Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Trump Lags in Poll, Vowed New Direction;Police Defend Tactics to End Killer's Attack; Attorney General to Meet Survivors Amid Scrutiny. Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired June 21, 2016 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:00] CUOMO: One for each of the 49 victims and placed them outside the hospital where the survivors are recovering.
BALDWIN: So lovely. Good for him.
CUOMO: Right? Beautiful gesture for someone to show we're all interconnected. You know?
BALDWIN: We are. We are indeed. Hey, thanks for having me.
CUOMO: It's nice to be here. Thanks for waking up.
BALDWIN: All right. You're welcome.
Carol Costello, the "NEWSROOM" starts with you right now. Good morning.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, have a great day.
NEWSROOM starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump's poll numbers down, and another campaign shake-up.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Why were you fired?
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR DONALD TRUMP: I don't know the answer to that.
COSTELLO: Plus, Hillary Clinton ready to deliver another blow to the Trump campaign. Can she chalk up her economic plan and take down Trump's?
And a life-sized Noah's ark, snack in the middle of Kentucky. Help wanted, but you better have this on your resume.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people have put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
COSTELLO: And guess who helped pay for it?
Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
New polls, a new direction. Same old Donald Trump. The Republican presumptive nominee says he will not budge on his tone or his message even after booting his campaign manager.
Now Trump looks for new traction. While mired in a new set of polls. Chief among the findings from the CNN-ORC poll, Hillary Clinton holds her lead, 47 percent of registered voters back her, compared to 42 percent for Trump. Trump holds the advantage on two hut button issues. And this morning Clinton goes on the attack to seize one of them.
Her speech warning that Trump is unfit to steer the economy and that he'd be a disaster for America's working families.
Our reporters and experts are assembled to break it all down for you, but let's begin with CNN's Brianna Keilar. She's in Columbus, Ohio, where Clinton is set to deliver her big speech this morning.
Good morning, Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol, you look at those polls, you see Hillary Clinton leading overall, when she faces off against Donald Trump. But there is a number in the CNN-ORC poll that is very troubling to the Clinton campaign and that has to do with the economy. When voters are asked who do you think would do the best job with the economy, would handle the economy best, 51 percent say Donald Trump, 43 percent say Hillary Clinton.
And this is one of the reasons why she is trying to take aim today at his business record and his economic acumen as some voters may see it. She is doing this in a speech here at this community center in Ohio.
Her campaign also, though, launching a Web site, the ArtoftheSteal.biz, a negative play on words of Trump's best-selling book, and an online video today that takes aim at some of his ventures. Here is part of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm really a good businessman. I'm so good at business.
GRAPHICS: Donald's businesses have been good for him. But not for everybody else. Trump bankrupted his Atlantic City casinos, but still earned million.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Now Hillary Clinton's aim today, we're hearing from a top aide, is to make the case that Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to deal with the economy, that he's not looking out for the middle class, that he would send the country into a recession, and hurt middle class Americans when it comes to their jobs and to their livelihoods.
But at the same time, Carol, this is something, again, that is a bit of a challenge for Hillary Clinton as she tries to make up some ground with what voters think about how she could do on the economy.
Today we're thinking that this is a bit of a continuance in what we saw a few weeks ago when Hillary Clinton went after Donald Trump on foreign policy. It was built as a foreign policy speech, but it was much more of a roast than it was her outlining her foreign policy proposals. I think we're expecting more of that today when it comes to the economy.
COSTELLO: All right, Brianna Keilar, reporting live from Columbus, Ohio, this morning, thank you.
Donald Trump is not talking about the economy, he is talking about his campaign, offering nothing but praise and affection for Corey Lewandowski, the very man he fired yesterday. Lewandowski had after all steered Trump's novice campaign past nearly 20 challengers right to the nomination. Now Trump says he wants to go in a new direction.
Our chief political correspondent Dana Bash is with us now to tell us more. Good morning.
BASH: Good morning. And you know, I was told that Donald Trump was watching Corey Lewandowski as he spoke to us right here live. And the fact that will Lewandowski was sort of effusive and has continued praise even just hours after he was fired no doubt is why Donald Trump returned the praise. That is kind of vintage Donald Trump.
But the open question now going forward is how will Donald Trump be different. Will the fact that this man who many people who did not like Corey Lewandowski and thought he was bad for Donald Trump kind of fed into his worst instincts, will Trump now change, and the answer that he had this morning was no.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[09:05:12] MATT LAUER, MSNBC: Does this signal with him out that you're not going do the let "Trump be Trump" any more, that you're going to change your tone for the general election?
TRUMP: I don't think so, Matt. I think I have to be who I am. I don't want to be a phony, like Hillary Clinton, where she reads stuff that's written up by high-priced talent. I don't want to be that. I want to be what I am.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: So a little bit of a Popeye answer there, I am what I am and I'm not going to change. But the other thing that Lewandowski was in charge of was fundraising, and we have no evidence this morning because of a new FEC report of how bad Donald Trump's books are right now. Look at that. $1.3 million, which is poultry when you're talking about this level of campaign.
COSTELLO: Wow.
BASH: But even more so when you see the comparison to Hillary Clinton's $42 million. And there is this same kind of difference, even more of a difference, when it comes to their super PACs. So that is probably exhibit A of where you're going to see --
COSTELLO: How can Mr. Trump ever catch up?
BASH: It's going to be hard. Now they argue inside Trump world still that he's a different kind of candidate and he doesn't necessarily have to catch up. But you still need money to do the things that he hasn't done yet like building out his team. They're relying a lot on the Republican National Committee and its staff to be sort of their eyes and ears and volunteers and boots on the ground in a lot of these battle ground states.
But they still need to help -- the RNC needs to be funneled, and that again is the job of the guy at the top of the ticket. So they're going to be working very hard to try to use the fact that he is doing a shake-up in his campaign to reassure donors who have been sitting on the sidelines, no question about it, and they're going to definitely press Donald Trump to be more aggressive in picking up the phone and calling donors.
COSTELLO: Dane Bash, thanks so much.
All right. Let's talk about all of this. Mark Preston is CNN's political executive editor, he's with me now, the "Daily Beast' editor-in-chief and CNN political analyst John Avlon is here, too.
Welcome to both of you. So I want to delve into these poll numbers.
JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: Because the poll numbers are fascinating. And Mark, I'll start with this one. Our polls show 51 percent think Mr. Trump is better equipped to handle the economy to Clinton's 43 percent. Why is that?
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Well, because, listen, Carol, he has made his background as a successful businessman, as really the crutch of his campaign, and has basically been selling this idea to voters, quite effectively, that he is an outsider from Washington and he can change the way things are going now.
If you look at the economy, you know, the economy is getting better. It certainly has gotten better from where it has been, but people are still feeling the pain. And when Donald Trump goes out there and makes bold declarations that he is going to bring all these jobs back to America, that sells and it works. COSTELLO: OK. So there are a few confounding numbers in this poll,
John. So Mr. Trump lags behind Clinton on immigration. That is his signature issue. You know, build the wall. So why is that no longer seemingly resonating with voters?
AVLON: Well, it's because we're dealing with a new reality when it comes to the electorate the candidates are trying to connect with. Donald Trump's position on immigration, which was essentially build a wall, block Muslims, was very popular with the 25 percent of the Republican voters who turned out for the primaries. The problem is that voter cohort has little or nothing to do with winning a general election.
And so these things that were real assets in the Republican primary are actually electoral kryptonite come the general, except, as Mark just pointed out, these broad issues that have to do with strength and his reputation as a celebrity businessman, which is one of the reasons why he has an edge on economy.
It's also a reason why the Clinton campaign is trying to take shots at him on this core credibility as a successful businessman. Because add those financial that we showed last night he ain't running this campaign like a successful business. This things make the Titanic look good.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: OK. So more confounding things in this poll. Mrs. Clinton leads on who can better handle being commander-in-chief, she leads on do voters think she has the better temperament, most voters say yes. Yet Mr. Trump wins when it comes to who is the stronger leader.
Mark, does that make sense to you?
PRESTON: Yes, you know, it does only because, and look, you and I were just talking to -- about this before we came on. When you make these very bold declarations, again, people grasp on to them. When Donald Trump has this really machoism, where he says he's going to take on these world leaders, that, you know, he's going to make Mexico pay for the wall, people believe that or at least they want to believe that. And that again works.
Now to John's point, when you start drilling down on some of these things and you realize that some of these promises that he is making really can't come true, that's when things become problematic for the Trump campaign.
[09:10:06] COSTELLO: So here's the depressing part of the poll, this really did depress me.
AVLON: Yes --
COSTELLO: So 56 percent would be embarrassed if Trump --
AVLON: Carol --
COSTELLO: What? I just want to get these numbers out.
AVLON: No, no, sorry.
COSTELLO: Fifty-six percent would be embarrassed if Trump were president.
AVLON: Yes.
COSTELLO: Thirty-nine percent would be embarrassed if Clinton were elected. As I said, John, that's just depressing. And not because, you know --
AVLON: Well, beyond your --
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO: It's just like --
AVLON: Your morning feeling of depression which coffee won't solve, Carol. You know, I'm glad you pulled out that number because if 56 percent of Americans say they would be embarrassed if Donald Trump were elected and 56 percent in this poll show that -- say that they would be afraid. Now those are, I think, the biggest news embedded in this poll because if you have viscerally negative reaction of that magnitude with a clear majority of Americans, when Hillary Clinton supporters seem to be more set on him in a general context -- on her in the general context than Donald Trump, that is a huge hurdle.
If 56 percent of Americans say they would be embarrassed or afraid if you're president, that's not looking good in terms of cobbling together a majority of voters on election day. Those are the big numbers.
COSTELLO: And on that same question, Mark, 46 percent would be afraid if Mrs. Clinton became president. And I'm only saying I'm depressed because these are the two candidates that voters have to choose between. And this is how they feel about them.
PRESTON: Right. And it just really says something about the America that we live in right now. Extremely divided. And we've seen it become more and more divided over the years. I mean, you have, you know, the Democratic Party basically which by and large owns the northeast, you know, owns the West Coast, and then pretty much everything else in between is Republican and conservatives.
So, listen, you have a very divided America. These two candidates that are running are not very well liked, but the fact of the matter is, it's what's on the table and that's what voters have to choose from when we reach November.
COSTELLO: That's very pragmatic, Mark. And it's reality, right?
PRESTON: Right.
COSTELLO: OK. So going back to Corey Lewandowski and the change in the Trump campaign. 81 percent of voters think Trump's comments surrounding Judge Curiel were inappropriate. 71 percent say Trump banning the press was inappropriate.
So, John, is that a big reason why Corey Lewandowski is gone?
AVLON: It shouldn't be because -- you know, tone comes from the top in every organization. Corey Lewandowski clearly wasn't going to win Mr. Congeniality with his colleagues. He seemed unusually despised for a campaign manager. But, you know, Trump's statements are Trump's responsibility and tone comes the top. And he respectively promoted this guy in a very divided office political environment until apparently his kids stepped in and said this has to stop.
And one of the internal rules of political campaigns is you're never going to win a fight with the wife or the family. It's a losing strategy. And Corey Lewandowski ultimately had divided things up to such an extent and most importantly, as the financial disclosure forms showed that got released last night had presided over a dysfunctional anemic, absurd organization. There had been no build-up financially organizationally to win a general election. And that's ultimately on the campaign manager more than the candidate.
So you want to follow -- to find the truth in politics, Carol, follow the money. The report last night showed a total failure on the part of the campaign manager to build any kind of general election organization.
COSTELLO: Ouch. OK. I'm going to leave it there.
AVLON: Yes.
COSTELLO: Mark Preston, John Avlon, thanks to both of you.
AVLON: Disagree with me.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: I think I'll just move on.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, new questions in Orlando, after officials released the killer's full 911 transcripts. Should police have done something different? I'll ask a former police commissioner, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:17:46] COSTELLO: Four gun control measures failing to pass the Senate last night, in the quake of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The amendment is not garnering enough partisan support Monday to enforce stricter background checks and to block gun sales to anyone on the no-fly list.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat who led the 15 hour filibuster last week that forced yesterday's vote, he told the "Washington Post," quote, "Republicans have decided to sell weapons to ISIS", end quote.
In a matter of hours, Attorney General Loretta Lynch will meet with survivors and victims' families in Orlando. Lynch's visit coming less than 24 hours after her decision to heavily redact the killer's 911 calls to police that drew massive scrutiny. She is expected to address the media this afternoon.
CNN's Boris Sanchez, live in Orlando with more.
Good morning.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
The street outside the Pulse nightclub has at least partially reopened up. There is still some activity out here, but we saw a tweet from Orlando police just a few moments ago saying that things will be wrapping up here shortly. This, with as you said, the visit from Attorney General Loretta Lynch, she's not only meeting with families, she's also meeting with prosecutors to go over evidence in the case, evidence that caused a controversy yesterday with specific details that were redacted by the FBI.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ (voice-over): About a half hour into his shooting spree inside Pulse nightclub, the killer calls 911. In a 50-second phone call he says, quote, "I'm in Orlando and I did the shootings."
RON HOPPER, FBI ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: He did so in a chilling, calm, and deliberate manner.
SANCHEZ: When asked his name, he replies, "My name is I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State." Baghdadi and ISIS both omitted by the FBI in its initial release of the transcript.
HOPPER: Part of the redacting is meant to not give credence to individuals who have done terrorist acts in the past. We're not going to propagate their rhetoric, their violent rhetoric.
SANCHEZ: But Republican leaders like House Speakers Paul Ryan accuse the Obama administration of minimizing the threat and FBI later released the unredacted version.
By 2:48, the first hostage negotiations begin.
[09:20:00] Over a span of three phone calls, lasting 28 minutes, the killer calls himself an Islamic soldier and demands that America stop bombing Syria and Iraq. He claims the vehicle outside had some bombs, telling negotiators, "I'm going to ignite if they try to do anything stupid."
After questions about tactics, Orlando police continue to defend their actions during the three-hour standoff.
CHIEF JOHN MINA, ORLANDO POLICE DEPARTMENT: Our officers were within the club within minutes, exchanged gunfire with the suspect, forced him to stop shooting and retreat into the bathroom.
SANCHEZ: Two hours into the standoff, police pull an air conditioner out of a dressing room window, rescuing eight hostages. Shortly after, rescued survivors say the killer had threatened to put suicide vests on four hostages.
And just after 5:00 a.m., SWAT teams breached the building. Shots are fired and a minute later, the killer is dead.
It remains unclear if any of the hostages were hit by friendly fire.
MINA: Those killings are on the suspect and on the suspect alone, in my mind. All that will be investigated.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: That will certainly be a question that's asked of the attorney general when she is here.
Another thing you can be certain that will be asked about those redacted portions of the release from the FBI yesterday, as well as whether or not any other potential charges are pending. We're still waiting to find out if the shooter's wife will be facing a judge, Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Boris Sanchez, reporting live in Orlando, thank you.
With me now, Howard Safir, a former New York City police commissioner.
Welcome, sir.
HOWARD SAFIR, FORMER NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: Nice to be here.
COSTELLO: Nice to have you here.
Hindsight is 20/20, but there are lot of questions about how police handled this. Do you think they waited to loo too long to shoot the suspect?
SAFIR: I don't believe so. I don't know all the facts, that will come out in the investigation, but, you know, the reality is you have fluid situation. Your goal is to preserve life.
If you look at the timeline, there was very little shooting contact with the individual, with Mateen until the actual breach. In between that, they rescued a bunch of people. So, I think they did a credible job based on what I know.
COSTELLO: The suspect said he had bombs. How do police determine if a suspect really does have bombs?
SAFIR: Well, if you're not in close proximity, you really can't. You can send in robots, you could send in dogs, but that's all if -- depending on the situation. So, I think when the suspect says he has bombs, you have large number of people in the place, you're getting cell phone calls from victims as well, giving you intelligence, you move as cautiously as possible until you believe that there is a real threat to additional loss of life, and then you move in. That's what I think they did.
COSTELLO: The shooter was also calm and deliberate, you know, when he talked to 911 responders, or 911 operators, he was very calm. Does that make police worry more than someone who is talking in a bit more hysterical way?
SAFIR: Well, it does. It gives you at least a bit of a sense that you might be able to negotiate. But it also tells you that you have a committed, well-armed, vicious killer, and you have to move cautiously, but you have to move with determination, and I think that's what they did.
COSTELLO: So, the shooter also had a semi-automatic weapon, what challenges does that pose for police and SWAT?
SAFIR: Well, he basically had an AR-15, which is a military weapon. It causes great loss of life to anybody who comes in contact with it. And you know, you have to move cautiously. I think the more important issue is, what do we do about banning these weapons in the future?
COSTELLO: Well, I wish I could say something, but it doesn't appear we're going to do anything. At least, you know, if you base it on what happened yesterday among lawmakers.
Back to this scene. You know, there is this awful question hanging out there. Did police mistakenly shoot any of the bar patrons? Is that possible?
SAFIR: It's always possible in a shooting situation. Friendly fire is always an issue in close quarters. They had a very well-trained SWAT team. They believed they did not. The investigation will figure out if they did or did not.
But, you know, getting back to this weapons thing, I think it is a disgrace what Congress did yesterday, we're at war, and they focused on a minutia instead of the solution, and both parties should be ashamed of themselves.
COSTELLO: What about the terrorist angle to the story? Gun rights activists are saying we should be concentrating on that, not so much on gun control.
SAFIR: We should be concentrating right now on doing things like making sure that every licensed gun dealer in the United States has the no fly and terrorist watch list, and even if there are some innocent people who are caught up in that web, they should be an appeal process they can resolve.
[09:25:05] But the fact that we're putting our nation at list by selling guns to terrorists and people continuing to do harm in mass shooting situations is a disgrace.
COSTELLO: Well, and I'll push back on you a little bit, because this guy wasn't on the terror watch list when he bought those weapons. He'd been removed. SAFIR: Yes, but if you go back five years, and give them the list
five years back, they'll still have the information to notify the authorities and they can take the proper action.
COSTELLO: The other thing that I would like to ask you about is profiling Muslims. Do you think that would have stopped this?
SAFIR: Well, this is a very controversial issue. I am not happy about profiling, but if you look at the Israelis and you look at other countries that have used it successfully, we know what shooters look like. We know what the terrorists look like. We now who flew into the World Trade Center. We know what happened in Fort Hood.
You know, these are all things that are very clear. We know that the enemy looks like a -- in their 20s to 40s, male Muslim. We should not eliminate that. It shouldn't be the only thing we show, but it's certainly should be something that we put into the equation.
Like I said, the Israelis have used it successfully for years, as have other countries. They just don't advertise it, but it's something I believe is very important.
COSTELLO: Howard Safir, former New York police commissioner -- thank you for joining me this morning.
Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: Donald Trump's business record caught in the crossfire, as Hillary Clinton gears up for what's expected to be a stinging speech on the economy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
