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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Race for the White House; Trump Meets with Gold Star Families. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 04, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:04] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ana Cabrera, in today for Ashleigh Banfield. Great to have you here with us here on LEGAL VIEW.

Now, if you're counting, it is now 96 days until the presidential election, and now more than 24 hours since Donald Trump picked a public fight with someone not named Clinton or Obama. Now, coming off his attacks on gold star parents, his refusal to back the Republican House speaker for re-election to Congress, Trump was said to be stirring up anger, anxiety, even panic in the GOP, as well as his own campaign. Not true, the nominee claims.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I just want to tell you, the campaign is doing really well. It's never been so well united. I would say right now it's the best in terms of being united that it's been since we began. We're doing incredibly well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Let's bring in CNN's Phil Mattingly. He's been covering Trump's self-inflicted drama the past week or so. He's joining me here in New York, along with CNN political director David Chalian. And Ron Brownstein is CNN's senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlantic," also with us.

Phil, let's start with you. He had a couple of uneventful rallies yesterday in Florida. Is the train back on the track and have we dispelled any idea of a campaign intervention?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a low bar when just getting through two rallies without throwing everything into chaos is considered a good thing, but it's still the bar. And I think the answer is, yes. Look, the campaign, when you talk to senior campaign advisers who are pretty united on where they stand and where they want the campaign to go forward, they recognize that keeping Donald Trump on message is the only way to win, but it's also a real - there's - there are real opportunities there. Attacking Hillary Clinton, hitting on national security issues, talking about the Iran deal, all of these are issues where they think Donald Trump not only can - if he hits on them, he can do well, but he can actually win riding those issues through November. CABRERA: I'm glad you said that. Let me stop you there.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

CABRERA: Because he did hit on Clinton yesterday. Ron, let's listen to the sound and I'll have you react on the back side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We let ISIS take this position. It was Hillary Clinton that she should get an award from them as the founder of ISIS. It's what it was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So, Ron, notwithstanding the merits of that claim he just made, is this what the party wants Trump to be talking about?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely. I mean and that - the way he phrased it, though, really kind of encapsulates the challenge. You know, as we talked about before, it is very hard to win a third consecutive term in the White House for one party. Since World War II, we've only seen it once, in 1988, when George H.W. Bush was able to follow up eight years of Ronald Reagan. And the reason usually is, by the end of two terms, you've cumulated a lot of Nixon bruises in the White House. I'd like to say 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a very dangerous neighborhood. There are lots of things that, you know, the out party can always point to. And certainly the rise of ISIS in the Mideast, the slow growth in the economy in the second quarter, the questions about the payment to Iran, all of these are in a normal time would be front and center in the presidential race.

But what has happened is that in Donald Trump, Republicans have selected a nominee who is so polarizing and so outside of all of the normal boundaries of politics, that the election, I think David would agree, has become more a referendum on him than a referendum on change and you're dealing with a candidate who's looking at 60 percent unfavorable, 60 percent of the country say he's unqualified. A majority of the country says he's racially biased against women - against minorities and women. And so he becomes the center and all of these traditional vulnerabilities of the eight years I think move into the background.

CABRERA: Hey, I'm glad you brought up favorability ratings. David, I know you have some new CNN polling for us, not about these two candidates, but the current incumbent. And President Obama got a bit of a birthday gift.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: He did indeed. Our new CNN/ORC poll shows him at his highest approval rating of his second term. Fifty-four percent approve, 45 percent disapprove. We haven't seen him that high in the second term. So that's really welcome news.

In the Clinton campaign, now to Ron's point, and I think this is so true, I think that the Trump campaign, they are looking to spend the next 96 days flipping what Ron just said and make it a referendum on Hillary Clinton because they thought they could treat her like an incumbent, because it is the third term. And usually, if an incumbent is involved, it does end up being a referendum on the incumbent, less so about the challenger. What - every time Donald Trump goes off course, it becomes about Donald Trump. The tricky part is, those numbers. With Barack Obama at 54 percent, he is so politically healthy right now that a referendum on the Obama/Clinton administration, if you will, is maybe not the direction that the Trump campaign wants to go.

CABRERA: And you look more at those numbers when you - we break them down, Obama's approval tops 60 percent among voters or people under 50. That is an area and group that Hillary Clinton has had a little bit of trouble connecting with. Remember the younger demographic was voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary, David.

CHALIAN: Yes, certainly - certainly the young college aged kids were a huge problem. But, yes, if you look at that under 50, that was not necessarily her wheelhouse. That, again, shows you why the relationship of Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton is so important, because if he is that politically healthy with that age group, that has an effect on her because she is completely running with him as if he's her running mate on the campaign trail. So there is the opportunity there for her to embrace Obama's strength.

[12:05:24] Now, Donald Trump sees opportunity, as Phil was saying, and I think this is true, on foreign policy, on national security, on something like this Iran deal, to start chipping away at whatever strength Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have built up there.

CABRERA: Paul Ryan spoke today in an interview - we'll come back to you, Ron, in just a minute. I want to play the sound from Paul Ryan. He was interviewed for the first time since Trump's essentially non- endorsement and he was asked about his own endorsement of Trump now, whether he's having second thoughts. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER (voice-over): I'm not going to get into the speculation of hypotheticals. None of these things are ever blank checks. That goes with any situation, in any kind of race. But right now I - I just think it's important that the voters, you know, he won the delegates. He won the thing fair and square. It's just at simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: How's that for a non-answer about whether he regrets his endorsement?

MATTINGLY: This is a very difficult position for Paul Ryan to be in, right? What's happening behind the scenes right now is bordering on outrage in the Republican Party for Donald Trump not getting behind Paul Ryan. But Paul Ryan, it's two-fold here. One, he wants to win his primary on August 9th. There's no question about that. But, two, he's just walking this very, very fine line. Now, he acknowledged in that same interview, everything that's happened in the wake of the Democratic National Convention with Donald Trump has been, I believe his word was "strange" - "strange," and he wished that Donald Trump would get back on message, too.

But I think Paul Ryan is caught in this very, very difficult position of being a leader of the party, who recognizes that he can't support Hillary Clinton. He can't get any of his agenda done if Hillary Clinton is in the White House. But, behind the scenes, has a lot of problems with the current Republican nominee, who just so happens to want to pick fights with Republicans like Paul Ryan on a regular basis, Ana.

CABRERA: Ron, your thoughts about what we just heard?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Yes, look, I think, you know, the language that he used, I thought, "not a blank check" was very similar to what John McCain used over the weekend when he said, you know, the nomination is not unfettered license to demean the best in our society. So both of them, I think, are kind of, you know, positioning themselves to eventually reach a point where they say, no more.

But they are, as Phil said, they are in a very difficult position. Donald Trump is doing fine among Republican rank and file voters. Even the CNN poll is at 89 percent. But a third of them in the poll say that they don't believe he's qualified. A third of them say they would not be proud of him as president. And you can imagine this fall, with the data targeting capacities that Democrats have built over the last ten years, that Republican women or even Republican leaning women in the suburbs of Denver and the suburbs of Orlando and the suburbs of Philadelphia are going to get mail with Meg Whitman and Sally Bradshaw, the former chief of staff for Jeb Bush, and Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor for the first President Bush, and Michael Bloomberg all basically telling them, in this case, it's OK to break from your usual partisan affiliation and vote Democratic. And I think where you really will see this weakness show up is not so much necessarily in big defection numbers among Republican partisans, but among those college educated whites where Trump is woefully underperforming.

Two polls out today, real quick, one in New Hampshire he's down 28 points among college educated whites, one in Pennsylvania, down 30. Those are unprecedented and insurmountable numbers if they sustain.

CABRERA: Well, Ron, you just teed up our next segment for us. So, thank you for that early tease. David Chalian, Ron Brownstein -

BROWNSTEIN: We try to help.

CABRERA: Phil Mattingly, thanks to all of you.

We are going to hear more from Donald Trump today, by the way, at a town hall in Maine at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. But up next, Hillary Clinton pulling ahead in three states that Trump's hoping to turn red in November.

Stay with us.

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[12:12:41] CABRERA: Hillary Clinton is making big gains over Donald Trump in a trio of battleground states. Take a look at the numbers here. In the rust belt state of Pennsylvania, Clinton now leads Trump by 11 points. In Michigan, Clinton is up by nine points. And Clinton's biggest lead is in New Hampshire, she's up 15 points there. Now, Clinton is also looking to gain some more ground in the key state of Colorado. She spoke to voters there where she knocked Trump over his own products not made in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I really would like him to explain why he paid Chinese workers to make Trump ties. This is one of them. It's got his name on it, of course. And instead of deciding to make those ties right here in Colorado.

If he wants to make America great again, he should start by making things in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Back with me now, CNN political director David Chalian. Also joining us, CNN national reporter MJ Lee, and CNN's senior political reporter Manu Raju.

OK, we just showed those new battleground polls. David, one thing that really stands out when you look at these polls is that Clinton's favorability ratings in these specific states are on the rise.

CHALIAN: Yes. And, listen, we saw her chip away a little at her unfavorables nationally as well. This is part of the post-convention bounce right now. She had a very successful convention. These polls were taken immediately on the aftermath of that, as were the national polls that we've seen. So the question is, is this sort of a new normal for her and this is where the fall campaign begins from, or is this an elevated sense and in a couple of weeks that will settle down, too, and it will narrow? We don't know the answer to that. What we do know through is, with 96 days left, Donald Trump does not want to be 15 points behind Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire or 11 points behind in Pennsylvania. These are states that he is very much relying on as he puts the puzzle together to get to 270 electoral votes.

CABRERA: And why is there such a gap right now? Well, let's take a deeper look at the numbers. Here's something else. In New Hampshire alone, this poll shows that 86 percent of the Democratic voters there say they support Clinton, compared to 63 percent of New Hampshire Republicans who support Trump. So, M.J., what does this say about both parties now in the unity?

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL REPORTER: Well, the fact that Clinton has a 15 point lead right now over Trump in New Hampshire is really remarkable, especially if you remember, this is a state where Bernie Sanders defeated Clinton badly. She was defeated there badly in February, during the Democratic primary, in part because Bernie Sanders was really propelled by support from independents and young voters. And as David mentioned, some of this definitely does have to do with timing and the fact that the poll was conducted after the conventions. If you look a little deeper into the numbers, 56 percent of New Hampshire voters said that they thought Clinton came out of the convention stronger, compared to pre - the pre-convention numbers, and 39 percent said the same thing about Donald Trump and the Republican Convention in Cleveland.

[12:15:42] Now, New Hampshire is a battleground state where the Clinton campaign should feel confident that - that this is a state that is winnable. Remember, this is a state that Obama won both in 2008 and 2012. John Kerry won there in 2004. And because this is a state with such a big chunk of independent voters, here's a state where she really has to work at winning over the Sanders supporters who didn't support her back in February, and the voters who are still feeling undecided. They're still on the fence. Maybe they are just starting to tune in and they feel like maybe they don't necessarily have an allegiance of - to either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Those are the voters that she'll really have to work hard at winning over in New Hampshire.

CABRERA: We know there are a lot of Republicans out there worried about how Trump's polarization might affect the party down ballot. And here's something, I'm not quite sure we've seen this yet, but look at this new ad from Republican Colorado Congressman Mike Kaufman, who is battling to keep his seat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE KAUFMAN (R), COLORADO: For me, country comes first. My duty is always to you. So if Donald Trump is the president, I'll stand up to him, plain and simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Manu, what do you make of this campaign against Trump strategy?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: It's pretty interesting. I've talked to other Republican strategists today, and they do think that there could be other similar ads coming out, but it's a little bit harder for senators to do this than it is for House members. And let me explain. In Mike Kaufman's district, he represents the Denver area, suburbs of Denver. A lot of college educated whites, suburban mothers, Hispanic voters, all groups that Donald Trump does terribly with. And Kaufman wants to distance himself as much from Trump as possible. He's in one of the most targeted House districts in the country.

But when you run statewide as a senator, you need a lot of those Donald Trump supporters, which puts these Senate Republicans, who are in difficult races, in a very, very tricky spot, as they try to distance themselves from Donald Trump. Case in point, in New Hampshire, we talked about the New Hampshire poll, but there's a key Senate race there where the Republican senator, Kelly Ayotte, is down ten points in the latest poll, largely because of Donald Trump. But she also needs those Trump supporters to come out for her in November. So it's a difficult balancing act for a lot of these Republican senators. One exception could be in Illinois, where Mark Kirk, the senator there, has rescinded his endorsement of Donald Trump and Republicans believe that has helped him there in that very blue state. But uncertain if other senator would follow this tack.

CABRERA: Let's talk about the libertarian ticket here because we had our big town hall last night. You haven't had any sleep. You're going on like five cups of coffee, David. Well, and it was interesting to hear them go after Clinton, and we are seeing this candidate ticket, Bill Weld and Gary Johnson, chip away a little bit at her poll numbers. They went after her yesterday. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARY JOHNSON (L), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That they're making money off of this, that, as secretary of state, Bill goes out, does $1 million speaking gig, and then the next day Hillary signs an agreement with the sponsor of that speaking gig. And, you know, that's not good. That's beholden, if you want to say that. It smacks of pay to play.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: He's going after Clinton. Do you think, David, we'll see Clinton go after libertarians?

CHALIAN: No. And I think he's actually drawing from both candidates right now. I don't - I don't think he's only taking away from Hillary Clinton if you look at the polls. Basically their argument, because they also went after Trump plenty in the town hall -

CABRERA: They did.

CHALIAN: They kind of said, Trump's crazy, Clinton's corrupt, look at us. That was sort of what they had to say. And, you know, obviously, these two candidates are more unfavorable than they are seen favorably by the American people. There is an opportunity for another voice to get in there and get a hearing from the American people. And that's part of why I think you saw last night their message of inclusiveness, their - Gary Johnson once said, hey, if I make mistakes, I admit them. I mean that's in sharp contrast to what took so long on Hillary Clinton on the e-mails.

CABRERA: (INAUDIBLE) too.

CHALIAN: So they definitely sound different. And so if you're looking for an alternative, there's a voice out there in Gary Johnson and Bill Weld that may prove attractive. They still have quite a bit to go. They're at 9 percent nationally in our poll right now in the four-way horse race. They've got to get to 15 percent to get in those debates. And that really is the holy grail for them. If they can't get themselves onto that presidential debate stage in the fall, it's going to be very hard for them to remain competitive in any way.

[12:20:09] CABRERA: Just quickly, MJ, what was your assessment? Did these two guys present themselves in the way they need to, to give the American people enough of a sense of who they are? LEE: Well, I think for sure the show right now is between Donald Trump

and Hillary Clinton. Certainly there's a segment of the population maybe looking for an alternative. When you go out and talk to voters, especially in these battleground states, there are people who will say, look, I don't feel convinced that Donald Trump is presidential enough. They're especially sort of worried and concerned about some of the rhetoric that they've seen coming from him. And then, on the other hand, they feel like Hillary Clinton is too much of a known. They feel like they don't feel like they can trust her and they don't know that they want to see sort of a third term of the Obama presidency. And so, yes, these are two candidates that can present an alternative to that segment of the population. The question is, how big is that segment of the population when it comes to November and Election Day?

CABRERA: All right, we'll have to leave it there. MJ Lee, David Chalian, Manu Raju, our thanks to all of you.

And we will hear more from Hillary Clinton today at a rally at 3:45 in Las Vegas.

We'll also hear from President Obama again today. He has a live press conference from the Pentagon at 4:15 Eastern. Of course, we are going to be monitoring these events and we'll bring some of it to you live right here on CNN.

Now, we've heard from gold star families who are angry at Donald Trump after his feud with the Khan family. And now we hear from gold star families who support him. Up next, I'm talking to a mother who lost her son in Afghanistan, and she just met with Donald Trump yesterday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:26:11] CABRERA: Donald Trump, he says no regrets. No regrets after bickering with the heartbroken parents of an American soldier killed in war. No regrets over what he said about that soldier's mother, which was slammed across the political board and also by parents of other fallen U.S. troops.

Well, in Florida yesterday, Trump assured his followers that plenty of gold star families love him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Just a little while ago, I met with the gold star families. I met with six families that were just like incredible people. And a gentleman handed me a check, and he said, "you know, Mr. Trump, this is for your campaign." And I said, "you don't have to do that." He goes, "I do." He said, "it's more money," and I haven't even opened it yet, I don't think I'll tell you how much it is actually, but - but he said, "it's more money - wow. He said, "it's more money - more money than we can afford, but I want you to have it for your campaign." And I think it's incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Well, Trump also added to his schedule yesterday a private meeting with several families, as he mentioned, of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. That meeting was organized in part by Karen Vaughn, who lost her son, Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughn, in Afghanistan five years ago. And she's joining me now from south Florida.

Karen, first of all, thank you for being here and my condolences to you and your family for the loss of your son.

KAREN VAUGHN, NAVY SEAL SON AARON VAUGHN KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN: Thank you very much, Ana.

CABRERA: Take us inside that meeting with Donald Trump. How many families were there? What was the setting like?: And what was your conversation with him?

VAUGHN: We had ten family members there, and I put together a good - a good cross representation. I had some gold star children there, gold star wife, gold star moms and dads, and a gold star sister, and just wanted to kind of let Mr. Trump see it from every side and ask questions to every side that have been affected by these types of situations. And the atmosphere in the room was very warm, very compassionate. If I could describe his demeanor with us, it was gentle, soft-spoken and tender. And, you know, I felt like he got what we've given. He understood. It was - it was a very good meeting.

And we talked about - we didn't talk about the Khan situation at all because, frankly, as a gold star mom, I'm not that easily offended by things like this. I don't hold it against anybody else who is. I'm just not personally, and most of the people I know are personally offended by things like that.

So we talked about substantive things. We talked about the way the war need to move, that we needed to be fighting to win wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not taking wars on for 15 years with no end game of victory. We talked about those sorts of things. We talked about rules of engagement. We talked about the VA and the way people - veterans are not getting the care that they deserve when they come back from these wars. Those are the things that we spent our time on. You know, what we could all together make a difference in the future with.

CABRERA: OK. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard you say that you weren't offended by Trump's comments reacting to the Khan family and what was really created a bit of a controversy from people on both sides of the aisle. Is that - is that what I heard correctly?

[12:29:43] VAUGHN: You know, and just - just to - yes, you heard that. And just to clarify that, what I mean by that is, there's just a lot more important things going on. I mean this story has been going on for - for a week now. And - and I'm not saying - Mrs. Khan probably had a right to be offended by it, you know, but - but the thing is, is, let me just tell you my perspective. Words don't mean as much to me as actions. That's just me.