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State of the Union
Interview With Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; Interview With Secretary of Labor Tom Perez; Interview With Arizona Senator Jeff Flake; FBI's Report On Hillary Clinton's Email Investigation. Aired 9- 10a ET
Aired September 04, 2016 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:10]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Outreach meets outrage, Donald Trump greeted by protesters as he visits a black church in Detroit.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The African-American faith community has been one of God's greatest gifts to America.
TAPPER: Can he make headway with minority voters?
Plus, meet the new Trump, same as the old Trump? Trump follows his diplomatic mission to Mexico...
TRUMP: It is a great honor to be invited by you, Mr. President.
TAPPER: ... with a heated speech on immigration.
TRUMP: And then we get them out.
TAPPER: Should Republicans waiting for a pivot stop holding their breath?
And less than total recall. Hillary Clinton claims faulty memory when answering 39 questions about her e-mail server -- the new details revealed in an FBI report.
Plus, the best political minds will be here with insights from the campaign trail.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TAPPER: Hello. I am Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is a bit breathless.
We are, in fact, just 65 days away from picking our next president. Labor Day weekend is considered the unofficial kickoff of the campaign, although, this year, it feels more like the start of the homestretch of an endless and endlessly fascinating election.
After spending most of August hobnobbing with the well-to-do to fund- raise, Hillary Clinton hits the campaign trail tomorrow, appearing at two Labor Day parades, while President Clinton, Vice President Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders stump for her across the country.
Her rival, Donald Trump, spent yesterday at an African-American church attending services at Great Faith Ministries in Detroit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm here today to learn, so that we can together remedy in justice in any form, and so that we can also remedy economics, so that the African-American community can benefit economically through jobs and income, and so many other different ways.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Trump is trying to make headway with minority voters, but he might have his work cut out for him if polls and the angry protests outside the church are any indication.
Joining me now to talk about this all is former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a supporter of Donald Trump.
Mr. Mayor, thanks for joining us.
RUDY GIULIANI (R), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK: Hi, Jake. How are you?
TAPPER: Good. Thank you so much.
Donald Trump making an effort yesterday to reach out to African- Americans. It seems to have been welcomed by those inside the church.
But, I have to say, in interviews, many African-Americans say they are still troubled by Mr. Trump having suggested over and over, falsely, that the first African-American president was born in Africa, and thus ineligible to be president.
GIULIANI: You know, the interesting thing is, the first one that made that claim was Hillary Clinton.
TAPPER: Well, not her, her herself, people around her.
GIULIANI: Her campaign did.
They were the first ones that brought it up. And finally it was resolved after Donald Trump raised it. So, they maybe have a faulty memory there as to where that issue first came from and what first suggested it to them. It was the Clinton campaign.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: That's fair enough, sir, to say the people around the Clinton campaign brought that up.
But, as you say, it was resolved in 2011, when he released his birth certificate. Donald Trump, talking about this as recently as February of last year at CPAC, saying that he thinks the birth certificate is false.
Should he just apologize for this to let -- if he really wants to reach out to minority voters?
GIULIANI: You know, if everybody apologized for all the things they said in politics, all we would be doing on television shows is apologizing.
Maybe a lot of the Democrats should apologize for calling Donald Trump a racist and calling him all kinds of terrible names. And it gets a little silly. Let's get down to the basic issue here.
For years, people say Republicans don't reach out to the African- American community. Well, he reached out to the African-American community. Maybe it isn't the message of left-wing Democratic politics, which, in my view, having been the mayor of a city that was rotting when I took it over, on the front cover of "TIME" magazine as the rotting of the Big Apple because of years of liberal Democratic policies -- New York could be Detroit, if I hadn't turned it around, if I hadn't lowered taxes, gotten jobs for people, gotten jobs for people on welfare, and straightened out a good deal of the education system, and moved away from dependency.
I moved 600,000 people off welfare, 500,000 people with jobs.
TAPPER: Right.
GIULIANI: So, now you compare New York to Detroit and Baltimore, and you look at the number of crimes in both of those cities and you look at New York, you look at the unemployment rates, you look at the economic opportunities, and you see that I think Donald Trump is the first Republican since Jack Kemp, and me, to go into minority poor communities and say, the Democrats have failed you for 50 years, and you are reflexively giving them your vote, and they are going from bad to worse.
[09:05:22]
Food stamps have gone up two-and-a-half times under -- under -- food stamps have gone up two-and-a-half times under Barack Obama. He should be ashamed of himself. Jobs should have gone up two-and-a-half times.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: I take your point.
My only -- my only point is that many African-Americans are still mad about Donald Trump having tried to invalidate Barack Obama by claiming he was born in Africa. But we're obviously not going to get anywhere.
I want to ask you about Mr. Trump's trip to Mexico, because you played a pivotal role in that.
GIULIANI: Right.
TAPPER: The Mexican president says that he began this meeting by saying that Mexico would not pay for the wall that Donald Trump wants to build. And according to "The Wall Street Journal," you immediately jumped in.
What did you say?
GIULIANI: No. What I said was, it was off the table.
We had -- we had ground rules for this meeting. And one of them was, we were not going to discuss paying for the wall, because that's not something we're going to agree about.
What we wanted to do was to find areas of common agreement. And maybe the president's staff didn't brief him on it. Maybe the president forgot it. But, I mean, he brought it up. It wasn't right at the very beginning. It was sort of in a middle of a sentence.
And I just briefly said, that's not on the table. And the reality is, they have a disagreement over that. But they found many areas of agreement. I will tell you one really interesting one is trade. Mexico is suffering from the same trade problems with China that we're suffering from.
All the same complaints that you hear from Donald Trump, President Pena Nieto would say exactly the same thing, the same kind of dumping, the same kind of violation of a lot of the trade rules and regulations.
And they're bringing cases against Mexico and against China, and they're going nowhere. So, one of the things we have said we could do is, we could join together in an alliance between the United States and Mexico and see if we could bolster ourselves in terms of fair trade with China.
We also found common ground in illegal immigration. They have a tremendous amount of illegal immigration into Mexico from El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua. Some stay in Mexico, creating a problem for them.
And then a lot of the people coming across the Mexican border are not Mexicans. They're people from the countries I just mentioned.
TAPPER: Right.
GIULIANI: In some cases, ISIS has made clear they're going to take advantage of that open border to bring terrorists there.
And on the question of the wall, basically, the president of Mexico said, that's your decision to make. You know, it's your decision whether to put up a wall or not.
TAPPER: So -- so...
GIULIANI: So, it was mostly -- it was mostly a very good, very productive conversation.
I think -- I think Donald Trump learned a lot of what he probably knew anyway , but it reinforced a lot of what we knew about trade and what we knew about areas in which we can agree. And, look, like with all of our allies, we're going to have areas of
agreement, we're going to have areas of disagreement. And I think what Donald Trump displayed was his ability to be a president.
TAPPER: So, and a lot of pundits, even those who are skeptical of Donald Trump, seemed to give that meeting very high marks.
There are reports that you and Governor Chris Christie, among others, have been internally in the Trump campaign pushing Trump to do things more like that, more presidential in tone, for want of a better word.
But later that day, Trump went to Arizona and he gave an immigration speech that was perceived as so harsh, that even the Republican National Committee scrapped plans to praise that speech.
In a way, sir, did your side of the struggle within the Trump campaign win the morning, but lose the night?
(LAUGHTER)
GIULIANI: No. We won both. And both sides won. And there aren't two sides.
I think if you -- you have to read the AP story that came out of that speech. The AP story says Donald Trump retreats on mass deportation. It is true the speech was delivered in, I would say, a dramatic style, because it was a rally audience.
But if you read that speech carefully, that speech is consistent with what he said in the past, and it leaves a very big opening for what will happen with the people that remain here in the United States after the criminals are removed and after the border is secure.
And he says in a very, very important sentence, which everybody seemed to ignore but AP, he says there that, at that time, when America is safe, we will be open to all of the options, meaning that Donald Trump, as he expressed in one of his interviews recently, would find it very, very difficult to throw out a family that's been here for 15 years, and they have three children, two of whom are citizens.
And that is not the kind of America he wants. His main focus of that speech, and I think the reason for the emotion in it was because of all of those mothers who came up whose children were killed by illegal criminal immigrants.
[09:10:15]
TAPPER: Right. But...
GIULIANI: And all of the policies, all 10 policies are largely directed toward criminal illegal immigrants, which the Obama administration releases into the streets of our city.
TAPPER: So, let me just...
(CROSSTALK) GIULIANI: Which is actually -- they have an insane policy. I was a prosecutor most of my life.
TAPPER: But, Mr. Mayor...
GIULIANI: Called catch -- catch and release.
TAPPER: But, Mr. Mayor...
GIULIANI: They catch criminals, and they release them.
TAPPER: I just want to -- I just want to understand what you're saying here.
So, Mr. Trump will not be trying to kick out the dreamers, he will not be having a deportation force, and he no longer wants to get all 11 million undocumented immigrants out of this country?
GIULIANI: What he -- what -- what he said in the speech is, after we secure the border and after we remove the criminal illegal immigrants, to a large extent -- you're never going to get to 100 percent -- then and only then can we look at this in a very rational way in which we can look at all the options and be open to all the options.
TAPPER: And he doesn't want to separate families, as you say?
GIULIANI: Well, I would say that would be one of the things that would be pretty clear.
There are other options too. I mean, it's going to depend on the person. Some of these people could have been on welfare for the last 30 years, or taking benefits or cheating. And maybe some of them have to be thrown out, but not necessarily all of them.
And that's the point that he was making in the speech. And I agree with you, that point got lost to some extent in the emotion of the moment. And the emotion of the moment were the 12 mothers -- I think 10 mothers and two fathers who came up who have been killed by illegal immigrants released because of the incompetent policies of the Obama administration, which Hillary Clinton is just going to continue.
TAPPER: All right. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much. We appreciate your time, as always.
GIULIANI: Thank you.
TAPPER: The FBI releasing details about its investigation into Hillary Clinton, including questions about an e-mail she sent to President Obama. What does the report reveal? Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:16:15]
TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.
A holiday weekend such as this one for most people means barbecues and the beach. Over at the FBI, it means it's time for a document dump.
On Friday, the FBI released details of its investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server, including a summary of her interview at FBI headquarters. The agency determined no criminal behavior. But the report does suggest, at the very least, a lack of understanding by Clinton about classification methods.
Joining me here to discuss this and much more is Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who we should point out is here in his personal capacity as a Hillary Clinton supporter, not as a member of the Cabinet.
Mr. Perez, I will call you.
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: Thanks for being here.
THOMAS PEREZ, U.S. SECRETARY OF LABOR: Great to be here in my personal capacity. And happy Labor Day to everybody.
TAPPER: Thank you so much.
I know you're eager to talk about Donald Trump and his trip to Mexico.
But, first, I have to ask you about this FBI report.
PEREZ: Sure.
TAPPER: It says that on 39 separate occasions, Clinton told the FBI she did not recall or remember key elements of the training or classified information process.
That's not the kind of thing that fills a lot of voters, I think, with confidence, given all the doubts about her honesty and trustworthiness.
PEREZ: Well, listen, it was Secretary Clinton who wanted all these documents released, because she wanted to make sure that everything was out there.
She has said many times that she should not have had a personal server. She accepts responsibility for that. And the reason she wanted these reports released is because they show that the Justice Department conducted a very, very thorough review and concluded that there was no reason to move forward.
TAPPER: But you have said she wanted those e-mails out, but the FBI also found about 15,000 e-mails that she should have turned over to the State Department, but did not.
PEREZ: Well, again, all those things are being discussed right now. And she has said, if there are other documents out there that the State Department has found or anyone else has found out there, bring them out there, bring them into the sunlight.
I am hard-pressed to think of an issue that has been more thoroughly discussed. And what we see from the Justice Department, from Jim Comey, you know, deputy attorney general in the Bush administration, was that they looked at this thoroughly, and there was no reason to move forward.
And that's what the report that was released Friday shows, and that's what the evidence shows.
TAPPER: Take a listen to Secretary Clinton last October when I asked her about whether or not she should have known better than to use this private e-mail server because of the potential for classified information getting into the wrong hands. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I dealt with classified information very carefully and seriously. I usually met with people to discuss it. It was delivered to me in hard copy, so marked. And then, when I traveled, I had one of those tents, because we were afraid of prying eyes from certain governments, that I would read classified material in.
So, I'm very familiar with the importance of treating classified information as it should be, with great care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So, she says she is very familiar with how classified information should be treated. And yet, in the FBI report, she says she didn't pay attention to the level of classification and she thought the C marking stood for paragraph orders.
It doesn't sound like somebody very familiar with the classification system.
PEREZ: Well, again, but if you look at the report that the FBI issued, you will see that there were a lot of markings that were, at times, incorrect and ambiguous, and weren't in keeping with what the Department of Justice would have in place when they're marking documents that are confidential.
So, again, she has discussed this. And the -- and she is the first to acknowledge that she shouldn't have had a personal server. And she has learned a lot from this. And she recognizes that she shouldn't have done that. And she has said it many times.
And the FBI report, they looked at it thoroughly. A lot of these documents were retroactively reclassified. So, the classification system presented challenges as well.
[09:20:04]
So, again, I think this has been investigated very, very thoroughly. And she understands that she shouldn't have done it, and I think she has learned a lot from it.
TAPPER: Let's talk about illegal immigration, especially as it pertains to the campaign trail.
PEREZ: Sure.
TAPPER: You just heard Mayor Giuliani say that, in Trump's immigration speech on Wednesday, there actually is an opening for non- criminal undocumented immigrants to maybe stay in this country.
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: That's certainly not the impression a lot of people who listened to the speech got.
What did you make of what the mayor had to say?
(LAUGHTER)
PEREZ: Well, Donald Trump should have gone to the Olympics as a gymnast, because there's a lot of contortionism there.
I mean, let's face it. If you are trying to be -- first of all, kind and gentle and Donald Trump are never in the same sentence. It's an oxymoron. And you look at what he did throughout this campaign, including this past week, and it's doubling down against immigrants.
He wants to deport 16 million undocumented immigrants. He wants to deport four million U.S. citizens, children of undocumented immigrants, by repealing birthright citizenship. I mean, if you're trying to get kinder and gentler, it's a curious strategy to have Joe Arpaio introduce you at a speech.
Joe Arpaio has been held in contempt for racial profiling Latinos by a judge appointed by George W. Bush. Joe Arpaio is one of -- I think he stands for what Donald Trump stands for, and that is, Mexicans are rapists, they're -- if I had been Donald, the first thing I would have done with the president is apologized for making those obnoxious...
TAPPER: To the Mexican president.
PEREZ: ... and unconscionable remarks.
So, when you look at Donald Trump and what he has said and what he has done, last week is a perfect illustration of why he is unfit to be president, because these are turbulent times. And you need a steady hand. Hillary Clinton is a steady hand. He is a loose cannon.
TAPPER: Let me ask you on the subject of what to do with the undocumented immigrants. Take a listen to President Bill Clinton at the 1995 State of the Union address.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1995)
BILL CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected, but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal
immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: As a policy matter, how is that different from what Donald Trump is proposing?
PEREZ: Donald Trump is proposing to deport four million U.S.-born children of undocumented parents.
Donald Trump believes that you cannot do anything in this country, basically, if you are an undocumented immigrant. Donald Trump has said that he is going to repeal the dreamer program, so that that young woman I read about recently who was at the top of her class, a dreamer who started, I think, at Yale, she is out of luck.
Donald Trump, you know, has said that Mexicans are rapists and murderers -- or rapists and drug dealers. And that's -- you judge a person by their actions. And Donald Trump has repeatedly sent a very clear signal. And when you are hanging out with the likes of Joe Arpaio, you're sending a very clear signal to the Latino community that, you know what, I am not with you.
I mean, if you are waiting for Donald Trump -- if you're holding your breath for Donald Trump to come up with a sensible Latin outreach strategy or African-American outreach strategy, you're going to die of asphyxia, because he doesn't have one.
TAPPER: Tom Perez, the labor secretary, who is here in his personal capacity as a Hillary Clinton supporter, thanks so much for joining us.
And happy Labor Day to you, sir.
PEREZ: Thank you.
TAPPER: Coming up: bad blood. Donald Trump slammed John McCain, saying the prisoner of war was not a hero. Now McCain takes a jab at Trump in a new campaign ad. See what the Arizona senator had to say next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:28:34]
TAPPER: It's been 20 years since the state of Arizona went blue in a presidential contest.
But after Donald Trump's tough immigration speech there Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton's campaign announced a six-figure ad buy in the state, making a play for the Grand Canyon state, as polling shows a competitive race there.
Here's Mr. Trump in Arizona.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: While there are many illegal immigrants in our country who are good people, many, many, this doesn't change the fact that most illegal immigrants are lower-skilled workers with less education who compete directly against vulnerable American workers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Noticeably absent from the event, Arizona's Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who has loudly disagreed with Trump.
And he joins us now.
Senator, good to see you. Thanks for joining us.
SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: Thanks for having me on.
TAPPER: So, the last time we spoke, you said you did not know what you were going to do on Election Day. You must have a pretty good idea by now, though.
If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?
FLAKE: I would not vote for Hillary Clinton. And, as of now, I would still not vote for Donald Trump.
TAPPER: So, if you -- if you don't want to vote for either of them, would you vote for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian?
FLAKE: You can always write somebody in.
So, I just know that I would like to vote for Donald Trump. It's not comfortable to not support your nominee. But, given the positions that he has taken and the tone and tenor of his campaign, I simply can't.
TAPPER: The RNC was planning to praise Donald Trump's speech on immigration in your home state a few days ago.
FLAKE: Right.
[09:30:00]
FLAKE: Right.
TAPPER: But once officials of the RNC heard the speech, they dropped plans to praise the speech. That's pretty remarkable for the RNC not to praise a speech of the Republican nominee.
FLAKE: Well, it was a pretty remarkable speech in that it just really doubled down on a lot of the rhetoric that he has used before, and it really didn't explain with any clarity where he is going to move ahead in the future. It simply went back to some of the positions he has taken.
TAPPER: You didn't buy Rudy Giuliani's explanation earlier this morning saying that there was a line in there that people didn't pay enough attention to that would allow for possibly a discussion of letting undocumented immigrants stay in this country after the ones who have committed other criminal acts are deported.
FLAKE: Well, if it was there it was buried pretty deep. And no, I didn't catch it.
There was just the statement that you're going back. And think of that for a bit. If you have 11 million would are undocumented here, a lot of those are children who are brought across the border when they were 2 years old, say. What he is saying is that they would all have to go back -- or this is what I heard -- and then that they would perhaps be able to come back here in the future. But if there aren't visa categories to accept those who have been deported, then they wouldn't be able to come back. Or they would have to remain out for a long period of time until some -- I guess some vague talk of a commission would create a visa category for them to come back.
TAPPER: So Hillary Clinton's campaign, after the speech in Arizona, as I am sure you know, announced that they would take out a 6-figure ad buy in Arizona.
It's been 20 years since the state went for a Democratic presidential nominee. But take a look at the CNN poll it shows Trump ahead of Clinton but only by five points. Do you think that Trump is comfortably ahead, or does Clinton have a chance of winning Arizona?
FLAKE: Well it shouldn't be close. You know, we went big, I think, eight points for Mitt Romney last time. Arizona should still be a red state. But Donald Trump, with the rhetoric that he has used and the characterizations of, you know, many of the state's population have put the state in play. And unfortunately, you know, that leads to Democrats spending a lot of money here. Unfortunately for Republicans.
I think John McCain will be fine. He did very well in the primary last week. A lot of the down-ballot Republicans will be fine as long as they aren't seen as, you know, believing the same things that Donald Trump believes in
TAPPER: So you think Hillary Clinton could win Arizona potentially because of Donald Trump's rhetoric?
FLAKE: Yes. I do.
TAPPER: Senator John McCain, as you know, he's up for re-election this year. Take a listen to this from his new campaign video.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: If Hillary Clinton is elected president, Arizona will need a senator who will act as a check, not a rubber stamp, for the White House. (END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: It's interesting McCain presenting himself as a check on a President Clinton rather than as an ally of President Trump who -- he doesn't even mention Donald Trump in the video. Is this the right argument for Republicans to be making, essentially the same argument Republicans made in 1986 when they were convinced that Bob Dole was going to lose?
FLAKE: Well, I've said that I think Republicans do need to distance themselves from Donald Trump.
I am not suggesting that John McCain has to do that. He is running a smart campaign and he has broad and deep support here. But I do think it's a position that Republicans ought to take. We cannot, for the future of the party, be associated with this kind of message and with this kind of tone and tenor. It's just -- it's not good for the party. It really isn't.
TAPPER: When you listen to Hillary Clinton's speech about Donald Trump appealing to the darker parts of this country, appealing to racism essentially, did you agree or disagree with what she had to say?
FLAKE: Well, I have been saying that long before Hillary Clinton was talking about it. I think a lot of us have been. I think that's the problem that we have. When you -- when you refer to a judge born in Indiana as a Mexican in a pejorative way, when you refer to John McCain as he has, you can't respect him because he wasn't -- or he was captured, or you refer to those who crossed the border as rapists, you know, you just can't appeal to a broad swath of the electorate.
And so, if -- even if Republicans all lined up behind Donald Trump in Arizona, it still wouldn't be enough. You have got to appeal to swing voters, to independents. And he is just going out of his way, it seems, to offend them.
TAPPER: One last question, sir. If Hillary Clinton does win the election, would you want Mitch McConnell to bring up Merrick Garland as soon as possible for a vote during the lame duck session of Congress? Do you fear she would appoint somebody even more liberal?
FLAKE: I would like him to bring him up. I think the principle ought to be for Republicans to confirm the most conservative jurist that we're able to confirm.
[09:35:08]
And if we do lose the election then we ought to move swiftly, I think, to confirm Merrick Garland.
TAPPER: Senator Flake, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time, sir.
FLAKE: You bet. Thank you. TAPPER: Coming up taco takeover. A Latino Trump supporter warns the result of too much illegal immigration will be -- quote -- "taco trucks on every corner." Dangerous or delicious? That story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO GUTIERREZ, LATINOS FOR TRUMP FOUNDER: My culture is a very dominant culture, and it's imposing -- and it's causing problems. If you don't do something about it, you're going to have taco trucks every corner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Marco Gutierrez, the founder of Latinos for Trump. Democrats have seized on the taco trucks on every corner language. One Democratic councilman in Denver even set up a truck across the street from Trump headquarters there hoping to register voters.
[09:40:03]
Joining me this morning to talk about tacos and so much more CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers, Rachel Campos Duffy who's the spokesperson for the conservative LIBRE Initiative which targets Hispanic voters, CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers and CNN political commentator Andre Bauer.
Welcome one and all. Thanks for being here.
Rachel, starting with you. Taco trucks on every corner? What --
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY, NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, LIBRE INITIATIVE: So the answer to your pressing question the cheese (ph) is delicious.
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: Delicious.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Definitely delicious. We could use a few more up in northwestern Wisconsin where I live.
Look what I think is really interesting is that taco trucks really are the ultimate symbol of American entrepreneurial capitalism. I think what people want to know is not what some first-time surrogate (INAUDIBLE) -- what they want to know about is who's going to help people who want to start taco trucks. And liberal policies of all these over regulated food trucks.
In fact in Nevada we have a former attorney general who was shutting down -- he is running for Senate by the way -- who was shutting down Uber. What people want to know is who is going to help people start businesses, let them grow, become financially independent. Liberals over regulate these kinds of small business owners and conservatives help them achieve the American dream.
TAPPER: Excellent pivot.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I have never seen spin like that. That was -- that was --
CAMPOS-DUFFY: No, but it's true.
SELLERS: I give you credit for it.
I mean, what we do know is that Donald Trump gave a speech that was full of desperation, despair this past week. And we still don't know what he's going to do.
I heard Rudy Giuliani on your show earlier today and we still don't know what he's going to do with the 10.5 million people who are here who are not criminals. I mean -- so, yes, I think that the Republican Party has an awful brand when it comes to Hispanic-Americans. And I think that Donald Trump is just perpetuating many stereotypes that are detrimental to Republicans ever growing their base.
TAPPER: Let me ask you a question because, Kirsten, Karen Tumulty, the tweet -- story really interesting (INAUDIBLE) Philip (ph) actually that Hillary Clinton is actually doing worse with Latino voters now than a few weeks ago.
According to a "ABC News/Washington Post" poll her favorability with Hispanics fell from 68 percent in July to 55 percent at the end of August. The story also says, she's not doing particularly better with Latinos than other Democrats have done. Why not?
KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I don't know why not. But the most important thing is she is doing much, much better than Donald Trump. And that's the bottom line.
His approval rating is 21 percent in the same poll. So, you know, her approval rating, I'll take 55 percent over 21 percent. And I think that she, you know, in this article they're talking about the fact that maybe she needs to be doing some more outreach, maybe needs to be running more ads in the Latino community. But at the end of the day he is under water and she is above water.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: She has -- she has had ever advantage in the Latino community.
Latino media -- Spanish language media is basically another wing of her party. The reason she is doing bad is Hispanics leave countries where there is corruption on the level that we're seeing right now with Hillary Clinton. I mean, this is not rigged --
POWERS: I mean -- hold on -- hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS (ph): ... double digits.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: They're in double digits but in the last month as the scandals -- as her scandals have increased, that's why we're seeing the drop.
SELLERS: But she has also -- I mean, but she has also hasn't spent any money, per say in -- I think we also saw that Barack Obama -- Barack Obama didn't -- he didn't have the money to spend. But Barack Obama didn't spend the money until mid-September on Hispanic radio and Spanish (INAUDIBLE). And I think --
POWERS: Yes. I think it's very important to be clear. She is not doing badly...
SELLERS: She's definitely not.
POWERS: ... among Latino voters.
TAPPER: No --
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: ... and Andre --
POWERS: And she's, you know, in the "USA Today" poll two-thirds of Latino voters are voting for her. I mean, that's not doing badly.
TAPPER: Do you think this talk -- taco trucks on every corner, as you say it's a surrogate that very few of us have ever heard of before.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Correct.
TAPPER: But it does feed into kind of this meme out there about Donald Trump and I don't know that he did himself any favors with his speech the other night when it came to the Latino community, no matter what Rudy Giuliani says, was buried in the speech in terms of the policy, a lot of Latinos for Trump quit Latinos for Trump after that speech.
ANDRE BAUER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Not a lot, Jake. Only two -- only two that I know of.
TAPPER: That's still -- that's still a pretty big group. When you have a group called Latinos for Trump and they leave Trump after his major speech on immigration.
BAUER: When you are a leader and you take a strong stand you're not going to make everybody happy.
Look, I thought he did an excellent job meeting with the president, who's open to both candidates. Only one showed up. He did a very good job.
And I know there's controversy -- well, you know, he acted very differently in a different rally, well, the president is going this week to the G20 Summit. He won't talk to that group like he would to the Democratic convention. So there are two different audiences.
But you see the numbers changing. We're getting closer now. It's almost an even race. Labor Day is around the corner. He said he was going to kick the campaign in Labor Day.
But the real message is here, look, I like the taco truck analogy. Those are people that are business owners. They're working hard. We just want -- don't want people here stealing the hub caps.
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: Except he was saying that we don't want taco trucks.
But let's turn to Hillary Clinton because there is another candidate in the race. Take a listen to what Hillary Clinton has been saying over the past year about her e-mails.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: We turned over everything that was work-related. Every single thing. Personal stuff we did not.
And all I can tell you is that I turned over every work-related e-mail in my possession. I turned over everything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[09:45:08]
TAPPER: We now know from the FBI that she did not, that there were 15,000 e-mails that were work-related that she did not --
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: We don't know that. We know that there were 15,000 e-mails and we don't know what those e-mails are. We don't know if they're work related. We don't know if they're personal. We don't know if they're duplicates.
TAPPER: The FBI says there were 14,300 or something like that --
SELLERS: That (ph) they --
TAPPER: That were work related. They're not sure if they were duplicates. That's true. That they're looking into them but they said that they were work related.
SELLERS: They said work and personal, I thought.
But regardless we stay down this rabbit hole and we chase the smoke where there is no fire. We do that...
(CROSSTALK)
BAUER: ... fire out.
SELLERS: ... we've been doing that with Hillary Clinton for a very long period of time. The most amazing thing is this week Hillary Clinton released a comprehensive mental health proposal and we covered Anthony Wiener. You know, this week --
TAPPER: Not irrelevant to the -- to the topic, by the way.
SELLERS: I'm pivoting.
(LAUGHTER)
SELLERS: This is a pivot.
But we -- but to -- but to -- actually to get on the issue, we know that Donald Trump actually had a foundation that was pay to play and we're back to e-mails. What we're talking about today with these e- mails, people are just sick and tired of chasing the smoke where there is no fire.
BAUER: They're not.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: What's interesting to me is that you just had Jeff Flake on, you just showed this commercial from John McCain. You have people within the Republican Party and the conservative movement who are willing to look at a candidate and be really honest about what his flaws and what his strengths are.
And it's so fascinating to me that, on the Democrat side, you have this level of corruption -- I mean, this is not a small thing. This is somebody who is taking a charity, using it as a front and a slush fund --
SELLERS: That's not true, though.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes, it absolutely is.
SELLERS: That's not true. You cannot say (ph) a charity who has actually helped -- who actually help children get HIV and AIDS education --
(CROSSTALK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes. And also helped Sidney Blumenthal get a job. That's not part of the charity.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: But -- actually tell me this -- tell me this.
How much money has Hillary and Bill Clinton gotten from the Clinton Foundation?
(CROSSTALK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: A lot. A lot. A lot. They've become millionaires off of it.
SELLERS: They have --
(CROSSTALK)
BAUER: $50 million in travel.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: ... Foundation. It's absurd. And you know why we know that's absurd? Because she released her tax returns. That's how we know they received...
(CROSSTALK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Right. Which shows that she was making
SELLERS: ... dollar from the Clinton Foundation.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Which shows that they made as much...
(CROSSTALK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: ... millions of dollars from speeches...
TAPPER: She has gotten millions of dollars from giving -- from giving speeches. Absolutely.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: ... to the people who have given to the foundation.
(CROSSTALK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: That you will sit here and defend that --
SELLERS: I will defend the Clinton Foundation until I'm blue in the face.
TAPPER: I want to bring you in here, Kirsten, because you have been a Democrat who has been willing to criticize the Clintons.
POWERS: Mm-hmm. Yes.
TAPPER: What do you make of what happened?
POWERS: On the foundation I just don't see this (INAUDIBLE) to play an argument. It's not --
(CROSSTALK)
POWERS: Well -- they don't receive any money. They don't make money off of the foundation. They don't receive salaries from it. So they're actually not making money off of the foundation. It has also been rated by the people who rate the charities as --
(CROSSTALK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: The people who rate charities...
(CROSSTALK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: ... refuse to rate it anymore.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: They did until this last week. This week -- this week they did give it an A rating.
POWERS: Yes. Yes...
(CROSSTALK)
POWERS: ... rated by the people who -- with an A rating. So I think the foundation stuff is being blown out of proportion. The e-mails however on the other hand I think has become something that most -- a lot of people are concerned about. And, I think, it has affected her trust numbers. And deservedly so. And she has said so herself.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Andre, I'll give you the -- I'll give you the last word here.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: A lot of Democrats feel that these numbers are -- the distrust stuff is already baked into these numbers, though.
BAUER: Well, the distrust -- you're seeing the numbers continue to drop. And nothing is ever going to happen. Two hundred and twenty- eight people within the justice department have given to her campaign. So you know nothing is going to happen.
But again, it just reinforces -- if you wonder why you can't get her anywhere to interview her, she doesn't want to have to lie anymore. It's cover-up, cover-up, cover-up. We're seeing the numbers reinforced but (ph) the voters do not trust her.
TAPPER: Before we go, congratulations on your eighth baby and the christening.
(CROSSTALK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Thank you very much.
I'm going to single handedly solve...
TAPPER: I know.
(CROSSTALK)
CAMPOS-DUFFY: ... on the conservative side.
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: If you wonder why the poll numbers are getting close to Wisconsin. It's Rachel right there.
Coming up. Rick Perry may have lost the Republican primary but he could still be a winner on "Dancing with the Stars." That's right. This is actually a thing. It inspired this week "State of the Cartoonion." Coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:53:09]
TAPPER: Welcome back. Former Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry announced this week that he'll be a contestant on the new season of "Dancing with the Stars." Believe it or not that will make him the second Texas politician to lace up his dancing shoes. Former Congressman Tom DeLay did the show back in '09 following his indictment on money laundering charges.
But Perry's announcement made us wonder who else might be willing to show off their moves on the dance floor, and that is the topic of this week's "State of the Cartoonion."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TAPPER (voice-over): We assume Rick Perry will kick things off with a little Texas two-step, mostly because in the past, making it to three has been an issue.
RICK PERRY (R), FORMER TEXAS GOVERNOR AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's three agencies of government when I get there that are gone. Commerce, education and the -- what's the third one there? Oops.
TAPPER: Is "Dancing with the Stars" perhaps a new landing pad for presidential also-rans.
ELLEN DEGENERES, HOST, THE ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW: Please welcome Senator Bernie Sanders.
TAPPER: We saw Bernie Sanders earlier in the campaign boogie down to "Saturday Night Fever" on "Ellen." While earlier this week we saw Chris Christie grooving at a Springsteen show.
We are unlikely to see them or Clinton or Trump show up on "Dancing with the Stars," though, sadly, or maybe we should say, gladly, as I imagine Hillary Clinton on the show doing it "Gangnam Style." And then of course is the notion of Mr. Trump doing the "Macarena."
I suppose stranger things have happened this election.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TAPPER: That's nonsense. Thank you for watching. Before we go, we have a sneak peek of two specials on the presidential candidates from the major parties here on CNN.
"The Essential Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump," both airing tomorrow beginning in 8:00 p.m. Eastern. CNN speaks to the people that know them best, going inside the highs and lows of two of the world's most famous people who want to be president.
