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Republican Party Turmoil, Aides Scramble to Get Trump on Track; Iran Receives $400 Million Same Day Americans Released; Obama Commutes Sentences of 214 Prisoners. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 03, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00] JOEL BENENSON, CHIEF STRATEGIST, HILLARY FOR AMERICA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: There are concerns around provisions like that that it would give China more of a free reign in the region than they should when we're talking about trade deals.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Joel Benenson is the chief strategist for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Joel, thank you very much.

BENENSON: Thank you for having me, Wolf.

BLITZER: Coming up, Donald Trump draws anger for refusing to endorse Paul Ryan and John McCain.

Plus, we've just received word that his running mate, Mike Pence, has now endorsed Paul Ryan. This, after Trump adviser, Dr. Ben Carson, just told me that Trump will, in fact, eventually endorse Paul Ryan and John McCain. We're going to get our panel to weigh in on this, the back-and-forth. Stay with us.

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[13:34:58] BLITZER: Donald Trump's campaign is pushing back against the image of frustration and turmoil within the ranks but sources say Trump aides are scrambling to get him back on track after days of distractions that he was basically responsible for.

Let's bring in our panel to discuss. Our CNN political commentator, Ryan Lizza, is the Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker"; and Matea Gold is the national political reporter for "The Washington Post."

Ryan, what do you make of this turmoil that we've seen over the past 24, 48 hours?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, what I guess I don't understand is why the Trump campaign just doesn't try and turn the page. I mean, that was a pretty alarming report in the "Wall Street Journal" this week about the Obama administration sending cash to Iran. This is right in Trump's wheelhouse, right? He has talked about the Iran deal. He has criticized the Obama administration in relationship with Iran. So they just seem to never take opportunities to sort of get back on message or just deliver a consistent message that is right in their wheelhouse. I mean, the fact that they're having -- Dana's reporting today, which has been great -- the fact they're calling reporters and denying the turmoil story rather than just moving on and trying to change the subject, you sort of scratch your head as someone who watches politics. It's puzzling that they don't know how to change the subject, turn the page.

BLITZER: Matea, yesterday in an interview with your newspaper, "The Washington Post," Trump said he's not quite ready to endorse the Speaker Paul Ryan, but Mike Pence, his vice presidential running mate, just called into FOX and said he was supporting, endorsing Paul Ryan. There seems to be a little disconnect there.

MATEA GOLD, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: If you read the transcript with my colleague, Phil Rucker, you will see Mr. Trump intentionally made that comment about Speaker Ryan. He comes back to it in the conversation, and says he specifically notes he's not ready to endorse him. As we're reporting right now, I think it's fair to say the party is in full panic mode. The reason is every day, as Ryan said, spent on this is a day not spent talking about Hillary Clinton's e-mails, Iran. You can see it on the campaign trail. I was in Colorado Springs on Friday talking to conservative voters and Republicans, and they have deep ambivalence about Trump because of this concern about his tendency to sort of go off message and be unpredictable. I heard that over and over again. They didn't know whether he was going to be someone who would be steady. And that is penetrating, even with his base now.

BLITZER: This is the same Donald Trump we saw throughout the year of the primaries --

GOLD: Yeah.

BLITZER: -- and the caucuses. And he beat 16 established, well- funded Republican candidates, and now he's just continuing that same strategy, even though a lot of his advisers want him to tone down.

LIZZA: Absolutely. I mean, you have to assume from his perspective he thinks, you know what, I've outsmarted everyone. I've gotten this far. I captured the nomination of the Republican Party. I know better than all of the supposed sophistical political pros.

I do think that there are fundamental differences between a party's primary and a general election. And that maybe he's a little blind to that. I mean, there are -- I don't want to exaggerate how much -- fairly serious Republicans at the sort of strategist level, people who never liked Trump in the first place, but looking into if this gets worse, can we replace him? You know, can you actually dump Trump after the party's actually had its convention? Now, is that a full- blown -- no elected officials have said that yet. But the fact that those conversations are even happening just shows how panicked Republicans are right now.

BLITZER: The fact that people are looking at the rules of the Republican National Committee to see if less a formula. Let's say -- totally farfetched -- he were to drop out or whatever, how would they go about getting a nominee? The fact that people are talking about underscores the turmoil.

GOLD: Sure. Though I think there's nothing in Trump's constitution or track record to date that would suggest that he would actually voluntarily drop out. I think one of the things we're seeing happen right now is a real attempt to try to do some damage control and insulate the remaining Republicans who still have primaries coming up who have to deal with this.

BLITZER: Guys, thank you very much. Ryan, Matea, appreciate it.

Coming up, on the money trail. A major shipment of cash totaling $400 million sent by the United States to Iran on the very same day four Americans were freed. So was this a situation of quid pro quo? The State Department says no. What was it? We'll speak to the spokesman for the State Department.

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[13:43:15] BLITZER: A landmark nuclear deal implemented a $400 million payment delivered and four Americans released. First reported by the "Wall Street Journal," all of the events transpired between the U.S. and Iran the very same day in January. U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati and "Washington Post" reporter, Jason Rezaian, Pastor Syed Abadini and Nasratala Nosrabi Resari (ph) were all released on January 17th. That's exact same day an unmarked cargo plane delivered the first installment $1.7 billion in cash on a pallet.

And I'm joined now by Mark Toner, the deputy spokesman at the State Department.

Mark, thanks very much for joining us.

MARK TONER, DEPUTY SPOKESMAN, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT: Thank you.

BLITZER: This report raising lots of questions. The Republican National Committee just issued this statement a little while ago. I'll read it to you, part of it at least: "The Obama/Clinton foreign policy not only means cutting a dangerous nuclear deal with the world's number-one state-sponsor of terrorism, it also means paying them a secret ransom with cargo planes full of cash. This reckless arrangement is not only a major breach of longstanding U.S. policy, it also means millions of dollars potentially finding their way into the pockets of terrorist organizations while putting a price on the head of every American."

Lots of questions raised, Mark. Why wasn't Congress made aware of the specifics of this arrangement?

TONER: Well, in fact, it's hard to know where to begin with that statement, Wolf. First of all, this was no ransom. It was a settlement for an outstanding claim in the Hague tribunal that had been established, let's be clear, in 1981 to resolve any outstanding claims between the U.S. and Iran. And was simply not linked in any way, shape or form to the release of those detained Americans. So it wasn't linked to the Iran nuclear deal.

BLITZER: So why wasn't -- so why wasn't -- sorry for interrupting. Why wasn't Congress informed of the specifics of the arrangement?

[11:45:19] TONER: Well, again, I would take objection to that. And even publicly, the president and Secretary of State Kerry were out within hours of when this arrangement was made, the settlement concluded, talking about it publicly. Certainly, Congress was informed on the details prior to the settlement.

BLITZER: Because a lot of the members of Congress say they repeatedly asked, including chairman of the relevant committees, repeatedly asked for these specifics. They weren't informed. And we weren't informed that $400 million in foreign currency, in Euros, Swiss Franks, was being flown to Tehran, delivered in an unmarked plane exactly the same time the American hostages were released. You're saying that was totally coincidental?

TONER: Well, a couple of points to make. I really can't speak to the mechanics of how the settlement was made, except I would only underscore to your viewers and to the American people that it's important to acknowledge the reality of Iran's financial connections to the global financial network, or financial system rather, at the time this settlement was made. And it was not an easy thing to do to make this settlement. There's not -- you know, there was disconnect if you will and remains disconnected from the global financial network, or system rather. Yeah.

BLITZER: The State Department does consider Iran the number-one state-sponsor of terrorism, is that right?

TONER: That is correct. And again, we've made no claims otherwise. In fact, President Obama, others have said that we still don't expect or don't see, rather, any change in Iran's behavior as a result of the nuclear agreement.

But a couple of points here. One is this nuclear agreement was never meant to solve all of our problems with Iran. Those problems persist. But what it did do was it took a significant problem off the table, and that was Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon. And that has -- and we stand by that. That has been taken off the table by the Iran nuclear agreement and Iran has abided by that.

BLITZER: The longstanding U.S. policy is not to pay ransom for the release of Americans being held by terrorist organizations. Has that policy changed?

TONER: Not at all, Wolf. And thank you for giving me the opportunity again to stress there was no ransom here. What we saw was frankly the culmination of several different lines of effort, but they were separate. And I can't underscore that enough. There was the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement, the release of the detainees, and finally, there was the resolution of this claim of the Hague tribunal. That, by the way, saved American taxpayers billions of dollars in interest. Let me make it --

(CROSSTALK)

TONER: Please, go ahead. BLITZER: Are there any restrictions on how the Iranians can use the

$400 million?

TONER: I can't speak to what restrictions were made that may be in place regarding that. That is Iran's money. But what we have seen -- and I think some U.S. officials have spoken to this -- is that the money has not been used, as far as we can see, for any nefarious purposes. It's been used for infrastructure improvement, development projects, et cetera. Now, we can't rule that out, again, because we've seen Iran continue to exercise bad behavior in the region. We can't change that overnight.

BLITZER: They're still providing military and financial aid to the Bashar al Assad regime, to Hezbollah, to other groups the U.S. considers to be terrorist organizations, right?

TONER: That is correct. We've seen, again, that behavior continue. But, again, this was a settlement of a claim that frankly, had the tribunal settled it, may have gone more in the Iran's favor and cost the Americans taxpayers money. These are claims that are outstanding from the downfall of the government in 1979. This tribunal was set up in place.

And another point to underscore that has been lost in all of this, there's been over 4700 claims settled on behalf of American citizens and American companies to the tune of several billion dollars. That's important. This is a two-way street here.

BLITZER: The whole notion of the $1.7 billion that the U.S. is paying Iran, has the rest of that $1.3 already been transferred as well?

TONER: I can't speak to whether that's been finalized. It's really out of our hands here at the State Department. What I can say is we'll abide by our commitments and we will fulfill them.

BLITZER: Iranians themselves say you paid ransom, the United States paid ransom for the release of those Americans. Are they lying?

[13:50:00] TONER: I think the source of that comment was an Iranian military commander who has probably his own reasons for putting forth that kind of claim. He's playing for domestic audiences. All I can say is, and I would hope that people would trust in what the president has said, the secretary of state has said, versus an Iranian military commander.

BLITZER: To wrap it up, Mark, the fact that the Americans were released exactly at the same time as that plane arrived from Switzerland with $400 million in hard currency in cash, that was totally coincidental?

TONER: What I'll say is, because of the Iran nuclear agreement that opened up the space to settle this claim, and also to confirm or to get the release of these American detainees. But it is really important to stress here that these were all separate processes. In fact, the Hague tribunal claims process had been going on for decades, years and, in fact, we were able to bring it to a successful conclusion. But there was no linkage. There was no ransom.

BLITZER: I guess the bottom-line question then is, if you had not delivered that $400 million on that day, exactly at that time, would those American detainees, hostages, have been released on that day?

TONER: Yes, we believe so. Because this was worked through a different process and it was concluded successfully, again, because of the space that our negotiations with the Iranians had opened up in other areas.

BLITZER: Mark Toner is the deputy spokesman for the State Department.

Mark, thank you very much.

TONER: Thank you.

BLITZER: Coming up, breaking news just coming in to CNN. President Obama commutes more than 200 more prison sentences in a single day. That's a new record. We're going live to the White House when we come back.

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[13:56:00] BLITZER: Got some breaking news coming in to CNN. President Obama has just commuted the sentences of 214 people. That's the most granted on a single day since 1900.

Let's go to our White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski.

Michelle, explain the background, what happened here.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Wolf. Just look through this long list of the people whose sentences the president has just commuted. They span the country. But there are similarities. These are non-violent drug offenses. In many, many cases these people been sentenced to life in prison, mainly in the late '90s, early 2000s era. In some cases, they are large amounts of drug, like cocaine. In some cases, there are firearms convictions that go along with that, possession of a gun during a drug offense. But these are non-violent offenses. And this is what this administration has tried to do, go back, look at the long sentences that people got during the wars on crime and drugs, during that period of time, and try to give them a break, frankly.

The president has commuted more than 560 sentences like this during his time in office than the prior nine presidents combined have commuted -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Are more expected? He's still got a few more months in office.

KOSINSKI: Yeah. I mean they never rule that out. This has been a pattern. I would say every two months or so the White House releases the notice that they've done this. They list everybody whose sentence has been commuted. In certain cases, there have been some notable people. The mother of

a Denver Broncos player was in one of these groupings of commutations. We had an opportunity to interview some of these people, too. Their stories are extraordinary. You hear the same sorts of things, they were young at the time, they made some bad choices, they own up to that, but they were stunned to find that they were sentenced to life behind bars for what are, in some cases, relatively minor drug offenses -- Wolf?

BLITZER: President Obama just posted on his Facebook page, and I'll read it to you: "Too many men and women end up in the criminal justice system that serves up excessive punishment, especially for non-drug violent offenses. But this is a country that believes in second chances, so we've got to make sure that our criminal justice system works for everyone."

The president, Michelle, he's made that point often in recent months.

KOSINSKI: It is a matter of fairness. When you look at a sentence that non-violent, possession with intent to distribute, for example, something someone got a life sentence for, versus a violent crime today, which they don't get as long a sentence for, it is a matter of trying to even out the severity of some of these sentences that, upon review now, are deemed to be too extreme.

I'll tell you, interviewing people here at the White House a couple months ago, who had just been released after decades behind bars, the emotion there, feeling that they were locked away for a drug offense, and that nobody heard them saying why am I still in here? In some cases, they wrote a letter to the White House. And to have that heard and have it acted upon, that was everything to them.

BLITZER: Michelle Kosinski, at the White House, thank you.

Also breaking right now, a Washington, D.C. police officer is under arrest, charged with providing financial support to ISIS. Nicholas Young, of Fairfax, Virginia, just outside D.C., was arrested this morning by the FBI, scheduled to make his first court appearance minutes from now. He's an officer with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Investigators say he made several trips to Libya trying to buy gift cards to help ISIS with recruiting. Young will appear in court in Alexandria, Virginia, just for his initial appearance. Looking at live pictures of the courthouse. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Important story we're following.

That's it from me. Much more coming up. I'll be back later today, 5:00 p.m. eastern, in "The Situation Room."

Lots of news happening today, and it continues right now, right here on CNN.