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Don Lemon Tonight
Trump Suggests Major Shift in Immigration Plan; Hillary Clinton Defends Clinton Foundation. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 24, 2016 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
[22:00:00] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: All right. That does it for us. CNN TONIGHT with Don Lemon starts now.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: We heard Anderson Cooper's exclusive interview with Hillary Clinton and we'll have more on that coming up on this broadcast.
But I want to begin with some breaking news, there's a major shift from Donald Trump tonight on immigration and deportation.
This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.
Trump in an interview tonight saying, quote, "no citizenship, let me go step further, they'll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes. There's no amnesty as such, there's no amnesty but we work with them."
And in Mississippi tonight he makes this incendiary charge about Hillary Clinton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future. She's going to do nothing for African- Americans. She's going to do nothing for the Hispanics. She's only going to take care of herself, her husbands, her consultants, her donors. These are the people she cares about. She doesn't care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Clinton firing back tonight, accusing Trump of bigotry as well. So, let's go right to CNN's Jim Acosta, he is with the Trump campaign in Mississippi. Jim, this is a major change in Trump's stance on deportation tonight.
Here's what he said in an interview to Fox, OK. I'm going to read it then I want you to respond. He said "No citizenship, let me go step further, they'll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes, there's no amnesty as such, there's no amnesty, but we work with them." "Now, everybody agrees we get the bad ones out but when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject and I've had very strong people come up to me be really great, great people come up to me and they said, Mr. Trump,. I love you but to take a person who's been here for 15, 20 years and throw them and their family out, it's so tough. And I have it all the time. It's a very, very hard thing."
So, Jim, what does he say at this rally, this is a reversal. This is not a softening.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, this is way more than a softening, this is wilting. When it comes to his past position on immigration you recall it was during the primaries he called for a mass deportation force that would round up 11 million illegal immigrants and remove them from this country.
Now he is saying that the ones in this country, the undocumented who have been law abiding can stay in this country, as long as they pay back taxes. He is saying that is not amnesty, but there a lot of conservatives inside the Republican Party will say that is amnesty. And so, Donald Trump is going to have to deal with that over these next several days.
We understand on Wednesday in Phoenix he's going to be delivering a speech on immigration where we expect him to give some more details on this. He didn't go that much into the details in this speech here in Jackson, Mississippi tonight.
He only said that his upcoming shift on immigration will not hurt American jobs and that sort of thing. He didn't talk about the details that he did in this interview on Fox News.
But, Don, as you mentioned, one other sort of OMG moment here and Donald Trump had these every couples of weeks, you'll recall a couple of weeks ago when he said President Obama was the founder of ISIS, then later on he said, oh no, I was just being sarcastic about that.
Listen to what Donald Trump had to say about Hillary Clinton at this rally here in Jackson where she essentially called her a bigot. Here's what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future. She's going to do nothing for African-Americans; she's going to do nothing for the Hispanics. She doesn't care what her policies have done to your communities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: And, Don, Donald Trump was reading from a teleprompter when he said that. That line "Hillary Clinton is a bigot" was in his prepared remarks. So, this is not something he adlib over the last few days. He's been using a teleprompter at his rallies. But he's been veering off-script and saying all sorts of things.
But this was not one of those moments. This was in the script and he prepared or he delivered it as it was prepared. And the other thing that we should point out, Don, is this perfectly tees up Donald Trump for all sorts of criticism over the coming days.
You know, this is a candidate who on the onset of his campaign said that Mexicans who are immigrating into this country were rapists. A lot of people said that is a bigoted comment, that is a racist comment. He said a Mexican-American judge could not fairly handle the Trump University case, that was considered by many to be a bigoted comment or a racist comment.
And so to come out and call Hillary Clinton a bigot is just going to honor with all of those different episodes throughout the course of this campaign where he himself has open himself to that criticism, Don.
[22:04:58] LEMON: Yes. And can I see the ad now with him in his own words as the Clinton campaign often does.
Thank you very much for that, Jim Acosta, I appreciate it. Now I want to bring in now Mark Preston, CNN politics executive editor, chief political correspondent, Dana Bash; Patrick Healy, the New York Times political correspondent.
OK. He didn't essentially call, you know, Dana, we were listening to Jim. He didn't essentially call her a bigot. He called her a bigot tonight, right?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. He used that word and Jim was reporting it was in the teleprompter. It wasn't something that was a kind of classic Trump, off-the-cuff unscripted remark that gets him into trouble. It was delivered and done on purpose.
So, you know, they're trying to be provocative, not something unusual for Donald Trump, but doing so as he is trying to make inroads himself with the African-American community by...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: And with Hispanics.
BASH: ... and with Hispanics, with minorities in general by raising questions about what Hillary Clinton and democrats in general have really done for those communities as opposed to the, you know, lip service that they've paid.
I mean, you can argue that the merits of that, and we will for the next two months, but that kind of term certainly is getting him the press that he wanted.
LEMON: I want you all to listen to Hillary Clinton. This is her with Anderson Cooper just moments ago talking about his responding to Donald Trump's bigot comment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It reminds me of that great saying that Maya Angelou had that when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time. And Donald Trump has shown us who he is and we ought to believe him.
He is taking a hate movement mainstream. He's brought it into his campaign. He's bringing it to our communities and our country and, you know, someone who has questioned the citizenship of the first African- American president, who has courted white supremacists, who has been sued for housing discrimination against communities of color, who's attacked a judge for his Mexican heritage and promised a mass deportation force is someone who is, you know, very much peddling bigotry and prejudice and paranoia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, Patrick, considering what she just said, you know, and bringing up the litany of things she considers to be bigoted, she says it at the end, is it wise for Donald Trump to go down this I know you are but what am I road?
PATRICK HEALY, NEW YORK TIMES POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's dangerous. I mean, this is coming at a time when Donald Trump is clearly and pre-drastically softening his language on immigration, where he's trying to make this sort of strange overture to black and Hispanic voters by saying what do you have to lose by voting on me.
And then now he's going back to sort of injecting this racially charged language. Now from his point f view she has been and her allies have sort of suggesting that he has been bigoted for a while now. And that stuff like sticks in his craw, sort of always does and now he's sort of hitting back.
He's going to Mississippi to sort of like punch her on this, but it's one of those things, Don, that just tends to overshadow everything else that he says, as he's trying to make these, you know, these sort of prepared remark speeches, he's now using teleprompters and having prepared remarks at all of his rallies. He used to be...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: That was in the teleprompter according to Jim.
HEALY: It was. It was in the prepared remarks that we got. And he's used to be this sort of free form chaotic sometimes violent rallies. He's really trying to button up and tighten up in the last two weeks. And then he makes a remark like this that clearly calculated but it really overshadows everything.
LEMON: What's the strategy behind a remark like this, Mark Preston? Do you believe and is it a working strategy?
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: No, it's not. And, you know, I just try to look at these campaigns in a very clinical sense, you know. You know, take out emotion from it and just to see what is the strategy behind it.
The beginning of the week he gave a lot of praise to the Trump campaign for cancelling that speech on immigration, allowing a lot of the spotlight to be shined directly on Hillary Clinton, directly on her e-mails, directly on the foundation, allow the media to attack Clinton.
What we've seen tonight, though, is that after a few days he has now taken the spotlight and he has stolen it back and he has pulled it towards him.
LEMON: Yes.
PRESTON: To use really racially charged attacks like that by calling Hillary Clinton is bigot is an overreach; it's a big overreach on his part. In many ways, it desensitizes everything else that he's trying to say or calls into question about what he's trying to say.
And if those you don't believe that, what it certainly does, is that it overshadows the attacks that he's trying to make on Hillary Clinton as somebody who is not fit to be commander-in-chief.
LEMON: OK. And also let's about because that's a turnaround where he, you know, he is, he was on prompter but he was good at, you know, I guess the strategy was for him to be safer and not to say sort of outlandish things, so that's it.
But this is a complete turnaround, talking about the deportation thing, Dana. And I'll put it up on the screen, I read part of it but I read it for Jim Acosta earlier.
He says, "No citizenship. Let me go a step further. They'll be, they'll pay back taxes, they'll have to pay taxes, there's no amnesty as such. There's no amnesty but we're going to work with them."
[22:10:06] And then he says, you know, people coming up to him after 15, saying, you know, they've been here for 15 or 20 years, and you can't just take, you know, send people out.
BASH: Right.
LEMON: What's your reaction to this?
BASH: You know, we have -- had we not had the hints starting on Saturday and Sunday from the Trump campaign that he was moving in a direction like this, I would be more shocked. But even though we knew something like this was coming to see those words that came from Donald Trump is still really kind of unbelievable.
And I'm just kind of give you context of what it's like to be a former republican opponent of Donald Trump, people who were pushing this and were told by Trump and Trump supporters that that is amnesty period, end of story.
LEMON: Is this story -- isn't this already on the books? Is this the policy that's already in place or pretty close to it? BASH: Well, it's what -- it's what people who were pushing for
comprehensive immigration reform.
LEMON: Reform, right.
BASH: Some of them, some of them wanted to go to full on citizenship which he does not.
(CROSSTALK)
HEALY: But republicans like Paul Ryan have sort of suggested there are some..
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: Absolutely. Absolutely. But let me just kind of give you a quote which I thought summed it up. A, an ally of Ted Cruz said to me this would be like Ted Cruz, suddenly saying I'm for Obamacare. I mean, that's the way that they look at this at what shifter is.
LEMON: Yes.
BASH: Because it's such a core issue for Donald Trump.
LEMON: It kind of reminds me, though, of 2012 what Mitt Romney saying "I don't like Obamacare and then President Obama saying Obamacare is essentially Romney care.
HEALY: Right. It's in Massachusetts.
LEMON: But this -- yes, it just hs -- it does has your name on it.
(CROSSTALK)
HEALY: Yes, and I mean, and this is, you know, and ultimately thinking about Romney, too, kind of an ultimate etch a sketch for Donald Trump. The phrase used about Mitt Romney sort of moving to the general election.
Donald Trump won the republican nomination by going to rallies and saying those 11 million illegals gone, they're gone.
LEMON: Let's listen. Listen, let's put it up and then we'll talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to keep the families together. We have to keep the families together. But they have to go...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you're going to keep them together out?
TRUMP: They have to go. We're going to have a deportation force, and you're going to do it humanely. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're rounding them all up.
TRUMP: We're rounding them up in a very humane way in a very nice way and they're going to be happy because they want to be legalized.
And I'm sure these are very, very fine people. They're going to go and we're going to create a path where we can get into this country legally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, to your point, Patrick.
HEALY: No, it's -- I mean, it's as close to a flip-flop I think as we've seen...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: As close to a flip flop? It is a flip flop. Come on.
HEALY: ... you know, in the campaign. Hey, it's not. I'm a New York Times guy. You know, we say it's close to flip-flop. No, I mean, you have a guy who won the nomination saying we're going to deport all 11 million.
Now to you Dana's point, he was sort of setting up a softening the other day, that's the direction he was going. The weird thing about this, Don, you're going to be -- this is going to be -- this clip is going to get a lot of play that's coming out on Fox is that he was sort of crowd sourcing the audience as he was talking about all of this.
I have to read the transcript three times to get what he was saying. He basically saying and he does this at his rallies sometimes. He says, and what do you think about deporting them all? OK. Now what do you think about keeping some of them if they pay back taxes and they don't have criminal records?
And he's sort of tossing out these lines. What's clear, what is clear is that he's considering making changes to soften his position, and he says he's going to be announcing a decision soon, that we have to make a decision soon on this.
LEMON: Mark, I want you to listen on this. This is Hillary Clinton what she told Anderson about this change tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: My understanding is that the comment you just referred to is the third different position he took yesterday on immigration. Somebody has told him, I guess the latest people that he's consulting, how damaging his statements have been, how terrible his deportation plan is, how offensive his views on immigrants have been from the very first day of his campaign.
So, he's trying to do, you know, kind of a shuffle here. But I think we need to look at the entire context. We need to believe him when he bullies and threatens to throw out every immigrant in the country.
And certainly, when he change his position three times in one day, it sends a message that it's just a desperate effort to try to land somewhere that isn't as, you know, devastating to his campaign as his comments and his positions have been up until now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, Mark Preston, isn't the danger here that he risks turning away some of the core supporters who wanted him to have a hard line and many gives his opponent fodder for more criticism.
PRESTON: Well, you know, I think we've become desensitized to Donald Trump saying one thing on Monday, changing it on Tuesday and going back in a different way on Wednesday. And we become desensitized to the fact that his positions constantly change.
[22:14:57] One thing we're not talking about is the fact that there are a lot of people in the Republican party right now specifically centrist moderates who are looking at Donald Trump and saying, OK, this is the Donald Trump that I want to lead the Republican Party if, in fact, he wins in November.
This is the Donald Trump that we're all hoping for after he won the primary that would moderate his positions that we can then get behind. This is the Donald Trump that's OK at the top of the ticket.
So, even though we're very critical of the fact that he is changing his positions, it's a change that is actually going to be embraced by more republicans than repulsed by more republicans.
And more specifically to your point, Don, those who have joined the Donald Trump campaign, those who are backing him, they have nowhere else to go. They're going to stay with Donald Trump because they still believe that he's going to make America great again.
And Donald Trump has become something that he has said over and over and over again that he will never become and that's a politician.
LEMON: OK. I have to get to the break. We're going to continue our conversation on the other side of this. We'll be right back. Don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: We're back now with our breaking news. Donald Trump suggesting tonight a major shift in his immigration plan, exceptions to let some immigrants stay in the U.S.
Back with me now, Mark Preston, Dana Bash, and Patrick Healy. Patrick, I want to talk to you about the piece that you have in the New York Times. You were part of a phone call, right, with Donald Trump and where he says, and this is a quote from you, he says "I have been staying on message more now because ultimately I'm finding that I do better with voters, do better in the polls when I'm on message." [22:20:00] And that was in a telephone interview on Tuesday with you.
HEALY: Right, right. I mean, basically he sort of fully acknowledged that he was, you know, losing, falling in the polls when he was doing these sort of two-week period that he now said he regrets, you know, of sort of just attacking and launching and, you know, throwing mud every which way.
And that since Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon have come on board, you know, he finds that basically they're not telling him, OK, you've got to do this and, you know, we're imposing this message on you like that.
But that he feels like they've sort of created this message together where he has these prepared remarks at a rally, he's always using his teleprompter and he's staying on message. Donald Trump like nothing better than to be able to say I'm going up in the polls. I'm going up in the polls. It's like he's been in a depressive state...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: He only listens to the polls. So, the polls have told him you're losing, and you need to change.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: So, who better to run his campaign than a pollster.
LEMON: Than a pollster.
BASH: Right. And a woman. That's a whole different story. No, but I think that first of all, just -- I just, when he said that to you, did you almost drop the phone?
HEALY: Yes.
BASH: For Donald Trump to say you know what, I should just stay on message because it actually works.
LEMON: Yes.
BASH: Like that's the reason why politicians stay on message. However, he has done so well, at least did up until he got the nomination being his own guy. That was what made him Donald Trump.
LEMON: It's tough. It's hard to change. But, Mark Preston, we, you know, we've been talking about it on the show, his critics have been saying it over and over again that he needed to change and he needed to stay on message.
He didn't listen to his critics. He said that they were anti-Trump, his surrogates said they were was anti-Trump, then when the polls fall, he said, you know what, maybe I need to stay on message. Now he's listened to the polls.
PRESTON: Right. And it took him a while, too, right. LEMON: Yes.
PRESTON: I mean, the polls have been dropping very precipitously, you know, very much since the republican convention. But, you know, Donald Trump again is become this politician that republicans potentially, those who have been sitting on the sidelines, could get behind. The problem...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Hey, Mark, let me -- can I -- can I put the polls up when it since -- to give our viewers some context as you're talking about it. This is CNN/ORC poll, this is our new battleground poll out of Arizona. Latinos 18 percent, made up 18 percent of the electorate in 2012.
It shows Clinton with 57 percent of the Hispanic vote compared to 20 percent for Trump. Overall, Trump holds a 5-point lead over Clinton in Arizona. Again, he has Kellyanne Conway who is a pollster, who as Dana said who better to lead your campaign than a pollster. So, she must be reading something into these polls.
Continue on with your answer.
PRESTON: Well, you know, let's just take a step back, right. So, if we look at those polls right there, Don, that had just come out, you know, in the last 12 hours or so showing what's happening in the battleground states.
But let's take at the overall picture. When Trump talks about reaching out to the minority community, let me just give you numbers right here about the idea that he could actually get African-Americans and droves to support him.
Barack Obama, first black President ever in the United States won 93 percent of the black vote in 2012, 95 percent of the black vote in 2008 when he was first elected. The Hispanic vote, democrats have easily won the Hispanic vote if you go as far back as 1980, the closest republicans ever came to democrats when it came to Hispanic vote was George W. Bush in 2004, he came in within 18 points of John Kerry that year.
And if you go back to 2012 when Barack Obama ran against Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney lost the Hispanic vote by 44 percent. So, when Donald Trump is talking about reaching out to minority communities, it's a smart thing to do Republican Party to do.
But with Donald Trump it's really about reaching out to disaffected republicans who are concerned about Donald Trump who don't think that he's soften up that he's compassionate enough. And those independent voters in the swing states who haven't made up their mind yet.
LEMON: The independent voters who Dan Rather and other analyst have said he's reaching out to people who may feel they don't want to vote for someone who they considered to be a bigot.
BASH: Right. Tolerance.
LEMON: Yes. They want to -- yes.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: That he's somebody who is more tolerant...
(CROSSTALK)
HEALY: And racist who is coming up in the focus group, some of the people who are saying, hey, he's a little bit racist, we don't like that.
BASH: Right.
LEMON: So, then on the other side now we have Hillary Clinton with this e-mail and the Clinton Foundation problem, but the e-mail problem. She spoke to Anderson Cooper about that and gave one of the most concise answers that some say to date on this subject. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I've been asked many, many questions in the past year about e-mails. And what I've learned is when I tried to explain what happened, it sounds like I'm trying to excuse what I did. And there are no excuses.
I want people to know the decision to have single e-mail account was mine. I take responsibility for it. I've apologize for it, I would certainly do differently if I could.
But obviously I'm grateful the Justice Department concluded there was no basis to pursue this matter further and I believe the public will be and as considering my full record and experience that they can consider their choice for president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, it's interesting because I remember having the conversation with Maria Cardona and I said after the black journalist thing. And I said it's so -- that question -- the answer to that question is so easy, right? And that was the answer she gave.
[22:25:06] BASH: Well, maybe she was watching you, Don.
LEMON: No matter how I tried to answer this question...
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: And she felt, you know what, I've answered it 77,000 times and every time I got myself into more trouble. And maybe that's the way to answer it.
LEMON: Yes. BASH: So, that is -- that is kind of you can almost hear the tug of war inside of Hillary Clinton as she's answering that question because by nature she obviously is somebody who wants to explain and to deep dive and to give kind of all of the, you know, kind of her lawyerly background all of the reasons why x, y and z is not true.
But it doesn't work with something like this. It's just people want to know are you sorry? Yes. Are you not going to do it again? Yes. Americans are forgiving. And that's what they want to hear. And they want to move on.
HEALY: Just like her refusal in 2007 and 2008, that ever going near something that sound like an apology for her to rack more vote.
BASH: Right.
HEALY: The summer of 2015, she was gritting her teeth, she would not say the e-mails were a mistake, she would not apologize. Reporters would basically ask her, will you apologize now? And she totally resisted.
I mean, it's been a year of excuses, excuses, excuses. There are no excuses. And now she's saying, there are no excuses. I mean, you're seeing both you have Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump getting on what looks like, you know, the post-Labor Day general election message, that trying to clean up, you now, the things that they feel like they need to with undecided voters.
But at least the e-mail story is not going away. And if Trump comes out, you know...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Yes.
BASH: And just quickly, the one thing that I thought that might be something that you're going to hear more from the Clinton people that she said tonight on the foundation issues, which have been really bogging her down is, OK, you know, maybe there are questions but we don't know anything about Donald Trump's -- never mind his taxes but his business. It's all private.
LEMON: Yes. I know that -- oh, well. It's easy to...
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: We're on the world there will be so much...
LEMON: It's easy to say I'm sorry but I'm sorry I have to go to the next segment. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. Mark, thank you very.
Up next, a top Trump supporter goes head to head with a key Clinton backer on Trump's deportation plan. We'll be right back.
[22:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: A major shift from Donald Trump tonight promising to, quote, "work with undocumented immigrants."
Here to discuss, Jennifer Granholm, the former democratic Governor of Michigan who is a Clinton supporter, and Jan Brewer, the republican Governor of Arizona, who is supporting Donald Trump. Good evening to both of you.
JENNIFER GRANHOLM, FORMER MICHIGAN GOVERNOR: Good evening.
LEMON: So, I want to get your reaction to this. First, Governor...
(CROSSTALK)
JAN BREWER, FORMER ARIZONA GOVERNOR: Thanks for having me on, Don.
LEMON: Yes. Thanks for coming. Governor Brewer, how is this not amnesty?
BREWER: Well, I was trying to listen to it, I don't know exactly how it was presented and I don't know exactly what Donald said today, but I have been trying to catch up very...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Let me read this for you then.
BREWER: ... very quickly to all of this.
LEMON: I know there's a delay but let me read this. He says "No citizenship, let me go a step further, they'll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes, there's no amnesty as such, there's no amnesty but we work with them. Now everybody agrees we get the bad guys out but when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on the subject and I've had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me and they've said, 'Mr. Trump, I love you but to take a person who has been here for 15 to 20 years and throw them and their family out, it is so tough, Mr. Trump.' And I have it all the time, it is a very, very hard thing."
He's talking about working with who have been here as a path to citizenship. How is this not amnesty?
BREWER: Well, Don, you know that Mr. Trump, and I think you probably know that he's been very successful in business and he's a problem solver. And it does tug at your heart the issues that we're facing in regards to immigration and people have spoken with him.
And I think we all should take a deep breath and wait for his policy speech to be made on this and move forward at that given time. But we've all said all along that we need our border secured. I've said that for, what, seven years for sure.
LEMON: OK.
BREWER: Secure our border, then we can deal with all these other issues.
LEMON: Governor Granholm, how is this not amnesty?
GRANHOLM: I mean, first of all, you have to believe that what he's saying tonight is what he's truly going to act upon as opposed to what he's been saying for the past year, which is we're going to have a deportation force and people have to go.
And if he's not saying that, if he's saying now we have a totally different change in plan and all of you people who have supported me throughout my entire campaign, well, not so much.
I mean, you heard tonight he was at the rally sort of asking the crowd what he should do. Who is this man? I mean, if he has a question about a policy, he's going to go to a rally and say should we bomb so and so? Should I press the nuclear button?
I mean, it is -- the man is totally unstable. I think that's really clear. And I agree that we should wait to hear what his formal policy is but, honestly, I don't think anyone should buy it. What he's been telling us and his supporters for the past year, that's what he intend to do.
LEMON: To her point, he has been saying for the past year...
(CROSSTALK)
BREWER: Well, I don't think -- I don't...
LEMON: Governor Brewer, he has been saying for the past year that there's going to be a deportation force. I'm wondering how supporters in your state are going to react to that because they were thinking I'm sure that they were going to deport undocumented immigrants.
BREWER: Well, the people in Arizona and the people of America are going to obviously wait to see exactly what his plan is. Bottom line is that calling him unstable, it's Donald Trump that won overwhelmingly the nomination because he speaks from his heart and he speaks what he thinks, what he's thinking at the given time.
And to call him unstable, I mean, that's like, you know, Hillary Clinton, you know, she's a serial -- a serial tale, t-a-l-e teller. You know, we can go back and forth.
Tonight, governor, we're trying to solve and resolve a problem that's been facing America for the last 20 years and the last eight years have been horrendous.
[22:35:04] We need a solution and we need someone like Donald Trump to listen, which he has, he has spoken from his heart, he knows the difficulty of it but let's wait and just see exactly what it is.
LEMON: Well, that's exactly what Governor Granholm just said.
BREWER: We need to address...
LEMON: Governor Granholm just said we need to wait to see what the...
BREWER: ... but what we first need to see is to secure the border.
LEMON: Yes, right. Yes. You want the border secured you're in it.
(CROSSTALK)
BREWER: Secure the border and (Inaudible) sanctuary cities
LEMON: Right.
BREWER: The criminals, the cartel, that the rapists that the cartels come across with and the terrorists that come across with the cartel, those are the things that absolutely...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: In the interest of time, Governor, I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut you off but we have a short time and I want to spend it wisely getting as many answers as possible.
To Governor Granholm's points, this is what Jeb Bush's spokesperson Kristy Campbell said tonight in a press statement. She said, "It is unsurprising that Donald Trump is finally faced with reconciling his immigration policy with reality, something Governor Bush predicted last year."
Governor Granholm, there were many people who were saying that having a deportation force and building a wall really weren't viable options because you physically cannot build a wall across the entire southern border and you cannot have a deportation force legally. They predicted this all along.
GRANHOLM: Right. Of course, it's totally ridiculous, those particular policies. And the reason why Donald Trump wants to try to figure out how to get out of the pickle he's in, which is having created such massive opposition to himself on the part of both those who might otherwise be inclined to vote republican but are uncomfortable with the sort of racial overtones of his campaign.
And the Hispanic vote, which, I mean, you have a poll tonight in Arizona, in Governor Brewer's own state where Hillary Clinton is ahead of Donald Trump by 27 points among Hispanics.
It is -- it is going to be very difficult for him to try to pull the wool over people's eyes who have been insulted, Judge Curiel, who have been called rapists, who have been called drug dealers, who have been vilified for the past year. And to now sort of try to soften language and expect the people are going to flow back that's going to be a very hard sell.
LEMON: Governor Brewer, I have to ask you and this is going to be the last word here, again, in the interest of time. Does Donald Trump risk the perception that he's becoming everything that he's attacked, you know, a political politically correct pandering the certain groups for their votes because he's seen as flip-flopping on certain key issues that he initiated from the beginning? BREWER: No, I don't believe so. I believe that, again, that he is a
problem solver. He's going to solve it. Certainly he understands that it's not only incumbent upon him to work with the United States Congress to resolve these problems.
And I trust that the American people will support him in regards to that. And I would think that the Hispanic population certainly have not been -- their problems have not been resolved in the last eight years of Obama and if we have Hillary Clinton, the serial tale teller, again, it won't get resolved.
We need solutions and Donald Trump is the man that can do it and he has promised that that's what he would do and I take him at his word.
LEMON: All right, governors, thank you very much. I appreciate you joining me here on CNN.
(CROSSTALK)
GRANHOLM: You bet. Thank you.
LEMON: When we come right back, Hillary Clinton talks exclusively to CNN defending the Clinton Foundation saying the attacks are a lot of smoke but no fire.
[22:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Just a little bit earlier, Anderson Cooper did an exclusive interview with Hillary Clinton, her first in nearly a month. The candidate leaping to the defense of her family foundation. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: He also said today, quote, "That you sold favors and access in exchange for cash from people who donated to the Clinton Foundation." Now I know you point to the lifesaving work for the foundation that the foundation has done over the years, getting low- cost HIV drugs and other things.
I know you deny the charges that Mr. Trump is making there, but at the very least there is an appearance of a conflict of interest for the foundation. You've agreed to make changes if you're elected. Why not just make those changes now, have your husband step away from the foundation now?
CLINTON: Well, first, what Trump has said is ridiculous. My work as Secretary of State was not influenced by any outside sources. I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right to keep Americans safe and to protect the U.S. interest abroad, no wild political attack by Donald Trump is going to change that.
And, in fact, the State Department has said itself that there is no evidence of any kind of impropriety at all. Now I think it's important to recognize that the foundation, which does do life-saving work and is so well-respected here in our country and around the world has been doing this work for a number of years. And in 2009, they took steps that went above and beyond all legal
requirements and indeed all standard requirements followed by every other charitable organization, voluntarily disclosing donors, significantly reducing sources of funding, even to the point of, you know, of those funding being involved in providing medication to treat HIV AIDS.
And I think that the announcements that the foundation has made really reflect its desire to continue as much of its important work as possible but to do it in a way that provides great disclosure.
And although none of this is legally required, the steps go further than the policies that were in place when I was Secretary of State.
[22:44:57] And it's important to remember, Anderson, the foundation is a charity. Neither my husband nor I have ever drawn a salary from it. You know more about the foundation than you know about anything concerning Donald wealth, his business, his tax returns. I think it's quite remarkable.
COOPER: Why was it OK for the Clinton Foundation to accept foreign donations when you were Secretary of State, but it wouldn't be OK if you were president?
CLINTON: Well, what we did when I was Secretary of State, as I said, went above and beyond anything that was required, anything that any charitable organization has to do.
Now, obviously if I am president, there will be some unique circumstances and that's why the foundation has laid out additional, unprecedented steps within the state...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: But didn't those unique circumstances existed when you're the Secretary of State?
CLINTON: ... if I am elected.
COOPER: Didn't those unique circumstances as this...
(CROSSTALK)
CLINTON: No, no. You know, look, Anderson, I know there's a lot of smoke and there's no fire. This A.P. report, put it in context. It excludes nearly 2,000 meetings I had with world leaders, plus countless other meetings with U.S. government officials when I was Secretary of State.
It looked at a small portion of my time and it drew the conclusion and made the suggestion that my meetings with people like the late great Elie Wiesel or Melinda Gates or the Nobel Prize winner Mohammad Yunus where somehow due to connections with the foundation instead of their status as highly respected global leaders. That is absurd.
These are people who I was proud to meet with, who any Secretary of State would have been proud to meet with to hear about their work and their insight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: You heard Hillary Clinton's defense of her family foundation. When we come back, I want to talk about her answers. How did she do?
[22:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Hillary Clinton defending her family's foundation in an exclusive interview with our very own Anderson Cooper tonight. She also talked about Donald Trump's immigration policy and her e-mail controversy.
I want to get reaction now from New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof. Hello, Mr. Kristof. Thank you for joining us.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST: Good to be with you.
LEMON: So, we head Hillary Clinton defending the Clinton Foundation, the ties and her ties to it during the tenure -- her tenure of Secretary of State, how do you think she did?
KRISTOF: I think she was largely right on that. Look, there were real problems with the Clinton Foundation in terms of disclosure. I don't think they fully adhered to their memorandum of understanding.
But on the issues that she's addressing, this notion that people were paying to play and the A.P. article illustrated that, I think she's dead right. I mean, the first example that was cited was Mohammad Yunus, who is one of the world's true heroes.
He's a long-time friend of mine, he's a Nobel Peace Prize winner, he's worked heroically through providing micro credit to people all over the world. And the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina was trying to destroy him.
And it was absolutely appropriate for Secretary Clinton to try to help him in every way she could. And this, you know, this wasn't because he was bribing the foundation in some form.
And another example that came up was Prince Salman, the crowned Prince of Bahrain.
LEMON: Right.
KRISTOF: You know, Bahrain is an ally of ours that has been engaging in ruthless repression. The belief is that Prince Salman is one the reformers in that country and I think she was probably trying to support the reformers in that camp. It didn't work but, again, I don't think that had anything to do with paying to play.
LEMON: We'll talk more about the Clinton Foundation. How do you think -- what about her answer on e-mails?
KRISTOF: Oh, you know, this is the answer she should have given months ago. I mean, she's been digging herself deeper and deeper. LEMON: Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I've been asked many, many questions in the past year about e-mails and what I've learned is that when I try to explain what happened, it sounds like I'm trying to excuse what I did. And there are no excuses.
I want people to know that the decision to have a single e-mail account was mine. I take responsibility for it, I've apologized for it. I would certainly do differently if I could.
But obviously I'm grateful the Justice Department concluded there was no basis to pursue this matter further, and I believe the public will be and is considering my full record and experience as they consider their choice for president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: David Axelrod said that was the best answer she gave so far on that. Do you agree with him?
KRISTOF: Oh, I mean, this is a self-inflicted error, not only self- inflicted in the sense that she presumably set up this separate account because she wanted to avoid FOIA requests.
And then she provided had all these absurd explanations of why when was having involved in multiple devices which were completely unpersuasive, then she mischaracterized the FBI director's testimony on this case.
And most recently she mischaracterized Colin Powell's statement apparently. And, you know, finally, we have her saying I think what she should have been saying months and months ago.
LEMON: Donald Trump meanwhile tonight has been sharpening his attacks against Hillary Clinton specifically tonight talking about the Clinton Foundation. Let listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She wants to sell out American security to the Clinton Foundation for a big, fat pile of cash.
(CROWD BOOING)
It's hard to tell where the Clinton Foundation ends and where the State Department begins.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Fair criticism of the foundation?
KRISTOF: I think it's true that there were blurred lines between the foundation and Secretary Clinton and her office in the State Department but there's no evidence that people were paying the foundation for benefits from the State Department. There's no sign of any quid pro quo.
So, were there apparent conflicts? Absolutely. Did she manage them poorly? I think so. But no evidence of quid pro quos. You know, at the end of the day, this is a foundation that has had a huge impact on people with AIDS worldwide.
[22:55:01] LEMON: Let me just show you. This is what charity, the America's most independent charity watch dog, Charity Watch, goes and does research on each organization. It gives the Clinton Foundation an "a" grade, OK.
The best rating, and yet the optics on this new report it doesn't look good but it seems self-inflicted. And then, of course, she went on to say, you know more about the Clinton Foundation and, you know, what I -- that I don't take a salary from it than you know anything about Donald Trump's financial or taxes.
KRISTOF: Yes. And I think it's frustrating for some of us who look a lot at global health issues, for example, the foundation doesn't real -- has really done fantastic work on AIDS, for example, providing AIDS medication, on micronutrients, like the least sexy way to help children, to save children's lives around the world.
And yet, because that work has been obscured because they did not adhere to this memoranda of understanding that they had with the Obama administration. They appeared it tried to hide some incoming money being funneled through the Canadian office, for example.
LEMON: Should they -- if she becomes president, should they close it down and move it off to work to another NGO maybe?
KRISTOF: You know, I think that they probably should. I admire a lot of what the foundation has done but at this point, it's obviously a huge distraction.
LEMON: All right. Thank you, Nicholas Kristof.
KRISTOF: Good to be with you.
LEMON: I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
When we come right back, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton trading incendiary charges tonight, and he calls her a bigot. She fires back saying he's peddling bigot, prejudice, and paranoia. We got more when we come right back.
[23:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
