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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Review of Democratic Convention; Hillary Clinton's Speech Examined. Aired 3:30-4a ET

Aired July 29, 2016 - 03:30   ET

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


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[03:30:25] HILLARY CLINTON, DEMOCRATIC 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.

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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton accepts the democratic nomination for president. Urging Americans who worked together, attacking Donald Trump's vision of a divided America, did it work? Welcome back to "Early Start," I'm Christine Romans.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman. About 30 minutes past the hour, live from the not CNN Grill here where the party doesn't continue.

ROMANS: He spilled water all over.

BERMAN: Long night. All right, America, what did you think? What a close to four action packed days in Philadelphia after hearing from current presidents, former presidents, generals, sports stars, musicians, mothers, daughters, even God if you count the voice of Morgan Freeman. In the end, the only voice that really matters was that of Hillary Clinton, making history as the first woman to accept her party's nomination.

In the end, it is her speech which will determine whether this was a successful convention, her speech that could determine whether Americans decide they know her enough after 25 years in the spotlight and trust her enough after questions about e-mails and honesty. But perhaps more than anything, she said, enough is enough when it comes to Donald Trump.

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CLINTON: Powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart. Bonds of trust and respect are fraying. We have to decide whether we will all work together so we can all rise together.

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BERMAN: CNN's Phil Mattingly joining us now, live from inside the hall. Phil, where I imagine they're sweeping up this morning.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're sweeping up, and it doesn't look like we're having nearly as much fun as they're currently having in the CNN Grill. But you guys weren't even willing to stick around for it, so. No, look, just a few hours ago behind me, it was a big moment in every sense of the word. Obviously historic, obviously a moment that Hillary Clinton, despite her very long service in public service hasn't had a lot of, that huge political speech and no question about it.

She went after Donald Trump, point by point, trying to attack him, saying he was temperamentally unfit to sit in office. But what we got a lot more of was kind of the counter argument of what we heard one week ago in Cleveland, an optimistic, steady, calm kind of outlining of why an increasingly diverse country can unify. Take a listen.

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CLINTON: None of us can raise a family, build a business, heal a community, or lift a country totally alone. America needs every one of us to lend our energy, our talents, our ambition to making our nation better and stronger. I believe that with all my heart. A country where the economy works for everyone, not just those at the top. A country where all our children can dream and those dreams are within reach. And yes, where love Trump hate. That's the country we're fighting for. That's the future we're working toward.

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MATTINGLY: Now, guys, the reality is this. Was it the flashiest speech? No. Was it kind of the best given speech? No. When you're following Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, two of kind of the greatest orators in the democratic party's history, that's going to be hard to top, but what it was, and what Clinton's advisors said repeatedly they wanted it to be was an opportunity for Hillary Clinton to lay out her case on her own, just under an hour of speaking, and it was well received. When you talk to democrats here, they were very happy with how it turned out yet Bernie Sanders taking to twitter to congratulate Hillary Clinton and it's worth noting, Hillary Clinton gave quite a nod to Sanders and his supporters, saying that they all needed to unify, saying she heard them, hoping to kind of bring the democratic party together.

Barack Obama also taking the twitter to congratulate the woman he wants to replace him and hopefully carry on his legacy. But guys before any of that can happen, 102 days, that's what we've got left, you know, there's going to be tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars spent on T.V. advertising, it's only going to get increasingly uglier on the campaign trail. That much, you know. But at least in the last two weeks, we've seen the arguments from both sides. They could not be more different from one another. Now it's just going to be a matter of which one the voters gravitate to in the next couple months. Guys?

[03:35:05] ROMANS: All right, Phil Mattingly, it's always the morning after the last night of the convention, it's always sort of a sad to see the empty floor behind you. When the beautiful, you know, the dropping of the balloons is such a great moment then after that it all just cleaned up.

BERMAN: Faded feathers in her hair. Oh, Barry Manilow (inaudible) in Copacabana.

ROMANS: Barry Manilow.

BERMAN: Yeah, It's sort of like that.

ROMANS: Oh that's nice reference, all right.

BERMAN: It sort -- it's a little bit.

ROMANS: Joining us to discuss the closing last night of the democratic convention, the politics-palooza, CNN political analyst Josh Rogin, columnist for the "Washington Post" and we've got to CNN political commentator John Phillips here, talk radio host of KABC, and he's the Donald Trump supporter.

So guys let's talk about what she accomplished last night. She had to be relatable. She had to sort of reintroduce herself to America 25 years of knowing her, of course. She also had to take a big dig at Donald Trump and that he's not going to be suitable for this office, and that she had a moment where she talked about how bigotry is no joke. The Donald Trump phenomenon is no joke. Let's listen to her make that case.

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CLINTON: For the past year, many people made the mistake of laughing off Donald Trump's comments, excusing him as an entertainer just putting on a show. They thought he couldn't possibly mean all the horrible things he says. Like when he called women pigs or said that an American judge couldn't be fair because of his Mexican heritage. Or when he mocks and mimics a reporter with a disability or insults prisoners of war like John McCain, a hero and a patriot who deserves our respect. But here's the sad truth. There is no other Donald Trump. This is it.

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ROMANS: John Phillips, you're a Donald Trump supporter. We've heard all of this from -- I mean Donald Trump has said all these things, right, and we're going to hear more of it as we get closer to the general election. You know, Donald Trump has given the ammunition to her, all the ammunition to her that she needs.

JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, she tipped her hand tonight and as Bob Beckel said, we know where this campaign is going. They're going to rip each other's throats out. They're two extremely unpopular politicians, her story line is going to be that he is -- doesn't have the temperament to be president.

ROMANS: Right. PHILLIPS: And his story line is going to be that she's a pathological liar. And I don't think they've -- I don't want either one of them has hit rock bottom again with their negatives. I think could fear radically ...

ROMANS: Really.

PHILLIPS: ... go even higher after this. We've seen the negative tone of the conventions in terms of going after the opponent. Just wait until the independent groups start buying ad time on television and radio and newspapers and really taking the gloves off, because they don't have to play by the same rules as the candidates themselves. This thing going to get really, really nasty.

BERMAN: We have a lot to look forward to. John Phillips, there with the tease of coming attraction. But Josh, John has a point in the sense that this was an acceptance speech at the convention that dealt more with the opponent than I'm used to hearing. I mean, you know, you almost always get a reference or two, but this was maybe half of it and a lot of it was pretty scathing.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And it wasn't just the speech, it was the entire convention and they did this very strategically. They went demographic group by demographic group, people with disabilities, then Hispanics, then millennials, then women, then Muslims and I think this is when you see the parents of Captain Khan, you know, talk about how Muslims have been affected, I think that's something that transcends each candidate, that transcends the parties.

And people, you know, that I talked to out there, especially in the Muslim community, this resonates with them, OK. And the polls, traditionally don't account for minorities, Muslims, these groups are not terribly politically active, but this is the chance that maybe they were watching, maybe Hillary Clinton connected with them. So I think it's -- yes, it's a race to the bottom and everyone's going negative but this is also a smart strategy for the Clinton campaign because they're peeling off these groups one by one.

ROMANS: You mentioned Captain Khan. Let's listen to that bit sound. I mean like to listen to that (inaudible) since you just brought it up here.

ROGIN: Sure.

ROMANS: This is the father of U.S. soldier who was killed lambasting Donald Trump, talking about just this imagery of, has he ever been to Arlington cemetery, has he ever sacrificed anything. Let's listen to him say that.

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KHIZR KHAN, FATHER OF A DECEASED MUSLIM SOLDIER: Have you ever been to Arlington cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one. We cannot solve -- we cannot solve our problems by building walls, sowing division.

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ROMANS: John Phillips, a pretty powerful moment. A lot of people are talking about that this morning.

[03:40:02] PHILLIPS: I think in many ways, Hillary's surrogates get a better job of selling Hillary than Hillary herself. And this is going back to that 2008 strategy of making sure that minority voters, that people that turned out and record numbers for Barack Obama go out and turn out for Hillary Clinton.

And I think there's worry on the Clinton campaign that that will play itself out. It reminds me, going back to the O.J. trial when Marcia Clark didn't take the advice of their jury consultants who said, whatever you do, do not pick minority jurors because they're going to vote against you. She thought black women would vote with the prosecution because they would go on the jury and vote their gender. They didn't. They went on the jury and they voted their race.

So, I think that Hillary Clinton, in many ways, sees the gender issue is not playing the decisive role this time around that race may have played back in 2008. So she's getting surrogates to go out there and speak up on her behalf.

BERMAN: Nevertheless, you know, she is talking about gender, talking about the historic nature of her nomination more than ever. I mean, certainly more than she ever did in 2008 ...

ROMANS: Yeah.

BERMAN: ... and to an extent more than she has on the campaign trail to date, and it was one of the more memorable moments of the speech last night in which she talked about ceilings. Let's listen to that.

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CLINTON: Tonight we reached a milestone in our nation's march toward a more perfect union. The first time that a major party has nominated a woman for president.

Standing here as my mother's daughter and my daughter's mother, I'm so happy this day has come.

When there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit. So, let's keep going. Let's keep going until every one of the 161 million women and girls across America has the opportunity she deserves to have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Josh Rogin, before you -- I want to make one observation before I forget. Watching her speech after the fact, her speech actually cuts up into sound bytes more than any we've heard over the last two weeks. It may not have had the impact in to-to at the moment in delivery, but it lives on in T.V. the next day and no doubt in commercials coming forward. She actually had more discrete sound bytes than any of the other people we heard.

ROGIN: This is the mark of a well written speech, right. What we know about Hillary Clinton's day yesterday. She spent the whole day huddled in her Philadelphia hotel room with her speech writers, revising -- revising making sure everything was perfect, right. It was crafted in such a way to give everybody their three paragraphs. Whoever you are out there in T.V. land, you got three paragraphs that you can take home and say, oh yeah, she's speaking to me.

Now, as for the women, focusing on the historical nature of a woman becoming president, sure, I think the Clinton people will openly say that in 2008, they felt like they didn't focus on that enough in their battle with Barack Obama, they regret not focusing on that more.

I think you see a lot of changes from 2008. Another one was gun control, right? A lot of talk about gun control. A lot of what she said about it resonated well in the hall. 2008, you never heard her talk about that. So it just shows that the Democratic Party is more comfortable speaking up for its values and drawing those distinctions and national security is the other one. Because what is Captain Khan's parents -- what are they saying? They're saying, don't trust the military to Donald Trump, and usually, in 2012, 2008, the Republicans would have the edge on national security, but now that's flipped. Mostly because Donald Trump says crazy things about national security all the time. He was at an event in Iowa complaining that America was not allowed to water board terrorists at the moment that Captain Khan's parents were speaking. Think about that for a second. That'll tell you all you need to know about the national security discussion.

PHILLIPS: I think the gender issue also piggybacks on what we heard earlier in the convention which is that Hillary Clinton is a change agent. Well, she's a change agent that's been around for decades in the world of politics. She's really the machine politician where it's her turn to run. So, if you're going to try to sell her as a change agent, you have to sell the demographic change the fact that we've never had a woman nominated bay major political party.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's true.

ROMANS: That whole change-maker thing, I kept thinkimg about -- remember the little things you wore on your belt.

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BERMAN: That's good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody need quarters for the parking meter?

ROMANS: I know exactly. For the laundry ...

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ROMANS: Change-maker.

BERMAN: Two dimes and a nickel for a quarter, vote for me. All right. On that note, Hillary Clinton making her pitch for the economy, because she can make change, sounding a lot like Bernie Sanders who obviously liked everything she had to say. Maybe not in that picture. We'll break it down next.

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[03:48:45] CLINTON: If you believe that companies should share profits, not pad executive bonuses, join us. If you believe that every man, woman, and child in America has the right to affordable health care, join us. If you believe we should expand social security and protect a woman's right to make her own health care decisions, then join us. If you believe that your working mother, wife, sister, or daughter deserves equal pay, join us. That's how we're going to make sure this economy works for everyone, not just those at the top.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Also, if you supported Bernie Sanders, join me now, please. Whatever else you're doing, come vote for me. A big part of the speech last night directed squarely at the supporters of Bernie Sanders. We saw lots of cut aways from him in the audience. He cheered when she brought up issues that were important to him. Obviously, they worked very hard together to work out a party platform to make him and his supporters happy. Let's bring back Josh Rogin and John Phillips to discuss this.

[03:50:03] Let's play one bit of sound where she actually outright mentions Bernie Sanders by name and makes an overture to his supporters.

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CLINTON: And I want to thank Bernie Sanders. Bernie, your campaign inspired millions of Americans, particularly the young people who threw their hearts and souls into our primary. You put economic and social justice issues front and center where they belong. 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, there was a smattering, by the way, we should mention, there were protesters who were actually, you know, making noise throughout much of Hillary Clinton's speech. They were drowned out by Hillary Clinton supporters, and whenever it started, they started chanting Hillary, Hillary USA, USA but it was going on. Something else that was interesting about this speech, Hillary Clinton talked about compromise in reaching out across the aisle more than anyone had talked about in this convention or certainly the last convention and while she made that overture and it was part of her rhetoric the policy, Josh, decidedly left and uncompromising.

ROGIN: For sure. And just a little bit of color for the viewers. My friend who was in the California delegation, one of the most boisterous pro-Bernie delegations said they made an effort to put all the Clinton people up front and put all the Bernie people in the back rows and then want to spread them out, and then they let them in until the end, and then they had the whips come around and make sure they weren't organizing anything.

So it just shows you after the whole week of unity, there was a lot of tension, OK, both inside and outside the hall. So the unity is not quite all the way there. Now, when Hillary Clinton talks, she speak as if, sure, yeah, she agrees with everything that Bernie Sanders says, but whether or not she's actually going to do that is -- when she's president is the big question and the smart money says no, OK?

And if we look at her actual actions, you know, she chose a vice president who was not a favorite of the progressive left, right. All of the people around her, she incorporated the Bernie people who were like smart on, you know, youth organization and digital stuff but not really the policy people, right? So she's projecting a very progressive sort of leftist pro-Bernie message but she's still Hillary Clinton. She's a centrist candidate, going to be a centrist leader on foreign policy, on economic policy, that's who she is. That's not going to change.

ROMANS: Even if you look at student loans, you know, he pulled her way to the left on student loans. She talks about student loan affordability, you know. President Obama did a big student loan redo with, you know, like with three or four years ago, you know, with helping kids pay back their debt more easily. But she's talking about debt, you know, graduating debt-free, not free college tuition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.

ROMANS: He was talking about free college, but even two years of free community college something that ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

ROMANS: ... you know, Congress was not able to do.

ROGIN: She moved to the left on minimum wage, run (ph) public option, all of these things, she made all these compromises in the rhetoric and they're in the platform too. Now the platform, as of right now, is totally overtaken by events. It's obsolete.

BERMAN: She also made a big effort on the subject to the economy because she's losing to Donald Trump on some economic issues to go after him as a businessman directly. Let's play a little bit of sound.

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CLINTON: That sales pitch he's making to be president, put your faith in him and you'll win big, that's the same sales pitch he made to all those small businesses. Then Trump walked away and left working people holding the bag. He also talks a big game about putting America first. Well, please explain what part of America first leads him to make Trump ties in China, not Colorado, Trump suits in Mexico, not Michigan, Trump furniture in Turkey, not Ohio, Trump picture frames in India, not Wisconsin. Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again. Well, he could start by actually making things in America again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: John Phillips, first of all, I'm sure it was pure coincidence she mentioned four swing states there. Michigan and Wisconsin. But, you know, hitting Donald Trump right in the business gut, as it were.

PHILLIPS: Yeah. Well, that was the entire reason that Michael Bloomberg's invitation didn't get lost in the mail this year. But I don't know if this is the way to attack him, because he has spent decades branding himself in the public as a successful business person. On prime time television, in books, in seminars. This guy is known as being a successful guy, a guy whose names are on buildings and major cities all over the country. I just don't think it is going to be very effective.

[03:55:06] ROMANS: What they're going to try to spin for the next few weeks is going to be -- the (inaudible) election is going to be that he's only out for himself, puts his names on buildings. He doesn't necessarily help

BERMAN: Hillary Clinton specifically said, I didn't grow up with my name on a building. "Early Start" continues after a break. Don't go anywhere.

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CLINTON: 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.

ROMANS: Hillary Clinton accepts the Democratic nomination for president. This was the most important speech of her life. Did it do enough to bounce back against Donald Trump. Brand new reaction ahead.

Good morning everyone. Welcome to "Early Start". I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman.

ROMANS: Good morning.

BERMAN: Good morning.