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Report: Trump, Mexican President at Odds Over Who Pays for Wall; Clinton to Launch Ad Blitz in Arizona; Georgetown University Admits Selling Slaves; Joe Biden Avoids Question About Clinton Foundation; Interview with Rep. Ruben Gallego. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 01, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00] JANET NAPOLITANO, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I will show you a 12-foot ladder, that's not the way you do border enforcement and the amount of resources it would divert from a real border plan that involves more manpower, technology, air coverage, all the things that are now in place currently at the U.S.-Mexico border. And we know that illegal migration across that border is the lowest it has been in decades.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Is there anything about Mr. Trump's immigration plans that seem admirable, palatable, realistic to you?

NAPOLITANO: Very little to be quite frank and I'll point out two other areas that I found unrealistic or unfair, not wise. One was to repeal the President's executive order allowing young people who have grown up in this country, who are here undocumented to stay in this country. They get their education, we have probably 3,500 or 4,000 of these so called DACA students at the University of California. These are wonderful young people, they will contribute a lot to our country.

They are the so called dreamers, that is how they are known in the vernacular and it would be such a shame to repeal those orders. And a second area that I find I can almost say un-American is this idea that you are going to do an ideological test on people --

BALDWIN: Right, the screenings.

NAPOLITANO: -- before they immigrate into United States. First of all, there is a lot of vetting that goes on particularly from areas of the world where there is a lot of conflict and that's never reported on enough, but the amount of vetting that already occurs is quite substantial. But how you do an ideological test and that is not the way America has always viewed itself.

BALDWIN: It's a question people are asking, so I hear three examples to use your word un-American ideas from Trump. But what about his visit to Mexico? I have to ask you about that. We know the former Mexican President, Vicente Fox, called the current Mexican President, Enrique Pena Nieto, a traitor for even having Trump to the Presidential Palace, to Mexico.

Do you think the current president got burned by Trump?

NAPOLITANO: I was surprised that he invited Mr. Trump, and I will say this however, if all they talked about was a wall, what a missed opportunity for Trump to actually engage in a substantive conversation with the president of Mexico on all of the issues that we share. For example, trade between the United States and Mexico, it is the second or third leading trading partner with the United States.

How do we operate those legal routes of traffic, how do we run the ports of entry along that 2000-mile border? That is just one area where we have a lot to discuss with the leadership of Mexico.

BALDWIN: So missed opportunity you say, what about Arizona? You have Sheriff Joe Arpaio who says, back to wall, he doesn't care who pays for this wall. Did the sheriff give Trump an out?

NAPOLITANO: You know, he may have. But --

BALDWIN: He may have.

NAPOLITANO: You know, I don't know. Sheriff Arpaio's been down there forever. But again, this is a sheriff now who is -- has been found to be racially profiling in his own sheriff's stops in Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona. He's cost the taxpayers of Arizona a lot of money paying attorney's fees around damages because of the illegal way he does enforcement.

BALDWIN: Let me move off of Trump and ask you about Hillary Clinton. Do you think she should totally cut ties with the Clinton Foundation if she becomes president?

NAPOLITANO: I think she has already indicated she is going to do so.

BALDWIN: What about now?

NAPOLITANO: I can't speak to now. I think that's a question that she will answer. But I will say this.

BALDWIN: What about her family? Forgive me.

NAPOLITANO: Excuse me. But what I'm saying is, I think this whole discussion of the foundation is a distraction. She's not going to be president of the foundation. She's going to be President of the United States of America. We have big issues. We have big challenges. We have big opportunities and big problems.

[15:35:00] She is going to be more than occupied leading this country.

BALDWIN: She does get a lot of heat for not holding news conferences. About 270 days and counting. Is it odd to you that she doesn't give just one?

NAPOLITANO: It's probably odd to the media but she certainly seems to speak with the media and she's reported on quite on quite often. So I don't -

BALDWIN: But she hasn't spoken to us in that sort of format. You can understand why we're frustrated. NAPOLITANO: In that formal setting. Yes, I can tell the media is

frustrated. I think the key thing is, is she answering the questions that the American people have, that the voters have, and I think she's been out there doing town halls and speeches and interviews for a year-and-a-half now.

BALDWIN: Secretary Janet Napolitano now there overseeing all of the University of California. Thank you so much for taking the time with us. You are an important voice that we should hear from, especially right now in this election season. I appreciate that.

From California, of course, we're following the breaking story out of Florida. We now know that we have an official hurricane. Category 1. Hermine should be hitting Florida overnight. The first hurricane in about a decade to make landfall. We're back in a moment.

[15:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: In Florida, Hermine now officially a category 1 hurricane. So says the National Weather Service. Tom Sater, where is she?

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, she's probably a good 160 miles from the coastline, Brooke. We haven't used this word in a long time. Hurricane. In fact, the last one that made landfall was in 2005. Its name was Wilma. Ironically the same year that we had Katrina.

Again we went through the whole alphabet that year and into the Greek alphabet. It's been a long time. A lot of new residents here haven't experienced it. Teenagers, of course. 51 of the 67 counties are under state of emergency. Landfall around midnight or just thereafter. A little east of Apalachicola. Look at this impressive radar.

Eye making its way toward the big bend. Our storm surge is going to occur probably later on this evening as well. Could be anywhere between four and eight feet. Again most of that region that could see and eight-foot storm surge is uninhabitable nature coast.

Tampa's already picked up 10 inches of rain from yesterday. Isolated tornadoes now. This is a tornado watch box. That will be in effect and will most likely slide northward. Colors here in red, here is the hurricane warning.

We've got tropical storm warnings in blue up the Carolina coast, in yellow that are watch. But they'll change over time as well. What we'll see here, is an incredible amount of rainfall because a cold front is coming down into the area, and it is going to meet with this and enhance the rain. But a storm surge is the big problem on the coast with the heavy rainfall isolated amounts could see 20 inches.

BALDWIN: We have crews covering this, I know. We will stay in close contact with you, Tom Sater. Thank you very much.

Now to this story about Georgetown University today. Have you heard about this? Where the school's president will formally announce a big change. Actually he's doing this minutes from now. What arguably could be called reparations for the descendants of slaves.

Georgetown only exists today was the Jesuit priests who ran it way back in 1838 sold 272 slaves to keep its doors open. Nearly two centuries later, the school has come up with a list of recommendations to try to heal some of those wounds. In addition to the preferential treatment here with admissions, it will also rename two buildings that were named after the presidents who organized the sale.

One will now bear the name of a slave shipped to Louisiana, the other a free woman who started a school for black girls. The university would also develop a public memorial, create a new institute for the study of slavery, and offer an official apology.

Joining me now, a direct descendant of one of those slaves, Georgetown sold to keep Georgetown open, Maxine Crump. She is also the first black woman to become a TV news anchor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Your great, great grandfather was sold to save Georgetown. My goodness. What did you think when you heard the news?

MAXINE CRUMP, DESCENDENT OF SLAVE SOLD TO FUND GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: I was overcome. I was driving at the time and I felt like my car was going but I had stopped. It just took over my whole being. It was a door that opened that I never expected would have opened in my life. So this whole year has been just adjusting to having this new part of my life opened up and realizing how much is connected to all of us. All of America is a part of this heritage.

BALDWIN: So with this door opening -- I can't even begin to imagine what that feels like for you as far as the university itself. We just ran through everything they're doing now. Is that enough?

CRUMB: Well, I don't know that enough would be an answer. I don't know that we can say, oh, this is enough. It's just a great beginning. What they're doing as a university, as a prominent university that was saved by the horrific idea of human as chattel.

[15:45:00] And they're stepping up and admitting that that was wrong and that they are researching it to see how it all played out and to continue to look all the way to its descendants so that impact can be seen. But recently, and for a long time, I think most of America thinks slavery was the past and what happens now to those descendants doesn't even exist. We're being told we should be over it.

However, Georgetown is recognizing that this is a continuum and we are a part of it, and that it is a legacy of America that this was sanctioned legal in America to have human as chattel to build an economy which did happen. So the American economy rests on the free labor of the humans, and one was my great, great grandfather, Cornelius. And what you need to know also, the one that the building is being named after, Isaac, is Cornelius' grandfather.

BALDWIN: My goodness. Wow! Maxine, let me quote a really well respected prominent journalist for "The Atlantic", Ta-Nehisi Coats who tweeted about this news. "Folks may not like the word reparations," he tweets, "but it is what Georgetown did. Scope is debatable, but it is reparations." How do you feel about that word? CRUMP: I like him a lot. I think he has a concern that reparation

would pay us off and be done with us. But as I understand Georgetown, they are saying this is a beginning, and I think reparations mean in this case to be ongoing. And if part of the reparation is correcting the history, getting the truth out there and having us -- and continuing to educate America through its system and through its connection with other universities, and getting a lot of people on board to understand that this history didn't end.

It has continued and we're not done fixing the problem. If America can get that and that's called reparation, I'm all for that. Because there is not a stopping point. There's not a payoff.

There's a continuum to do everything that needs to be done continuing until there are no more barriers to those who were descendants of slaves, that that's clear that if you're American, you get all the full rights and privileges of America. If that's reparation, that is reparation I'd like.

BALDWIN: Okay, Maxine Crump, an honor to have you on. Thank you.

Coming up, Vice President Joe Biden skirts a direct question about the Clinton Foundation.

[15:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Folks, it is one of those wild days. We're going to talk about some bears. You see these two guys? They're hungry, apparently. This is a live shot of them looking around in a dumpster, this is a residential area in Pasedena, California.

We've been watching the bears on a live feed during commercial break. Then they are off. Then you see a dog -- wait for it. Dog is chasing them away. And we don't know where the bears are now. So this is happening. Pasadena, California. Looked like brown bears. We'll wait for confirmation on that.

Mark Preston, would you like to weigh in on the bears?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Who doesn't like to watch a couple bears hanging out in a dumpster.

BALDWIN: They're hungry. Obviously, residential area. When the camera guy in the chopper panned down, lot of people live in the area.

PRESTON: How about that dog?

BALDWIN: How about the dog. He's like, man -- get out of my yard!

Let's move on. Let's talk politics.

Vice President Joe Biden campaigning for Hillary Clinton in Ohio today. He was asked about the Clinton Foundation. Lot of Republicans, and some Democrats, say donations to the foundation while Clinton served as Secretary of State created a conflict of interest. Here is what the Vice President has just said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you think Americans should be concerned about the ethics of the Clinton Foundation? Has the Clinton Foundation always been 100% ethical in your view?

JOSEPH BIDEN (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, I think the Clinton Foundation, like all foundations, find themselves in a position where things are changing and I think she's going to change and adjust to the realities of how complicated it's all become.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is she clearing herself up enough with that? Should the foundation stop taking foreign donations now?

BIDEN: I think you'll see them stop taking foreign donations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right. So here's Mark Preston, our CNN politics editor. What did you make of his response?

PRESTON: I think Joe Biden wishes the two bears had come into that interview. Clearly this is an issue that's been dogging Hillary and Bill Clinton ever since, quite frankly, she became Secretary of State when they were going to put these controls in place.

This is something that Joe Biden doesn't want to have to answer. This is something that Democrats don't want to have to answer. And in fact we have seen the Trump campaign immediately pounce on this just in the past few moments. Saying that even Joe Biden right now can't answer it.

What is interesting is he said that very specifically, you're going to see the Clinton Foundation stop taking foreign donations. That is correct. They're not going to do it unless she is elected president. So clearly this is an issue that has been dogging them even at the same time Trump continues to suck all of the oxygen out of the political air about his declarations about immigration and then changing his mind on it.

BALDWIN: You mentioned a moment ago how Trump has responded saying Biden can't even properly respond to this.

PRESTON: Just quickly, quote, "The fact that the vice president can't vouch for the Clinton Foundation's ethics speaks volumes about Hillary Clinton's terrible judgment. They must address the growing conflict of interest. It is time to investigate the growing evidence of corruption. It is time to shut down the Clinton Foundation and get a special prosecutor to investigate the growing evidence of corruption."

That is a very strong statement from the Trump campaign that is not necessarily what Democrats are saying. They are saying there used to be a dissociation between Clinton family and Hillary Clinton specifically if she wins.

And of course there are some Democrats now, Brook, saying why is she still taking foreign donations now while she is running. Shouldn't they stop taking the money now. But they are going to wait to see if she wins in November.

BALDWIN: Mark Preston, thank you.

Next, Hillary Clinton with launching an ad blitz in Arizona after Donald Trump delivers a hardline immigration speech. We'll talk live with a congressman from the state who supports Hillary Clinton. We will talk about her chances of turning the red state blue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:55:00] BALDWIN: Hillary Clinton is launching an expensive TV blitz in the traditionally red state. No Democrat has won Arizona in 20 years. The Clinton campaign just announced a six figure Arizona ad buy. It comes in the wake of Donald Trump's hardline immigration speech in Phoenix, the first Clinton campaign ad to air shows children watching Trump speak.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody and I would not lose any voters. OK, it's like incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The latest CNN-ORC polling shows Trump with 43% of support among registered Arizona voters. Clinton with 38%. Let's talk to my guest here, Arizona congressman Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, an Iraq war veteran, a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Thank you for your service. We just saw a clip, but this ad blitz in the wake of Mr. Trump's speech in Phoenix, what do you hope this ad highlights.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D), ARIZONA: I hope it highlights how unfit he is to be president, let alone a role model for our kids. We can't trust him to represent us on a national or international scene. He can barely control himself, he doesn't have the temperament for it. For him to be our representation to the United Nations or Europe would be embarrassing and dangerous.

BALDWIN: Part of the response from the Clinton campaign from his speech last night, it was the darkest speech, but this morning they say he's softening. How do you interpret that?

GALLEGO: I don't know what dictionary he is using but when you say you will take away the dreamer status from millions of young men and women that are now in our communities have raised families and say they are now going to be deportable, that is not softening.

You say you are going to end birth right citizenship, that's not softening. You say you are going take citizenship from people that were born here while their parents were here illegally, that's not softening so. Maybe in Trump world softening means that but clearly that is not the case and this is why he is going to lose by massive numbers to Latino voters. And put Arizona in play.

BALDWIN: Hours before he was in Phoenix, he was in Mexico City meeting with the Mexican president. It was an invitation sent out to Hillary Clinton and Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump said, yes, do you give him any credit for flying down to Mexico to speak with the president of Mexico? You watch the news conference, a more conciliatory and diplomatic tone.

GALLEGO: It actually is not diplomatic. When you go overseas and you have certain values as wrong as Trump's values are, but he has been talking about Mexico paying for the wall. He goes and meets the president, doesn't bring it up, hides from it, you're not showing how strong you will be. It is actually a cowardly move on his part.

If you believe that Mexico is supposed to pay for the wall, that is his opportunity. You can do it in a diplomatic manner. That is something that Secretary Clinton would do. But he doesn't have the temperament to do it. So even when he has the

ability and the opportunity to actually push his agenda, he doesn't know how to do it. It points to even more the fact that he is not fit to be president.

BALDWIN: So no credit is what I'm hearing from you. While we're talking about Arizona, we were watching the primary, John McCain pulled through, trying to hold his seat. He has been quiet, but he has endorsed Trump, and we talked to who he will now challenge, Democratic Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick. You're a Democrat, but do you think he should disavow Trump moving forward?

GALLEGO: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: Will he though?

GALLEGO: Right now he's locked in step with Donald Trump. He is waiting for Trump to become president to appoint the next Supreme Court Justice. This is a man that said a Mexican American judge could not judge because of his heritage.

BALDWIN: McCain rebuked Trump's comments. I'm sorry I'm thinking of the Khan family, I would not say he is entirely in lock step with Mr. Trump.

GALLEGO: If you're saying you're supporting him for president, you're in lock step. If you say the president -- that he should be the one to appoint a Supreme Court Justice, you're supporting Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: Congressman, thank you so much, appreciate it.

I'm out of time before I go, thank you, I want to show everyone pretty incredible video. Cape Canaveral, this is the actual explosion, we now have it, the SpaceX rocket exploding at launch today. No one was hurt. Rocket and satellite was scheduled to launch Saturday. They were destroyed. Look at that.