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Brazil Police Pull Two U.S. Swimmers Off Plane; Clinton to Meet with Law Enforcement Officials; Trump to Hold First Event After Team Shake-up; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 18, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:35] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Questions swirling this morning around swimmer Ryan Lochte and several of his Olympic teammates over their claims of being robbed at gunpoint in Rio. The U.S. Olympic Committee says three of those swimmers will talk to local officials in Brazil today and that meeting comes after two of the athletes were pulled off a plane in order to stay in the country until they made those statements.

Lochte, who did leave the country on Monday, he's back hereby in the United States, this was before the search and seizure warrants were issued, he's also facing scrutiny over his initial story. Listen to what Matt Lauer said about his recent sit-down with the swimmer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT LAUER, ANCHOR, "TODAY" SHOW: When he talked to me the night, he said that's when the guy pointed the gun in my direction and cocked it. And I pointedly said to him, you had said before it was placed on your forehead and cocked. He said no, that's not exactly what happened. And I think he feels it was more of a traumatic mischaracterization. I think people listening at home might feel that was embellishment at the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Joining me now with more on this from Rio, CNN's Nick Paton Walsh and CNN's sports analyst Christine Brennan. Welcome to both of you.

Nick, what's going on here?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have really I think two big questions here people are trying to answer at this stage, how is it, according to Brazilians watching this and the police spokesperson, that these two -- these four people were able to return home carrying in their possession so many high value items if you look at that CCTV picture after such, it seems, forcible armed robbery? They were allowed to escape with their own cell phones. That's Ryan Lochte's own admission. That's a question to be answered.

The second one, also, quite how long was the gap between when they left the club and they got home. If you talk -- listen to the court order, they are thought to have left the club at 4:00 a.m. A police chief saying 5:45. And then everyone agrees they got back about 7:00 a.m. to their house. So either a one hour or a three-hour window.

And all this adds to the broader sense of confusion here and more importantly, Carol, the extraordinary scene of international incident involving search and seizure warrants, athletes taken off planes. This, for medal winners. Their team at the highest of the medal table at this particular stage. And really I think also challenging Brazil's sense of pride here at the games. This is a very high profile incident.

Yet authorities are seeing discrepancies in the testimony they're getting from two of these key athletes. Two more of them are supposed to speak for the first time to police later on today.

COSTELLO: Just so, Christine, why would Lochte embellish an already terrible story?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: That's a great question, Carol. We have no idea. I think one of the big concerns here is that we have no idea what was going on late at night. We don't know if they had had a lot to drink. These were swimmers who had finished their competition and they were out -- had finally their first night out on the town. But what we do know is that this is a nightmare for the U.S., the U.S. Olympic Committee and of course conversely if it's all -- if the athletes were telling the truth, Carol, then it's a nightmare for the Brazilian authorities.

Either way this is exactly what those two group, the Rio Olympic organizers and the U.S. Olympic Committee, did not want to have happening as we're closing out these games. It's taken over the games. It's the story -- I covered the games since '94. I have not seen, what, maybe two or three stories like this. Tanya Nancy and a couple of others, and this is so much more important because it goes to the very heart of the relationship between Brazil and the United States obviously at these Olympic Games and even maybe moving forward.

COSTELLO: My goodness, so, Nick, what could happen to the swimmers who are still in Brazil? Could they go through a trial and end up in some kind of prison?

WALSH: If you take away the publicity around this as far as we know at the moment, even if as some magistrates have hinted, without drawing conclusion at this point, their testimony to the police wasn't entirely accurate. There's one judge saying they're trying to assess whether or not a false police report was filed. That isn't a massive crime here so to speak.

Ryan Lochte is back in the United States, so I would be very surprised if there was any move to try and get him come back to Brazil forcibly to talk to police against his will. There's no suggestion of that right now. What it has done, though, is potentially put these men in a difficult position to answer these questions consistently and not necessarily do it very convincingly first up and it's put the Brazilians in a difficult place now.

[10:05:05] They've certainly have to explain why they've made this extraordinary fuss. And it all comes down to what happened in the either one or three hours after they left that club and then got home -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Nick Paton Walsh, Christine Brennan, thanks to both of you.

All right, on to politics now. A major meeting for Hillary Clinton today. She's sitting down with law enforcement officials from some of the largest police departments in the country. The meeting comes after months of criticism that she's anti-police. Just days ago, Donald Trump launching this attack in Wisconsin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She is against the police. Believe me. You know it and I know it. And guess what, she knows it. Those pedaling the narrative of cops as a racist force in our society, a narrative supported with a nod by my opponent, shared directly in the responsibility for the unrest in Milwaukee and many other places within our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: For more on this meeting this afternoon with Hillary Clinton and those police chiefs from across the country, I'm joined by CNN's Chris Frates.

Hi, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Carol. Well, as we're hearing from Donald Trump there, you know, he's been accusing Hillary Clinton of being anti-cop and now Clinton is going to meet with some of the nation's top law enforcement officials. This meeting includes chiefs of police from southern country's biggest cities. We've got L.A., Philadelphia, Dallas, and also planning to meet with Clinton, New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton who's been critical of Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BRATTON, NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Trump scares me, scares the hell out of me, being quite frank with you, personal opinion, and I just don't get it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why does he scare you as possible president?

BRATTON: The lack of depth on issues, the shoot-from-the-hip. I just watch his whole campaign and I just shake my head.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: Now the NYPD says Clinton requested the meeting and that Bratton and the department's chief will discuss issues of concern and challenges of policing. And in a statement the NYPD said is this. They say, "As one of the most experienced leaders in American policing, Commissioner Bratton has a unique perspective into the profession and what we can do to reduce fear, build trust with the community, improve training and better equip officers having led police departments in Boston, Los Angeles and twice in New York."

And it's worth pointing out here, Carol that Trump has not asked to meet with Bratton but the commissioner would meet with the Republican nominee if asked.

Now, according to a Clinton aide, today's meeting will focus on the challenges and opportunities police face in cities across the country and after the shooting of a black man in Milwaukee that kicked off protests, Clinton said the country has urgent work to do to rebuild trust between police and communities, adding that everyone should have respect for the law and be respected by the law.

Trump has accused Clinton of being against the police, saying she'd rather protect the offender than the victim. But by meeting with some of these very important police chiefs today, Clinton's really sending a message that she supports the police while continuing to acknowledge there's really a lot of work to do, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Chris Frates, reporting live from Washington. Thank you.

So let's talk about all of this. I want to bring in my panel. Donald Trump senior adviser Tana Goertz is here. CNN political analyst and senior editor at the "Atlantic" Ron Brownstein joins me. And the former mayor of Philadelphia and Hillary Clinton supporter Michael Nutter is here, too.

Welcome to all of you. So, Michael, why this meeting and why now?

MICHAEL NUTTER, CLINTON SUPPORTER: Well, first and foremost, it's just a continuation of Secretary Clinton's demonstrated support over a long period of time for both law enforcement and the concerns that people in communities have. You can actually respond to both. It's not a singular idea or concept, which is the only track that Donald Trump is able to operate on. It's either A or B. He has no ability to understand the gray areas and what it really means to govern.

So this is a continuation of her extensive experience with law enforcement at all levels, local, state and federal, and continues to demonstrate her sensitivity and understanding of the dangers of policing, while at the same time, can bring a perspective of concern that people in communities, especially communities of color, have all across the United States of America. You have to be able to deal with both.

COSTELLO: So, Tana, as a Trump supporter, what do you make of this meeting?

TANA GOERTZ, SENIOR ADVISER, DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Well, I think that what Hillary Clinton is doing here is copying Donald Trump. From day one on the campaign, Mr. Trump has been 100 percent behind law enforcement, first responders, you name it, he supports them, he respects them and he takes time out of his rallies, stops motorcades to thank these people for their hard service and dedication to all of us Americans every single day. [10:10:03] I know what police officers have said about Hillary Clinton

because I am here working every single day. I've got my finger on the pulse of the American voter and the Americans in these cities that he has visited and Hillary Clinton does not have a good reputation with the law enforcement and police officers. And I've heard numerous stories. So she's realizing that Donald Trump is -- he's creating this narrative that we need to respect law enforcement and she's going to follow in suit and do exactly what she's doing and holding a rally.

COSTELLO: So, Ron, is it unusual for a presidential candidate to sit down with police chiefs from across the country?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, I remember Bill Clinton, on one of his events in '92 is when he got endorsed by the police union actually and in a pouring rain in Houston and, you know, they sit out there in the rain. No, it is important. And what you just heard is actually very revealing of the debate.

And there's no question, Carol, there is a racial gap in perceptions of the police with communities of color much more skeptical about the way, particularly after (INAUDIBLE) police treatment, and white voters tending to lean more towards believing the -- supporting the police and believing that they are treating everyone fairly. And in that sense, you know, this does echo in Donald Trump's language, echoes the late 1960s, Richard Nixon, the quest for law and order.

I think the big difference, though, between now and the 1960s, is what Mayor Nutter said, which is that most Americans basically accept the idea that you can be both. You can have effective policing and that you could treat all communities with respect. And in fact, you are more likely to get effective policing if you treat all communities with respect.

NUTTER: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: And so when Donald Trump, you know, goes and says essentially I am 100 percent with the police, and not offer anything really, any kind of being acknowledgement of the concerns of, in particular minority communities, I think he strikes a different than most Americans believe is not only the fair one and most effective.

COSTELLO: Well, I do think, though, and I'll address this to Michael, that there is a sentiment among many police officers that the Democrats really aren't on their side. For example, Mr. Trump sat down with the FOP, this is according to Politico. Mrs. Clinton has yet to sit down with the FOP which is a police union with 330,000 people. So why is that, Michael?

NUTTER: Well, I don't control Secretary Clinton's schedule, but if you saw our Democratic convention here in Philadelphia, of course, the campaign worked with the mother of a fallen police officer here in our city who was killed on our streets and she had the opportunity to talk about her son and the dangers that police officers face. So I'm sure that there will be that kind of meeting with national -- or, rather, law enforcement leaders across the country. But really goes back to what Ron says. You have to be able to

demonstrate the ability to listen to, quote-unquote, both sides in this situation. And supporting the police and being a supporter of communities across the nation are not in conflict with each other. That, again, demonstrates the lack of depth and understanding that Donald Trump has about these issues. He can only go all in one way and doesn't understand governing which is that you really represent everyone.

COSTELLO: Well, and Tana, critics might say, I know Mr. Trump tried to reach out to African-American communities when he was in Milwaukee the other day. Many critics said, you know, he spoke in a predominantly white suburb. Why didn't he go into a black community. So can you address critics?

GOERTZ: Well, here's what I will say.

NUTTER: He's afraid of black people.

GOERTZ: Excuse me, no, Mr. Trump is not afraid of anyone and black people -- Mr. Trump doesn't see white, black, Hispanic. That is a narrative that people are putting on him. I know him very well. I'm sure you don't. But what I will say is he is not afraid of black people.

NUTTER: I can have no interest.

GOERTZ: He respects and loves black people. He has a lot of interest. Here's the difference, Donald Trump is getting up in front of thousands of people. Let's just say an average rally could be 12,000 people. He's standing up in front of 12,000 people --

COSTELLO: But they're mostly white crowds --

NUTTER: But what I was going to say, Carol, is he's standing up in front of, let's say, 12,000 people. OK, maybe they're more Caucasian. It doesn't matter. My point would be and every news outlet is capturing him. What Mr. Trump is saying to these 12,000 people and millions of people watching is when I am president, we will all respect our law enforcement, black or white, he doesn't say the color because he doesn't care.

COSTELLO: What about those communities --

NUTTER: We will respect and we will honor and we will take care of --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: What about those people in those communities --

NUTTER: How's he going to make -- how's he going to make 300 million Americans do anything?

GOERTZ: He is telling --

NUTTER: How's he going to do that? Tell me that. Tell me that. GOERTZ: Unlike Hillary Clinton she's sitting at home --

NUTTER: Tell me the plan.

GOERTZ: She's sitting in these meetings with two or three people saying, I just want everybody to know, like, I do like police officers --

NUTTER: You don't have an answer.

GOERTZ: OK. That's in a small, small meeting. What he's doing in front of millions of people is saying, we need to respect our law enforcement and we will when I'm president.

COSTELLO: All right --

(CROSSTALK)

[10:15:02] COSTELLO: I have to leave it there.

BROWNSTEIN: The reverse is the --

COSTELLO: Thanks so much to all of you. Got to leave it there. Sorry, Tana Goertz, Ron Brownstein, Michael Nutter, thanks to all of you.

Coming up in the NEWSROOM, turning the page or sticking to the script? Donald Trump's new campaign manager sits down with CNN and previews how the staff changes will shape his message.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Donald Trump returns to the road with swagger and new support for Trump being Trump. He's holding his first campaign event since rebuilding the top of his campaign and tamping down his voice of restraint Paul Manafort. Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon say they want Trump delivering his full throttled message and with it a return to bare-knuckle basics.

CNN's Sara Murray is here to explain what exactly that means.

(LAUGHTER)

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, one of the things we know is that Donald Trump was frustrated. Obviously, you don't have a shake-up like this unless you're unhappy with the way things are going. And he certainly was. He felt like advisers around him were leaking. He felt like he had one foot in the lane, he wanted to run in, one foot in the establishment lane.

[10:20:04] And above all, he's losing. The polls show he's losing. And we all know how much he hates that. So now is a chance for them to get back to Donald Trump's kind of more blunt style, let him be more of himself. Kellyanne Conway was on "NEW DAY" this morning sort of explaining what she thinks that will look like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: So I think we're going to sharpen the message and we're going to make sure Donald Trump is comfortable about being in his own skin, that he doesn't lose that authenticity that you simply can't buy and a pollster can't give you. Voters know if you're comfortable in your own skin. And let him be him in this sense. He wants to deliver a speech, if he wants to go to a rally, if he wants to connect with the crowd in a way that's very spontaneous, that's wonderful. And that's how he got here, that's how he became the nominee in large part, Alisyn.

But at the same time, we have some really serious, pressing problems in this country that I'm hoping will start to be addressed more by the media. He's going to give these policy speeches.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now when you hear her talking about letting Donald Trump be comfortable, that's a nod to the fact that you can't run a good campaign unless you have a happy candidate and Donald Trump is certainly not a very happy warrior right now. They're trying to change that but Kellyanne's challenge and the challenge of Steve Bannon is changing that while making sure that Donald Trump is still driving home a message to that and he's going to be in North Carolina today. We're expecting him to keep up this law and order theme.

And we are expecting him to deliver prepared remarks, so it might not be truly the end of teleprompter Trump. We could still be a little bit more of a tepid candidate, but as always with Trump you have to wait and see.

COSTELLO: So he may or may not use the prompter. And like who wrote his prepared remarks? Was it him largely with the help of someone else or is it the other way around?

MURRAY: Well, one of the things that we've seen is he works very closely with Steven Miller who is one of the policy guys on the campaign to write some of these remarks. In the past, Paul Manafort has chipped in. We'll see if Paul Manafort's guidance is solicited on future speeches.

COSTELLO: Or if it's Mr. Bannon, right?

MURRAY: Exactly. And I think we need to remember, look, we have Steve Bannon weighing in, we have Roger Ailes, the ousted FOX News chief, who is sort of informally advising Donald Trump, and we have Roger Stone, so it could be any number of voices we hear.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: All right. We'll have to wait and see later today. Sara Murray, thanks so much.

So let's talk about this with our panel. CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp is here. Tana Goertz is back. Ron Brownstein is back. Thanks for sticking around, guys. And welcome, S.E. I'm glad to see you.

S.E. CUP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So, S.E., I was watching Kellyanne Conway on "NEW DAY" this morning and she's clearly professional.

CUPP: Yes.

COSTELLO: She's organized, she was able to articulate Trump's vision, she's not combative. Is she the best thing to happen to Donald Trump so far?

CUPP: She's very skilled. I've known Kellyanne for a while and anyone who knows her knows that she's very good at her job but she is not the solution to Trump's problems. Donald Trump is the solution to Donald Trump's problems. With him lies the problem and the solution. And until his campaign decides to address its deficiencies instead of repeatedly going after the same voter over and over and over again, he's going to continue to see that gap widen.

He's already got the Breitbart voter. It baffles my mind to see Donald Trump doubling down on the voters he already has and completely dismissing the new voters that he needs. Women, minorities and millennials. There's no outreach anymore. It's as if he's given up on them. And I just wonder if there are enough old male guys, old white guys in the country to elect him. I don't think so.

COSTELLO: Well, and I think that other Republicans, at least establishment Republicans, have the same concerns as S.E. does, Tana, you know, there's Steve Bannon of Breitbart, as S.E. mentioned. He's a street fighter, he's been described by some conservatives who worked for him as one of the worst people on God's green earth, and that's from Dana Loesch who was no shrinking violet, right? So how can Kellyanne and Steve work together effectively to attract the kind of demographics that Mr. Trump needs?

GOERTZ: Well, I know Mr. Trump very well and I know he has that rare talent of putting the right person in the right job. These two hires, I'm very excited about working with. Mr. Trump knows exactly what he's doing. He's put two people who are very well respected. Maybe the one, you just mentioned some negative comments about him. I have never met these people that are talking about him. But regardless, Mr. Trump saw something in them that he said, you know what, I would like on my campaign. And he's hiring and we're becoming stronger every single day. So what we're doing is we are reaching women's groups and different various outreach groups.

COSTELLO: How?

GOERTZ: We most certainly --

COSTELLO: How?

GOERTZ: Actually there's no leadership --

CUPP: No, you're not, actually, you're not.

(CROSSTALK)

GOERTZ: Oh, really? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm on the campaign and I'm actually part of the women's initiative.

CUPP: There's polls that show you're not reaching women, that's just math. I'm sorry to break it to you.

GOERTZ: Really we're not?

COSTELLO: OK.

CUPP: You think it's going to magically correct itself on November 8th?

GOERTZ: OK. Regardless, she's -- hey, she knows what we're doing so I'm just going to let her speak, Carol. She knows what the Trump campaign is doing.

[10:25:04] COSTELLO: Well, you tell me, you tell me, Tana.

CUPP: No, I know the math.

COSTELLO: No, no, no. No, no, no.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Wait. Wait. No, stop, stop, stop. Tana, tell me specifically how Donald Trump is reaching out to women. He has like a -- I think it's 70 percent of women don't like Donald Trump. So what specifically is he doing to say, you know what, you're wrong about me? This is why I'm good for you.

GOERTZ: Thank you for asking, Carol. The answer to that is he is having people like myself, his lovely daughter Ivanka, other strong Republican leaders, hold leadership conferences where we are getting out in front of large audiences of women who would like to hear why women like myself, why women like Ivanka, why other wonderful, strong, independent women who are making their own living, who are successful, who are highly educated, are voting and respect and are working for Donald Trump. There it is. We were doing that.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: OK --

CUPP: Tana, that's what we call --

COSTELLO: OK. Ron, I'm going to get to you in a second. S.E.

CUPP: That's what we call anecdotal evidence. That's anecdotal. And of course there are some women supporting Donald Trump, that's a fact. But to ignore the fact that 70 percent of women do not like Donald Trump and that he has a huge gap between him and Hillary Clinton among women voters is a fantasy land. A fantasy land that will -- GOERTZ: We're not avoiding that.

CUPP: -- reckon on November 8th.

GOERTZ: And we are not avoiding that.

COSTELLO: OK. So hold off. I want to bring Ron Brownstein in to the conversation right now. So if Donald Trump is going to do this very bare-knuckled thing again, right, he's going to be really hard on Hillary Clinton, he's going to say what he means, he's going to be Mr. Trump, I think that a lot of women don't really like that. They don't like that brashness. They want to hear how he can draw people together and create unity in the country.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, well, look, I think, you know, I think S.E., a lot of what she said at the initial answer, not getting into the back and forth, was correct. I mean, Kellyanne Conway is a professional. She can read -- she's a pollster. She is not going to, you know, respond to a string of polls in the last month all showing Donald Trump behind by saying, "says who," as one of his, you know, advisers, you know, argued on CNN.

So I think -- I think there's a dose of reality there. But the Breitbart note here I think is very worrisome to a lot of Republicans for two reasons. First, I think it fundamentally misdiagnoses Donald Trump's problem. I mean, he does, as you say, kind of pre-figure a gloves-off attack on Hillary Clinton. His problem is not that people love Hillary Clinton. She has majority unfavorables. A majority of the country says she's not honest and trustworthy.

His problem is that consistently 60 percent of the country in polls for a year and a half has said he's not qualified to be president. That number is higher among women. And roughly 60 percent in polls say that he is biased against women and minorities with that number running up to 75 percent among millennials.

Donald Trump's problem is not that he's been too soft on Hillary Clinton, is that he faces too many doubts himself. And secondly, I think the Breitbart note, as you guys have observed, is really aimed at this idea of a hidden white electorate. That there are millions of voters out there who will come out if you, in fact, push the absolute boundaries on xenophobia and racially polarizing language.

And it does, though, pull you in a direction that is going to be more off-putting to the voters who stand between where Donald Trump is now and where he needs to be, and that is overwhelmingly college educated white suburban voters where he's underperforming any Republican nominee in the history of polling, particularly among --

COSTELLO: OK, I --

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: We got it. Thanks to all of you for joining me this morning. I do appreciate it. S.E. Cupp, Tana Goetz, Ron Brownstein.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Trump pulling no punches in his fight against Hillary Clinton but as Ron said could it backfire?

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