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Obama Hits the Campaign Trail with Clinton in North Carolina; Trump Social Media Chief Defends Tweet; Three Suicide Bombings Rock Saudi Arabia in One Day; Iraq's Interior Minister Resigns After Attack. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 05, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:03] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me this morning.

Two candidates, one state. Battle lines will be drawn in North Carolina. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton holding dueling events in that major swing state as controversies dogged both candidates. Hillary Clinton tries to shake things up with a ride aboard Air Force One with President Obama. In Raleigh, Donald Trump will continue to fuel veep speculation. This time he's teaming up with rumored pick Senator Bob Corker.

We've got our team of CNN reporters and analysts covering it all for you. Michelle Kosinski is in Charlotte where Mrs. Clinton will be holding that big event with the president just hours from now.

Good morning, Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Right. I mean, this is the kind of picture that every candidate would want, provided that the president is popular. And President Obama is extremely popular among Democrats. I mean, it's like 90 percent approval rating. So the campaign wants to see these pictures broadcast of them arriving to Charlotte on Air Force One together, descending the stairs together, then shoulder-to-shoulder on this stage at this rally in the key battleground state of North Carolina.

But, you know, at the same time Donald Trump is also going to be in North Carolina tonight in a different city, in Raleigh. And he's been tweeting out criticism of the Obama-Clinton trip. His latest tweet says, "Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and crooked Hillary. Total disgrace."

And that has been a question. And to be honest, you know, this comes up whenever a president uses Air Force One for campaign travel. But here's how it breaks down. And it's the same for everybody, although the rules have changed some over the years. In fact, while President Obama has been president the amount that a campaign needs to kick in to that total cost has been increased. So Air Force One is very expensive. It costs more than $200,000 an hour. And even for something like this, yes, the taxpayer has to foot the bulk of the bill. Part of that is because this is the only way the president can travel.

For security reasons he has to use Air Force One. But because this is a campaign event, the campaign needs to kick in a big chunk of it. It's basically broken down as how much would it cost for the company to rent a plane this size for this amount of time. They need to reimburse that to the taxpayer. And that's how it will break down in the end.

But this is an event, you know, the first time the president will be on the campaign trail. For months the White House has been asked, when is he going to get out there and campaign for Hillary Clinton? And we're going to see that today. One of the questions is, how hard will he hit Donald Trump and will he finally mention him by name, which he does very rarely -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Michelle Kosinski, reporting live from Charlotte this morning.

Back here in New York, Donald Trump is still defending the use of that controversial tweet that critics say is anti-Semitic.

CNN's Jason Carroll joins us now with more on that. So what's Mr. Trump's new line of defense?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you remember first he blamed the media for this. Then he lashed out at Hillary Clinton for stirring up the controversy. And finally the campaign has offered up an explanation as to who put up that tweet and how they got it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): Donald Trump firing back at critics who say the star shape in the tweet his campaign posted invokes anti-Semitic imagery, calling the attacks false and ridiculous. Trump singling out Hillary Clinton's campaign, which called his tweet blatantly anti- Semitic and part of a pattern.

In a statement Trump says, "The former secretary of state is trying to divert attention from dishonest behavior of herself and her husband."

But the Clinton campaign is not alone in condemning the image.

JONATHAN GREENBLATT, CEO, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: The Trump campaign has invoked bigotry and anti-Semitism, racism; and now it's hard to call it anything other than a pattern.

CARROLL: Daniel Scavino, Trump's former New York golf course caddy turned social media director for the campaign, now says he selected the star, not the Jewish Star of David, but as he called it a sheriff's badge, explaining he found it under Microsoft's shapes. Scavino said in a statement, "The image was lifted from an anti- Hillary Twitter user where countless images appear and not sourced from an anti-Semitic site."

But CNN, through use of an Internet archiving site, found that the same graphic tweeted by Trump appeared 10 days earlier on a message board filled with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and neo-Nazi ideology.

GREENBLATT: It's an interesting question to ask, why is your fact- finding department focusing on fiction and how a major presidential campaign can be looking at racist Web sites or anti-Semitic sections of other online sources and using it to find content to share with the American public?

CARROLL: Trump deleting a tweet on Saturday, reposting the graphic, replacing the star in question with a circle.

[09:05:06] ED BROOKOVER, SENIOR ADVISER, DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN: These memes float around the Internet. Not every six-sided star is a Star of David. There's no anti-Semitism in Mr. Trump's body, not one ounce, not one cell.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: So no apology from Donald Trump for offending Jewish groups. Trump's critics say that the campaign needs a better set of checks and balances. They say someone in that campaign should have known that if you pair a six-point star with money that that's going to evoke anti- Semitic imagery.

COSTELLO: So Mr. Trump's social media director, does he have any experience doing that? You said he was a former caddy for Mr. Trump.

CARROLL: That's correct. And you know, that's a very good question. I mean, that's something that I think the campaign is going to be looking at because as you know this isn't the only misstep that Donald Trump has had in terms of putting out tweets that the campaigns has had in terms of putting out tweets. So a lot of people are questioning where's the oversight?

COSTELLO: All right. Jason Carroll, thanks so much.

With me now to talk about this, Jeffrey Lord, who's a Trump supporter, and Tara Setmayer, a CNN political commentator. Welcome to both of you.

(CROSSTALK)

JEFFREY LORD, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Happy day after the Fourth of July, Carol.

COSTELLO: Happy day after the Fourth of July right back at you, Jeffrey. And hello, Tara.

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hey, Carol.

COSTELLO: Jeffrey, I want to start with you.

LORD: Yes.

COSTELLO: We were just talking about Mr. Trump's social media director. He has taken the fall for Mr. Trump. He said he lifted the image from an anti-Hillary Twitter user. Is he unable to design his own images?

LORD: Carol, I have to confess I'm not a social media type. What I know about Dan Scavino, who I do not know personally, he's a great guy. And clearly he made a mistake here. But let me just say something about this sheriff's badge that when I saw this without knowing the controversy that is exactly what I thought it was, was a sheriff's badge. I grew up in an era when the six-pointed star was used on television in a popular TV series as the sheriff's badge. That was the first association I made of it. So I think there's a bit of a cultural difference here.

And I might add on the Democratic side they play fast and loose with racism and anti-Semitism all the time. Right this minute they're dealing with anti-Israel delegates on the platform committee. So, I mean, that's where this problem really comes and I think that's what's really serious.

COSTELLO: But, Jeffrey -- Jeffrey.

LORD: Yes, Carol.

COSTELLO: Clearly -- clearly the Trump people thought it was a problem or they would not have changed the image.

LORD: Yes. I think --

COSTELLO: If it was really a six-pointed sheriff's star it should still be there, but frankly it's not. They changed it to a circle.

LORD: Carol --

COSTELLO: I suppose that's sort of admitting it's a problem. But really isn't the deeper problem, Jeffrey, is that his social media director is a former caddy and doesn't quite know what he's doing?

LORD: Yes. Carol --

COSTELLO: Could that be the problem?

LORD: Carol, Carol, look. Everybody deserves a chance in life. Everybody has different jobs. Everybody was once somebody. I was a bellboy for heaven's sakes. I mean, you know --

COSTELLO: This is a presidential race, Jeffrey.

SETMAYER: Right.

LORD: Yes.

SETMAYER: Jeffrey, did you feel the same way about --

(CROSSTALK)

LORD: Carol, we've got -- they got Donald Trump to this point. I mean, all these other candidates with all the money and all the social media experience in the world are not going to be the presidential nominee. There's something going on here that's working.

COSTELLO: Tara, you were saying?

SETMAYER: Yes. I just can't. You know, when I heard this sheriff's star nonsense yesterday that this was the excuse, I looked at my husband, who is a federal law enforcement officer, by the way, who was very offended by the implication that a sheriff's star was what this was instead of the Star of David. For the first thing he said when he looked at that was a sheriff's star has points on it. So I mean, anyone who knows anything about the difference --

LORD: That's not true.

SETMAYER: Yes, most of them they are. Yes. Come on. Give me a break, Jeffrey. Just stop it. This is one of the nonsense excuses that this campaign is using to make up for their incompetence and for the fact that they are running an amateur hour presidential campaign. Every single week you and other supporters have to come on cable news and make excuses for Donald Trump and his behavior only. It's not the media's fault. It's not anybody else's fault, but Donald Trump's.

Why would you use a sheriff's star to insult an opponent? That's an honorable symbol. When you're trying to do --

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: It doesn't make any sense. Why put it over money?

LORD: Because it implies that the law is coming after her on a weekend when she's being investigated by the FBI for an investigation. That's why.

SETMAYER: I hear you.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Let me just interrupt you two.

SETMAYER: Couldn't come up.

COSTELLO: Let me interrupt you two. Because, Jeffrey, you bring up Hillary Clinton being, you know, interrogated by the FBI for 3.5 hours. But because of this mistake, because of this tweet, the attention is diverted away from that. Because of this social media director who has taken the fall for Mr. Trump, we're not talking about that.

LORD: Who's diverting attention -- but Carol, the Clinton campaign wants to divert the attention. And you know --

COSTELLO: The Anti-Defamation League diverted the attention.

LORD: But, I mean, if we're talking about a misplaced tweet or being investigated for criminal actions by the director of the FBI himself.

[09:10:06] Hello, and the first presidential nominee ever to be in that situation? I mean, I think we're talking things that are just a little out of proportion here in terms of coverage.

SETMAYER: No -- this is not the first time, Jeff. Come on. If this had been a one-off, then maybe you can excuse it away. But this is not the first, second, third, or fourth time that Donald Trump has gotten in trouble for re-tweeting things from a white supremacist Web sites or memes.

LORD: Is he being investigated by the FBI, Tara? Yes or not?

SETMAYER: No, that -- look, look. How many -- why do we have --

LORD: That's the problem.

SETMAYER: Yes. It's a problem. I don't disagree. But we are -- or at least as a conservative, and as someone who worked for Ronald Reagan like yourself, you should think we are held to a higher standard. We're supposed to be better than them. So why do you continue to support someone that keeps dragging this campaign into the mud in a way that is an embarrassment to the conservative movement?

LORD: He didn't --

(CROSSTALK)

LORD: He didn't drag in the mud?

SETMAYER: Yes, he did. This is form a white supremacist meme. This is not the first time.

LORD: Oh please, Tara.

SETMAYER: What about when he re-tweeted -- wait a minute, what about when he retweeted from someone named White Genocide PM? Not once, but twice. You're telling me that Donald Trump didn't recognize that name? What about all --

LORD: Tara --

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: The disgusting things on social media coming from Trump people from people like myself.

LORD: Tara, let me ask. Tara, why don't you ever criticize --

SETMAYER: This is not excusable.

COSTELLO: OK. I think I'm going to end -- I'm going to end the battle.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I'm going to end the battle now. I'm going to end the battle because I got it.

LORD: Right. COSTELLO: Jeffrey Lord, Tara Setmayer, thanks so much.

LORD: I still love (INAUDIBLE).

SETMAYER: Me too.

COSTELLO: My gosh. Well, I'm glad. Thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a fire rages and a country reels. Suicide bombers strike several targets in Saudi Arabia all in one day. And some people say it's Islam itself that's the real target.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:55] COSTELLO: A horrific end to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as Islam itself comes under siege from ISIS and those willing to die for ISIS. Within just a 24-hour period suicide bombers launched three separate attacks in Saudi Arabia. A key U.S. ally and the spiritual home of Islam, the most shocking attack at the religion's second most sacred site. The Tomb of the Prophet Muhammad. At least four people were killed. ISIS again the suspect.

After urging its followers to wage terror during Ramadan, attacks have circled the globe and killed hundreds from Orlando to Europe to Asia.

Let's begin with CNN's Becky Anderson. She's live in Abu Dhabi this morning. Hi, Becky.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Hi, Carol. And while not all of these attacks have actually been claimed by ISIS, it was that chilling warning by the group's spokesman released by audiotape in late May calling for a month of attacks, of calamity and jihad that has proved to be the precursor to so much carnage. And let's remember one in five people across the globe are Muslim and Ramadan is meant to be a month of peace and reflection. This year it has been anything but.

So what do we know about this Medina attack? Well, my sources tell me this was a lone attacker. He was stopped by security personnel as he approached the exit of the prophet's mosque. Just as the call to sunset prayers was ending, he was stopped and questioned and he detonated his device. Now he killed a number of security guards and injured a number of others.

But, Carol, were he to have made it into the mosque, he would have been among tens of thousands of worshippers. And the resultant carnage might have been just as sort of spectacular horror that ISIS or groups inspired or professing to be working in the name of might have been calling for.

Now while this is not the most deadly of the attacks that you've alluded to over this Ramadan month, I cannot overstate the emotional and psychological impact that this attack on this mosque will have had on Muslims around the world. One Saudi expert I spoke to put it this way. He said what more evidence do Muslims need than an attack at one of the holiest sites to say that enough is enough and to weed out those who might be indifferent to extremist militants and to their actions?

Some, Carol, might go so far as to say that this marks the time for a concerted anti-ISIS coalition with Arab and Muslim members at its core. As it is Muslims all over the world who are in the main the victim of these awful attacks as you and I know, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. We're going to be talking about that in just a bit. Becky Anderson, reporting live from Abu Dhabi. But I do have breaking news to share with you and it's out of Baghdad.

Iraq's minister of Interior has submitted his resignation. He did that today at a press conference. He cited a lack of coordination among security systems as the reason for his resignation. Of course that announcement comes following Saturday's deadly attack that killed at least 215 people in Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada. Of course the truck loaded with explosives was brought into that neighborhood and exploded, killing all of those people.

Let's go live to Baghdad and CNN's Ben Wedeman.

So the fallout has begun, Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, indeed. It doesn't come as much as a surprise that there was going to have to be some sort of a scapegoat for these shortcomings of Iraqi security that led to the death of at least 215 people late Saturday night in the Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad.

What we also heard in this press conference was that the truck, the truck bomb that was used in this attack did not come from Fallujah as many people suspected, but rather came from the opposite direction. It came from the province of Diyallah which is to the east of Baghdad. It's an area where ISIS does have a presence. But this underscores that the claims by the Iraqi government that all the car bombs, all the suicide bombers that were plaguing Baghdad came from Fallujah and all that was needed was to retake Fallujah from ISIS and those bombings would stop.

[09:20:10] Fallujah has been retaken and now they discover that the bomb came not from the west but from the east. Now overnight Iraqi authorities executed five ISIS members. Their execution was accelerated as part of the government's response to the bombing. They say they have 3,000 people on death row, many of them ISIS members that they'd like to execute. But a new law has to be passed to accelerate or facilitate that -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Ben Wedeman reporting live from Baghdad this morning. Thank you.

The latest in the string of suicide bombings unfolding this morning in Indonesia actually. That's the country with the largest Muslim population. Police say a suspected militant was on a motorcycle. He blew himself up when he was stopped from entering the police compound. One officer was wounded. The attack took place in the southern Indonesian city that is both the birth place of the country's president and home to some of Indonesia's Islamic hardliners. So hundreds of people dead and while foreigners were targeted in

Bangladesh Muslim citizens in Iraq and other places died by the hundreds. Muslims killing Muslims supposedly in the name of Islam. The Bangladeshi prime minister is furious. She said what kind of Muslims are these who kill others during Ramadan? She went on to say, "Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such an act. They do not have any religion. Their only religion is terrorism."

But many Americans wonder why the leaders of Muslim countries don't do more to fight terrorists who are perverting their religion.

With me now to talk about that, former deputy chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia and former U.S. ambassador to Amman, Gary Grapo. I'm also joined by CNN military analyst, retired Air Force colonel, Cedric Leighton.

Welcome to both of you.

LT. COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's good to be with you, Carol.

AMB. GARY GRAPO, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION AT THE U.S. EMBASSY IN SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you very much, Carol. Nice to be here.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you both here.

Colonel, I'd like to start with you. These attacks in Bangladesh, in Indonesia, in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, do you think they could unite the Middle East and leaders in the Middle East specifically to fight a common enemy, which is ISIS?

LEIGHTON: Well, they have the theoretical possibility of doing just that, Carol. I mean, Sheikh Hasina's comments, the prime minister of Bangladesh's comments about this indicate a real need by Islamic states to get together and to really fight the scourge of radical Islam. So it is a distinct possibility. A lot of countries have talked the talk. Now it's time for them to, as they say, walk the walk when it comes to fighting ISIS.

COSTELLO: Ambassador, I want to read what Iran's foreign minister said, and he tweeted this out this morning. He said, quote, "There are no many red lines left for terrorists to cross. Sunni Shiites will both remained victims unless we stand united as one."

Also the United Arab Emirates' minister of Foreign Affairs echoed those sentiments in his own tweet. He said, "The time has come to work together to save our religion and strip Islam from these deadly criminal gangs."

Do -- I mean, is it possible that countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia who are bitter enemies could join together to fight a common enemy?

GRAPO: Well, one would certainly hope so. But let's remember that this great war against terrorism has been going on for well over a dozen years now. And the principal victims in that war have been, throughout that period, Muslims. And one would have to ask, well, this should have been -- why wasn't this done years ago? Certainly at the intelligence level and the security level there actually has been significant improvement, particularly in terms of coordination and collaboration.

But when it comes to a unified effort of governments and their peoples, these governments, principally Muslim governments, have fallen significantly short.

COSTELLO: So the attacks near the mosque in Saudi Arabia, Ambassador, will that make a difference?

GRAPO: Well, it should make a difference. This is the second holiest site in Islam, although it's not clear, the attacker, the man intended to enter the mosque where, as your reporter indicated earlier, thousands could have died. Just keep in mind also it comes right at the end of the holy month of Ramadan and just before the beginning of the Hajj when well over two million, close to 2.5 million Muslims will be collecting themselves in the holy city of Mecca just south of Medina.

They will be very exposed, collected in a very tiny space. The threat will be much greater and I'm sure the concerns throughout the Muslim world today are what could possibly happen there.

COSTELLO: So, Colonel, is there anything the United States can do to pressure these Middle Eastern leaders to come together to fight that common enemy instead of just letting the United States handle most of it?

[09:25:03] LEIGHTON: Well, I think that's basically the idea that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the civilian leadership of the Pentagon as well as the White House have had. You have them fight their own wars and have us assist them. We certainly can do things that will allow us to get the Islamic states to come together to fight this common enemy.

I think also that the opening that the United States tried to do with Iran with the nuclear talks may actually serve to help bridge that gap between the different Muslim countries. And if we can use that as a unifying force, then we can diplomatically as well as from an incentives based policy perhaps indicate to them how to do this and help them as part of a condition of our aide help them achieve the goal of defeating ISIS because it really is our common goal.

COSTELLO: Colonel Cedric Leighton and Ambassador Gary Grapo, thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, CNN sits down for a one-on-one interview with the father of one of the Bangladeshi terrorists. And could this be the symbol Hillary Clinton needs? She hits the trail with the president for the first time today.

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