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Hillary Clinton To Speak Minutes From Now; Trump Likely To Address Birther Claim Today. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 16, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:02] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: OK, a nice way to end your show. Thanks so much for bringing a smile to our faces. We needed that because it's been a crazy political day, hasn't it?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN CO-HOST: Indeed. And it will continue.

COSTELLO: You're right about that, Alisyn. NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. A wild morning in presidential politics. Hillary Clinton due to speak in just minutes at the symposium of Black Women's Agenda in Washington. We will bring that speech to you live.

And Donald Trump, expected to make big news of his own today. Sources telling us he will likely disavow his debunked birther claim, that President Obama was not born in the United States.

So far, Trump personally refusing to disavow that conspiracy theory but his campaign suddenly reversed course last night putting out this statement, quote, in 2011, Mr. Trump was finally able to bring this ugly incident to its conclusion by successfully compelling President Obama to release his birth certificate. Mr. Trump did a great service to the President and the country by bringing closure to the issue that Hillary Clinton and her team first raised. The statement goes on to say, inarguably, Donald J. Trump is a closer.

We have team coverage this morning. CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash is working her sources. Sara Murray is in Washington for the big Trump speech. But, Dana, I want to start with you because you have sources within the Trump campaign saying that Mr. Trump might actually have those words come out of his mouth later this morning.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Just to be clear, these are people I'm talking to who are familiar with what's going on and, more specifically, understand that as much as the Trump campaign is saying that Jason Miller's statement speaks for Mr. Trump himself -- and that that's the whole purpose of having a spokesperson -- that this particular issue is different from pretty much anything else.

It predates the campaign. It put him on the map politically when he was a private citizen and more importantly, put him on the map with conservative voters and planted the seed that became his successful primary run for president. So given all of that, the pressure is on Donald Trump to be the one to

say this himself. And that he is likely to do so at some point today. Having said that, he hasn't done it yet. He did a call-in with a morning show this morning where he declined to say it, just saying that the statement speaks for itself. But he did tease that he's going to say something at his event here in Washington, opening his new hotel here, trying to keep the suspense going. But who knows what that means.

So the reason why I'm putting caveats in my reporting is because we've all seen this movie before. We have to wait until Donald Trump speaks himself to see what or if he will say anything, anything on this issue. So that's really the question and they're --

COSTELLO: OK.

BASH: -- a lot of issues that we can talk about later about why now in the first place.

COSTELLO: Oh, absolutely, so you stick around, Dana. But I want to get to Sara Murray because she's at the site of that big Trump speech. What's the mood like there, Sara?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, Carol, I think there's a lot of confusion right now about what this event is actually going to be right now. It's not clear if Donald Trump is planning on taking questions, not planning on taking questions. You see the room is set up like a press conference but there are a number of rows set up for Donald Trump supporters ahead of the press.

But, obviously, this is a potential place for Donald Trump to come today and disavow his birtherism belief from previously. But as of this morning, even after his campaign put out the statement, as of this morning, Donald Trump himself was unwilling to say he believes that President Obama was born in the U.S. Take a listen to what he said on Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I'm going to be making a major statement on this whole thing and what Hillary did. But no, she is the one that started it and she was unable or incapable of finishing it. That's the way it worked out, but I got him to release his birth certificate. So --

MARIA BARTIROMO, HOST, MORNINGS WITH MARIA: I remember.

TRUMP: So we will have a big statement and I hope you're going to be watching.

BARTIROMO: I'm definitely going to be watching because the bottom line is this, we know that Obama now, he was born in America, correct?

TRUMP: You watch my statement. I have to -- we have to keep the suspense going. OK?

BARTIROMO: OK.

TRUMP: So you watch -- you're my friend. You watch the statement, OK? I think you'll be happy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, you hear him saying we have to keep the suspense going. And, Carol, I have to tell you, I've been covering Donald Trump for almost a year and a half now, and he certainly hasn't really been keeping the suspense going because he's never once disavowed his birtherism belief.

He obviously was a champion of this for a long time. He pressed President Obama to release his long form birth certificate. But he has said repeatedly he doesn't want to talk about this anymore. He never once said that he believes President Obama is born in the U.S., so we'll be waiting to see if he does finally make that declaration here today, or if this is just another Donald Trump publicity stunt to get people to tune in and watch the event he's going to be having here at his new hotel in Washington. Carol.

[09:05:12] COSTELLO: All right. Sara Murray reporting live from Washington. We'll get back to you. Thank you. So let's boil this all down, shall we?

The Trump camp now says Mr. Trump did a great service to the country by pressuring Mr. Obama to produce his birth certificate, although the President would probably laugh at that like he did at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I know that he's taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder, to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like did we fake the moon landing?

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So Donald Trump was in the audience at that Correspondents' Dinner and he was none too happy. Still, Donald Trump's camp insist it was Hillary Clinton that started the birther debate in the first place. So let's talk about that.

Let's bring back CNN's Dana Bash. I'm also joined by Senior Political Correspondent Brianna Keilar; David Lauter, he is the Washington Bureau Chief for "The Los Angeles Times;" and David Swerdlick, the assistant editor of "The Washington Post." Welcome to all of you. So, Dana, you heard what Mr. Trump said on Fox Business News. He

wants to keep the suspense going. Democrats would view that comment as just totally disrespectful and ridiculous.

BASH: Well, yes. And I think that and I know that they would just add that to a long list of comments that they would put in that category. But the thing that we are all going to be -- and I think Sara -- look, Sara laid it out perfectly and explained why there is some confusion and skepticism.

Donald Trump has a big personal triumph that he's going to talk about today, which is the opening of this big D.C. hotel. So the question is, how much is he going to do that and maybe even, no matter what he says about politics, have the preamble about this great and wonderful hotel that they've been building here for years and that it is finally opening and/or how much is he going to talk about politics and more specifically whether he is going to do what I am told he is being pressed to do, which is have this come out of his own lips so that the campaign that is really desperate to turn the corner from this can do so.

Why do they want to do that? Lots of reasons, but more importantly, when you look at the map and you look at the polls where this campaign is right now, Donald Trump is in striking distance of winning. And winning in a lot of these battleground states, like your home state of Ohio, where a lot of that depends, Carol, on Hillary Clinton not getting out the African-American vote.

COSTELLO: Right.

BASH: It helps her to do that by having a boogeyman in Donald Trump to say to them, look, this guy disrespected the first Black president which, they argue, that's what this whole birther thing is all about. If the Trump campaign feels that they can take that off the table, that can help depress or at least not excite headway.

COSTELLO: OK. So one of the ways that Donald Trump's camp is trying to take that off the table is by blaming the whole birther movement on Hillary Clinton's camp and on Hillary Clinton herself. So I'll pose this question to you, Brianna Keilar.

It is true that a Clinton strategist suggested bringing up Obama's American roots, but that strategist never said that President Obama was born in Kenya and Hillary Clinton never demanded proof of Obama's citizenship. Do I have that right, Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That is exactly right. It was a memo by Mark Penn, who -- I mean, we should mention -- and this certainly is not excusing it because this is a very distasteful memo, but this was someone who didn't see eye to eye with other people in Hillary Clinton's close circle in 2008 and actually a lot of her top confidants abhorred Mark Penn.

But in this memo -- and I'm actually looking at it right now, it's in front of me -- what he talks about is not questioning where then- Senator Obama was born. It's not good what he does suggest, though I will tell you it's about this idea that, you know, he spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, which he did, from about the time he was 6 until 12. Before that, he was in Hawaii. After that, he was in Hawaii.

And so the idea was, sort of, targeting Obama as someone who is multicultural and maybe didn't have that kind of Middle America values. And that was where Mark Penn thought he had a vulnerability. Now, in the end, the Clinton campaign didn't run with this.

[9:10:11] Where you saw the birther idea start to, I guess, gain some traction was with some Hillary Clinton supporters. And so these certainly were some people who supported Hillary Clinton, but this wasn't anything that was coming from the campaign.

And you had some later -- once it got past the primaries, you had some of John McCain's supporters who were doing this as well. But it really wasn't until 2011, when Donald Trump kind of become the band leader here, that he propelled something that was really seen as fringe, even in Republican circles, into a mainstream conversation. Not making it mainstream but certainly putting it into the conversation.

COSTELLO: Oh, absolutely. And just to remind my viewers, so Mr. Trump offered $5 million if President Obama would produce his birth certificate. He also sent investigators to Hawaii to try to uncover evidence --

KEILAR: Well, actually, can I say something about that, Carol?

COSTELLO: Sure.

KEILAR: Because reporters have tried to find proof of the investigators or even inquiries with records officials in Hawaii about this from Donald Trump or his associates. This is something Donald Trump said he did, but it's unclear if he actually did that.

COSTELLO: If he absolutely did it.

KEILAR: That's right.

COSTELLO: OK. He also said -- and I'm looking at the Trump campaign statement now. It says, in 2011, Mr. Trump was finally able to bring this ugly incident to its conclusion by successfully compelling President Obama to release his birth certificate. Except that is not true. BuzzFeed found this interview with Donald Trump on Irish TV in 2014. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLETTE FITZPATRICK, ANCHOR, TV3 NEWS: You questioned his citizenship during his campaign and you said, afterwards, if you produce that long form birth cert, you'd produce your tax returns. You didn't do it, did you?

TRUMP: Well, I don't know, did he do it? And I will be -- if I decide to run for office, I'll produce my tax returns, absolutely, and I would love to do that. I did produce actually a financial statement. Even though I wasn't even running, I did produce a financial statement. And it was shocking to some because it was so much higher than people thought even possible, so it was a great statement and it was my honor to do it.

But no, the President should come clean. He should have come clean over the years. And, you know, if you remember the very famous story where I offered him $5 million if he showed some basic records and he never took me up on it. And that would be for charity. So charities would have benefitted and it would have been a great thing.

FITZPATRICK: But he is a citizen. He produced that long form birth cert.

TRUMP: Well, a lot of people don't agree with you, and a lot of people feel it wasn't a proper certificate.

FITZPATRICK: Hillary Clinton?

TRUMP: Very smart. She's going to be -- in my opinion, she's going to run. She's going to be the Democratic nominee and she's going to be tough to beat. Unless the Republicans have somebody very tough and very smart, they're not going to win.

FITZPATRICK: Are you going to beat her?

TRUMP: I think I could beat her if I ran, but we'll see whether or not. I'll wait until November. You know, we have big elections coming up in the United States in November, and I will wait until November and we'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK: So we already know what happened after November. So, David Swerdlick, how can Donald Trump possibly spin this into Donald Trump doing a great service to the country by forcing the President of the United States to produce his birth certificate and then blaming the whole birther thing on Hillary Clinton, when he obviously said a number of untruths, even in his campaign statement?

DAVID SWERDLICK, ASSISTANT EDITOR, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, Carol. Let me take those one at a time. So I think unless Donald Trump, today at his press conference, does a full-throated reversal or disavowal on this, then he's still going to have this as a problem. He'll still have to be asked about this at the first debate later this month.

In terms of trying to blame it on Hillary Clinton as Dana and Brie (ph) have said, look, this was debunked by "The Washington Post" fact checker. It was debunked by FactCheck.org, debunked by PolitiFact. It's just simply not true.

In terms of those clips that you played, I'm glad you played the clip, carol, of the White House Correspondents' dinner in 2012, because, look, this was something that was really a humiliation for Donald Trump. And we sort of forget that now, but he landed in New Hampshire in April 27th, 2012, landed in New Hampshire, took credit then got off the Trump helicopter, took credit for bringing this issue to light, saying he was the only one that got to the bottom of the issue.

[09:15:09] And then a few weeks later he declared, actually, I'm not going to run for president. I thought about it but I'm not going to challenge President Obama. And it was a real humiliation for him. He's obviously running for President now and as you said, he's doing well. But I feel like this time, he's going to try to still say that he somehow did the American people a service, by getting to the bottom of the issue, by forcing the president to produce a birth certificate --

COSTELLO: So, David Lauter --

SWERDLICK: -- that he already produced.

COSTELLO: I know. But how could that possibly be true because Trump was pushing this birther issue in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, and President Obama and lawmakers, both Republican and Democratic, were trying to get the country out of this. So how could he possibly spin this into doing a service for the country at that particular time?

DAVID LAUTER, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Well, I think that's clearly --

SWERDLICK: Well, let's --

COSTELLO: David Lauter. I was --

[09:15:02] SWERDLICK: All right, Carol.

COSTELLO: David Lauter?

LAUTER: He'll clearly try, Carol, to say, as we've bee talking about, that this is all Hillary Clinton's fault, which it clearly was not. That's simply not true. And he will try to say that he somehow has fixed a problem.

It's sort of equivalent to someone who tries to burn down the house and says, well, I decided I'm not going to play with matches anymore and I've bought a hose if someone else does it. It's -- I doubt it's really going to convince very many voters.

But what it's about at this point is trying to put behind him an issue that's clearly been damaging. It's contributed to a perception among voters that you see in all of the polls that people feel that he is playing with racial, inflammatory ideas that he's a bigot, as many of t polls put it. And that has hurt him very badly with, particularly urban voters in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, states that he needs to win. And he needs to get that behind him if he's going to have a chance to win those states.

COSTELLO: And, and, and, and let's hold off for just a second because I must take a break because we have to pay the bills here at CNN. But I want you all to stay around. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Hillary Clinton moments away from her event in Washington. Donald Trump about an hour away from his big event. Will Clinton take on Trump's birther issue? We're live there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:45] COSTELLO: All right. You see two live events about to happen. Hillary Clinton due to speak just moments from now. That's on the left. We'll take Hillary Clinton's speech live as she address, the symposium of black women's agenda. We're guessing she will address the Trump birther issue.

Mr. Trump's event's on the right. He's expected to tell the nation he thinks President Obama was born in Hawaii. I should say he may or may not do that.

Bernie Sanders, remember him? He's now supporting Clinton. He addressed the birther issue on CNN last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Isn't that something? My word. After eight years of having President Obama as president, Donald Trump now this he's a legitimate president. Well, I'm just overwhelmed with emotion.

Look, this is -- this is pathetic. And this goes to the root of what Trump's campaign is about. But let's be clear. It's about bigotry. You remember, let's all remember that a few years ago, Donald Trump was the leader of the so-called birther movement.

And what the birther movement was about, Chris, was not being critical of Obama. This is a democracy. We can criticize Obama. It was delegitimizing the first African-American president in the history of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Joe Johns in Washington this morning at that Clinton event to tell us more.

Hi, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

Safe to say Hillary Clinton is expected to address Donald Trump's long-standing refusal to acknowledge that President Obama was born in the United States. This group, that Hillary Clinton is expected to speak before encompasses a large number of some of the country's best- known black women's organizations. And the campaign again and again and again has hit the idea of contempt that Donald Trump essentially is disrespecting the first African-American president when he doesn't acknowledge where the president was born.

So, just a little while ago Hillary Clinton tweeting out, among other things, referring to Donald Trump as the birther in chief, and hitting him for not releasing his tax records, and more medical records.

She also hit the issue as well when she was in charlotte just last night. Let's listen in

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Now, he's tried to reset himself and his campaign many times. This is the best he can do. This is who he is. So, we need to decide who we are.

We need to stand up, and repudiate this divisive rhetoric. We need to stop him conclusively in November.

This man wants to be our next president. When will he stop this ugliness? This bigotry?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: So we've got dueling appearances here in Washington, D.C. of these candidates, Donald Trump at his hotel just up the street speaking later this morning.

Pointing up another problem that the Hillary Clinton campaign has talked about, Carol, and that is the notion of running against a controversial candidate who again and again says controversial things. Somewhat soaking up all the media in the room, if you will, making it difficult, they say for Hillary Clinton sometimes to get her message out.

So, we'll see how it all plays out at the end of the day. Back to you.

COSTELLO: OK. We'll check back.

Hillary Clinton due to speak at any moment now. Joe Johns reporting live. Thanks so much.

So, let's talk some more. With me now, back again, Dana Bash, Brianna Keilar, David Swerdlick from "The Washington Post", and David Lauter from the "Los Angeles Times."

Dana, big picture because I like perspective on this show, right? So, this birther controversy, why does it matter?

BASH: Well, it matters for a whole host of issues. Let's just start with the raw politics and the which is a little bit about what we talked about earlier in the show.

But when you're looking at the universe of the electorate and where and how Donald Trump can win, the people who are running his campaign now, who are looking at the numbers, are seeing the fact that he's got his based pretty locked up. They're enthusiastic about it.

[09:25:01] I mean, there's a good intensity for him. But he needs to get beyond that. He just does. I mean, we learned that with Mitt Romney who was a very different kind

of Republican. But he didn't get beyond his core base and he couldn't win, especially when it came to the Electoral College. He needs to do that.

And what they're seeing, and John Kasich even mentioned this to me. I interviewed him on a different subject but he's the governor of the very important state of Ohio and he says that the intensity is not there for Hillary Clinton in some of the urban areas where she needs it to be out. So, if the Trump -- the Trump campaign clearly believes that if they can seize on that, and you know, keep particularly African-Americans feel if they feel ho-hum about Hillary Clinton, they keep that voting level down the fact only helps Donald Trump. So that's just the raw politics and the strategy about it. B

But then let's talk about the core and the character. I mean you heard Joe talk about the fact that Hillary Clinton is going to continue to hammer away at this. And question, do we want a conspiracy theorist at the helm of this country? Is that who we want as our president?

So, that is another really core, fundamental thing which you can't put into data. It's more of a feeling about who this guy is that the campaign wants to try to get over, and to me one of the most --

COSTELLO: But, but, here's, here's the things and I want to post this to, to Brianna, so, Trump supporters aren't going to change their minds, right? I believe that probably most voters have already made up their minds who they're going to vote for and people are going to vote for Trump not because they wildly support him, but they believe that he can shake up Washington and some voters just simply don't like Hillary Clinton. So, even with all this birther stuff going around, and what Clinton might say about it, Brianna, will it really matter in the end?

KEILAR: You know, I'm not sure. But what we do know is that Donald Trump has been trying the last couple days to put out an economic plan, right?

I mean, the Clinton campaign this that ultimately, and they thought all along, that this campaign turns on economics, and perception of economics. And clearly, the Trump campaign agrees, and Donald Trump has been putting himself out there as someone who brings a different perspective, business acumen to make the change.

But just look at yesterday. Yesterday, you had Ivanka Trump putting off an interview. You had Donald Trump Jr. cutting off an interview. What they were trying to talk about was the economy.

Ivanka Trump was trying to talk about her plan that she helped come up with along with her father for maternity leave, and that's not what people are talking about. Because Donald Trump said this to "The Washington Post," and he has not changed what he has said.

His campaign clearly trying to get ahead of their candidate on this, which is actually pretty startling. This doesn't happen very often where you have a campaign so far ahead of the candidate. They've been ahead of him on this issue for days.

BASH: It's not an accident. They're pushing him.

COSTELLO: So, Trump just tweeted that he's on his way to his brand- new hotel in Washington and he has a major announcement to make. Or a major statement and we all know at this point what it is. Here's the other thing, though --

BASH: Or do we?

COSTELLO: Or do we. I don't know.

But the major statement could be that he's going to say President Obama was born in the United States. And, perhaps, Mr. Trump has finally decided to say that because when he appear before African- American audiences it sometimes has not gone so well.

For example what happened in Flint, Michigan, David Lauter, right? He's talking inside of a black church, the pastor says excuse me this isn't a political speech. Actually let me just show you the exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Hillary failed on the economy, just like she's failed on foreign policy. Everything she touched did not work out, nothing. Now, Hillary Clinton --

REV. FAITH GREEN TIMMONS: Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us for what we have done in Flint, not to give a political speech.

TRUMP: OK. OK. OK. That's good. I'll get back to it. OK.

She got up to introduce me, she was so nervous and she was shaking and I said wow this is sort of strange, and then she came up. But she was so nervous. She was like a nervous mess.

CLINTON: That's not only insulting it's dead wrong. Reverend Faith Green Timmons is not a nervous mess, she's a rock for her community in trying times, she deserves better than that. Flint deserves better. In fact, so does America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So, the pastor herself also piled on.

Let's listen to what her response to Donald Trump's charge that she was a nervous nellie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PASTOR FAITH ELIZABETH TIMMONS, BETHEL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: I can't speak to any other pastors but I just know this that this church is god's house and I can't speak to any other denominations but the United Methodist Church is very diverse. So, I mean, United Methodists are Republicans, United Methodists are Democrats, some United Methodists are what would you say, of no affiliation. We are all different, but what unites us is Christ, not our political party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)