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Anti-Trump Republican Launches White House Bid; Donald Trump Delivers Speech on Economy. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 08, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(APPLAUSE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My plan will also help reduce the cost of child care by allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of child care spending from their taxes.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so that was Donald Trump in Detroit. We will have Hillary Clinton there in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Our correspondent, Pamela Brown, is standing by.

And I know I read something that a senior adviser with the Clinton campaign is saying, when we see Hillary Clinton, it will be -- and I quote -- "a sharp rebuttal" of what we heard from Mr. Trump's plan.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

You can expect her to come out here swinging in St. Petersburg, Florida, in just about half-an-hour against Donald Trump and some of the proposals he announced today in this speech on the economy. She is expected to talk about trade, talk about the economy, talk about the renewed booming auto industry.

And also we have heard the Clinton campaign that some of these tax cuts he's proposing are reckless. And so she's what she's going to try to do today is create a sharp contrast between herself and Donald Trump and say he's someone who only wants to help those at the top. However, she's someone who's been fighting for working-class families, and she's also likely going to touch on the fact that we have seen in the ads here in Florida that he's someone who likes to profit off of people's pain, that he's not good for small businesses.

So this is an opportunity for her to come out and make her pitch to people here in Florida, a crucial battleground state. This is a two- day swing and Hillary Clinton also trying to capitalize on the momentum she has today. The latest poll of polls at CNN shows up her up 10 points. That's up six points from just before the conventions -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Big bounce after Philadelphia. Pamela Brown, thank you. We will pop back by as soon as we see Hillary Clinton speaking. We want to take her as well.

Meantime, Trump not only pushed his hopes for the future, but he pointed out the problems he thinks the country is now facing.

So, with that, let's go to CNN's Tom Foreman who did a reality check on what Donald Trump said today.

Tom Foreman, what did you find?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Donald Trump says if you go forward, as Hillary Clinton's promised, to continue the work of President Obama, that will be a terrible plan. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Homeownership is at its lowest rate in 51 years; 58 percent of the African-American youth are either outside of the labor force or not employed.

Meanwhile, American households are earning more than $4,000. Think of that, $4,000 less today than they were 16 years ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: Let's take this one piece at a time.

Homeownership is at its lowest rate in 51 years. The U.S. census says homeownership in the most recent numbers is at 62.9 percent. The high was back here in 2004 at 69.2. It hasn't been this low since 1965. So the verdict on that first one is, yes, that is true.

What about his second claim, 58 percent of African-American youth are either outside the labor force or not employed? You can get that number by taking this number, the number who are employed and basically doing reverse math. And, yes, it's true that more African- American youths are disproportionately affected by unemployment than other people out there.

However, this doesn't allow for the fact that all the people who aren't in this number are not necessarily unemployed. They may be in school. They may be training for another job. They may not be looking for work, which means they're not counted as unemployed. He left all of that out, so we're going to have to say that the verdict on this is true, but misleading, because you need to tell people all that other stuff.

What about this last part about income? The idea that people are just not making as much money as they did? American households are earning $4,000 less than they were 16 years ago. That's what he said. Medium household income in 2014 was around $53,657. And, yes, that was about $4,000 less than it was in 2000, but that was two years ago. Since then, there have been updated surveys, and a survey found the

median income now is about $57,206. So he needed to update those numbers. You can't take things from two years ago and say that that's what counts. We are going to say the last one was false -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, thank you for going through that. It's great, because we have plans, we have specifics. Tom Foreman, thank you.

I know we have more reality checks coming up, including more reality checks when we hear from Hillary Clinton. She will be giving a much larger economic speech also from Detroit this coming Thursday.

Now for the deep dive. Let me bring in some voices. I have Barry Bennett, used to serve as campaign manager for Dr. Ben Carson and supports Donald Trump, Princeton economics professor Alan Krueger, who is also an informal adviser to Hillary Clinton and the author of "The Entrepreneurial Instinct," Monica Mehta, a finance expert and the managing principal at Seventh Capital Investment.

[15:05:07]

So, welcome to all of you.

Monica, I defer to you first sort of on some of the nuts and bolts of what we heard. So beginning with -- because I think a lot of moms and dads watch and I'm thinking about their kids, I'm thinking about child care and what Trump said specifically about having child care fully tax-deductible. That's a huge deal.

MONICA MEHTA, FINANCE EXPERT: Brooke, this is a big pain point for a lot of Americans.

And I think what you have heard from the left is a focus on another pain point, which is college. So he's kind of redirecting focus to an area that is a wide-open field, which is are parents are exhausted paying for child care. Child care costs have gone up far more than inflation. It's really along the same lines of health care. So he's really touching upon something that is a nerve for many older Americans, middle-aged Americans.

BALDWIN: Talked to an analyst, Alan Krueger, last hour who said this could be one area where Mr. Trump is out front of Hillary Clinton.

But on that, if we're hearing from a senior adviser that there will be a sharp rebuttal from her, you tell me how she will address the child care issue.

ALAN KRUEGER, FORMER CHAIRMAN, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Well, I can tell you, he's far behind her on this issue.

What Secretary Clinton has proposed is much more generous for those who need help for child care. She's proposed a cap on child care expenses at 10 percent of income, subsidies to those who can't afford child care and also working on the supply-side so that child care services are available and affordable to more families. What Mr. Trump proposed is a big give-back, more the higher-income

families who deduct at a higher tax rate. So he hasn't focused his resources on those who need them most. But it's good that he's coming around to recognizing that this is an important issue.

BALDWIN: It's an issue. We heard Ivanka Trump address it at the RNC.

Barry Bennett, I just want you to give you a minute to respond to that from a Trump supporter perspective. And then I want to get into these tax brackets.

BARRY BENNETT, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Yes. Small children need to be taken care of. I don't care what their economic class is. Mr. Trump's proposal is quite common sense and I think it's going to be wildly popular.

BALDWIN: OK.

There's that on the child care issue. Let's move on to the tax bracket. Currently, there's seven. He's proposing three, reducing rates across the board.

Guys, let's throw up the tweet. We have now heard from Paul Ryan, right, and we know Trump finally endorsed him Friday night and I know he's taken a number of his proposals. So you have the Paul Ryan tweet. With seven different tax brackets for individuals and a top rate of 39.6 percent, America's tax code is too complicated.

Monica?

MEHTA: Yes.

BALDWIN: Yes.

MEHTA: It is too complicated. It is way too complicated. I think the only people who like the tax code are accountants.

And so again I think he's hitting on a pain point that a voter base that doesn't really want to get into the details is like, yes, taxes are too complicated, yes, I pay way too much for child care, yes, corporations don't pay their fair share because corporations are paying like 11 percent of total tax receipts that the federal government gets in.

How is that happening? I think his speech is interesting. It's very detail-light, but it does touch on things that seem to be pain points for people.

BALDWIN: Is it feasible? Can he pull it off is my question?

MEHTA: Are any of these proposals feasible? I take a lot of these with a grain of salt. I know that's a cop-out answer, but at the same token, we have gotten to this place where the American voter base is so cynical and they just look at all of these proposals and solutions from politicians and they're like, yes, you're a corporate puppet, I don't know what you're going to do when you get into office. And the thing that Trump has going for him is that he's a little bit different, he's a little bit fresh, he's a little bit nuts, but, you know, it's different.

BALDWIN: Fresh and nuts, says Monica.

Barry, you get to come in respond to that and also tell the Americans who are watching and pulling their hair out over some of these job numbers still though why he can actually pull it off.

BENNETT: Well, pain is real, right? Real people haven't had a real increase and real income in a really long time. We have got to free the job creators. Free the risk takers and stop worrying about investment bankers and carried interest, which I think was an amazing part of his speech today.

But these are all wildly popular issues in real America. And we just need -- we need the government to get out of our way. What Washington has done with the tax code is inexcusable and frankly indecipherable.

BALDWIN: Alan, I'm pivoting to you because I'm also -- you look at Obama's ratings, great. You look at sort of the latest jobs numbers, I think the CNN, right, had the U.S. economy growing a mere 1.2 percent between April and June.

And then when the jobs report came out, the number hadn't changed for July. And so I know Hillary Clinton is running on this sort of third term of President Obama's, but you were on Economic Advisory Council. If you're looking at those jobs numbers, doesn't that hurt her?

KRUEGER: Look, in July, we added over a quarter million jobs.

[15:10:00]

Over the last seven years, we have added 15 million jobs since the economy turned around under President Obama. What Mr. Trump has done is just to double down on his proposal for an enormous tax cut, which independent analysts say will cost $10 trillion, would blow up the debt, which Mark Zandi, an independent economist who advised John McCain, said would cause a deep recession, would cause the economy to lose 3.5 million jobs.

So I don't think there's anything in here that will help the economy. I think it would cause deep problems and make our problems worse, which are real problems, but there's nothing in here which would make life for middle-class workers or lower-income families better off.

BALDWIN: Barry, you're laughing and shaking your head. Why?

BENNETT: They're concerned about the debt now. That's fantastic. Unfortunately, it's eight years too late. They doubled it. This is ridiculous. The Obama economic policies have failed.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Alan, respond to that, please, sir. KRUEGER: The deficit has come down under President Obama. The deficit is now under 3 percent of GDP.

(CROSSTALK)

BENNETT: The debt hasn't. Don't dance around the issue. The debt has not come down.

KRUEGER: Look, when President Obama came into office, he inherited a trillion-dollar deficit because...

(CROSSTALK)

BENNETT: And he repeated it seven years in a row.

(CROSSTALK)

KRUEGER: We have had the deficit come down. And we're in a much stronger economic position than we were then.

(CROSSTALK)

KRUEGER: Having a moratorium on the regulations that could prevent the kind of crisis that we saw, I think, is a step in the wrong direction.

But what Mr. Trump proposed is freezing the regulations that require our banks to behave in a more responsible fashion. I don't think anybody thought that our problems were created because we were regulating the banks too much. It was because we weren't regulating them adequately. So we need smart regulation, not kind of an across- the-board freeze.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Alan, on Hillary Clinton, though, would you admit that this issue specifically, the economy, is the area where she is most vulnerable?

KRUEGER: I think there's a very strong record the she's running on, on the economy.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Yes or no, is she vulnerable or not?

KRUEGER: Look, the economy is now stronger than it was four years ago. President Obama was reelected by a pretty good margin. So I would rather take that hand.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: OK. OK.

Barry, Barry, Barry, to you, I think I stopped counting when I was watching the speech when it came to the protesters. I stopped counting at 12. I think there were 14. And I was talking last hour about I do give Mr. Trump credit for just rolling with it and keeping his cool.

My question to you, it's so funny, because we talk about pivots, but is this the last pivot where he's staying on message, he's reading the teleprompter, he's giving the specifics that Americans have been wanting?

Is this the Trump that is hoping to get elected on November 8?

BENNETT: The pivot, I'm excited about the pivot. But I give up trying to predict tomorrow by today's standards.

But I think the protesting thing, this is the new civility in American politics, which is very, very sad. It's an economic speech. Why do you have to protest an economic speech?

BALDWIN: How many pivots, Barry, how many pivots do you get in a presidential election?

BENNETT: Well, in this particular election, it seems to be quite a lot.

BALDWIN: OK.

Barry Bennett, thank you so much.

Alan Krueger, Monica Mehta, thank you very much, all of you, on economics.

Again, Hillary Clinton speaking in a bit in Florida and then giving her big economic speech this Thursday in Detroit.

Next, yes, it is August, yes the conventions are over, but Donald Trump has a new competitor in this race, this former CIA officer launching an independent bid for the White House. Who is this guy and why is he doing this at this late date?

Also ahead, another bombshell from inside the walls of FOX News. The former CEO Roger Ailes reportedly used campaign cash to hire spies to go after his enemies? How much legal trouble could FOX really be in?

And the father, the son and the holy wow, Jeb Bush's son backing Donald Trump even after Trump launched some pretty terrible insults against his dad. Hear why.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:18:14]

BALDWIN: We are minutes away from House Speaker Paul Ryan making a campaign appearance in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. When you look at the polls there, they do give Speaker Ryan a comfortable lead over his challenger come tomorrow's primary. But Donald Trump's delayed endorsement of Speaker Ryan makes this a race to watch.

So with us there in Pleasant Prairie is CNN chief political reporter Manu Raju.

When you look at the polls, you think perhaps not. In terms of the belated endorsement of Mr. Trump, is that affecting him at all, Speaker Ryan?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't seem to have much of an impact on Ryan at this moment.

In fact, we're expecting Ryan to win pretty handily tomorrow. If Paul Nehlen, his opponent, does win, it would probably be one of the biggest upsets, if not the biggest upset, in political history. Paul Ryan has been making rounds in his district, including where he will meet here with voters shortly.

Earlier today, he was talk in Racine, Wisconsin, talking to voters there about a variety of issues. And one of the issues that came up was the issue of trade. Now, that is something which he frankly disagrees with Donald Trump on.

Ryan has been a champion of free trade, who actually led the charge to pass fast-track trade authority in the House. He was asked specifically about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and this is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I don't think there's a high likelihood right now because, A, we don't have the votes to pass it because people like me have problems with some significant provisions of it that we believe need to get fixed.

But here's the point. We do need trade agreements. I know a lot of people say just get rid of trade agreements, don't do trade agreements. And that's terrible. That's a problem for us.

The question is, is it a good agreement or not? And, yes, that's what Donald Trump says is right, which is we want good trade agreements. We don't want bad ones. We want good ones. But you have got to have, in an economy like this, good ones so we can make it here and sell it over there instead of making it there to sell over there. That's the difference here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:20:03]

RAJU: So, clearly, a more nuanced view of trade and probably a recognition of sorts from Ryan that this anti-trade rhetoric that we're hearing on the campaign trail does have some resonance particularly in blue-collar areas of the state and states that have been hit hard by trade and by, frankly, the economy. But afterwards, Brooke, assuming that Ryan wins, he and Senator Mitch

McConnell will both be aggressively raising money for their House and Senate incumbents in this election cycle, frankly, worried about the prospects of their majority, particularly if Donald Trump's standing continuing to decline, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Speaking of incumbents, Marco Rubio, Senator Marco Rubio down in Florida, he's leading his primary challenger there as he wants to hang on to his Senate seat, but he's making news now because Zika virus is an issue now in his home state. He has now said pregnant women infected with Zika should not have the right to an abortion.

How is that statement resonating in Florida politically?

RAJU: Well, he has a primary this month, Brooke, and presumably in the Republican primary he should be fine.

But Rubio's position on abortion is more conservative than a lot of his fellow Republican counterparts. He actually opposes abortion in the cases of rape. He does believe abortion should be allowed to save the life of the mother. Democrats clearly want to use this against Rubio in a general election context, where voters may be more moderate on this issue.

But when you look at the polls right now, Rubio is actually doing well against his possible Democratic challenger, Patrick Murphy of Florida, and even if Donald Trump is struggling in Florida, Rubio is outperforming him, so Rubio feels confident, the campaign feels confident, but clearly Democrats see an opening on this campaign of Zika in which Rubio has actually led the charge in the Senate for more funding. So we will see if they can get any mileage out of that, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Manu, thank you in Wisconsin for us a day ahead of the primary there.

Meantime, hard-core conservatives and the never Trumpers in the Republican Party launching another Hail Mary.

Evan McMullin, you ever heard that name? He's a former CIA operative, recent chief policy officer for House Republicans today announcing he's running for president. He'd like to, needs those signatures, but he'd like to. The 40-year-old will run as an independent and you're looking at pictures. This is McMullin's campaign Web site.

His slogan, it's never too late to do the right thing.

With me now, S.E. Cupp, CNN political commentator.

Hello, my friend. How are you?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hello. I'm well, thanks.

BALDWIN: Evan McMullin, did you wake up like so many others and say what? Who? Who?

CUPP: Right. Right. Right.

Look, I had heard of him. I don't know him personally. Not someone I was thinking, oh, he should run or maybe he will run. No, this seems kind of out of nowhere and kind of out of the blue.

But I did talk to a Republican House member today who knows him and says he's the real deal and the next 72 hours will be really critical because he will have to weather some obstacles here, right?

BALDWIN: We will walk through the obstacles, but first, perhaps, in a favorable column for him and maybe one of the reasons why we don't totally know who he is, for 10 years, he was in the CIA, he was a CIA operative and I think part of his campaign will be touting his experience, terror hot zones.

And I'm wondering as we have heard through the months, criticism, let's say, of Donald Trump through Republican members of Congress, then you hear from general and those who have been in the trenches literally. Do you think that his experience will matter?

CUPP: You know, if foreign policy were as single issue as a lot of people pretend it is or wish it were, then Hillary Clinton I think would be beating Donald Trump even more handily than she is.

So Donald Trump is probably the least prepared when it comes to foreign policy presidential candidate that we have seen run in a long time. And obviously voters care about that and a lot of other things, you know, trade, the economy. So it's a good single issue to run on.

He's obviously -- Evan McMullin is obviously more prepared than Donald Trump, but I think voters will care about some other things, too.

BALDWIN: S.E, hang with me.

Elise Labott just sat down next to me, as we have some breaking news sort of speaking of generals and security issues.

What do you have? A letter?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's a letter by 50 former national security officials that served in various Republican administrations talking about the fact that they don't think that Donald Trump is fit to be commander in chief.

BALDWIN: Wow.

LABOTT: It's a very interesting list of some pretty high-level officials, some former assistant secretaries of state, for instance, and secretaries of defense talking about his credentials.

[15:25:01]

There's a lot about the personality, but they say from a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be president and commander in chief. They say: "We're convinced he would be a dangerous president and would

risk our country's national security and well-being," talking about that he does not only not understand the complex challenges, but hasn't necessarily wanted to educate himself to listen to this.

And they talk about the fact that a commander in chief not only has to make those hard calls, Brooke, but also has to listen to his commanders. And they referenced the fact that Donald Trump says he understands foreign affairs and "knows more about ISIS than the generals do."

So a lot of concern that, if he were commander in chief, that he wouldn't necessarily listen to some of these people, given the fact he doesn't really have a lot of national security experience that have more than he does.

BALDWIN: So, listening to you, and S.E., let me just pivot back, we have heard of a number of women with advisory roles with, let's say, Bush or Christie who are saying we're now with her. But it's quite another thing when you hear from Elise these 40 Republicans in security, generals and whatnot, saying no to Trump. This has to be huge for Hillary Clinton to use, yes?

CUPP: Well, yes, Hillary Clinton's role at the State Department was specifically within the realm of foreign policy.

And I think you talk to most Republicans and they would say she was a big fat failure. And so for her to be doing as well as she is, especially when it comes to foreign policy, means Donald Trump is viewed as particularly terrible on foreign policy, and rightly so.

And I think Elise is exactly right when she references this lack of curiosity about the geopolitical implications of the things that he says. And that's the scary part. It's this unwillingness to learn what he doesn't know. And that drum has been beaten for months by foreign policy advisers.

I'm just not convinced that -- I'm just not convinced that as damaging as this is for Trump, I'm just not convinced it's going to be a fatal blow.

BALDWIN: OK.

Let me ask you, S.E, just following up on some of Trump's comments today, yes, he was talking economics, but he used this phrase that he's now used a few times in describing the Hillary Clinton, the short circuit. Right? He said that. He's questioned her mental ability and other things. Here's a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: She's really pretty close to unhinged. And you have seen it; you have seen it a couple of times, but people in the background know it, the people that know her know it, and she's like an unbalanced person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: I know, I know, I know. But my question to you, is Cokie Roberts, ABC political analyst Cokie Roberts has actually said that this is code for, don't elect a woman.

Do you agree with that?

CUPP: No, I don't. It's dumb, but I don't think it's sexist.

He took something she said and he ran with it. On the one hand, it's like pot, it's kettle you're black. Anyone who hears the word unhinged doesn't think of Hillary. They think of Trump. On the other hand, it's just not necessary.

The compelling case against Hillary Clinton is not that she's crazy. It's quite the opposite. It's that she's so cunning and crafty and contemptible that she's lied and dodged her way out of accountability her entire career. But no one in the Trump campaign ever asks the question, is this a good direction to go? Does this jibe with our overall strategy?

They just hear something and run with it. So I don't expect this to go very far, this Hillary's crazy and unhinged, because it's just not believable, but once again I just think it shows sort of the lack of direction and strategy and organization inside the Trump campaign. It's just shiny object after shiny object.

BALDWIN: OK, dumb, but not sexist, that's a quote from you.

S.E. Cupp, thank you so much.

Just quickly, Elise, you wanted to jump in?

LABOTT: Yes, I want to make two quick points.

First of all, I think that these 50 national security professionals are also -- this is not a ringing endorsement for Hillary Clinton. They said, "We also have many doubts about Hillary Clinton, as do many of us, but Donald Trump is not the answer."

I'm not sure, as S.E. said, this is really going to make a difference, because he has really run on an anti-establishment platform. And this is really establishment candidate. But I think if he were going to make more of an effort to understand and listen to some of his foreign policy advisers and put them out to talk to us -- and I would say we have been reaching out to them -- I think they might do better in terms of having more credibility on foreign affairs.

BALDWIN: OK, Elise Labott, thank you. Thank you.

Next, a scathing "New York" magazine report, yet another one, alleging some sordid details about how exactly ousted CEO Roger Ailes ran FOX News, reportedly using millions of dollars in company money to spy on and attack his own political enemies. We will talk about that next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)