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Trump to Speak; Trump Trails in Polls; Vulgarities at Trump Rallies; Questions over Iran Payment. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 04, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'll be back 5:00 p.m. Eastern in "The Situation Room."

The news continues right now, right here on CNN.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much. Great to be with you on this Thursday. I'm Brooke Baldwin and this is CNN.

We begin with the counteroffensive that the most powerful Republican in Congress just launched against his party's presidential nominee, Donald Trump. By the way, Trump is due to speak at a town hall just a short time from now. We'll take that live.

But this is all part of a lineup of major political events with Hillary Clinton, the president as well speaking in the next couple of hours. So keep it right here.

Now, when Donald Trump comes up to the podium, he will take on House Speaker Paul Ryan as Speaker Ryan did today with Trump, or will he? That's really the question. The House speaker brush off Trump's refusal to endorse him in his Wisconsin primary five days from now. What's more, Speaker Ryan did not rule out that he may revoke his endorsement of Mr. Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER (voice-over): If I see a situation where our conservative principles are being distorted, I'm going to stand up for those conservative principles. If I see and hear things that I think are wrong, I'm not going to sit by and say nothing, because I think I have a duty as the Republican leader to defend Republican principles and our party's brand if I think they're being distorted. And so that's what I said I would do back then when I supported him and that's what I'm continuing to do if and when I see these situations arise.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Is there - would there ever be a bridge too far where you would have to say -

RYAN: I've always said of course there are moments and that I'm not going to get into the speculation or hypotheticals. None of these things are ever of blank checks. That goes with any situation in any kind of race.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Speaker Ryan also said that Trump's clash with the parents of the slain Muslim-American war hero killed in action is quote/unquote "beyond the pale."

So let's begin this hour with Jason Carroll. He is live in Portland, Maine, ahead of that Trump event next hour. You know, the key question, as we were watching yesterday, we watch again today, does Trump stay on message? Does he - does he, you know, attack Hillary Clinton, or not?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, the national anthem is going on right now so I'm going to speak in lower tones.

BALDWIN: Oh. Yes, let's not speak. Let's not speak.

CARROLL: But -

BALDWIN: Let's just listen. Let's listen.

(SINGING NATIONAL ANTHEM)

BALDWIN: All right. Had to hear that live. That was gorgeous.

And now to you, my friend. Talk to me about what we'll hear from Mr. Trump.

CARROLL: Well, let's first talk about what (INAUDIBLE) and will Donald Trump take the stage here in Portland take on Paul Ryan or will he not? You know, look, it's hard to predict what - just - I'm sorry, sir, we're live.

It's hard to predict what Donald Trump would ever do when he - when he stands up and takes the stage. But - but I can tell you this, if what we saw yesterday in Daytona, Daytona Beach, is any indication of what we'll see today, expect - expect Donald Trump to be on message. At least for most of his speech. That's what he did yesterday. He took on Hillary Clinton on a number of issues. That $400 million payment to Iran, really tackling - taking her on in terms of her trustworthiness, her ability to handle the economy. This is what folks in the GOP want to see Donald Trump do more of. What they want to see him do less of is some of what he did yesterday when he started to go into the whole controversy about Megyn Kelly, whether or not he was poking fun at a disabled reporter. These are the things that folks in the GOP say, look, this has been litigated in the press all too often during the primaries. We need to move beyond that. Move beyond that. Stick to the issues. Stick to attacking Hillary Clinton.

That is what many in the GOP hope to hear more of today. In Donald Trump's words, in terms of - because, you know, we've heard that this is a campaign that's in disarray. A campaign that needs a reboot, a reset. Donald Trump saying yesterday that, look, he has never seen a campaign that's been more unified than his own campaign.

So, in terms of what we expect here today, expect him to go after Hillary Clinton on more of the points that we heard him go after Hillary Clinton yesterday. What he does after that, that's pretty much anyone's guess.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: We'll watch for it. Jason Carroll, thank you very much.

Donald Trump also scoffing at reports about his campaign maybe unraveling. But you can't ignore the numbers here today. Hillary Clinton opening up a double-digit lead, now leading in three key states -- New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania.

Phil Mattingly is here to talk through these polls.

And these are three states, Phil Mattingly, that the Trump camp has said they're key to getting him in the White House.

[14:05:04] PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Trump camp just hasn't said it. It's - they have, but it's also just a reality.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

MATTINGLY: You don't win the White House if you're Donald Trump without winning these states or at least a couple of these states. And the numbers are particularly bad. And look, Brooke, when you look at everything that's surrounding the Trump campaign right now, nothing can assuage kind of interparty concern like good numbers. Nothing can exacerbate interparty discord like bad numbers. And we're with the latter right now. We've seen national numbers with Donald Trump trailing nine, ten points in a couple polls. Then we go to battleground states. Let me take you through New Hampshire first.

BALDWIN: OK.

MATTINGLY: Hillary Clinton up by 15 points in a four-way race. She's at 47 percent, Donald Trump at 32 percent, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein coming in at eight and three percent. Then you move over to Pennsylvania, and, Brooke, a lot of people are pointing to Pennsylvania as really kind of the bulwark (ph) of this election. This is where Donald Trump will be made or broke essentially. Hillary Clinton up by 13 points in a three-way race, 47 percent to 34 percent. And then Michigan. And Michigan is considered a little bit more of a stretch for Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: OK.

MATTINGLY: But, it's crucial to Donald Trump's strategy because these are the voters that he believes he turns out in a way no other Republican has before him. Michigan, Hillary Clinton up nine points in a four-way race. 41 percent to 32 percent. So, all of these numbers combined, but Donald Trump has had a rough couple of weeks, right, at least a rough sense in the Democratic National Convention. But the hope was the bounce that he got, a very real bounce that he got after the Republican National Convention, would stick a little bit and help kind of maybe tone down what Hillary Clinton was going to get coming out of Philadelphia.

This is - these are real concerning numbers. These are numbers that show that he has major holes in his campaign and he needs to make up for quickly. And the bigger issue is, how does he actually make that up? He doesn't have a lot of money right now spending on (INAUDIBLE). He had a very good fund-raising money, but compared to Clinton doesn't have ads on air, his ground operation isn't as flushed out as Hillary Clinton's ground operation is. So what do you do to make up these numbers? Have a couple weeks, let the numbers from the convention settle. But no question about it, if you're looking at these numbers, if you're at the RNC, if you're Paul Ryan or anybody who wants to know if Donald Trump has a shot, these aren't positive numbers.

BALDWIN: And with the numbers, it's also, you wonder how that affects down ballot and looking at some of these key, tighter races -

MATTINGLY: Yes.

BALDWIN: It is absolutely having an effect.

MATTINGLY: There are Senate races, and New Hampshire most notably and Pennsylvania as well -

BALDWIN: Exactly. Yes.

MATTINGLY: Where there are Republicans that even if they're not associating directly with Donald Trump, they need him to help for turnout. No question.

BALDWIN: Phil Mattingly, thank you very much. Thank you.

No question, people have also complained how ugly the political rhetoric has gotten this election season. Now "The New York Times" is showing what that ugliness looks like, not just between the candidates. The paper this morning made an exception to its rule against publishing vulgarities and slurs and posted a video of what its own reporters hear from some. Let me be clear, some, not all, some of the people who attend these Trump rallies. "The Times" presidential campaign editor says that it is, quote, "unlike anything we have seen in politics or in 'The New York Times'." Here is just a clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ON SCREEN TEXT: Houston June 17.

CROWD: Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Send them bastards back. I'm sure that paperwork comes in Spanish.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ignorance and immigrants. They mix together!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you don't speak English and don't contribute, get out!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary is a whore!

ON SCREEN TEXT: Raleigh, North Carolina, July 5.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary Clinton needs to get her ass spanked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) you, Hillary!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tramp!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: With me now, CNN political commentator Marc Lamont Hill, who's also a professor at Morehouse College, and Donald Trump supporter Carl Higbie, who serves as a Navy SEAL.

Gentlemen, welcome.

And, Carl, just straight out to you. How - you know, when these vulgarities are shouted at a rally or outside of a rally, how does Donald Trump react to that language?

CARL HIGBIE, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, I think it's how we as a public react to the language. And, quite frankly, there's a lot - like that shirt you were showing with, you know, trump that expletive, stuff like that is being sold by private vendors individually and people are annoyed. There's no doubt. And it's un-excusable. But people are very annoyed with the direction of the country right now. And they're buying these shirts and it's a marketable and profitable industry. So people are doing it.

And, look, I'm not going to sit here and make excuses for people using vitriolic language and they should - you know, they shouldn't do it and it's certainly not helping the cause, but it goes along on both sides. You have the Trump protest - the people protesting Trump at his rallies burning American flags. So I think that it's going along on both sides.

BALDWIN: To be fair, and I did, I reached out to our - all of our campaign reporters, especially those who cover the other campaigns, i said, what's the worst, you know, you've sort of seen or heard let's say at a Hillary Clinton or a Bernie Sanders rally, and they said, you know, they've heard chants of Wall Street, they've heard chants of "bs." They've heard chants of, you know, "no Trump." But that's it.

Marc, what do you think?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, Brooke, I'll give you an example. I was at the Republican National Convention all week. I was at the Democratic National Convention all week. And the type of slurs, the type of vitriolic language, the type of hate-filled speech that I heard from Trump supporters was vastly different than what I heard from Hillary Clinton supporters. And, again, I'm not a Hillary Clinton supporter. I'm a Jill Stein Green Party supporter. So I don't have a nickel in the dollar, so to speak. I'm telling you, it was much worse under Trump.

[14:10:21] BALDWIN: OK. OK. You - we have - oh, did we lose him?

Oh, OK. So we lost him. Let's try to get him back.

HIGBIE: No, you still got me.

BALDWIN: I've still got you, Carl. I'm hanging in there with you. So let me just continue on, because in addition to the video, we had this "New York Times" piece - or rather - yes, "New York Times" piece -

HIGBIE: Yes.

BALDWIN: Written by columnist Charles Blow. And so it - he says in part this, "supporting Trump is indefensible and it makes you as much of a pariah as he is. Trump is a mirror. He is a reflex of indeed a revealing of the ugliness that you harbor, only it is possible that you may have gone your life expressing it in ways that were more coded and politic."

And so it's strong, it's harsh. Obviously we see how he - how he has fought. We've talked to Charles Blow a number of times on this show and we know how he feels about Trump. But to lump all - he's essentially saying when you read the whole piece, lumping all - Marc, you're back - lumping all Trump -

HILL: Yes.

BALDWIN: Supporters is racist. Is that fair, Carl?

HIGBIE: Well, no, it's not fair to say. And, look, you can - people on both sides are going to have tendencies of their own inclination. But the fact of the matter is, if you have - you know, like, for instance, the Republican Party passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to free slaves, give them equal rights and to give them voting rights. So the fact is, is that if you believe - if the Democrats have voted against that doesn't make you racist to be a democrat. So it certainly doesn't make you racist to be a Republican just because some guy wrote an article about it.

I think that's one of the thing that the Democrats have been actually very successful at is dividing this party by, you know, white male, white female, black female, black - Muslim-American. And what they do is they divide and conquer. And that's what the PAC I represent, Great America PAC, has been very effective at bringing people together and doing some - reaching across the aisles and making sure that we're all Americans and not segregated by race, religion or creed.

BALDWIN: Marc, you were shaking your head. Tell me why.

HILL: Lots of things. First, just to quickly catch up. I've been at lots of conventions. I've been at lots of rallies all for the last 20 years and I've never quite heard from a mainstream candidate what I've heard - mainstream campaign what I've heard under the Trump campaign. But what I heard in Cleveland was just radically different than what I heard in Philadelphia. I'm not a Hillary Clinton supporter. I'm a Green Party supporter. I have no nickel in this dollar. I'm telling you, there's a radically - there's a radical difference here. And I don't think it's about being divisive. I think it's about telling the truth. And we have to always tell the truth here.

Yes, we can talk about the Republican Party, you know, freeing slaves in the 19th century, but that's not the same Republican Party that we see at the turn of the 20th century and it's certainly not the Republican Party that we see right now. And that's the conversation we need to be having.

I don't think that everybody who's going to vote for Donald Trump is racist and I certainly don't think everybody who is Republican is racist. But I do think it is increasingly indefensible to support and vote for Donald Trump given the things that he says and the values that he supports and the people who stand around him. And that's a serious conversation that we have to have.

BALDWIN: OK.

HIGBIE: Well, right. I think -

BALDWIN: Go ahead, quickly, Carl, you can finish it off.

HIGBIE: Well, so I think it's very interesting to look at here. I mean it doesn't matter the color of your skin. What happens is, is people are becoming increasingly more divisive over this. It's like, look, Barack Obama, a black president - or a half-black president, has been in power for eight years now and you've also had a black - two black attorney generals. Is the black community better off? No, the median income of the black community is far down. So I think the race thing is (INAUDIBLE).

BALDWIN: The color - let me just interject. When you - when you watch this entire "New York Times" video - and we didn't play the, you know, sort of the most egregious, the worse of it, skin color does matter, according to some of these folks who are chanting these slurs.

HILL: Right.

HIGBIE: No, I think what they're - a lot of those things were also aimed at the migrant thing. And while they were harsh, and I don't agree with all of the things that were said there, I think that what you have is people are annoyed of people coming into this country, committing crimes - and not all. There's very many immigrants that come here legally and work very hard and abide by the laws and go through the system -

HILL: Most.

HIGBIE: But there are many that don't.

HILL: Right. But, again, let's tell the truth and that's - let's not have distractions like talking about the median income of African- Americans under black attorneys general. The attorney general has nothing to do with income. I don't even - I don't even understand the connection there.

But the deeper question here again is, is race and racism a conversation at these rallies? And whether or not Barack Obama is an effective president or not is irrelevant. The truth here is, at these rallies we hear anti-immigrant sentiment, we hear xenophobic sentiment, we hear racist sentiment. And when you hear those things, it raises questions about the candidate. No, it doesn't mean that you have to be accountable for every single person who supports you, but Donald Trump isn't someone just thrown into a mix where he just happens to have racists supporting him. His comments about Mexican or Mexican-American judges, his comments about Muslims, his comments about Arabs, his comments about women invite these types of people. He invites these people to stand around him through his rhetoric and then after he throws the rocks, he then hides his hands. That's what we must be accountable for. We need to talk about the rhetoric. We need to talk about what it means to defend someone who has this type of agenda and this type of platform.

[14:15:05] BALDWIN: Words matter. I know folks on both sides of the aisle would agree. Marc Lamont Hill, Carl Higbie, gentlemen, thank you so much. An important conversation to have, especially as we also just move forward.

HIGBIE: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Just a heads up as well. A short time from now, President Obama will face questions about that $400 million in cash the U.S. sent to Iran in that unmarked cargo plane. Critics, as we've been reporting, they've been calling it ransom. How will the president deal with that criticism when he presumably speaks about it in just a little while?

Also ahead, Clint Eastwood. Have you seen this today? He goes off on political correctness. He talks about Donald Trump and the infamous chair episode at the last RNC. Or I should say now two RNCs ago. We have that for you.

Also ahead, breaking news involving Dylann Roof, the admitted killer in the Charleston church massacre. He was just assaulted behind bars. We have those details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:20:03] BALDWIN: President Obama will soon face tough questions on his decision to send a cargo plane loaded with $400 million in cash to Iran on the very same day Iran released those four American hostages. We are also hearing that senior Justice Department officials reportedly raised objections to this plan long before the cash-filled plane ever took off back in January. President Obama and the State Department approved the plan.

The White House, though, they're pushing back, insisting, despite some of the optics here, that the $400 million wasn't at all ransom money for those four American, but rather a long overdue payment - in fact, a piece of the overall payment from the U.S. to Iran for a failed arms deal that goes all the way back to 1979.

So joining me now, chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto, and our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, a former federal prosecutor and author of "The Oath."

So, Jim Sciutto, just beginning with you, more on this reporting. I know so much of it from "The Wall Street Journal." But what exactly had the DOJ so worried?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, the DOJ was worried about really an obvious point here. That even if you had to separate negotiating tracks, which the White House said it did, one for the release of the Americans being held in Iran, and another separate one talking about these frozen assets, that even if you did do that, even if they weren't connected, that if you release that money on the same day that the Americans are coming home, it's going to look like a quid pro quo. And there's an argument that there was at least an element of that here because Iran has a history of this. It takes people, imprisons them. They are, in effect, hostages because they're often traded for someone else, whether it's Iranian prisoners elsewhere or for other concessions. So - so there is a history there. Now, so the optics were obviously dangerous there. And you could really make an argument there was a connection.

On the flip side, the White House will say, as you said, Brooke, this was money that was owed, it was frozen, it was $400 million, it had built up to $1.7 million due to interest from this failed military deal. So it was not a gift. It was something that was owed to them. But if the planes flies the same day that the guys fly out free -

BALDWIN: Right.

SCIUTTO: The connection's going to look obvious.

BALDWIN: Right. Right. Exactly. And I know Jeff Toobin and I were talking at break and you were saying, listen, this was Iran's money. This was - this is our money to give to Iran. At the same time, to Jim Sciutto's point, it's like the very same day. It makes it look curious. To your point though also, you have DOJ and State differing on opinion, but ultimately was the president.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Right. I mean it is - it is common in the government that different parts of the government disagree.

BALDWIN: People disagree.

TOOBIN: I know it's hard for me - see, CNN is different because no one ever disagrees at CNN.

BALDWIN: Right.

TOOBIN: But in the government, people sometimes disagree.

BALDWIN: Right.

TOOBIN: And we have a president to settle those - those differences.

You know, this whole story strikes me as something that a second-term president, at the end of his term, will do. He's like, you know what, let them criticize me. I want to get this deal done. I want to get the hostages out. I want to, you know, try to lessen the tensions. And if people want to say nasty things about me, fine. This is not, I submit, what Barack Obama would have done in August of 2012. BALDWIN: OK, so maybe that's his thought bubble today. We're going to

see him this afternoon and he, you know, of course will - will be having to answer for this. How do you think he, you know, publicly addresses this?

TOOBIN: Well, he's going to say both negotiations, both for the hostages and for the broader resolution of the economic and diplomatic issues, were separate negotiations, but they were going on at the same time. And they were part of an overall lessening of tensions. But this was not, he will say, a ransom because the United States does not pay ransom -

BALDWIN: Doesn't pay ransom money.

TOOBIN: Because we don't want to encourage -

BALDWIN: Right.

TOOBIN: Taking of our - taking of our citizens.

BALDWIN: Jim Sciutto, where does this go now?

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, it's - even though he's, to Jeff's point, even though the president's not running for office, of course his former secretary of state is. There's no question that it's going to be an issue in the campaign. Certainly Donald Trump, his surrogates are going to be bringing this up.

BALDWIN: Trump's already brought it up.

SCIUTTO: He has already brought it up and it goes back to, because you had deep opposition to this Iran Nuclear deal among many Republicans, even Republicans who aren't particularly excited about Trump, so it gives them an opportunity. That said, it's not entirely new because we knew and we reported months ago that this payment was made to Iran. The difference is that now you have this detail of a plane full of cash, which, of course, feeds that impression that this was, you know, some sort of dirty, secretive, and, frankly, ransom payment.

BALDWIN: Right. Right. Jim Sciutto, Jeff Toobin, thank you both so much. We'll listen for the president in the coming hours. Thank you both.

Coming up, it may be one of the strongest indicators on how a presidential election turns out. The historical significance of President Obama's approval bounce and what it means for how this election could go come November 8th.

[14:24:58] Plus, six months pregnant and nervous, living in an area where Zika has come, in Miami. We'll talk to a mother who got tested for Zika today. She's now waiting for those results. She's six months pregnant. The extreme steps she is taking to avoid mosquito bites with the Zika virus, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: And we've back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Donald Trump got a bounce from his Republican National Convention. Hillary Clinton, for hers. And in a twist now, President Obama is getting his own sort of post-convention boost. A new CNN poll giving the president the highest approval rating of his second term at 54 percent.

[14:30:11] So let's start there. David Chalian, CNN political director, and Tim --