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General Election Matchup Set. Clinton Celebrates Milestone; Candidates Fear Trump. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 08, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:43] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin on this Wednesday.

Just for a little general election perspective, folks, we are five months to the day from the November 8th election. The face-off between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. This is a massive and monumental moment for Secretary Clinton as she officially embraces her place in American history after winning delegate-rich California and three other states. She is now the first female presumptive nominee of any major political party in the United States.

Clinton sent out this tweet marking the milestone. Two words, "history made." It all comes after a hard fought battle against Senator Bernie Sanders, who, by the way, still has vowed to continue fighting. Still, the former secretary of state, like Trump, looking ahead to November, giving voters a preview of the battle to come.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be president.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We will make America great again.

CLINTON: That is code for, let's take America backwards.

TRUMP: The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves.

CLINTON: He's not just trying to build a wall between America and Mexico, he's trying to wall off Americans from each other.

TRUMP: The last thing we need is Hillary Clinton in the White House or an extension of the Obama disaster.

CLINTON: The stakes in this election had high and the choice is clear.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Let's begin this hour with my colleague, Phil Mattingly, joining me here on the behind-the-scenes scoop from the Trump campaign. You know, last night we saw Donald Trump with something he said should

be eliminated from speeches, being a teleprompter. We saw a very different, more measured Donald Trump. Is this a sign of things to come?

Phil MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Senator Mitch McConnell, Senate majority leader, said yesterday it was time for Trump to, quote, "get on message." That's what he did last night. When you talk to Republicans, some of whom are extremely nervous, slightly terrified after the last five or six days, the attacks on the judge overseeing the Trump University case felt very good about what they saw last night.

But, Brooke, it's important to note, we've had how many moments throughout the course of the last five months where people have said, Donald Trump is pivoting. Donald Trump can be so presidential, you will be tired of him being presidential. Donald Trump is heading into the general election mode.

The question now, and I've been talking to donors, RNC officials all day long is, is last night for real? Is last night the new reality? If you talk to people inside the campaign, they make it very clear, that was a process. They were very happy to get him to that process. The message of attacking Hillary Clinton, not a judge overseeing of personal business, is where they want to be. That's a little bit like a Jekyll and Hyde situation here. Can you keep him on that message? That's a big question.

BALDWIN: I'm glad you pointed out the Senate majority leader's words. That's where we'll begin our panel. Phil, thank you so much here.

Let me bring in our panel. Boris Epshteyn is back, Republican strategist and Trump surrogate, CNN political commentator Angela Rye is the former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, and also with us CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Doug Heye. He is also the former communications director for the RNC.

Great to see all of you. Happy Wednesday.

BORIS EPSHTEYN, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Nice to be with you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Boris, to you first. You know, we know that Mr. Trump says Monday night he is, you know, taking on Hillary Clinton and he is specific as far as it is on policy. Line by line we got a little bit of a preview of that last night. Talk to me about certain issues. What do you think will stick?

EPSHTEYN: Well, we're going to have to be talking about her failures as secretary of state. You look at Benghazi, Libya. You look at Egypt. You look at China, Russia, the failed reset. So, obviously, you have to talk about that. You have to talk about the e-mail scandal, the inspector general's report, the fact she did break State Department rules in using that outside e-mail server. The inspector general has said it now. And the ongoing FBI investigation where over 100 federal agents are assigned to investigating exactly what happened, and she will be interviewed. And then you have to talk about the Clinton Foundation. The fact that monies from Qatar, Algeria, China, Russia, have been funneled into the foundation and, in return, some of these countries and some companies from these countries have gotten benefits from dealings with the State Department. One "New York Times" article was talking about the uranium deal through which a Russia company controls one-fifth of the uranium in the United States. That was blessed by the State Department while that company and companies controlled by the Russian government were giving money to the foundation.

[14:05:12] BALDWIN: OK.

EPSHTEYN: And Bill Clinton was getting $500,000 a speech in Moscow. So there's a long list. And I've only given you a preview. It's going to be a great speech.

BALDWIN: OK. So it is a long list. Angela Rye, as the Dem here on the panel, you know, what worries you the most?

ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think what worries me the most is the tone of this election, Brooke. We've seen so far some of the most divisive rhetoric in our - in - frankly, in my lifetime. These are the things that we saw people getting dogs sicked upon them during the civil rights movement. You see this hate-filled rhetoric that has caused people to wear things like I just look like an illegal immigrant on their t-shirt outside of Donald Trump rallies and protests to say that I matter and that - and I'm - I'm an American and I'm just as American as you just because I look different. That -

BALDWIN: I'm not minimalizing that, but as far as, you know, all those issues that Boris just brought up, what worries you?

RYE: So what worries me is the fact that, again, this is the type of conversation we're having. So we can dig into Hillary Clinton's e- mails and we can talk about trails of donations, but what are we talking about when we're talking about actual American values. The fact that we have to reduce this election cycle down to whether or not my life matters as much as someone who does not look like me. And so we can pretend like these e-mail issues and whether or not she used a personal e-mail or not is just as significant as whether or not someone's American and their heritage, whether or not they're a citizen here matters. But I think that those things -

EPSHTEYN: Well, Angela, obviously, is not going to answer the question.

BALDWIN: One final point. Hold on, hold on, let me get to that final point. Just a second.

RYE: I can't hear you. I can't hear you (INAUDIBLE). Yes.

BALDWIN: One voice, which is mine, for a minute.

Doug, let me cut through and just go to you. You know, on what Phil Mattingly and I were talking about, about a much more disciplined and measured Trump last night and this notion, Phil said it, this is what, you know, a source was saying, so is it Jekyll or Hyde. Can he sustain what we saw last night?

DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think what we saw last night is that he can't sustain it. Keep in mind, while he was I think pretty mediocre on the teleprompter, at least he was trying to stick to some kind of script, but he also had an ad lib. And where does Donald Trump go in an ad lib on a night like last night? He makes a bathroom joke. That's the problem that so many Republicans encounter with Donald Trump, is they never know what they're going to get, but they know it's going to be bad.

And so we had a week just over the past week where Paul Ryan, no accident, tried to lay out an anti-poverty agenda this week, but what did he - what did he have to do? He had to talk about the latest thing that Donald Trump did. And we know from the conference call that was leaked, Donald Trump was not off message this week. This is what he wanted to say. This is what he wanted his supporters to say. And it's why when so many Republicans like myself hear Trump surrogates or Trump officials out there talking and saying that whatever Donald Trump is going to do is going to be big, beautiful and wonderful, we really hearing the fingers snapping from "The Addams Family" theme because they're not dealing with reality.

BALDWIN: Boris, respond to that and then I want to move on.

EPSHTEYN: All right, well, so - first of all, as far as what Angela said, she did not respond to your question. She started talking about these so -

RYE: I actually did respond to the question.

EPSHTEYN: These social issues and then did not want to talk about what Hillary Clinton is running on -

RYE: Those aren't social issues, Boris.

EPSHTEYN: Let me finish, Angela. I let you finish.

RYE: But that's just not what it was.

EPSHTEYN: She - Angela did not talk about specifics of Hillary Clinton's failures of secretary of state, which she what she's running on.

RYE: That's not true.

EPSHTEYN: To Doug's point, listen, people - reasonable people can disagree and it's totally fine for like Paul Ryan to choose to talk about what Donald Trump said or did not say. Again, Paul Ryan should not have done that. He should have - he should have concentrated on his agenda, but he chose to talk about what he says is textbook racism. I completely disagree that it's not. Textbook racism is when you say one race or one ethnicity is better than another.

HEYE: Hey, Brooke -

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Doug. EPSHTEYN: As far as Donald Trump goes - listen, let me finish.

RYE: That's not the definition of racism, Ashleigh.

HEYE: I would - I would say, Brooke -

EPSHTEYN: Republicans - Republicans out there can disagree with him and these are Republican elected officials. Congressional approval is at 20 percent. He's gotten over 12 million votes, four more than any Republican in the history of the primary. So if I were the Republican officials, I would go and unite behind Donald Trump and listen to the voters.

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Doug.

HEYE: Brooke, I would say last Friday we had a dismal job report that is something that Donald Trump could have hammered home. But instead he talked about his own legal case and went after this judge and we can obviously question whether or not those were bigoted comments or not, but why not focus on that awful jobs report? Why not do something to bring Republicans together?

Donald Trump had a month as the last man - last man standing on the ballot. What we saw in New Jersey and South Dakota and in California was he's not able to get over 85 percent. This party is not unifying, whether you're talking about Mark Kirk or Paul Ryan, Bill Flores, who's a conservative from Texas who runs the study committee in the House, Republicans are not coalescing around Trump and that's really dangerous for Republicans moving forward.

EPSHTEYN: So 85 percent is now the glass - the ceiling for -

BALDWIN: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

EPSHTEYN: It was 20 to 25. Now it's 85?

BALDWIN: Hold on, Boris. You've had enough. I want equal - equal time for all of you, just to be fair here.

Angela, I want you to have the last word.

RYE: Well, so a couple of things. One is, I want to say, Brooke, my understanding of your question is to talk to - talk to you about what I'm worried about this election cycle, so that's actually what I was answering.

[14:10:03] EPSHTEYN: That was not the question.

RYE: Further - well, it's not up to you.

Furthermore, I think that it's very important that we frame these issues within reality, and I know that that's very, very hard for Trump surrogates to do. An e-mail scandal versus whether or not someone respects someone based upon their heritage are two vastly different things and if that's the fundamental question we're wrestling with during the election, that is a problem. That is why Hillary Clinton, during her acceptance speech last night, talked about breaking down barriers instead of building up walls, and that is a mantra that you will continue to hear because it is a fundamental question in this election, whether or not we're going to find the commonality in - in all of us as Americans in this country or whether or not we're going to continue to build up the walls of division. And that is what a Trump presidential (ph) would represent.

EPSHTEYN: Hillary Clinton breaking the law as secretary of state is very important and very germane to this election.

BALDWIN: OK.

RYE: That's - that's actually - yes, OK, Boris. That's cute, but that's not exactly what happened and you know there's not enough time to get into that.

EPSHTEYN: That's what the inspector general said.

BALDWIN: All right. Angela Rye -

RYE: That's not what the inspector general said.

BALDWIN: And Doug Heye and Boris Epshteyn, we will have much time to discuss this on Monday on issues, on substance, on policy. Thank you all for now. I appreciate it.

RYE: Thank you, Brooke.

HEYE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

EPSHTEYN: Thank you so much. Have a great day.

BALDWIN: Tonight, do not miss Hillary Clinton's one-on-one with Wolf Blitzer on her historic achievement and her push ahead to the general election against Donald Trump. Tonight, 6:00 in "The Situation Room" with Wolf.

Coming up next, as Hillary Clinton becomes the first women to clinch a major party's nomination, which woman in history, if she could select any, would she want to tell about her big moment there last night? Her answer, coming up.

Plus, a number of lawmakers are now fighting for their political lives and Donald Trump is at the center of some key races, and that includes veteran Senator John McCain. We'll discuss that and look across the country.

And as Americans vent over the light sentence of the Stanford rapist, we'll talk live with one man who was falsely accused of rape, spent years behind bars, what he thinks of the judge's decision. This is very personal for him, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:16:05] BALDWIN: Will President Obama have a conversation about Bernie Sanders stepping aside? That's really the big question here as the Vermont senator heads to the White House for a meeting with the president tomorrow. And as pressure mounts on Sanders to step down, Vice President Joe Biden says, quote, "we should be a little graceful." Biden telling CNN that Sanders should be able to decide when and how to end his bid for the Democratic nomination. That is despite Hillary Clinton having this thing pretty much locked up.

Joining me now, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and CNN political commentator Carl Bernstein and author of "Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Carl Bernstein, nice to see you again.

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to be here.

BALDWIN: Watching Hillary Clinton last night, as so many people did, you note that she seemed so much more comfortable than we have seen in previous campaign speeches. Talk to me about that and how that relates to your writing your book.

BERNSTEIN: For one, she likes to win. And she -

BALDWIN: Who doesn't?

BERNSTEIN: And - and she lets up and she's much easier than the angry, defensive Hillary Clinton. We've used the word shrill a lot and I don't think it's a sexist term to describe what she's been doing in this campaign. Last night there was a calm voice. It was about convincing people, being with friends. And not only has she won, she is in a place of great comfort with her core beliefs, which have to do with the three most important things in her life, family, public service and religion, of all things, from which a lot of her politics actually flows. She's also, like many complicated people, a bit compartmentalized, full of anger, which we've seen in this campaign and has been noted by those who work with her, really deep anger, and also difficulty being open, truthful, not obfuscating. Here, in this moment, she can be all those aspirational and positive things.

BALDWIN: You mentioned family. And what struck me - I know some of our commentators in watching all of our coverage last night, was after she finished speaking, you see Chelsea, you see Chelsea's husband, you see, you know, her husband, the former president, join her on stage, if not just for a moment. What did you make of that?

BERNSTEIN: Yet, again, it's about who she is. She talks about -

BALDWIN: Not something we've really seen.

BERNSTEIN: She talked about her mother. Her mother is the biggest figure, with her husband, in her life. And everything she said about her mother was absolutely true, and the influence of her mother on her. But what we're also seeing now is the issues that she's comfortable with. You know, she ran to the left of where she intended to run. BALDWIN: What she said about Wall Street.

BERNSTEIN: And - exactly. But, at the same time, she believes that. She's - you know, she comes from a very comfortable let's call it center left place about her belief in the goodness of government when it's exercised the right way. Bernie Sanders has actually pushed her to somewhere that goes back to the Hillary Clinton of her young years, her teenage years, her college years, hear early years with Bill Clinton, not simply a - let's just get elected, but core beliefs. She's comfortable with a lot of what Bernie Sanders has been saying if she can be practical as well.

BALDWIN: What about Donald Trump, watching him last night, and something that we all noted was how he appealed to Bernie Sanders supporters when he was speaking and I have to imagine that it is, you know, on the mind of all the Clinton folks. They are - they want Bernie Sanders, if and when he bows out, to talk to his supporters and say, let's keep Trump out of the White House.

BERNSTEIN: And they're going to get that. And they're going to get it with the president, with Hillary Clinton, and with Bernie Sanders together, there's no question in my mind. People I've talked to - this is going to - the three of them are going to say, this is the most important thing confronting our nation today to keep -

[14:20:03] BALDWIN: You think the three of them?

BERNSTEIN: Absolutely. To keep - to keep Donald Trump from being the president of the United States. He's a total break with our history. He's authoritarian. He doesn't believe in the Constitution. He's fooling people. And they're going to - they're going to do it. But where she was so good last night was in doing both, the way she characterized Trump exactly right and his temperament, which is also what she's called attention to in the last week, and whether or not he's fit, good word, to be president of the United States and then back to her core message, bring America together. That's how we make America great as it is and should be. We coalesce. We don't divide.

BALDWIN: She - she - she -

BERNSTEIN: And she was very effective. Now, it's not -

BALDWIN: She gave the big speech last night. She gave a big speech last week. Again, Donald Trump will be doing the same in trying to take her down next Monday night.

BERNSTEIN: Right. Right. But she's also got this other part of her, the angry part, the server part, which still hasn't played out completely and is going to be the big issue that Donald Trump is going to keep and the Republicans crooked Hillary. She's going to have to defend herself and it's very difficult because she hasn't been truthful about that. And that's the problem that she faces.

BALDWIN: OK.

BERNSTEIN: But this, what we saw last night, was a kind of perfect execution of where she's comfortable and positive.

BALDWIN: OK. The author of "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton," Carl Bernstein. Thanks very much. Thank you.

BERNSTEIN: OK.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, how the Trump effect here could impact several major Senate races around the country. Republican incumbents are struggling to hold on to their seats. One of them, former presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, who acknowledges he is in the fight of his political life. We'll discuss that.

And later, have you seen this video? It is chilling. Watch this man here caught on surveillance, goes and just tries to snatch this eight- year-old girl straight from her mother. It comes up in just a minute. We'll play it all out for you. How this ended, coming up.

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[14:26:29] BALDWIN: Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, doubling down on his support for Donald Trump. That happened actually at a closed door meeting with House Republicans today. Speaker Ryan reportedly asking his colleagues to unite behind the presumptive Republican nominee, but the GOP fracturing here shows little sign of healing with Republican Senator Mark Kirk first endorsing and then significant here un- endorsing Donald Trump amid speculation that the incumbent feared he would lose his Senate seat with Trump on the ticket.

So, Mark Preston, to you, sir, CNN Politics executive editor, with a look at some of these key races here. Talk me through this.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, Brooke, yes, there's no doubt, right now, you would figure at this point in the campaign that Donald Trump would be coalescing the Republican Party behind his bid, certainly heading into November, but we are still seeing a fracturing based largely upon what Donald Trump has said in his off-the-cuff remarks, most recently what he said about the judge who is overseeing the case right now with Trump University.

Now, Mark Kirk is involved in a very tight race, perhaps the tightest right now for an incumbent seeking re-election in November. Mark Kirk representing the state of Illinois. No doubt a blue state. So Mark Kirk realizing that he needs to separate himself.

We're also seeing in the state of Arizona, to our viewers who know John McCain, he has described this as the toughest race that he has faced right now. He's running against a congresswoman, a sitting congresswoman, Ann Fitzpatrick, who is working towards trying to coalesce Hispanic voters behind her campaign, and you're looking at a state of Arizona right now where there's about a third, Brooke, at this point, a third of the population of Arizona is Hispanic. And then there's several other races right now that we're looking at. New Hampshire, of course there's Kelly Ayotte.

BALDWIN: What about California, Mark? PRESTON: Well, Kelly Ayotte, out there, well, in Pennsylvania. But if

you go out to California, we certainly have an interesting race outs there right now. Two Democrats, we're talking about the Republican problems. We have two Democrats right now facing off in the general election. No Republican on the ballot. We have Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez, a congresswoman, who are facing off against each other out there right now. History will be made in many ways because no matter who wins you'll either have a Latina woman or a woman of African-American descent serving in the U.S. Senate.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Mark Preston, so important to talk about these races in addition to the presidential. Thank you so much, my friend.

Coming up next, my next guest says the sentence for that Stanford student convicted of rape is definitely too light, and he knows all too well about unjust sentences. Brian Banks (ph) falsely accused of rape. He served five years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. He joins me next. Do not miss this conversation.

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