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Trump, Clinton Swap Charges of Bigotry, Racial Bias; Trump Takes Pitch to Black Voters in Detroit; Hackers Target Election Systems; Trump Hits Clinton Over Weiner Sexting Scandal. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired August 30, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:04] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Race and ugly rhetoric casting a large shadow on the presidential showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Both campaigns trading jabs over charges of racism and mistreatment of minority voters. One Trump supporter himself an African-American fired off this tweet showing Clinton in black face. He apologized on CNN just a few hours ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PASTOR MARK BURNS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: It was, in hindsight, a horrible image to use. For me, the black face wasn't the focal point of the picture. For me when I saw it, it was showing how Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party panders after the black vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. There's a lot to cover as usual this morning. Jason Carroll is here to walk us through part of it. Good morning.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you. You know, this was supposed to be the day when much of the talk would be about Trump's muchly anticipated speech on immigration. But then you have a Trump surrogate, Pastor Mark Burns, apologizing for posting that picture that you saw, of Clinton in black face. Burns says he has not spoken to Trump and he repeatedly apologized for tweeting a cartoon he admitted was divisive.

And then you have the former head of the Klan, David Duke, putting out a robocall asking for voters to support him in the Senate and Trump for president, all this as Trump is trying to appeal to communities of color and moderate white voters.

First, listen to that robocall that went out to people in Louisiana.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID DUKE, FORMER IMPERIAL WIZARD OF THE KU KLUX KLAN: Unless massive immigration is stopped now, we'll be out numbered and outvoted in our own nation. It's happening. It's time to stand up and vote for Donald Trump for president and vote for me, David Duke, for the U.S. Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: The Trump campaign was criticized during the primary for not disavowing Duke's endorsement of Trump quickly enough. This time the Trump was quick to get out and disavow Duke's robocall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATRINA PIERSON, TRUMP SPOKESWOMAN: It's absolutely disturbing, the Trump campaign has no knowledge of the campaign that David Duke is running and we have disavowed David Duke and don't condone any of the activities that he's doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: The Trump campaign also released a statement saying there is no place in the Republican Party for Duke's racist views. The Trump camp now also looking ahead to tomorrow's speech on immigration. Trump's hard line supporters are concerned he is softening his position on using a deportation force as promised to deport some 11 million people living in the United States. This morning Trump did tweet about the wall he intends to build, saying, "From day one I said I was going to build a great wall in the southern border and much more. Stop illegal immigration, watch Wednesday."

I think a lot of people are going to be watching on Wednesday.

COSTELLO: I know I will be. And I know you, too. Jason Carroll, thanks so much.

All right. So let's talk about all of this. Joining is Rashida Tlaib, she's the founder of Moms Against Trump. She's also a former Michigan state representative.

Good morning, and thanks for being here.

RASHIDA TLAIB (D), FORMER MICHIGAN STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Rashida, when Donald Trump gave his economic speech in Detroit just a few months ago or just a few weeks ago actually, you were there and you were one of the people that protested, stood up and left the room.

Why didn't you just sit and listen to what Donald Trump had to say before protesting?

TLAIB: You know, this was the first time the Detroit Economic Club closed the doors as an option for us to actually ask questions. And as I got offered the ticket, I really wanted to ask him to do better. You know, my children listen to the other classmates, to the other folks in their summer camps talk about Muslims and talking about hard- working immigrants as rapists.

You know, our children are listening. And I think it's very clear to me that, you know, I will never be able to afford the kinds of tickets to get a face-to-face with Donald Trump at the various fundraisers and various events. And so for me it was really important that I stood up and speak out. You know, I even asked him, please read the Constitution. This is what we teach our children about our values through the Constitution. And it was really important for me to speak up.

I have to tell you, you know, I'm terrified as a mom. You know, raising two children of Muslim faith in America at a time where, you know, we're talking about segregating our country based on faith. We're talking about excluding immigrants from our neighborhoods and they've been so much part of the fabric of who we are, especially in Detroit.

COSTELLO: But -- well, let me ask you about this because Donald Trump is now reaching out to minority communities. He's going to go back to Detroit this weekend. He's going to sit down with a black pastor there who doesn't know whether he will endorse Mr. Trump or not. It may be a contentious meeting. This pastor said he's going to look Donald Trump in the eyes and ask him if he's a racist. So it's not going to be a pleasant conversation for Mr. Trump. But isn't it important that at least he's going to sit down with that black pastor and try?

TLAIB: Absolutely. Nothing I think is extremely important.

[10:05:03] I wish I could get that face-to-face time with Donald Trump. I think it's important for him to hear from a black pastor that every single day is dealing with the challenges of his members of his congregation. I mean, poverty in Detroit is high. The one thing that I keep telling people when they say well, Donald Trump is coming back, he must care, I said, look, we may not have a lot of money in the city of Detroit, many of our families, we all struggle, but we're not stupid.

We know we're getting bamboozled. It's obvious that he's getting desperate in wanting to come back and try to come off as sincere when many of us know the first time we ever heard about Donald Trump was when we heard about the lawsuit against himself when he was trying to exclude people away from his housing project. That's what's happening now in downtown Detroit, is this pushing out of black families, seniors, people that are poor outside of the downtown area.

COSTELLO: Rashida --

TLAIB: That's exactly what Trump did in his own backyard in New York.

COSTELLO: Is there anything -- is there anything Mr. Trump can say to you that would change your mind about him?

TLAIB: You know, win or lose in this election, Donald Trump can do something about poverty now. Why isn't he acting now? He has the resources to do something to try to alleviate poverty among children in the city of Detroit. He could act now.

COSTELLO: Well, he would say that he created a lot of jobs in his many businesses. That's what he would say.

TLAIB: Look, a lot of us can say that. But when you have an unemployment rate like we do in the city of Detroit, he's not obviously not focused on people of color.

COSTELLO: All right. Rashida Tlaib, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

TLAIB: Thank you.

COSTELLO: And I want to talk some more about this. You're welcome.

So I want to talk more about this, I'm joined by Scottie Nell Hughes, she's a Trump supporter and CNN political commentator, and Jason Johnson is the politics editor for TheRoot.com and political science and communications professor at Morgan State University. He's worked on both Republican and Democratic campaigns.

So, Scottie, you heard Rashida. I asked, is there anything Mr. Trump can say to change her mind about him, and it didn't appear there was anything. So does Mr. Trump have a hard road convincing minority voters that he's for them?

SCOTTIE NELL HUGHES, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, that is one -- that is one mother right there. And I respect her. I think she's doing a great job trying to build a better country, build a better world for her children. And I commend her for that. But to sit there and talk about a problem without giving solutions is how we've ended up in what we're dealing with today and why folks are looking for someone on the outside of government. And she tried to blame the poverty of Detroit and what's going on right now within her own city that she was a legislator of for the last six years on Donald Trump who has nothing to do with it.

Why don't you look right now at the policies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama of the last eight years that has allowed housing ownership among African-Americans to go down, poverty to go up, for the actual -- for crimes to go up --

COSTELLO: Well, you could argue that by saving the auto industry that the Obama administration and the Bush administration, too, because he initiated it, did create jobs and did help Detroit and did give people jobs.

HUGHES: Yet they're still ranked very low when it comes to the economy and economic recovery. They're only at a 1 percent which is about what the national average is. And many car dealerships and car manufacturers moved to states like Tennessee, a no income tax, where they now have Nissan and Volkswagen and others because of the oppression of the labor unions.

COSTELLO: No. They wanted to get -- they wanted to get rid of the unions. Right? And let's face it, they moved south so they didn't have to pay their workers so much. It was cheaper to do business there. That was part of it, too. Right?

HUGHES: I disagree. I disagree. Their workers are very, very happy. If you go to these plants --

COSTELLO: I'm not saying they're not happy. I didn't say that.

HUGHES: And they paid very well.

COSTELLO: I'm just saying that's part of the reason they moved from like places like Ohio and Illinois and Michigan.

So, Jason Johnson --

HUGHES: Well --

COSTELLO: Is there -- I mean, Donald Trump is going to go to Detroit. He's going to sit down with this pastor and it won't be a pleasant meeting because this pastor is going to -- he's going to ask Donald Trump some very tough questions. So isn't it noteworthy that Donald Trump is at least going to do this?

JASON JOHNSON, POLITICS EDITOR, THEROOT.COM: No, not at all. Look, Carol, and Scottie, I respect Scottie and I, you know, I understand that Trump has a campaign to run. It's 70-something days. People need to get paid and need to do their jobs, but this is not going to work. And it's not going to work because the American people have seen what Donald Trump has said about people of color over the last 18 months.

You don't even have to go back to the 1970s. If you have somebody who is running for president of the United States who says that a sitting judge can't do their job because they have Mexican parents, that is racist. And consequently African-American voters are very inclined to say, look, if you're hostile towards Muslims who 20 percent of African-Americans in this country are Muslims, and you're hostile toward Mexican Americans, you're probably not going to be all that pleasant towards us.

So I don't understand why the Trump campaign actually thinks that this new plan is actually going to work one way or another. He'd be better off doing work in North Carolina and Ohio to increase early voting because Trump needs to get out all the white voters he can.

[10:10:04] He's not going to do well with African-Americans, he's not going to do well with Latinos.

COSTELLO: But --

JOHNSON: No matter how many churches he goes to.

COSTELLO: But still, isn't it important that he's going, Jason? I mean --

JOHNSON: No. No.

COSTELLO: Do you just want him --

JOHNSON: It's like Chris Rock, you know, the comedian used to say, like, you don't get credit for doing what you're supposed to do? If you're running for president of the United States, you're supposed to want to talk to everybody. Why are we giving Donald Trump credit for actually going to a city and talking to voters? You shouldn't get credit for that. That's your job. Hillary Clinton can go to places in the south, she can go to places in the north, that's what you're supposed to do.

COSTELLO: Scottie?

HUGHES: The hypocrisy right now -- the hypocrisy of this, Carol, is really interesting because on one hand you have my friend there -- by the way, I'm not paid by the Trump campaign, not a member of the Trump campaign, I'm doing this on my own dime.

JOHNSON: I understand. OK.

HUGHES: But just to correct that. You know, originally the last nine months he's been going to the African-American community, learn about -- going to Hispanic community. Mr. Trump is now doing that. He did it back in Chicago back in the spring and we had violent riots that caused him to have to leave and not be able to hold so he has tried. But yet Hillary Clinton has yet to reach out --

COSTELLO: Wait a minute. Let's --

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: That has nothing to do with it.

COSTELLO: That has nothing to do with it.

JOHNSON: Yes.

COSTELLO: He held a rally. And if he was afraid of that particular neighborhood, there are other neighborhoods within Chicago that actually have African-Americans populating it.

JOHNSON: Yes.

COSTELLO: Really? Is that --

HUGHES: You had the African-Americans celebrating, they actually sent out a fundraising e-mail --

JOHNSON: Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm sorry -- I don't remember that.

HUGHES: Talking about how they ran Trump.

JOHNSON: I don't remember black people getting together and having a huge celebration. Look, Donald Trump is --

HUGHES: They said that they ran Trump --

JOHNSON: -- running for president. He was running for president. What you're saying, Scottie, is that all black people were celebrating because of something that happened. That's like when Trump said that all Muslims were celebrating 911. This is the problem. HUGHES: No, I said that some were celebrating. Watch my words.

JOHNSON: He needs to focus on simply running for president of the United States. And not characterizing all people of color.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Scottie, what?

HUGHES: Listen, I said some were celebrating.

JOHNSON: Now you said some.

HUGHES: There was even e-mails sent out by MoveOn.org celebrating that they had run Donald Trump out of Chicago. But to my point.

JOHNSON: Some.

HUGHES: Hillary Clinton has yet to come and actually talk to us, maybe Christian conservatives, evangelicals, us gun-toting, baby loving southerners or westerners, she has yet to try to outreach to us. So as much as you wanted to sit there and criticize --

JOHNSON: Did she not campaign --

HUGHES: -- Donald Trump for -- I have yet to see her go to a gun show and say, why do you folks want to hold -- why are you clinging to your gun as your bible so much? Learning all points of view.

JOHNSON: That was Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton didn't say that.

HUGHES: She has not done anything to outreach to the other side. So the hypocrisy of saying they have to reach out to one group yet ignore and more importantly demonize like she did in her speech I think is unfair.

COSTELLO: All right.

JOHNSON: Let me make this clear. I'm not supporting Hillary Clinton. We're talking about Donald Trump needing to do a better job in talking to minorities. And he hasn't done a good job. Hillary Clinton has got 90 percent of the black vote. Trump is the one who needs to put some work in. That's a fact.

HUGHES: But she has very low of the Christian evangelical vote.

COSTELLO: All right, I've got --

HUGHES: Only 18 percent of that group is supporting her right now.

COSTELLO: I got to stop it here. Thanks, Scottie. We get your point. Scottie Nell Hughes, Jason Johnson, thanks to both of you.

The FBI now investigating an apparent breach of election systems earlier this year. Officials say hackers may have targeted databases in Arizona and Illinois, compromising hundreds of thousands of voters' personal information.

Evan Perez in Washington with more. Good morning.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. We're talking about these two attempted hacks in Illinois and in Arizona. In the case of Illinois, the election authorities there say that hackers did manage to get in and they apparently stole the personal data of as many as 200,000 voters there in that state. The FBI is investigating that.

In Arizona it appears that someone might have tried to get in. It's not clear that they actually did. But the FBI is also investigating whether or not this is just a couple of many other incidents that are targeting election authorities around the country.

In the case of Illinois, what appears to be happening according to officials we've been talking to is that criminal hackers are trying to steal the personal data of these voters and that includes their names and addresses, their Social Security numbers, their phone numbers, things that are valuable for the -- to sell on the Internet for these hackers.

At this point they don't know who is behind this. The suspicion is that they might be criminal groups in eastern Europe who are behind this -- Carol.

COSTELLO: OK. Because there are rumors out there that Russian hackers are behind this, too. I think Senator Harry Reid believes that. Is that true?

PEREZ: Well, we don't know that just yet. I think one of the things that we have to be careful about is to address whether or not this should undermine people's confidence in the election system. According to officials that we've been talking to, there's nothing to indicate that that is the case. We should underscore that the voting systems, the machines and the tabulation systems are not connected to the Internet in both these states and that's generally the case around the country.

So that's one way for you to address that issue. Obviously there is some concerns here because it is an election year and that's one reason why the FBI sent out an alert to all states to make sure that their security is up to par.

[10:15:06] COSTELLO: Evan Perez, reporting live for us. Thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump speaks out on Anthony Weiner's latest sexting scandal. Why some of his supporters are pushing back and urging the candidate to stay on message.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Donald Trump pounces on Anthony Weiner's latest sexting scandal. On Monday Weiner's wife and top aide to Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, announced her split from the former congressman after explicit photo surfaced to the "New York Post." Now Trump says their marriage may be a matter of national security. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: In the case of Anthony Weiner, she's married to a guy that is uncontrolled and uncontrollable. He's a sick person, and, you know, she has access to classified information. Huma Abedin has access to classified information. How Hillary got away with one, nobody will ever know.

[10:20:04] But to think that it's very likely that much of this information Anthony Weiner would know about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. So let's talk about this with CNN political analyst and former Clinton administration official Kirsten Power. I'm also joined again by CNN political commentator and Trump supporter Scottie Nell Hughes.

Welcome to both of you.

Scottie, last night on Erin Burnett's show, she talked to Trump's friend and business associate Tom Barrack. Here's what he had to say about Donald Trump making this a campaign issue. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SEAN DUFFY (R), TRUMP SUPPORTER: To make the leap that Anthony Weiner is a security threat I disagree with. I think there are so many issues out there to discuss in regard to security breaches with regard to Hillary Clinton and with Huma, to take the leap to Anthony Weiner I think is a mistake.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: So when he comes out now and he talks about Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin, that's the kind of stuff you don't want to hear him talking about?

TOM BARRACK, CLOSE FRIEND AND BUSINESS ASSOCIATE OF DONALD TRUMP: Yes. Personally I don't because I think it detracts from the substance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. So those two Trump supporters. Scottie, do you agree with them?

HUGHES: I do. I agree. I saw Representative Duffy's interview last and I thought it was very respectful. And I think he was right on target. This is a personal issue. My heart hurts for what Huma is having to do. But I imagine, like any strong woman, she might be torn to shreds inside. But today she's coming out with a smile on her face because that's what's needed. And I think this is a matter that she's asked to be kept private and needs to handle within the inside.

Now I do say going forward if Hillary Clinton was to be elected president, there might be some issues at that point whether or not be blackmail or weakness, but I don't think in the past this is something that we need to be talking about. And let them handle their own house and get it in order. They've got enough trouble.

COSTELLO: Do you think there's anything to the allegations that Donald Trump made, though, Scottie?

HUGHES: Well, I mean, obviously Huma was around some very secretive -- we look at the e-mails and the e-mails that have been leaked. So she was definitely around some very classified information in the past as Hillary Clinton is secretary of state. But there's no evidence of that right now that that was leaked out or that that was in any way that Anthony Weiner ever had access to that, even if it was just pillow talk.

So I think this is just -- once again, Mr. Trump bringing the focus in on talking about e-mails and lack of security amongst Clinton and her staffers. And I think that's where his focus was meaning at that point. But like I said, I think this is an issue that we just -- we need to let them handle on their own.

COSTELLO: And, Kirsten, we know that Mr. Trump has a problem with women voters. Does this hurt, help his cause?

KRISTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I don't know if it will hurt it, but it definitely won't help it. The problem with this, like so many of the Trump accusations, is there's just not one shred of evidence to support that this ever happened. So he's suggesting because he thinks these things about Anthony Weiner that then somehow Huma must have shared this information even though we have no reason to believe that she would ever do that.

This is not somebody who -- anyone who has ever, you know, been under the impression is sharing information she shouldn't be sharing. Pillow talk, I don't think people usually are sharing classified information in pillow talk. They shouldn't be. It's something that violates an oath that they have taken. And so I also think it's again, he's attacking somebody really at one of the lowest moments of her life, in very similar way that he did with the Khan family where you have grieving parents and he's attacking people who are really dealing with things that you would never want to have to deal with. And it's very, very unseemly.

COSTELLO: I will say that Huma Abedin has become this lightning rod. Her name pops up all the time and Hillary Clinton's opponents sometimes use her quite effectively. At one point will Hillary Clinton sit back and reconsider or should she?

POWERS: I can't imagine that Hillary Clinton would ever get rid of Huma Abedin, nor should she, frankly. But I think that this is somebody who is -- has been with her for decades, it's her closest aide, it's a person that she trusts the most in the world. It's someone that she has said is like a daughter to her. So, you know, I don't see this as being somebody whose job is in jeopardy at all. The fact that you have political opponents making hay about her doesn't mean that she's done anything wrong. I think we need to remember that. Yes, a lot of people have tried to make her a lightning rod but when you look at a lot of accusations, there's no there-there. COSTELLO: And I think, Scottie, there may be a danger here. You want

women to support one another through times of trouble. If Hillary Clinton were to dump Huma Abedin, what would that say about her as a support of colleague woman, mentor?

HUGHES: No -- absolutely. And Mr. Trump did praise her -- he praised her for the move that she made in getting rid of Anthony Weiner at this stage in the game. But let's remember, back -- you know, when Hillary Clinton was going through and she stood by Bill Clinton's side amongst all of his scandals, she did receive some criticism, why are you keeping with him after he's treated you like this? I think her standing by Huma's decision and saying you know what, every woman has to make their own decision based on their family and their situation, it's not one for me to judge, I think it would actually look negative if she did get rid of her.

[10:25:08] But now this latest batch of e-mails, I will give Huma credit that's come that we're seeing is that Huma actually was very -- she as very cautious right now about what Hillary Clinton was doing with not keeping her e-mails secure, her servers secure and she actually was talking with other staffers going, how do we try to beef up the security because of what's going on. What Hillary is doing is not right and it's putting us at risk.

So I think Huma has been a very good stable voice among Hillary Clinton in the past. And I'm hoping, you know, that through this situation she did the right thing by saying professionally I don't want to detract from the election. But I think it was more about personal reasons why ultimately she decided to give Weiner the door.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Kirsten Powers, Scottie Nell Hughes, thanks to both of you.

POWERS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, big names, big states, both parties. We'll look at some top lawmakers facing primary battles today.

And Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will share the stage but not the strategy when they face off in next month's debate.

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