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Clinton Apologizes, Takes Responsibility for Private E-Mail Server; Harry Reid on the Iran Deal; United Airlines CEO Resigns in Scandal Connected to Bridgegate; Stephen Colbert's "Late Show" Debut. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired September 09, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

AMY HOLMES, HOST, "THE BLAZE": But I would also admire her if she was willing to give up the 80 grand that she's earning at the taxpayer expense to not give out marriage licenses, as she's required under the law.

[06:30:06] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: So let's do this. Ben, Amy, let's see what happens next. Because that will prove out where you are, Ben, in terms of why she did this. I read that Kentucky statute, the religious freedom law, five different times before this segment. I don't know how any of this falls under the level of a burden that required accommodation. I think they gave it to her to make this go away, and because she's an elected, you can't just fire her as easily. But none of this made sense.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And she didn't want her name on these licenses. And I get that.

CUOMO: But that's her job. Then do some other job. But let's figure out what happens next, then we'll debate again. Amy, thank you very much. Ben, as always, my friend.

Mick?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: I feel like we'll talk about it a little bit more, don't you?

CUOMO: Sure. I think there's another step.

PEREIRA: I think there might be. A new era in late night television has been ushered in. Steven Colbert making his debut as host of "The Late Show". Jeb Bush one of his featured guest. How did it go? We'll take a closer look ahead on NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:35:11] PEREIRA: Just a day after saying she had nothing to apologize for, Hillary Clinton apologized for using a private e-mail server during her time as Secretary of State, telling ABC News and her followers on Facebook that she will take full responsibility for her decision and is taking nothing for granted from supporters.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Jeb Bush making a candid admission on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert". He says his brother, George W., should have shown greater fiscal restraint and brought the hammer down on congressional Republicans when he was president.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, getting set to headline a rally against the Iran deal. And he returned to Fox News last night. Trump said he would accept some migrants from Syria on humanitarian grounds.

CUOMO: Three lawmakers throwing their support behind the Iran nuclear deal. That all but ensures it cannot be blocked.

Let's bring in CNN senior political reporter Manu Raju from D.C. He went one on one with Democratic leader Harry Reid about what is at stake here. Welcome to the team, Manu.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Thanks, Chris. You know, this was a very feisty Harry Reid yesterday. He was very confident that Democrats would be able to sustain a presidential veto and ensure that Iran -- that the Iran deal stays alive. And he was unsparing against the critics of the Iran deal, particularly former vice president Dick Cheney.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID (D), NEVADA: There are a lot of good reasons for this deal, but the best deal is that Cheney is against it. I mean, think about this. The architect of the worst foreign policy decision in the history of America to invade Iraq. Look what it has done. Why would anyone with any degree of intelligence agree with him?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: This is Harry Reid unplugged. He went after Mitch McConnell, the majority leader who he said was a poor loser on the Iran deal. He actually criticized his own fellow colleague Chuck Schumer for opposing the deal as well, saying that his reasons were, quote, "basically fluff". And he even touched on his own personal issue involving his right eye, the injuries sustained on New Year's Day. He said that it's left him permanently blind. He probably will have no way of seeing again out of that eye.

Michaela?

PEREIRA: That's really sad news to hear. A really candid conversation. We're really glad that you are joining the family. Welcome aboard.

RAJU: Thanks.

PEREIRA: All right, Serena Williams, did you see the match? Whoo, her hopes for a historic calendar grand slam still alive after enduring a tough, physical, mental, and emotional challenge from big sister, Venus.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

PEREIRA: We're applauding at match point there. Venus hugging her sister, appearing to mouth the words, "I'm so happy for you." Serena winning after three sets, afterwards calling her big sis the greatest competitor, her best friend. Serena next faces 43rdd ranked Roberta Vinci in the semis.

You think back. You know, you see that image of them -- I know everybody talks about this, "The New York Times" has a nice piece about it, talking about those early days with those two sisters in Compton, California, in the tutleage of their dad, braids, braces, all of that. And you look at the two of them now. It's quite an American story, really, if you think about it.

CAMEROTA: Oh, remarkable.

Chris, what do you think, is it possible Venus didn't play as hard as she would have so that Serena could win?

CUOMO: Not only do I not think that's the case, Serena Williams is arguably the best woman's tennis player, ever. OK? And what you saw last night was that Venus was more composed in the big moments than Serena was. Serena's got a lot at stake, she's going for something that hasn't happened since Steffi Graf did it many, many years -- the grand slam in a calendar year. So she's got a lot of pressure. But I'll tell you, it will never happen again, certainly in our lifetimes, to see siblings dominate a sport the way these two have.

CAMEROTA: Truly remarkable.

All right, meanwhile, listen to this story. The CEO of United Airlines resigning under fire. This is a scandal that traces back to the Bridgegate scandal. So how will the Christie campaign respond? Details ahead.

[06:39:26]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: This morning, United Airlines CEO, Jeff Smisek, is out amid questions about a sweetheart deal. Federal investigators are looking into the relationship with David Sampson. That was the former chief of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. And if you recognize the name David Sampson, yes, he's the person who once worked for New Jersey governor Chris Christie but stepped down after the Bridgegate scandal. So does this new investigation hurt Chris Christie?

Here to weigh in is CNN political commentator and political anchor of New York 1 Errol Louis. Errol, great to see you. Before we get to the Chris Christie connection, if there is one, let's just talk about what David Sampson is accused of here, because the audacity of it is impressive. He created a new airline flight for himself.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's right. He was -- that's the allegation.

He was the chair of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. They control all the regional airports, the one in Newark in particular is what's at issue here, because United controls all lot of the gates. And they were looking for a lot of different concessions. They were paying something like 75 percent more than what they were paying just across the river in New York.

And so they were looking for concessions, lots and lots of meetings, asking for -- asking for help, asking for concessions. And somewhere in one of those meetings, apparently the chairman let it be known that, gee, it sure would be nice if you could reinstitute a flight from New Jersey to Columbia, South Carolina, which apparently nobody wants to take, so that he could get to his vacation home. And it was referred to apparently in the Port Authority as the chairman's flight. It would leave on Thursday, it would come back on Monday, and almost nobody else took it.

CAMEROTA: It was basically his private plane, but United was footing the bill.

OK, now the CEO of United Continental Airlines has stepped down.

[06:45:00] Does this in any way link back to Chris Christie?

LOUIS: Well, that remains to be seen but it doesn't look good. Because there were lots of meetings where a lot of these conversations were taking place. Governor Christie may have been at some of those meetings. It's not clear what he knew about the meetings. All of that now has to be rehashed. And it's being rehashed in the context of a federal prosecution, which is testimony under oath, depositions, really hard questions that are being asked. It's the last a presidential candidate needs.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. So how quickly does it bleed onto the campaign trail since we haven't heard anything about it until right now?

LOUIS: Well, I don't know if it could hurt Christie's chances any more than they have already been hurt. Let's keep in mind, back in January, he was polling in the double digits. He was considered really a front-runner for the nomination. Now he's polling down around 3 percent, 4 percent. Barely made it into some of these top tier debates.

CAMEROTA: But do you think that's about Bridgegate or that's just about his campaign?

LOUIS: I think he's got just problems with his campaign. I guess the point though being I don't know that the other candidates are going to hop on this and use it to beat up Chris Christie because he's not much of a threat to most of the candidates. He's polling in -- he's in tenth place right now.

CAMEROTA: I see, so in other words, the questions about this won't come from the other candidates, you predict, but it will from the media. Won't they ask him about it today?

LOUIS: Oh, absolutely. And the voters themselves may start to sort of take some interest in this. I mean, in some of the recent polls, not even a majority of Republicans were favoring Chris Christie over Donald Trump. So he's got a world of problems, some of them legal, many of them political. It's, again, not going to necessarily help his campaign. And it's really a missed opportunity because he is the governor of a very important northeastern state at the hub of commerce in the northeast. If he could have sort of been the guy who helped managed a really thorny transportation situation, it would have been a feather in his cap. Now it's just the opposite.

CAMEROTA: Errol Louis, thanks so much for explaining all that to us. Nice to see you.

Let's get over to Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Alisyn. A long late night wait is over. Stephen Colbert making his debut, entertaining his presidential candidate. How did he do? We'll ask our media experts to weigh in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:51:18] STEPHEN COLERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW": Folks, we have been working so hard, so very hard, to get the show ready for you. And I have to say, as long as I have nine months to make one hour of TV, I could do this forever.

With this show, with this show, as many people have asked, with this show, I began the search for the real Stephen Colbert. I just hope I don't find him on Ashley Madison.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: And there it is, the birth of new era late night wars. "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" premiering last night, and though of it much it remains familiar comedic territory, Colbert's late show also offered some moments of serious conversation with guests like GOP candidate Jeb Bush.

Here to break it all they down -- they stayed up late just for you, America -- Brian Stelter, CNN's senior media correspondent, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES", Bill Carter, CNN contributor author and author of "The War for Late Night". Neither of them are bleary eyed.

OK, since you both watched it in realtime, I want your grades. What grade do you give the performance in the first episode?

BILL CARTER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I'm going to give it a B.

PEREIRA: Give it a B.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I was going to say an A minus.

PEREIRA: How about that, pretty good. The reviews have mostly been great.

CARTER: Yes, they're very good. I mean, to me, the great elements to it, I think he was still a little bit amped, like he was playing very big. The room is big. He's stretched to a network. I think he was a little bit over amped, maybe, a couple of the bits --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Who needs editorial discretion?

PEREIRA: Let's -- one of those serious moments that we showed -- well, there's George Clooney. One of those not serious moments, but talking about the political string (ph) he's so brilliant at, here is a little bit of it with Jeb Bush. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLBERT: Without in any way diminishing your love for your brother, in what ways do you politically differ from your brother, George?

(CHEERS & APPLAUSE)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm obviously younger.

COLBERT: You're younger.

BUSH: Much better looking.

COLBERT: Policy, though. Any policy?

BUSH: Oh. I think my brother probably didn't control the Republican Congress spending. I think he should have brought the hammer down on the Republicans when they were spending way too much. Because our brand is limited government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Plays right to the CNN brand, but it's interesting, a bold choice for late night. One of your first guests is a presidential candidate. Speaks to what's to come perhaps?

STELTER: And we have Bernie Sanders on "The Late Show" next week, also Joe Biden this Thursday, a possible candidate.

What we're seeing from Colbert there is this mixing of fun and then serious questions. You can imagine they spent days or weeks planning the kind of questions to ask Jeb Bush because they had the luxury of doing that. Like you said, they came out there so amped up. One of the writers on the show said to me, it's like we were firing bullets into the sky all summer because they had nowhere to fire off. Well, now, they actually get to be on every night. We'll see how long they can keep up this energy.

CARTER: I thought it was a little bit -- I thought the Bush thing was the best part of the show. I also thought it was unfortunately a little tightly edited. He had more to say and it looked they were cutting him off a couple times. But I liked that a lot. I thought that was the real Colbert right there.

CAMEROTA: So who is the real Colbert? Now that we know?

CARTER: I think he sent a message he's a sincere -- he came out with the national anthem. He's going to be sincere. That's sort of what it is. But also, he's going to be broad. He's going to sing. He did singing, he's going to do all that kind of --

PEREIRA: A little wacky too.

CARTER: Going to be wacky.

STELTER: But really (INAUDIBLE) said it really well, a joyful gesture. He's not a cynic like David Letterman, he's not discontent. He's not full of that like Letterman was. He's a very different kind of late night host.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: What's the risk? If you're everything, than you're nothing. He's going to have to find something specific. Maybe it's what you saw with Jeb.

CARTER: And it's one show so we don't know exactly -- I think he was, you know, trying to do so much in one show. Also, the show was too blue. I don't know if you noticed that. Everything on the show is blue.

PEREIRA: Not blue in humor, blue in actual color.

CUOMO: But he's an Ameri-can. That's an Ameri-can color.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: You know, it's interesting, because I think there will probably be a fair amount of the Colbert Nation that were going to tune in to see their beloved guy.

[06:55:07] But I think there was a certain amount of them that would've expected this Colbert to be a polar opposite of the character that they knew and loved. Both are going to sort of see a bit of the guy they love. You know what I mean?

STELTER: It's an important point. He has to also be broadly appealing, like he has to prove to conservatives that think he's a giant liberal at heart that actually he's not. He has to prove to a network audience that he's more than just a niche cable host. I think he started doing that last night.

CARTER: No question.

STELTER: But he's got obviously hundreds of episodes.

CARTER: There are sort of many places to go, but you notice the first guest is a Republican. That's important for him. That whole national anthem thing was I think a message too. I think he was out there sort of saying I'm going to be a broader guy, but I'm going to be sort of the facetious guy. Like he played with George Clooney that way and he was still that sort of facetious guy.

PEREIRA: How did you think he did with George?

STELTER: He also showed so much (INAUDIBLE) with Jimmy Fallon.

CARTER: That's interesting thing too.

STELTER: The idea that he was friendly with Jimmy Fallon. Behind this scenes there's this epic booking war going on. We all know about Leno versus Letterman but in a public climate right now, it's about showing that you're friends, showing that you're kind behind the scenes.

PEREIRA: I love that they finished it off with sort of a big mash up with his house band, very talented band they've got. But then he's out there singing, too, which I also thought was showing, you know, the range this man has.

CARTER: Well, that was an important point. And I do think the other thing about the Fallon thing is, Fallon came on his show. He goes -- Fallon was on. So was on Fallon's show. I think they wanted to say, it's not war, it's love.

STELTER: There was a surprise at the end, by the way. Jon Stewart's name in the closing credits. He's an executive producer, it turns out, of Colbert's "Late Show".

CAMEROTA: Yes, what does that mean by the way? That he's actively involved?

CARTER: Well, he's got a job.

(CROSSTALK)

CARTER: He'll get back to work.

PEREIRA: Bill, Brian, always a pleasure to have you guys here. Now you can go have a nap.

Get in on the conversation. I'm sure you watched and have an opinion. What did you think? Use the hastag #newdayCNN. You can also post your comment on facebook.com/newday.

Got a lot of news to get to. Let's start it off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I could have and should have done a better job. I'm sorry.

BILL O'REILLY, FOX NEWS HOST: What do you think Black Lives Matters is after?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think it's very simple, all lives matter.

COLBERT: In what ways do you politically differ from your brother George?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's bigger fish to fry here in terms of the issue of people understanding what faith in God really means.

KIM DAVIS, FREED KENTUCKY COUNTY CLERK: Keep on pressing. Don't let down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's very little by ways of humanitarian aid. Very little food or water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two high school football players in Texas have been suspended for what amounts to unnecessary roughness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The incident is shameful to us and it's deeply troubling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the jarring video doesn't appear to tell the whole story.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. Hillary Clinton apologizing for the first time for using that private e-mail server as Secretary of State, telling ABC News and Facebook followers that she takes full responsibility for that decision.

CUOMO: Now remember, earlier in the week, the Democratic front-runner insisted she had nothing to apologize for. And Clinton isn't the only presidential hopeful who's making some big statements on network television, so let's get to the developments this morning. Starting with CNN's senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny. What do you have for us this morning?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Chris. I mean, how many ways can you say I'm sorry? Hillary Clinton is now trying to find out, going further than she's ever gone before in talking about that private e-mail account she used while she was Secretary of State. Until now, she's expressed regret but she stopped short of saying she was sorry for her actions. Now in an attempt to turn the page and move on from this controversy that's shaken her campaign, she's now saying it directly as she did last night to ABC News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I know it was allowed. I should've used two accounts, one for personal, one for work related e-mails. That was a mistake, I'm sorry about that. I take responsibility. And I'm trying to be as transparent as I possibly can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Now it wasn't just that. A few hours later, she reiterated this in a message to her supporters and on her Facebook page. She tried to explain even more, saying, "I know this is a complex story. I could have and should have done a better job answering questions earlier."

Now one part of this new campaign strategy is to see more and hear more from Clinton. She's given more interviews in the last week than during the first five months of her presidential campaign. Now in that ABC News interview with David Muir, she grew emotional when asked about her mother who died in 2011.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: She told me every day, you've to get up and fight for what you believe in, no matter how hard it is. And I think about her a lot.

[07:00:00] I miss her a lot. I wish she were here with me.

And I remember that. And I don't want to fight for just me. I don't -- I mean, I have a perfectly fine life not being president. I'm going to fight for all the people like my mother who needs somebody in their corner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)