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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

DNC Chief Stepping Down Amid Email Scandal; Clinton-Kaine Interview on 60 Minutes; Interview with Donna Brazile; Obama Rejects Trump's Vows to Expand Muslim Ban. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired July 24, 2016 - 20:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:00:08] ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you back here from the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia. "AC360" begins right now.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And a good evening to you from Philadelphia where they know a thing or two about making history. Tomorrow, the Democratic Party will open a convention that will end with the country's first female major party presidential nominee.

Now in a moment what she and Tim Kaine said in their first joint interview on "60 Minutes", what Donald Trump said about them, and what President Obama says about him. However because Philadelphia also knows a bit about political infighting and controversy we begin tonight with that. A scandal, an e-mail scandal, no less, that today claimed the job of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She chairs the Democratic Party. This would have been her convention. Now it will be her last hurrah.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny has been talking to sources since this broke, joins us now with the latest.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is out. But it sounds like she's not out until after the convention which I'm not quite sure I understand. When's the latest?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, that is true. I am here inside the convention hall where they're actually practicing some music. We'll hear later in the week. But Debbie Wasserman Schultz I'm told is expected to take the stage tomorrow afternoon, shortly after the proceedings begin here. She is insisting on still taking the stage to welcome delegates and talk to them.

But this all is part of a long, drawn out series of events today, starting the day she was going presiding over the convention and ending where she'll be leaving on Friday. It took the President of the United States to have a phone call with her late today and the Clinton campaign to convince her to step aside.

It's all over the controversy, the uproar, over those e-mails as you mentioned that show what many Sanders supporters believe that the DNC was simply not fair and not impartial. Some of those e-mails are very embarrassing to say the least, certainly not impartial here. So this is what finally led her to step down mid afternoon today. It took a lot of doing, though -- Anderson.

COOPER: I mean, was she essentially fired? I mean you're saying -- you know, she talked to the President and Hillary Clinton before making her announcement. She's saying she's stepping down but clearly this wasn't what she wanted.

ZELENY: It was definitely not what she wanted, Anderson. She clearly wanted to be here in Philadelphia presiding over this historic convention but it was presented to her that this is not helpful to the Clinton campaign. That's, of course, what this is all about -- nominating Hillary Clinton. It's not about Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Many Democrats conveyed to her this is not going away. In fact, it may even get worse if more e-mails come out. They thought the best way to deal with this was simply to step aside. So many Sanders delegates are angry at this and they simply do not want a repeat of what happened last week in Cleveland to happen here in Philadelphia.

COOPER: Well, I mean how do we expect this to play out with Sanders supporters on the floor? Because, I mean when she goes up there and appears, you know, how are they going to react?

ZELENY: Well, Anderson, it is a great question. We'll be certainly watching it tomorrow afternoon. You have to think that this is a place to vent anger and to react to the person who's on stage.

And I'm told by a few people close to her they have assurances from Senator Sanders that they will tell their supporters to not boo her. I don't see how you can make those assurances. This is a party, after all -- a political convention. So there's no question that tomorrow afternoon if she takes the stage I do not see how she is not received sort of negatively here perhaps even by some Clinton supporters.

She is not beloved in the party. She does have support across some areas of the party but we'll see if she actually goes through with this.

One other caveat here -- Anderson, she's running for re-election to her congressional seat in Florida and she actually has a tough primary fight in the primaries in August. So, all this could also play into that. She does not want to be booed on stage tomorrow but that could happen -- Anderson.

COOPER: Is it possible she will not take the stage? Because again, I just don't see why the Democratic Party would want her up on stage? I mean, regardless what she wants.

ZELENY: It certainly is possible she would not take the stage. Everything is in flux. We saw what has happened really over the last 12 hours or so. But as of now, I'm told that was her insistence throughout the day. She wants to talk to these delegates.

As of now she is planning to. But again 24 hours could change a lot of things here once, you know, this is well thought through and she hears from more people. But as of now, she's planning to speak tomorrow -- Anderson. COOPER: All right. Jeff Zeleny with the latest reporting. Jeff -- thanks.

Brazile will be taking the helm of the DNC chair position on a temporary. She's only done one interview about the shake-up and it's here on 360. My conversation with is coming up.

First though, the candidate and her running mate, their first joint interview on "60 Minutes" tonight with Scott Pelley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[20:05:03] SCOTT PELLEY, "60 MINUTES" HOST: He calls you "crooked Hillary". What do you call him?

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't call him anything. And I'm not going to engage in that kind of insult fest that he seems to thrive on.

So whatever he says about me he's perfectly free to use up his own air time and his own space to do. I'm going to talk about what he's done, how he has hurt people in business time after time after time. His vicious language against immigrants, his insulting a distinguished federal judge of Mexican heritage, his mocking a person with a disability, his really inflammatory language about Muslims, about American Muslims, about Muslims all over the world, his demeaning comments about women.

I'm going to -- I'm going to respond to what he has said that I think is so fundamentally at odds with who we are as a nation, where we need to be heading in the future, and the kind of dangerous, risky leadership that he's promising.

PELLEY: You know what he --

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Can I say this? I don't want to -- she's done a good job of letting the water go off her back on this. That's not the way I feel.

When I see this, you know, "crooked Hillary" or I see the "lock her up" it's just ridiculous. It is ridiculous. The Republican FBI director makes a decision that there's nothing here that is, you know, warrants any additional activity, but --

PELLEY: Criminal prosecution.

KAINE: -- yes. So they're going to say ok, well, we don't believe him now. We saw these folks trying to rehash the tragic deaths of Americans in Libya which we should all feel for those families, they're trying to politicize it.

CLINTON: I often feel like there's the Hillary standard and then there's the standard for everybody else.

PELLEY: What's the Hillary standard? CLINTON: Well, it is a lot of -- as you saw at the Republican

convention -- unfounded, inaccurate mean-spirited attacks with no basis in truth, reality, which take on a life of their own.

And for whatever reasons and I don't want to try to analyze the reasons. I see it, I understand it. People are very willing to say things about me, to make accusations about me that are -- I don't get upset about them anymore -- but they are very regrettable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: We'll have more from that "60 Minutes" interview shortly. Joining us right now in the panel: CNN's senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson; CNN chief national correspondent and "INSIDE POLITICS" anchor John King; our chief political analyst Gloria Borger; Democratic strategist, Clinton friend and pro-Clinton super PAC adviser Paul Begala; Sanders supporter and talk radio host Bill Press; and Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord.

Gloria -- what do you think of this -- their first appearance? We analyzed very closely the first appearance of Donald Trump and Governor Pence on "60 minutes". What do you make of this team?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think they're really relaxed together. I think he makes her better, actually, in answering these questions.

COOPER: You think that he sort of comes to her defense?

BORGER: Yes he does. He comes to her defense and I was thinking about this yesterday as we watched their -- was that yesterday -- their announcement speech?

Usually in politics women soften men. I think he softens her to a great degree. She is so relieved to have him there. She seems happy. She was smiling during the announcement. And just in this interview, there was a very easy back-and-forth between them.

So I think there is a real relationship there, and him coming to her defense in such a, you know, a good way. He's very strong -- helps her out.

COOPER: Certainly, John though, one of the headlines from this is Hillary Clinton saying there's a Hillary standard and a standard for everybody else. I think some people are going to read that as well that's just the Clintons sort of --

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Against the narrative of the Clintons have their own set of rules or think they can do things their way and get away with things. She should be careful about this because this is where sometimes she does get into an argument with Republicans.

This is how she feels thought. This is how she has felt and Paul and I lived through this when he was in the Clinton White House and I was covering the Clinton White House. This is how she feels from Whitewater, to Monica Lewinsky, to Paula Jones, to impeachment, to attacks on her during the health care debate back in the 90s.

She has felt that there is, as she said, the right wing conspiracy machine that's out there constantly looking in her trash, and you know, hiding in her backyard. That's how she feels. And it's changed her. Friends will tell you it has changed her.

And I'll tell you from covering the '92 campaign. This is not taking sides politically, she used to come back on the plane and have a glass of wine every now and then. She was funny. She was accessible. She was actually charming sometimes, an interesting person to have a conversation with.

She doesn't want anything to do with us now. She has become, in the words of friends, much more paranoid because of all this and sometimes when she talks about this -- again, and I lived those days. I understand how she feels because I was not. I'm not saying I agree with her but I guess it's a little dangerous to start saying "woe is me" when you're about to be the Democratic nominee.

[201008] COOPER: Nia, what do you think?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: No, I think that's right. I think that if you compare the chemistry that Clinton and Kaine have versus the chemistry between Pence and Trump -- just no comparison. They're clearly comfortable with each other. They clearly like each other -- which is good.

And in Kaine, just in terms of what he does to the map, I mean he's someone who knows Virginia very, very well. He was the mayor of Richmond, which is going to be a key place to really get out the vote.

So I think in terms of that -- I mean some people say a vice presidential choice doesn't really matter. I think it matters more in this instance because he's from a swing state and a lot of the data shows in a swing state it could accrue three or four points in terms of the top of the ticket. So I think this is a good match.

Democrats I heard from who were sort of lukewarm on Hillary Clinton love Tim Kaine. He was amazing yesterday. We were sort of looking at him on the teleprompter yesterday. He did it sort of with ease and just seemed to be talking to people and connecting in a way that didn't seem performative.

COOPER: Paul Begala, why would the DNC, why would Hillary Clinton allow Debbie Wasserman Schultz to suck up any more air time by getting on the stage tomorrow? I mean, you know, there was a lot of talk at the Republican convention about stories which diverted from the story that the RNC wanted out there. Isn't that the same thing here?

PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes. It's smaller because it's not a candidate for president like Ted Cruz was. But yes, it's a distraction. Instead of getting on the stage she should be getting on a plane, there's an 8:35 to Miami.

COOPER: You looked at it -- I think?

BEGALA: Yes, I looked it up.

COOPER: What -- you go to a flight --

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: And if it were legal my super PAC would pay for the flight. You don't need any distractions. I mean to me --

COOPER: I don't understand why people are saying that's what she wanted. Is that how this works?

BEGALA: It's part of the deal -- well, it's not fair. Life's not fair. If life was fair I'd be 6'4 with a full head of hair. Life's not fair -- tough luck.

BORGER: But what about her service?

BEGALA: You need to show -- her service is important and it should be honored but if it is a distraction from winning Democrats cannot afford it. There's two things -- actually this is for the whole rest of the race -- I'm going to stick to this. There are two dynamics to watch: which party is more unified, which party is more mainstream.

The Republicans failed on both. Today part of the problem with the chairman is it overshadowed a huge story which is that the very popular former New York Mayor, who was a Republican mayor, Mike Bloomberg is reportedly going to endorse Hillary Clinton here. That's mainstream, very important story. This is a disunity story and it hurts.

COOPER: And it makes the story -- I mean just as we were talking about with Melania Trump with the way they handled that, it made it a two or three-day story this becomes a story tomorrow as well which in the news business, I mean, we're thankful for but I imagine you Democrats are not.

BILL PRESS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I have been on this set off and on since 2:00 this afternoon. We have talked about nothing but Debbie Wasserman Schultz. This is insane.

Let me tell you, this convention, and I say this not as a Sanders supporter, I say it as a Democrat. Coming out of a great primary -- Portsmouth, New Hampshire, great joint appearance, you know, and the rollout of Tim Kaine, 100 points or whatever. And now coming here for the big unity thing and suddenly all we're talking about is Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She's got to go. It is not fair. This convention is about Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, not about Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

COOPER: The Democrats were portraying this as ripping off the band- aid. But it's like ripping off the band-aid and then putting it back on and sort of like waiting until tomorrow to take it off.

PRESS: The idea they're all pulling together and Obama and Hillary and even the Sanders people are all saying this is a good resolution of this. No, it's not. BEGALA: The President of the United States had to call her.

HENDERSON: Yes.

KING: This is somebody who -- nobody can talk to her. All day long they tried to tell her how she was distracting Hillary's convention. Her point was President Obama appointed me. I wasn't appointed by Secretary Clinton.

BORGER: Right.

KING: The President of the United States had to call her. Now Brazile, right, as we speak here -- I'm told two things. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is meeting with a senior staff and as I was walking out here as of then, she still plans to gavel the convention tomorrow and speak. When that happens it's going to blow up.

PRESS: She'll make Ted Cruz seem like the most popular person.

COOPER: And do you think Sanders supporters will boo?

PRESS: I think the Clinton people will boo. No -- I'm sorry.

COOPER: I want to hear Jeffrey Lord on this. But we've got to take a quick break. We'll have Jeffrey Lord and more -- a lot more to talk about coming up next.

Also what Senator Kaine thinks the prospect of working alongside President Clinton -- and former President Clinton -- based on something Hillary Clinton said.

Then later Donald Trump's connection with departing Fox News founder Roger Ailes. Ailes helped make Richard Nixon president. Could he possibly do the same formally for Donald Trump? We'll see what Trump just said about that when we continue.

[20:14:46](COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Former President Bill Clinton headlines the evening on Tuesday night. He spoke at the convention four years ago. People are still talking about it tonight. This time though if he's successful and he becomes the first first husband, the question is would that cramp the style of say his old friend Tim Kaine?

Scott Pelley asked him about it for CBS' "60 Minutes" tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PELLEY: Senator, you're going to be vice president in a White House with two presidents.

KAINE: I mean it's an embarrassment of riches.

PELLEY: What do you think of that notion?

CLINTON: I think it's an all hands on deck time. KAINE: Yes.

CLINTON: We're going to have a crackerjack staff and we're going to have, you know, great efforts with our congressional allies and others.

PELLEY: When we wrote that question, I expected you to come up out of your chair at me and tell me that there was only going to be one president.

CLINTON: Well, no, because I will be the president, but it does happen to be a historical fact that my husband served as president for eight years. And there's a lot that happened which helped the American people during those eight years.

I want an economy that creates more jobs, and that's a lot of jobs. I want an economy that gets back to raising incomes for everybody, most Americans haven't had a raise. I want an economy that's going to help lift millions of people out of poverty, because, given the great recession, we have fallen back in the wrong direction.

And I'm also going to be relying on President Obama. You know, I've already put him on notice. I'm going to be picking up the phone. I'm going to be calling and asking for his advice and so we're going to put them all to work.

PELLEY: Senator, are you ready to be president of the United States?

KAINE: I think I'm ready to lead. I'm ready first to be a supportive vice president, so that the presidency of Hillary Clinton is a fantastic one. But if something were to put that in my path, as much as any human being would be ready, I'd be ready.

And you've got to approach it with humility but, you know, missionary, civil rights lawyer, local officials, state officials, federal official, I've climbed and I haven't missed a rung on the ladder. If it were to come that way I could do it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[20:20:12] COOPER: Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine on "60 Minutes" tonight.

Jeffrey Lord, because we dealt on the bad Trump response to the plagiarism, I've got to let you weigh in on Debbie Wasserman Schultz because you've got to enjoy this moment.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This is my first Democratic national convention, and I am having the time of my life.

BORGER: It's only Sunday.

LORD: Yes, it's just absolutely terrific.

Look, I mean, I have to say, I agree with my friend, Paul, here. I mean, you know, there should be a shoot out of here for anybody just professionally speaking who detracts attention from the nominee, whomever that may be, has got to go.

Now that, said, I mean, this Donald Trump was right about the DNC. Bill was right about the DNC. Something was rigged here, when you look at these e-mails this is going to be very, very interesting to see what goes on and I might add, this is the secretary of state who was big on the Russian reset and apparently didn't work so well.

COOPER: Let's talk about Russia because Mr. Mook, who is running the Clinton campaign, has said or alleged that he believes based on what he says to our experts that Russia had a hand in this, behind the hacking and the releasing to WikiLeaks of these e-mails.

I mean if, in fact, there is something there, that's an extraordinarily serious thing. I mean if a foreign government is involving themselves intentionally in order to affect the outcome of a presidential race, that's huge.

KING: It would be huge, I would say. And the question has been put to them, can you prove this? Can you prove this?

COOPER: Right.

BORGER: Right.

HENDERSON: Right.

KING: Can you prove that we know that Russian state actors and other Chinese state actors, we know other hackers who are just independent around the world do these kinds of things. We know that to be true but we don't know who did this one.

Let me get to the key point. Yes, if they could prove that -- that Vladimir Putin was intervening in American politics to try to help Donald Trump that would be a blockbuster revelation. If they have the facts or if they can get somebody to find that evidence they should put it forward.

But I always say when these things happen the opposition research is a big part of politics. Again, that would be incredibly nefarious if it was a foreign government. But if you have a video of somebody robbing a bank and you give it to somebody it's not just about where'd you get it, you still robbed a bank. So these e-mails happened. We should not -- yes, who did it is important and if the Russians did it -- wow.

BEGALA: But more important --

KING: But the fact that it happened --

BEGALA: -- if foreign governments --

KING: I'm not finished -- just a second.

BEGALA: The e-mails are embarrassing. People put embarrassing stuff in private e-mails. That's historic. We should cover it. But I don't have an if, if this came from Putin's Russia to help Donald Trump isn't that a bigger story?

BORGER: Yes, it is a bigger story but you have to be able to connect the dots.

BEGALA: Absolutely.

BORGER: And I think Robbie threw it out there today, without letting us know what dots he was connecting but I think as journalists --

COOPER: But it's also, isn't it more than just embarrassing for the DNC? I mean it does show that they clearly or it seems to show at least some people in these emails clearly were in favor of Hillary Clinton.

PRESS: That's the point.

Tulsi Gabbard -- right, she was right too when she says, there's some hanky-panky at the DNC, I don't like it, I'm bowing out as an official of the DNC. Good for her. I don't think we should -- the Russian thing is hugely important -- but not distract us from, again, this convention and the unity we want to see going into and coming out of this convention.

That is the issue now and Debbie Wasserman Schultz has made herself the centerpiece of this convention. And President Obama and Hillary Clinton, I'm sorry, have let her do it. This is a test of leadership I believe for the President and for Hillary Clinton. And they both --

COOPER: You think this actually reflects on their leadership?

PRESS: I think they have failed a test of leadership by letting her stay.

BEGALA: A test of leadership is and I think will be met by Bernie Sanders tomorrow night. This will be a bad story if and when Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz gets up and speaks and is booed. I think it's going to happen and I think it's unfortunate for the Democrats.

But all that gets blown away when Bernie Sanders speaks. He gives a terribly important speech tomorrow night. He can do much more good than all of this problem with the chairwoman has done harm if he chooses to. And I think he will.

I think he has stepped up at every critical moment and shown that he's not the spoiler his critics have tried to make him out to be. In fact he cares about unity. That would be a bigger story by the time we finish tomorrow night.

COOPER: But still means all day tomorrow --

BEGALA: Yes it does. Still we got 11 minutes for that flight to Miami.

HENDERSON: Another story tomorrow -- Michelle Obama, she's speaking as well.

COOPER: Yes.

KING: Right.

HENDERSON: She's going to talk about the President's legacy; Elizabeth Warren as well. I think by the end of the night, certainly by Tuesday morning, that will be the more important story. And we'll see what happens to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Maybe we're all wrong. Maybe she will get, you know, cheers there and people will drown out the jeers.

COOPER: There's the potential of more e-mails being released.

HENDERSON: Yes.

[20:25:00] COOPER: I talked to Brazile and we're going to play that interview shortly. She says there's more e-mails out there.

HENDERSON: I'm sure there are.

COOPER: That there's more -- a lot more e-mails to come.

BORGER: I was told by one source today that the trajectory will go down for Debbie Wasserman Schultz after these other e-mails are released. I don't know what's in them but that the quicker she gets out the better it will be for her personally. Don't forget, she's running for re-election. She's got a primary. She's got to deal with that.

COOPER: There's a lot of people though who have wanted her gone for a long time.

BORGER: Yes.

COOPER: It's not just in this campaign.

HENDERSON: Aside from Bernie?

KING: She's appointed by the President. She's his chairwoman. The President -- a lot of criticism from Democrats that President Obama hasn't cared that much about the party, hasn't tended to the garden, if you will. But he left her there.

Listen, it's not all her fault. It's not all her fault. But in the Obama years, lost the house, then they grew the majority. Lost the senate, lost more than 900 state legislative seats across the United States of America and lost some governorships. The Obama years have been great for Republicans except at the presidential level.

COOPER: We've got to take a quick break.

Just ahead the drama that is stealing the spotlight on the eve of the Democratic convention, the e-mail scandal forcing the party chair to resign. Our political commentator Brazile is going to be taking over as party chief through the elections. She's obviously a familiar face. You've seen her a lot on our panels. I'll talk to just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Like we told you at the top of the broadcast on the eve of the Democratic convention her in Philadelphia, breaking news at center stage.

[20:30:02] The chair of the Democratic national committee Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is resigning in the wake of an email scandal. She's going to step down, she says, after the convention ends. So far, people seem to be going along with it. Her announcement came after a day of arm twisting by leading Democrats, conversations with Secretary Clinton and President Obama.

Brazile has been tapped to serve as interim chair of the DNC through the election, an honor for her that would temporary loss her link for CNN. She won't be appearing as a CNN political commentator while serving as DNC chair. I spoke to just a short time ago about the turmoil threatening to overshadow the days ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: There was a lot of talk during the Republican convention about distractions that took away from the convention.

DONNA BRAZILE, INCOMING DNC INTERIM CHAIR: Right.

COOPER: This is a big distraction.

BRAZILE: Look, Debbie has spent a lot of time, a lot of years not just raising money but also putting together the staff, working day in and day and night to ensure we had a very successful convention.

COOPER: But can -- but can the Democratic Party just say thanks for doing all that but it's time to go and today is the day?

BRAZILE: I am of the position that she made this decision -- she decided that for the party and for the country in many ways because she wants to elect the next president of the United States, Hillary Clinton, that she wanted to be a part of the activities this week.

COOPER: But should it matter what Debbie Wasserman Schultz wants? I mean, isn't the idea for the Democratic Party to be unified behind Secretary Clinton?

BRAZILE: And we are. You probably have seen the statement not just -- not only President Obama, Secretary Clinton, but also Senator Sanders.

I took the position early on yesterday to walk into Philadelphia to apologize to the Sanders team about the distractions that the emails were causing. I also apologized for the insensitivity, the tone, and really some harsh and very -- what I believe to be toxic words that came from some of the staffers.

COOPER: You came up in the end an email you were asked by a "Washington Post" reporter to comment --

BRAZILE: Yes.

COOPER: -- on tensions between the DNC and the Sanders campaign regarding the platform committee and other issues. You forwarded that email to somebody at the DNC.

BRAZILE: Yes.

COOPER: You're using you're not going to touch this because if you did, you would basically --

BRAZILE: Cuss them out.

COOPER: You would cuss out the Sanders camp.

BRAZILE: Let me just tell you I also sent that email to the Sanders camp and say, I'm going to cuss you all out, my parents are deceased but please forgive me.

COOPER: So, you told the Sanders camp that same --

BRAZILE: Here's my policy. Whatever emails, you'll probably see my emails, I don't have, you know, a DNC account now, but you've seen my emails. If Anderson Cooper said, "I want you on TV tonight to talk about the Sanders camp," I say to the Sanders camp saying, why is Anderson calling me, what are you doing? Because I like to give the best information and yes, that's what --

COOPER: So, not only did you send that email to the DNC, you're saying you're also send it to the Sanders camp?

BRAZILE: Yes, when I get something about the Hillary camp, I send it to Hillary people as well. Sometimes you say I'm going to cuss you all out. That's friendly way of saying, "I love you". Not a lot of people say, "I cuss you out." But that's my way of saying "I love you".

COOPER: The chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign suggested to Jake Tapper that Russia is behind -- saying experts have said Russia is behind the hacks and perhaps leaking them to WikiLeaks in order to affect not only this convention but the election. Do you believe that?

BRAZILE: Well, I -- the general counsel of the campaign is going to brief me on all of the forensic evidence that was found and, hopefully, I have a better answer. But from what I've heard -- I have not received a full briefing -- there is some degree of culpability by Russian hackers, and initially everyone thought they were just stealing all of the research information pertaining to Donald Trump. Now, we found out they were stirring up a little bit more.

And that's the reason why I don't want to throw anybody under the bus. I want the full picture. I want to say everything up until this point. I've read a lot of the news, but I haven't investigated.

COOPER: If it, in fact, it is Russia with links to the Russian government, what does that mean to you? What happens then? BRAZILE: Well, there's no question. I want a full briefing and I

want to learn what is behind all of this, because more emails are coming. This is just a first of probably many thousands of emails. They went in and stole the entire email database of the staff, and I want to know how much information was removed or stolen, because really, we have a lot of intellectual property and we want to protect it.

COOPER: Do you know what else is in those emails that may be coming out?

BRAZILE: Well, all I know, based on receiving emails on a daily basis from my friends at the DNC, yes, probably information. If any emails are leaked. This is a cautionary tale to everybody. Hello, goodbye, that's it. Stop emailing, pick up the phone.

I don't know the substance but I do know there are lots of stuff that we might have to apologize for and that's why I say you got to own it, take full responsibility and work with the staff to create a different culture at the DNC.

[20:35:09] But I'm not throwing anybody under the bus until I get the information.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Brazile, the exclusive interview earlier this evening, right before we went on air.

Coming up, Donald Trump and Mike Pence get ready to do some battle ground campaigning during the Democratic convention. Well, Trump says, he is expanding his Muslim ban and defending the founder of Fox News who's resigned in the sexual harassment scandal. The latest from the Republican side, next.

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COOPER: Donald Trump has weighed in about today's pre-convention shakeup in the DNC with a series of tweets putting forth the following opinions. The convention is cracking up and the Democrats are in total meltdown. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was overrated and is highly neurotic, Donald Trump's thoughts, and Bernie Sanders is exhausted, weak and somewhat pathetic. All Trump's words.

Now, in an interview with "60 Minutes", Hillary Clinton reiterated that she is not going to engage in trading insults. She's going to talk about what his done, his language about illegal immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims. Before all of this went down though today, Trump was on "Meet the Press" and he's been busy scheduling his week to counter the events that are happening here in the Philadelphia. Phil Mattingly tonight reports.

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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I don't think so.

CHUCK TODD, HOST OF "MEET THE PRESS": OK.

TRUMP: I actually don't think it's a phobic.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump now going the opposite direction of advisers who suggested he's pulling back on his proposed Muslim immigration ban.

[20:40:03] TRUMP: In fact, you could say it's an expansion. I'm looking now at territories. People are so upset when I use the word Muslim. Oh, you can't use the word Muslim. Remember this, and I'm OK with it because I'm talking territory instead of Muslim.

MATTINGLY: Trump's campaign hasn't specified which territories he would ban but the New York billionaire Sunday suggested U.S. allies, including France may fall under its definition.

TODD: Would this limit immigration from France?

TRUMP: What we're going to have is a thing called ...

TODD: They've been compromised by terrorists.

TRUMP: They have totally been. And you know why? It's their own fault because they allowed people to come in their territory.

TODD: You would ...

MATTINGLY: Also, weighing in on the resignation of Fox News CEO, Roger Ailes.

TRUMP: It's very sad because he's a very good person. I've always found him to be just a very, very good person, and by the way, a very, very talented person. Look what he's done. So I feel very badly.

MATTINGLY: All, as Republicans made clear, they have no plans to see this week to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Convention. Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, holding rallies and events in battleground states like North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia, which not so coincidentally is home to Clinton's newly minted running mate, Tim Kaine.

TRUMP: He's bought and owned by the banks. He's in favor of TPP and every other trade deal that he's ever looked at and that means he wants people not to work.

TODD: Right.

MATTINGLY: And in advance of vice president Joe Biden's prime time speech Wednesday, a Trump-Pence rally went 120 miles north of the convention in Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATE OF AMERICA: My name is Joe Biden. And as strange as it sounds, everything important to my life that I learned, I learned here in Scranton.

MATTINGLY: The goal according to Trump advisers is two-fold, keep Clinton from unfettered access to the air waves, but also to target a demographic Trump's team seized ripe for the taking.

TRUMP: We're going to get a lot of the Bernie voters by the way, because they didn't treat Bernie right. And what happened he ran a very, very good campaign, and Hillary's people just swamped him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Phil Mattingly joins me now. So Trump clearly thinks he can get Bernie Sanders supporters to come his way. What is the actual strategy there?

MATTINGLY: Well, you're seeing kind of a two-fold strategy, Anderson. You're seeing the Republican National Committee jump all over the DNC leak issue and try to play that up. He's also attacked Hillary Clinton's vice presidential nominee or candidate, Tim Kaine, saying he's insufficiently liberal. The idea is not necessarily to get Sanders supporters to Donald Trump, but more to depress their willingness to get behind Clinton and Kaine.

Donald Trump, though, taking a rather different strategy himself taking to Twitter and actually criticizing Bernie Sanders, calling him weak and a pathetic figure, according to one tweet. I bounced that off one former Sanders staffer today said, "Hey, what do you think about this? Is this going to help Donald Trump's cause?" He chuckled a little bit and said, "Yeah, not very likely," Anderson. So, maybe not the best thought-out strategy so far but clearly they believe there's an opportunity there in fact to bring them on board, Anderson, than maybe to keep them from ever getting behind Clinton and Kaine.

ANDERSON: All right, Phil Mattingly. Phil, thanks very much.

Back now with the panel. Jeffrey is a Trump supporter, A, do you think they really can get significant numbers of Sanders supporters and is Donald Trump sort of attacking Bernie Sanders or saying he's weak and pathetic and stuff? Is that really the best way to do it?

LORD: Well, I do think that he could get something. He was in -- this business of going to Scranton, Pennsylvania is exactly the right thing to do. I mean, he's been out there in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania, now he's up there in northeastern part of Pennsylvania. These are exactly the places that he should be going.

And it's worth noting, you know, when I talk to him, I mentioned this before, when I talked to him a couple years ago about hitting hard in the Republican complaint that their nominees don't fight back, he made it abundantly clear to me that it was going to be -- if he did this, it was going to be no holds barred and that this is exactly the kind of thing the Republicans want to see from their nominee.

COOPER: Bill, you're a Sanders supporter. Are you vulnerable? Are you going over to Trump?

PRESS: Dream on. No, it's not going to happen. I mean. there's such a vast difference between the Sanders message and the Donald Trump message. I mean, sure there's a strain of economic populism that connected the two campaigns here, both talking about trade deals. But you have Bernie with some substantive ideas, a very positive ideas about where to take America and inclusive all-embracing kind of America, and here is Donald Trump, preaching nothing but division, disunity, pessimism, you know, angry, racist, ugly attacks ...

COOPER: Oh, my, no.

PRESS: ... on Muslims and on Latinos.

COOPER: No.

PRESS: And these Sanders people are just not going to stand for it.

COOPER: But, Paul, imagine you look at research since you're with the pro-Clinton super-PAC, do you think there are a lot of Sanders supporters who could go over to Trump?

BEGALA: In fact, fewer Sanders are now open to voting for Trump than Hillary Clinton supporters ...

COOPER: Right.

BEGALA: ... were ready to vote for John McCain going in the Democratic Convention of 2008.

[20:45:02] I have been really impressed at how quickly Sanders supporters have moved over. One poll, and I hate to say which one because I can't remember, had Trump only getting 8 percent of Sanders voters. Hillary already getting 85 percent before Bernie speaks tomorrow night.

COOPER: Yeah.

BEGALA: It is not for the reason to bill states, it's just not open.

COOPER: Do these e-mails make that -- those numbers vulnerable?

BEGALA: I don't think so. I think the Sanders voters are going to be driven to Hillary first by their dislike for Donald Trump, and Trump going out and attacking Bernie only feeds that. Second then, Hillary has to reach out to them and she's doing it. She's doing her job. But, you know, I say this all the time, nothing unites the people of Earth like a threat from mars. And Trump is definitely because I couldn't think of another planet he's from that my kids would say, but I'm too polite a gentleman to say which planet. He's just not a guy who is appealing to them. In fact, he's driving them to Hillary. So, keep it up, grandpa Twitter, keep sending them out there because it's helping you out.

LORD: You know, it just seems so apparent here that the possibility of collusion between the DNC and the Clinton campaign would really upset a lot of Bernie voters out there who don't like -- with all due respect, they don't like Hillary, period. And now to see this stuff in this, I mean, I can't wait to see the rest of these e-mails that come out, because this is going to tip their hand as to what was going on here in these primaries and they're not going to be happy Bernie supporters here. PRESS: But you got to be for something and Donald trump has offered these people nothing to be for. He just keeps driving them apart.

BORGER: You know, I don't think they liked Tim Kaine either, right? I mean, Tim Kaine wasn't Bernie Sanders supporters' first choice. So now, you have Tim Kaine, and you have Bernie Sanders being proven right on the Debbie Wasserman Schultz issue. Even with that, I don't know if you guys agree with me, but even with that, I don't think they have anywhere to go. The danger for Hillary Clinton is they go to Gary Johnson or they stay home.

KING: Look, whatever Trump picks up from the Sanders support, it's a little bit of help, and he's not going to pick up a lot. I don't think he's going to pick up a lot. I think Bill is right about that. But, on the trade message, on the outsider message, he has the opportunity to pick up some. But let me tell you this, I looked the other day, yesterday, I was shared some polling from six states that have key senate races, it happened to be key presidential battleground states, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida. Donald trump is moving.

COOPER: Yeah.

KING: And one of the reasons he's moving is because of the security message and some of this data even predates his speech at the convention. So, he was moving before the convention. Security issues are driving Americans right now and these are key states and the map was moving his way. Hillary Clinton, this is a very important week for her because the race is starting to -- it happens. So, you get the pendulum swings around convention times, but she better not this whole distraction about Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

HENDERSON: Yeah.

KING: This is precious time for her.

HENDERSON: They need to get past it.

COOPER: We're going to have much more ahead with our panel including why President Obama says Trump's rhetoric on Muslims is playing right into the hands of ISIS.

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[20:51:34] COOPER: Well before the break, we heard Donald Trump talking about expanding his Muslim ban, he now says he wants to keep out people from any country that has been compromised by terrorism. He didn't define which countries.

In an interview with "Face the Nation" today, President Obama said leaders of all kind, religious, business, political, have to send a clear signal we won't be divided by exactly the type of signals ISIS is sending out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, U.S. PRESIDENT: If we start engaging in the kinds of proposals that we've heard from Mr. Trump or some of his surrogates, like Mr. Gingrich, where we start suggesting that we would apply religious tests to who could come in here, that we are screening Muslim-Americans differently than we would others, then we are betraying that very thing that makes America exceptional. I think the kinds of rhetoric that we've heard too often from Mr. Trump and others is ultimately helping to do ISIS work for us.

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COOPER: And we are back with our panel. You know, it's interesting because one of the things that the Trump campaign consistently says about President Obama is that, you know, he doesn't really have a policy to ISIS, that he's sort of too lackadaisical in this. And Donald Trump for his supporters comes off as being the strong guy, as the one who has a plan, you know, whether it's banning temporarily all Muslims, and he sort of walk that back. But it's interesting he's now saying that he's not walking it back...

HENDERSON: Right.

COOPER: ... but sees it as an extension in some way.

HENDERSON: Yeah, I mean in every way, Trump is the anti-Obama and that's very much the point of his identity. I think one of the things that the Democrats have to be careful about is that they play into Trump's hands, if they do come across as too cool, not really getting the anxiety, not really getting the fear that's out there, that Donald Trump is certainly stoking and playing into. Even in President Obama's press conference that he had with the leader of Mexico, when he was talking about the economy, they tend to like cite data, you know? And I don't know that sort of data is going to be a good rejoinder in terms of the fear and anxiety that's out there.

COOPER: It does seems to because when you hear at the Republican convention, that word feel, you heard the word "feel" a lot, which is like, well people feel this way.

HENDERSON: Right.

COOPER: People feel this way, even if the data doesn't back it up, you know, they're responding to the way people are feeling.

KING: And Trump is -- If they're not there already, Trump is trying to lead them there. You want -- if you're a challenger then you want to create the environment of crisis, because crisis says you need change.

COOPER: Yeah.

KING: You know, if you have a crisis, that means something is wrong. And if something is wrong, you need change. Go back to the speech Trump gave, a lot of people beat up his speech. His tone might have been a little brutal at times, but it appears to be working, again, remember those battleground state polls I told you about, and also look what he did at the beginning. At the beginning, he went after President Obama before he got to Hillary Clinton. This is, again, a classic incumbent versus challenger environment where he's trying to convince people what we have isn't working. Before he got to Clinton, he was telling that what we have now is not working. It was an interesting approach ...

BORGER: And this is where Hillary Clinton's "60 Minutes" answer could hurt her, when she says she's going to talk to both Presidents. Well, if you want to be a change candidate and you're saying you're going to call President Obama and your husband, you're not change your status quo, and particularly since Obama is considered weak on ISIS having called it the J.V., et cetera, et cetera. It's -- you know, there may be some independent voters who'll say, "Wait a minute, I don't want any more Obama."

BEGALA: Here's the contrast to that though, in -- the Clinton campaign is running out on this where Trump, Donald Trump says, he said, "Who are you talking about this? I don't want to see myself. I talk to myself."

[20:55:06] I watch the shows. I know more about ISIS than the generals. If -- so this is stark contrast. If people don't want someone who might actually talk to people who know what the hell they're doing, they should vote for Donald Trump. OK, if you see a four star general, John Allen, speak at this convention, and he's not -- I'm told, particularly in impressed...

PRESS: Two things were clear to me. One is, I hate to say this, but I think it's true, that when people are afraid and with all this violence and crime and acts of terrorism we've seen lately, people are afraid. The person who talks the loudest and the toughest wins the argument. It's not a time where rational thought prevails.

Number two, I think you can see here with President Obama, this is his most important issue. He's not going to be on the sidelines in this campaign. He really feels that Donald Trump would undermine our approach against ISIS and terrorism, and he doesn't want that to happen.

LORD: What I find really interesting about this, listening to the President say that he can -- in essence he's antagonizing ISIS with his rhetoric. Clearly, this is exactly what Neville Chamberlain said about Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. If only Winston would shut up, we could get a better deal going with Adolf Hitler. I mean that's pretty bad.

COOPER: But it doesn't -- I don't think President Obama is trying to make a deal with --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He made a deal with Osama bin Laden

LORD: But he's saying that Churchill was provoking him by his rhetoric and that's essentially what they're saying here. COOPER: Much more of our panel in the next hour of 360. We're going to have the latest on the shakeup on convention eve. The Democrats, Debbie Wasserman Schultz stepping down, but still as of now planning to appear at the convention.

We'll be right back.

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