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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
GOP Convention Ends; Trump Nomination Acceptance Speech Examined. Aired 3:30-4a ET
Aired July 22, 2016 - 03:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The most important difference between our plan and that of our opponent is that our plan will put America first.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Donald Trump promising to put America first, laying out a laundry list of dangerous problems from crime to the economy, problems he says he will fix.
Welcome back to Early Start this morning. I'm Christine Romans here, where they are tearing down the stage behind us.
BERMAN: All right. I'm John Berman. Thirty one minutes past the hour here in Cleveland.
We want to welcome our viewers here in Cleveland, the United States and all around the world.
Turn out the lights, the party is over. They are literally sweeping up the confetti behind us right now. They had a Roomba going a few minutes ago, one of the automatic vacuum think they really did, it really happened.
Just a few hours ago, it was Donald Trump, not the Roomba dominating the floor, accepting the republican nomination for president. The long, long speech painting a picture of a country in serious trouble. The economy, a disaster. Lawlessness in the streets, immigrants flooding the borders, and only one man, one man who can fix it, him. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attack on our police and the terrorism of our cities threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: CNN's Manu Raju, the human Roomba joins us right now on Donald Trump's big night. Manu, long speech, big speech.
RAJU: A very long speech. In fact, an hour and 15 minutes. The longest speech of any acceptance addressed in the last four decades in what we saw was Donald Trump. Emphasizing the theme that he pushed all primary season long, talking about economic anxiety, tapping, trying to tap into those concerns, promoting what he views as a strong vision of America if he were to become president and taking a hard line on immigration.
Listen to the tough words he said about illegal immigrants who are coming into this country and taking away American jobs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration, which is what we have now. Communities want relief. Yet, Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration, and mass lawlessness.
(CROWD BOOING)
Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages. We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration.
(APPLAUSE)
To stop the gangs and the violence and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities.
(APPLAUSE)
RAJU: Now, the Trump campaign is very happy with that address. After three days of hiccups in this convention, they believe that they are leaving in a more unified fashion, despite some pure concerns with his candidacy from some of his own primary rivals including, of course, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, the governor of this state.
But John and Christine, the question is whether Donald Trump was able to reach out to swing voters and we just don't know that for several days.
ROMANS: No, we won't. All right. Manu Raju, thank you so much for that. Let's discuss last night's main event with our three CNN political commentators. Our democratic strategist, Maria Cardona, KABC talk radio host, John Phillips, a Trump supporter; Ben Ferguson, host of the Ben Ferguson show.
Good morning, everyone. I want to talk a little bit about Donald Trump's -- Donald Trump is confident that he is the one, the only one who has the key to grow jobs, to bring jobs back and to do business deals that will be good for America.
[03:35:04] Let's listen to what he said about how he will make America rich.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I have made billions of dollars in business making deals. Now I'm going to make our country rich again. I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great trade agreements. I will make individual deals with individual countries.
No longer will we enter into these massive transactions with many countries that are thousands of pages long and which no one from our country even reads or understands.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: All right. Ben Ferguson, let's talk about this. His vice president has approved some of the -- many of those deals and was a supporter of TPP, which is a trade agreement that's meant to counter Chinese influence in the Pacific.
And most reasonable economist and trade experts say what Donald Trump is proposing would cause trade wars, friction and loss of American jobs and prosperity.
FERGUSON: Yes. I'm in the as concerned as some of them and I've been pretty of Donald Trump. Because I think his point was, when you have things that are this big and when you have this many players and these many countries involved, there must be a better way to have better deals individually.
And I think his point is I can do that because I understand trade and a lot of people just throw a bunch of stuff together and people get things they want here or there and everywhere else. And it's...
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: The point of -- the point of a trade deal is that when you do it one by one, then you have a playing field that's all crazy. When you do -- when you do trade deals by region...
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: But that's what you're told. And I think what Donald Trump is saying is what you've been told may not actually accurate because it's not working for the average American. Are we gaining jobs in those countries or they are continuing to go overseas.
Are we winning in the trade war returning or they have a huge advantage? And I think his point is this, right now we're not winning. We are a great country and we're losing jobs. We are a great country with great workers and they're not working these jobs that we need.
So, I'm going to come in and I'm going to look at this a little bit more closely. I'm not going to do these big kumbaya deals and then tell you when I package them they're amazing. Because over the last not 10, not 15, but 20 plus years, it has not worked well for the United States American workers. He says I'm going to switch that and I think a lot of people are going to like that.
ROMANS: It's resonating.
FERGUSON: It is, it really is.
BERMAN: You kept saying something in there you answer but it was interesting. You kept it's a great country, it's a great country. But the criticism of Donald Trump's speech is that he painted a picture of a country that is not great at all.
CARDONA: Right.
BERMAN: You know, he...
FERGUSON: Well, I mean, John...
BERMAN: Hang on. Well, honest that the country...
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: I think Maria think America is great but...
BERMAN: He says lawlessness.
PHILLIPS: Right.
BERMAN: Lawlessness on the streets, you know, as if there's just no order in this country at all.
PHILLIPS: You know what this remind me of? It reminds me of when Richard Riordan ran for Mayor of Los Angeles. It was right after the Los Angeles riots, crime was on the rise, people were terrified and they were looking for someone from outside the system to go in and fix the problem.
We had Tom Bradley who put together this new multi-ethnic coalition. He was there for five terms, the man was an institution. And everyone made fun of Dick Riordan. Because Dick Riordan made a lot of gaps, the editorial boards didn't like him, he ran on the platform of Dick Riordan tough enough to turn Los Angeles around.
It was a law and order platform. And Dick Riordan in the deeply blue City of Los Angeles was able to get elected on this platform of law and order, Los Angeles is not a good place, Los Angeles needs to be turned around, it needs a fresh coat of paint. It worked in Los Angeles and it can work in the country.
BERMAN: The problem is that, America is not Los Angeles.
CARDONA: Yes, exactly.
BERMAN: And when you cherry-pick the crime statistics like Donald Trump did...
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: That's right.
BERMAN: ... and it's some -- you know, Chicago, yes, a lot of homicide there, no question. You know, police officer...
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: But it's the...
BERMAN: No, no, it's not, though. Because the crime statistics over the last few years...
CARDONA: The FBI has...
PHILLIPS: But you have to account terrorism, you have to account what you saw the in Baltimore, what you saw in Ferguson. People do not feel safe. And the Obama administration can come out after Orlando or come out after any terrorist attack in Paris and say we're making gains in Iraq, we're making gains in Syria. If people don't feel safe at home, that's going to alter the way they vote independently.
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: You are right. Wait, wait, wait. Maria, stop. I mean, in the sense, Maria, they are right. Whatever the sense there you can't tell people they're not afraid if they are.
CARDONA: That is very true, but what a true leader also can do is to talk about solution that bring people together, not pull people apart, which is what Donald Trump is doing. When he talks about being the law and order candidate, let's not kid ourselves. That is a dog whistle to African-Americans...
FERGUSON: No, it's not.
CARDONA: ... and to Latinos because it makes them feel like they are ones who are culpable for all of the crime and lawlessness that Donald Trump is talking about.
FERGUSON: It's not what he's talking about that.
CARDONA: Hang on a second. It would be credible then -- what you just said would be credible, if during his speech at some point he would admit that there is an issue with racial bias and in police -- in police community -- or in police community.
[03:40:01] It's not everybody, clearly.
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: OK. But we have a president...
CARDONA: But there is -- there is an issue with African-Americans having suffered racial bias and discrimination, Latinos as well. And when you have a leader who's talking about law and order who cannot even...
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: Donald talks about that. No, no, but this is...
CARDONA: ... admit that and talk about it, then that tells these communities that they're the ones who are to blame for the lawlessness.
FERGUSON: I think this is -- I think this is where you don't understand the translation of what he's talking about with law and order. Coming from Dallas, seeing what happened there last week, those police officers that were killed, it had nothing to do with what happened in Baton Rouge.
CARDONA: That's right.
FERGUSON: It had nothing to do with what happened in St. Paul. And they were gunned down because they were policemen.
For seven years, you've had a different perspective on the police from the President of the United States of America. Barack Obama came into that room in Dallas and named those two other people, by name, who were killed in those two other cities as somehow we need to have a group conversation about this in Dallas.
And the people in Dallas saying, our police officers who were just slaughtered they had nothing to do with those two cities. And so when he comes out and he says "I'm the law and order candidate," his point is this. I'm going to back the police. We're not going to have a killing on the point. We are going to live in safe cities and I'm not going to sit here and undermine them so people think it's acceptable to kill police officers in this country.
CARDONA: No one is not supporting the police, Ben.
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: Yes, I've watched this -- I've watched that in five major states.
CARDONA: No one is not supporting the police.
BERMAN: (Inaudible) Go ahead.
ROMANS: I want to ask you John, because you were doing like focused polling. And what -- how did that play last night.
BERMAN: I'll tell you what played. I mean, whenever you talk about the police, people are very supportive of the police and they reach out. People have a sense that there is a problem with terrorism. When you talk about terrorism being a problem that resonated.
What did not resonate, strikingly, was when he said "I'm the law and order candidate." That phrase seemed to bother people. You had -- you had a spike downward when he said that.
To me, what that indicates is people are willing to accept that there is a problem out there, but maybe, Ben, those words are coded in a way that people do find disappointing.
CARDONA: Yes, absolutely.
FERGUSON: Look, I think that's a risk worth taking, because I think the majority of people that are going to look at Donald Trump and vote for him understand exactly what he means. Which is we're going to support the police. We are going to have law and order. We're not going to allow the massive killings that we see in the streets in major big cities.
And let's be real. In major cities, top 50 markets, there has been a large influence, or large, I should say, increase and serious crime. Murders. There have been in big cities.
CARDONA: But that's not...
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: In some big -- in Dallas, remember.
FERGUSON: I'm saying in the top 50 markets, where you have people that are looking. You look at my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, 130 plus murders already this year. That's the highest in 17 years, 17 years.
CARDONA: But here is the thing. So, he talked about Washington, D.C., for example. My husband works in these communities in Washington, D.C. He tested me immediately, he's like, that's just wrong.
If he talks about just in one year then sure, you can extrapolate that and say, OK, there was a spike. That's president Obama's fault.
ROMANS: All right.
OBAMA: Well, guess what? From the year that he talked about was a low, was a record low. So, does president Obama get credit for that record low in crimes?
ROMANS: All right. We're going to leave that there. That's a discussion that really I think really resonated last night. Interesting how you were looking at that in the polling.
Also Donald Trump last night, talk about the currency in the economy last night, saying trade deals were killing jobs. Millions are leaving the labor force, wages are too low and he zeroed in on a demographic, a demographic where he is polling miserably low.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Nearly 4 in 10 African-American children are living in poverty while 58 percent of African-American youth are now not employed.
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ROMANS: Let's look at Trump's poverty claims first. According to a 2014 census report, 36 percent of African-American youth are living below the poverty line. That covers those under the age of 18. His employment numbers, though, are a little more complicated.
I want to look at those for you. He said 58 percent African-American youth are not employed. The official jobless rate for African-American ages 16 to 24 is 14.9 percent. Now that's almost three times the national rate of 4.9 percent. So, it is a problem.
But where did he get that 58 percent? He may have been referring to underemployment. That means you might have a job but it's not a job that is full time or up to your standards. That rate among black high school graduates is 51 percent, it's 36 percent for Hispanic youth and 33 percent for white.
BERMAN: All right. We're going to talk about a lot more coming up. Donald Trump with new warnings of what will happen to the country if Hillary Clinton is elected president.
The Clinton campaign, though, they're getting ready to make some big news of their own. A vice presidential pick, the running mate announcement, could it come in the next few hours?
[03:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: America is far less safe, and the world is far less stable than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America's foreign policy.
(CROWD CHANTING)
Let's defeat her in November, OK?
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: It's actually a very significant moment. People have been chanting "lock her up" all week. Donald Trump did not buy into the "lock her up" chant. Instead, he said "let's defeat her." A lot of people thought that was a Donald Trump, you know, projecting moderation there.
However, the speech did also project a sense of doom and danger facing the country if Hillary Clinton is elected. Clinton did respond overnight. She said tonight "Donald Trump painted a dark picture of America in decline."
And his answer? "More fear, more division, more anger, and more hate was yet another reminder that he is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be president of the United States."
[03:50:00] That is the chorus of the song that the Clinton campaign sings about three or five times a day. Now are in the final hours before that campaign will unveil Hillary Clinton's running mate.
The roll out, well, I should say, the leak of who will be could come later today, the official roll out in a public appearance to be expected this weekend.
Our panel rejoins us now. Maria Cardona, John Phillips, Ben Ferguson, and joining us is Josh Rogin. And we needed Josh Rogin here to add you just to ask you this question, who is the running mate? Who is she going to pick?
ROGIN: Smart money is on Tim Kaine.
BERMAN: Why?
ROGIN: Well, first of all, it's a safe pick, right. She feels like she's ahead. She feels comfortable. She doesn't have to do anything risky. He's qualified to be president, number one.
BERMAN: Senator from Virginia.
ROGIN: Governor and head of the DNC from a swing state, right. If she doesn't have to take a risk, then she's not going to take a risk.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: Yes.
ROMANS: Speaks Spanish. We kept hearing that Tom Vilsack come up, you know, he was the Iowa Governor. I mean, I kept hearing his name around there but you think it's Tim Kaine?
ROGIM: People who are close to the Clinton campaign seem to think that he is the one.
BERMAN: You're a super delegate as we like to say.
CARDONA: Can you say that again?
BERMAN: How will the super delegates react on the floor of the convention when Tim Kaine walks up?
CADONA: They'll go crazy. We love Tim Kaine.
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: More than everyone else. More than any other possible pick?
CARDONA: I'm sure that you will have people who have their favorites, but I think one of the things that the Democratic Party is enjoying right now is unity. I think that right now everybody who has been on whatever short list you have of the people who she might pick, whether it's Julian Castro, Tom Perez, Cory Booker, even Tom Vilsack, they'll fantastic. They're all great.
And so, of course, people will have their favorites, but whoever she picks, people will, I think, go crazy because they will see a winning ticket. Let's remember that people don't really vote for the V.P. And so, at the end of the day, it's going to be her. And if it's her ticket, people are going to be very enthusiastic about it. FERGUSON: Someone told me this weekend, Tim Kaine is like the Mike
Pence of the Democratic Party. Really nice, safe, not getting outside the box very much, doesn't overshadow Hillary Clinton. And I think, I honestly think it's a pretty smart move.
ROGIN: The difference is that he actually agrees with Hillary Clinton on the issue...
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: Big difference. Thank you. Exactly.
ROGIN: No, no, he'll agree on anything.
CARDONA: That's right. Details, details, Josh.
ROGIN: The difference between actually having party unity and pretending to have party unity.
CARDONA: Right.
ROMANS: Let's talk about momentum. So, you know, these conventions are meant, you know, portray -- you know, to show -- to show the candidate, portray the party and its platform.
CARDONA: Right.
ROMANS: And every night is supposed to build on the last night. If you have a leak from Hillary Clinton, you know, today about her vice presidential pick, then does that wipe Donald Trump kind of off the -- off the headlines.
PHILLIPS: Well, first of all, I'm not convinced that Bernie people won't go nuts. Because let's not forget. Kaine is from a conservative state or at least it was more conservative back when he was involved in state local politics. He's a member of the NRA. He's personally opposed to abortion.
And Bernie Sanders was not on that vice presidential list. So, he wasn't even vetted for the job. And Tim Kaine, a fairly conservative democrat is going to get it.
BERMAN: Two things. One, you're right. I mean, progressives, up until about a month ago progressives had picked Tim Kaine as a fight that they night fight, right? They might say, oh, we don't like what Hillary Clinton did with her V.P. pick. Like, if you pick someone like Tim Kaine will be upset. But they have been laying the groundwork for this for a month now hard. You've got a sense that...
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: And Bernie endorsed her, so I think that's not going to be an issue.
ROGIN: Right. It's not like here where you have delegate fights...
CARDONA: That's right.
ROGIN: ... and floor fights and runners up giving the candidate the middle finger on the stage of the surrogates.
CARDONA: That's right. It's going to be nice.
ROGIN: So, none of that is going to happen, right?
PHILLIPS: They'll send nasty ground off Twitter.
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: Now on timing, you know, on timing the template for this if you think, if you look to eight years ago, John McCain unveiled Sarah Palin the Friday after the Thursday night when Barack Obama was outside in Denver and it absolutely did suck up every ounce of oxygen.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: And remember, nobody knew how to pronounce her last name. Now think about that.
BERMAN: A senator said, who? Do you remember?
ROGIN: So, we talked to the Clinton people today and they said it's not necessarily -- they don't necessarily want to end the Trump story. They think this convention has been a disaster for Trump, we have successive night bad press.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: That's right. I was going to mention that.
ROGIN: Dysfunction, mess ups, even though there were no huge catastrophes tonight, they think as if they -- they see that NATO interview with...
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: They want the chaos.
PHILLIPS: But here's what Donald Trump...
ROGIN: But they want to let this stick.
CARDONA: Yes.
ROGIN: They want the focus to be on Trump.
FERGUSON: I will be the first one to say that Monday and Tuesday were not good nights.
ROGIN: And Wednesday.
FERGUSON: Wednesday wasn't -- Wednesday wasn't as bad. But I said this tonight. If Donald Trump walks out there and does a great speech, an exceptional speech, and I think he overproduced from what I honestly thought I was going to get from him.
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: But you said he met above average.
FERGUSON: What I'm saying, for what was happening this week, I think a lot of people are going to forget what happened earlier in this week. No one will be talking about Ted Cruz after last night with Donald Trump.
So, the idea that you have a couple days of like misery that they can slept and (Inaudible) the story is going to be about Donald Trump giving a really blunt, honest speech that a lot of conservatives like and a lot of people felt good about. Maybe, obviously liberals weren't and that's OK.
(CROSSTALK)
[03:54:58] ROGIN: I'm just reporting to you how they're thinking about it. And they think it was terrible...
CARDONA: Terrible, too.
ROGIN: And they think that Donald Trump's speech wasn't amazing. That he -- the bar was set very low.
CARDONA: He didn't appeal to a broader cross-section of people which he needs in order to win.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: Do you think it's a bump on the poll.
BERMAN: How about this. How about this.
PHILLIPS: John is asking a great question.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: Maybe. Maybe he doesn't.
BERMAN: Don't answer. Don't answer because that's what he thinks. Do you think he will get a bump in the polls?
When we come back, we'll answer that question. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ISHA SESAY, CNN NEWSROOM SHOW HOST: New developments out of Malaysia this hour. The search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 will be suspended if the aircraft isn't found soon.
Plus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[04:00:01] TRUMP: I am with you. I will fight for you. And I will win for you.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Donald Trump accepts his party's nomination to run for president for the United States.
