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CNN Poll: Trump Beating All GOP Rivals Combined; Do Trump's Business Dealings Need More Scrutiny; Trump's History With Questionable Business Partners; CNN National Poll: Clinton 55%, Sanders 38%; Cease-fire in Syria Unraveling. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 29, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00] MARGARET HOOVER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: That negative sticks way more than a positive. And, until now, for Marco Rubio, for Ted Cruz, and for any of the, sort of, outside support sitting on the sidelines to decide to go after Donald Trump. Maybe it was too little, too late. Maybe, frankly, this was irresponsible of those players in our politics to let this get this get this far.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Who were begging for his endorsement in 2012. Don't forget that.

HOOVER: That's right.

BERMAN: A lot of people going after him. Jeffrey, last word?

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you know, when I hear all this, if you go back to 2000 when the Bush campaign was assailing John McCain, sending out flyers that John McCain had a black child. I mean, the Bush campaign got pretty rough about this stuff and they weren't called on. And suddenly now, this is all about Donald Trump. I mean, I just find that fascinating.

HOOVER: Yes, I mean, let's not -- yes, apples to apples. That was in South Carolina. That was dirty politics, and we also saw robocalling saying Donald Trump was a white supremacist.

BERMAN: Hang on, hang on. Now, we're not going to bring up the 2000 Bush campaign. We're not going to bring up the 2000 Bush campaign right now. We're talking about 2016 right now, and there's plenty to talk about there. Jeffrey Lord, Margaret Hoover --

LORD: Thank you, sir. Thank you, Margaret.

BERMAN: -- appreciate it. Thanks so much.

HOOVER: Thanks, Jeffrey.

BERMAN: Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John. What's in Donald Trump's tax returns? Do they contain a smoking gun of some kind? We're talking to a journalist who has covered Trump for nearly three decades about what he thinks might be in there.

[07:31:20]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:35:30] CAMEROTA: Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz raising questions about why Donald Trump refuses to release his tax returns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There have been multiple media reports about Donald's business dealings with the mob -- with the mafia. Maybe his taxes show those business dealings are a lot more extensive than has been reported.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston has covered Trump's financial dealings on and off for 27 years. He's just written an article called "9 Key Points About Trump's Income Taxes." David, thanks so much for being here on NEW DAY. No one knows about Trump's financial dealings better than you.

So, let's go through some of the major points that may suggest something dubious in his taxes. The first one that I want you to address is what Ted Cruz just talked about. Did you uncover any sort of mob connections?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, Donald has a very long history of dealing with mobsters -- big mobsters -- drug dealers, and others. For example, his personal helicopter pilot, Joseph Weichselbaum, was a major cocaine and marijuana trafficker. Donald pleaded for leniency for him. The case somehow ended up before -- out of 800 federal judges -- his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, who excused herself from the case but in doing so notified other federal judges of the sensitivity of this matter.

Weichselbaum got a very light sentence, and somehow his girlfriend ended up owning two apartments worth $5 million in Trump Tower. By the way, Trump Tower was built not of steel girders, like most high- rises, but concrete supplied by A&S Concrete, owned by the two biggest, most vicious mobsters in New York -- Fat Tony Salerno and Paul Castellano.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's also talk about Trump Tower and how it was built, because you say that it was built using 150 illegal immigrants. You write that Donald Trump paid them less than $5 an hour, they got no benefits, their physical safety was endangered. Now, this one seems like a big deal. This one seems like one that his supporters would certainly want to know about, given their passionate feelings about illegal immigrants being here in the country. What did you learn?

JOHNSTON: Well, Donald was found by a federal judge, after trial, to have cheated the workers. His claim that he didn't know what was going on at the Website was absurd. His labor consultant, a convicted felon named Dan Sullivan, says in a documentary and told me when he was alive that, of course, Donald knew exactly what was going on. And basically, Donald got mob protection so that he could have a site that used 15 labor union members and then all these other guys, who didn't even have hard hats on, to take down Bonwit Teller.

And this is a pattern of Donald's that has continued. My former newspaper, The New York Times, just did a story about how at Mar-a- Lago the Trump Organization has turned away numerous Americans, but hired people who are here from other countries.

CAMEROTA: Now, do you think that his supporters just don't know about that history of his?

JOHNSTON: Oh, I think that, frankly, the coverage of Mr. Trump's background, his history of cheating people, not paying people money owed, of limiting investigations by law enforcement into his background, which is an astonishing thing he's pulled off, is what we should be focusing on as journalists -- not the wild and crazy things that are said. Now, our duty is not to be stenographers. It is to dig and be watchdogs and alert people to the salient facts about every one of the candidates.

CAMEROTA: And, you have certainly been trying to do that with Donald Trump for more than two decades. At the debate, one of the things that came up from Marco Rubio were the practices that went on at Trump University, where students paid $35,000 for personal mentorship. You say, from your investigation, that never happened.

JOHNSTON: Well, Trump was clearly running a fraud there that ripped off around $35 million. He never showed up, he never mentored anyone, and they gave out Donald's secret tips on how to get finance. It was a photocopy from a magazine you could buy at a newsstand for about $3.

CAMEROTA: So, David, what do you think is in his tax returns that he has not yet presented to the public?

JOHNSTON: Well, I don't think there's anything criminal in his tax returns at all and there's no reason for him not to release them. The IRS already has his returns, so nothing can change by his releasing them. And there's no reason for him not to release the returns that have been audited and the audits are over.

[07:40:32] What his returns are likely to show is that Donald pays no income taxes because Congress has special rules for real estate developers, private equity managers like Mitt Romney, that allow them to live tax-free if they choose to. And I have Donald Trump's tax information from the late 70's when his income went negative, even though he had a lavish lifestyle. And, in fact, he and I had lunch and discussed this and I gave him some tax advice, which he thanked me for.

CAMEROTA: Interesting.

JOHNSTON: The other thing it's likely to show that's very important is that he makes little or no gifts to charity despite all of his claims to the contrary. Donald has not even made a contribution to the Trump Foundation in a decade, according to its tax returns. CAMEROTA: So, much less philanthropy and no taxes. Those would be interesting tidbits if they were to be released. David Cay Johnston, thanks so much for sharing your reporting with us. Fascinating to hear it.

JOHNSTON: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to John.

BERMAN: All right, Alisyn. Thanks so much.

Fresh polling shows that Hillary Clinton is widening her national lead over Bernie Sanders. So, what is the strategy now? Does she want to try to end this soon? What will she try to do before Super Tuesday, tomorrow? We're going to ask the head of a pro-Clinton super Pac next on NEW DAY:

[07:41:57]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:45:16]

BERMAN: All right, brand new this morning, just out a short time ago, a new CNN-ORC national poll shows Hillary Clinton widening her lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders. So, can she finish this race by sweeping Super Tuesday states tomorrow?

Brad Woodhouse, the president of the pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC, Correct the Record, former communications director for the Democratic National Committee. Brad, a softball question to start out with. I imagine you're pleased with this new poll out this morning.

BRAD WOODHOUSE, PRESIDENT, CORRECT THE RECORD & AMERICANS UNITED FOR CHANGE, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, DNC: I'm very pleased, John. I mean, look -- Hillary Clinton, in this race on the Democratic side, is the candidate with momentum. She's the candidate with enthusiasm. I mean, South Carolina was such a stunning and resounding result, and going into Super Tuesday I think it means a lot. But look, Bernie Sanders is going to win several states on Super Tuesday. So, to your question earlier in the lead-in, no, she's not going to wrap this up or sweep Super Tuesday, but we're feeling really good going into tomorrow.

BERMAN: You had a big win in South Carolina but there was another stunning figure from that, and that's just how much Democratic turnout was down there. It was down also in Nevada. It was down also in New Hampshire. It was done also in Iowa. Paul Begala, CNN political analyst, Democratic strategist, says this keeps him up at night.

Democrats have an enthusiasm problem right now. In our latest poll we asked voters are you more enthusiastic than previous elections? Look at the Republicans? Fifty-eight percent say yes. Only 46 percent among Democrats. How do you light a fire under your base?

WOODHOUSE: Well, look, I tell you what. I think Hillary Clinton's going to do that. I think you'll see as we move forward there's a lot of enthusiasm for her candidacy. There might be some question on the Democratic side whether there's still actually a race going on -- whether or not Bernie Sanders remains viable? I happen to think he does and the race will go on for a while.

But look, when we turn to the general election, I think Donald Trump is going to be a big part of the discussion and I don't think it will be hard to get the Democratic voters, and Independents for that matter, enthusiastic about keeping him out of the White House.

BERMAN: We'll talk about Donald Trump in just a moment, but I want to keep this on the Democrats for a second because the number are just flat out down, Brad. They just are. And the Republican numbers are flat out up across the board. Why? What's the problem here? You say Hillary Clinton's going to build some enthusiasm, but the enthusiasm doesn't seem to be there.

WOODHOUSE: Well, look, I think the enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton versus Bernie Sanders is there. Yes, the numbers are down. And look, I'm like Paul Begala. It's something that we're looking at, something that we're concerned about. There's been a bigger field on the Republican side. Donald Trump is a phenomenon and he's a phenomenon that, quite frankly, we're going to have to deal with.

But I don't think we should let these first four states dictate what we think is going to happen in the general election. I believe Democratic voters will be enthusiastic. I believe once they can focus on the fact that they have the opportunity to break one of the ultimate barriers in terms of Hillary Clinton and getting into the White House, I think you'll see that enthusiasm even get better.

BERMAN: So, Donald Trump, right now leading the Republican field -- 49 percent of the vote in the new CNN poll.

WOODHOUSE: Stunning. Oh, my God.

BERMAN: He said he's ready for you at the CNN debate last week. Let's listen. All right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary Clinton, take a look at USA Today, take a look at the Q poll. I beat her and I beat her badly, and I haven't even started on her. I only had one little interchange. I only had one little interchange and that was four weeks ago when she said I was sexist, and believe me, they had a rough weekend that weekend between Bill and Hillary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Hasn't even started on you, Donald Trump says. So, how does Hillary Clinton go after Donald Trump if they are the nominees?

WOODHOUSE: Well, look, I think one thing is Hillary Clinton needs to go at Donald Trump. The problem the Republicans made is that they just assumed that his rhetoric and his outlandish statements -- they just assumed that he would implode. The assumed that he wouldn't be successful.

The thing that concerns me most about Donald Trump is how unpredictable he is. The thing that doesn't concern me is that he can't come up with a charge, or a hit, or an attack against Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton that hasn't already been leveled. I mean, remember, one of the things is -- and a lot of the Republican candidates that he ran out of this race, of that he's beating now, were not that well-known to the American people to begin with and he came in like a laser and went after Jeb Bush -- went after the rest of this field.

With Hillary Clinton, these attacks have been tried, they have failed. I'm concerned about how he'll deliver them and I'm concerned about how we need to respond. But I think that she needs to run a campaign about breaking barriers, but she needs to go after Donald Trump's anti-immigrant stance, his anti-Muslim stance, his anti-woman stance, and I think she needs to go straight at it.

BERMAN: Brad Woodhouse, thanks so much for being with us.

WOODHOUSE: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: A fragile cease-fire is barely holding today in Syria. Russian and Syrian fighter jets back up in the skies as diplomats scramble to keep both sides in check. So, we will take you live to the war zone as only CNN can. That's next.

[07:47:32]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:51:35]

CAMEROTA: A cease-fire in Syria appears to be unraveling just 48 hours after it was implemented. The Russians and Syrians carrying out a series of airstrikes on Sunday. Syria's leading opposition group and the Assad regime accusing each other of violating the truce.

CNN's senior international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, has just returned from rebel-held Syria where she was able to witness how the cease-fire is holding up. She is the only Western journalist to have traveled to that area in more than a year. Clarissa, tell us everything you saw.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Alisyn. In the days running up to this cessation of hostilities, we witnessed with our own eyes and our own cameras a Russian airstrike on a fruit market that was crowded with civilians. We visited hospitals and courtrooms that had been leveled to the ground. And, perhaps, that will give you a sense of why there is so little support and so much skepticism about this cease-fire in these areas. Take a look at our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) WARD: We are in the heart of rebel-held Syria, and this entire area has seen some of the most intensive bombardment in the past few months. We've been traveling all around here for nearly a week now, and certainly it is fair to say that since the cessation of hostilities began there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of airstrikes.

Now, having said that, earlier we visited a town called Darat Izza on the outskirts of Aleppo, and people there told us that about 30 hours after the cease-fire began there was an airstrike on a house. We were able to capture some video of the aftermath of that airstrike. There have also been reports of clashes in other parts of the country, but certainly it does feel quite a bit quieter here.

Now, what's interesting is that you won't find anybody here celebrating about this cease-fire and that's for a number of reasons. Firstly, in the run-up to the cessation of hostilities there was a dramatic increase in the Russian air bombardments. Secondly, the people here who live in rebel-held territory simply don't trust the regime of Bashar al-Assad. They see the cease-fire as a trick or a ruse designed so that the regime can take more territory. And for that reason many people we've spoken to are, in fact, actually against the cease-fire.

Just a few days ago we attended a protest where people were carrying signs that said this cease-fire is a betrayal of our martyrs -- of those who have died for the cause. They were chanting over and over again, we must keep on fighting and we must unite. Even the imam, in his weekly sermon, was urging people not to heed the cease-fire and to continue fighting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: So, Clarissa, just help us get our mind around that. They are protesting the cease-fire. So, does that mean they do not want peace?

WARD: Let me be very clear, Alisyn. These people absolutely want peace, but at this stage they feel they have sacrificed so much. So much blood has been shed. So many lives have been lost that they're not willing to enter into any negotiation whereby they don't feel their needs and their voice are being represented. And the way they see negotiations that are ongoing in cities like Geneva and Munich, they don't feel that they have a seat at the table. They feel this is a chess game between superpowers in the world that Syrian don't have a seat at the table.

And what they really want to see is a negotiation that starts with the absolute requirement that Bashar al-Assad be removed immediately as president. Without that caveat as part of the framework, they simply won't sign on to any cease-fire or any future negotiations. And all of this, I think, really underscores that there is a fundamental disconnect between the people who are fighting and dying on the ground inside Syria, and the people who are brokering these types of deals in European cities -- Alisyn. CAMEROTA: So, Clarissa, it's so hard for us thousands of miles away to really understand what's happening on the streets there, and your video shows these bombed out buildings and homes. Are there people living there? Is there any normal life going on, on the streets there?

WARD: Remarkably, there are still people living there, but you could not say that there are any signs of normal life. I had a conversation with a woman in Aleppo who told me that every day she struggles with the decision of whether or not to send her daughter to school because on the one hand, of course she would like to see her child educated. But on the other hand, every single time she leaves the house there's a possibility that she might not come back home alive.

And sometimes, Alisyn, cameras really can't capture the scope and the scale of the devastation. Let me tell you -- I have been covering conflict for more than 10 years and I have never seen anything quite like these parts of Syria.

CAMEROTA: Clarissa Ward, your reporting always opens up these hidden places for us and we really appreciate it. Stay with CNN for more of Clarissa's exclusive reports from inside Syria.

We're following a lot of news for you this morning. There's a new CNN poll and it paints a stark picture of the 2016 race, so let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald is not going to make America great. He's going to make America orange.

TRUMP: He's not cool, he sweats too much, and I don't want him negotiating for us.

RUBIO: Donald Trump refused -- refused to criticize the Ku Klux Klan.

TRUMP: You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't need to make America great again. America has never stopped being great.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're looking to the future, not looking back.

CLINTON: I will stand up and fight for you.

CHRIS ROCK, HOST, ACADEMY AWARDS: I'm here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the white People's Choice awards.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: The 88th Academy Awards did not shy away from the diversity controversy.

ROCK: Want black actors to get the same opportunities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)