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Donald Trump Makes Controversial Remark about John McCain; Donald Trump's Special Counsel Defends Comments Made by Trump; 60 Day Period to Debate Iran Deal Begins Today; Authorities Digging Into Chattanooga Gunman's Past; Several States Boost Security at Military Recruitment Centers. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 20, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Senator McCain is breaking his silence this morning. So CNN senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash is live in Washington with all of the latest developments. It's been an active morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It certainly has. And Donald Trump, not only is he -- has he taken off the gloves going after John McCain, he is doing it even more so, as you mentioned, against the media in insisting that part of the backlash is because his comments were taken out of context.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He is a war hero. I said that but they never want to play it. And you don't want to play it. Excuse me -- why --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why would you say it in the first place?

TRUMP: Savannah started it off by saying I said he wasn't a hero. I didn't say that. And if you would have let it run just another three second you would have said that I said very clearly he is a war hero. I have absolutely no problem with that.

What I do have problems with is that he called 15,000 people that showed up for me to speak in Phoenix, he called them crazies because they want to stop illegal immigration. I do have a problem with what he's doing on the border. He's terrible. And I do have a problem with the fact, with the illegal immigration is a disaster. And he's doing a horrible job.

Matt, I see the vets. They come to me. These are powerful, wonderful people, and they're crying. They don't know what to do. They're lost because of what we're doing. Frankly, illegal immigrants get treated better than many of our vets. It's disgrace what is happening to our country. And John McCain has nothing about it but respect.

I do also respect greatly the people that aren't captured. Nobody talks about them. We talk about John McCain, and I think it's great, and he is a very brave and all of that. But we don't talk about the people that weren't captured, and that is what I was trying to refer to, and I think I did. And, by the way, if you see the news conference right afterwards, a

minute afterwards, everything was perfect. I never even thought it would be an issue. My opponents have brought it up. These are guys that have zero in the polls. And, by the way, you said that I said I'm doing well. I'm not saying I'm doing well. The polls are saying I'm doing well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, you can probably glean from that that big part of the genesis of his feud with John McCain is that Trump went to McCain's home state of Arizona a little more than a week ago and had a huge rally. And during that time McCain said that the people he got to come to the rally were crazies, which is kind of a typical word that McCain uses. The two of them very much disagree on how to deal with illegal immigration. McCain did also come out this morning, but his rhetoric was a lot more toned down than what you just heard from Donald Trump. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: When Mr. Trump said that he prefers to be with people who are not captured, the great honor of my life was to serve in the company of heroes. I'm not a hero, but those who were my senior ranking officers, people like Colonel Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, those who inspired us to do things that we otherwise wouldn't be capable of doing, those are the people I think he owes an apology to.

The point here is there are so many men and some women who served and sacrificed and happened to be held prisoner, and somehow to denigrate that in any way their service I think is offensive to most of our veterans.

I think the best thing to do is put it behind us and move forward and just express our gratitude to those who have served and sacrificed. Who are the real heroes? They are the 55,000 names that are down on the wall engraved in black granite that I stop by sometimes early in the morning and when the sun is going down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now anybody who watched John McCain, the politician, knows that he is not afraid of a fight. He is quite scrappy when he wants to be. In this particular case, Alisyn, as you can probably tell from that, he has decided that he wants to try to take the high road. In fact, a McCain source told me that they wanted to try to let Trump continue to dig his hole. Like they say, never murder a man who was in the process of committing suicide.

CAMEROTA: That's an awfully graphic metaphor. Thank you so much, Dana, for all that background.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so the media is filled with people speaking about Donald Trump. We're going to have somebody on here do it a little differently. We have somebody who is going to speak for Donald Trump, executive vice president of the Trump organization and special counsel to Donald Trump, Mr. Michael Cohen. Counsel, how are you? It's good to have you with us.

Let's start with the obvious. Is Donald Trump sorry for offending veterans, prisoners of war, and those who respect him in this country?

MICHAEL COHEN, SPECIAL COUNSEL TO DONALD TRUMP: I don't think Donald Trump disrespected anybody, including John McCain. And you know being a lawyer, four times he pulled back on the statement within seconds. And I think it's actually irresponsible the way that many of the --

[08:05:06] CUOMO: But doesn't he have to alter a statement, Michael, because there was a reason he had to back off?

COHEN: He made the statement, as many people do -- Hillary turned around and made a statement, you remember, on Capitol Hill, what difference does it make? And they pulled back from it. And he said four times in the exact same statement -- not twice, not three times, four times he turned around and said the following. He goes, "He is a war hero. And he is a war hero."

And I'm going to tell you something, Donald Trump acknowledges that he's a war hero. What angered Mr. Trump, and I think what prompted the statement is the fact that he went to Arizona and he was met with tremendous enthusiasm, 15,00 people -- his constituents -- John McCain's constituents talking about immigration reform, and what did he do? He called them crazies.

CAMEROTA: So Donald Trump did not like his supporters being called crazies. But I want to get back to this statement he made this weekend about he's not a war hero. Let's play the moment so that we can all see it clearly and analyze it. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: John McCain goes, oh boy, Trump makes my life difficult. He had 15,000 crazies show up, crazies. He called them all crazies. I said they weren't crazy. They were great Americans. I supported them.

He lost.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He let us down.

TRUMP: But, you know, he lost. So I never liked him as much after that because I don't like losers.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: But -- he's not a war hero.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a war hero.

TRUMP: He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured. I hate to tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: He's a war hero because he was captured, which he says it somewhat sarcastically. And then he said I prefer people who weren't captured.

COHEN: Then he turned around and said he is a war hero. So, again, I just think it's irresponsible when they're taking small pieces of the segment and they're using that. And they did the same thing with the Mexico statement.

CAMEROTA: Which is it?

COHEN: He acknowledges that John McCain - he does. He respects John McCain as a war hero. He respects every single person that puts on the fatigue. Not just the fatigue, but he respects anybody that puts on a uniform. Police officers, he's insanely involved with the police athletically. Firefighters, members of the armed services, Donald Trump, you may recall, saved the Veteran's Day parade. He has an infinity for the individuals.

CAMEROTA: He did do that. And in fact he paid money, he contributed to the Veteran's War parade, and he also gave money to the Vietnam Vet Memorial here in New York City. And those are big deals. We, our reporters estimated that he gave about $1 million to each one of those to make those happen.

COHEN: And I would say over the years it's substantially greater than that.

CAMEROTA: How much is it? Because for a man worth $10 billion, for Donald Trump to say that veterans are one of his top priorities, how much do you think he's given to them over the decades?

COHEN: You know, I don't know. But the next time I come back, I'll have it pulled down for you. Had you asked me in advance I would have certainly looked it up.

But I will tell you one thing. What bothers Mr. Trump, on a daily basis we get phone calls from veterans, including when we go on the campaign trail or we're out doing business deal, one of the things that people comment they're always talking about are veteran's issues. And you talk about what happened at the VA. You talk about the double books. You talk about these, you know, these injured, whether it is psychological or physical, and they're hurting, and the administration has basically left them without recourse. And Donald Trump wants to be the voice of these individuals.

CUOMO: I'll grant you that. And that's why the question becomes, what is he going to do for them? Other than say I'm pissed off and nobody is good enough for them. He doesn't have the plan for what he would do. What are the specific policies he wants for veterans to back up his supposed --

COHEN: The first thing he's going to do is ensure that veterans get the proper care and treatment that they're entitled to.

CUOMO: How?

COHEN: He feels they've been betrayed.

CUOMO: Everybody does. How?

COHEN: John McCain has been in service now for 30 years, 30 years. And we're in worst shape for all veterans than ever before.

CUOMO: So what is he going to do? What's Trump going to go?

COHEN: Donald Trump fixes things. You have to acknowledge that.

CUOMO: Why? Why would I acknowledge that? He's been in bankruptcy how many times?

COHEN: Never.

CUOMO: Not personal bankruptcy, but he's had his casinos go down.

COHEN: His casinos -- I want to be real clear about this -- His casinos were publicly traded entities. He was a shareholder. He never owned more than 20 percent of the stock.

CUOMO: That's two different things.

COHEN: It was a public traded entity. He was the chairman of the board, but he had no voting right. It was owned by various different hedge funds and entities.

CUOMO: His casinos went belly up. You can't have it both ways. One of the reasons he gets to $10 billion is because of how he decides to portray what he owns. Now you're doing it the other way and saying he doesn't really own those.

[08:10:01] COHEN: The $10 billion statement, it does not include at all the Trump Entertainment Resorts.

CUOMO: Yes, because he doesn't like how they wound up doing. He says he doesn't like losers.

COHEN: Of the $10 billion, he does not show a single penny from, he has not been involved in that entity for over 10 years. And when he was, he sold that company to a publicly traded entity, made quite a bit of money off it. He never filed bankruptcy.

In the 1990s he had his situation. He certainly was in a financial situation. He managed to take that bad time and grow his entity, his company.

CUOMO: I read the book. He definitely made a great comeback. But don't run away from this question. Does he have specific policies ready to fix? Saying I'll fix, everybody says that.

COHEN: But they don't do it. That's the difference, Donald Trump is a doer. And if he says he's going to fix it, mark my words he will fix it. He will find the best people out there. He will turn around and figure out what's necessary in order to fix it. That's what private enterprise does. Private enterprise does things much better than government. They just do.

CAMEROTA: I want to get back to the John McCain thing for one second, because John McCain this morning says that Donald Trump does not owe him an apology. He doesn't expect an apology from Donald Trump. But he believe that Donald Trump owes an apology to the families of POWs because he feels that in that very first statement -- he's not a war hero -- I respect people more who didn't get captured, that he denigrated them. Will he issue an apology to families of POWs?

COHEN: I don't Donald Trump meant to insult anybody, and I don't think he did insult anybody. They were getting upset simply because that's the M.O., right, the same thing that happened with Mexico. It's the exact same thing. They want to take three words out of a sentence and then they want to just run with it.

The problem -- what Rick Perry, the same thing with Marco Rubio. They jump on it. Why? Because they see Donald Trump trending higher and higher and higher. And this race is running away from them, and they're concerned about it. That's exactly why they're doing what they're doing. They're jumping on to a bandwagon, and the only guy that is smart about it is Ted Cruz where he wants to stay out of it. He said John McCain is a friend of mine. Donald Trump is a friend of mine. I'm not commenting.

CAMEROTA: Do you think it is a winning strategy for Donald Trump to keep saying provocative comments that get a lot of attention but that cause controversy one after the other. Is this what he will be doing for the next --

COHEN: Donald Trump is not looking for controversy. What he's looking for is to make America great again. That's what he's doing. And in order to make America great again you have acknowledge where we're failed, we're broken. And for him to point out issues like immigration reform or now veteran's benefits and the VA's double standards and their books and it takes five or six months for somebody to go take a look and you have, you know, they've been betrayed. Donald Trump is bringing to the forefront issues that Americans are talking about every day but don't have the voice to be heard.

CUOMO: Why is he running as a Republican?

COHEN: Because he is a Republican.

CUOMO: But he bashes the GOP all the time. The failures that he points to they have as big a hand in as anybody does. Why doesn't he just run in the own Trump party? It wouldn't be beyond him to start one.

COHEN: Well, because he's a Republican.

CUOMO: How are you a Republican if you denigrate the other candidates and say what the party has been responsible for all --

COHEN: Are you trying to say to me, Chris, and during the last election cycle and every cycle before that, whether it's a local race or up to the presidential race that the candidates don't attack one another? One would turn around and say that some of the most vicious that are out there today -- because Donald Trump is doing it, it's different. Why? Because he's not part of the establishment.

CUOMO: It is -- that's true he's not part of the establishment. But he is different. I've never heard somebody who wants to be president of the United States say what he said.

COHEN: I've never heard somebody from the Republican Party, meaning Sean Spicer, say the things he said which is Donald Trump shouldn't be allowed to be a Republican. By the way, he's entitled run for the presidency because the constitution of the United States says he's entitled to.

CUOMO: Having a right and being right are two different things. Of course he can do it. People are enjoying it. They're paying attention to the race in the way they weren't before. There's no question about --

COHEN: I suspect we're going to have the largest turn out of voters if Mr. Trump keeps them at the switch.

CUOMO: Do you think he can keep doing it this way?

COHEN: Yes, 100 percent.

CUOMO: Pushing these buttons all the time, dividing people each time he does this?

COHEN: I don't know if he's dividing people or he's waking people up to the fact that we're failing and Washington is failing us and the country is failing us as citizens. And Donald Trump is bringing to the forefront all the big issues that are out there. He's going to start talking about other issues as well. And I guarantee that it's going to also end up dominating the media simply because, why? Because Donald Trump said it.

CAMEROTA: There's an interesting article by Maggie Haberman in "The New York Times" today about how Donald Trump keeps his own counsel.

[08:15:03] He doesn't have a lot of advisors telling him what to do. He decides what he's going to say. He's not managed by anyone. He is in charge of his PR and his policy. So how is he preparing for the debates two and a half weeks away?

COHEN: He's preparing for the debate. How he's doing it, I don't think is right to discuss. But you're right about that. He doesn't have -- as the other politicians do -- he doesn't have a war camp advising him. He'll turn around and he'll tell you that one of Mitt Romney's biggest faults was the fact that he had too many people in his ear, in his head. When it came to the second debate, he didn't know whether he was coming or he was going. He was lost. He did great the first debate. The second was just horrific and the third was pretty much the same as the second. He's not going to -- Donald Trump speaks from the heart. He's very

well-informed. He's incredibly bright. He really understands the issues, but he understands the issues in a way different than the politicos do. He sees it the way that the average guy sitting at the water cooler does. That's what endearing about Trump.

CAMEROTA: And also, he speaks off the cuff. I mean, for his announcement speech, he just sort of vamped. He spoke for many minutes, a long time, and it was sort of stream consciousness. This past weekend when he was saying that John McCain stuff, he didn't have prepared notes. Is that the strategy for the debate?

COHEN: Donald Trump doesn't walk in with prepared notes, he doesn't read off the teleprompter, he wouldn't be a teleprompter president, either. He's talking about issues that, in all fairness, are exactly what you and I would be talking about at the water cooler: off the record. That's what he talks about.

CUOMO: But doesn't he have to be careful about allowing himself to be too simple in terms of how he reacts to things. That's how he got in this jam with John McCain and POWs. He was angry, he was angry about what McCain had said, allegedly, about the people who came to the event and that's why he responded the way he did to the POW.

COHEN: But, Chris, why allegedly?

CUOMO: I didn't hear him say it.

COHEN: He called them crazies.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: But he called them crazies and that's not right.

CUOMO: So then he got angry.

COHEN: And he got angry.

CUOMO: But then -

COHEN: But he also turned -

CUOMO: Is that presidential leadership?

COHEN: You know what, I'm not sure what the qualifications for presidential leadership is. Certainly, what we have --

CUOMO: That should be the best - You be the best of us. Will be the best of us.

COHEN: Well, I'm not so sure that our current president is the best or our previous president --

CUOMO: But that doesn't mean that's not the standard.

COHEN: You know what? I'm not sure that it works. And I will tell you once thing that is working, Trump isn't going anywhere. He's leading in the polls. Guys like Rick Perry and Marco Rubio, they are concerned. The first thing - Rick Perry turns around and says Donald Trump shouldn't be allowed on the debate stage. I can tell you for a fact because I have spoken to people at the GOP and they've told me that they are getting bombarded by phone calls from various different candidates who are all concerned and do not want Donald Trump on that stage because he's going to dominate the stage and they're really concerned. What is he going to say about me when I turn around and I make a statement? They're really very, very concerned and they don't want him and they don't want him in this presidential race.

CAMEROTA: Michael Cohen, we appreciate you coming on NEW DAY to give us the perspective from Donald Trump.

COHEN: Very nice to see you.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much.

CUOMO: Would you like to read this?

CAMEROTA: I will read this. I just didn't know if you had any last parting shot.

CUOMO: You said it very nicely. You know, and look, we know that you don't have to come on the shows, you don't have to do this. Donald is really driving the bus in terms of where he wants to be and where he doesn't. so it's good that you come on and you defend the positions. We look forward to having you more.

COHEN: Always.

CUOMO: Is that better?

CAMEROTA: I like it.

All right. Prepare for 60 days of congressional debate now that the Iran deal with Iran is in the hands of lawmakers. It was submitted by the White House over the weekend, Israel already calling on Congress to reject it as Defense Secretary Ash Carter arrives in Israel to sell it.

CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta is live at the White House. Tell us what they're saying, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. The White House push for the Iran nuclear deal is not letting up. Over the weekend, as you said, the State Department delivered the text of the agreement to Capitol Hill, activating the deal's 60-day congressional review period.

Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iran deal wingman, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, did a round robin on the Sunday talk shows circuit yesterday, defending the agreement. Kerry insisted the administration is doing all they can to secure the release of four Americans detained or missing in Iran. They were not part of the deal. And the secretary of state warned the world will be much more dangerous without the deal. Here is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: If Congress doesn't pass this, if Congress were to kill this, then we have no inspections, we have no sanctions, we have no ability to negotiate because I assure you, the ayatollah, if the United States arbitrarily and unilaterally kills this, you're not going to have another negotiation. And they will feel free to go do the very things that this prevents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: That was Kerry on CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION." We should point out, the Obama administration will be providing classified briefings to lawmakers including one classified session for House members on Wednesday and perhaps the most important lobbying trip. You mentioned it is already underway.

[08:20:00] Defense Secretary Ash Carter is in Israel where leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are deeply skeptical of this deal. He has a very big mountain to climb in terms of persuading the Israelis, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Thank you very much, Jim. Appreciate it.

So a car stolen from a New Jersey gas station with a baby girl still inside. Last night's carjacking caught on surveillance camera. Here it is right now. A little girl's grandmother says she was preoccupied, walked into a store and that's when the thief made his move. The car was eventually found abandoned with the baby safe inside.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my goodness.

CUOMO: The carjacker still at large this morning.

CAMEROTA: That's scary.

Well, a bridge on Interstate 10 in California collapsing from heavy rainfall this weekend. It's blocking the main route connecting the state to Arizona. A truck, as you - I think - just saw, was crushed in the incident. The driver was taken to the hospital and is expected to be okay.

Meanwhile, in Cincinnati, a pregnant mom and two of her children killed in severe flooding Saturday. The intense rain sweeping away their mobile home.

CUOMO: After Chattanooga, everybody is saying why. Why would this guy do this? What was going on in his head? We have answers now and we'll give them to you right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Family members of the Chattanooga shooter facing questioning here in the U.S. and in Jordan. They tell investigators that the gunman battled mental health issues and abused drugs. [08:25:01] This as military recruitment centers around the U.S. begin

beefing up security.

Here this morning on all of this, Juliette Kayyem. She's a CNN national security analyst and former Homeland Security assistant secretary. Juliette, great to see you this morning.

What troubles you the most about this Chattanooga case?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: This is not fitting any mold. I mean, it's truly appears to be some form of self-radical station, at least what we know so far. Obviously, the investigation will unfold and we'll learn more. But that there wasn't a large social media presence suggesting radicalization. There seems to be no proof of any contact with those that might radicalize him, either ISIS or others, and not much proof that his foreign travels amounted to training or would explain what happened.

CAMEROTA: Is that right? Do we know what happened on that trip to the Middle East, what he did?

KAYYEM: Look, the Jordanians and the Kuwaitis are pretty responsive to our request. It's now been five days since the killings. The fact that nothing has come out makes me just, in my experience, believe that there's nothing obvious at this stage.

So when I talk about this is a very sort of pristine form of self- radicalization, and obviously, the most concerning for law enforcement, because there really were no clues. I mean, think of the other cases we've had. There's always clues even if we don't catch them in time of social media presence or the FBI was looking at him. This is one just absolutely out of the blue.

CAMEROTA: You know, one of the issues that's cropped up since this tragedy is that these military recruitment centers as soft targets. Why, of all of the soft targets in this country? Obviously, we can't fortify every shopping mall, we can't fortify every theater. But military recruitment centers we can.

KAYYEM: Right. And it is -- it seems so obvious now. So just to go back about the history of why this was the case. Look, we don't have a draft. The military has to engage communities and potential members of the military. So they were constantly balancing access and being welcome with, of course, the security and safety of the recruiters.

And so the decision was made to put these recruiting stations in shopping malls because that's where people are, they're friendly, this is where the military can look friendly and get people to join. So obviously, the changes that we're seeing in various states to move these recruitment centers is an attempt to fortify these soft targets. But there will always be soft targets for the military, and obviously the Pentagon is reviewing it now.

CAMEROTA: But what about the suggestion that many have made, which is just let service men and women here in these centers be armed? I mean, do you believe that it stands to reason that somebody could have stopped this sooner if they had had been able to have guns?

KAYYEM: Yes, we just don't know the scenario of whether the person who had the gun. So let's assume that maybe a supervisor can be armed or that there's actually guards. If at the moment of this attack that that person could have responded and saved the Marines and the Navy petty officer.

But I will say that we need to secure the sites better. We probably need to arm someone in those facilities. But this idea that we need our military to have -- all of them to have concealed weapons -- Look, we just don't know what the standards would be and I'm not convinced that, you know, arming every service member with a concealed weapon, what will be the rules of engagement.

So I'm sort of -- I agree with what the governors are doing but I'm not prepared and I don't think we know what the rules would be to say now well, the solution is to arm our military until we know what the rules of engagement would b.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, I mean, obviously, Congress is grappling with this very topic, trying to figure out if there's some legislation that they need to come up with to better protect our military men and women and even those who are just at these recruitment centers.

But Juliette Kayyem, thanks so much for all of your expertise and sharing it with us.

KAYYEM: Thank you. Nice to see you.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' campaign is starting to take hold. He's fresh off his biggest event yet, but does he stand a realistic chance against Hillary Clinton? Why is he tapping into passions? Provocative question: Is Bernie Sanders the Donald Trump of the Democratic Party? When we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)