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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Clinton Gets Convention Bounce; Trump Calls Clinton The Devil; New CNN Poll: In 4-Way Race, Clinton Leads Trump By 8; Trump Campaigns In Pennsylvania; Trump Explains Russia-Ukraine Remarks; NTSB: Hot Air Balloon Likely Hit Power Line; Secretive Lab Opens Its Doors. Aired 9- 10p ET
Aired August 01, 2016 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:00:23] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey good evening. Welcome the night for with some hundreds are calling the worst days of Donald Trump's campaign. Trump was speaking tonight at (inaudible) Pennsylvania. He certainly does not see it that way.
However, his remarks on Friday about the father and mother of the fallen and highly decorated Muslim-American soldier have drawn bipartisan condemnation. His subsequent statements seem to have only stoked the flames. And just moments ago he weighed in on Bernie Sanders' decision to support Hillary Clinton who he likened perhaps figuratively to Lucifer. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If he would have just not done anything, just go home, go to sleep, relax, he would have been a hero, but he made a deal with the devil. She's the devil. He made a deal with the devil. Really.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well the backdrop to all this, new CNN/ORC polling, it shows in a four-way race, Hillary Clinton leading 45 percent to 37 percent with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson at 9 percent and Green Party hopeful Jill Stein at 5 percent. Now we should point out this polling does not reflect the fall out from his latest remarks.
However, it's hard to imagine them helping in the days ahead. More from our Jim Acosta, tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: 99 days until the election and it's Khizr Khan, not Donald Trump, who's all over the air waves.
KHIZR KHAN, GOLD STAR PARENT: And he should listen to America, what America and the world is telling about the remarks, about the lack of empathy. ACOSTA: The father of a fallen Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq, Khan electrified the Democratic Convention, accusing trump of Islamophobia and he hasn't let up since, demanding that the Republican Party reject its nominee.
KHAN: Enough is enough. Every decent republican has rebuked his behavior, yet nobody had stood up and said enough, stop it, you will not be our candidate.
ACOSTA: Trump, who is not one to let an attack go unanswered, is causing major heartburn inside the GOP, tweeting back, Mr. Khan who does not know me viciously attacked me from the stage at the DNC and is now all over TV doing the same. Nice.
But Trump is also hearing back from Khan's wife after his comments over the weekend.
TUMP: His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say.
ACOSTA: Her silence at the convention, she told CNN, was due to her grief, not her faith.
GHANZALA KHAN, GOLD STAR PARENT: I can say that my religion or my family or my culture never stopped me saying whatever I want to say.
Without saying a word, I had lots of love. I touched lots of heart.
ACOSTA: Democrats are seizing on the controversy from the president ...
BARACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: No one has given more for our freedom and our security than our gold star families.
ACOSTA: ... to Hillary Clinton.
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Mr. Khan paid the ultimate sacrifice with his family, didn't he? And what has he heard from Donald Trump? Nothing but insults.
ACOSTA: The top Republicans from leaders in Congress to Trump critics John Kasich and Lindsey Graham are also stepping forward to defend the Khan family. Senator John McCain, a former POW who's felt Trump's fury before, released a scathing statement saying, "I cannot emphasize enough how deeply I disagree with Mr. Trump's statement. I hope Americans understand that the remarks do not represent the views of our Republican Party, its officers or candidates."
The latest uproar for the Trump campaign has thrust GOP vice presidential candidate Mike Pence into a unique role as a running mate, from attack dog into rescue dog. The campaign released a statement from the Indiana governor saying, "Donald Trump and I believe that Captain Khan is an American hero and his family, like all gold star families, should be cherished by every American."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Jim did he mention the Khans at Trump's rally tonight?
ACOSTA: No Anderson, no mention tonight. No mention earlier today at a rally in Ohio. The only thing that we've heard from Donald Trump on this controversy with the Khans came earlier today during a local news interview. During that interview, Donald Trump said that he considers Captain Khan to be a hero, but that he believes he was viciously attacked by Khizr Khan and that he feels he responded appropriately.
We should also mention that Donald Trump just a few moments ago at this rally here in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania referred to Hillary Clinton as the devil. So perhaps this is a situation where today's controversy might replace yesterday's controversy. That has been a pattern we have seen throughout the course of this campaign.
Another interesting development tonight, Anderson, is that he tweeted his support or his thanks I should say for the person who is challenging Paul Ryan in a primary up in his district in Wisconsin. That felt very much like a shot across the bow at Paul Ryan, who did not criticize Donald Trump but did offer his support to the Khan family earlier today, Anderson.
[21:05:07] COOPER: All right Jim Acosta. Jim thanks.
Joining us now is retired Rear Admiral Charles Kubic. He's a national security adviser to Donald Trump. Also retired army combat medic, American-Muslim Mohammad Shaker, he's also chairman of the Tampa Bay Republican Liberty Caucus.
Admiral Kubic, thank you so much for being with us. You know we heard from John McCain saying that what Donald Trump initially said to George Stephanopoulos doesn't represent his views or the views of the Republican Party of their officials. Does it represent your views?
CHARLES KUBIC, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER TO TRUMP: Well, I think that from my perspective, I have said even previously here today that Mr. Trump, you know, did express condolences to Mr. And Mrs. Khan ...
COOPER: That was in a subsequent statement.
KUBIC: ... for their deep grieve that they -- I'm sorry?
COOPER: That was in a subsequent written statement. That's not his initial reaction.
KUBIC: Well, he was, he recognized that they were overcome by emotion and he praised their son as a true American hero, and ever since then, his words have been parsed to the point earlier on your show, I saw a panelist who basically created a hypothetical narrative and then proceeded to just criticize it profusely as being totally inappropriate. I think we've seen this going circle after circle and it's time to start talking about issues of more substances, including you know, how Hillary Clinton has treated the parents of Ty Woods and Sean Smith.
In fact, we know from the dowdy report that she actually obstructed the direct order of the commander in chief ...
COOPER: So you're trying to change the subject.
(CROSSTALK)
KUBIC: I am trying to get to the deeper subject here, actually.
COOPER: Well you talked about creating a false narrative but you're creating a false narrative in that what Donald Trump initially said bears no resemblance to what -- to his later statement. So I'm just asking his initial statement, do you have any problem with it?
KUBIC: You asked, actually, you asked my opinion of what he said and how I reacted to it. And that's what I heard and that's how I reacted, Anderson.
COOPER: Right, his initial statement, did you have any problem with what he initially said?
KUBIC: Well, I guess there has been so many statements, I'm not sure which one you're considering to be the initial statement.
COOPER: OK. His interview with George Stephanopoulos in which he sort of raised questions about why the mother was not speaking and which he didn't express any real empathy other than saying the dad seemed like a nice guy. That statement.
KUBIC: Well, he also said he understood that his emotions and he then offered that the mother didn't speak, he didn't ascribe any motive to it. It was the media who actually then said this was insinuating that he was saying she couldn't speak because she was a Muslim woman. I don't think you can really draw that from his initial statement.
COOPER: Mr. Shaker, what do you make of Donald Trump's initial statement?
SPC. MOHAMMAD SHAKER, AMERICAN-MUSLIM ARMY VETERAN: Thank you for having me on, Anderson. Yeah, his initial statement was definitely extremely reactionary. This whole he meant to talk about radical Islam and all of this other stuff is just grasping at straws.
If he wanted to focus on something other than the statement that they made, maybe he could have focused on Hillary Clinton's policies if he wanted to, but you know, saying this was all about radical Islam is definitely grasping at straws and that's not what his initial statement meant.
COOPER: Admiral Kubic, do you think a leader should admit mistakes or say admit if a leader misspoke should admit that, or is that something you think a leader shouldn't do?
KUBIC: Well, I think you know each leader, you know, handles things their own way, and that yes, it's important as a leader to have an understanding of yourself and to be able to basically appraise yourself and to be able to be honest with yourself when you have made a mistake. But I think in this particular case, what Donald Trump saw were two different parts of the speech.
The first part, he saw one where he had empathy with the Khans as they were talking about their grief and their son, and then Mr. Khan then kind of switched and became a very sharp partisan, attacking Donald Trump, and so he sees then and reacted to it differently. And so as a leader in one sense he would have empathy for them but also, he felt like when his patriotism was attacked he had to defend himself.
COOPER: All right. It just --that he didn't really say any of that in the initial statement.
KUBIC: Well, you are asking for my analysis of how he reacts and how a leader reacts. And that's basically what I observed. And again, it's a-it really is, I think, gone on to the point where we're just going in circles upon circles and there are other more important issues to look at, including you know the candidates before us, who is the one who will look to keep America safe and who has created a pattern of chaos, death and destruction throughout the middle east.
[21:10:10] Who has basically drawn us into wars where soldiers- soldiers like Doc Shaker have had to fight oftentimes under limited rules of engagement that have constrained them versus Donald Trump who says that war will be our last resort but if we fight, we fight to win ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Donald Trump did initially support the gulf war. He was on Howard Stern and when he was asked about it he said, I guess so. He said he was supporting. It was only later on that he said he didn't which as you know, as a leader, you can't really change your opinion, you know, mid stride.
KUBIC: Well, I guess you have to look and see the context he was talking and who he was at the time and what. But again we know for a fact the Secretary or Senator Clinton voted for the Iraq War but that wasn't the big problem, Anderson. As you know, because you've been over there, when we had combat rules of engagement, I was there, I was leading my sea-bee division, we were attached to the marines, we've attacked and moved into Baghdad with combat rules.
Eventually afterwards particularly after the first battle of Fallujah the rules of engagement changed ...
COOPER: Right.
KUBIC: ... and that put Captain Khan in the unenviable position when that vehicle approached his position, he didn't have a 50 caliber machine gun there ...
COOPER: But sir ...
(CROSSTALK)
KUBIC: He had to go out there because of the decisions politicians have made. COOPER: Do you think it's really appropriate, I mean, you weren't there, you don't know the exact scenario of what happened as that vehicle approached. I'm not sure it's appropriate to kind of rehash this in a political standpoint.
But Mr. Shaker, when you're over ...
KUBIC: Well I've done some research on it ...
COOPER: OK, Mr. Shaker ...
KUBIC: ... within the last couple days just to see what happened. That's what's been reported.
COOPER: Mr. Shaker, when you heard Donald Trump talk about Mrs. Khan and that she was silent, that she remained silent, what did you hear? Because the admiral is saying, you know, there was no religious subtext to it. What did you hear?
SHAKER: I mean, all you have to do is to look at anything Mr. Trump has ever said about Muslims and you can deduce from that that there is probably some sort of Islamic undertones when it comes to that. Not only that, I mean, look at how he treated Megyn Kelly or many other women or disabled people out on the campaign trail.
You know, they can -- the issue with Donald Trump is that, you know, he says whatever he wants and he could make a mistake here and there and then he goes back to his campaign and they put out a statement saying exactly what he probably meant to say. And to me that's not exactly leadership, you know. You should know what you're trying to say without having to backtrack every single time or change your opinion every single time.
Now, the Admiral mentioned that, you know, Donald Trump's going to make America safe again, you know, he talked about the failed policies an interventions overseas. Well, if you look at the 2011 video, its a little selfie that Donald Trump took, you know, he supported the intervention in Libya so you can't just say that one time you're for a certain cause and one time you're against it. That's just impossible. Either you're for it or against it. But with Donald Trump, it seems like it's however the wind blows.
COOPER: We have to leave it there. It's good discussion to have. We'll have more Admiral Kubic. I appreciate your time as always sir and Mohammed Shaker.
KUBIC: Well, I appreciate being on, Anderson. Thank you very much.
COOPER: Thank you very much sir.
Our breaking news, a new CNN poll showing Hillary Clinton's big bounce after the Democratic convention. Coming up next, we'll go beyond the national polling numbers and to look at where the campaign stands state by state. And the race for 270 electoral votes in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And we look closer Donald Trump's iron-clad guarantee that Vladimir Putin would stay out of Ukraine even though he's already in Ukraine and the questions it raises about Trump's foreign affairs knowledge, or was it just a misstatement? We'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: ... they're going to be so happy. They're going to be so happy. They just have to pay for the wall, but they're going to pay for the wall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:17:08] COOPER: We mentioned the new CNN/ORC polling numbers at the top of the hour which show a convention bounce for Hillary Clinton and erosion of Donald Trump's favorability numbers. However, and you will hear this a lot from now on, it's a national poll elections and joining are few is like John King are fought and won state by state as we all know. And John joins us now the magic wall.
So Secretary Clinton, what is her path to 270 electoral votes look like?
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR INSIDE POLITICS: No question, Anderson, the Democrat, Secretary Clinton, have an advantage. On our CNN count right now we give her 236 electoral votes to 191 for Donald Trump. Look at the map. If it's dark red, it's solid Republican. If it's lighter red it leans Republican. Same, deep blue, solid Democrat, lighter blue, leans Democrat.
So, how does Hillary Clinton get from 236 to 270 the magic number? Number one, she picked Tim Kaine. She says as a governing partner all by that. But she also picked him because Virginia has 13 electoral votes, a swing state. You get those 13, and then if they can win Florida, that's all. Donald Trump could win the rest of the toss-up states, two states, win Virginia, win Florida, keep the rest of these blues, she's the next president of the United States.
COOPER: So if she can't win Florida, what happens?
KING: Then it gets a little more complicated. Both campaigns want those 29, right? So let say Donald Trump wins Florida. If Clinton still holds Virginia, Tim Kaine's whole state, then she's at 249. How did she get there? Pennsylvania, hasn't gone Republican since 1988. Donald Trump wants it. But if Clinton can defend Pennsylvania, with Virginia and Pennsylvania, now she's knocking at the door with 269. This is why Clinton has the easier path to 270. No path is easy.
If she can win Virginia and win Pennsylvania, two states of President Obama won twice then she need just one more, Anderson. She could get it in Nevada with Latino votes. Even if Donald Trump won that one, she could get it over here in Iowa, a state they won several times. So this is why you have to say advantage Clinton. She has many more menu options to get to 270. COOPER: All right, let's not be a Debbie Downer for the Trump campaign. Let's look at it from their perspective. How does Trump see his path to 270?
KING: Trump can get there. Now, we won't be Debbie Downer, because look he's at 191. But hold North Carolina. Mitt Romney won it in 2012 after Obama carried it in '08. Donald Trump has to hold North Carolina. No Republican gets to the White House in the modern age for that Ohio the Trump campaign can seize the point. Get Ohio.
Win your second home state of Florida, 29, that's a big prize down there. Then Donald Trump's at 253. Then if he can pull off his rust belt strategy, he already has Ohio, then all he need is 20 in Pennsylvania, 273. So, hold North Carolina, flip three from 2012. Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. Not an easy list but doable.
COOPER: What happens if he cannot win Florida?
KING: This is again -- is that's the question, right? We asked from both campaigns, if Donald Trump can't win Florida, just give it to Secretary Clinton here, then in this scenario by leave him with Ohio and Pennsylvania, it's 265 to 244, right? Then we are in a fight. What does he have to do? Well, you could argue Nevada and Iowa. Tough Nevada because the Latino vote.
This is where the rust belt strategy comes into play. If your winning Pennsylvania maybe you got a chance to win Michigan. If your winning Michigan then, if you win Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan then, if you get to 10 in Wisconsin, you are at 270.
[21:20:00] Is that easy? Absolutely not. Blue, blue, blue traditionally. Ohio has been the one that goes back and forth. Easy, no. Doable, yes.
COOPER: All right, John King, John, thanks very much.
Back with the panel, joining us this hour Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany. Corey let's just talk about the map. As you look at it, as a Trump supporter, where do you see the best path for Donald Trump?
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Look, Ohio is obviously ground zero for the Trump campaign. Pennsylvania is ground zero for the Trump campaign.
COOPER: Must win.
LEWANDOWSKI: Must win. Must win. Florida is a must win without even a question on there. But then you look at a state like New Hampshire, it's only the four electoral votes. But those four votes could make a major difference. You know, there could be a scenario. Don't forget George W. Bush carried New Hampshire the first time, lost at the second time.
So, that state is a swing state. It's a state that has historically done. And if you look at the primary cycle, Mr. Trump did very well in New Hampshire in a very competitive field up there. So, that's a state that could come into play. You look at Michigan, you look at Nevada, state where he has high name recognition, he has spent a lot of money, has a big building there, people know him there.
So, look, the path clearly for the Trump campaign includes Florida, includes Ohio and includes Pennsylvania. And then after that, you have to look at really the big prizes, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, potentially Nevada and Colorado.
COOPER: Christine, I see your shaking your head over.
CHRISTINE QUINN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, we got to give you a shout-out for New Hampshire. So, never let it be said, I didn't say something nice for Corey on television.
LEWANDOWSKI: Thank you. Thank you.
QUINN: You're welcome. I think Nevada is just a pipe dream. It's ridiculous. I mean, the way you win Nevada is with Latino votes and with the unions that represent the casino workers and hotel workers.
Those are unions that are with Hillary, going to be with Hillary, have been with Hillary historically and unions that work like dogs for her candidacy. And the Latino vote is huge in Nevada. He's attacked Latinos.
COOPER: Let me -- hold that thought because I want to bring John King in on that. John, is Christine right in saying Nevada is not close?
KING: Coming out of the Republican Convention, Nevada was tied. This has been one of the dilemmas inside the Clinton campaign, one of the big questions. We'll see what happens. We need to see some state by state polling after the Democratic Convention. She's absolutely right about the determination of the unions out there.
But Nevada was tied. Colorado has not budged. A state that, you know, has more of a history of being a swing state has not budged. It's been leaning Clinton's way. Nevada, the reason we still have the toss-up is because it hasn't moved. Let's see what happens after the Democratic Convention.
But back to that point, Anderson, to Corey's point, let's say Wisconsin is out of reach, right? Let's say Wisconsin is out of reach. Donald Trump, can he sweep the rust belt? He's going to try. But if he can't, this is where Nevada becomes so important because if you can get the four in New Hampshire, that's great.
But you got to pick up the other six. If you're going to say the Democrats going to win Tim Kaine's state, then you're fighting it out for either Iowa or Nevada. Now, I would say today, Donald Trump has a better chance in Iowa than Nevada. But we got 99 days to go.
COOPER: Patrick, just because Hillary Clinton may have union leaders, it doesn't necessarily guarantee her the rank and file.
PATRICK HEALY, NEW YORK TIMES POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, it doesn't. Mr. Trump has real support and clear real support among, certainly, among white males and the unions themselves sort of acknowledged, you know, some of them. Just because we're endorsing Secretary Clinton doesn't mean all of our people are going to follow.
But the bigger issue is that Secretary Clinton has built a real winning presidential campaign organization where they're going to be able to fight a 15-front war. And the Trump campaign, you know, is still -- is smaller. They say sort of nimble, they'll have the money.
But their sort of -- it seems like best hope is really focusing on that Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida axis. And the question is, how does he begin to grow his base of voters.
COOPER: Kayleigh ...
HEALY: You had a convention that was really, you know, a real, real conservative convention.
COOPER: How does he grow his base?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, one of the things is what Newt Gingrich advised Donald Trump to do which is stick to three or four issues that are winning issues. And -- in the rust belt, I think he is competitive in a state like Pennsylvania or Michigan.
And I think he can defy odds there because his message is so powerful. These are communities where they watched factories close. If he can stay on message and on the issues and say Hillary Clinton wanted to shut down coal effectively and you've seen factories close and I'm bringing those jobs back, that is how you defy odds (inaudible).
COOPER: Do you worry about -- like for instance, just the last couple days, has he stayed on message?
MCENANY: No. He's not stayed on message. And there was a big opportunity coming out of the DNC e-mail leaks where they essentially exploited Bernie Sanders' religion. That could have been a wedge issue that he focused on. But he got sidetracked. And I think he needs to listen to Gingrich, who had said stick to the three or four issues.
HEALY: And the demographic that could grow really is seems as the college educated white vote. And that's possible in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Now, if he's able to stay on message, the question is Florida. Are there enough ...
(CROSSTALK)
BERNARD WHITMAN, AUTHOR 52 REASONS TO VOTE FOR HILLARY: Here's the problem with Trump's strategy. Hispanic registration in Florida is skyrocketing in response to Trump's anti-immigration message. And that's why Tim Kaine's choice as VP is brilliant. He is fluent in Spanish. I think he's going to take Florida in part ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Although the last polling on Florida which was before the convention before Tim Kaine, Donald Trump had ...
(CROSSTALK)
WHITMAN: But that's before Virginia, my home state, and Tim Kaine's leadership there, Virginia has been going blue for a decade. Growing suburbanization, I think that's where the White House.
COOPER: Very quickly then we take a break.
[21:25:01] TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Really quickly, there's an aspect of this that we're not discussing. And that is Donald Trump's inability to have conservative support which is putting states like Utah and Georgia in play.
Right now, CBS News put out a poll that showed that only 65 percent of conservatives support Donald Trump, where you had Bush and Romney, they were up in the 80s. So, that part of it, it also changes the calculus a lot.
51 percent coming out of the -- Gallup poll showed that 51 percent of people after the convention showed that they were less likely to support their nominee. So, you can't take for granted the fact that Donald Trump can't even consolidate the Republicans in states that are -- that used to be consolidate (ph) that may not this time.
COOPER: Let's take a quick break. We'll have much more to talk about ahead with our panel, including Donald Trump's attempts to put out the brush fire over his remarks about Russia and Ukraine. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Whether it makes a difference in the long term remains to be seen. But it's been a rocky 72 hours for Donald Trump. He's made a string of controversial comments. Here's what he said to ABC's George Stephanopoulos when asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He's not going into Ukraine, okay? Just so you understand, he's not going to go into Ukraine. All right, you can mark it down, you can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want.
[21:30:01] GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Well, he's already there, isn't he?
TRUMP: Well, he's there in a certain way. But I'm not there. You have Obama there. And frankly, that whole part of the world is a mess under Obama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Russia, of course, annexed Crimea which is part of Ukraine in 2014. Trump's critics jumped on that saying it was a gaffe that revealed his foreign policy ignorance. Trump spent today explaining. Here's what he said in Ohio. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So when I said believe me, Russia is not going into Ukraine, all right, they're not going into Ukraine. The person said, "But they're already in Ukraine." I said, "Yeah, well that was two years ago." That's -- I mean if you want to go back, you want to have World War III to get it back? That was during Obama's watch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, all this unfolding at a key juncture in the election. Both nominees will soon start receiving intelligence briefings. Barbara Starr joins us with details.
So, Barbara, these intelligence briefings, do we know exactly when the candidates will be getting them?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: The intelligence community is really prepared to begin the briefings at any time, make the offer to both the presidential candidates and the vice presidential candidates and set up a location, a secure location where they can meet with them and offer these briefings.
You know, these have been going on for years every election cycle but this year, like everything else, a lot of drama involved. The Republicans don't think Hillary Clinton should get a briefing. The Democrats don't think Donald Trump should get a briefing. But the intelligence community indeed is making an offer to all four candidates to give them an intelligence briefing about threats, challenges that the U.S. is facing around the world.
COOPER: And I mean the contents -- so the briefing are classified. Are they essential like the PDB, the President's Daily Brief? I mean, do we have a general sense of what's included in them?
STARR: They do not go that far, is every indication we are getting. They are classified but they basically will talk about things like what's the latest with Russia, with ISIS, with cyber war, that kind of thing.
What they will not deal with is the information that only a president or president-elect gets and that is covert action, who and where agents and operatives maybe, the high tech means and methods by which the U.S. collects intelligence, all of that, the most highly classified information, will wait until the country indeed has a president-elect.
COOPER: All right, Barbara Starr. Barbara thanks.
All right, lots to discuss with the panel. Corey, I want to ask you. Sam Clovis, the Trump campaign co-chairman was on MSNBC today and he offered, usually a different explanation of what happened in that George Stephanopoulos interview. He said, "Mr. Trump was thinking about something else and he answered the question when he was thinking about something else." Is there a problem in the campaign just in terms of coordination of what is going on? And we saw this in the convention where, you know, Paul Manafort came out one day and said something that two hours later, is totally contradicted by a statement Donald Trump makes and then acknowledgment the campaign actually makes. Are they --have they done a good enough job of actually kind of knowing what -- left hand knowing what the right hand is doing?
LEWANDOWSKI: Well, I think what you find in this campaign is something that's very unique is that Donald Trump sets the messaging points for the campaign on daily, hourly, minutely basis. And sometimes I think what you find is that there are individuals who are not involved in those discussions because maybe Sam Clovis is in Iowa and wasn't aware of the thinking of the campaign.
And I so what you have is you have a campaign unlike the Clinton campaign where the surrogates do all the talking who is, you know, Clinton refuses to go and have a press conference, Trump will sit there and do press conference after press conference, does it all the time, answers questions and is the one who setting the agenda for the campaign from the very top. That continues to happen. And so the staff -- let me be clear, the staff does not speak for Mr. Trump and the staff does not ...
COOPER: But the (inaudible) out of that Tara and I think what you're about to say is that if -- I mean, Donald Trump just says stuff, clearly at some points what's just come into his head and it seems like everyone else is holding the bag or running around trying to kind of follow up on it.
SETMAYER: Right. Look, this is -- you know, I've worked on campaigns and you cannot be the candidate, the communications director, the finance director, the volunteer coordinator, you can't be all of those things. You need to be the candidate and you build out a campaign and you have people that do their job and delegate for a reason.
This is something, just basic simple messaging. And if he had a professional communications apparatus, you wouldn't have all of these mixed messages. This happens all the time. So this whole thing about well, Donald Trump controls everything and that's great but he's not going to be able to do that if he becomes president of the United States. A campaign is a microcosm of how someone would govern and this what makes disaster.
LEWANDOWSKI: Donald Trump is the messenger for his campaign. He is the person that's most accessible to the media.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: But he does -- without a doubt. But he does speak off -- and again, I just always said it's one of the things I think I like about interviewing Donald Trump is he says what comes into his head. You can ask him hypothetical.
LEWANDOWSKI: You can ask him any question you want. And the people say he won't answer tough questions. He answers every question. (CROSSTALK)
COOPER: One at a time. One at a time. Patrick ...
[21:35:01] HEALY: In modern politics, elections are won by candidates who tend to stay on message, have a narrative that they drive every day. After the Democratic convention, sources within the Clinton campaign told me that the one thing they were worried about was that she didn't give enough to the undecided voters who felt that the country was on the wrong track.
They were worried that she would be seen as essentially too much of an Obama third term, that there wasn't enough about how to fight ISIS and they were concerned that the Trump campaign would take advantage of this and find ways to get in. Instead you have us at day four ...
SETMAYER: Right.
HEALY: ... of talking about the Khan family, talking about Ukraine and Russia, trying to clear up those acts. And I can tell you, the Clinton campaign loves this.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I mean, to your point earlier, you know, Hillary Clinton gave an answer to Chris Wallace which was just factually incorrect and "The Washington Post" gave it "Four Pinocchios." That's an opportunity for Donald Trump and yet it's an opportunity that seems to have been squandered.
MCENANY: It was wandered, and it's an important issue and you focused on a little bit earlier in the program, but this is where you've got to stick to the issues. I disagree that him not having a conventional campaign is a bad thing because we were told he was going to lose the primary because he didn't spend $100 million, three other campaigns did. He beat all of them. He didn't do conventional advertising. He didn't have the conventional ground game and he overcame all of those odds.
So I don't think it's necessarily bad. I think the messaging is good but it's the candidate needs to stay on message.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: One at a time.
WHITMAN: People are finding the last 72 hours is this campaign is fundamentally going to be about who has the right temperament, the right character and the right judgment. We can have ...
COOPER: So that's certainly what the Democrats want this campaign to be about.
WHITMAN: No, no, but it is what the campaign should be about. We can have an honest disagreement about policy but you have a guy who lashes out, who demeans people, who plays fast and loose with the facts about whether Russia is in Ukraine, whether or not it's not Ukraine, and ultimately I think it suggests that he is not fit. And by the way, two to one, people don't think ...
QUINN: Wait, wait, wait.
LEWANDOWSKI: So just honest with the American public. The FBI director basically said there isn't enough evidence.
SETMAYER: And Donald Trump spends the last five days talking about that.
COOPER: But to this point, why is Donald Trump going after these fire marshals in these towns accusing them of political bias? You now have firefighters putting out statements in support of the fire marshal. I mean this ...
QUINN: You know why, because this campaign, as Corey said, is minute by minute, real time in Donald Trump's head coming out his mouth. And what comes out, attacking hard-working fire marshals, attacking gold star families, attacking an American judge and his judicial ethics because he's Mexican. That's what he thinks and that's what comes out.
(CROSSTALK)
HEALY: One of the joys of interviewing Mr. Trump is that there is no real self-editing function.
COOPER: Wait, by the way, but you ...
(CROSSTALK)
QUINN: But he's not running for talking head of America. He's running for president.
LEWANDOWSKI: The difference is every other campaign and you hit it right on the head, has run a traditional model from Ted Cruz to Scott Walker to Jeb Bush. $150 million they had three delegates, three delegates, 150 million.
Look, Hillary Clinton refuses to hold a press conference. It's been 250 days. She refuses to sit there and answer questions from the press. Know what Trump did today? He called an emergency press conference, talked about the fire marshals and took questions. Hillary, take a question from the media. Look, when she does take a question from Chris Wallace ...
(CROSSTALK)
SETMAYER: It's my turn now Corey, he made a fool of himself. What is he doing going out and trashing fire marshals and hard-working men and women who actually rescued him from that. You got stuck in an elevator at an event and he went out and said, "Oh, with Democratic fire marshal."
COOPER: Christine, and we going to go. SETMAYER: Every minute that Donald Trump is wasting ...
COOPER: OK, well that Christine.
SETMAYER: ... on his ego is not attacking Hillary Clinton because what he should be doing ...
QUINN: Should Hillary Clinton have more press conferences, yes. And should Donald Trump stop attacking Muslims and Mexicans ...
COOPER: OK.
QUINN: ... and immigrants, a bigger yes.
COOPER: Well, be right back.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:42:50] COOPER: Federal investigators say the hot air balloon that crashed in Texas on Saturday morning likely hit power lines when it went down. The working hypothesis from the NTSB is at the moment of contact the gondola was ripped from the balloon portion, the basket plunged to the ground, killing all 16 people on board.
Some of the victims have been identified including these two couples from Texas, Joe and Tresa Owens who adored their kids and grandchildren. And newly weds Matt and Sunday Rowan, both 34.
Tonight, our Gary Tuchman takes us up in a hot air balloon to show us how a landing is supposed to happen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's hardly a new thrill. Hot air balloons have been around for 233 years. But how these balloons actually fly is not widely known.
MIKE GERRED, LIGHT FLIGHT HOT AIR BALLOONS: We're off!
TUCHMAN: So here in Maryland, 36-year veteran balloon pilot Mike Gerred is showing us how it's done. I don't feel any wind, yet we're a few hundred feet in the air, how is that?
GERRED: You don't feel any wind because the balloon will always go the same speed as the wind it's in.
TUCHMAN: Which leads to this question.
How does it stay in the air?
GERRED: Well we're staying in the air because what we've done is heat the air inside and make it less dense. By making it less dense, we have become buoyant.
TUCHMAN: So that fire heats the air?
GERRED: It heats the air, expands it, OK and as it expands it, it forces it out of the mouth of the balloon, making the balloon lighter than air which is why the aircraft categories call that lighter than air.
TUCHMAN: And just like an airplane or helicopter, a hot air balloon has redundancies to cope with most emergencies.
GERRED: What we have here are the equivalent of four engines. I have two separate fuel sources, and two separate main blast valves and a bypass valve. So, any one of the four will allow the aircraft to fly.
TUCHMAN: Right now our altitude is about 1,000 feet. That's typical for a tourist trip. Our pilot tells us he's been up to 11,000 feet in this balloon before. Once you get to about 14,000 feet that's when you need extra.
So how does it land?
GERRED: I can do one of two things. I cannot put heat in and the balloon will cool off naturally and come down. And then you can tap the brakes if you will by just putting a little heat in to slow it down.
Or this line right here goes to a vent in the top of the balloon. And by opening and actuating the vent, I can dump hot air out and initiate the descent.
[21:45:07] TUCHMAN: This cut grassy field over here is where we're going to shoot out landing approach, either that or the yard right here.
What's the main danger when landing?
GERRED: Power lines.
TUCHMAN: Power lines?
GERRED: Power lines and obstacles. So, what we're doing now is we're coming in, you feel the wind on your face. We're going to drop down in this yard here. This is a yard where we have prior permission.
TUCHMAN: So, you're always looking out for those power lines or nothing worse?
GERRED: Sure. Nothing worse, there is nothing worse. You gentlemen want to hold on to an upright. We're going to slide in here on this grass. Five tons of energy and there you have it.
TUCHMAN: Nice job.
GERRED: And you're home.
TUCHMAN: Gary Tuchman, CNN, Bel Air, Maryland.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, just ahead, a CNN exclusive, Dr. Sanjay Gupta goes inside the labs at the controversial blood testing company Theranos and talk to its on Battle Founder, Elizabeth Holmes. Some saw her as the next Steve Jobs then came the lawsuits, sanctions and fraud investigations.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Moving beyond politics with a CNN exclusive interview. Today inside a packed ballroom in Philadelphia, one of the most controversial people in medicine took the stage and left many of the audience disappointed.
The scientists and researchers who came to here Elizabeth Holmes were expecting to see data about a controversial blood testing device that sparked lawsuits, sanctions and fraud investigations.
Instead, Holmes told them about a new invention. Her company Theranos has been under fire for the past year. Once an off the charts success story, it's been brought to its knees, now it's hoping for a second act. For the technology that launched error means clogged in secrecy.
[21:50:08] The company's not publish any data on it which is still skepticism about how well it actually works. Our Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta got exclusive access inside the Theranos labs for a tour with Holmes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: For the very first time, Elizabeth Holmes is opening up the secret labs of Theranos.
ELIZABETH ANNE HOLMES, CEO AND FOUNDER OF THERANOS: No one has ever seen this, you are the first one.
GUPTA: Wow. In 2003, the 19 year old Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford and founded Theranos, with the hope of using small amounts of blood, just a few drops to do what normally it took numerous tubes.
Testing blood may seem like a simple process but, in fact, there are numerous steps that can impact the results. For example, the tourniquet, how long is that supposed to be on? Was that alcohol or iodine used to clean my arm? What's the size of the needle? And why are there so many tubes?
The anti-clotting medicine is not standardized nor the various reagents used to do the testing itself. Let alone the machines that finely spit out the results.
It is a big $75 billion industry with thousands of players controlling little pieces of the process. Theranos want all of it.
OK. What resulted is this black box, a mini lab. The company says it can run up to 40 different tests on a tiny sample of blood.
HOLMES: We've designed it to allow for the same operations that a technologist can do in a laboratory.
GUPTA: Holmes believes that a finger stick instead of a needle will make people more likely to get their blood tested. I'm going to do this myself. Tiffany, hello.
TIFFANY: Hello.
GUPTA: That's still a needle in there.
TIFFANY: Lancet.
GUPTA: A lancet. OK.
TIFFANY: Needle has a hole. Lancet is a poke.
GUPTA: For what its worth this Theranos blood test put my cholesterol at 170. My own doctor founded to be 169 just the week before. Holmes says she wants to make this sort of testing available anywhere, anytime.
HOLMES: There's no reason why these can't be distributed in very, very decentralized locations.
GUPTA: In your home?
HOLMES: Yes.
GUPTA: Do you think people's homes should have these, essentially a clinical laboratory in their own house?
HOLMES: I think that's a very interesting space.
GUPTA: But wherever the tests occur, the results need to be precise and accurate and that's where the story of Theranos starts to crumble.
DAVID KOCH, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: There were several labs that were tested that worked totally accurate.
GUPTA: One study in the journal of clinical investigation found the tests from Theranos retail testing sites in Phoenix, Arizona, to have significant discrepancies.
But even more damaging an assessment from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of their new work California lab which questioned Theranos' ability to run a clinical laboratory? Citing, "A global and long term failure of the quality control program" and demanding they get their act together. "Wall Street Journal" Investigative Reporter John Carreyrou first broke that story last October.
JOHN CARREYROU, "WALL STREET JOURNAL" INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Theranos wasn't able to do so to the agency's satisfaction so the agency has now decided it's going to shut that lab down and it's going to ban Elizabeth Holmes from the blood testing industry for at least two years.
GUPTA: Holmes has until September 5th to appeal. But in her first interview since the CMS decision, she insists the technology was never to fault for the erroneous results. Instead, she blames it on flawed operations and personnel's.
HOLMES: At the highest level, we didn't have the right leadership in the laboratory and we didn't have the implementation of the quality system in terms of procedures and the associated documentation to ensure that we were realizing the quality standards that we hold ourselves to.
GUPTA: Of course, in the middle of all this are patients whose helped depended on Theranos for accurate results. There's this a man who goes by the initials R.C. right now in Arizona who is suggesting that the lab results that he got from Theranos were not accurate and it led to him having a heart attack.
Based on what you know, is it possible that what he's saying is true? Could he have gotten a lab result that was so askew that he didn't act on it and then a month later, he ended up having a heart attack?
HOLMES: I'm not the lab director and so ...
GUPTA: I know, but you're the CEO and Founder of the company. I mean, this is as serious as it gets.
HOLMES: What I know is that I put the best people in place to be able to investigate every aspect of this and ensure that we meet the quality standards that we hold ourselves to, and I know they're doing that.
CARREYROU: The biggest problem was going live with blood tests that didn't work or that worked only part of the time.
GUPTA: Theranos is under the microscope of the U.S. attorney's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission about whether it misled investors about its technology. But for now, Holmes and Theranos are hell-bent on gaining back the significantly eroded public trust and proving the product they have to offer is the real deal.
[21:55:02] It's probably the most important question I think anybody who's watching has about this. Does it work?
HOLMES: Yes.
GUPTA: You're confident in that?
HOLMES: I am confident in that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, why did she keep this a secret for so long? GUPTA: Well, you know, part of it, Anderson, I think, is that she said she was worried that the technology was so proprietary that somebody would come and basically take it from her. She didn't think that the patent protections were enough to keep that from happening.
So, you know, she started this when she was pretty young. She was 19 years old. And I think that was sort of what led to those decisions, whether they were the right decisions, whether to keep it a secret, whether or not to publish any of the data around this in peer-reviewed journals, all of that I think, you know, in hindsight may not have been the right decision. I think even she would admit that.
COOPER: Yeah, I mean, what about the data, why isn't there any available on this?
GUPTA: You know, it's interesting, so the -- she did present some data at that meeting today and she did show me some of the data as well. But I want to be very clear on this. The data that they're presenting from Theranos is data where they compare this finger sticks sort of blood thing to another type of blood testing, but it's all still under the roof of Theranos.
The way it is typically done is you send some of this blood out to another laboratory, to an independent laboratory, a third party to try and verify this. That hasn't been done yet and I think that's what's fueling a lot of the criticism, Anderson.
COOPER: Yeah. All right. Sanjay, thanks very much. Appreciate it. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Before we go a reminder on Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern. We're bringing you our second Town Hall with Libertarian presidential nominee Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, his running mate, Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld.
[22:00:05] That does it for us. Thanks for watching. "CNN TONIGHT" with Don Lemon starts now.
