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Trump Will be Trump on the Campaign Trail; More Rain in the Forecast for Louisiana; Breaking: Brazilian Police Believe Robbery of American Swimmers was Fabricated; Turkish Police Station Bombed; Florida sees Three New Cases of Zika; Usain Bolt, Team USA Set to Break More Records in Rio. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired August 18, 2016 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:33:09] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Trump's latest campaign shakeup promises to let Trump be Trump on the trail of bare-knuckled fight that leaves no tactic off limits when it comes to taking down Hillary Clinton. It's a strategy Trump's fallen rivals know well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And then I have to listen to a little guy like Rubio say, "oh, he's a con man. He's a con man."

TRUMP: Now the other day I hear there's Rubio. And I call em -- all right -- I call 'em, I call 'em little Marco, little Marco.

TRUMP: Chip. He's asleep, he's asleep at the wheel, folks.

TRUMP: He's on every show, Donald Trump said this, Donald Trump said that. And then he says, "see? I'm the only one taking on Donald Trump. I'm not afraid of Donald Trump. I'm the -- " He's like a child. He's like a spoiled child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: He was talking about Jeb Bush there. So let's talk about this kind of strategy. I'm joined by the former Communications Director for the Jeb Bush Presidential Campaign, Tim Miller. And the former Communications Director for the Marco Rubio Presidential Campaign, and partner at Firehouse Strategies, Alex Conant. Welcome to both of you.

OK so Tim, what does bare-knuckled mean when it comes to Trump in a general election?

TIM MILLER, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, JEB BUSH PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: I mean how silly, Carol, do we all feel for spending the last four months talking about the supposed Trump pivots to becoming more presidential, et cetera? He's just not capable of it.

And I kind of chuckle looking back at those old videos from the primary. Because nobody doubts that he's good at that. He's good at insulting people. Jeb acknowledged that during a couple of debates as I recall ...

COSTELLO: But it was effective, Tim, wasn't it? ...

MILLER: ... It was -- but really -- but here -- yes, it was effective in the primary. But Carol, this is what me and Alex were telling you throughout the whole primary. That it's a different electorate that you're dealing with in a South Carolina primary, and in a general election when you have to appeal to women, and hispanics, and African American voters. And Donald Trump does terrible with all of them. And he was doing terrible with all of them back during the primaries. So they can try whatever strategy they want. They can try to pretend to pivot or get more bare-knuckled. But Trump is going to get killed in the general election because voters have already rendered a verdict on him and they don't like him.

COSTELLO: But well, but Jeb Bush, he didn't really fight back until much later in the primary fight. And do you wish that Jeb Bush had pushed back harder earlier?

MILLER: That's just not true, Carol. And I think if you go back and look, Jeb and Donald Trump had their first spar in the Reagan Library debate. Which I believe was in September of 2015. And Jeb also was attacking him when it came to the issue of the border back in July. When he went back and had a press conference on the border in 2015.

Here's the thing, the Republican primary voters were looking for somebody who was a bare-knuckled fighter. And credit to Donald Trump for winning the primaries. The problem is, those same voters aren't the voters that make up the general election. And so you need to have a strategy that actually wins the White House, winning ...

COSTELLO: But ...

MILLER: ... a Republican primary is not good enough. And unfortunately for Trump, what he's looking at is a massive ...

COSTELLO: Well let me, let me ...

MILLER: ... landslide defeat ...

COSTELLO: Let me ask ...

MILLER: ... worse than any Republican nominee in my lifetime.

[10:36:20]

COSTELLO: Let me ask Alex this question. So if bare-knuckled means that Donald Trump will come up with new insults and new nicknames for Hillary Clinton -- but let's say he also talks seriously about policy. And he is scripted (ph) sometimes and then he goes off script and he does what has -- what works so well with him in the primary. Is that a good strategy?

ALEX CONANT, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, MARCO RUBIO PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Well he's tried that a little bit in the last couple weeks and he hasn't been very effective at it. He's not very good at reading off of a teleprompter. His audiences don't respond to it well. Certainly it hasn't helped his poll numbers at all.

And I think the recent hires he's made this week suggest he's going to do the opposite. He's going to be more off-the-cuff. Which worked for him in the primaries, you said, but has not worked for him in the general either.

I -- Tim and I have not agreed on a lot this cycle, as is well- established. But I agree with him on the current trajectory. Trump is going to suffer an embarrassing loss this Fall. Because he's been unable to unite Republicans. He is only get -- earning about 80 percent of the Republican vote right now.

If he is going to be successful this Fall, he has to win 90 plus percent of Republicans. Plus a lot of independents, plus people who have voted for Barack Obama. Right now he's not earning as many votes as Mitt Romney earned four years ago. Heck, he's not even earning Mitt Romney's vote at this point.

COSTELLO: But ...

CONANT: ... Let alone people ...

COSTELLO: Well let ...

CONANT: ... that voted for Obama.

COSTELLO: Let's say, let's say he does come down hard on Hillary Clinton. Tim, if you were advising the Clinton campaign, how should she fight back?

MILLER: Well I'd start by saying, remember that Trump's been saying for four or five months now that he hasn't even started on her yet. He's been promising this unstoppable attack on Hillary for months ...

COSTELLO: There's plenty to attack her on, thought.

MILLER: And it -- yeah he's got -- he's ...

COSTELLO: There's plenty to attack her on.

MILLER: I know but he's been unable to deliver it because he has -- he doesn't have the discipline to do it. So here's the thing, that Hillary Clinton has an advantage that Alex and I didn't have in the primary. And that is that she has a majority of voters on her side. She's running from a position of strength. And so she can let Donald Trump flail away, and bring up Monica Lewinsky, and bring up whatever the heck he wants, and just look back at him and say, "Donald, what I'm offering is a vision for voters of this country to unite the country."

And as much as I hate Hillary Clinton, and as unbelievable as it is that she's going to get away with that, she is. Because voters dislike Donald Trump to such an extreme degree that she's on good standing here and she doesn't even have to go toe-to-toe ...

COSTELLO: Well, her likeability factor's up ... CONANT: Yeah, Carol hang out in Chappaqua ...

COSTELLO: Well let me, let me just, let me just, let me just turn this ...

CONANT: Can I just add to that, Carol?

COSTELLO: Well I want to turn the ...

CONANT: Let me, let me, let me just, all right ...

COSTELLO: OK go ahead.

CONANT: Well I was just going to say, the problem is not that Hillary Clinton's unfavorable ratings are not high enough. I mean, attacking her is not going to help Donald Trump. He needs to lower his own unfavorable ratings. He needs to improve his favorable ratings. And he's in a really tough spot now because the more he attacks, the more he's just hurting his own unfavorable ratings at this point.

COSTELLO: So what advice would you give his campaign, Alex?

CONANT: Well look, we may have reached the point of no return for Donald Trump. Early voting starts in a couple of weeks, voters have been exposed to him now a lot over the last year. Most voters have already made his mind. I think he needs to get back to basics. I think he needs to take a step back, start talking about the economy, start talking about the policies and the states that matter. But look, I'm very skeptical about his ability to win at this point. Looking at the current ...

MILLER: My advice, my advice, Carol, would be stop embarrassing yourself and try to lose the race with some integrity and some dignity. That's the best he can do.

COSTELLO: That's rough. Hey, I think I'll leave that -- I think I'll leave the conversation right here. Tim Miller, Alex Conant, thanks for stopping by.

MILLER: Thank you.

CONANT: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Coming up in the Newsroom, Louisiana ground zero for the worst disaster since superstorm Sandy. Neighbors hit hard by historic flooding.

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[10:44:25]

COSTELLO: This morning the death toll has risen to 13 in flood ravaged Louisiana. And forecasters are warning more rain is on the way. Today CNN will join the head of the National Guard on a helicopter tour of the devastation around Baton Rouge. As tens of thousands remain displaced from their homes. The Homeland Security Secretary will also be visiting the state today. But that's not enough for the state's largest newspaper. They're demanding that President Obama cut short his vacation and see the damage for himself. The paper says, "in coming here, the President can decisively demonstrate that Louisiana's recovery is a priority for his administration and the United States of America."

CNN's Rosa Flores live in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. Good morning, Rosa.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You know in the community where I'm standing at right now, homeowners say that the water started rising very quickly. And it also started flowing like a raging river. That's why you see mounds like these all around this neighborhood as people try to rebuild their homes. And also rebuild their lives.

All of this stuff was soaked inside their homes. A lot of their friends started helping them come in and take everything out. Now this is the house of Scott Tubbs. And you can see, I want to show you what's going on right now. Because what they're doing is, they're ripping out sheetrock that you can see -- now this is Joe Tubbs, Scott's father. This is the work that has to be done.

Now imagine having to do that for your entire, entire house. It's a monumental task but you know they're up to doing it because that's exactly what they need to do. Now I want to show you something Carol. Because people here are very creative so that they can get this job done very quickly.

This is a level but they turned it into a tool to measure how much they have to cut of this sheetrock. You can see that it levels out to four feed exactly. And that's not by mistake because that is exactly the size of a sheetrock block that then they can bring in.

Now again, this is Scott. Hey Scott, do you mind talking to us briefly? I just talked to Scott a little while ago and he was telling me that the water started raging in so quickly. Scott what was the first thing that crossed your mind?

SCOTT TUBBS, HOMEOWNER: To get the family out. You know. Get the family out, get a little bit of clothes for a couple of days. We got about two days worth of clothes for the kids. And just tried to get out of the water.

FLORES: And he has three girls, he told me. Scott, thank you so much. We don't want to take much of his time because as you can see, he has a monumental task ahead of him, Carol. But he has three girls and he said that that was the most important thing for him. To make sure that he could get his children to safety. Carol?

COSTELLO: I know but you can see the work is just beginning. I can see the mold in that drywall already and that's really why they have to remove it. Because it'll be -- oh I just feel so sorry for them. Rosa Flores, thanks so much. Still ahead in the Newsroom, a massive wildfire raging out of control

in Southern California. Firefighters preparing for a new day of battle.

[10:47:38]

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[10:52:02]

COSTELLO: All right, incredible breaking news to tell you about. It's coming out of Rio about those four American swimmer's claims that they were robbed at gunpoint. A Brazilian police source close to members of the investigation, now says they do not believe any robbery ever happened.

Ryan Lochte is back in the United States but his teammates, they're still in Brazil. Two of them have had their passports seized. Of course our teams in Rio are digging in on this. We'll have much more coming up at the top of the hour. But Brazilian authorities now say that robbery that those swimmers told the world about actually did not happen.

An uncontrollable and unpredictably wildfire is torching parts of Southern California today. More than 82,000 people in San Bernardino County are under an evacuation order from the Blue Cut fire. One veteran firefighter told reporters, "in my 40 years of fighting fire, I have never seen a fire -- I have never seen fire behavior so extreme."

CNN's Paul Vercammen is live in San Bernardino County. Good morning.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. What that firefighter was referring to was the fact that this fire seemed to jump from five acres to 20,000 just like this. In talking to fire officials this morning, they now say 31,000 acres have burned on this fire in the Cajon Pass. Which can be a bit of a wind tunnel, it gets very gusty through here.

As you look at the hillside behind me, the challenge very steep, difficult terrain. They've been trying to hit this a little bit this morning with water-dropping helicopters. And you pointed out also, Carol, that 83,000 were under an evacuation order. Well order is the operative word because San Bernardino Fire told me that they believe only about 40,000 people actually evacuated. And that complicated the firefight because as people were leaving, fire crews were coming in with heavy equipment. And that is no easy task to reckon with, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Paul Vercammen reporting live from San Bernardino County, California. Coming up in the Newsroom, a notorious drug lord, his son, and the new kidnapping case rocking Mexico.

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[10:58:22] COSTELLO: In Turkey, three police officers are dead, and at least 217 people are wounded after an explosion at a police station. It was the second bombing targeting police in Eastern Turkey in the last 24 hours, prompting the nation to raise its level of alarm. Turkey's Prime Minister says Kurdish militants are responsible.

Police in Mexico are focusing on four states in their search for the kidnapped son of the notorious drug lord, El Chapo. He was one of six people taken from a restaurant Monday in the resort town of Puerto Vallarta. Officials suspect a rival cartel is responsible for the kidnappings.

Three more cases of Zika have been confirmed in Florida bringing the number of non-travel related cases to 33. Two of those cases are outside the area where the bulk of the infections are happening. But health officials say that does not mean there are new areas of transmission.

And in Rio tonight, Usain Bolt is poised to make history. The Jamaican sprinter trying to become the first olympian to win three consecutive titles in the 200 meter race. It comes after Bolt ran his fastest time of the year to qualify for that race. And it will also be an historic night for three women on Team USA's track and field team. They will take gold, silver, and bronze in tonight's 100 meter medal ceremony after sweeping the event. It was the first sweep by any country in the race's history. As well as the first sweep ever for U.S. women in olympic track and field. Good for them.

Thank you so much for joining me today, I'm Carol Costello. "AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan starts now.