seems to have become a toy for Putin, who seems to ignore the ' States might. And Trump says he's strong and Clinton's been the one who was there as everything went wrong. How do you beat that case?

PANETTA: The reality is that what we have to look at now is, who's going to be the next president of the United States? And there are two tests that president's going to face.

Number one is to break the gridlock in Washington and to govern, to get some things done, because there is a lot of anger and frustration about the failure to do that. And the second thing is provide world leadership in a very troubled world, somebody who understands the world, who understands the threats in the world, and is prepared to deal with that.

Hillary Clinton has that experience and that capability, and Trump does not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right. Let's bring in Boris Epshteyn, Republican strategist and Trump supporter, and Jamie Weinstein, senior editor for The Daily Caller.

Thank you both for coming on.

Jamie, first want to start with you. The critic here of course isn't surprising, Leon Panetta, how will Trump counter this?

JAMIE WEINSTEIN, THE DAILY CALLER: Well, it's going or the very hard to counter it, I think.

I mean, basically, Trump's foreign policy is a sound bite foreign policy, a way to control the news cycles. He hasn't really thought out his policy, because he doesn't know very much about the world.

And Leon Panetta is right to the extent that Trump has articulated a coherent policy, and that is to a very limited extent. It is a come home, America, foreign policy, trying to bring our bases from around the world, from Korea, from Japan, leave NATO. And that's going to dismantle the national security infrastructure we built up since World War II.

And once you take that down, once you remove this Pax Americana from around the world, it is not easily -- to put back if you realize it was a tremendous mistake, as I think it would be.

BROWN: And now David Petraeus, of course retired U.S. Army general, is weighing in. He is someone who Trump has praised. He wrote this piece in "The Washington Post."

And while he's not using Trump's name, he lays out some of Trump's rhetoric for us, including the proposed ban on Muslims that Trump walked back yesterday, it seemed, and he writes: "Those who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they're playing directly into the hands of al Qaeda and the Islamic State."

Boris, this is David Petraeus. Again, Trump is a big fan of him. What do you have to say what Petraeus writes?

BORIS EPSHTEYN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, as far as General Petraeus goes, who is greatly respected based on his experience, listen, he is not wrong.

Hate speech does not have a place in foreign policy. But taking a look at our national security, and reassessing about how we keep us safe, how what happened in Belgium and what happened Paris, what happens all over Europe does not happen here, does have a place in our national security.

So there's no disagreement between what David Petraeus is saying and what Donald Trump is proposing. So, let's not conflate the two.

As far as Leon Panetta goes, he was Hillary Clinton's chief of staff. Let's not go trusting the word of a dye-in-the-wool Democrat, a liberal Democrat, about Donald Trump, who now is the leading candidate to be president of the United States of America.

As far as Donald Trump's foreign policy goes, he has been very specific of what he's proposing. And he does understand it. And the proposals in terms of making sure our allies spend more than 1 percent of their GDP on national security are smart, and they will benefit America in the long term.

BROWN: Jamie, you're holding back a smile and you're laughing. What is going on? What are you thinking?

WEINSTEIN: Well, let's talk about the Muslim ban.

That's a serious, provocative proposal. I'm not saying it's totally out of bounds, but if someone is going to propose it, let's at least have it well-thought-out. When Donald Trump proposed this, this is another example again of just kind of a news cycle-changing foreign...

(CROSSTALK)

EPSHTEYN: Well, Jamie, who are you supporting?

(CROSSTALK)

WEINSTEIN: ... news cycle.

But let me -- let me finish, Boris.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSHTEYN: I'm just interested who you're supporting, Jamie.

(CROSSTALK)

WEINSTEIN: ... ask -- let -- let -- no, Boris, Boris, I'm going to finish my point here.

EPSHTEYN: OK.

WEINSTEIN: When he was first asked, he said it would apply to even American citizens. Then he backed away from that.

Then they asked him, how would you actually implement this? He says, oh, when they get to the border, we're going to ask if you're a Muslim or not.