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Trump to Bush: Speak English in the U.S.; Biden Trip Fuels Speculation About 2016 Run; Governor Christie Talks 2016 Race; Reported Sighting a Hoax in Hunt for Cop Killers; Report: 307,000 Vets Died Awaiting Veterans Affairs Care. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 03, 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] SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER (voice-over): By day's end, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus could have an answer from Donald Trump. Will he or won't he rule out a third-party bid?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Did you vote for Trump? Did you vote for Trump?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did.

MURRAY: In Nashville recently, Trump, a former Democrat, explaining why he referred to running as a Republican.

TRUMP: That would be the best path for victory. And we're going to make a decision soon and I think a lot of people are going to be very happy.

MURRAY: On Tuesday, the party circulating a loyalty pledge to the GOP contenders, an apparent attempt to neutralize Trump's threats to run as an independent, which could jeopardize the GOP's attempt to retake the White House. It's a pledge Trump rebuffed during the first debate.

MODERATOR: You're not going to make the pledge?

TRUMP: I will not make the pledge at this time.

MODERATOR: OK.

MURRAY: Now, the RNC wants it in writing, asking Trump to sign an agreement stating he will not seek to run as an independent, or accept the nomination for president of any other party if he fails to win the Republican nomination in 2016.

Trump's meeting comes on the heels of his controversial remarks in Breitbart News, slamming Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish as he attacked Trump's political views a day earlier.

Trump telling Breitbart News, "He should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States."

A Bush aide lashed back, saying Trump was, quote, "trying to kill the party, attacking any American who is bilingual." The war of words escalating as Trump's unfavorable numbers remain sky high among Hispanics.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, Jeb Bush was just on good morning America where he responded to these attacks for himself sayings this is a multicultural country and it's time to embrace it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The fact that he would say you only can speak is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. We're going to close all the foreign language classes? Is he -- why would he have a contract with Univision for his beauty pageant? I mean, this is a diverse country, we should celebrity that diversity and embrace as set of shared values.

And Mr. Trump doesn't believe in those shared values. He wants to tear us down. He doesn't believe in tolerance. He doesn't believe in the things that have created the greatness of this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: And you get a really good sense there that Jeb Bush is not backing down from what has really been the theme of his campaign, to run for a broader electorate, not just for the GOP primary. And we'll have to see how that strategy works out for him, right, John Berman?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. Very interesting. Jeb Bush did say he would support Donald Trump if he ended up as the Republican nominee.

Sara Murray, thank you so much.

Vice President Joe Biden in Florida this morning, ostensibly to sell the Iran nuclear deal in a speech to Jewish leaders. But where Biden goes, so goes the rampant speculation about whether or not he will run for president.

And, by the way, so goes, CNN's Jeff Zeleny in Florida for us -- Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John.

I mean, after spending a week of -- actually weeks rather in the summer of closed door meetings and sort of behind the scenes speculation of is he running, or isn't he running, Joe Biden decided to take that speculation on the road here in Florida. He's spending two days in Miami and he met with some college students yesterday afternoon, and he seemed to be enjoying and relishing all of this speculation. Let's listen to one bit of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: By the way, it's amazing how good this school is. Look at all the press you've attracted. Their interest in community colleges impresses me greatly, and I hope that's what they're going to write about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Of course, that's not what people were writing about. He was on the front page of the "Miami Herald" today, and it's all the question of is he going to run for president or not?

John, this is what we know -- we know that he is still actively, actively considering it. His aides are working behind the scenes to interview potential staff workers in early voting states if he decides to run. But that's the big question here. He has not yet made that decision.

In a fund-raiser last night in Miami for Senate Democrats, he did not even bring this up. He did not even talk about his own potential 2016 possibility of running. So he is really winding down on this. Probably has three weeks or so to make a decision here. But we'll find out what that is definitely before October -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We sure will, Jeff. Thanks so much for all of that.

So, joining us this morning to discuss all of these big issues is Republican presidential candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Governor, thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Great to see you again.

Let's talk about this pledge that that the RNC wants all of you to sign. Have you seen this pledge of loyalty from them?

CHRISTIE: I did.

CAMEROTA: You did? You got it?

CHRISTIE: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Did you sign it?

CHRISTIE: Not yet.

CAMEROTA: Why not?

CHRISTIE: Because I already said it on stage on August 6th. If you want me to formally sign it, and I'm happy, too.

CAMEROTA: I have a pen.

CHRISTIE: Well, you know, I'll wait, I'll wait. Not now. But I already said on August 6th, I'm going to support the Republican nominee for president whoever that is, whether it's myself or whether it's one of the other 16 folks who are running.

CAMEROTA: Why is this gimmick necessary this year?

[08:05:01] Why do all of you have to sign it? It's unenforceable. Why is everybody doing this?

CHRISTIE: Well, listen, not everybody is doing it. The RNC is doing it. And I assume they're doing it because Mr. Trump wouldn't agree to it on August 6th. Everybody else on the stage agreed to it. So, I assume that's why they're doing it.

But they didn't tell me why. They just sent it to us.

CAMEROTA: I mean, look, the feeling is, is that if somebody were to run as a third party candidate, the Republicans can't win with that math -- that if Donald Trump does veer off and do his own thing, that it sinks the Republican's chances.

CHRISTIE: Listen, it doesn't matter who it would be. I think any third party candidate that came from the Republican Party to be a third party candidate would make the chances of winning in November '16 significantly more difficult.

But the fact is you're seeking the Republican nomination for president. There should be a sore loser rule, you know? If you don't get the nomination, you can't go around and off doing something else. So, I think that's fair for everybody, if that's what everybody should agree to. It's certainly what I believe.

CAMEROTA: I want to get your take on what's going on with Jeb Bush and Donald Trump. You know, they're having this war of words between them.

And the latest round is that Jeb Bush is bilingual. He spoke Spanish on the campaign trail. And Trump sent -- said in an interview, "I like Jeb, he's a nice man. But he should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States."

What do you think?

CHRISTIE: I think that these two guys have forgotten what this is about. It's not about the two of them. It's about the American people. They have enormous frustrations and anger about the way the government is not working right now, and yet the two of them are having this food fight back and forth about personal issues. They're attacking each other personally.

And I think people in our party and the America people in general will grow tired of this. They should be reminded and I'm reminded both of them this morning -- this isn't about you guys. It's about the American people, their children, their aspirations, their challenges and their needs. And that's what we should be talking about, not all this stuff about going back and forth personally, which I don't think adds anything to the debate and I think it diminishes both of them.

CAMEROTA: Should all candidates speak English on the campaign trail at all times?

CHRISTIE: Well, I think, first off, all of us should speak English. I think that will help a lot in getting elected.

CAMEROTA: Good point.

CHRISTIE: So, for me, I think English very important.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CHRISTIE: I think -- listen, people should do whatever they want to do on the campaign trail. They're candidates. Everything we do and we say are evaluated by the media, evaluated by voter. Whatever you want to do, it's your choice. You should be responsible for everything you do and be willing to stand behind everything you do.

I'll be speaking English, because I don't speak another language. This is the one I've got. So, I'll be using this one. But anybody else who wants to do anything else, as far as I'm concerned, it's up to them to decide what they want to do.

CAMEROTA: Some people think New Jersey English is a different language.

CHRISTIE: I'm out of here now. This is ridiculous.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: As a born and bred Jersey girl.

CHRISTIE: Got it.

CAMEROTA: One of your answers to illegal immigration is that you could track people coming into the country like FedEx packages. What does that mean?

CHRISTIE: What it means is that, we need to use technology to track people coming in here on visas. You come in here for as a visitor. That's what visas is all about, you come in as a visitor for a defined period of time. And what I've said is there's technology out there that allows us to do many things --

CAMEROTA: Like a chip on people.

CHRISTIE: No. Not a chip on people. You already have it. It's right here.

It's your fingerprint. And we should be able to track people if they over stay their visas. And then they go to use other facilities in the United States, we should be able to tell them, you over stayed your visa, to say, listen, it's time to go. We're allowing you legally to come here for a period of time.

So, no, I'm not talking about putting chips on people or bar codes on people. And this is a ridiculous way that the media and some of the Democrats react to what is a valid idea that's been in legislation, that's been proposed in Congress, that's been discussed for a long time.

What I've said is, FedEx as an example of the fact that the technology in the private sector has lapped the government. What we need is for the government to get with it, do their job. Forty percent of the 11 million people who are here illegally are overstays on visas, not coming across the border. So, let's track these folks, stay for the period of time you're allowed to, and then leave, and we should be able to enforce and we could do that using the fingerprint.

So, nothing additional needs to be on your body, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Good to know.

CHRISTIE: You've already got your fingerprints, 10 of them.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

CHRISTIE: We'll use whichever ones you like.

CAMEROTA: All right. I want to ask you about some comments that you made yesterday about the Iran nuclear deal.

You're not a fan. You said, "I believe that the American people are going to look back on this and say this is the single worst thing this president has ever done and every death Iran causes is now on Barack Obama's head."

Is that language too strong?

CHRISTIE: No, no. Ask people in Israel if that language is too strong. Ask the folks who are going to watch Iran now test ballistic missiles if they think that language is too strong.

The fact is, he's given to the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, a pathway to a nuclear weapon. I saw senator, now Secretary Kerry yesterday claiming this is about verification.

It's a joke. We're letting Iranian revolutionary guard in a secret deal inspect their own military sites and we're counting on them to tell us the truth. We're waiting 24 days to inspect any sites we think are suspicious.

You know, Alisyn, I was the U.S. attorney. That's like me getting a search warrant, coming to somebody's house, saying, listen, I have a search warrant but I'll be back in 24 days to search if there's any evidence of criminal activity in here.

Even -- we talk about our shared New Jersey heritage -- even the stupidest criminal in New Jersey, and we pride ourselves in having fairly stupid criminals, even the stupidest criminal in Jersey would know to get the evidence out of the house.

This president wanted a legacy, that's why he's doing this. He's going to have a legacy. He's going to be the worst foreign policy president in the history of this country, giving Iran a nuclear weapon is outrageous and that's what he's on the path of doing. CAMEROTA: I ask about your language because I heard you this week, I

think it was on the late show, scoffing at some language that Hillary Clinton used where she said that she sort of likened the GOP's take on women's issues to that of terrorists, sort of setting women back into the Stone Age.

And you scoffed and said she calls herself a uniter. Is this the language of a uniter? I mean, is comparing President Obama to Iran or what Iran does, is that the language of a uniter?

CHRISTIE: No, it absolutely is, because I didn't compare him to anything. I said very clearly -- he's now responsible for Iran's conduct. He's climbed into bed with Iran. He's now responsible for their conduct. That's all it is.

And guess what? As president I'll never shirk my responsibilities or shy away from them.

You need to be held accountable and the problem with this administration is, they don't want to be held for things. They don't want to be held responsible. They're in favor of lawlessness around this country.

And Secretary Clinton has apparently caught the same disease that the president has, of not being held responsible. She says that she has no classified information she sent in e-mails. Now we see things saying she has e-mailed classified information.

They have an inability to tell the truth or to be held responsible. And all that statement says is, the president is now responsible.

CAMEROTA: For every death that Iran causes?

CHRISTIE: For every death that Iran causes, because he has now emboldened them. He's giving them $150 billion, Alisyn. He's freeing $150 billion. Do you think they're going to spend it on building highways in Iran? They're going to spend it with Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations as the leading state sponsor of terrorism or it's going to cause death and destruction in our world.

CAMEROTA: I want to move on to a topic that you've been talking a lot about on the campaign trail, though not many people are, and that is addiction, and the problem that addiction -- the plague it is to families around the country.

Rand Paul said something about your focus or at least about what he thinks is at the root of heroin addiction. Let me play that for you and get you to respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a lot of problems. People always come up to me and say, we've got heroin problems, and all these other problems. You know what? If you work all day long, you don't have time to do heroin.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: If you work all day long, you don't have time to have a heroin addiction.

CHRISTIE: Listen, drug addiction is a disease. It's a failing to try drugs in the first place. But there but for the grace of God go I. And everyone makes mistakes as they look back and elect to do differently. And we should treat it as a disease.

You know, we have drug court in New Jersey. I implemented statewide drug courts. We're saying now to first time nonviolent drug offenders, you're not going to prison, you're going to mandatory treatment.

Do you know what's happening to recidivism rates across the country? If you've gone -- not gone through drug court, your recidivism rate is 62 percent. If you've gone through drug court, it's 16 percent.

Here's the difference between me and Senator Paul on this -- I'm pro- life and so is he, but I'm pro-life for the entire life, and I believe not only should we be pro-life when the child is in the room, but you need to be pro-life for the 16-year-old who's on the floor of the county lockup because he or she is addicted to drugs.

We know treatment works. We know it's a more effective way to combat the drug problem in this country. You that's insulting. You talk to any parent around this country who's lost a child to this addiction and say, well, if they had just worked they wouldn't have tried drugs.

It's shameful. It's unfortunate. But I'm going to continue to talk about making sure that we treat people who have a disease. And that's why I think we're going to help the drug problems in this country.

If you're violent, you go to prison. But nonviolent folks who are not dealing drugs but using, let's get them treatment and try to save those lives.

CAMEROTA: Governor Chris Christie, always great to see you. Thanks so much --

CHRISTIE: Alisyn, thank you. Good seeing you again.

CAMEROTA: -- for being on NEW DAY.

Be sure to tune in to the next Republican presidential debate. It is hosted by CNN. It is Wednesday, September 16th. It starts at 6:00 p.m. Eastern.

PEREIRA: The two of you can now continue your Jersey conversation in private.

All right. Turning to some other headlines here at 14 minutes past the hour. Frustration is building for Illinois police searching for three suspects in the murder of one of their own. Overnight police ramped up their search based on a tip they received. The woman who called it in now admits it was a hoax. She now faces charges.

But where does the search go from here?

CNN's Rosa Flores is live in Fox Lake with more for us -- Rosa.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, good morning.

I can assure you that the hearts of the agents who responded to that call were beating a little faster when a call came, according to authorities, from Kristin Kiefer late last night saying that two suspects that tried to force themselves into her vehicle and that they had only escaped to a cornfield after she had called police.

[08:15:20] You can only imagine. More than 80 agents swarmed the scene, 11 K9 units, three aircraft hovering the scene for hours. And then this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS COVELLI, FOX LAKE DETECTIVE: Kiefer admitted that she had fabricated the entire story. Kiefer indicated that she fabricated the story because she was looking for attention from a family that she nannies for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, Kiefer is waking up this morning in jail, charged with two counts of disorderly conduct.

The investigation here continues. More than 100 investigators are here in the region ready to respond to any lead, to any tip in hopes of finding those three suspects.

BERMAN: A lot of work to do. Rosa Flores, thank you so much.

A stunning V.A. report says a staggering 307,000 veterans died before their applications for care were processed. This is the latest development in an investigation first uncover by Drew Griffin of CNN Special Investigations Unit. He joins us now live from Baltimore.

Drew, that's a staggering number.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT: Staggering when you think about who these people are. John, these are not veterans waiting for care. These are veterans who are applying for the privilege of waiting for care.

And as of last year, there was more than 867,000 of them whose applications to just get in line at the V.A. were not processed. This all comes to light because of once again a V.A. whistle blower who's coming out to rat on the management that he sees in this case is just doing such a disservice to veterans. On that list, 307,000 have died waiting. One guy's application, John,

had been waiting for 14 years, he still hasn't. And the V.A. has known about this at least since 2010 when investigators found applications actually stuffed in drawers inside V.A. processors' desks. I mean, this sounds like it's the V.A. syndrome all over again that we've uncovered with the wait list and it does not seem to be getting any better.

PEREIRA: That's the direction where you don't want things to be going. Thanks for bringing that to us, Drew. We appreciate it. We'll obviously be covering more of that here in at CNN.

Another update for you today, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis faces contempt charges at federal court for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in direct defiance of court orders. Davis says doing so would violate deeply held religious beliefs. She calls it even or hell decision. She could be fined or even jailed.

CAMEROTA: That story is not going away.

Meanwhile, the attorney general says the violence we're seeing in America means that no one is safe. The killing of an Illinois police officer is just the latest example. We are talking to Philadelphia's top cop about all of this, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:22:11] PEREIRA: A manhunt continues this morning for three suspects wanted in the shooting death of an Illinois police officer. His murder and other recent attacks against police have many questioning if law enforcement are being targeted as retaliation for high profile involved shooting deaths.

With us this morning, we have the owner of having Commissioner Charles Ramsey of the Philadelphia Police Department.

Always a delight to speak with you, sir. How are you today?

COMMISSIONER CHARLES RAMSEY, PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT: I'm well, thank you.

PEREIRA: I want to jump in and redo a little something that one of the Republican presidential candidates, Scott Walker, wrote in an online piece. I think we can bring it up.

"In the last six years under President Obama, we've seen a rise in anti-police rhetoric. Instead of hope and change, we've seen racial tensions worsen and a tendency to use law enforcement as a scapegoat. This kind of attitude has created culture in which we all too often see demonstrations and changes where people describe police as 'pigs' and called for them be 'fried like bacon'."

You're the co-chair of the president's task force on 21st century policing. I'm curious. As a man who has led so many departments, what do you make of that kind of commentary? RAMSEY: Well, I mean, listen, first of all, we don't always really

driving it now. I've been in policing for four decades. And I've seen periods where we've had a lot of attacks on police going back to the '60s, '70s and so forth. And now, of course, unfortunately, we've seen a rise.

There's nothing that I can think of to really put our finger on. But it is a challenging time now in our country for law enforcement and for building relationships with community.

PEREIRA: I want to dig deeper on that because you gave us an interesting perspective, given what you have done over the years. But drill a little deeper on Scott Walker's comment about the president. He is sort of essentially blaming the president for these ills that face society now.

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, that's all part of politics, I would imagine. This is too serious an issue to really do that sort of thing, to start point a finger. I mean, violence in many of our communities is nothing new. Police officers come into contact with some dangerous individuals unfortunately. We have some get injured or killed as a result.

We need to figure out how we keep officers safe, and the same time keep our community safe. And finger-pointing and things like that really don't get us very far.

PEREIRA: All right. So, finger-pointing aside, as a guy that is involved in those conversations, those top level conversations about what actually to do on the ground. Where do we start?

RAMSEY: Well, we start by building relationships. We start by removing the criminal element from many of these communities. We've got a serious problem with gun violence in our country. We're starting to see escalation of violence in many of our cities after we've seen decades of decline. It's something to be alarmed about.

But it really requires thoughtful discussion to really figure out what's going on and how best to go about addressing it.

[08:25:03] I think the task force report lays a framework, but it's going to require thoughtful people sitting down, actually having a real discussion getting at the issues if we want to make progress, not just, you know, throwing out messages in order to gain attention.

PEREIRA: Right, substantive changes. So, finally, you and I both know, though, that oftentimes in this situation, when we start to talk about gun violence, it devolves into the political arena and then we get away from substantive, thoughtful conversation. How do we kind of separate those things?

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, it's going to be challenging and difficult, but people have to stay at it. I mean, you know, we talk about gun violence and guns and certainly, you know, reasonable gun control or legislation that would really help in that regard I think would be useful. But we've got to deal with the people who are actually using the guns

to commit crime and deal with the mental health issue and who has access to weapons.

There's a way in which we can do this if we really have thoughtful discussion and it's really difficult in this environment because of politics, because of money, quite frankly, that's being spread around to certain individual and they take a stand based on that. And we have some elected leaders that quite frankly in my opinion lack the political will and the courage to take action. They think it's somebody else's problem. It doesn't impact them directly.

But they're wrong. Violence can occur to anyone at any place at any time. And we need to really think about it and do something concrete in order to change the situation.

PEREIRA: Certainly seems like something that requires a lot of people linking their arms together and working in unison. Let's hope we can do that.

Commissioner Charles Ramsey, always a delight to have you with us. Thanks for bringing your thoughts to us this morning on NEW DAY.

John?

RAMSEY: Thank you.

BERMAN: Donald Trump meeting with the head of the RNC today. So, will Trump pledge not to run as a third party candidate? And is it his rivals' fault at this point that he's getting all the attention? We'll discuss that, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)