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Obama, Sanders Meet Today at the White House; Elizabeth Warren to Rip Trump's Racism in Speech; Terror Attack in Tel Aviv; Trump Meets with Top Fundraisers; Interview with Representatives Luke Messer and Bill Flores. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 09, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:04] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Senator Bernie Sanders will meet with President Obama at the White House in just about an hour. We expect the two men to talk about when Sanders might drop his presidential bid. It's something the president talked about on "The Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon.

Actually that late-night sit-down was fascinating. If you're wondering how Mr. Obama might fight Donald Trump, here is a clue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It was a healthy thing for the Democratic Party to have a contested primary. I thought that Bernie Sanders brought enormous energy and new ideas, and he pushed the party and challenged them. I thought it made Hillary a better candidate.

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": Is Bernie going to endorse Hillary?

OBAMA: Well, I'm sure they're going to have a conversation. And --

FALLON: Is he ever going to drop out?

(LAUGHTER)

FALLON: Or he's going to stay in? It's like --

OBAMA: Yes, I'm going to be talking to him tomorrow. He's going to be coming to the White House. And the main role I'm going to be playing in this process is to remind the American people that this is a serious job. You know, this is not reality TV.

FALLON: Speaking of reality TV, I don't know if you saw "Celebrity Apprentice."

OBAMA: I didn't.

FALLON: It's a great show, yes. Has Donald Trump called you for advice or talked to you?

OBAMA: He hasn't. No.

FALLON: No?

OBAMA: Not that -- not that I know of, no.

FALLON: Do you think the Republicans are happy with their choice?

OBAMA: We are, but I don't know how --

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: I don't know how they feel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Athena Jones is live at the White House with more on Senator Sanders' meeting with President Obama.

Good morning, Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. As you said, that meeting is just over an hour away, and we expect it to last about an hour, and when it comes to a discussion about just when precisely Senator Sanders is going to drop out of the race, I can tell you we don't expect the president to directly ask him when are you going to get out. They're very sensitive to not wanting to alienate the millions and millions of energetic young Bernie Sanders supporters who they're going to need to ensure that Clinton can win the White House in November, but we do expect the president to begin to try to prod Sanders toward accepting Hillary Clinton as the nominee.

And that's a key step toward party unity, and this is all about party unity. We know, as you saw there, the president is eager to get out on the campaign trail, campaign with Hillary Clinton, and draw a contrast between her and Donald Trump. He has a lot to say about Donald Trump. We've seen a sampling of it over the last several weeks, but what they want to do right now is be very, very careful and be very conciliatory as they try to see -- you know, as they try to bring the Democratic primary process to a true end.

For one thing, D.C. still has to vote next Tuesday, and so we don't expect to see the president, for instance, join Clinton on the campaign trail at a big campaign-style event at least until after that happens. And for today we know the president wants to hear Sanders out. This is the second sit-down the two will have had over the course of this primary season and the fourth time they will have talked just in the last month, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones reporting live from the White House.

And as Democrats look to unify, they're also keeping up the pressure on Donald Trump. Senator Elizabeth Warren is set to ramp up her attacks on Trump in a big speech later tonight. That speech reportedly will take aim at the presumptive nominee's, quote, "racism."

Warren will also slam House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell saying Trump's words are just part of a larger Republican plan to influence the nation's courts.

Mitch McConnell tells CNN that Trump needs to act more like a presidential candidate with fewer off-the-cuff comments and perhaps he should use the teleprompter more often.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MAJORITY LEADER: I've run into him at the NRA convention in my hometown of Louisville a couple of weeks ago. And I said, hey, Donald -- and we were in the green room. I said, hey, you got a script. He pulled out of his pocket, said, I hate a script. It's so boring. I said put me down in favor of boring.

He is now one of the two people that are going to be president of the United States of America, and he needs to begin to act like a presidential candidate. It's not inappropriate to have thoughtful remarks and nothing wrong with reading them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Chris Frates is tracking all the developments, too, this morning. He's in Washington.

Hi, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol. You know, many Republicans have long feared that Donald Trump's divisive rhetoric would derail his campaign. And now with some Republicans calling his recent comments about a federal judge downright racist, they're starting to sound the alarm that if he doesn't tone it down, he's helping to put Hillary Clinton in the White House.

[10:05:02] And while Republicans scramble to respond to their new party leader, Democrats, well, they're pouncing. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who's started to kind of carve out a role as a leading Trump opponent, plans to try to light up the billionaire in a speech later today. In fact she's going to go after Donald Trump for what she says is his remarks about a judge from Mexican descent. In fact, saying that those were racist remarks and I have a little bit of what she's going to say according to her prepared remarks.

She's going to say, "Donald Trump is a loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraud who has never risked anything for anyone and serves nobody but himself. And that's just one of the many reasons why he will never be president of the United States. Judge Curiel has survived far worse than Donald Trump. He has survived actual assassination attempts. He'll have no problem surviving Trump's nasty temper tantrums."

And Warren will also try to tie Trump's judge bashing to congressional Republicans' efforts to block President Obama's Supreme Court pick. She's really going to paint Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell with that same broad brush. She'll say, quote, "Donald Trump chose racism as his weapon, but his aim is exactly the same as the rest of the Republicans. Pound the courts into submission to the rich and powerful."

Now we'll have to wait and see what other things she has to say in her speech tonight, Carol. It's sure to be very, very interesting.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: That's true. Chris Frates, thanks so much.

So let's talk about all this. I'm joined by CNN political analyst and "Washington Post" columnist Josh Rogin, CNN political director David Chalian and former communications director for the Jeb Bush campaign and answer (sic) to the Our Principle PAC, Tim Miller.

Welcome to all of you. So, David, clearly Elizabeth Warren is trying to bait Donald Trump. In light of the recent controversy over Judge Curiel, how might Mr. Trump respond?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, you know, who knows how Mr. Trump might respond to anything, but one would imagine it will follow a pattern here where he clearly cares a lot about this case, Carol. He's made it quite clear that he wants to fight against what he feels is mistreatment in this case, but it is also clear that he heard his fellow Republicans from his party have extreme concern about the way he was prosecuting that case with the comments about his Mexican heritage. He backed off that Tuesday night and we'll continue to see if he does.

I think one of the more important parts of what Elizabeth Warren is saying is not just baiting Donald Trump, but she is clearly now demonstrating what the Democratic playbook is going to be and this is what has a lot of Republicans concerned here which is to tie Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and every other Republican down ballot to Donald Trump and his most controversial comments.

And that is going to be part of her mission when she speaks tonight, and that is the Harry Reid playbook to try to win back the Senate, and this is one of the things that is giving Republicans a lot of concern about having Trump at the top of the ticket.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So it's very important how Mr. Trump responds to this, if at all. I mean, his usual response to Senator Elizabeth Warren, Tim, is to call her Pocahontas.

TIM MILLER, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, JEB BUSH CAMPAIGN: Look, Donald Trump is probably right now sitting around in his gold lame robe watching cable news because that's what he does. He loves to watch cable news. And the idea that he's going to be able to control himself this time is crazy. And if any of the Republicans on the Hill think that, you know, now he's turned the corner because he managed to give one teleprompter speech where he didn't make any dirty jokes, they've lost their mind.

And so what we'll expect to see from Donald Trump is what we always will see from him which is childish thin-skinned attacks. And you know, I hate to be on the side of Elizabeth Warren, there's a first for everything. But this is one time where she is right, he cannot control himself, and you know we don't want a president who is like that and I promise you it doesn't take a crystal ball to see that's what's going to happen in the next couple of days.

COSTELLO: Actually, Josh, Mr. Trump is meeting with big money fundraisers along with some members of his campaign. What do you supposed he'll say about this very controversy to those fundraisers?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. Well, Mr. Trump has been very clear that he will defend the party and make it something that they can be proud of. At the same time he's been unable to string together more than two days of actually doing that. You know, he's got these two conflicting messages. On the one hand he says every time he's asked that he doesn't need a big money machine to beat Hillary Clinton.

He thinks that the billion-dollar campaign industry is just sort of a slush fund to make campaign professionals rich. At the same time he knows he needs the Republican Party and the donors and the RNC in order to build the infrastructure that he doesn't have. I mean there's a reality here. That's the Clinton campaign is way ahead on fundraising, way ahead in organization, and that does matter.

So Trump is going to have to ask these guys for money without promising them anything and then will publicly and tell his supporters that he doesn't really need their money after all. It's a careful, tricky kind of thing to say.

COSTELLO: OK. OK.

[10:10:01] So, David, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, talked to a local radio station in Wisconsin and he talked about -- you know, yesterday came out and said Mr. Trump's remarks over Judge Curiel were racist but that doesn't necessarily mean that Donald Trump himself was racist. Well, this is what he said this morning on this local radio station in Wisconsin about Mr. Trump's rhetoric.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Do I think that these kinds of antics are distracting and give us a campaign that we cannot be proud of? Yes. I have spoken very clearly about it. But I think and hope and believe that he can fix this to the point where he can hopefully run a campaign that we can all be proud of.

And what I can control, Jay, is what we do here in Congress and what we're doing is giving the country a choice and offering very specific solutions based on our conservative constitutional founding principles. That's what I can control. That's what I'm doing, and that's what we're hoping to offer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Well, the thing is, David, you know, what he calls Mr. Trump's antics are overshadowing his very hard work on policy. CHALIAN: Yes, no doubt about that, and Paul Ryan, you can just hear

how tortured he feels about this. I mean, on one day he's going out to totally take Donald Trump to task for his words, and on the next day he is behind closed doors with his House members saying we really do need to unify and, you know, we've got to make sure we defeat Hillary Clinton.

You know, both things are true. I -- but it is -- it shows what a difficult position Paul Ryan is in and why -- you know, when you have to go out there as, you know, the top elected official of the party basically, and say I hope, I think, I believe he can turn this around, you are in a position that you don't want to be in.

COSTELLO: And, Tim, you know, I'm going to ask you to put your hat on. You're a former communications director for the Jeb Bush campaign, right? So Paul Ryan says that he believes that Mr. Trump can fix his problem. So if you were -- if you were on Donald Trump's campaign, what would you tell him? How would you tell him to fix the problem?

MILLER: They're in a double bind. Right? There is no fix for Donald Trump because what -- you know, he is not the Donald Trump that inspires people when he's the guy who's neutered in front of the teleprompter, and when you let him loose, he makes these comments that distract from the campaign.

But just real quick to David's point, you know, these comments also cover up another big issue between Paul Ryan and Donald Trump and really most of the Republicans and the House and Donald Trump is they don't agree on very much when it comes to policy. You know, Donald Trump is anti-trade. Donald Trump is -- wants to spend more money. Donald Trump wants to align us with Putin and not Britain in foreign policy. Donald Trump is not really a social conservative.

So, you know, where -- what are the ties that bind? And as this campaign goes on, that's going to be a major problem.

COSTELLO: But, Josh, I think those things kind of resonate with voters, and that's a good thing, isn't it?

ROGIN: Well, yes, and we've seen the Republican Party go through the five stages of grief and we've got denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and now they seem to be going through them all over again. The story this morning was that Republicans may mount another challenge to Donald Trump's nomination at the convention. It's not a real thing. Donald Trump will be their nominee. They're having a very hard time wrapping their heads around it. That's what the voters want, and like it or not, that's what's going to happen in Cleveland in July.

COSTELLO: OK. We'll see. Josh Rogin, Tim Miller, David Chalian, thanks to all of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, more Israeli troops are headed to the West Bank and now Israel is banning thousands of Palestinians from entering the country. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:36] COSTELLO: Israel has a message for thousands of Palestinians. That message, don't come into Israel. This as more Israeli troops are fanning out into the West Bank. The crackdown coming just hours after two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a packed market in Tel Aviv killing four people. Chilling surveillance video shows the suspects firing automatic weapons at terrified diners who scrambled to get out of the way.

CNN's Oren Liebermann is in Tel Aviv where that market has reopened.

Hi, Oren.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And this market looks like it's a normal day here. Of course that's what the mayor of Tel Aviv wanted. He said don't let terror disrupt your lives. He said don't forget about peace and that appears to be the message being carried out here right this hour and throughout really the morning that we've seen it here. We have a few different updates. One, a very short but significant statement from the Palestinian Authority, from Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' office.

The statement reads, "The presidency has repeatedly stressed its rejection of all actions that target civilians from any side no matter what the justification. The achievement of a just peace and the creation of a positive climate are what contribute to removing -- in the region."

So Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas condemning this attack and violence in general in no uncertain terms. The other update comes from the victims. We heard from Israeli police that -- of course we knew last night that four Israelis have been killed. Now we know there are still four people in the hospital being treated. They are moderately wounded. One of them, according to police, is the terror suspect who was shot before he was arrested. A second terror suspect was arrested without gunshots.

Now we have seen the Israeli response. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to attack the attackers. And we have seen the beginning of that swift response from freezing 83,000 travel permits for Palestinian to putting two more battalions in the West Bank to imposing a full closure on Yatta, a Palestinian town in the southern West Bank. This is the beginning of that response -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Oren Liebermann reporting live from Tel Aviv this morning. Thanks so much.

I want to take you out to Northern Virginia actually. Bernie Sanders just -- his plane just landed at Dulles International Airport. There you see him and his wife Jane disembarking from that plane. I would assume they're going to get into the car and they'll travel to the White House where Senator Sanders will meet with President Obama.

This meeting came at the request of Senator Sanders. We assume that the men are going to talk about, oh, when Bernie Sanders might drop out of the presidential race and also what Senator Sanders wants, you know, included in the Democratic platform at the convention in Philadelphia.

[10:20:10] We'll keep you posted on that meeting. It's set to take place in just about an hour from now.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, can Donald Trump work the art of the deal. The billionaire sitting down with major GOP fundraisers. A live report next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Donald Trump got the votes. Now he needs to get the cash. At noon today Mr. Trump and his top aides will be meeting with top fundraisers from across the country trying to convince them to sign those checks.

[10:25:08] But with Trump still reeling from the latest in what seems like a never-ending slew of controversial comments that may be no easy task.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is outside the Four Seasons in New York where that fundraising meeting is set to take place.

Good morning, Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. Donald Trump is expected to come here soon. What he's going to be doing is he's going to be meeting with top fundraisers, top fundraising officials from both the RNC and his campaign and we're also expecting some of the top donors to the Trump Victory Fund, that's the general election fund that's an agreement between the campaign, the RNC, and several state fundraising committees as well.

So that's what we're expecting Donald Trump to do here. This comes just as he's reeling from his latest controversy out of course over the Trump University judge, Judge Curiel, whom Donald Trump accused of being biased because of his Mexican heritage. But -- so Donald Trump is kind of starting to try and do a lot of fundraising now. He's trying to make appeals to the donor class that has been resistant to joining onto his campaign.

You know, the establishment has kind of hesitated at Donald Trump's brash tone. Many of them in the primary opposed him but people are starting to come around to Donald Trump. Of course this latest controversy was yet again another sign, another sign that sent jitters into the donor class making them question whether or not they could really sign on with somebody like Donald Trump. So today he's going to make that appeal and try to convince people that he can lead the party, that he does take this responsibility seriously and of course moving towards raising enough money to compete with Hillary Clinton in the general election.

You know, Donald Trump said yesterday in an interview that he is s not planning -- he doesn't see a reason, he said, to raise the billion dollars to compete with Hillary Clinton in the general election. He thinks that he can get away with a much lower fundraising total but he's still going to have to do a lot to compete with Hillary Clinton and the big money that she's pulling in -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jeremy Diamond, we'll be awaiting the meeting's end and we'll check back with you. Thanks so much.

So let's talk about this. I want to bring in Republican Congressman Bill Flores of Texas who says he will not endorse Donald Trump and Republican Congressman Luke Messer from Indiana who says he will support the nominee but he has been critical of Mr. Trump's rhetoric.

Thank you both for being here this morning.

REP. BILL FLORES (R), TEXAS: Glad to be on.

REP. LUKE MESSER (R), INDIANA: Great to join you.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. I'd like you both to listen to what the Ohio governor, John Kasich, the former presidential candidate John Kasich, had to say about Mr. Trump's comments about Judge Curiel. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), OHIO: The qualities we need in a leader is very important to me. This is not a game for me. Look, I can't go for dividing, name calling, or somebody that doesn't really represent conservative principles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you saying it's possible you can walk into that arena in Cleveland, Ohio, and not endorse?

KASICH: Absolutely. Of course. Look, I've been this way since I was in politics. I kind of call them the way I see them and never -- never more than today does a country need to be unified. Do we need to stop all the fight, do we need to realize that we're Americans before we're Republicans and Democrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Congressman Messer, the convention is going to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, a state very important if you want to win a presidential election, and the Ohio governor may not endorse the nominee. Has that ever happened before?

MESSER: Well, I don't think it's ever happened, and it's clearly a problem. Look, Donald Trump was not my first choice for president but I'm sure not supporting Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump is our nominee so I'm going to support him but Donald Trump has a role to play here, too, and I think one of the real mysteries of this fall campaign is, Donald Trump really have some kind of personal tick where he can't control what he has to say? Or is he an adult, is he a leader, and can he focus on the hopes and dreams of the American people? If he does that, if he focuses on jobs and he focuses on the Clintons'

decade-long record of deceit, we can win this fall. And if he doesn't do that, the real loser is the American worker because the American worker can't afford four more years of the same.

COSTELLO: But, Congressman Flores, it's hard to take words back especially when you say them on camera.

FLORES: It is hard to take words back but what -- I think what's important to do now is for Donald Trump to show what his vision is for leadership and for policy moving forward and a lot less trash talk. Look, 70 percent of Americans are really frustrated with the direction of the country and what they want to hear is a positive vision and they want to see strong leadership, and you don't get that by trash- talking a federal judge based on his ethnic heritage. So he needs to change channels and focus on two things.

One is what is he going to do for America? And number two is, what will Hillary do to hurt America? Because neither Luke nor I are ever going to vote for Hillary, and we're both intending to vote for Donald Trump.

COSTELLO: Well --

FLORES: The question is, will somebody like me come out and endorse him, the leader of the largest conservative caucus in Congress? And so --

COSTELLO: But here's where I'm confused --

FLORES: But that's up to Donald Trump.

COSTELLO: Here is where I'm confused when there is no endorsement for a candidate yet -- isn't a vote an endorsement?

FLORES: No. An endorsement is when you come out and publicly support the candidate. Here is the situation. Let's use Donald Trump as an example. Several people come to Donald Trump and they asked to put -- his name on their properties.