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"TIME" Reports RNC Chief Issues Warning to Trump; NYT: DNC Email Hack Bigger Than First Thought. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 11, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[09:00:02] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS. He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder. He founded ISIS. And by the way, if she gets to pick -- if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Words matter, my friends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We begin with a bombshell report. Donald Trump faces a grave new warning from the top of his own party. In the new edition of "TIME" magazine, it's emblazoned with a dripping orange caricature of Trump with the word "meltdown." It says RNC chair Reince Priebus has given Trump a sobering ultimatum. Pull his campaign out of its tailspin or the party may effectively turn its back on him.

The RNC would instead focus on Senate and House races. Many of those contests have drawn tighter as Trump has charged into one controversy after another.

Zeke Miller is the "TIME" magazine reporter who broke this exclusive story. He joins us now from Washington with more.

How worried is the RNC?

ZEKE MILLER, POLITICAL REPORTER, TIME: Good morning, Carol. Thanks for having me. The RNC is very worried about the state of Donald Trump's campaign right now. Really not so much the campaign as the candidate. You know, they're very upset that he can't stay on message day-to-day. We saw he gave that economic speech on Monday and then 27 hours later make those comments about the Second Amendment.

They're very, you know, sort of -- it makes it very hard for them to plan and they're watching these declining poll numbers and as well as sort of the litany of things that he has said over the last two and a half weeks. And have basically told him, you know, if you would have just gone to your golf club, you'd be in a much better position right now. Yet you got out and continue to make these statements. And that's hurting your campaign and not just your campaign but all of these other candidates.

So their message to Trump is, we're the Republican Party, not the Trump party. And if push comes to shove in the fall, they'll work to help Republican candidates, even if that means sort of undercutting Trump ultimately at the ballot box.

COSTELLO: So explain to viewers why the RNC's support of Trump is so important and why it would damage his campaign if it withdraws its full support?

MILLER: You know, the Trump campaign isn't a normal presidential campaign. Every traditional and conventional presidential campaign has a field program, and it runs television ads, has a data program. Trump is relying on the RNC for everything but the television ads. I mean, he doesn't have field staff. He doesn't have a sophisticated data analytical shop. He's built a lot of that on top of what the Republican National Committee has built. They're still going to make that available to him, except what their message is going to be to voters on the ground in terms of the voters they'd turn out.

Say, you look at Florida, where Marco Rubio is leading the polls, Donald Trump is a bit behind. There's a very large crossover of voters there. Same in Ohio where Rob Portman is ahead, the Republican senator, incumbent senator, but Donald Trump is behind. They'll have to decide if they're going to turn out voters who will vote for Rob Portman but will not vote for Donald Trump or maybe will vote for Hillary Clinton. Right now those aren't the priority but come September and October, they very well will be and may be, and that will certainly hurt Donald Trump.

COSTELLO: It is worth noting that Trump denies your report, telling "TIME" magazine, actually, because you did reach out to Mr. Trump, as a good journalist would. Mr. Trump said, "Reince Priebus is a terrific guy. He never said that."

MILLER: Yes .

COSTELLO: And asking, "Why would they state that when I'm raising millions of dollars for them?" So he is raising millions of dollars for the RNC and for other candidates, Republican candidates running this time around. So why would the RNC say such a thing?

MILLER: Yes, we went back to the two senior GOP officials who gave us the reporting and they confirmed it after Mr. Trump made his denial. You know, it is certainly clear that Donald Trump is raising a lot of money for himself and for the party through what's called a joint fundraising committee and a joint fundraising committee where there is about an 80/20 split between what the Trump campaign gets and versus the RNC gets.

Donald Trump will keep that 80 percent that he raises through that committee. That's where the vast majority of what he's raised in the last couple of month has gone. But the 20 percent of the RNC package, that's going to the field program on the ground and where those field staffers goes ultimately the RNC's control. Donald Trump doesn't control that. And given the importance of that ground game, that's going to be, you know, ultimately at the discretion of RNC chairman Reince Priebus.

COSTELLO: OK. So you know what Donald Trump is going to say. He's going to say, he's already said the media is rigged and the media lies and makes things up. So your response to him?

MILLER: Our response to him is, you know, we've gone back to our sources. They've confirmed this reporting. We're very comfortable in our reporting.

COSTELLO: All right, Zeke Miller of "TIME" magazine, thanks for sharing your exclusive with us this morning. We appreciate it.

Donald Trump will be making his first public comments since this report just about 90 minutes from now. He is scheduled to speak in front of the National Home Builders Association.

Sara Murray, live in Miami, Florida, where Trump will be shortly. Good morning. What do you make of this?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, I think that there is no secret that there has been some of these tension between Reince Priebus and Donald Trump.

[09:05:07] And look, there's been a lot of frustration among a lot of high-ranking Republican officials about how Trump has been unable to stick to his script. How he has been, you know, sort of resistant to do a lot of the basic blocking and tackling that we've seen from traditional candidates and traditional campaigns. I think it will be interesting to see what we hear from Donald Trump today if he is going to come out and gripe about "TIME" magazine, gripe about the RNC, gripe about the media or if he's going to stick to the script and start going after Hillary Clinton and continue to hammer her about foreign policy, about economic policy, about her e-mails.

But this, Carol, is the key frustration with Republicans. They just cannot count on Donald Trump to stick to the script, and hammer his Democratic opponent even as they say, look, the fastest way Trump could rally Republicans behind him is just to focus all of his fire on Hillary Clinton.

COSTELLO: So there's still a couple of months, you know, until the election. So is there still time? I mean, how much time is the RNC willing to give him, you think?

MURRAY: Well, I think there is absolutely still time. Look, we're in August. We have to be honest about what the American electorate is paying attention to right now. And certainly some of them are paying attention to this campaign, but a lot of normal humans are on vacation, or they're watching the Olympics, or they're relaxing with their families. And I think the moment where you really get to a panic point is if we are further into September, we're further into October, and these are still the numbers that we're seeing.

And that I think is when you have to look to the RNC to start making difficult choices. Do you continue to essentially be the ones who are bankrolling Donald Trump's ground game or do you try to refocus some of these resources through state parties, through the victory effort to help senators who are in tough races like Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania or Rob Portman in Ohio.

Again, it's August, so there is a little bit of time, but certainly the direction that the polls are moving is not making Republicans feel particularly great about this at the moment.

COSTELLO: All right, Sara Murray, reporting live from Miami. We'll check back when Mr. Trump begins speaking. Thank so much.

So let's talk about that "TIME" magazine bombshell that the RNC has laid down the law, get it together, MR. Trump, or we're out. With me now to talk about that is the founder of Women Vote Trump, Amy Kremer, Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic strategist and Clinton fundraiser, is here, and host of "The Pollsters" podcast, Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster, and Kirsten Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster.

Welcome to all of you.

ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good morning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning.

COSTELLO: OK, so, Amy, I will begin with you. If the RNC pulls its support, wouldn't that be unprecedented?

AMY KREMER, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, of course it would be unprecedented, Carol. But look, the way that Mr. Trump got here was unprecedented, too, by beating 16 other candidates, and it was the people that rose up and gave him this platform and put him in this position so that he is the nominee.

I don't think that they're going to pull out. I mean, what are they going to do, join team Clinton? I don't think that's likely. But I do think that we have a lot of work to do, and I do agree with Sara, that after people come back from vacation where most normal people are right now other than us who are into politics. I do think that people will start paying attention and I think you're going to see a lot going on on the ground with the activists and people getting involved to get out the vote. And I think that's what matters.

COSTELLO: Kristin, you're a Republican strategist. What do you make of this?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: Right now, if you're at the RNC, you've got to be looking at a lot of these polls that show states like Georgia and North Carolina, usually red states that are now in jeopardy of going to Hillary Clinton. And you've got start thinking, what's going to happen to those candidates who are further down the ballot?

What we typically see in these swing states are Republican candidates like Rob Portman running for Senate in Ohio or Pat Toomey running for Senate in Pennsylvania, is they tend to run about six to seven points ahead of where Donald Trump runs. But if Donald Trump is losing a state by 10 or more points, it's really hard for those down ballot Republicans to get over that way. So on the one hand, the RNC might want to shift its efforts to just helping those down ballot candidates, but if you abandon Trump too much at the top of the ticket, is the wave too big for those down ballot candidates to even survive?

COSTELLO: So, so, Robert, it is possible, as Amy said, as Sara said, that Trump will get his message back on track. He was sort of on track last night, right, and this morning on CNBC, insisting that President Obama founded ISIS and Hillary Clinton co-founded it. Let's listen before you respond to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, look, I know you're giving me too many areas. Look, I beat 17 people. I started with 17. I now have one person, who I think is pretty close to incompetent, Hillary Clinton. I think she's pretty close to incompetent.

Take a look at the "Washington Post" story about Hillary Clinton from two days ago. I couldn't believe they wrote it because they never write anything bad about her. So they wrote a story about Hillary Clinton was a disaster as a senator from New York. She promised everything, delivered nothing.

[09:10:02] She was going to create a wonderful economic boom in upstate New York. Same words she uses right now. And she not only created no boom, New York state, upstate New York and various other parts that she was talking about became disaster areas. I mean, and they are a disaster area. People have fled. Businesses have left. They've gone to Mexico and other places. It is a disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Robert, if Donald Trump continues to talk like that, will it affect Hillary Clinton?

ZIMMERMAN: Absolutely not. You know, it's important to remember, the fact that we've been discussing whether Donald Trump has the ability to articulate a coherent message tells you all you need to know about the Trump campaign. People are watching the speeches, not to see what his policies are because he's always contradicting himself. He is always -- contradicting the previous policies, but they're also watching to see his latest, most outrageous, divisive, hateful rhetoric.

So I think that says a great deal about the Trump candidacy. I'm not under estimating it, I'm not underestimating the money that's coming into his campaign. I'm concerned about watching the Green Party and Libertarian Party, the harm they could do in terms of taking votes away. So this a competitive race. Democrats should understand that. But the most important, salient fact moving forward is Donald Trump consistently has articulated a message that has been either condemned by his own -- by record numbers of Republicans.

You now have between 15 and 20 one to four-star generals who have endorsed Hillary Clinton because of the dangerous rhetoric that Donald Trump has put out there versus Hillary Clinton's position. Not to mention members of the House and Senate.

COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about -- let's talk about Donald Trump's rhetoric, Margie, when it comes -- you're a pollster. You've been looking at the polls. Hillary Clinton leads in some major swing states. She leads in Pennsylvania, big time. Right? She leads in Ohio. I think she leads slightly in Iowa, too. You see 41 percent to 37 percent. She's even making headway in Georgia.

So, Margie, if you're watching the polls and Donald Trump ratchets up his rhetoric saying Hillary Clinton co-founded ISIS, that her plans for the economy will be a disaster, will -- will that kind of rhetoric change those poll numbers to Trump's favor?

MARGIE OMERO, CO-HOST, "THE POLLSTERS" PODCAST: I mean, what we're seeing now is this image of Trump as somebody who can't stick to a message, who flies off the handle. Who speaks off-the-cuff in a way that's reckless and dangerous, and at times cruel and also incorrect. That's calcifying. I mean, you've now seen for a while lots of polls showing that people feel he doesn't have the right temperament. He has seeded a lot of ground on foreign policy. People don't think he is qualified on foreign policy. Polls have been showing that now for a while. That's not new.

We did some focus groups this week with Wal-Mart moms and they are under no illusion that Donald Trump is going to maybe straighten up and fly right any day now. We're going to see him get his campaign message on track. This is how he is. This is who he is. And people are coming to terms with the fact that this is how he is as a candidate, and that's why you're seeing these really strong numbers against him not recovering. Even if the horse race may fluctuate in some places, underneath the surface, he is seen as not fit to on commander-in-chief and those numbers are not changing.

COSTELLO: All right.

KREMER: Carol, can I say?

COSTELLO: Go ahead, Amy. Sure.

KREMER: Yes, I was just going to say, look, I mean, I think at the end of the day, what really matters is, you know, who is fit to be commander-in-chief, and when you have a secretary of state that the State Department was for sale under them, do we really want our White House for sale? I don't think so. This pay-to-play is not going to cut it with the American people about --

ZIMMERMAN: That's the kind of dishonest rhetoric. Amy.

KREMER: That is not dishonest, Robert. That is not dishonest.

COSTELLO: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Let's hold this part of the conversation because we're going talk about it in the next block and we're going to parse all of this out. But right now there is no concrete evidence that there was pay-for-play. But there certainly are some intriguing clues.

You're right about that. The e-mails are there and people are wondering about them. We're going to talk about that in the next block. So I say to my panel, stick around, and I'll be right back.

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[09:18:07] COSTELLO: A Russian cyber attack that targeted Democratic politicians was much bigger than anyone thought. "The New York Times" is reporting the Russian's main target, quote, "appear to have been the personal e-mail accounts of Hillary Clinton's campaign officials and party operatives." That could mean a slow drip of embarrassing information right up until November 8th.

So, let's talk. My panel is back -- Robert Zimmerman, Amy Kremer, Margie Omero, and Kristen Soltis-Anderson.

Welcome back to all of you. Thanks for sticking around.

Robert, according to "The New York Times", FBI officials have briefed staff members in the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. They now have little doubt that the Russian government is behind the hack.

What have you heard?

ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You know, that story has bee out there since the Democratic Convention. Of course, it was made worst when Donald Trump actually invited Russia, encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's e-mails, which is a violation of the law, and was denounced across the board by Republicans and Democrats alike.

That's my -- see, my greater concern obviously, if emails were hacked, let's remember, they can be forged, they can be manipulated. So, you have to be very careful about that.

My greater concern is the idea that Donald Trump is advocating an agenda that is in sync with Putin, President Putin's agenda. In fact, the only person Donald Trump hasn't attacked is Vladimir Putin. In fact, endorsing his strategy of dismantling NATO and Trump saying he'll be neutral with Israel and Palestine.

So, the policies are what concerned me a great deal --

COSTELLO: Well, Robert, in fairness, I don't think investigators know of a motive at a moment, or if it has anything to do with the American election.

ZIMMERMAN: Well, we do know Donald Trump was encouraging President Putin to, in fact, hack into Hillary Clinton's e-mails, which that's on the record.

COSTELLO: Amy, do you care to respond?

AMY KREMER, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Sure. He wasn't inviting them to hack into Secretary Clinton's e-mails. What he was talking about is the 33,000 e-mails that are is missing, the ones she supposedly deleted.

[09:20:01] In fact, the servers are no longer operational. They're not plugged in. Unless, they're plugged in at the FBI. But that's not what he was encouraging.

I think really what we need to be concerned about is what information they do have, Carol, because obviously, if they have information that would hurt our country, you know, sacrifice our national security, that is what the issue is here. That's exactly why the FBI went to the Department of Justice earlier this year and asked them to investigate the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton -- the Department of Justice refused to do it.

But that's exactly why they looked into these e-mails because of the fear of espionage. Foreign -- other foreign entities had accessed her email. And I think that's something we all should be concerned. This isn't just about Hillary Clinton. That's any of our -- any person in the --

CUOMO: Absolutely. I want to be clear. The FBI found no evidence that Hillary Clinton's e-mail was hacked in any way.

But e-mails are surfacing, Margie, that sort of like bring suspicion to the relationship when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and the Clinton Global Foundation. Do you think that will hurt in the long run with Democrats?

MARGIE OMERO, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER W/ PSB RESEARCH: Well, I think any day that this is in the news is not good, right. I mean, having this in the news and having it be a topic is reinforcing a point that is, you know, Clinton's vulnerability. We heard that in the focus groups where we had a lot of moms say they were worried whether they could trust Clinton.

I'm not sure if there is a specific story or e-mail here that is really going to change the dynamic of the conversation. I think this kind of thing is really now baked in the cake. It is just more news.

But whether or not this news was coming out today, I don't think there is anything in the e-mails that really, you know, sets you have alarms. Certainly not for me. But you know, I think it means you're going to have -- you know, bringing this up regardless of whether or not there is a news in the, you know, today about the e-mails or not.

I think for a lot of folks, they are just thinking about the bigger picture when it comes to Clinton versus Trump, and they're saying Clinton is more qualified than anything they're seeing out of Trump. I'm not sure if there is a lot of fluctuation.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Here's the thing I'm going to pose this question to Kristen.

Here's the thing, it's complicated, right? These emails have surfaced. They're between staff members, some of Bill Clinton's staff members, Hillary Clinton's staff members.

There are pieces, but we can't put the puzzle together. But if you say pay-to-play, it resonates.

Does it matter what the exact truth is to this?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST & POLLSTER: I think most Americans are probably unlikely to go read the actual texts of the e-mails and the ones that have come out in the last day or two mostly illustrate what is standard issue stuff for Washington, asking a friend, hey can you put me in touch with so-and-so, pass this resume along.

What the challenge will be for Hillary Clinton is, the more and more this establishes her as par for the course of Washington, not really a change agent, we know voters are looking for something different. The question is, is Donald Trump too different? Does he go too far on the other end of the change spectrum or is Hillary Clinton not enough change? That's a big dynamic we're going to deal with.

COSTELLO: Robert, no, no, I want to ask this question. I think it is important.

Should Hillary Clinton come out and say you know what, I removed myself totally from the Clinton Foundation? If I'm elected president, my husband, Bill Clinton will step down. Chelsea Clinton will have nothing to do with the global foundation. Should Hillary Clinton do that?

ZIMMERMAN: I don't think that's necessary. Quite frankly --

COSTELLO: Why?

KREMER: Are you kidding?

ZIMMERMAN: I'll answer the question. Let me be clear about that.

First of all, they have put in safeguards and the e-mails released, Carol, do point out, the e-mails that have come out there was nothing done for the Clinton Foundation. They also point out the meetings requested never took place. Obviously, Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton and Hillary Clinton are not going to do anything to compromise their positions in the White House.

KREMER: Why?

COSTELLO: But Hillary Clinton has a trust problem, a big trust problem. You're just telling people to go on faith, when they don't have the faith that --

ZIMMERMAN: Carol, let me finish my point, if I might. Obviously, to be very clear with you, Bill Clinton, Chelsea, and Hillary Clinton can do nothing that's going to show that they're in any way engaged in compromising their role of the White House with the foundation, the record shows that nothing has been established that ever shows they did compromise their roles with the Clinton foundation. The e-mails prove that point.

KREMER: How can you say that? How can you say that, when large donors are requesting favors from the State Department? You tell me how other people at foundations across this nation would have access to the secretary of state, like the people at the foundation did. And the fact that -- didn't she -- didn't she agree not to take any money to the foundation, when she was secretary of state?

[09:25:02] There were some agreements there that was violated.

ZIMMERMAN: Amy, the very questions you're asking were already answered by an investigation by the "Wall Street Journal." They showed no favoritism being offered --

KREMER: Right, because she didn't turn -- this is the problem --

(CROSSTALK)

ZIMMERMAN: I didn't interrupt you. The second point, if you look at the issues involved with the work of the Clinton Foundation, it in no way compromised any work that Hillary Clinton did as secretary of state. In fact, the e-mails make that point. Obviously, you're going to engage in spin it. We understand politics.

KREMER: Let me make one point, Robert. One thing I'll say to you is that if she had nothing to hide, then why were these 44 e-mails that we're talking about, why weren't they turned over to the State Department when she was supposed to turn everything over? Why is it an individual, organization, had to go out and sue through FOIA to get this information? That's the only reason we know about it now. It's not because she willingly turned over the information. What is she hiding?

ZIMMERMAN: First of all, I don't know what the -- first of all, from the e-mails that came out, it clearly shows nothing was hidden. No favors were asked from the foundation. No favors were granted to the foundation. In fact, the meeting requested never took place. The book that was written about this, "Clinton Cash", which you're referencing, had to be reissued with major revisions and corrections because it was so false.

Let's understand, Amy, you're going to sit -- you're going to sit there with the Trump campaign in the gutter talking about this. The country wants to focus on --

KREMER: This has to do with the national security. I'm sorry. National security trumps it is all.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I have to leave it there. Thanks to all of you. Robert Zimmerman, Amy Kremer, Margie Omero, Kristen Soltis-Anderson -- thanks again.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: dueling plans on bolstering the economy. Three days after Donald Trump unveiled his plan, Hillary Clinton is about to lift the curtain on hers.

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