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Clinton And Trump on Trail; Republicans Unveil Convention Stage; Trump Giving Economic Speech Next Hour; Trump Campaign Hires Former Cruz Lieutenant; Trump Muslim Ban Shifts to Terror State Ban; Water Systems Violating Lead Rules; Panel Finds No New Clinton Wrongdoing. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired June 28, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, there, I'm Brianna Keilar in for Wolf Blitzer. Thank you so much for joining us.

Up first, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail but also under fire today. Clinton is holding an event at a tech education facility in Denver. And she's facing renewed criticism over the terrorist attack in Benghazi with the release of a report by House Republicans.

Meanwhile, we are getting a first look at the stage for the Republican convention. These are pictures, live pictures in fact, from Cleveland where the party will be meeting in less than three weeks.

The presumptive Republican nominee trying to rally his base with an economic speech next hour near Pittsburgh. But Donald Trump is also under scrutiny for backtracking on his proposed Muslim ban.

CNN Political Reporter Sara Murray is joining us live now from Manneson, Pennsylvania. That is where Donald Trump will be speaking. Give us a sense of what we're expecting, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, good afternoon, Brianna. Look, (INAUDIBLE) is key to any potential Donald Trump strategy. This is where he feels like he can really tap into these white working class American voters that helped him propel to him -- propel to him eventually winning the Republican nomination, becoming to -- the presumptive Republican nominee.

And we're expecting him to talk a lot about how Hillary Clinton is the candidate of globalism. She has put the world in front of American workers and Donald Trump will cast himself as the candidate who will put America first, who will create jobs in this country, who will help boost Americans' income.

And so, we're expecting him to be hitting Hillary Clinton really hard in this speech today -- Brianna.

KEILAR: And he's expected to go after Hillary Clinton, as you mentioned, on trade. What exactly, specifically, is he going after her on?

MURRAY: That's right. I spoke to a senior Trump aide earlier today who said he -- that Donald Trump will be rattling off a number of trade deals where they feel like Hillary Clinton has really failed American workers, whether it's NAFTA, whether it's TPP, whether you're talking about trade with China.

And in addition to that, they said Trump is going to go a step further and he's going to lay out what he would do on trade in the first 100 days, so how he would approach things differently.

Now, they are saying this going to be his most detailed economic address so far. Of course, we've heard Donald Trump say he would get rid of these trade agreements but we haven't really heard him say how he would do that or what he might replace them with. And so, we might get a little bit more of a flavor for that today.

KEILAR: And tell us about this new hire. This is one that has a lot of eyebrows raising. Obviously, no love loss between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. But a former Ted Cruz aide, a top aide, is now working for Donald Trump.

MURRAY: That's right. Jason Miller is coming on as a senior adviser for communications for the Trump campaign. He was a very high-ranking official inside Cruz's campaign. And this comes at a time when a number of former Cruz staffers still feel very prickly about Donald Trump. Of course, Ted Cruz hasn't really come out with a full, sort of, endorsement of Trump. And even Jason Miller has had some jabs taken at Trump in the past, which you might expect when they were at rival campaigns.

But I want to draw you to an example of one of the tweets he sent saying Donald Trump is the Carl Lewis of flip-flopping. I have literally never seen anyone move with such speed.

Now, this is the kind of thing I think we see in every campaign whenever you see an aide who worked for a different candidate jump over to an opposing candidate. There's a little bit of awkwardness left over.

But, of course, Brianna, this was a particularly tumultuous year, a very hard flat (ph) primary. And so, everyone's going to kind of have to try to put that behind themselves as Jason comes over to work for Donald Trump.

KEILAR: All right, we'll see how that goes. Sara Murray, thank you so much.

First, it was a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., now it's moving toward a ban on immigrants from terror states. Let's talk more about Donald Trump shifting positions on this topic. And joining us to do that, we have CNN Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny, Senior Political Reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, and Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger.

So, what do we make of this? Is this the belated pivot to the general election? He's changing positions here.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: This sort of etch-a- sketch moment, as one of Mitt Romney's former aides famously put it heading into the general election.

Look, I think Donald Trump, his ban, his temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, is very popular with the Republican base. It is not so popular with leaders in Congress and it is not so popular with independent voters. And it may well be unconstitutional. So, there needed to be some kind of shifting.

The question is to what? And what we were hearing yesterday and others are hearing, and, again, it is not completely formed yet, is that he would shift away from this ban on Muslims to some kind of a ban from terrorist states. And we're not quite sure how that would work. Would it be a ban? Would it be vetting? Would -- I mean, we -- it's not well-conceived, at this point.

[13:05:10] But it is a shift. He realizes he's got to move into a different mode. The question is -- there has to be a policy and we don't have that yet.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It seems to me he's tried to be on both sides of things. I mean, he's tried to -- you know, he's giving red meat speeches. And I was in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina in December when he gave this speech, right after San Bernardino. And it was around the time people were, you know, saying, he's from New York City. The southerners in the conservative base, they weren't quite as comfortable with him yet.

So, he was doing a lot of things to make them more so.

Now, I think the challenge for Trump is will he be able to stick with this new policy?

BORGER: Right.

ZELENY: Or is he going to sort of be tempted to, you know, veer off into the old things that really get the crowd going. He feeds on applause more than he does, sort of, intellect here. So, I think that'll be interesting if he can -- or keep in this. But, clearly, a smart move politically to turn the corner. He doesn't have a voting record, why not?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, but he's sort of does have a record, right? I mean, him getting up in that --

ZELENY: Only what he said.

HENDERSON: Only what he said which is --

BORGER: (INAUDIBLE.)

HENDERSON: -- you know, which is important.

KEILAR: And pretty memorable, I will say.

HENDERSON: Pretty memorable.

KEILAR: It was a pretty declarative statement he made about what his plan would be.

ZELENY: He was reading from a statement. I, Donald J. Trump, is how he said it.

HENDERSON: It was not ad-libbed, yes.

BORGER: (INAUDIBLE) suggest, right?

HENDERSON: Yes.

BORGER: It was a suggestion, remember?

HENDERSON: Yes. What -- I mean, I think, can he really move away from it? I mean, if you're Hillary Clinton, if you're the Democrats, you are going to really tie this around him until November. You saw Elizabeth Warren mention it yesterday.

I mean, this is a big part of Donald Trump's brand, right? And so, for him to kind of try to shimmy out of it, at this point, and try to rebrand himself, I think it's going to be difficult.

KEILAR: We're used to candidates trying to minimize the changes in position. Oh, it's not a change. It's an adjustment. Or we're just filling in some details. But his campaign, I think this is a sort of glaring example of where they're trying to do that. The campaign denying that this is any change at all in his position.

Here's what national spokesman -- spokeswoman, I should say, Katrina Pierson, for the Trump campaign, told me yesterday on "THE SITUATION ROOM."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATRINA PIERSON, SPOKESWOMAN, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: But Mr. Trump is going to be refining his policy, putting out more specific details, which everybody's been asking for. But there has been no change. He still does not want to allow individuals to come into this country who cannot be vetted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Who cannot be vetted. And this is what she and I sort of went back and forth on yesterday on. There is a vetting process, starting with the U.N., trickles down, ultimately when it comes to refugees coming to the U.S., to federal agencies, the Department of Homeland Security, criminal background checks through the FBI, et cetera.

What do you make of this on the vetting and what Donald Trump -- are we expecting that to be a big part of this that he'll propose a change in the vetting process?

HENDERSON: I mean, she certainly wasn't familiar, at that time, with whatever vetting process that Donald Trump and his advisers might want to come up with. I mean, she kept saying that it was up to Congress, it was up to the FBI, it was up to everyone else to come up with it.

But they do seem to want to stick on this point about vetting to sort of distract from what is seemingly movement all over the place.

KEILAR: What's missing which is the word, Muslim, right?

BORGER: Well, exactly. You know, there are a couple of bills pending in the Senate that would make it more difficult for certain people to get into the United States. And I would have to say that they're probably looking at the legislation. I think one of the bills is sponsored by Senator Sessions.

HENDERSON: Right.

BORGER: They're looking -- they're looking at this legislation, I am sure, to talk about something that would be constitutional. The -- they're not going to lose any of their supporters by changing their position slightly, because Trump supporters are Trump supporters.

HENDERSON: Yes.

BORGER: They don't care about the details.

ZELENY: I think it may help though -- you know, a shift is a shift. And I think it will make some Republicans who are uneasy about him more, you know, at ease with him.

But the problem here is this policy making on the fly here, we saw it in your great interview with Katrina. This campaign is not, you know, stuck to these boring talking points like their rivals do, in terms of those 10-point plans. I mean, they're doing this on the fly. And at this point of a presidential campaign, you know, ideas start to matter more and more and more here.

So, I think that he'll have to give some specifics and the people who are on T.V. speaking for him will have to be familiar with them.

KEILAR: Yes, I mean, that seems pretty basic, but, obviously, it's sort of a challenge, at this point in time. ZELENY: Right.

KEILAR: Jeff, Nia, Gloria, thank you so much. And we'll be waiting for those specifics. I think all of us are really curious about what's in there.

Coming up, there is a new report out from House Republicans and it details what happened the night that four Americans were killed in Libya. But no new information that connects Hillary Clinton to any wrongdoing. We'll be talking to two lawmakers at odds over that report.

And later, how safe is the water flowing into your home? A new investigation on the EPA and lead getting into public drinking water.

[13:10:00]

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KEILAR: The Republican-led House Select Committee on Benghazi released their final report this morning. In it was praise for the four Americans killed in the attack in Benghazi, Ambassador Stevens, State Department computer expert, Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALS, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. There was also criticism. Criticism of the State Department, the CIA and the Defense Department for lack of response by the military.

But there was no bombshell, especially when it came to then secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Here is how committee chairman, Tray Doughty, summed it up this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI: Collectively and individually, all seven of us believed that there were more questions to ask, that there more answers to acquire, more witnesses to interview, more documents to access. And this report validates that belief. There is new information on what happened in Benghazi and that information should fundamentally change the way you view what happened in Benghazi. And there are recommendations made to make sure it does not happen again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash is on Capitol Hill covering this. And, Dana, was there new information here? He said there was. He said it should fundamentally change how people look at what happened. But was there?

[13:15:09]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: There's new texture and new anecdotes to feed into the narrative that we have known for, you know, for many years now and through several investigations proceeding this. There's no question, though, that they got a little bit more clarity when it comes to Chris Stephens, the ambassador who lost his life, his motivations and why he would be in to - in a dangerous place like he was. One example that they got was that he needed to prepare for Hillary Clinton's visit there. She, of course, was secretary of state then and that was going to be a month later, so he wanted to go and they wanted to make it a permanent consulate.

But the bigger question that everybody has been looking at, no matter how much Trey Gowdy wants to sort of tamp down on the question of politics is politics because Republicans have - many of them have been very transparent about the fact that they believe that the Democratic nominee - or presumptive for president has culpability here. But that's not some place that Trey Gowdy wanted to go. Listen to my questions to him on that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE SELECT CMTE ON BENGHAZI: Dana, shockingly that was not what the House asked me to do. Look at the resolution. The resolution doesn't mention Secretary Clinton. Speaker Boehner, nor Speaker Ryan, have ever asked me to do anything about 2016 presidential politics. Speaker Boehner asked me to find out what happened to four of our fellow citizens. And I believe that that is what I have done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So that's what he said his responsibility is. The issue, though, was plain in sight for us standing there or sitting there in the - in the press conference, which is on the stage. He had two of his fellow Republicans, who had decided that because Trey Gowdy wrote this 800- page narrative without any conclusions, they wanted to give conclusions and highly political conclusions, as you would imagine, Brianna, specifically laying the blame on the administration and Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time.

So at the end of the day, two years, about $7 million taxpayer dollars and certainly a lengthy narrative and some information for if the future, recommendations, so that Americans are not put in harm's way doing their jobs like they were in Benghazi. But no smoking gun, if you will, frankly, that a lot of Republicans, no matter how much they say this wasn't political, were looking for.

KEILAR: All right, Dana Bash, thank you so much for breaking that down for us.

And coming up, Democrats on the committee accusing Republicans of politicizing the deaths of four Americans. Republicans say Clinton has engaged in a politically motivated cover-up. We'll get reaction from both sides next.

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[13:22:28] KEILAR: Let's talk more about the release of the Benghazi report by the Republican-led House Select Committee and some of the reaction that we are seeing from both sides here. The State Department said, quote, "the essential facts surrounding the 2012 attacks in Benghazi have been known for some time," end quote, and that they are working to implement recommendations from a previous report.

And then there's this from the Clinton campaign. They say, "this committee's chief goal is to politicize the deaths of four brave Americans in order to try to attack the Obama administration and hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign."

Joining me now is California Democrat Adam Schiff. He is one of the five Democrats on the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

And, sir, in their news conference today, the Republicans were united, maybe not surprisingly, in criticizing Democrats on the committee. They say you politicized the report more than they have. What's your response to that?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI: Well, I think Dana hit it right on the head. Two years' worth of work, $7 million and all the Republicans were able to add was texture and anecdotes to what we knew already. No new conclusions. No new evidence of Secretary Clinton somehow engaging in wrongdoing. No new evidence of a military stand down order or gun running or any of those things.

And so the Republicans are trying to make a virtue of the fact that it's not focused on Secretary Clinton. But it wasn't for lack of trying. They tried for two years and failed. And they ran this committee from the very beginning in a way to exclude us. They excluded us from witness interviews without telling us. They didn't share information when it contradicted the narrative they wanted to create. They issued subpoenas in violation of House rules without consulting or having a vote on them. So they made it very plain this was going to be partisan from the beginning, much as Mr. McCarthy, one of the leadership said, the goal here really was to try to attack the secretary. And the fact that they failed shouldn't be held up as some kind of an applause line for the Republicans.

KEILAR: Democrats released their own report yesterday. In this Republican report today, there's a lot of criticism of the defense Department not responding in the immediate aftermath of the attack. There's also a little finger-pointing at the late ambassador, Chris Stephens, as well. What did you think of that?

SCHIFF: Well, look, I think it's terrible to be pointing fingers at an ambassador that gave his life for his country. He understood the risks. He loved Libya. He wanted to establish a more firm presence in Benghazi. No one understood the dangers more than he did. And I have nothing but respect for him.

In terms of the criticism of the Defense Department, those issues were raised years ago in terms of the fact that our response teams were not co-located with the planes that they would fly on. Those are things that have now been addressed, assets have been repositioned closer to the region where they may be need. But none of that is new. And the fact that they are leveling new criticisms doesn't justify this two- year, $7 million expense. [13:25:25] So, you know, I think people are going to be gravely

disappointed in this report. But those of us that participate in the prior investigations could see this coming for years now. And the only thing I can hope that comes out of this is not the Pentagon response, which happened already more than a year ago, but rather that Congress never revisits this kind of a taxpayer funded investigatory committee established for essentially political and partisan purposes.

KEILAR: Well, I know no one wants to speak ill of the dead, sir, but isn't it appropriate to look at the role of anyone who was involved in this, including Ambassador Stephens?

SCHIFF: Oh, absolutely. And I, you know, I think it's perfectly fair to consider, why did the ambassador think it was important to have a presence in Benghazi. But, look, you know, this man gave his life for his country and did it for all the right reasons. He wanted to have a presence there. He thought it was important for the United States, for our national security policy and our foreign policy. So I have nothing but praise for his motivations, for wanting to do what he did. And I don't think the failures, if there were failures, and there certainly were, you know, in terms of the State Department security, should be laid at the feet of the ambassador. I think he was a great foreign service officers.

KEILAR: One of the reasons that we all, the public collectively, found out about Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail address and a private e-mail server solely while she was secretary of state was because of the information that this committee sought. Do you see, in sort of even an indirect way, the utility in that?

SCHIFF: Well, look, I - you know, the secretary has said that she should not have used a private e-mail account and she's acknowledged that was a mistake. But that wasn't the point of the investigation. The point of the investigation supposedly was to try to come up with something new about Benghazi. So by the - by the majority's own definition, that really was not something that they were trying to achieve.

But, of course, you know, from the point of view of their leadership, this was exactly what they're trying to achieve, trying to find something they could use against the secretary. But, frankly, I think the American people, to paraphrase Bernie Sanders, they're tired of hearing about the e-mails. They're more concerned with who's going to protect the country and who's going to restore our economy. And I think those are the issues that voters will be caring about in November.

KEILAR: Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you so much.

And I do, right now, want to tell you this -

SCHIFF: Thank you.

KEILAR: Because Hillary Clinton is at a technology and education event in Denver, Colorado. She was actually just asked about this House Republican report on the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans. Here's what she said just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The question, if you couldn't hear it, was about the committee report on Benghazi that was released today. And I have said from the very beginning, nothing is more important than the safety and security of our diplomats and development officials who go into dangerous places around the world pursuing American values, interests, and our security.

And I said this when I testified for 11 hours that no one has thought more about or lost more sleep over the lives that we lost, the four Americans, which was devastating. And we owe it - we owe it to those brave Americans to make sure that we learn the right lessons from this tragedy. That's why I immediately put together an independent committee to go everywhere, look everywhere, come up with what recommendations would help us prevent such tragedies in the future. And that, of course, should be the goal.

I understand that after more than two years and $7 million spent by the Benghazi Committee out of taxpayer funds, it had to today report it had found nothing, nothing to contradict the conclusions of the Independent Accountability Board or the conclusions of the prior multiple earlier investigations carried out on a bipartisan basis in the Congress. So while this unfortunately took on a partisan tinge, I want us to stay focused on what I've always wanted us to stay focused on, and that is the important work of diplomacy and development.

[13:29:55] That's especially true in dangerous places. We cannot withdraw or retreat from the world. America needs a presence for a lot of reasons. And the best way to honor the commitment and sacrifice of those we lost is to redouble our efforts, to provide the resources and support that our diplomats and our