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Trump Plan: End Birthright Citizenship; Advisors to Biden: Decide by October 1; Bad Weather Hampers Efforts to Reach Plane Wreckage; Anti-Establishment Candidates on the Rise. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 17, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:03] SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: But for most of the weekend, the spotlight wasn't on policy, but retail politics at the Iowa State Fair. Jeb Bush, looking to boost his sagging poll numbers, spent four hours there, sampling pork chops and practicing his fast pitch.

Meanwhile, his super PAC is pitching in, spending $10 million on ads in the early states.

As for Trump, it was a claustrophobic chaotic spin through the fairgrounds.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's get a picture with everybody real quick.

MURRAY: Complete with a free ride for the kids on his $7 million chopper.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, views of Trump's immigration plan are already coming in. As you might expect, immigration advocates are panning it. But as for those group that want to limit immigration, both legal and illegal, they say Trump is doing better on this issue than almost anyone in the field.

As for Donald Trump, we will not see him on the campaign trail today: he is in New York doing jury duty.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I know. That part is particularly crazy. All right. Thanks so much, Sara.

Let's talk about the other side of the aisle. There's rising speculation this morning about Vice President Joe Biden jumping into the Democratic race. Political advisors have reportedly given Biden an October 1 deadline to decide, but it appears we could find out much sooner.

CNN's Jim Acosta is following that story. He's live on Martha's Vineyard, where the vice president and president, I guess, are vacationing.

Hi, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn.

That's right. President Obama is enjoying his vacation here on Martha's Vineyard. Vice President Joe Biden, he was also off and spending some of that time last week determining whether he should make a run for the White House.

Sources close to the vice president say he is nowhere near a decision right now, which is expected to come at the end of the summer, perhaps as late as October.

Now, Biden spent his vacation in South Carolina, an early primary state and home to one of his biggest loyalists, the former chairman of that state's Democratic Party. But his advisors are gaming out the challenge the vice president would face, should he choose to take on Hillary Clinton. She has the organization and much of the party behind her.

And if you take a look at the polls, there's a new one out that just came out in the last couple of days. Biden would have to play some major catch up against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who was gaining on Hillary Clinton in the polls. And here's what Sanders had to say about the possibility of a Biden candidacy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have known Joe for many, many years. And everybody who knows Joe likes him and respects him. The decision as to whether or not he runs is his. If he does run, I promise him an issue-oriented campaign. We'll debate the major issues facing the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, as for Hillary Clinton, she and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, were here on Martha's Vineyard over the weekend. A White House official tells me the former secretary of state did chat briefly with President Obama on Saturday night. That was after Mr. Obama and Bill Clinton hit the golf course together.

And the biggest challenge to Biden may be this: these images you're seeing of the Clintons and the Obamas over the weekend. I'm told Hillary Clinton is already seen by top Democratic strategists both inside and outside the White House as someone who will protect and expand on President Obama's legacy.

But, lately, White House officials, we should say, have been talking up the vice president, saying that President Obama believes tapping Biden as his V.P. was the best political decision he ever made.

Chris, if the president has to choose between Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, that's going to have -- it's going to have to be one of the toughest calls he's going to make during his presidency -- Chris.

CNN CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You think, Jim? That's interesting. It will be interesting to see if he even has to make that choice. But appreciate the reporting this morning. All right. So we have a campaign exclusive for you. We have

executive vice president for the Trump Organization, special counsel of Donald Trump, Mr. Michael Cohen is here. Counsel...

MICHAEL COHEN, EVP, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Always good to see you.

CUOMO: ... always a pleasure. How powerful is Donald Trump if he can't get out of jury duty?

COHEN: Well, it's unfortunate. That whole scenario is just whacky. They claim that they had sent it to him on several different occasions.

CUOMO: He's a jury skipper.

COHEN: Not true.

CUOMO: Shirking his civic duty.

COHEN: You've to serve it to the right property. They -- yes, they sent it to a property on Central Park South. I believe he owns the building, but he doesn't reside there, and nobody knows what happened to the document.

CUOMO: All right. So he's at jury duty now. That's not why you're here today.

COHEN: No, it's not.

CUOMO: Let us refresh your memory with why we're here. Donald Trump was on this show. He's saying, "What is this, I don't like women, you know, I don't cherish women? I do. I hire them all the time. My company does a great job of paying them." And here's what happened in the back and forth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Do you pay the women at the top of your organization the same way you pay the men?

TRUMP: Yes, I do. Absolutely.

CUOMO: Because that's what it comes down to. Is not that...

TRUMP: Yes, it is.

CUOMO: It's not that everybody is equal. It's that you're equal when you deserve it.

TRUMP: Do you do that -- like I pay, in my cases, I pay the women more. I mean, I have women that get paid a lot of money. And I pay them more.

CUOMO: One campaign suggestion for you: You should show those numbers to people and let them see that...

TRUMP: Well, I can do that.

CUOMO: ... women don't only make the same; they make more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. So he says, "I can do that."

I then get a call from you. And you say, "I want to come on. I have numbers, and I have a challenge for everybody else in the field." What have you got?

[07:05:03] COHEN: That's right. So I was watching you on the show. And obviously, they've called Donald Trump everything. The only thing that they don't call him is what he really is, which is really a genius, and he happens to be just a, you know, a great guy. Instead, they called him all sorts of words, including the word "misogynist."

And I watched the program. And I decided I was going to take a look for myself, because I really didn't know the answer to it. So I went and I started looking, and I started to pull out various different parts of the company. And in most respects, there are more men that work for the company. I believe it's -- ballpark, it's 57-43. However, there are more female executives at the Trump organization than they are male.

And women who are similarly situation in positions of -- similar to that of their male counterparts are actually paid more. More.

CUOMO: So you're saying that it's 57. So there are more men, but there are more women in positions that are executive, whatever that means, and that they pay as well or more than the male counterparts.

COHEN: That's correct.

CUOMO: And you can prove it?

COHEN: I can prove it. And I started to just take different sectors of the company. For example, in senior accounting, the male is in the $70,000 range, and the female is slightly greater than that. In the area of even the legal department, where the assistant general counsel makes $25,000 more than her male counterparts.

CUOMO: Now, you said you were surprised by these numbers. And we were discussing this. You said, you know, Mr. Trump was not surprised by this. He knows who he hires. He doesn't care if they're men or women. He just wants them to be well. That's why he always holds up his example that in the '80s, he had a woman running a construction project. So if these are the numbers, this -- there is proof to back this up, you say?

COHEN: That's correct.

CUOMO: It gets tricky with you, though, because you're a private organization. So we can't just look at your books.

COHEN: That's true. But I've always said to you that I would welcome, if you wanted to come in. I'd have you sign an NDA, and you could take a look.

But the thing about Mr. Trump is leadership is really about proof of performance, unlike the others like Hillary at her Iowa fair said that she's the only one that can really understand women's rights and so on. Donald Trump has been living this for more than 30 years. He's not a gender-based payer. He's a performance-based payer. Meaning, if you do the job, he doesn't care if your name is Mary or it's Joe. He wants the job done; he wants it done right. And that's about leadership.

CUOMO: And he knew -- look, the reason we were going back and forth about this is that he was being painted as a misogynist, because he said a lot of ugly things about women. Megyn Kelly came after him about it. Whole numbers, 24 women to 21.

COHEN: I believe he said it about one person.

CUOMO: He says that. And then she said, "No, it was a lot of women." I didn't get into the reporting on that.

COHEN: He's equally harsh to males, as well.

CUOMO: That's true.

COHEN: He's gender neutral when it comes to -- when it comes to punching back.

CUOMO: Right, but you know how it is. When you're going to be a leader, you've got to be -- you have to think about your words and what you say and how you say it.

Now, what you're doing is you're flipping the dynamic. You're saying, it's not just about what you say; it's about what you do. And you're saying that you're coming out with these numbers because you want to issue a challenge to the field. What's the challenge?

COHEN: That's right. I would like to see the other candidates -- GOP, as well as Democrats, as well as Hillary. I'd be curious to see how many males versus females she has in her organization.

CUOMO: Because they'll say, "Well, we don't run a company. It's different."

COHEN: Not true.

CUOMO: I'm government. I'm...

COHEN: Not true. Your campaign, as far as I'm concerned, is a company. I'm curious as to how many males versus females she has on her staff. I'm curious to see how many of the GOP have males to females in their staff.

See, the difference, they're all talk. Donald Trump is a doer. And he doesn't do it because the pollsters tell him to do it. He does it because it's inherent to him. It's -- it's just -- it's right. And he doesn't care, again, if your name is Mary or Joe. He wants performance. He's a performance-based individual.

CUOMO: And these jobs -- you know, obviously, NDA would be because you're a private company. You don't want people's names out there with what they made. It's not fair to them. But these are, like, real jobs.

COHEN: These are real jobs.

CUOMO: These are real things.

COHEN: Sure, hotel G.M.s. I can give you the comparison. In this specific case, the male makes $20,000 more than the female. Of course, he's been there seven years longer.

So again, it's -- much of it is predicated upon length of time. However, we have -- even in the golf department, we have two women who are the G.M.s of major golf courses. They make, in one case, the same exact as the male, and in the other case, they make more.

CUOMO: Basis of criticism would be, well, maybe Trump doesn't know. Maybe someone else is doing the hiring, and he's the beneficiary.

COHEN: Trump knows. There's nothing that goes on at the Trump Organization that he's not aware of.

CUOMO: Now, this comes -- you're coming out with this today. The timing is never a coincidence. The same time that the immigration plan is coming out. What is this shift in strategy, from not just saying it, but now putting out these proofs of performance, putting out these policy agendas.

COHEN: Sure. The man's the front-runner. He's been the front-runner now for two months. This is the time now that he's going to slowly put out the various different policies that he said he was going to put out.

[07:10:10] Again, he's not a politician. He's a billionaire businessman, celebrity who is interested in making America great again. He's the guy that everybody now is talking about as the doer. And he said he was going to put out his plan. He's putting it out. Can he put it out all in one shot? Why would you do that? He's going to slowly put them out as they become prepared.

CUOMO: It does seem that this is a much harder line that he's taking on this particular issue than he has in the past. Is he starting to play politics a little bit in terms of giving the people what they want and that far right of the GOP, saying, "I'm going to throw out the whole family. You know, we're going to force them to build the wall"? You know, it seems different than what he said in the past. Is that a trap for him?

COHEN: I don't think so. But why does it seem...

CUOMO: He had said in the past, "Look, we've got to figure out how people who should be here can be here." That -- finding a path to citizenship. Or even once they're out, find a way back. That's not in his first six points.

COHEN: No. He does say that. What he says is that they're going to leave. But he wants to figure out how to make the policy easier for them to come back. They have to be good for America. And what this will do is this will help to clean out all the problems that we have with the illegal immigration.

CUOMO: But, is he just playing strong, or are his ideas maybe not as severe as they come across here?

COHEN: Donald Trump doesn't play. He doesn't play.

CUOMO: What does that mean?

COHEN: Well, it means he's not -- he's not playing politics. This is what he believes. And if he believes it, he's putting it out there as he said he would.

CUOMO: So you're saying that, Donald Trump, with this folder that you have in here, he's saying to the other candidates, put out the same numbers that I've put out. And there's an implicit challenge to the media in there, as well. What is it?

COHEN: Meaning what?

CUOMO: That, you know, you said that "You guys don't cover him the way you cover everyone else. You're forcing me to give you numbers. Why don't you do it with everybody else?"

COHEN: Well, it's true. And so you should. You should ask the other candidates the number of females to males that are...

CUOMO: Do you think we chase Trump more than we chase everybody else?

COHEN: I do. I think he -- again, because he is the front-runner for, now, eight weeks, and he is the most covered candidate that's out there.

CUOMO: You could argue he is partly the frontrunner because he gets a lot of energy given to him from the media, too. The other candidates are angry at us also for giving him so much attention.

COHEN: Well, he's the front-runner probably because he's the smartest and because he's the only one that can actually do something to make this country great again. And that's what everybody is hungry for. They want to see America great like it used to be.

CUOMO: Do you think people are going to sour a little bit when they hear he doesn't think that this country's been a source of pride for people since Reagan?

COHEN: No, I don't think so. And I think that's really the sentiment of a lot of people in the country. That's why you see the poll numbers the way they are. People are angry.

You know, we're not doing well as a country. We're involved in wars that aren't ours. We're spending money protecting people where we get nothing out of it. These are all -- these are all the things Mr. Trump has been talking about for years. He's talked about them going back to 2008 where he predicted that Iraq was going to be a disaster.

CUOMO: So, you'll give me these numbers. You can look through them. If you want to see the back up for them, we can get them, but you want us to sign a nondisclosure agreement so we don't put out anybody's information.

COHEN: Absolutely. And it's proprietary to the individuals.

CUOMO: And then we'll ask the other candidates, see how they do, and we'll move the debate forward the way we're supposed to, which is on the basis of ideas and performance.

COHEN: Absolutely.

CUOMO: All right. Counsel, thank you.

COHEN: Great to see you.

CUOMO: Look, we respect you answering the question that we asked him about providing the proof.

COHEN: Trump has nothing to hide.

CUOMO: All right. So stay with us later this hour. We heard from Donald Trump's campaign, what the challenge is. We also have New Jersey Governor, presidential hopeful Chris Christie. Can he answer the challenge that Mr. Trump is putting down, and how does he think he stays in this field? It's coming up around 7:40. Stick around with us -- Mick.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. In Indonesia, the searched is suspended this morning for a plane that crashed into a mountainside Sunday with 54 people on board. Right now, crews on the ground are waiting for fog to lift so that they can resume to confirm if that debris spotted from the air belongs to the doomed Trigana flight.

CNN correspondent Kathy Novak is live in Seoul with the very latest for us on efforts there -- Kathy.

KATHY NOVAK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Michaela, this was a short, local flight. About 15 to 20 minutes before it was scheduled to land, it lost contact. Villagers say they saw it crash into the mountain.

And now, authorities released pictures that they say they believe is from the debris from this missing plane. They say they are all but positive, 95 percent sure that this debris is from the plane that is said to have crashed into the mountain.

But the problem is they simply cannot get to it. For two days in a row now, the search has been called off until the morning. It is dark in this part of the world, and the weather is bad. So you have ground crews stuck on the mountain, basically. They had been hiking to this area, but now they cannot get any further. And this is absolutely devastating for the families of the 54

passengers who were on board. They're being told to hold out some hope that there may have been some survivors. But the reality is they should expect the worst. This would be very, very difficult to survive. Fifty-four on board: 44 adults, five crew and five children.

[07:15:16] And now, once again, the question is being asked, is it safe to fly in Indonesia? If you look back over just the past few months, back in December, an AirAsia plane went down into the sea and took 162 passengers with it. More recently, in June, a military plane went down carrying a lot of civilians; 130 people died. And now we have this incident. This airline had been operating since 1991 and had about 19 accidents since then, not including this one, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes. This airline has a very troubled safety record. Thanks so much, Kathy, for all that background.

Well, back here at home, eight western states under siege by dozens of wildfires. It's particularly rough in California and Idaho. More than a million acres have burned in Washington state and Oregon, where scorching temperatures are slowing firefighters. Scores of homes and buildings lost. Hundreds more at risk. One woman's death blamed on the evacuation rush from Idaho.

CUOMO: A U.S. Army skydiver has died a day after colliding with another jumper during a stunt at the Chicago Air and Water Show. The victim is Sergeant 1st Class Corey Hood, a member of the Army Golden Knights. His emergency chute did deploy, we're told, but he hit a building and made an uncontrolled landing. Hood served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The other jumper suffered a broken leg.

PEREIRA: Airports along the East Coast are working to get back on track this morning after a weekend full of delays and cancellations. Close to a thousand flights affected after a glitch Saturday at an air-traffic control center in Virginia. The issue was resolved in a few hours' time, but delays up to two hours persisted along the East Coast for much of Sunday.

The issue is being pinned on a recent software upgrade at a radar facility in Leesburg, Virginia. Oh, those upgrades, meant to improve things and then cause everything to go sideways. And that kind of thing has such a trickle-down effect. Right?

CAMEROTA: Oh, totally. Look at those pictures. I mean, that's not how you want to spend your summer weekend.

PEREIRA: No. Trying to get home? Nuh-unh.

CAMEROTA: Just terrible.

All right. Meanwhile, there's momentum building for antiestablishment candidates in the 2016 presidential race. We will speak with the co- founder of the Tea Party Patriots about the antiestablishment trend and who the Tea Party likes best now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:21:10] CAMEROTA: If the latest polls reveal anything about the 2016 presidential race, it is that the public is fed up with the political establishment. Business tycoon Donald Trump, as you know, taking a stunning lead on the Republican front. Bernie Sanders rising on the Democratic side.

Joining us now to discuss all this is the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, Mark Meckler.

Hi, mark.

MARK MECKLER, CO-FOUNDER, TEA PARTY PATRIOTS: Good morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: So you must be thrilled with this antiestablishment zeal that we're seeing here for 2016.

MECKLER: I am thrilled. I'm thrilled about it on both sides of the aisle. And I think the American people are thrilled. And if you look at the Republican side of the aisle, you've got almost 50 percent of the people are in support of anti-establishment candidates. You've got 30 percent for Bernie Sanders on the left. It's really an extraordinary movement taking place in American politics today.

CAMEROTA: So let's play a little bit of a lightning round. And I want to hear how the Tea Party feels about some of these candidates. Donald Trump.

MECKLER: Well, I think he's saying the things that need to be said. I think he provides the litmus test or sort of the beta testing for all messaging. All other candidates are paying attention to him. He's blazing a trail of what works and what doesn't work.

CAMEROTA: OK. Ben Carson. He's anti-establishment. I mean, obviously, he's not a career politician; he's a doctor.

MECKLER: Anti-establishment, definitely different than the rest of the field. Much more soft-spoken. I think people are inspired by him. He's got an incredible life story.

CAMEROTA: Carly Fiorina.

MECKLER: Carly Fiorina is sort of the dark horse in the race, from my perspective, coming from California. She ran a terrible Senate race a few years back against Barbara Boxer. But today, she looks like the candidate who's most nimble on her feet and most likely to continue to rise in the polls.

CAMEROTA: Ted Cruz is an interesting case study, because he, I think, fancies himself anti-establishment. Maybe you agree. But of course, he is a politician.

MECKLER: He is a politician, but he rose in Texas politics as an anti-establishment candidate running against an establishment candidate for his Senate seat. So I think he's a proven antiestablishment candidate with great Tea Party support.

CAMEROTA: OK. Who have I forgotten? Who else do you have your eye on as a Tea Partier?

MECKLER: Well, I think you hit the top candidates as Tea Party. Scott Walker, of course, fought the unions in Wisconsin, and people like him for that. But he's come across as pretty mellow, pretty soft, and people, I think, are looking for somebody with more fire in the belly than they see in Scott Walker today.

CAMEROTA: OK. So of those first four that we talked about, who do you like best?

MECKLER: You know, I don't have a personal preference. I like all of them, because I think they're all bringing up the right issues. I think they're all challenging the status quo, and that's what I like to see.

Again, I see the same thing on the left. I'm inspired to see Bernie Sanders challenging the ultimate establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton. I think the American public is getting exactly what they're looking for. Your polling at CNN shows a vast majority of Americans fed up with the status quo. So I think we're seeing a real populist election here in America.

CAMEROTA: So you're not -- you're reserving judgment. You don't have a personal favorite at this point, but who do you think speaks best to the Tea Party ideals?

MECKLER: Well, I think those top three candidates, maybe four candidates, are the ones who I think now are currently speaking the right language. So you've got Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson. All of those folks are speaking to the heart and soul, I think not just of the Tea Party, but of the vast majority of Americans.

CAMEROTA: We're looking right now at the latest poll. It's from FOX News. It was released over the weekend. Donald Trump has, again, a commanding lead. He is more than two times his closest follower, which is Ben Carson. How do you explain that?

MECKLER: I'd explain it because he's the guy that's out there that is saying things first, is willing to take a stand when others aren't willing to take a stand, that's willing to defend his position. And today he's not interested in political correctness.

And I think the American people are ready for just honesty from folks, people who are willing to speak their minds.

Whether he can hold? It's hard to say whether he can hold that position for long. Jeb Bush was the front-runner for a long time. He's now down at 9 percent. There's a lot of territory between here and the election. So we'll just have to wait and see.

CAMEROTA: You talk about Jeb Bush. So have you rejected Jeb Bush? I mean, is that just not in your sights at all, because he is so establishment?

MECKLER: Well, you know, it's really interesting, because as I travel the country -- I've been in 20 states since the beginning of the year -- literally, I have yet to meet a person who says that they support Bush. Literally not one. I've met thousands and thousands of people. It's really stunning to me.

And yes, I think he represents the establishment. And I think, as I travel across the country and I talk to people, both left and right, the idea of a Clinton/Bush race is something that they're just not ready for. They don't want to hear those names in politics any more.

CAMEROTA: You brought up Bernie Sanders in the same vein -- or same breath that you talked about anti-establishment, but he is the anti- Tea Party. I mean, he's a self-declared socialist. Isn't that as far on the other end of the spectrum from the Tea Party as you can get?

MECKLER: I think he is far on the other end of the spectrum. But at the same time, he's raising the same issues. He's a populist. He's talking to the American people. He's talking to the base of his party that feels unrepresented by establishment candidates like Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or even President Obama. And so I think he's tapping into the same vein of populism that the candidates on the right are tapping into. He just has different solutions for the problems that ail the nation.

CAMEROTA: OK, Mark Meckler, thanks so much. We'll look forward to you coming back and telling us when you do have a personal favorite. Thanks for breaking it all down with us.

MECKLER: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: We want to hear your take. You can tweet us, using the hashtag #NewDayCNN, or post your comments on Facebook.com/NewDay -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right. So Donald Trump so far dominating the Republican field in the 2016 presidential race. However, fellow Republican Chris Christie is not giving in. The governor will join us next, live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)