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Trump Backs Off Total Deportation Plan; Trump Calls Clinton a Bigot; Clinton Defends Foundation from Attacks. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 25, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:02] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: I can only imagine. They brought it to him. And look at that smile. The good stuff, important.

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HARLOW: All right. Good to be with you, my friend.

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HARLOW: I'm going on vacation.

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HARLOW: I'll see you guys in a week. It is time for NEWSROOM now with my friend, Erica Hill, in for Carol Costello.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, guys. Enjoy your well-deserved time off. Chris, I'll be here tomorrow, too. Don't worry.

NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Erica Hill, in today for Carol Costello. Thanks for being with us this hour.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And the battle for the minority vote. Trading barbs over who in this race is a bigot. The GOP candidate launching a new attack from the Mississippi stage, telling his supporters that Clinton takes minority voters for granted and won't do a thing for them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), 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 is going to do nothing for African-Americans. She is going to do nothing for the Hispanics.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HILL: In just a few hours, Clinton is set to rebuke Trump's allegations delivering a major speech in Reno, Nevada, linking Trump and his new campaign CEO Steve Bannon to racial extremists. She gave a preview of what we could hear to Anderson Cooper in a CNN exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: 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 is bringing it to our communities and our country. And, you know, someone who's questioned the citizenship of the first African-American president, who has courted white supremacist, who's been sued for housing discrimination against communities of color, who has 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)

HILL: A lot of strong words, strong words from Trump. The campaign is standing beside them. Trump's campaign manager saying Trump has been called worst.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: First of all he uses in his words. And have you seen what he has called? Have you heard what he has called in a given day, including here on CNN? People -- we have become so inured that it is acceptable somehow to just hurl --

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: When people call him a bigot, I'll say, why do you call him that? What is it about it that you think is --

CONWAY: I've never heard a good answer yet.

CUOMO: How is that fair?

CONWAY: I've never heard a nonpartisan effective answer yet.

CUOMO: And they shouldn't call him that. But I'm now saying that doesn't erase what he said.

CONWAY: But somehow it's OK to use that, it's breaking news.

CUOMO: If you're called a bigot, it does -- but does that mean it's OK to call her one?

CONWAY: But --

CUOMO: He called her a bigot. Full stop.

CONWAY: What is OK to do is to show how repressive her policies and policies of those like her. Many mayors -- many Democratic mayors --

CUOMO: Make the policy case. Of course. CONWAY: And that's what he's been doing for a week now. And, you

know, for a long time he was criticized for not speaking in communities of color. So the moment he did it was like, well, I don't like the words you used.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: For more on this and Trump's continued to reach minority voters, I'm joined by CNN's Sara Murray.

Sara, good morning.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica. Well, it does seem like Donald Trump is poised, getting ready to make this general election pivot. We've seen him now for a couple of days watering down his rhetoric when it comes to the immigration issue as he tries to reach out to more of these minority voters.

But Hillary Clinton is watching all of this, thinking that she does not want Donald Trump to be able to complete this pivot, to be able to win over some of these independent voters, and that's why she's devoting her day today to painting Trump as an extremist right-wing candidate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: They'll pay back taxes. They have to pay taxes. There's no amnesty as such. There's no amnesty.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Right.

TRUMP: But we work with them.

MURRAY (voice-over): Donald Trump suggesting a major reversal on the hard line immigration proposal he's touted since the start of his campaign.

TRUMP: 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, really great, great people come up to me, and they've said, Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person that's been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it's so tough. I mean, I have it all the time. It's a very, very hard thing.

MURRAY: Backtracking on his tough talk of using a deportation force to round up and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.

TRUMP: I would get people out and I would have an expedited way of getting them back into the country so they can be legal. They're illegal immigrants. They got to go out. At some point we're going to getting them back, the good ones.

[09:05:02] MURRAY: Now he appeared to be considering deporting those with criminal records while allowing other undocumented immigrants who pay back taxes to stay in the country. Remarkably similar to the plans his Republican opponents pushed during the primary.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: I don't think you're going to round up and deport 12 million people.

JEB BUSH (R), FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: You pay taxes. You don't receive federal government assistance. You earn legal status, not citizenship.

MURRAY: Plans that Trump criticized back when he was fighting to win the Republican nomination.

TRUMP: They're weak people. Marco Rubio is in favor of amnesty.

MURRAY: Trump's minority voter outreach inspiring him to lob one of his sharpest attacks against his opponent.

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color -- only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future.

MURRAY: As Clinton turns the line of attack around on Trump, previewing the Trump takedown she set to deliver in Reno today.

CLINTON: He is taking a hate movement mainstream. He's brought it into his campaign. You know, someone who's 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 -- is someone who is, you know, very much peddling bigotry and prejudice and paranoia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now clearly we've seen the tone on the campaign trail grow even more heated. Just in the last 24 hours and it's a good bet that's going to continue today. Hillary Clinton will of course be campaigning in Nevada, talking about how Donald Trump is the alt-right candidate in this case.

As for Trump he will be on the stump in New Hampshire and you can bet he will have some attacks lobbed against Hillary Clinton -- Erica.

HILL: And we'll be watching for all those on both sides. Sara Murray this morning -- Sara, thank you.

For more on the fiery rhetoric coming from both sides, I'm joined this morning by former South Regional director for the Obama 2012 campaign and Hillary Clinton supporter, Tharon Johnson, national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, Katrina Pierson, and CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz, Amanda Carpenter.

Good to have all of you with us. There's a lot of focus, of course, this morning on this rhetoric, this fiery rhetoric, as we're saying, and on the use of the word bigot. And we just heard there our own Chris Cuomo just about an hour ago trying to get an answer from Kellyanne Conway, Trump campaign manager, as to why the name calling. She basically made the case that Hillary Clinton said worse things so it's OK. Katrina, would it not be more effective to go after the policies that

she said are repressive, to go after the things that the Trump campaign would like to point out as saying in their eyes are not working on Hillary Clinton's side, as opposed to resorting to name calling? Why bigot?

KATRINA PIERSON, NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Well, I think what you see is Mr. Trump does both. I mean, he makes his point when he says things like this, and the people understand what he's saying, and he does talk about the failed policies. In the last two speeches that he's given, he has outlined those failed policies that have hurt communities, particularly when Hillary Clinton goes out there and panders, she goes on a radio show and talks about having hot sauce in her purse. That's pandering.

And Mr. Trump sees this as an opportunity to show America that he's not your typical Republican, a Republican that has not gone into the communities because I want to remind everyone, Mr. Trump this March went to Chicago. He went to take his message to the community and what we saw was destruction, and that is exactly why he's now just speaking to the public at all of his rallies.

HILL: Part of what we're seeing in that message, though, is being criticized, this gross generalization of different voter blocs that he's trying to go after. There, we heard Hillary Clinton come back and respond to these bigot comments, saying that Donald Trump is in fact leading a hate movement.

Does she need to be more effective, though? And I ask you the same question that I asked Katrina, in her campaign? Does it need to be really specific about policies, or are comments like hate moving working more for her?

THARON JOHNSON, CLINTON SUPPORTER: Absolutely. Listen, with less than 80 days to go into the election, she's got to get back on message, talking about college affordability. She's got to talk about education and more importantly she's got to talk about how she has a plan to strengthen the middle class. But what we saw from Donald Trump yesterday was really, to me, you know, unbelievable. I mean, this is a guy who did not even want nor try to campaign for the minority vote during his primary, and now at a time where he's losing in pretty much all of the battle ground states, he now wants to sort of beg and basically plead for the minority vote.

And the problem is, it's not so much the message. Listen, anytime any candidate running for president wants to be inclusive and bring in different conversations and different races, it's a good thing. The problem is the messenger. The messenger has no credibility to talk about now all of the sudden he wants to basically embrace what President Obama and Hillary Clinton wants to do around immigration, and more importantly, this is a guy who is going to go down in history as one of the most privileged candidates for office, and now he wants to talk about issues that affect African-American community.

[09:10:13] But listen, I think what Hillary Clinton is going to do today, and I think what she's going to continue to do throughout the campaign, is really talk about policies that matter most to the American people and I think that's where the campaign is headed.

HILL: In terms of a message, you say Hillary Clinton needs to stay on message, your candidate there, who you're supporting. There's been a lot of questions about the message that Donald Trump is sending and we heard this shift on his immigration policy.

Amanda, I know that you said he's duped in your words his most loyal supporters on the issue they care most about, that is immigration. Rick Tyler, your former colleague at the Cruz campaign, saying, "From what I've seen, this is -- he's now the pro-amnesty candidate," going on to say he's fooled his entire base, it's deceit, it was a betrayal.

Is there a risk in shifting positions at this point, Amanda, for Donald Trump, and losing some of that initial base?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely, because he's somehow managing to alienate everyone on every side of this debate. In that interview last night with Hannity, he's essentially opening the door to comprehensive immigration reform. Yes, he was willing to take citizenship off the table. But when he says that he wants to work with illegal immigrants, what he's saying is that's probably some kind of legal status. This is the entire debate over the gang of eight that we went through in the Senate that, you know, Donald Trump said that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio weren't hard enough. And now he's adopting the most, you know, liberal position on the comprehensive immigration reform bill, although he's not using those words, because sincerely I don't think he understands that debate at all.

But if he's willing to give some kind of legal status to illegal immigrants, that goes against everything he said during the primary process. He's going to drive away people who are his most loyal supporters because they somehow believe that he would have the hardest line on immigration because he came out and talked about this ridiculous deportation force that was somehow going to knock on the doors of every home and haul people out and send them back to Mexico and other countries.

It was never feasible. Everyone in the Republican primary said this is ridiculous talk, you cannot do it this way, and he said, yes, I can, and now he's going back on his word, which we all said was going to happen. I just didn't think it was going to happen this soon.

HILL: Katrina, how do you square those two? He said very specifically, yes, he's going to build the wall, but he said, and I'm quoting, I just want to follow the law. We'll work with them. That's a big change.

PIERSON: Well, first, let me correct the record. First, Donald Trump did go to the community in the primary. It was in March, it was in Chicago. So I hope that CNN continues to correct that narrative moving forward by saying that he's never even tried to go to the community because he has. And secondly, he hasn't changed his position on immigration. He's changed the words that he is saying. What he has always said from the beginning is that he does not --

(LAUGHTER) CARPENTER: That would be a change.

PIERSON: No. That he does not want to allow people to stay in this country illegally. He does want to build a wall, but he wants to work with Congress to get --

(CROSSTALK)

CARPENTER: That tends to get things done.

PIERSON: And that's exactly what he has said from the beginning.

HILL: Katrina, he has said, get them out.

CARPENTER: Yes.

HILL: He's been very clear about this position. This is a change. This is a shift. This is a flip-flop. It's an evolution. Whatever words you want to use --

PIERSON: No, Erica, it's the how that's being discussed now. He's always said, if they're here illegally, they have to go. He's always said that.

HILL: Before he talked about the how, he said there will be a deportation force, so now he is shifting.

Katrina, there is a definite different message that we're hearing now.

PIERSON: There's not a different message. He's using different words to give that message, because everyone on the news is saying that he's a bigot and that he's a racist because of the words that he uses. Now he's simply saying yes, we're going to follow the law. We're going to enforce the law, which is immigration and customs. They do remove people from the country who are here illegally. He wants to start with the criminals.

I can point to several speeches he's given saying the exact same thing.

HILL: We are going to have to take a quick break, but stay with us. The entire panel is going to stay with us over the break. We'll continue to discuss this when we return.

Still to come as well, when it comes to her e-mails Hillary Clinton saying there are no excuses. What about the heat, though, she's taking for her foundation? We'll have more from her interview with Anderson Cooper and our panel. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:13] HILL: Hillary Clinton is preparing one of her sharpest attacks on Donald Trump yet. Linking his campaign into a conservative and politically volatile movement, known as the alt-right in a speech later today. Before she goes on the offensive, though, the former secretary of

state was forced to defend the Clinton Foundation from allegations of pay-to-play politics, telling Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview that the charges have no merit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: What Trump has said is ridiculous. My work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces. I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right to keep Americans say and to protect U.S. interest abroad. No wild political attacks 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.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: 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 --

COOPER: But didn't those unique circumstances exist when you were secretary of state?

CLINTON: If I'm elected.

COOPER: Didn't those unique circumstances exist --

CLINTON: No, no, you know, look, Anderson. I know there is a lot of smoke and there's no fire. This AP report put it in context. This 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.

[09:20:08] COOPER: According to "The New York Times" report, you told FBI investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised you to use a personal e-mail account. His response to that this past weekend was reportedly, quote, "her people are trying to pin it on me," and that quote, "The truth is she was using," talking about the private e-mail server, "for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did." He's talking about the private e-mail account.

Did you say that to FBI investigators and is Secretary Powell right? Were you using this private e-mail server prior to your conversation with him?

CLINTON: Well, look, I have the utmost respect for Secretary Powell, and he was incredibly gracious and helpful after I was nominated. 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 can sound 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 the 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)

HILL: I want to bring back our panel now as we continue our discussion. Tharon Johnson, Katrina Pierson, and Amanda Carpenter.

Good to have all of you still with us. A couple points to you first, Tharon. So this was Hillary Clinton's first national interview in nearly a month. There has been far more scrutiny and criticism of both her family's foundation, of the e-mail server issue, of her reluctance to speak to the press in that timeframe, and yet there were certain questions she still avoided. Anderson pushed her and said, you know, how are the unique circumstances different if you're president versus when you're secretary of state? And we didn't get a real answer on that. Is there a real answer there, and if so, what is it?

JOHNSON: Well, I think let's just start with the e-mails. I mean, listen. She said no -- you know, no excuses. I mean, it was a bad decision on her part. If she could do it over, she would do it differently again. And more importantly, she apologized. And so the only people who really continue to bring up the e-mail situation are the people who are running against her for president, and that is the Republican Party, particularly Donald Trump.

Now on the Clinton Foundation, what's very unfortunate is that there was sort of cherry-picking going on. But this is a foundation that does a lot of great work all across the world. I mean, they're in 70 countries, dealing with 11.5 million people, particularly helping people with this HIV and AIDS epidemic that we have in our country.

Now, when you look at these meetings and when they occurred and how they occurred, that's one thing. But as she pointed out, she met with over 2,000 world leaders. But as we go onto the campaign, I think that what you're going to see is that Hillary Clinton will have an open, honest conversation with the American people. She'll continue to talk about the e-mails at a time when really the country has moved on. But also with the Clinton Foundation, they are making steps. And let's also point out that this is a charitable organization that neither her nor President Clinton ever received any money from a salary from at all. So it's tied to her and it's tied to the campaign, but ultimately, I think she'll be fine and she'll be able to answer the questions.

HILL: No one's really making the case, though, that they don't do good work. Right? Plenty of people have said they do good work. But the issue is more, you say this isn't an issue. For a lot of Americans, it is still an issue. They have questions about things. And one of them is how these unique circumstances, which are the words that Hillary Clinton uses, how they'll be different when she's president versus when she's secretary of state. She has said there's smoke, that that AP report points out but there are a lot of things missing, there's no fire.

But you can't ignore the optics, Tharon, and the optics here leave a lot of Americans scratching their head and wondering again, how would things be different when she's president versus when she's secretary of state. Is there a clear answer on that?

JOHNSON: Well, one of the things that she also pointed out in her remarks is that there were extreme measures taken. There were definitely changes made to the foundation when she became secretary of state.

HILL: So why would you need anything further, then, as president? What's different?

JOHNSON: But now there have been criticisms that she should do it now. But again, this is a foundation, a charitable organization that's not, you know, run by her. Again, she doesn't receive a salary from it. But she has come forward last week and said, if she becomes president, President Clinton and herself, they would totally remove themselves from the foundation. To me, that's a very good step in the right direction of transparency and doing what's right if she becomes president of the United States. But I'm not --

HILL: We should point out "The Wall Street Journal" is saying, though, Chelsea Clinton will stay on with the foundation.

Amanda, I want to bring you in on this discussion because we just heard Tharon said that, you know, the e-mail it's not really an issue for a lot of people. She is getting praise this morning for the way she addressed it directly last night in that interview with Anderson.

[09:25:02] But, Amanda, at this point, is it too little too late to change anyone's mind?

CARPENTER: It's absolutely part of her record. It's good she is talking about it. But I've got to say, she sounded extremely defensive in that phone interview with Anderson last night. It's still like she's annoyed at these questions, she doesn't know why she has to answer them. And if you can't fake a smile through a phone interview, I don't know how she's going to make it through a presidential debate when Donald Trump is attacking her on it because it's completely fair game.

As for the foundation, she is absolutely going to have to freeze it, step away from it, because it just sounds like there's another set of rules for the Clintons. Listen, when I worked in the Senate, I remember Republican Senator Tom Coburn being investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee because he delivered babies in his spare time -- he's a doctor -- when he'd go home to Oklahoma. And people said that was a conflict of interest.

The Clinton Foundation is a conflict of interest on its face. All she has to do is say, listen, if I win the presidency, I want to devote my total energy to the most important job in the world. We're going to step away from it and she needs to shut it down because if she does win, her mandate is not going to be very big. Her trustworthy numbers are terrible, people don't like her. She's going to have to do something to heal that and show that she's taking steps to act in good faith with the American public.

HILL: Katrina, one of the other things she said last night to Anderson is that Donald Trump, in her words, is quote, "taking a hate movement mainstream." We know that Donald Trump is attempting to court more minority voters. He's going to be meeting with leaders later this morning.

Are you concerned at all about the messaging, where having him, you know, use the word bigot? She responds by saying it's a hate movement. There's been a lot of criticism for Donald Trump in the past. How do you counter that message, especially when some of that criticism, Katrina, falls from these board strokes that he has made about, for example, the African-American community in the United States?

PIERSON: Well, first, let me just say that this e-mail scandal was not a product of the Republicans or Donald Trump. This came from "The New York Times" breaking the initial story and you have three FBI field offices that want the Clinton Foundation investigated. So this is not some vast right-wing conspiracy. And the fact is that if Donald Trump wasn't talking about it, this is another Clinton scandal that would have been swept under the rug.

And with regards to what we're talking about with the minority vote here, make no mistake about it. This speech that Hillary Clinton is giving today is not about Donald Trump. She's going out there to try to paint Donald Trump as some right-wing extremist racist because she doesn't want to talk about her own connection to these minority communities. She doesn't want to talk about her open borders policy, her 100 days. Her first days in office are going to be providing amnesty.

She doesn't want to talk about her connection to keeping failed public schools open and all the policies that she has supported that contributed to the failures in those communities.

HILL: We're going to have to leave it there. Katrina Pierson, Tharon Johnson, Amanda Carpenter, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

Still to come, after slamming his GOP rivals for their stance on undocumented immigrants, Donald Trump appears poised to join them? I'll talk with one of his supporters about that seeming shift in policy, next.

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