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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Launches Out at Reporters Covering Him; "Playbooks" Revealed in Trump University Fraud Case; California Gov. Brown Endorses Clinton; Seeking Amish Voters; Zoo Shoots Gorilla To Save Child; Hanna: The Zoo Did The Right Thing. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired May 31, 2016 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:06] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: You'll also meet the first major third-party presidential challenger to come forward, one who could have a big impact on the race.
We'll examine Hillary Clinton's new campaign strategy that worked for President Obama against Mitt Romney. The question is, four years later, will it be effective against Donald Trump.
Also, the court-ordered release of the playbook -- and yes, that's the title of it, the playbook -- for staffers of now defunct Trump University. CNN's Drew Griffin and his team have been going through it. He joins us shortly with that.
And later, what the nation's best-known zoo keeper and animal lover, Jack Hanna, makes of this moment and what he says to so many people who want to know why the Cincinnati Zoo had to shoot this gorilla after a little boy fell into this enclosure.
We begin, though, with politics with a press conference today at Trump Tower. The presumptive Republican nominee defending his fundraising efforts and hammering reporters for their questions. Here's the gist of it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm the only one in the world that could raise almost $6 million for the veterans, have uniform applause by the veterans' groups and end up being criticized by the press. I have to tell you, the press is so dishonest and so unfair.
I will say that the press should be ashamed of themselves. I find the press to be extremely dishonest. I find the political press to be unbelievably dishonest.
JIM ACOSTA, SENIOR CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You keep calling us the dishonest press, the disgusting press.
TRUMP: Well, generally speaking, that's 100 percent true.
ACOSTA: But it seems as though you're resistant to scrutiny, the kind of scrutiny that comes with running for President of the United States.
TRUMP: I like scrutiny, but you know what?
ACOSTA: You raised the money for veterans.
TRUMP: Excuse me. Excuse me. I've watched you on television. You're a real beauty.
I wasn't looking for the credit, but I had no choice but to do this because the press was saying I didn't raise any money for them. What I don't want is when I raise millions of dollars, have people say, like this sleazy guy over here from ABC. He's a sleaze in my book.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why am I a sleaze?
TRUMP: You're a sleaze, because you know the facts and you know the facts well.
Instead of being like, thank you very much, Mr. Trump, or Trump did a good job, everyone is saying, who got it, who got it, who got it, and you make me look very bad. I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Joining us now, senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin, who's been reporting extensively on veterans' charities for years, including one that was mentioned today. Also White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, who, as you heard, came under some tension today as a -- was it great beauty?
ACOSTA: Real beauty.
COOPER: Real beauty. OK.
Chief political correspondent, Dana Bash also joins us, and conservative radio talk show host, Dana Lash. Always good to have you as well, Dana.
Drew, let's first of all talk about Donald Trump lashing out at the media for asking questions about the veterans' fundraisers. You've gone through the names of a lot of these organizations, a lot of them completely legitimate, totally above board. What have you found in general?
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: One thing that struck me about the news conference is he said that he vetted all these groups and it took this long to release this information because he was doing such a great job of vetting. But then he said, Anderson, I didn't look at their federal tax returns.
Well, that set off light bulbs, and we did. So we started looking at one in particular. It's called the Foundation for American Veterans. It's a veterans' charity like many we've reported on with you on your show. It's a bad charity. It's being sued in the state of Minnesota.
Basically, this is a charity that has given -- raised and given $27 million since 2010 to a fundraiser -- a private fundraiser, and according to the attorney general in Minnesota, has given 10 percent or so of donations to actual good causes.
COOPER: So this is one of those groups you've done a lot of reporting on, and this is a problem that we've seen time and time again with a lot of phony veterans' charities.
GRIFFIN: Yes, huge overhead, all the money goes to professional fundraiser. This fundraiser, in its last filing, gave, you know, millions and millions to a professional fundraiser that's under investigation in Minnesota for misleading donors. And this is the one he gave $75,000 to today and told us that his campaign vetted this group. No one would have given money to this if they just did a Google search.
COOPER: Any idea that the Trump organization knew this? I mean, obviously, no one wants to give money to them.
GRIFFIN: We've reached out. We've asked. We haven't gotten a question yet, but that's how it goes with this campaign. We've been asking for information on all this fundraising since it began four months ago.
COOPER: Jim, you were there at the press conference. I mean, how do you see this? The attack on the media, is it -- look, it's certainly popular. It certainly plays well to a base and probably to a large audience. Do you think it's part of a planned thing that Donald Trump does, or is it just in the heat of the moment?
ACOSTA: It's half emotional, half tactical, I think, Anderson. And I talked to a Trump advisor earlier today who said, you know what, when he goes after the press like this, our supporters really love it and nobody really cares about you guys in the press --
COOPER: Right.
ACOSTA: -- which is true. There's a lot of truth to that.
But I think at the same time, if you can't answer questions about money that you've raised for veterans' groups and where that money has gone and how much money have you contribute and where does that money going to go eventually, it does raise the question, can you take the heat of running for President of the United States.
And that was the thrust of my question earlier today, and as you saw in the way he responded, he did much like the question. He doesn't like questions that make him uncomfortable, and we see this all the time on the campaign trail.
He talks about the dishonest media or the disgusting media, but a lot of this, Anderson, is stuff that his crowds just eat up.
COOPER: Dana Bash, it's interesting, because, I mean, Donald Trump obviously has a long relationship with the media. He has -- not only been talking about this campaign but prior to that -- whether under his name or, you know, other pseudonyms that he would call into reporters with allegedly -- but it clearly seems to be, you know, now that he's running for office, there's a different level of scrutiny, a different type of reporter, a different type of attention. And he certainly doesn't seem to appreciate that.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Clearly, he doesn't appreciate it. And, you know, that was abundantly obvious during this press conference and watching kind of the way it unfolded as Jim and other colleagues and competitors kind of joined forces to ask the same kind of questions, which is wait a minute, like this is what you're doing now. You are running for President of the United States.
And it is -- in some ways you can look at it as, you know, isn't he biting the hand that feeds him in a way, because he is Donald Trump, the brand, the iconic figure, because he understands the media so well, I mean, in a way that nobody else comes close to understanding and has for decades.
But understanding it as a marketer and as an entertainer, which is what he was on "The Apprentice," and as a businessman is a far different kind of approach. It's entirely different than what you're running for the highest office in the land and to be the leader of the free world.
And at the end of the day, I said this earlier, when Drew Griffin and other reporters try to get the information about what he said out there as a promise and as a goal, which is to raise money for veterans, it is up to us in the press to get that information. If he's a businessman, if he's a private citizen, he doesn't have that responsibility. Now, we both have the responsibility, those of us in the press to ask the questions, and he, as a candidate for President to give the answers.
COOPER: Dana Lash, how do you see it?
DANA LASH, CONSERVATIVE TALK SHOW HOST: Well, I'm glad to see that the press is finally standing up to do its job. Look, I think Trump can be scrutinized. I mean, he's a politician. He's applying for the top job in the land, so, of course, the press is to scrutinize these candidates, they're to scrutinize these people and so should citizen journalists as well.
But here's the thing. One of the reasons we're seeing this visceral reaction against the press, Anderson, is because for actually a little over eight years we've seen a press that has protected certain aspects of the beltway. We've seen a press that has protected this current administration.
We've seen a press that has turned a blind eye to fast and furious, and we saw them turn a blind eye to the Affordable Care Act and the reporting therein of people losing their insurance. We saw it again with Benghazi, everything being reported on as like it's a non-story or it's some sort of made up scandal.
So yes, people don't trust the press. The press, I think -- what was it? They have a higher unfavorability rating than Congress, and that's for a reason. So the press has to earn back respect from people.
And, you know, I'm not surprised to see someone actually have this sort of interaction with the press. However, on the other hand, you have to expect when you are running for President and particularly if you are running for President as a Republican, the press is going to come after you, and they're going to come after you harder than they will the other side.
COOPER: Do you think, Dana, that Trump looks at all thin-skinned on this? Because, I mean, I do -- I keep coming back to the idea that, you know, he has had relationships with reporters and close relationships with reporters going back decades. He's had, you know, probably more press attention going back decades, but it is a completely different kind of attention than he's going to be getting now.
And I think he seems to bristle at it, perhaps understandably. Or do you think that plays a role in this as well? That he's just not used to this sort of -- you know, it's one thing for reporters to be covering, you know, you as a business person or the foibles or whatever it is, but when you're running for President, it is a different level of attention.
LASH: Right. No, I do agree with that. And you really can't have -- you can't be used to this level until you've actually gone through it and have experienced it. But, you know, at the same time that we're talking about where the money went -- and I think that these are good questions to ask. Look, I'm not saying that none of these questions are horrible questions to ask, and I think it's smart to vet these charities before you start distributing funds.
But at the same time, I would love to see this sort of turning over every single rock and looking in every nook and cranny and gathering all the facts. I would love to see this applied to every other aspect of Washington, D.C. and the current administration, which we haven't.
So, you know, I think people need to understand, they need to have this expectation that well, you know, there's this relationship that the media has kind of cultivated.
COOPER: Dana, I want you to respond.
BASH: I was just going to say, you know, I'm actually going to defer to Jim Acosta, who has been covering this administration, who probably has a very different experience --
ACOSTA: We ask tough questions over there, too.
BASH -- in covering this administration, because they think we're unfair to them.
And, you know, we hear it from Democrats as well. The fact that Hillary Clinton is looking at this, who is, even though Republicans maybe don't think she is, she has been one of the most scrutinized people out there. That goes to show, you know, where you stand depends on where you sit. COOPER: Yes, Jim?
LASH: And I have to say, Anderson, I think Dana Bash is doing a great job.
ACOSTA: Anderson, if both sides say you're doing something wrong, you must be doing --
COOPER: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
ACOSTA: If both sides are saying that you're doing something wrong, you must be doing OK.
COOPER: Yes. All right, listen, I appreciate everybody.
Drew, stay with us. Drew and his team have been looking through nearly 400 pages of inside documents that came out today in that class action lawsuit against Trump University so-called. Keeping him honest, for the first time you'll see the guidelines that Trump staffers got for giving prospective students the hard sale. Also Donald Trump's campaign firing back hard against the judge who released these documents.
Also later, animal expert, Jack Hanna, on this tragic, just sickening, horrible story we've been talking about. How a child got into a zoo's gorilla habitat, the zoo's decision to shoot the gorilla. The rage now being focused on the zoo and even the little boy's mom. The latest on all of it ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, as we've been talking about, Donald Trump went after reporters today. He attacked a federal judge over the weekend. That judge, Gonzalo Curio, is hearing the class action lawsuit alleging Trump University, which wasn't really a university, failed to deliver on promises to provide a real estate education with instructors quote, "hand-picked" by Trump.
Today, on orders from the judge after a request from "The Washington Post," nearly 400 pages of material were made public, including guidelines for so-called Trump team members on recruiting students and selling them the priciest education possible. Drew Griffin tonight is keeping him honest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN (voice-over): The sales team playbook released is the first time we've seen such a detailed account of how Trump University was able to sell $40 million in what's alleged to be a worthless real estate course.
In these pages are details on seating, dressing, the use of power phrases and scripted answers to tough questions like how much money will it cost. "I'm glad you asked that question," the playbook script tells the salesperson to say. "It takes money to make money... this is an invitation program... most students who are invited into this program use established lines of credit, like a credit card, utilizing the bank's money," the script says, "OPM, to handle their tuition. For people with no credit cards or have used up their limits, do you have any other capital or savings set aside to further invest into real estate projects?"
Another document instructs staffers to, "Collect personalized information that you can utilize during closing time. (For example: are they a single parent of three children who need money for food?).
Salespeople were told to use that personal information, tug on the emotions of potential clients and close the deal, preferably with a credit card swipe for up to $35,000.
ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN, NEW YORK'S ATTORNEY GENERAL: So this is thousands of people who were taken for millions of dollars.
GRIFFIN: New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, is leading one of the three lawsuits against Donald Trump and his Trump University, the lawsuits all basically the same.
SCHNEIDERMAN: There wasn't piece of his pitch that was actually true.
GRIFFIN: Schneiderman alleges it wasn't a university. Its teachers didn't teach any Donald Trump secrets.
TRUMP: And these are all people that are hand-picked by me.
GRIFFIN: And no, according to lawsuits, none of the instructors were hand-picked by Donald Trump.
Felicisimo Limon says he paid more than $26,000 for his Trump real estate course. He says he learned nothing and was constantly pressured to buy even more.
FELICISIMO LIMON, FORMER TRUMP UNIVERSITY STUDENT: What the heck are you talking about? More money, and I'm not learning anything?
GRIFFIN (on camera): You didn't learn anything in that class?
LIMON: No.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And Drew is back with us. I mean, Donald Trump was a big part of this school. Obviously, the name -- again, school I'm using the term loosely here. The name of the university, the sales pitch he made. Did he actually have any face to face interaction with the students?
GRIFFIN: No, and it was such a big question for the students, they actually have a whole page designed to answer that question, am I ever going to meet Donald Trump. That's what the students want to learn.
And this was part of the standard reply, "Obviously, Mr. Trump can't meet with everyone, nor does he want to, so he's also created a (insert program name based on lead information here) where we only invite a select group of people that have been hand-picked by this program director" and it goes on to say that, "you, sir, are the hand- picked person that we've chosen."
COOPER: Did you have to pay extra to get in that program?
GRIFFIN: Yes, you always had to pay extra to get the more specialized program. So you would start with a three-day program, generic $1,495. That was three days of sales pitches.
COOPER: $1,495? One thousand, four hundred and ninety-five?
GRIFFIN: $1,495.
COOPER: Yes.
GRIFFIN: That was designed to get you up to the big five-day seminar. And if they were really good, they'd get you in the five-day seminar with a gold leaf program with a mentoring, which would be $34,995.
COOPER: I want to bring in BET's Marc Lamont Hill; Clinton supporter and former New York City council speaker, Christine Quinn; chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.
Also we have Trump supporter and former Reagan political honcho, Jeffrey Lord; conservative Trump critic, Tara Setmayer; and former New York Republican congressman, Rick Lazio, who ran against Hillary Clinton in 2000 New York Senate race.
Jeffrey, let me start off with you. I mean, I know you sort of poo pooed this whole Trump University action against Trump. Do you still poo poo it, or do you think this could come back?
JEFFREY LORD, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Yes, yes, of course I do. There'e even -- there's even more. And looking at, for example, one of the law firms that's involved with this, they paid Bill and Hillary Clinton over half a million dollars, if not more, in speech fees. I mean, this is a clear, clear political conflict of interest.
COOPER: Do you think Trump University was an actual university?
LORD: I think it was a university in the way that these kind of inspiring things, if you will -- I mean, Tony Robins, all these kind of things, I think it was that --
COOPER: But he doesn't call himself a university.
LORD: No, no, no, but, I mean, I just -- I was not offended by the term "university" here. I mean, you can --
COOPER: Do you think people knew what they were getting into? Knew -- I mean, that when Donald Trump says I hand-picked all these people who are the professors in the associate professors --
LORD: I mean, I think you've got an obligation as a customer to look into anything you do if you're going to --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Do you have an obligation as somebody running an organization --
LORD: Sure.
COOPER: -- if you say you hand-picked people to actually hand pick them?
LORD: You know, you get to a point here where you're in business and you're selling. You're selling a product here. I mean, we do things all the time in the -- we, the private sector -- in the media and everywhere that whatever it is you're selling is the biggest, the best, the brightest, et cetera, et cetera.
COOPER: Right, but when you go to, you know, Columbia University, they don't send you a video that says we've vetted our professors and it turns out they haven't vetted the professors. They actually generally --
LORD: Right, well, boy, you know, if we're going to -- if we're going to start vetting actual universities for the quality of their graduates --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: OK, so Trump, who -- Trump, who said -- Trump, who said he had personally selected these people, it's OK that he actually had not done that in your mind?
LORD: I just don't -- I just don't see that as a big deal honestly.
COOPER: Isn't that a lie?
LORD: No, Anderson, are we --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: If I say I've hand-vetted -- if I say I have vetted all the people working for me and I haven't --
LORD: If you say -- if you say you want -- you can keep your doctor if you want to keep your doctor, is that a lie?
COOPER: OK, but you're deflecting.
LORD: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Anderson.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: That's a lie. That's a lie. If you believe --
LORD: OK.
COOPER: -- if you know for a fact --
LORD: OK.
COOPER: -- you can't keep your doctor, that is a lie.
LORD: So all the stories --
COOPER: Is Donald Trump --
LORD: -- about President Obama lying --
COOPER: I'm just asking. You refuse to answer the question. Did Donald Trump lie when he said I personally selected these people, when it turns out he didn't?
LORD: Anderson, he, I'm sure in his mind, thought he was selling a product.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Are no Trump supporters allowed to actually contradict the candidate?
LORD: There's a lightning bolt that will come in.
COOPER: Apparently.
LORD: No, no, no, no.
COOPER: Tara, was that a lie?
TARA SETMAYER, CONSERVATIVE TRUMP CRITIC: Absolutely, it was a lie. And it was a lie as part of a sales pitch to get people in to spend more money, to be -- to engage in this program that turned out to be a fraud, which is why the case --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Does it matter. I mean, the vote -- the primary vote -- to Jeffrey's point, does it matter at all? Primary voters had this information. They saw this and they voted for him, and he's the candidate.
SETMAYER: Well, it should matter. And I don't think -- I think that what voters were exposed to was a very limited amount of this information, and you hear all of this --
COOPER: Well, they had a lot of the information out there.
SETMAYER: Yes, but you hear Trump with this word vomit of nonsense all the time that you never know what he's saying is true or not. He can't focus on more than one lie at a time, because there's so many.
But just really quick. The point that you made, Jeffrey, as you were trying so hard, my dear friend, to not admit that that was a lie when you know it was one -- but is that you said he was selling a product. You do whatever it takes to sell a product.
That's exactly what he's doing right now with voters, saying whatever he needs to do to sell the product, which is his candidacy.
LORD: But this is what --
SETMAYER: And this is -- and people are going to get the same fraud that these people at Trump University did, and I feel bad for people like you that keep --
LORD: If that is the standard --
SETMAYER: -- but why do you guys keep supporting this --
LORD: Tara, if that is the --
SETMAYER: -- when it's clear what's going on here.
LORD: -- if that is the standard, everybody's got to get out of the presidential race right now.
SETMAYER: No, I think that's not true at all. Not everyone is flat out lying or engaging in fraud.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: OK, Rick, when Donald Trump says, look, I could settle this if I wanted to, but I'm not going to do it. I'm not a guy who settles lawsuits. He actually settles a lot of the lawsuits. But do you think voters seem to like that idea about him that you don't settle? He's a fighter. He's going to keep fighting this.
RICK LAZIO (R), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: Yes, I mean, it's always about Donald Trump, the attitude, as opposed to the substance underlying the issues and the ideas. And so, yes, they are attracted, I think, many voters to this sense of being decisive, somewhat defiant, I'm not going to get rolled by whether it's the media or a judge or whomever it is.
And I thought that the attack on the judge was particularly interesting, very Clintonesque in the sense that you try and delegitimize the person who could potentially put you in box in an embarrassing situation.
COOPER: Right. It's -- I mean, Gloria, it is amazing, because if there was another presidential candidate who was affiliated with a university that wasn't really a university that had these lawsuits and these claims, it would have done in just about anybody else. But, again, it's a testament to Donald Trump and his level of support and the belief people have in him that this has basically done nothing.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It would have, because people are supporting him not because of Trump University or anything else. They're supporting him, because they believe that Donald Trump can change the country and change the world. If he were just a normal presidential candidate, what he would say in
defending himself is, I welcome this scrutiny on Trump University, because you know what, this judge will find that Trump University was, you know, totally on the up and up, that our students were well- educated, that they got what they paid for and defend Trump University.
COOPER: Which, by the way, he has a number, because as Jeffrey has pointed out previously, a number of these students, according to Trump, you know, signed things saying that they liked Trump University.
LORD: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: Right, but instead --
SETMAYER: Under pressure. He uses that all the time, but people who have been -- you know, who testified in the depositions said that the instructors would stand over them and pressure them to write --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Right, I'm just -- I'm just trying to bring up how Trump is defending this.
BORGER: Right, but instead, you know, he is attacking the ethnicity of a judge and --
LORD: But that --
BORGER: Well --
COOPER: He's questioning it.
BORGER: -- he's questioning it. OK.
COOPER: He's saying that he's Mexican, which I don't know of many Mexican citizens who are judges in the United States, but anyway.
BORGER: Right. But he -- but so he takes a different line, which is to punch, punch, punch rather than say, you know what, I'm a presidential candidate, I'm going to be scrutinized like any other presidential candidate. And if I'm going to attack Hillary Clinton has been crooked Hillary, I welcome this --
COOPER: But, you know, Christine, you're a supporter of Clinton. I mean, look, Hillary Clinton can bring this up, but, again, it hasn't had an impact so far on Donald Trump.
CHRISTINE QUINN, CLINTON SUPPORTER: It hasn't had an impact in the Republican primary, and I think the general election is a completely different playing field. And I think there where you're really talking to Independents, talking to a broader swath of the Republican Party, to all of the Democratic Party, I think these type of issues are going to have a very, very different impact.
Because Jeffrey, what you basically said was buyer beware. You're the dope who bought this thing that Donald Trump ripped you off on. And I think voters --
LORD: If you remember --
QUINN: -- they don't want to --
LORD: "I didn't want to have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" --
QUINN: -- the voters don't want to have a buyer beware situation with the President of the United States. And the more conversation there is about Donald Trump in the general election playing field, the more people are going to question.
COOPER: But Mark, this probably won't go to trial until after the election.
MARC LAMONT HILL, HOST, BET NEWS: Well, that's the point. He's just going to kick this down the field or kick the can down the road rather so that people don't have to think or talk about this. And he -- like Jeff is doing, he's just throwing up more smoke. Right? He's Mexican, you know, the prosecutors donated to Clinton, all of these things that have nothing to do with the point.
LORD: Well, they do. A political conflicts of interest. Are you kidding me?
HILL: No, no, let's say there is one. And I disagree with you, but let's say there is one.
LORD: (Inaudible) investigation?
HILL: Hold on. Even if you're 100-percent right. This is a vast, you know, political attack. That doesn't negate the fact that Donald Trump was lying.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
HILL: It doesn't negate the fact that this was a fraudulent project, and we're trying to sort of distract from that.
LORD: So --
COOPER: But wait. Also, didn't these lawsuits exist before the election, before Donald Trump was running for president?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they did. Well in advance.
LORD: Wait, wait, wait. The lawsuits that the judge said that these law firms could handle came after Donald Trump was well in the press --
(CROSSTALK) HILL: That's not the point, though. People were suing before he was
running for president. They didn't have a crystal ball to anticipate that he was going to run for president.
(CROSSTALK)
HILL: They didn't like the product.
GRIFFIN: I just want to say something. You guys are talking in political terms, but this is a fraud trial, Anderson. This is not political to the fellow that I introduced you to, Felicisimo Limon. He served in the Navy for 40 years.
When he signed up for this course, he believed in Donald Trump. He thought Donald Trump was going to help him become not a billionaire but maybe a couple of thousandaire. And he took all his money -- his wife even swiped their Target credit card so they could fulfill the payment on this.
There are hundreds and hundreds of these people who have come forward -- hold on -- to say look it, I believed in this guy and he defrauded me. They didn't learn anything. There were no hand-picked experts. There was no education taught that they could do this, too.
And, you know, you can say all the things you want about, well, the law firm is politically connected --
LORD: But that's a big deal.
GRIFFIN: -- but it's -- it is not. It's irrelevant to this court case.
LORD: It's not irrelevant.
GRIFFIN: The court case is going to be based --
LORD: Drew, it's biased.
GRIFFIN: -- on facts. The facts are is what he pitched, what was delivered and whether or not what he pitched was a lie --
LORD: What's being pitched here --
GRIFFIN: -- and intentional when he defrauded these people.
LORD: -- is that these law firms have no political --
(CROSSTALK)
SETMAYER: No, what's being pitched here is --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Let Jeffry finish, and then we've got to move. All right, you know what? Let's take a break.
LORD: OK. COOPER: We have a lot more. We have two hours.
We should add, the Clinton campaign shifting its strategy, borrowing some tactics from rival Donald Trump. He's no longer the only one flooding the zone with coordinated attacks, calling into television programs. We'll see if it actually has the same kind of effect for Hillary Clinton as it has for Donald Trump.
Plus, a freak and fatal encounter, a small child ending up in the clutches of a gorilla. You've no doubt seen this video. Horrified onlookers watched. The boy survived. The gorilla was killed, was shot.
The incident is sparking a bitter debate and investigations. Did the zoo do the right thing? What about the boy's mother? How did the boy get in that enclosure? All the details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:32:53] COOPER: Welcome back. A week from tonight we'll be covering the final Super Tuesday of 2016, California with 475 Democratic delegates, obviously the biggest prize. Today the Golden States governor Jerry Brown endorsed Hillary Clinton urging voters who don't want to see a Trump presidency to stop their infighting and rally behind the Democratic frontrunner. Secretary Clinton has been stumping hard in California, where polls have shown her in a tight race with Bernie Sanders.
At the same, she appears to be shifting her strategy when it comes to her other rival in what could be the bigger battle ahead. Here's Sunlen Serfaty.
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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As I say crooked Hillary.
Lying Ted.
Little Marco.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Unfiltered.
TRUMP: It's Pocahontas, Elizabeth Warren.
SERFATY: Unpredictable.
TRUMP: I like people that weren't captured OK, I hate to tell you. It feels ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you agree with that?
TRUMP: He's a war hero because he was captured.
SERFATY: And unapologetic.
TRUMP: I mean what I say is 100 percent right.
SERFATY: Hillary Clinton is facing the definition of an unconventional candidate.
TRUMP: And I would say that she started screaming at the TelePrompTer but I'm not allowed to say that. You know why? Now if she was a man I could say it, but as a woman ...
SERFATY: Donald Trump forcing the Clinton campaign to rethink and rewrite the play book. The new strategy, the question whether the billionaire has the right temperament to be president.
TRUMP: What a looser.
SERFATY: One recent poll shows 70 percent of voters don't think he does.
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is unqualified loose cannon who cannot get near the most powerful job in the world. And it's up to us to say no.
SERFATY: Team Clinton is trying to take down Trump by zeroing in on individual issues with simultaneous coordinated attacks. Today was Trump's veterans event, last week it was Trump's past business practices unloading not just on the campaign trail.
CLINTON: Why on Earth would we elect somebody president who actually rooted for the collapse of the mortgage market?
SERFATY: But also making Clinton more readily available for interviews, stealing a page out of Trump's own play book, calling into TV programs including today with CNN's Jake Tapper.
[20:35:04] CLINTON: He's bragged for month about raising $6 million for veterans and donating a million dollars himself, but it took a reporter to shame him into actually making his contribution.
SERFATY: Doubling down on those attacks through social media.
TRUMP: If there is a bubble burst as they call it, you know, you can make a lot of money.
SERFATY: And with an army of campaign surrogates, fanning out in battle ground states and on conference calls with reporters.
JOHN DOUGLAS, U.S. AIR FORCE: Donald Trump has never spent one minute of the kind of service that Senator McCain has served for his country. So for him to disparage that service is despicable and disgraceful.
SERFATY: All this amounting to an aggressive and coordinated operation meant to flood the zone on one target topic alone and not see if the news cycle or any ground to Donald Trump.
Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Oh question is will that work. Joining me now is CNN senior political commentator, former Obama senior advisor David Axlerod, who also hosts "The Axe Files" podcast.
And so David, these more aggressive highly coordinated attacks from the Clinton campaign, how effective do you think they're going to be on a candidate who is certainly is more curial I guess you could say or reactive as Donald Trump is?
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, it's an interesting question. It's like, you know, you're used to preparing to play the New York Giants and all of a sudden you got like an alien invertor from Mars, you know. And it's a whole different ball game.
I think that he has been very resistant to these attacks during the primaries and Anderson at the end of the day I don't even think the substance of the attacks are what ultimately are going to be problematic for Trump, it's the way he reacts to them. What he's proving to be is very reactive and his press conference today reflect to that and ultimately the issue for him is going to be one of temperament. And so by provoking him with these attacks they may achieve something larger than the attack themselves.
COOPER: Explain that, I mean, so you mean go after him on his temperament or try to provoke something?
AXELROD: Well, I think his temperament is exposing itself. I said a long time ago that presidential campaigns are MRI's for the soul, and, you know, the pressure gets retch it up, the higher you go and he's now feeling some of that and you see him sort of serially attacking most who he feels who are attacking him.
And it isn't playing well right now. So some of it will expose itself but yes I think that ultimately the question in this race may come down to, you know, some solidity and experience versus the sort of mercurial (ph), and sort of impulsive nature of Donald Trump. That I think is where they're ultimately going to end to land.
COOPER: We've also seen Secretary Clinton going after Trump for his business record, for and their opinion being out of touch with average Americans. That strategy was certainly effective against Mitt Romney and we should point out, you helped orchestrate that strategy. Romney though was much more different because obviously much more conventional candidate than Donald Trump but also less of a known quantity than Donald Trump.
AXELROD: Yeah. I don't know how successful those attacks will be. I do think there are lots of elements of his business record that are unknown to people. No, his image as a businessman was largely cultivated on his television show "The Apprentice" where he, you know, scripts were written and he was always the all knowing all seeing successful businessman and some of the stories that are coming out paint a different picture. So it may have some effect but I think the larger -- the larger effect will be to arouse him to these kinds of outbursts that we've seen and that may be the most damaging of all.
COOPER: I want to ask you about this new Monmouth poll out today putting Donald Trump just four points behind Secretary Clinton, in New Jersey now granted Clinton isn't the presumptive nominee yet but its got to be just disconcerting for the Clinton campaign especially considering the fact that Trump talks so much about turning traditional blue states like New Jersey red?
AXELROD: Yeah. I would be certainly she should be at least a little concerned about some of these early polls not just in New Jersey but some other states. But I would caution you that looking at polls five months out in a race as volatile as this is a little bit like consulting the farmer's almanac, you know, I take it with a grain of salt. You look within that Monmouth poll and it's clear that she hasn't yet consolidated some of the Democratic constituencies that I expect she will particularly among monitory voters once the Democratic nomination is sewn up.
So I would look more closely at these po1ls come to the fall when we're closer to the actual election and the primary campaign is behind her.
COOPER: David, David Axelrod thanks so much.
Oh, just ahead in a pivotal swing state and the rest fell to Trump Super PAC is targeting some of the hardest to reach voters in the country, the Amish. Are they tilting in wind mills or could that actually pay off.
[20:40:03] Plus, a 3-year-old boy in the clutches of a silverback gorilla after falling into moat in danger aids enclosure. Two officials shot the gorilla to death to save the child, the latest on how it happened and the controversy it's created.
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COOPER: Well Ohio has a long history as a swing state. In a recent (inaudible) days ago a federal court reinstated federal a law allowing seven days of early voting in Ohio with same day registering, it's called the golden week and Republican state lawmakers struck it down. Two years ago, Democrats sued to overturn it, now the Trump campaign has made winning the rust belt to keep part of its strategy, no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. So that and a Trump Super PAC is targeting an unlikely group of voters. Gary Tuchman takes a look.
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GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: (Inaudible) it has completely risen, Amish country is bustling and active but not politically active. At least when it comes to the U.S. presidential election.
Do you vote in presidential elections?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
TUCHMAN: Are you going to be voting in the presidential election?
[20:45:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I'm not. TUCHMAN: This is Holmes Country, Ohio. No county in the U.S. has a higher percentage of Amish and Mennonite residents. Nearly half of the 42,000 people who live here are part of that deeply conservative an old world traditional community and almost all will tell you they consider it against their faith to vote in a presidential election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We could do more like praying.
TUCHMAN: But that's not stopping, a new political action committee called Amish PAC from raising money to try to convince the Amish in the key states of Ohio and Pennsylvania to put Donald Trump in the White House. Adem Mast is an Amish minister.
Do you watch TV?
REV. ADEM MAST, AMISH MINISTER: I don't.
TUCHMAN: Go on the computer?
MAST: I don't.
TUCHMAN: You read the newspapers?
MAST: Once in a while.
TUCHMAN: OK, do you know who Donald Trump is?
MAST: I know he's a billionaire running for president.
TUCHMAN: Do you know anything else about him.
MAST: Not really. Business man I guess. How he got his money I have no idea.
TUCHMAN: What do you know about Donald Trump?
ANN MAST, MT. HOPE OHIO RESIDENT: Actually I don't know anything about him, I don't really.
TUCHMAN: So just his name?
A. MAST: Yeah, just his name.
HENRY YODER, MT. HOPE OHIO RESIDENT: We don't want to go to war but we don't think we should be voting for the president either.
TUCHMAN: I hitched a ride in this Henry Yoder's bugdy (ph) and told him that this political action committee is planning in advertising blitz of billboards and newspapers at Amish country this summer.
Do you think that would work here?
YODER: I don't think we'll have a much effect. Among church here.
TUCHMAN: This flower and produce auction brings out a mixture of the Amish people and the English. The term many use here for the non- Amish. Some of the Amish here have heard Trump has made a few controversial comments.
One of the things he said is that Muslim people should not be allowed for the time being to come into the United States and then he sort of took it back later but he didn't say like (inaudible) the whole religion shouldn't be allowed to come into this country for the time being. What do you think about that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think we all have the right to be here, don't we?
YODER: He's slams people. I can't imagine these government guys slamming each other like they do. It's not our way of doing business.
TUCHMAN: The Amish political action committee clearly has hurdles to overcome. Not just because of the radicans about voting it's something more basic. The Amish are modest insular people . Donald Trump not so modest not so insular.
But among the Amish and Mennonite faithful, there is some intrigue about Trump.
A. MAST: I think that perhaps God is using him to shake things up. Things have to get worse before they get better and we are living in end times.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Gary Tuchman joins us. Now, it's so fascinating to hear from the Amish folks you interviewed. What did they say about Hillary Clinton?
TUCHMAN: Every Amish person I talked to Anderson, knows the name Hillary Clinton, knows she's running for president and knows her husband was a president but they don't know much about her positions. We also asked about Bernie Sanders and most of the Amish people we talked with know the name Bernie Sanders and they don't know how he's involved in all of this.
We should mention Anderson, most Amish people do not want to talk on camera. We wanted to be sensitive about that so we talked to a lot of people off camera.
COOPER: Yeah, I was going to ask you that was -- the other question is how did you get so many folks to talk but you have an amazing ability to talk with your heart in a good place and that -- and people know that. Gary thanks so much, appreciate it.
Just ahead a story that just made headlines around the world, a 3- year-old boy got into a gorilla enclosure the zoo, got dragged by a 450 pound gorilla. Police now investigating the incident, there some outcry over the fact that the zoo officials shot and killed the gorilla and saved the boy and if the child manage to get obviously in the enclosure in the first place. We'll get the latest on that and we'll hear from Jack Hanna, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [20:52:36] COOPER: The Cincinnati Police Department today said it is investigating an incident over the weekend that shocked everyone who seen the video of 3-year-old boy being dragged by a gorilla into enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo before the zoo officials shoot and killed the gorilla.
The Cincinnati Police Department said it's investigating the actions of the parents and the family not the zoo, which would be under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Agriculture Department.
In a moment we'll talk to animal expert Jack Hanna, but first let's take a look at the incident itself.
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COOPER: Crowds in the corner of this enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo a 450 pound male silverback gorilla named Harambe. His huge bulk hiding a 3-year-old child who inexplicably got into the gorilla habitat.
Horrified visitors watched from above. The child's mother forensically calls out to her baby.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mommy is right here.
COOPER: The gorilla is seemingly agitated perhaps by the noise of the crowd say witnesses.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my gosh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let say everybody back up.
COOPER: Harambe holds on to the little boy and at one point he takes his arm and holds the back of the boy's pants as he stand.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Be calm, be calm.
COOPER: And then Herambe abruptly drag the boy through the water again, further away from the crowds.
It's clear to zoo officials, Harambe is not letting go of the child and after 10 agonizing minutes they decide to shoot and kill him.
The boy is in between the Harambe's legs when the gorilla is taken down. Zoo officials say there was no other choice.
THANE MAYNARD, CINCINNATI ZOO DIRECTOR: The gorilla was clearly agitated and the gorilla was clearly disoriented. And so the idea of waiting and shooting with the hypodermic was not a good idea.
COOPER: The little boy was not seriously injured, but how did he end up inside a protected enclosure?
Zoo official say the boy slipped under a three foot rail, climbed through wires and then dropped roughly 10 feet.
An eyewitness says the mother was distracted by other children with her.
KIMBERLY O'CONNOR, EYEWITNESS: The little boy himself had already been talking about wanting to go in, go in, get in the water.
COOPER: Jerry Stone took care of Harambe when he was born and says the gorilla was never aggressive, but zoo officials needed to act.
JERRY STONES, HARAMBE'S FORMER CARETAKER: He was in a situation where there's this strange thing here that I don't know what to -- what do I do? And do I fight it? Do I love it? Do I run from it? What do I do? And an unforeseen circumstance was born and he had to lose.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:55:13] COOPER: Jack Hanna is probably the most famous zoo keeper out there and his plenty about all about all kind of animals including gorilla. He's the director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. We spoke a short time ago.
Jack, thanks for being with us under these really impossible circumstances. And I guess the question is how do you see it? I mean did the zoo do the right thing in shooting the gorilla?
JACK HANNA, DIRECTOR EMERITUS COLUMBUS ZOO: Well Anderson, I have to say they did the right thing only because at the Columbus Zoo we have the first gorilla ever born here, the only twin gorillas ever born here. I've been with gorillas here for almost 38 years.
You have a situation Anderson, where all the sudden this is a male silverback gorilla, this is a child that drops in the moat, I didn't get concerned until I got and saw the video when that animal got his arm -- jerked him through the water like that. Knowing what I've seen with gorillas in the wild and in zoos when they're upset like that the animal is upset. Well I couldn't say that unless that was familiar with the gorillas like I have it for 37 years.
At that point Anderson, what everybody is screaming. His family, you know, they sort back the balls, all the family goes inside the building, always why so to speak, all of them take off. Here he is with this thing the moat who is screaming like that, fighting back, not like the other children who have been rescued by the gorillas, they're unconscious, this child is pulling on it. So who knows what would have happened Anderson, when you sit there and you either have a choice if you're a father or grandfather and you're child is in there, a 450 pound gorilla has your child there was no choice Anderson. Now I will say this very often now, jokingly said something as bit my life on it, I will sit it on your show and say, I bet my life that child would not be here today if they hadn't done what they did.
COOPER: When you dart a gorilla how long does it usually take for them to -- for the drug to take effect?
HANNA: Well that's a great question. Your finally one of the people ask me today. It takes five to ten minutes. So what happens Anderson, if the young boy like started fighting back that's really concerned me. If the little boy gets nervous and starts going like this with the gorilla, you not both know what the gorilla is going to do.
COOPER: Yeah.
HANNA: I mean it would have been something we don't want to talk about right now.
COOPER: There -- as you point out, there have been other cases one in the UK in 1986 and under 10 years later in Chicago kids ended up enclosures with gorillas, and this gorillas actually seem to protect them but, in those cases the kids you're saying were unconscious or asleep?
HANNA: Correct. Both kid were unconscious here Anderson. The one that was in Chicago, the Brookfield Zoo, yes that animal came from that female, the child fell in there it was unconscious, the gorilla held and so I came in got that child and that gorilla came from the (inaudible) zoo, that gorilla was hand raid here, because of the -- the way was acting with the mom.
COOPER: Right.
HANNA: Hand raised here, so that gorilla knew people. The silverback by the way remember something that child is unconscious not screaming yelling and fighting back, so therefore you can see why both instances worked.
COOPER: I mean I've had silverbacks charge at me and the people I was with, and I'm sure you have as well up in Rwanda and I mean they often veer off at the last minute but when you see them up close like that you get a sense of just how incredibly strong they are, how enormous they are, how quick they can move and it really is unpredictable what they're going to do and on top of that it's unpredictable what this little child is going to do.
HANNA: See Anderson the first one day after 28 interviews that I've talked that has seen the gorillas and can say that they seat there as the person but your show you're little (ph) audience nothing seat there and say that they seat there and saw the gorillas. You saw them charge, I've been charged several times. And to something you don't have -- I mean I'd be funny here, you know what to do.
COOPER: Right, and it's paralyzing.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNAH: It's para -- exactly it's like something out of sight. The power of those animals that you saw is beyond immeasurable.
COOPER: Right, I mean with a primate -- with a mountain gorilla in particular but any gorilla except that I think for (inaudible), if you look them in the eye directly it's a hostile act, so I mean looking them in the eye not showing difference to I'm not lowering your eyes I mean if that little boy started doing that or screaming while looking at gorilla there's no telling what can happen.
HANNA: See, (inaudible) brought up today. Some people I've had today laughed it's all I've heard you look in their eyes and they don't do anything you not both know, I've had it happen. You don't look in that mount to its eyes. The guys in charge over there don't do it Jack where, you know, I'm like a child I guess I did try it once and then all the sudden that gorilla goes like this and puffs up, I go like this. I mean I tried to look away so fast I couldn't even stand it. And it's beyond a massive animal. It's an animal that's gorgeous. Now doubt about it Anderson, this is a loss, no doubt about that.
COOPER: It just -- it's horrific. I mean there's no way around it either way ...
HANNA: Right.
COOPER: ... it's a no win situation. Jack Hanna, listen I appreciate you being on. Thank you.
HANNA: Thank you, Anderson.
COOPER: Well, just ahead another hour of "360". Donald Trump slamming the media including CNN Jim Acosta for holding an accountable for statements he made about veterans charity, and Trump doesn't seem to want to be held to any standards scrutiny or at least doesn't like this level of scrutiny.
[21:00:00] More on what he said today, next.
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