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Clinton Presses Trump on Tax Returns; JetBlue Turbulence; American Athletes Make History; Stunt Sends Internet into Frenzy. Aired 9:30-10 a ET
Aired August 12, 2016 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00] CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now, Trump has said he's not releasing his taxes because he's being audited. But the IRS has said an audit doesn't prevent anybody from releasing the returns. In fact, other politicians have released their returns during an audit. And Trump himself has said that his taxes between 2002 and 2008 are no longer being audited, yet he's refused to release even those returns. So, Clinton's really going to continue hammering Trump on what they like to call his lack of transparency.
And it's a pretty good issue for her. Last summer she released eight years of returns. All of Clinton's tax records since 1977 are public record. So we know, for instance, in 2014, she paid about $10 million in taxes, a federal tax rate of about 36 percent. She and her husband made about $28 million that year. They gave about $3 million to charity. Her 2015 tax rate, Erica, expected to be about the same. So when we get those returns, we'll take a look.
And because Trump hasn't released his returns, you know, the public and voters can't know if he's made as much money or given as much to charity as he claims, or what he actually paid in taxes, Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: That is one of the big questions, what is the tax rate. The other thing that probably the Clinton camp very happy to talk about tax returns because there's this other story getting plenty of attention. The Clinton Foundation under increasing scrutiny. So a source telling the FBI - that the FBI and the Department of Justice that officials met about a possible investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Lay that out for us. What do we know this morning?
FRATES: Yes, so what we know, Erica, is that the FBI and the Justice Department, they met several months ago to talk about opening what would be a public corruption case into the Clinton Foundation. Now, three FBI field offices believe a probe should be launched after a bank tipped the FBI to suspicious activity by a foreign donor to the Clinton Foundation. Now, the FBI wanted to look into whether there was a criminal conflict of interest between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation, but the Justice officials pushed back, arguing that they're requesting a lot more political than substantive, especially since this is an election year, Erica.
HILL: Chris Frates for us this morning. Chris, thank you.
FRATES: You're welcome. HILL: We want to dive in a little bit deeper now. With me now, Steve
Elmendorf, former deputy campaign manager for John Kerry in '04 and a Hillary Clinton supporter, Peter Navarro is a Trump policy adviser, and CNN Money business correspondent Alison Kosik also with us.
Good to have all of you here.
I want to dive in first to these tax returns, because we're going to be talking about it throughout the day, of course. Peter, why not? Why not have Donald Trump just release the returns and get this over with once and for all?
PETER NAVARRO, TRUMP POLICY ADVISER: You're asking me the economic and trade advisor to talk about tax returns in the best week Donald Trump's had in a long time? Well, let me talk about this, please, just for a minute. We saw in Detroit this week the plans of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on the economy. This is what people care about, not tax returns.
What do we have?
HILL: Well, we're going to get to that. I'm going to stop you here because we're going to get to that -
NAVARRO: Hang on. -
HILL: No, but that's for the second half of the segment.
NAVARRO: So -
HILL: Let's just - tell me, why not release tax - tax returns?
NAVARRO: So if you want to talk about releasing tax returns - well, here - let me tell you an interesting, personal story. I ran for office back in 1992, and my opponent kept pressuring me to release tax returns. The only reason why they want to do that, they want to find out how much money Donald Trump has so that they can calculate their strategy against him. I'd advise him not to release that.
What I would like to see, this would be really interesting, I'd like to see going back to the '90s, all the money that's come in from foreign government in pay to play schemes to Bill and Hillary Clinton, in campaign contributions to the presidential and Senate race, to the Clinton Foundation, to the Global Initiative and to all these speaking fees. That's the big story to me. And that, to me, it's the biggest corruption scandal I've ever seen. I mean these folks, they portray themselves as, yes, we're doing everything for the American people, but they've sold us out on trade, they've sold us out on national security, and that's a story CNN should be pushing, because it's deep and wide.
HILL: Well, you may see some more on that. But in terms of tax returns, you would tell him not to release them.
NAVARRO: I hope so. Go get them.
HILL: It doesn't look like we're going to see them.
Steve, when we look at tax returns, we know the Clintons have put them out for a number of years. So no real surprises there. People want to see Donald Trump's tax returns because, of course, they want to see things like, as Peter points out, they do want to see how much money, but part of that is seeing the effective tax rate. Part of that is seeing how much was actually given to charity. There have been some questions about that.
For you folks, though, Steve, on the Clinton side, this is also sort of serving as a nice distraction. Is that part of the timing with the releasing of the tax returns?
STEVE ELMENDORF, FORMER DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER, JOHN KERRY '04: No. You know, not just Hillary Clinton, but Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, and a lot of other people as you saw in that video, have been calling on Donald Trump to release his taxes for almost over a year. And the issue is one of conflict of interest. The reason why Peter is able to raise all these false issues about the Clintons is because they are the most transparent people -
[09:35:05] NAVARRO: False, really?
ELMENDORF: They are the most transparent people in the last 20 years in politics because we know every campaign contribution they've ever gotten. We've seen their taxes for over 30 years.
NAVARRO: That's not what the FBI says.
ELMENDORF: We've seen all of the information. Foundations have to - have to put out tax returns that list all their donors. We know more about the Clintons than we know about anybody else. We don't know anything about Donald Trump's finances. We don't know about his - to his economic plan. We don't know about what kind of conflicts of interests are in his economic plan that would help his finances. If we saw his taxes, we would know that.
HILL: Let's talk about those economic plan now -
NAVARRO: We know he -
HILL: Because I know you both want to.
ELMENDORF: Yes.
NAVARRO: Oh, good.
HILL: And so before we do it -
NAVARRO: In our wheelhouse.
HILL: I want to reset the scene - I want to reset the scene for the viewers at home. Both their economic agendas, as we know, are now on the table. Clinton's message here, the only person Trump is looking out for is Donald Trump. Donald Trump's counter punch, that Hillary Clinton will hike taxes, that she would spoil the economy. Alison, breakdown for us, if you could, some of the main points and
the differences, especially as they - especially as we've seen them for the middle class.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN MONEY BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: OK, so you talked about taxes. So with the Donald Trump plan, actually, everybody gets a tax cut, but here's the thing, the wealthy get a really big tax cut. The middle class get a small cut. With Hillary Clinton's economic plan, she's looking to really tax the wealthy. She vows to not raise the taxes on the middle class. So she's saying anyone making $1 million or more would pay a minimum of 30 percent. That money will go to help build infrastructure. And if you're a big millionaire, if you're a multimillionaire making more than $5 million, you would have a 4 percent tax surcharge.
Other areas where they differ, child care. But with Donald Trump you're seeing a full deduction for the average cost of child car from income. Under Hillary Clinton's plan, families won't pay more than 10 percent of their income on child care expenses.
And then with minimum wage, we didn't hear Donald Trump talk about the minimum wage during the unveiling of his economic plan, but we have heard him most recently say that he would support a $10 minimum wage and Hillary Clinton consistently being in favor of a gradual minimum wage raising to $15 an hour. Those are just some points where you can compare kind of apples to apples.
HILL: So, Alison laying it out for us. Alison, thank you, because you do that much better than I ever would.
And, Peter, I'll let you kick this one off, because I know you wanted to jump right into economic plans off the top.
NAVARRO: Sure.
HILL: Obviously, you are in favor of Mr. Trump's plan. Do you see any similarities? Do you see any areas where both candidates are really making an active push for the middle class?
NAVARRO: Let me - let me do the Clinton/Trump plans in four easy pieces. It's very simple. Hillary Clinton wants to raise taxes. Donald Trump wants to cut taxes. Hillary Clinton wants to increase regulation. Donald Trump wants to deregulate. Hillary Clinton, in Columbus, Ohio, said she wanted to kill the coal industry. Donald Trump wants to leverage the enormous energy resources in this country to promote jobs and prosperity. And on trade, Hillary Clinton wants to continue exporting our jobs and factories. Donald Trump wants to renegotiate every bad trade deal that Hillary Clinton has ever helped lobby for. That goes back to NAFTA.
And on the pay to play thing, if you go back into the '90s, you could see a tremendous amount of Chinese money funneled into the Clintons. And by 2001, Bill and Hillary are pushing China into the World Trade Organization. And 15 years later, we've got 70,000 factories shut in America. Twenty million Americans can't find a good job at a decent wage. And this should be the story right through November because the economy -
HILL: Peter.
NAVARRO: And jobs are what Americans want to talk about.
HILL: That they do. The economy and jobs. Steve, I'm going to let you give your rebuttal there and then we're probably going to have to go.
ELMENDORF: Well, I - Donald Trump's economic plan is pretty simple, which is cut taxes for rich people like himself, and let it - hope, hope that it trickles down to the middle class. Hillary Clinton's economic plan is pretty simple, which is, raise taxes on people who make over $1 million a year, and use that money to invest in American infrastructure and education and health care that will help people in the middle class get through their day.
HILL: Steve Elmendorf, Peter Navarro, Alison Kosik, appreciate you all being with us this morning. Thank you.
NAVARRO: Good to talk to you all today.
HILL: Still to come, terrifying moments in the sky. Have you heard about this turbulence shanking up a JetBlue flight. Dozens of people sent to the hospital.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:43:42] HILL: One airline passenger compares it to a bad dream. People flying out of their seats, hitting the ceiling after a JetBlue flight heading to Sacramento hit major turbulence on Thursday. Twenty- four people on board were later taken to the hospital. Brynn Gingras is following this story for us.
This is - for people who don't like to fly, this is their worst nightmare.
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Me.
HILL: Your worst nightmare.
GINGRAS: I know, I'm so glad I'm doing this story. No, it's completely a nightmare. I mean if you imagine just the turbulence just being out of your control. You don't have your seat belt on and pretty much that appears to be what happened. So these passengers were flying from Boston to Sacramento. They actually had to divert to South Carolina, in Rapid City. And we're told it's all because of bad weather.
Twenty-two passengers on board, two crew members injured as well - 22 people, I should say, injured, and two crew members. One flight attendant actually had to be taken off by medical staff.
We are told by passengers that once they arrived in Rapid City, though, they had triage centers set up. So they were well taken care of. I do want to describe how one person told CNN what he experienced on this flight. His name was Derek Lindahl. He's a passenger. And he said, "the lady in front of me had no belt on and was at least two feet off the seat. I literally grabber her out of the air to hold her to the seat."
HILL: Wow.
GINGRAS: So if you can imagine that, that is not a good flight at all. But certainly, yes, everyone says they eventually did get to Sacramento safely. But, yes, a lot to talk about, about when it comes to flying.
[09:45:05] HILL: Oh, make sure that seat belt is tight next time you get on.
GINGRAS: Absolutely.
HILL: Brynn, thank you.
A Pennsylvania roller coaster remains closed, this is after the fourth amusement park accident in the U.S., in just a matter of five days. Investigators are trying to figure out how a three-year-old boy fell off the ride known as Rollo Coaster. It happened at Idlewild & Soak Zone Park. This is outside of Pittsburgh. Authorities say the child was conscious and alert before being airlifted to the hospital.
Still to come, American Olympians just racking up the gold medal. The history-making performance that have Team USA sitting at the top of the charts. That's next.
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[09:50:10] HILL: Look at that beautiful day. The gold rush continues for American athletes at the Olympic games. Team USA dominating the competition in swimming and gymnastics yesterday, bringing its gold medal count to 16. Today, Michael Phelps hits the pool one final time for the 100 meter butterfly final, an event he has won in three straight Olympics. CNN's Sports anchor Coy Wire is watching all of the action and joins us live from Rio.
Talk about an historic run so far for Team USA and talk about a great assignment on your part, my friend.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: A little jealous, Erica?
HILL: Just a touch.
WIRE: Oh, I'm sorry, but someone's got to do it.
USA swimming has been dominating, Erica. I talked to four-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Janet Evans yesterday and she said it's the support of the organization, the quality of the training, but also that camaraderie and leadership within the team that makes them so great. They've accounted for 24 of the U.S. 38 medals. Let's take a look at the count. U.S. on top. China's in second with 30. Japan's in third with 22.
But how about Michael Phelps, shattering the Olympic record books, continuing to cement his legacy as the greatest Olympian ever.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE (voice-over): Michael Phelps, making Olympics history again, surpassing Olympians all the way back to ancient Greece and becoming the first swimmer ever to win four consecutive gold medals in the same event. Powering past his opposition and picking up his 22nd gold, this time in the 200 meter individual medley.
MICHAEL PHELPS, U.S. OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: Being able to win 22 Olympic gold medals, it's something that you just dream of. I'm just living a dream come true.
WIRE: Phelps beating out teammate Ryan Lochte, who came in fifth, nearly three seconds behind him, in what was billed as one final swim between two of Team USA's most decorated swimmers.
Breakout star Simone Manuel also making history, becoming the first African-American woman to ever win an individual swimming event.
SIMONE MANUEL, U.S. OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: This medal is not just for me, it's for a whole bunch of people who have came before me and have been an inspiration to me. And I just want to be an inspiration to others that you can do it.
WIRE: Manuel, bringing home the gold for the United States in the 100 meter freestyle for the first time in over 30 year, a record breaking 52.7 seconds, tying with Canada's Penny Oleksiak in a photo finish.
And Simone Biles, who many consider the greatest gymnast ever, with a stunning performance in the individual all around, clinching gold, number two, after this gravity defying floor routine. Outstanding performances from teammate Aly Raisman, landing her a silver medal and giving the USA a one-two finish.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Did you guys get goose bumps watching Simone Biles, like I did? Gosh, she can grab three more gold medals here in Rio in the vault, the beam and the floor. That's to come. There are 24 gold medals on the line today. Back in the pool, Michael Phelps will be competing in his final individual event, the 100 meter butterfly. Katie Ledecky, a threat to smash a world record every time she's in the pool, will be in the 800 meter freestyle. Erica, get read, track and field underway here in Rio today. The games are rolling.
HILL: Looking forward to it all. Coy Wire, thanks, as always.
Still to come, the stunt that stopped New Yorkers in their tracks and sent one man walking right into Internet infamy. That's next.
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[09:57:53] HILL: The 19-year-old who scaled Trump Tower earlier this week is now facing criminal charges. Stephen Rogata is charged with felony reckless endangerment and misdemeanor trespassing after he used suction cups to scale the 68 story building. Rogata said he did it because he needed to give Donald Trump a message. Well, whatever the reason, the stunt certainly stopped New Yorkers in their tracks. And as Jeanne Moos reports, it sent the Internet into a meme making frenzy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Your dog would bark too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.
MOOS: If a guy with suction cups showed up outside your Trump Tower window. A climber's slow assent made the slightest move riveting. When he took off his backpack. When he put on a hat. When he had a drink.
And there were moments of true drama when emergency services knocked out glass to get to him. And when they finally dragged him in. It was one of those summer stories made for Internet jokesters.
Live footage from Trump Tower, tweeted a Batman and Robin fan. Watch as the Olympics once and it inspires this. The climber was inserted behind The Donald in his famous taco bowl photo.
Before everyone learned that he was Steve from Virginia, there were guesses. "Was it Chris Christie suctioning up to the Donald?" "Or Ted Cruz looking for delegates?"
"The Daily News" bellowed, "hey, Donald, will your wall stop suction cups?"
The climber was accused of copying "Toy Story." Some saw a resemblance between the climber and supernatural natural star Jared Padalecki. The actor resorted to FaceBook to clear things up. "This is not me trying to scale the Trump Tower in New York City, so, please, stop asking."
MOOS (on camera): But the number one meme, the visual joke that really left a mark was this -
MOOS (voice-over): The climber suctioning the back of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. And here you thought the circles were from cupping therapy. At least the climber got closer to the top of Phelps than he did to the top of Trump Tower.
[10:00:07] Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins right now.
