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Trump/Pence Visit Flood-Damaged Louisiana; Lochte Comments after Teammates Return to U.S.; Trump Reaches Out to African-American Voters. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 19, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:31:31] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump gets a firsthand look of damage and destruction from flooding in Louisiana. The Republican presidential candidate is touring the area along with his vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence. They met with volunteers helping those affected by the flooding.

For more on the situation in Louisiana and the response to it, I want to bring in Mary Landrieu, the former U.S. Senator from Louisiana.

So you're watching these pictures and I think a lot of people have known something is going on in Louisiana but maybe especially in your mind there hasn't been enough awareness of it across the country. Does a visit by Donald Trump, is that helpful to raising awareness and money?

MARY LANDRIEU, FORMER LOUISIANA SENATOR: I think it is. And I want to thank Mr. Trump for coming to Louisiana. I think the governor's admission about not coming is a good one, but he brought attention to our state, and we need that now. This is far larger than people can appreciate on television. And if you can see it from a drone's prospective and look down, all down Louisiana, Livingston Parish, Ascension Parish, to the south central part of our state and southwest, all the way over to Kalkashu. This was a horrible rain event. And Louisiana drains about 40 percent of the entire United States, so even when the rain doesn't sit over us like this did, even when it's rains in Minnesota or Arkansas, we get the water. That's one thing I want people to understand. It's both a blessing and a burden to have too much water, and we have too much of it now. And it is really a serious disaster. And I hope Secretary Clinton will make her way down. I hope President Obama will make a visit. And we need all the attention and help we can get.

KEILAR: Hillary Clinton did speak with Governor Edwards, Democratic governor, and I think one of the things you are hearing Clinton and her supporters stress is she doesn't want to be a distraction while they're dealing with recovery, getting back on their feet. But at the same time, you would like to see her come down, and President Obama, who has been criticized by the Trump campaign for not doing this. You would like to see him come down. Why does the risk of it being a bit of a photo op or being a bit of a distraction, why is that out weighed by a benefit as someone from Louisiana. LANDRIEU: Let me first say Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson,

who is the president's top person, was there and toured the area with Democratic and Republican leaders, and got a full briefing. And also Craig Fulgate, who is probably one of the best FEMA directors we've ever hard, has been on the ground. And I'm confident that President Obama's A-number one team has been there from the beginning and I will he will get there as soon as he can.

There is a question of whether or not you should stop first responders from still feeding and clothing and rescuing people to stop for a presidential visit. The governor will work on that. I've made many calls and received many calls. Our governor is doing an excellent job. He is working with Democratic and Republican leaders.

Disasters don't have political boundaries. And water doesn't know if you're Republican or Democrat. Water doesn't know if you're black or white or Hispanic. Water floods everyone. And that is what has happened here. We have wealthy neighborhoods, middle income neighborhoods and rural areas that are devastated. And again, it is all of south Louisiana.

So one thing I would say to Donald Trump, I'm glad you same to Ascension Parish. If you can stay a little longer and see some of the other areas, and number two, please, leave a donation, and number three, let the nation know what you will do as president. Do you believe in shared 90/10 or 75/25? What do you think about mitigation? What do you think about sheltering in place? These are policies that people are kind of looking for to hearing from everyone.

[13:35:30] KEILAR: Do you think he is picking up on that. And then also this issue of insurance, which is staggering, when you hear how few people have insurance for this kind of damage. That's obviously something he should be hearing about.

LANDRIEU: Yes, that would be a great thing for him to focus on and maybe make a statement in a couple of days on what he would do as president. We have an inadequate, underfunded flood insurance program. The premiums are too high for average middle class people and poor people to afford, but you have to have them to be able to recover. The maps are not as accurate as they should be. Now this is work we started working on. We did get some relief before I left the Senate. It was one of my last big pushed with a bunch of other people that helped. But that needs work. That would be a great thing for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to say, look, we're sorry this happened and we're going to get a lot of relief, but let's look to the future. As well as people here, how do we get you more flood insurance.

In the meantime, we need more resources. Please help, the Red Cross, St. Bernard Project, contact the governor's office. Please, people can do everything to help because it is so much broader than you can even imagine. And it's not New Orleans, which gets a lot of intention, because we're such an international city, but Baton Rouge, and Lafayette and others, these are special places that need help.

KEILAR: They sure do. And we certainly appreciate you being here. LANDRIEU: Thank you.

KEILAR: Senator Mary Landrieu.

LANDRIEU: Thank you.

KEILAR: And we also want to -- as we think of people in your state, we're also talking to our viewers about it.

If you want to know how to help the victims of the flooding, log on to CNN.com/impact to find out how to help.

The next chapter in this Olympic crime drama, two American swimmers are back home, while Ryan Lochte is offering new comments about what happened in Rio.

Stay with us.

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[13:41:38] KEILAR: Two of the American swimmers accused of lying about an armed robbery in Rio, Jack Conger and Ryan Feigen, are back home. They landed in Miami this morning. Rio police both men now admit they were never robbed and that their teammate Ryan Lochte's story about being held at gun point was a fabrication. Now that his teammates are home, Ryan Lochte says he feels he can reach out and he's released a statement apologizing.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is in Rio, following what has been a -- to say the list, a confusing series of events, Nick

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's been less than a little bit of confusing. Now we have a statement from Mr. Lochte, who seems to slightly wiggle around his version of events.

Let's read what he had to say, the two key bits. First up, "I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend, for not being more candid and careful in how I described the events." He's probably admitting some uncomfortable truths he may have left out. Again, a slight tweaking of his recollections.

He goes on to say, "It's traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country -- with a language barrier -- and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money before letting you leave." That goes to heart of what is still potentially the confusion here, Brianna. All signs accept there was vandalism, there was urinating in that spot behind the building in the gas station, meters away from the toilets. That's fine, 6:00 a.m., after a night of celebrating. Vulgar. The issue is what happened when they went before court. Were they as resilient, police said, in a pretty pleasant negotiation with security guards to hand over money to make restitution for the damage they did. Or were they, as Mr. Lochte's representatives suggested, they actually held by gunpoint and demanded money? That statement talks about the trauma Mr. Lochte went through, how he feared for himself, and gave money in that state of mind. Obviously, the state of mind would have been influenced by the fact they had a big night out that night. If you look at the CCTV footage. But you have to bear in mind, if you're a Brazilian looking at this, the security guards see the four guys who, by description, are drunk and aggressive, acting the way they did, they may have caused them to reach for the firearms. The U.S. Olympic Committee accepts that pistols were on display during the discussion amount money. We'll never get to the bottom of who thought what, what was happening to who.

In terms of the other three men, well, yes, Mr. Bentz and Mr. Conger are back in Miami now. They don't have much of a finger pointed at them by police. It's Mr. Feigen, we understand now, from his lawyer, who had to pay $11,000 to the charity here. But there's a silver lining, Brianna because he's not just giving it to a wind. He's giving it to a judo training center, where a real hero of these games, a judo gold winner for Brazil, idolized here in Brazil, the place where she trained will the $11,000. At least something good has come out of this.

Mr. Lochte, frankly, vilified in the U.S. media. No real fans here. It seems late coming up with this statement. I think most people accept this issue of how frightened was he and the other swimmers when they made this discussion. And the CCTV you do see them reach for their wallets and seemingly pass paper around.

But at the end of the day, what a bad few days for the U.S. Olympic team here -- Brianna?

[13:45:46] KEILAR: Really just hijacking the narrative for all of the athletes there.

Nick, thank you so much.

Up next, back to the race for the White House. And we have Dr. Ben Carson talking about Donald Trump's new campaign emphasis and Hillary Clinton's support among African-American voters.

Stay with us.

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KEILAR: Back to the race for the White House. Part of the strategy of the Trump campaign is a new emphasis on reaching out to African- American voters. With 81 days until the election, a new poll shows he's got a big hole that he needs to climb out of. This is a McClatchey/Marist poll, which shows Donald Trump only getting 2 percent of the African-American voters. Last night, Trump really had a show of force.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEON THRESETT (ph), DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: And I'm grateful that we have opportunities to replace what we've had for seven and a half years, failed, failed, failed liberal policies, one after another. And it's time for change.

(CHEERING) MARK BURNS, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: We are going to break the stigma that African-Americans are not supporting Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party have taken African-American votes totally for granted. Because the votes have been automatically there for them, there has been no reason for Democrats to produce. And they haven't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:50:26] KEILAR: Let's bring in Dr. Ben Carson. He is an advisor to Donald Trump and also a former 2016 Republican presidential candidate.

Doctor, thank you so much for being with us.

DR. BEN CARSON, (R), ADVISOR, DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN & FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & RETIRED NEUROSURGEON: Pleasure.

KEILAR: We'll talk about Trump trying to appeal to African-American voters in just a moment. But first, I want to talk to you about Paul Manafort resigning from his position in the campaign. I went back and looked at an interview that you gave yesterday actually to a former co-worker of mine, who is an anchor in Green Bay, Wisconsin. You said to him that, "We're moving forward here from this point. The Trump campaign is going to be more about issues and less about personality."

But that seemed to be what the Paul Manafort objective was. I think some people have looked at him bringing on Steve Bannon and they wonder if actually it is going to be more about personality.

CARSON: Well, I think Paul did a wonderful job. This is sort of like, you know, the Olympics where you have a relay team, and you need to have a starter, you need to have your middle people, and you need to have a finisher. Cory Lewandowski did an excellent job as a starter. Came in, he helped to manage the delegate situation, which was really quite difficult, and also to repair relationships with the RNC. And now we need the closer. We need finishers. That's what's happening.

And it's also recognized that Paul Manafort was having some personal issues that were kind of distracting. He wasn't interested in being a distraction at this point. Fortunately, there's a lot of talent available and I think you're going to see it manifested.

KEILAR: You've seen the polls. We put one up there just before introducing you. Why do you think Donald Trump is struggling to gain traction with African-American voters? I say that knowing that, typically, Republicans -- it's not like people think Republicans are going to best a Democrat because this is a key demographic group for Democrats. But he's polling at 2 percent. Mitt Romney got 6 percent. McCain got 4 percent. They still lost the election -- their elections in the end. But he's performing very poorly even compared to that. CARSON: Well, there's no question that there are those who have tried

to portray him as something that he is not. I've known Donald Trump. He's a very good guy. We've had multiple conversations about what to do for the people in our society who are downtrodden. He's extremely concerned about that. You're going to hear a lot coming out, from school choice and voucher programs to understanding that we have an enormous number of people going into prison. We have 5 percent of the population of the world and 25 percent of the inmates. There is a problem there. A lot of it is at the front end, where we have breakdown of families and structures, and people are not really getting what they need. And then, at the same time, you have all these people going into prison and high recidivism rates, because they go in with little education and skills, and the come out with little education and skills. Of course, they're going to go back to doing what they did before. Those are things we can help them rectify and help them get employment when they get out. That's a very difficult part. Give them another opportunity to see that there is something different going on.

Then in terms of the economy, we've been talking about taking that $2.1 trillion overseas, bringing it back, repatriating that money and during a certain period of time, and making the stipulation that you don't have to pay taxes on it, but 10 percent of it has to be used for empowerment zones, infrastructure, and employment for people who are unemployed, underemployed, or on welfare. It would be the biggest stimulus program since FDR's New Deal. And also it gets companies once again interested and thinking about investing in the people around them, which is something they used to do more before the government took over.

These are the kinds of things that will resonate with people. And Donald Trump knows that he's probably not going to get a lot of those votes this time around.

(CROSSTALK)

CARSON: When he becomes president, he'll get a whole lot of them next time around because they'll be able to see that he has done things --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: I guess, Dr. Carson, but if he has these ideas and he wants to tell African-American voters he has ideas that are for them, I look at him today going to the flood zone, saying, I'm trying to learn about what you are going through. When you were a candidate, I spoke to you after you had gone and visited refugees following the refugee crisis, a desire to better understand what's going on. He declined to speak to the NAACP, and when he was near Milwaukee, he spoke to -- he didn't speak to a crowd that was dealing with the violence in the area. Instead, he spoke to a white crowd in a county that was 1.2 percent African-American. Doesn't he need to go to these audiences?

And I have to tell you, I have about 20 seconds for you to answer this. If you could just tell me what you would like to see from him.

[13:55:36] CARSON: That's a good point and I will be rectified. That's in the process of being taken care of and you will see that manifested quite vividly.

KEILAR: All right. That is very interesting. We'll be looking to that. A promise there from Dr. Ben Carson, who is advising Donald Trump.

Thank you, sir, for being on. We do appreciate it.

That is it for me.

CARSON: Thank you.

KEILAR: The news continues now.

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