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Clinton to Release More Medical Records; Trump Foundation Donations. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 12, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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


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[14:00:21] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go. Top of the hour. You're watching CNN on this Monday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me.

Count them with me, 57. Fifty-seven days to go until the presidential election. Donald Trump today seizing on one Hillary Clinton controversy, but not the other. Secretary Clinton, she is at home recovering from pneumonia. We have more on her diagnosis here in just a moment. But just moments ago, Trump not focusing on her health, but instead her comment that, quote, "half" of all of Trump voters fall into a, quote, "basket of deplorables."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I was thus deeply shocked and alarmed this Friday to hear my opponent attack, slander, smear, demean these wonderful, amazing people who are supporting our campaign. It was, perhaps, the most explicit attack on the American voter ever spoken by a major party presidential nominee. Total disrespect for the people of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Now, back to Secretary Clinton's comments from Friday. She did tweet out her regrets, admitting it was wrong for her to say half. She did not back down, though, on linking racists to the Trump campaign.

But you will not be seeing Hillary Clinton today making a case for herself. She has been forced to call out sick from the trail. And critics are knocking her for her lack of transparency over her illness. The question being, why didn't her campaign just come out and tell votes she was sick when she was first diagnosed with pneumonia Friday? Instead, her doctor revealed Clinton's illness two days later, only when this video came out. A passerby happened to grab this on a cell phone recording here. So you see her stumbling, with staffers helping her into this SUV Sunday morning.

Let's go now to Chappaqua, in New York, Hillary Clinton's home. Joe Johns is standing out in the town there.

And so, first of all, how is she? And second of all, when will the public just be briefed more on her health history? JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're being

told at least is that Hillary Clinton is doing better. In fact, the campaign was reporting that Hillary Clinton was doing better yesterday after she got out of sight of the cameras, if you will. And we're told that she might be doing a little bit of debate prep today, but not going out to San Francisco for that big high-end fundraiser as was expected.

As far as hearing more about Hillary Clinton's health condition, we do know from Brian Fallon, the campaign spokesman, that we should get more medical records in light of what happened over the weekend, more medical records about Hillary Clinton. But the campaign is also saying, this event is as it has been characterized, that she was diagnosed on Friday with pneumonia. That it was treated with antibiotics. And then the events on yesterday culminating with that stumble on camera.

Important also to say that the indication from the campaign is that it was Hillary Clinton's decision essentially to power through or push on this tough schedule she's had over the last several days, and that many have suggested is in keeping with how Hillary Clinton has conducted her public life over the last many years, Brooke.

BALDWIN: We will be talking to a campaign spokesperson momentarily, press them on a couple of the questions I know the public has, see how she's doing. Joe Johns in Chappaqua, thank you so much.

Strong words, meantime, from Donald Trump on what he calls Clinton's attack on his voters. But in his response to Secretary Clinton's bout of pneumonia, Trump took a more measured tone. So let's go to Sara Murray, who was in Baltimore following the Trump campaign. We saw him speaking there a little while ago. And as far as, let's just begin with her, her sickness, Trump is essentially, what, wishing her well?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, Brooke, it's clear the Trump campaign has decided that their line of attack is going to be about this deplorables comment and that they're going to try to play it a little bit safe when it comes to talking about Hillary Clinton's health. Remember, in the past, Donald Trump has made an issue of her physical fitness before, he's questioned her stamina on the campaign trail, he's questioned her schedule, but that is not what we heard from him today. Take a listen to how he addressed it this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Oh, I hope she gets well soon. I don't know what's going on. I'm, like you, I just - I see what I see. The coughing fit was a week ago, so I assume that was pneumonia also. I mean, I would think it would have been. So, something's going on. But I just hope she gets well and gets back on the trail. And we'll be seeing her at the debate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:05:12] MURRAY: Now, in addition to making those comments, the Trump campaign has also warned its surrogates, they've warned their staffers not to post anything about Secretary Clinton's health, not to post anything about the incident over the weekend. Their goal is to try to be respectful, they're saying. So we will see if he continues to keep up that tone on the campaign trail.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Sara, thank you, in Baltimore.

Let's have a bigger discussion here with my panel. I have Dr. Tiffany Sizemore standing by, a cardiologist and assistant clinical professor at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine, CNN political director David Chalian is with us, and CNN national political reporter Maeve Reston.

So first on just on her health, Dr. Tiffany, you know, what - what are some of the key unanswered questions for you on Hillary Clinton's health?

DR. TIFFANY SIZEMORE, CARDIOLOGIST: You know, I think the biggest thing is how sick she has been over the course of the past week. I mean, look, I take care of a lot of patients with pneumonia. As a matter of fact, I have four in the hospital right now with pneumonia. And there's usually some prodrum (ph) leading up to really someone looking as sick as what she did. And I saw the video that everyone else saw. And to get to the point where you're stumbling and can barely hold yourself up, I mean you've been sick for a while typically when that happens.

Now, sure, there's been some question of whether she was dehydrated and it's been very hot in the entire United States, so I wouldn't doubt that. But my question would really be, how long - how sick has she been and how long has she been sick prior to all of us knowing about it?

BALDWIN: And just staying with you, and I think a lot of us probably jumped online over the weekend and we're all Googling pneumonia because here you have this 68-year-old woman, you look at her incredibly difficult travel schedule, with pneumonia. I mean, how much time does someone really need to take off? And how serious is this?

SIZEMORE: You know, it could potentially be very serious. I mean people - people die of pneumonia. They usually die because they have not gotten and seeked the treatment that they need to in a sufficient amount of time, which, you know, I'm quite positive is not going to be the case for her. But, you know, typical symptoms, fevers, chills, an unrelenting cough, coughing up phlegm and yucky things. You know, these are symptoms that, you know, should really provoke a doctor to think, hey, maybe someone has pneumonia, especially someone in their 60s and 70s. You know, someone in their 30s and 40s, maybe not so much, but there's a vaccine that's indicated for people over the age of 65 for pneumonia for this exact reason.

BALDWIN: So there's the health piece of this and, David Chalian, obviously there's the political piece of all of this. We've heard from the campaign that she's, you know, taking a break from the trail for at least 48 hours, TBD after that. But, you know, canceling, you know, these events in California, how will that impact her politically?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, listen, I think it raises questions, again, about transparency. And truly transparency for both candidates. But Hillary Clinton has not released her full medical records. She released a summary from her doctor, quite frankly, a little more medical information than we've seen from Donald Trump. But neither candidate, two of the oldest nominees in our country's history, has sort of gone the full McCain on this and brought in reporters.

BALDWIN: The full McCain.

CHALIAN: Because the way I look at this, Brooke, is that we're in the closing stages now of -

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes, we are.

CHALIAN: These candidates making a sale, trying to close a sale to the American people. And the American people have a right to know what they're buying. And so having sort of a full assessment from medical professionals, access to their doctors to give us a complete sense of their current health and any history in their health history that we need to know about, that voters need to know about, I think is -- absent that, all these questions became raised. So we didn't know about the diagnosis on Friday, then the video emerged on Sunday. The campaign had a hard time answering questions about it, even though some people in the campaign knew about the pneumonia diagnosis. They just stumbled all over how they were dealing with this. And I think that is largely because we don't have the larger context of the full disclosure to be able to assess what's going on.

BALDWIN: Makes you wonder if the video had not come out from that person down at Ground Zero, when would, you know, the Clinton campaign have told the public? Lots of questions. Again, we're talking to a spokesperson from the campaign momentarily.

But, Maeve, here's my question for you. Let me just pivot off that and on to her, you know, deplorables remark, right? So Republicans are now sort of comparing that to the Mitt Romney 47 percent moment when, you know, 2012 he was saying that 47 percent of voters believe that they are victims and that they feel that government should take care of them, paraphrasing. You were following the Romney campaign. You remember that moment in 2012. I mean how much of a punch in the gut was that for the campaign? Did people realize at the time that that was part of what would sort of take him down?

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Absolutely. I mean that was a huge punch in the gut for the campaign. And a lot of the advisers that I talked to in that moment, and later on, said that they knew that that was the moment that it - that it was over.

[14:10:11] BALDWIN: They knew.

RESTON: There was just no way for him to recover from that comment because it was so difficult to explain the context of what he was saying. Also it had happened at a private fundraiser. You know, I don't think - I think we're in a very different election

cycle. Mitt Romney was already, you know, trailing President Obama in that case. In this case, Clinton has apologized. And we'll see whether or not she can actually recover from that comment. But what it has done -

BALDWIN: Has she apologized? Is that - is that - has she apologized because to me when you hear -

RESTON: I'm sorry, she said regret. She expressed regret.

BALDWIN: Regretting. Specific word using regret. And it's the - you know, it's the - it's the "half" word she's regretting.

RESTON: Right. Right. And I think that - but I think that what it allowed Donald Trump to do in this speech this morning was to just open the door to paint her exactly how he wants to paint her, which is a champion for the powerful and he is for the powerless, and to make the argument that, you know, she and her - her rick friends are laughing and people across the country who, you know, don't feel good about the state of America right now. So all that divisive rhetoric, she had such a strong argument against Donald Trump from all of his comments over the last year and he now can just keep hitting her on that over and over again through the end of the campaign as an elitist who's not in touch with the American people.

BALDWIN: Let me - let me pivot back to the health records, Dr. Tiffany, and ask you this. As we talked about Hillary Clinton's, you know, additional medical records to come out this week, also, you know, we're hearing from the Trump camp that we should get some more information on his own health. When, you know, people pour through that, what do you expect to learn?

SIZEMORE: One of my concerns, actually, is - you know, and I - and I will - I want to be very blunt. You know, pneumonia, which she has now, and what happened in 2012 are two distinctly separate things. However, the medical problems that Hillary had in 2012 are still significant medical problems. Having, you know, a blood clot in a vein in your brain is a pretty significant issue, especially when there's been studies out that there's a small subset of people who, when they have this problem, have chronic cognitive and decision-making impairment. So, you know, I do think -

BALDWIN: But what about Trump? Sorry, I don't know if I spoke -

SIZEMORE: I'm getting there. It's OK.

BALDWIN: OK. OK.

SIZEMORE: So, you know, I think - I think it's difficult with Trump because we really don't know much, right?

BALDWIN: OK.

SIZEMORE: I mean he hasn't been in the forefront. There was no video out there. Do I think that the - you know, do I think that Americans have a right to kind of know the general health of who potentially could be our president, to make sure they're going to have a minimum of four-year term, God forbid something acute happens? Sure, I do think that.

BALDWIN: OK.

SIZEMORE: But, you know, to know the intricacies and details of their medical help -

RESTON: We know he eats a lot of McDonald's, right?

SIZEMORE: I'm sorry?

RESTON: We know he eats a lot of McDonald's and has talked about that. So certainly we want to know all kinds of things about that part of his health record.

SIZEMORE: Yes. Well, and, you know, as a cardiologist, I'm not going to condone that.

BALDWIN: OK. OK, Dr. Tiffany Sizemore, David Chalian, Maeve Reston, we should know more than fast food, I think, from - from their camp later this week. Thank you all very much.

SIZEMORE: Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: And just a reminder, you know, to Chalian's point, this is - this is closing in to the election and to the debate. We are two weeks away from today that debate at Hofstra University, the two nominees square off in New York. And now Trump is floating the idea of not having a moderator. Period. Let's discuss that.

Also, it is a national scandal involving your money. Senators demanding Wells Fargo testify over a fraud involving fake bank accounts. Millions of them.

Stand by. You're watching CNN.

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[14:17:40] BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

A new report is raising all kinds of questions today about exactly how charitable Donald Trump really is. This is "The Washington Post." They took an in-depth look into the Trump Foundation and found virtually all of the contributions made by Donald Trump's foundation philanthropy arm now come from other charities. On top of that, the report indicates Trump himself stopped donating to the charity after 2008.

David Fahrenthold has been working on this for a couple of months. He is the "Washington Post" reporter who investigated the Trump Foundation and joins me now.

David, nice to see you. DAVID FAHRENTHOLD, REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": Good to be here.

BALDWIN: Lots and lots - lots and lots of questions, beginning with, how does this work? I mean how does a charity, like the Trump Foundation, give away other charities money and then take the credit?

FAHRENTHOLD: Well, it's really an unusual situation. I've talked to a lot of people who were experts on the world of non-profits and they say this basically never happens. If there is - normally, if you start a foundation and put your name on it and you're a famously wealthy person, the expectation is, the money that's in the foundation was originally your money that you gave to the foundation. And that's how Trump's foundation started. But about ten years ago he made a change and now he doesn't put any money into his own foundation. He takes in other donor's money and he gives it away as The Donald Trump Foundation's money. And the expectation, and the assumption among the people who get it, is that this is Donald Trump's money because that's how everybody else does it. But, in fact, he's sort of engineered a way to look like he's being charitable without actually spending a dollar out of his own pocket.

BALDWIN: But he's said, you know, a number of times out on the campaign trail that he has donated millions of dollars to charity. Could you corroborate that?

FAHRENTHOLD: No. So we looked at the Trump Foundation, where we expected to find evidence of that giving and haven't seen it since 2008. And I've looked at a lot of other places, too. We haven't - it's in between 2008 and this May when he gave that $1 million donation to the veterans under a lot of media pressure. In that period, from 2008 to this May, I can find one gift from Donald Trump's own pocket, and that was for less than $10,000 in 2009. And earlier this year he also released a list of what he said were his campaign - or his charitable contribution over the last ten years - or the last five years. None of that was a donation from his own pocket. Most of it was free rounds of golf given away by his golf courses.

BALDWIN: In terms of the foundation itself, the way you describe it, thread bare, skeleton staff, mainly Trump family members who spend about a half hour a week working on the foundation. Tell me more about that.

[14:20:03] FAHRENTHOLD: So, Trump started this foundation in 1987. And you think of a foundation, you know, just to put it in the context of say the Clinton Foundation.

BALDWIN: Sure.

FAHRENTHOLD: The Clinton Foundation, whatever you think of it, is really big. It has a lot of employees. It has over 2,000 employees. It has - hundreds of millions of dollars come through it every year. I mean, you know, there are obviously questions about how that foundation was run. Trump's foundation, by contrast, has only ever had - the most money its ever had in the bank was about $3 million. And that was after Vince McMahon, the wrestling mogul, gave Trump a bunch of money a few years ago. So now it has about $1.3 million in the bank. And, you know, there's no staff. There's no paid staff. The board of directors is four Trumps, Donald, Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric and one Trump Foundation staff - or Trump organization staffer. So it's basically just - it exists basically on paper and it gives, you know, other big charitable donors give away for the same causes year after year. They give lots of money to their alma mater, to a particular research cause they believe in. Trump's gifts don't seem to have that kind of pattern. He gives sort of sporadically a little bit here, a little bit there, mostly to people who do business - charities that do business at his club in Florida or to people he sort of meets socially.

BALDWIN: And then, of course, all of this, as I'm listening to you and you read your piece in "The Washington Post," therein lies the question, well then if he just releases his tax returns, we would know what - what's the true story.

David Fahrenthold with "The Washington Post," thank you, thank you.

Let me pose that question and let's bring David Chalian and Maeve Reston back with me because, David Chalian, you heard what I'm saying, you know, everything that David lays out, if he were to just release his tax returns, which, again, he says - he says he's being audited and that's why he's not doing it, that would put all of this to bed, correct?

CHALIAN: Well, it certainly would give us a lot more insight into his financial holdings, there's no doubt about that. And you noted his audit excuse for not releasing it, but we know other people under audit have released taxes. That's not an excuse that necessarily holds much water.

So you're absolutely right, again, here we are talking about disclosure. Another important topic in addition to health is, what is the financial stake that Donald Trump has in places? What is his own tax rate? What is his charitable giving? All of that helps form a more complete picture for the voter. And I do think that this work at "The Washington Post" on how the Trump Foundation works and how Donald Trump is able to use other people's money to give to what could be very good causes is another piece of sort of a character test that you will see Hillary Clinton and her campaign try to use and apply as they build this negative frame around Donald Trump that he's not of the character that you want somebody sitting in the Oval Office.

BALDWIN: It's interesting you bring up character test and I'm also wondering, as, Maeve, you know, he is someone who says, I can help fix the economy, I'm a successful businessman and I'm wondering with what "The Washington Post" has found, how - does this whole argument hurt that premise, that he's the one who can help the economy?

RESTON: Well, absolutely. I mean it raises a lot of questions. How closely was he overseeing the work of his foundation? What was the goal? Clearly from the excellent reporting from "The Washington Post," it doesn't seem like - it seems very scattered in terms of the giving. But I do think that, to David's point, it raises questions about character. Donald Trump is going out there on the campaign trail, did this morning, to say that he is the voice for forgotten people. He's going to help - you know, he's the person who's finding all of the people who are struggling in America and trying to help them.

Well, I don't know that we've seen a long record throughout his life history of that. And this report, you know, points right to that. For Clinton, it plays right into her narrative, that Donald Trump is out for himself and, you know, her slogan is that she's - you know, stronger together and that she's out for the working class. So I think that - that Donald Trump will have a lot of explaining to do here. Obviously we don't have the full picture because we don't have his tax returns. But this could be pretty damaging to those undecided voters who are trying to decide, is he running for president because he's generous and he wants to help the American people -

BALDWIN: A good person, right.

RESTON: Yes, or is there a record here?

BALDWIN: OK. Maeve and David, thank you again.

CHALIAN: Thanks.

RESTON: Thanks.

BALDWIN: Coming up here, Donald Trump slamming Hillary Clinton today for saying some of his supporters are part of a, quote, "basket of deplorables." What a former Romney adviser makes of that.

And after Clinton's health scare over weekend, critics are hitting the campaign over a lack of transparency. So how much privacy is a presidential candidate entitled to? We'll discuss all of that and more on this Monday.

[14:24:36] You're watching CNN.

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BALDWIN: Moments ago, Donald Trump blasted his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, at the National Guard conference when he was speaking there in Baltimore for saying half of his supporters are part of a, quote, "basket of deplorables." In case you have not yet heard, this is how Secretary Clinton characterized voters who support Trump. This was from Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables, right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic, you name it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Clinton has since said she regrets saying half of his voters are deplorable, but also says she won't stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric among some of those supporters of his.

[14:30:02] Now, Trump is pouncing on those comments, calling them angry and divisive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: She called these patriotic men and women every vile name in the book. She called them racist