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Clinton Delivers Historic Speech as Nominee; Kaine Reaches Out to Sanders Supporters; Trump Hits Back After Clinton's Historic Speech; Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Hacked. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired July 29, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00] BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: We'll see about night four. Looks like it was closer on night four. Maybe that tells us something about the polls. You know, on Monday, we're going to start to see those post-convention polls so we'll see if Clinton got a bounce.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We'll see. Brian Stelter, thanks so much.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. In just a couple of hours, Hillary Clinton returns to the campaign trail, bearing the mantle of her party and embracing her new spot in history.

Just moments after being introduced by her daughter Chelsea, Clinton accepted the Democrats' nomination. She becomes the first woman to headline the ticket of a major political party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And so, my friends, it is with humility, determination and boundless confidence in America's promise that I accept your nomination for president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Hillary Clinton hoping for the same kind of bounce that propelled her husband to the White House nearly 25 years ago, and knowing that she has to tamp down the negatives that have dogged both parties.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I'm so happy this day has come. I'm happy for grandmothers and little girls and everyone in between. After all, when there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit.

I want to thank Bernie Sanders.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) CLINTON: Bernie, your campaign inspired millions of Americans, particularly the young people who threw their hearts and souls into our primary.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: You put economic and social justice issues front and center where they belong.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: And to all of your supporters here and around the country, I want you to know, I've heard you. Your cause is our cause.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: I'll be a president for Democrats, Republicans, independents, for the struggling, the striving, the successful. For all those who vote for me and for those who don't. For all Americans together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Clinton reaching out to the armies of young voters mobilized by Bernie Sanders and now angry at the whole process. She returned to common themes, that Republican Donald Trump is reckless and divisive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Our country's motto is e pluribus punim. Out of many, we are one. Will we stay true to that motto? Well, we heard Donald Trump's answer last week at his convention. He wants to divide us from the rest of the world and from each other. He's betting that the perils of today's world will blind us to its unlimited promise. He's taken the Republican Party a long way from morning in America to midnight in America.

He wants us to fear the future and fear each other. Well, you know, a great Democratic president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, came up with the perfect rebuke to Trump more than 80 years ago during a much more perilous time. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: With me now to talk about this, historian and professor at Princeton University, Julian Zelizer, CNN political commentator Marc Lamont Hill, he's also a professor at Morehouse College, CNN political commentator and Hillary Clinton supporter Sally Kohn, and Katrina Pierson, she's a national spokesperson for the Trump campaign.

Welcome to all of you. Because I know you're all exhausted. It's been a long -- it's been a long week. Sally --

SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I actually asleep right now.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: I totally get that because I kind of am, too.

KOHN: OK.

COSTELLO: Sally, what did -- what did voters learn about Clinton that might change their minds about her?

KOHN: I -- I mean, I can tell you what I learned. And I'm not -- I'm going to be honest here, Carol. I'm a I think fairly informed voter. I'm sure some people on the Internet disagree. But I -- you know, I thought I paid quite good attention to Hillary Clinton. She's been in my -- in the political world for most of my adult life.

[10:05:02] But I did not know about the work that she'd done in Arkansas around school desegregation. I did not know about the deep relationships that she has formed with disabled children, with, you know, 9/11 survivors and, by the way, and we saw not just Hillary Clinton talking about it, we heard from them the authenticity of what she has meant in their lives and how she has fought for them behind the scenes, quietly, steadfastedly over time. I really have to say I was -- I was impressed.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So, Marc, Clinton mentioned Donald Trump at least, like what, 22 times?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

COSTELLO: She talked about him a lot.

HILL: Yes.

COSTELLO: Why go there that much?

HILL: Well, one, it's a great way to engage the audience. That speech was filled with great content. Not the best rhetorical delivery of the week. But one of the ways she engaged the audience is by using that perfect strawman, which is Donald Trump. He's almost like pinata up there. He's a low-hanging fruit but it's also very smart because she wants to contrast herself to the Donald.

Unfortunately in a world that is so deeply sexist, Hillary Clinton still has to present the case that she's supremely qualified for the office. No one is more qualified to run American empire than Hillary Clinton whether we like her or not. She's qualified. But she's beating that drum of her qualification and showing that Donald Trump is not qualified by those -- by that same criteria so I think it's important to remind voters of just how absurd the comparison should be of Donald Trump to anybody else.

COSTELLO: And, Julian, what I was -- what I was struck by, there was a lot of talk of mothers and daughters. You know -- and you know, Hillary Clinton hugged her daughter and I think that was an emotional moment for most women. But there was a lot of talk about how mothers mattered in politician's lives. And you usually don't really hear that. JULIAN ZELIZER, HISTORIAN AND PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Well,

there's obviously two reasons. The most obvious is this was an historic moment that I think people are forgetting the first female nominee of a major political party. And that is a reminder of that to voters, how important it is. And obviously, it's this ongoing effort to humanize her, to tell us a story about who she is. And the moment when she looked at Chelsea right before speaking I think was very emotional and I think many people could relate to the mother looking at the child at such an historic point in their life.

COSTELLO: Katrina, when you saw that moment, what went through your mind?

KATRINA PIERSON, NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Well, absolutely it was emotional. And I think that's what this last four days was about, is trying to pull at people's heartstrings because there really isn't any substance there. And to answer your first question about what did the audience learn about Hillary Clinton? Absolutely nothing.

Because what Americans care most about according to all the polling is that is she a liar, did she criminally misuse her e-mail, and expose national security secret? Is she going to do what people want? We're talking about the Transpacific Partnership. She was booed 18 times but were drowned out by chants. Are we going to go into some more wars? What about Syria? What actually happened in Libya? She answered none of those questions in her speech.

COSTELLO: And you know, the Trump campaign --

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Well, before we get to you -- before we get to you, Sally, because the Trump campaign has already come out with an ad blasting Hillary Clinton's convention. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You heard the speech but behind the glitter lies this stark truth. In Hillary Clinton's America, things get worse. Under her dishonest plan, taxes keep rising. Terrorism spreads. Washington insiders remain in control. Americans losing their jobs, homes and hope.

In Donald Trump's America, people are put back to work. Our families are safe. The American dream achievable again. Change --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, sally, so --

(LAUGHTER)

KOHN: OK, so two things. First of all, Donald Trump is actually running on fear and doom and gloom. So that ad is a little ironic. And by the way, economic policy analysts, you know, have looked at his policies and said under him the economy would get worse, let alone the state of world affairs.

But, you know, this is the other thing I want to say to Katrina. I've checked. So far that I've seen. I haven't seen any reports of falsehoods in Hillary Clinton's speech whereas Donald Trump who, according to PolitiFact, only tells the truth 19 percent of the time, his speech, which he promised he was telling the American people the truth, his speech at the RNC was filled, filled with lies. Couldn't -- too many to shake a stick at.

So this constant trying to label Hillary Clinton -- she is not. She set forth a positive, optimistic, patriotic and true vision for the future, compared to Donald Trump's doom, gloom, fear-mongering, hate and lies. I think the contrast --

COSTELLO: OK.

KOHN: -- is very clear for the American people.

HILL: I have a slightly different --

PIERSON: The contrast is the --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Katrina has to --

PIERSON: Well, Carol, since I was mentioned may I respond has to that?

COSTELLO: Yes. Yes, you may.

PIERSON: The contrast is reality here. We had the DNC actually opened their convention but the mayor of Baltimore who called essentially for civil unrest in the city.

[10:10:07] And we've seen these protests continue to get worse today. So just today, another police officer was killed. The DNC adopted a resolution supporting the organization Black Lives Matter which continues to push for more unrest against police officers so if that's doom and gloom, we call that reality.

Hillary Clinton has a record. She talked about immigration reform. She talked about criminal justice reform. She talked about trade reform. She was on the front lines of all of these policies. So the Democrats can go out there and talk about the you're fired narrative from a television show, millions of people really were fired and lost their jobs because of NAFTA and will because of TPP, and Americans know that.

COSTELLO: OK. Marc?

HILL: Yes. A couple of quick things. One, just to put it in context. And, Katrina, I disagree, the Black Lives Matter movement has not expressed or called for actions against police officers. It's against police violence just to clarify the point there.

PIERSON: What do we want, dead cop, when do we want them, now. What is that?

HILL: That is a claim --

KOHN: They didn't say that.

HILL: That is not a claim that did not come from the organizers or the movement or the charter of the Black Lives Matter movement. Again, I'm correcting facts. You may disagree with the BLM movement, that's fine, but what you said is something that wasn't true. Just let me finish because I didn't interrupt you at all.

The other thing that you said Hillary Clinton didn't address Benghazi, she didn't address e-mails. That's absolutely true. But just to put it in context, I'm sure Julian could do this as well, that's not uncommon at conventions. Donald Trump didn't talk about Trump University. He didn't talk about his family situation. He didn't talk about his tax returns. I mean, he didn't it either. I think that's a normal practice --

PIERSON: Nobody died. Nobody died. There's a difference.

HILL: Please just allow me finish because I did. I mean, I'm just -- you are one of the perfect Trump surrogate right now. You're doing what he does. Let's not bully each other. The last piece that I think important is someone who comes from the left of Hillary Clinton, I'm a Green Party supporter, is that yes, Hillary Clinton absolutely sounded like patriotic and she pushed American exceptionalism. I think that's an interesting move for the Democratic Party to do. In many ways the Democrats sounded like Republicans normally do. I found it to be an interesting contrast so I'm fascinated to see what independent voters and people to the left of Hillary Clinton will say to Bernie supporters, for example.

COSTELLO: Oh, absolutely.

HILL: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: And we're going to talk about that in just a second. But I want to get to MJ Lee because she has some breaking news happening. I want you all to stay here and I'm going to actually pose that question to you, Julian, next, so be thinking of a great answer.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: OK, so I told you before that Hillary Clinton and her running mate Tim Kaine will go on the campaign. They're going to be in Ohio and Pennsylvania. In fact their first stop is a noon rally in Philadelphia.

MJ Lee has a closer look at that. Hi, MJ.

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Well, now that the festivities are over, Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine are getting to work. They start a bus tour today starting here in Philadelphia, driving through the state of Pennsylvania, driving through the state of Ohio. Now this is a really old-fashioned way of campaigning of course and

why are they doing this right now right after the conventions? They know that this is a great way to make a personal introduction to voters. The bus tour allows them to meet with voters in smaller settings, and more intimate settings, and really get to talk to people that may still feel like they don't exactly know who Hillary Clinton is or who Tim Kaine is.

Now a big part of their message over the weekend is going to be about the economy. We heard Hillary Clinton say in her convention speech last night that she plans to make the biggest investment in good paying jobs since World War II. Tim Kaine was asked about his vision for the economy. And what he plans to do with Hillary Clinton the first 100 days of the Clinton-Kaine administration and here's what he said on "NEW DAY" this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TIM KAINE (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: First priority is going to be a significant investment to grow jobs in this country. I thought Hillary did a great job last night of just laying it out that in the first 100 days, we've got to go heavily after a major job investment.

You know, I was a mayor and governor, did a lot of economic development deals. If you want to do job investments, do it when interest rates are low. So, for example, we can build roads, airports, bridges, ports. I think a lot of people in the country understand that we need to upgrade our infrastructure. When interest rates are low, it's easier to do it. It puts people to work. And what I've always said about this is, you know, it's a double win.

You put people to work right now but then you raise your platform for economic success in the long term. That will not be the only piece to this 100-day job push. Secretary Clinton talked about last night other components, you know, things like raising wages through an increase in the minimum wage, equal pay for equal work, investments in the skills, not just college, not just free college, but also pathways to apprenticeships and trades.

We're visiting some great manufacturing companies in Pennsylvania and Ohio today and tomorrow. But the first 100 days is going to be about jobs and about an economy that works not just for a few but for everybody.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And, quickly, Senator, how do you convince Bernie Sanders supporters who did not seem to want to go gently into the good night at the convention that you are progressive enough for them? Because that's their question.

[10:15:06] KAINE: You know what I said to them the other night, they were -- I talked about Bernie in my speech because we're on the Budget Committee together and I praised him, and they started to chant, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. And I said, hey, look, we all feel the Bern and none of us want to get burned by Trump. I think that they understand after Hillary's speech last night the way she laid out what she's going to do on jobs and a whole range of progressive, you know, views from immigration reform to you can't be a president -- a pro- public safety president and be in the pocket of the gun lobby.

She laid out -- a number of areas. Climate. The need to tackle climate issues, building on the work that President Obama has done that are just right in the -- right in the core of what progressives believe, what Bernie Sanders supporters believe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Now, Carol, over the next few days here, we're going to see exactly why Hillary Clinton decided to go with Tim Kaine as her running mate. And she has been very clear all along that she wanted to choose someone who she felt confident could actually take on the job of the presidency and had extreme competence. But the other thing that she has emphasized, that she wanted to choose someone that she felt extremely comfortable with.

I was in Miami last weekend when she actually announced Kaine as her running mate. And you could really feel the energy and the personal chemistry between the two of them. And so this is something that we're probably going to see over the next few days, as they campaign in these smaller settings.

The other thing, too, of course, is that Tim Kaine, the campaign hopes, will be able to talk about her character and vouch for her character. The campaign understands that she right now has a problem with trust when it comes to the issue of trust and honesty and they believe that Kaine is somebody who can really speak to that. We heard him at the convention this weekend, I trust her, so this is an implicit and explicit message from Tim Kaine that we're going to be hearing this weekend -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, MJ Lee, reporting live from Philadelphia, thank you.

Still to come, so how do you think Donald Trump is responding to a string of DNC attacks? He says he's going to hit back literally. We'll talk about that with our panel next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:21:19] COSTELLO: Will Donald Trump hit back hard against DNC critics as promised as he hits the campaign trail today? The latest Democrat to launch a blistering attack on Trump, Hillary Clinton herself who questioned whether her opponent has the temperament to be president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: Trump gets his first chance to respond today. He's set to hold two rallies in the battleground state of Colorado. And that's where our CNN's Jeremy Diamond is.

Good morning, Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. No sooner had Hillary Clinton finished her speech last night to the Democratic convention than Donald Trump immediately took to Twitter and his campaign sent out a statement slamming Hillary Clinton's speech last night.

His tweets varied from topic to topic. One of the first ones that he put out was, "Hillary's refusal to mention radical Islam as she pushes a 550 percent increase in refugees is more proof that she's unfit to lead this country." And he continued also with another tweet saying, "No one has worse judgment then Hillary Clinton. Corruption and devastation follows her wherever she goes."

A number of other tweets also went out from Donald Trump last night and continuing this morning as well and Donald Trump also put out a statement yesterday in which he slammed Hillary Clinton for essentially giving a speech that described the country that is not the America that he sees. That's very similar to the statement that Donald Trump had put out before -- the night before the convention when Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama also went after Donald Trump.

But yesterday Donald Trump actually held back a little bit, did not directly go after individual speakers at the Democratic convention from the previous night. Listen to a little bit of what he had to say at his rally yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I was going to hit them -- I was all set. And then I got a call from a highly respected governor. How's it going, Donald? I said, well, it's going good, but they're really saying bad things about me. I'm going to hit them so hard. I was going to hit one guy in particular. A very little guy. I was going to hit this guy so hard his head would spin, he wouldn't know what the hell happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: So as you can see there Donald Trump showing a little bit of restraint. He said that he got a call from a governor. We assume that might be Governor Chris Christie, who was very close with Donald Trump and who regularly gives him political advice.

And Donald Trump so they're resisting a little bit to attack. But I think today we'll see him going after Hillary Clinton just as he did in his tweets, certainly not restrained there. But if any -- yesterday's any indication, I think -- closely to the tweets that he put out, to the statements that his campaign put out, in his words on the campaign trail today as well, Carol. COSTELLO: All right, Jeremy Diamond, reporting live from Colorado

Springs, Colorado.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, are all these attacks just a preview of the months and weeks ahead? You betcha. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:51] COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

Breaking news to tell you about right now. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee confirming it has been hacked. Manu Raju is on the phone with new details. What can you tell us, Manu?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. And this comes just days after the Democratic National Committee was hacked by allegedly from Russian hackers which hacked thousands and thousands of DNC e-mails. And you'll recall that those e-mails were later revealed by WikiLeaks and causing major, major turmoil within the Democratic Party so much so that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the DNC, had to resign and just as the Democratic convention was starting this week.

Now we have learned that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee which is a political arm for House Democrats, also has been the subject of a hack. Now what the campaign committee -- spokesman for the committee just put out a statement saying that this -- they've been advised by investigators that this is similar to the incident at the DNC.

Now we don't exactly have -- we don't have a lot of details about what kind of record that these hackers have accessed, but it raises the possibility that alleged Russian hackers may have gotten a much, much broader swatch.