Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Clinton to Speak on Foreign Policy, Trump; Toxicology Report: Prince Died of Opioid Overdose; Obama Knocks Trump During Air Force Academy Commencement. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 02, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:32:01] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin, welcoming viewers here in the United States and around the world watching.

And waiting for this speech from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She will be speaking in San Diego, California, flanked by many, many American flags there. A speech, we're told, will focus squarely on the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, his foreign policies and his character and temperament.

Secretary Clinton's campaign manager gave me a preview of that speech. Here's what Robby Mook told me in Brooklyn.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBBY MOOK, CAMPAIGN MANAGER, HILLARY FOR AMERICA CAMPAIGN: She's going to be laying out her vision on foreign policy, but also, talking about how Donald Trump is fundamentally unfit to be our commander-in- chief. The reckless way he talks about nuclear weapons, the irresponsible way that he insults our allies and our friends and foreign leaders. Americans need to think very carefully.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We have a lot of voices we want to bring in here watching and waiting for the speech. First up, I have CNN chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto; with CNN national security commentator and former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, who is host of upcoming CNN series, "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies," and the once chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

Nice to see both of you.

Good to see you.

BALDWIN: As we watch and wait for secretary Clinton, and Congressman Rogers, my first question to you, whether it's Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, both talking about policies, and national security specifically, how do you know that they have done their homework?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR & CNN HOST, DECLASSIFIED: Boy, that's a tough question. Although I have to tell you, Brooke, I'm not thinking to walk away from this speech knowing exactly where Hillary Clinton is on foreign policy. I think this is more of a set-up to create the narrative around Donald Trump and make a few points more what is the very important upcoming California primary. I would expect it to be a light foreign policy speech and more about, again, trying to frame Donald Trump as somebody in their language versus the language that I think he would describe himself. On the homework side, clearly she's done her homework and questions as secretary of state she will probably have to answer in the course of the campaign. She's been there. Donald Trump yet gave a big foreign policy speech. Does he do his homework? I think that question needs to be answered.

BALDWIN: That's interesting. Jim Sciutto, we hear the Congressman saying light on policy, heavy on Trump and California primary. What do you think?

[14:34:35] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'll take a risk of disagreeing with Mike, but only in a small degree, in that I think, you know, listen, it's going to be, as David Chalian said, earlier, a big about temperament and style, the brashness of Donald Trump, some of these outrageous statements. But I believe that she's going to get done to some of the nitty-gritty positions and make the idea it's not just style but substance. The positions he had laid out are one in contrast not with Democrat foreign policy, but decades of Democratic and Republican foreign policy, things like the NATO alliance and talking about upsetting the NATO alliance or sending nukes to South Korea and Japan, or even thinks like reintroducing torture or killing the families of suspected terrorists and terrorists, these kinds of things. She's going to highlight as not just the style but as the positions he's taken as being out of line, not just for the Democratic Party and with herself as a candidate, but saying out of line with the foreign policy establishment.

I do think Mike is right that, you know, she has a track record which if not addressed in this speech will certainly be addressed in the campaign. Things like the vote for the Iraq war, things like her support, really her leadership, on the U.S. operation in Libya and, therefore, her responsibility for the aftermath in Libya. But even, as well, her differences with the Democratic President Obama where she's more forward leaning not only than the current president but even than Donald Trump on some of the issues. She wants to be more involved rather than involved in the world. It's an interesting ground where it won't just be a Democratic policy position, and argues that Donald Trump is out of line with everybody in effect.

And, you know, we'll see what the audience thinks because I think her audience not just Democrats but the key Independents and perhaps some Republicans who aren't satisfied with Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: Maybe some of the Never Trumpers who she would like to vote come November.

Mike, we heard Jim and we heard her before tick through some of those issues, whether it's NATO, nukes, torture, ban on Muslims, on all of those issues, where do you see Donald Trump as most vulnerable? ROGERS: Well, if he doesn't answer think lay out an explanation for

them, I think on all of them. I think he has tried or at least has tried on some of those, NATO's a great example saying, listen, you haven't met your 2 percent being nice and hugging them in the past hasn't worked. I'll try a different tact to get them to spend their 2 percent of their defense. One has done that in NATO yet. And this is a Republican and Democrat charge for years. And so, again, and I don't think Jim and I are that far apart. If she does this, I don't think it helps her. Well, not necessarily I'm worried about it but I'm sure her campaign staff will. You can't have a speech talking about the things you won't do and that's I think getting certainly got Obama in trouble in his time dealing with foreign policy and I think if she adopts that tone today she -- I don't know if that really helps her in the foreign policy national security crowd both Republicans and Democrats. I don't know if that would help her if she takes that tact.

BALDWIN: I'm also wondering, as she's clearly betting big, and the optics of the speech, this is a major, major speech there in San Diego, and in California, ahead of the June 7th primaries. San Diego huge military town. A lot of Republicans there, as well.

In terms of her foreign policy, touting her record, I wonder, Jim Sciutto, if it hurts her as she's been criticized on Benghazi, post- Moammar Gadhafi era, the serve and e-mail security. Is she opening herself up to scrutiny there, as well?

SCIUTTO: She is, in fact. She's been a public figure more than two decades, and has a record that's open to public scrutiny, just by being a presidential candidate for the United States. And she has issues there that, frankly, anger both sides, Benghazi primarily, but not exclusively on the right, but support of the Iraq war on the left. Think of Bernie Sanders supporters who won't go her way. And Barack Obama ran a very aggressive campaign in 2008 bringing up that Iraq war vote. So she's got a record where she is just by the nature of her job open to criticism. Of course, she'll try to play up the successes rather than the failures and I bet you Mike agrees with bringing up bin Laden, saying I was in the room. These are the hard decisions you have to make when you're in a job like this.

[14:39:17] BALDWIN: As she did when she sat with Chris Cuomo a couple of weeks ago.

Gentlemen, let me ask you to stand by.

We'll take a quick break here. Watching for Secretary Clinton to deliver this speech, national security, foreign policy. Sitting next to me, the host of "Fareed Zakaria, GPA," Fareed Zakaria himself. I want to play you sound from the president today, speaking at the U.S. Air Force commencement, bringing up a warning of isolationism, and how that may play moving forward. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Just stand by as we're waiting to hear from the former Secretary of

State Hillary Clinton as she will be addressing a crowd there in San Diego, California. Remember, we're just a couple of days away from the all-important California primary, talking about foreign policy, talking national security and also certainly comparing and contrasting herself to the presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump. So we'll take that when that happens.

Meantime, though, I would like to pivot quickly to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Sara Sidner, who has some news on the music legend, Prince, his death.

We were talking moments ago of reports he died from an opioid overdose. Now you have that toxicology report. Tell me.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is the official report. Not the toxicology report. In Minnesota, they can only release two things about a person when it comes to their death, cause of death and manner of death.

I'll read them to you. I'm looking at the report now. It has literally came out in the last couple of minutes. Cause of death here says that he "self administered Fentanyl." It's the new heroin, but much, much stronger. It is the strongest opioid painkiller you can get. It's often used by cancer patients. Although sometimes you can get it in pill form, it causes and wrecks havoc across the United States with people getting it illegally and overdosing on it. We do stories about people dying of Fentanyl. It is why it's given in a patch or lollipop to cancer patients dealing with extreme pain. Gives you an idea of what he was going through. We also are seeing his height and weight. He seemed to be very thin. 112 pounds according to this report, 63 inches tall. It says that the reason for his death was "an accident."

[14:45:58] But again, the big news right now is that it says that he died from self administered Fentanyl. Where is this going? They'll try to find out, did he have a prescription? Where did he get it, if he didn't have a prescription? Which doctors were involved, if there were any doctors involved? Were people involved in getting it to him? With all the questions, the investigators get into and try to look into.

But the big news of the day is that they have now determined what killed Prince Rogers Nelson at 57 years old. He would have been 58 years old just next week. His birthday is June 7th. The big news here, the descendant self-administered Fentanyl.

BALDWIN: Sara, we're having a conversation earlier also with Dr. Drew because, really, this conversation needs a doctor. He was saying once we have the details in the toxicology report, from his clinical perspective, there would be other drugs in the mix. So from what you're learning, is it -- it was Fentanyl and nothing else?

SIDNER: We can't say it was nothing else, but what they're saying is, it says how injury, the descendant self administered Fentanyl. Cause of death, accident. BALDWIN: OK.

SIDNER: You're seeing is only the very thing that caused his death. In Minnesota, the law is very clear. It is not like when the Michael Jackson came forth and we saw in the court all the things, the drugs in the system. You remember that, listed everything.

BALDWIN: Yes.

SIDNER: There were lots and lots of different drugs prescribed to him. This is much more simple. And it doesn't give us all the details that everyone I think may want, especially doctors looking at this. It simply says that Fentanyl was the reason for the death and that he died because he self administered and it was an accident. That is what they have determined here at the medical examiner's officer.

BALDWIN: OK. Sara Sidner, thank you so much for the update there on Prince. Appreciate that.

Let's go back to California. I'll show you live pictures of the stage, as we should be hearing any moment now from Secretary Clinton giving a mega speech on foreign policy. The last time she did this was some months ago at Stamford, California, in Palo Alto.

This is significant, significant on a number of fronts.

Let's bring in Fareed Zakaria, host of "Fareed Zakaria, GPA," to walk us through what to listen for.

Your first point is, before we even get to foreign policy, you say this is Hillary Clinton reminding the country, "I will be the nominee."

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA, GPS: Precisely. Let's remember what the context is here. She's days away from the California primary, still in a neck and neck struggle with Bernie Sanders. It is absolutely vital that she wins California. So what she is doing is taking the opportunity to give a major policy --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: To make it look that way. I shouldn't say it will be. Make it look that way.

ZAKARIA: Right. She is trying to do a major policy speech and direct her attention at Trump, telling Democrats, in effect, I'm your nominee, our enemy is Donald Trump, we have to beat him. Don't waste your vote on Bernie Sanders. Vote for me. I'm the person to effectively and credibly take on Trump. Probably not going to mention Sanders in this speech, even though she's running against him, and my guess is, what's going on here is an effort to unify the Democratic Party behind her and remind them that the real target is Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: So that's one priority. Priority number two, talking to Brianna Keilar on the trail with Clinton, and she talked to an aide, and to the points of emotion and temperament, the aide said they believe Trump's policy, if elected president, would be dictated, quoting, "by the variety of his moods. Meaning, she will outline emotional.

[14:49:49] ZAKARIA: Right. In a sense, there's two narratives going on here, and this is a metaphor for what I think the whole campaign will be. Trump is all about emotion and about going for your gut. You know? Everything he says on foreign policy it's really about going for the people's gut, a temporary ban on Muslims, kill the families of terrorists, get the allies to pay otherwise get the hell out of there. It's all these gut responses that he thinks are in sync with what a lot of Americans feel just intuitively. Hillary I think -- Hillary Clinton is going to go for an appeal to the intellect. She is going to reason, explain why it's all so dangerous, why is this such a break with American foreign policy tradition and outline, you know, a series of very rational, credible reasons why what Trump is saying is dangerous. In a sense, she is hoping to get your brain to mistrust what your gut is telling you.

BALDWIN: As she's doing that and essentially saying to the American people, trust me, it opens up to a lack of trust. And she's touting foreign policy and her chops, and questions of Benghazi still swirl, the server issue, e-mail, Libya. Does it open her up for even more criticism?

ZAKARIA: No. At the end of the day, foreign policy is her strong suit. She has been secretary of state. She was a widely admired secretary of state. People forget when talking about Hillary Clinton's negatives, when she was secretary of state, she had 65 percent favorable ratings, seen as doing a good job. As Jim Sciutto said, any time you do a big job in government, the world is a messy place, there's lots of things that don't work out perfectly, and you can blamed for them. Those are entirely legitimate. But I think that she will come across as strong and knowledgeable in contrast with Trump, who very clearly, you know -- somebody I think Mike Rogers saying we have to see if he does his homework. We know the answer to that. Donald Trump thinks losers do homework. He's the kid who doesn't do the homework and believes he can talk his way out of it the next day.

BALDWIN: We'll be speaking to a Trump senior adviser who, I'm sure, no doubt, will disagree with you on that.

But let's talk about the president of the United States here. He is in beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado, today at the U.S. Air force academy commencement and had a message on U.S. Isolationism. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We can't be isolationists. It's not possible in this globalized interconnected world. In these uncertain times, it's tempting sometimes to pull back and to try to wash our hands of conflicts that seem intractable. Let other countries fend for themselves. History teaches us, from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, that oceans alone cannot protect us. Hateful ideologies can spark terror from Boston to San Bernardino. In a global economy, it's not possible to stop trading goods and services with other countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I have to bet there's a knock on Donald Trump and his America First stance. Your thoughts on that and why the president never mentions Donald Trump by name.

ZAKARIA: I think the president's trying to be presidential, he's trying to particularly until the conventions. I think that this is something honestly most presidents talked about from time to time. Because America -- is in its DNA, there's always been an isolationist streak. Look. The United States was founded as by people who wanted to get away from the political machinations and politics and turmoil of the old country. People always fled that and come to this country. And they believe at some level, you know, a pox on all those people back there. We can create our garden of paradise here. That's a wonderful part about America, as I say, part of the DNA.

But there is this danger that you forget that you have to be engaged in the world, particularly given how big America is, how interdependent it is. We buy and sell from the world. We trade with the world. And we have for the last 75 years created this modern open global economy that we benefit from enormously. So I think he's in a sense reminding people of that. Clearly, the context is what Trump has been saying, and it's quite unusual, though, historically. Think about this, Brooke. To have an isolationist challenge to the American consensus of isolationism from the Republican Party. It's not happened in 75 years. 75 years ago, you could find Republican isolationists. But for the last 40, 50 years, if you every found people like this, they tended to be on the left. They tended to be people like Bernie Sanders, who said we should just spend money at home. We shouldn't spend money abroad. Trump in that -- one more example of just how big of a break Donald Trump's candidacy represents to the modern Republican Party.

BALDWIN: Let me get a break -- bring a Republican voice in on this. Mike Rogers, let me bring you back in, former House Intel Committee chair, former Congressman.

Your thoughts on what the president said and also Fareed's comments.

[14:55:06] ROGERS: Obviously, the president is right when talking about commerce and international engagement. The president had a few stumbles on the international engagement front. It is muddled today on who's for international engagement and who's not and what conditions is international engagement. If you listen to Trump, you know, he has those moments where he makes a position of clarity where he talks about the fact, listen, I'm for engagement and Benefit the United States. And a lot of workers from Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Pennsylvania hear that and understand it because they're living it.

And so, you know, I think we have to be careful about making it a very neat box when it comes to this international piece because I see this on both -- from both parties and in both campaigns about pushing the isolationist message but not completely taking engagement off the table. And I think why it's interesting for me how Hillary plays that in a state like California with the primary coming up.

BALDWIN: On that, and what, you know, Mike Rogers, points out on the president -- let me turn to you -- because so many times we've seen Secretary Clinton, whether at a debate or other speech, bear hug the president. I was talking to the campaign manager of the Hillary Clinton campaign yesterday morning in Brooklyn and he was saying, Brooke, we're excited about having this support. The president will be an active, integral surrogate for us moving forward. But at what point does Hillary Clinton distance herself at all on some of the policies of President Obama?

ZAKARIA: It's a fascinating question, Brooke, because if you remember, months ago, Hillary Clinton began to distance herself from Obama on foreign policy. I thought it was a fascinating situation because she was trying to find some cost-free place where she could distance herself. She can't distance herself on Obamacare, the rescue of the economy, the bailout of the banks. You lose the base of the party. On the banks, she is too closely tied in many ways.

BALDWIN: So then where?

ZAKARIA: She found foreign policy. Safe zones in Syria. I would bomb a little more. I would provide some more aid. But now I think she feels like it is more important for her to present a unified front with Obama as the Democratic Party confronts Trump. So my --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Do you think we'll see a less hawkish Hillary Clinton?

ZAKARIA: I think you will see less of an effort to distinguish herself from Obama. In fact, the differences were very small. Talking about a safe zone in Syria versus not and a little more Special Ops.

BALDWIN: Small, yeah.

ZAKARIA: But I think that both she and Obama certainly wants the nomination is -- even though they're political rivals, I think they're going to campaign as a unified front.

BALDWIN: OK. Fareed Zakaria, please stand by.

Mike Rogers, please stand by.

Quick break. We're waiting to hear from Secretary Clinton. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)