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Baltimore Officer Facing Assault Investigation; Ex-Clinton Staffer Accepts Immunity Deal In E-Mail Probe; U.S. Officials Optimistic About Syria Cease-fire; Only $800K Of Trump's Veteran Donations Accounted For. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 03, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: -- causing shockwaves in Baltimore as the city is still grappling with repairing relations between police and the community that distrusts them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SHOUTING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A criminal investigation underway this morning after the release of this disturbing cell phone video captured on a Baltimore high school campus. In the five-second clip, you can see a school officer yelling profanities while slapping a young man three times and kicking him as he walked away. One slap striking him so hard, you can hear it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As a parent of a Baltimore City school student, I was appalled. The video was certainly something you never want to see, anyone treated like that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The attorney for the teenage youth says he's a tenth grader enrolled at the public high school and was just trying to attend class.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Based on the evidence we have in hand, we are certain that he was a student at that school, that belongs at that school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The acting school police chief has a different story.

AKIL HAMM, ACTING SCHOOL POLICE CHIEF, BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOLS: Our officers were called because of the intruder and this happened after the officers escorted the two unknown citizens outside of the building.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The attorney for the on campus officer says his client was told the teenager did not attend the school and that the young men became belligerent and angry after the officer repeatedly asked him to leave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a former building principal, as a father, as a man, I was totally appalled by what I saw.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Now, Baltimore City police and the states' attorneys office are investigating this particular case, and it is interesting that Baltimore has jumped on this so very quickly, really going after this case.

MICHAELA PERIERA, CNN ANCHOR: They have to, don't they?

MARQUEZ: And to be clear, Baltimore City police and the school's police are two separate agencies.

PERIERA: Right. Of course. All right, Miguel, we'll be watching this. We know there's going to be a lot of reaction going forward. All right, Alisyn, over to you.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK. Thanks so much, guys. We're going to talk about what's going on on the democratic side. The Hillary Clinton staffer who set up her private e-mail server now immunity. How will this latest twist affect Clinton's status as frontrunner? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:36:19] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: So here's the headline. The former Hillary Clinton's staffer who helped set up her private e- mail server agreeing to talk to the feds in exchange for immunity from the Justice Department. Non-event or main event? Let's welcome back our panel, Mark Preston, Jackie Kucinich, and Errol Lewis. Errol, how do you see it?

ERROL LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I tend to think of it as, if he had a good lawyer, like you, representing him, this e-mail employee would probably say, I need immunity before I say anything. I don't want there to be any misunderstandings or any possibilities. I don't think the mere fact he's getting immunity signals that something criminal or nefarious was going on.

CAMEROTA: OK, that's interesting. Jackie, let me read for you what the Hillary Clinton campaign is spinning this. They say, as we have said since last summer, Secretary Clinton has been cooperating with the Justice Department's security inquiry including offering in August to meet with them to assist their efforts if needed. They also said that they're pleased that he, this former staffer who set up the server, will now be testifying. So -- but it's sort of convincing. They are saying that Hillary Clinton herself has offered to meet with the FBI and they have not taken her up on it.

JACKIE KUCINICH, SENIOR POLITICS EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST: The closer this gets to the general, the bigger the problem for the Clinton campaign. It sounds like the Democratic race, if we're looking at the calendar, is kind of wrapped up at this point. I don't think this could hurt her going into the primary, but when it gets to the general, you know this is going to come up anyway with Republicans, and the more this goes on and drags out, and the closer and closer you get to November, the more it will hurt her.

CUOMO: Let's put up the numbers from Oklahoma, which Bernie Sanders won, and Georgia, which Hillary Clinton won, and you will see she has the same problem in both places, trustworthiness. And we all remember, Mark Preston, when she was secretary of state, her numbers were huge on the issue of trust. Now, not so much. What's happened since then? She's running for president, but the e-mail scandal. I know about the Fifth Amendment, we all do. It's your constitutional right, but it smells bad politically. What's the impact?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well a couple of things. When she was a secretary of state, she wasn't a politician, right? She was a diplomat trying to travel the world and trying to build bridges for the country so that's why we saw her approval rating rise, and when she became a candidate and certainly, at least when she left the State Department, we saw her approval rating start to collapse and we see that regardless if it's a Democrat or a Republican. I would say this about the decision to grant immunity and the decision for Bryan Pagliano to accept the immunity. In some ways, this is good for the Clinton campaign. If you can just imagine the spectacle if he continued to refuse to answer questions about what he did and why he set that up, just the cloak of it all would cause concern and perhaps make people think that there's something more to it than perhaps there really is. And really, for this investigation, it's really going to come down to, was this a criminal activity or was this just the Clintons basically doing, which a lot of people say this, do as I say, not as I do, that they're in a special place.

CAMEROTA: Errol, there's one person who says that he will make this a campaign issue throughout the rest of the campaign. Donald Trump said as recently as this week that this is a very big deal. Listen to Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are never going to let this e-mail thing die, because frankly, what she did was break the law, viciously break the law, many other people were prosecuted for it and went to jail, and she's out there running like nothing happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Look, as we've seen, when Donald Trump paints you a certain way, sometimes it sticks.

[06:39:55] LEWIS: It sticks whether or not it's accurate. In this case, I'd love to hear who these many other people that he's talking about and what the real analogy is to what was going on here. Donald Trump, of course, himself, is being sued and is facing his own probe by the New York Attorney General and other places based on what he did with Trump University. So yes, it's not going to be a clean, mud-free campaign in the fall. I think that's pretty clear.

CUOMO: But also, he's not the measure, I don't think, on this particular issue. It exists whether or not he's going to take it -- of course he's going to take it. That's what he does best, is go after your personal weaknesses. So Jackie, then it comes to, well how does this really affect the race right now for Bernie Sanders? He's very much in it. He has a solid constituency within the party. This is a nagging concern about the electability factor going on for Hillary Clinton, at least to some democrats, so how should Sanders play it and what does it mean for him?

KUCINICH: Sanders kind of gave this away. At the very beginning, and has had trouble --

CUOMO: But then he went back. Then he went back, though. He said, he's tired of hearing the e-mails, that was a great line, we loved it, but then he was like, well look, it's a serious matter, it's got to be investigated.

KUCINICH: Just talking to people out in the field in various states, the impression I've gotten, if you are a Democrat and you're worried about the e-mails, you're already supporting Bernie Sanders. This latest development isn't really going to change your mind about Hillary Clinton. If you don't trust her, if you're a Democrat, you're already in the Bernie Sanders camp, so as far as him being able to expand his base because of this latest development, I don't see that.

CAMEROTA: But Mark, what about the path forward for Bernie? Does he seize on this? Does that help sort of invigorate? What are his next moves?

PRESTON: Well, you know, interestingly enough, we see the Clinton campaign that is now trying to run as the prohibitive favorite right now to win the Democratic nomination. I spoke to one of his top advisers yesterday about this, and a couple things, and some of this is wishful thinking, mind you. One is, they feel like they blew a little bit of a hole through her so-called Super Tuesday wall in the sense that they were able to pick up some states. They certainly did not pick up any southern states and they got smoked down there, certainly with the African-American vote. But what they are saying is that they can continue to win contests and continue to amass delegates all the way through, and they're actually right about that, because if you look at the mathematics in how Democrats choose their nominee, is that she wouldn't be able to lock this up until May anyway. So Bernie Sanders really doesn't have to leave. He has the money to stay in the race, but to the point is, will we hear him talk about e-mails? Probably not. Will he talk about policy positions? I suspect that's where all his focus is going to be.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. You always give us interesting tidbits.

CUOMO: And you do owe us. You all owe us.

CAMEROTA: You owe us tidbits in the future. Thanks guys. Michaela --

PERIERA: Here's a tidbit I think you'll both like. An 11-year- old makes a hole in one. It's the first shot of the day -- not even the best part. It's who was there to see it happen that makes that moment really unforgettable. It's ahead in the bleacher report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:46:32] PERIERA: U.S. officials are cautiously optimistic about the cease-fire in Syria. Almost a week in, officials describe the situation as better than expected. There is less violence on the ground, humanitarian aid is starting to get to where it's needed, although there have been a handful of reported violations by both Syria and Russia.

CUOMO: Jesse Matthew Jr. pleading guilty to the murder of two Virginia college students. The deal takes the death penalty off the table. The charges stem from the 2014 death of 18-year-old Hannah Graham and the 2009 death of 20-year-old Morgan Harrington. Matthew gets four consecutive life terms added to the three he is already serving for an earlier rape conviction.

CAMEROTA: An American Airlines flight attended out on bond after his arrest for setting a fire during a flight. The flight attendant is charged with aircraft destruction and making false statements. He reportedly admitted setting a fire in the plane's rear bathroom, forcing an emergency landing. The FBI says he portrayed himself as a hero for then putting out the fire.

PERIERA: All right, bleacher report time. Seattle Seahawks star defensive player was just looking to buy some real estate, a local gym, in fact, when the police were called. Andy Scholes has more in this morning's bleacher report. What happened here?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Hey, good morning, Michaela. You know, all pro safety, Kam Chancellor, he was just scoping out a gym in the Seattle area that he was interested in buying, but while he was looking in the windows of the closed gym, two employees that were inside called the cops saying he was trying to rob the place. The police showed up and they quickly recognized Chancellor, but he was clearly upset about the whole situation. He took to Twitter to vent posting a series of tweets. One of them said, good thing the cops know I'm a good guy and stealing isn't in my blood. I work for everything I get. Chancellor also added he will not be buying a gym in that area anymore.

All right, Tiger Woods still recovering from back surgery. No word on when he'll rejoin the tour. Yesterday, he was in the Houston area for the opening of a course he helped design. You've got to check this out. 11-year-old Taylor Crozier took the inaugural shot at the course, and watch this. He holes it. That's a hole in one. The crowd goes nuts and so does Tiger Woods, runs over and gives Taylor a big hug, and apparently Tiger was going to take some swings for the crowd and of course he joked, how do I follow that?

CUOMO: So good, even his courses make holes in one. Amazing. What a great day for that kid. He will have that his whole life. All right. So we're going to take a little break here. We're going to come back with something very, very important. Do you remember when Trump skipped the debate to raise money for veterans? He said 6 million went to charities. That was way back before the Iowa caucuses. We have been asking ever since for confirmation. Now it is a CNN investigation, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Simple question, complicated answer. Where is the money? Donald Trump says he raised 6 million for vets including $1 million of his own money. Remember when he skipped the debate, instead said, I'm going to hold a fundraiser? Here's what he said on January 28.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: But once this started, it's for our vets, there was nothing I could do. I don't know, and you know what, I don't know. Is it for me personally a good thing, a bad thing, will I get more votes, will I get less votes? Nobody knows. Who the hell knows? But it's for our vets and you're going to like it because we raised over $5 million in one day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Where is it? Who got it? CNN investigative correspondent Drew Griffin is on it and joins us now with more. So, we went to the campaign early on. What prompted this is, we talked to one of the spokes people. She said, it's on the website, I didn't see it on the website. What were you able to find out?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: We didn't find it on the website either. We didn't find it from the Trump campaign, so what we decided to do was call each of the individual recipients or a list of recipients that the Trump campaign said was going to get these. We got an accounting of just $800,000 confirmed. Nine organizations say they got a total of $800,000, only 500 of which, Chris, actually came from Trump. The other 300 came from a friend of Trump. Now there are seven organizations that either say they got something but wouldn't confirm or wouldn't confirm at all, and then the others did not respond to us. One did say they didn't get anything. So right now all we can say, more than a month after this event, Chris, is, we can only account for $800,000 of the supposed $6 million raised.

[06:55:12] CUOMO: Do we have an idea if the campaign was actually taking in checks or whether they were saying to people who pledged the money, you take care of it yourself, we'll just report the pledge?

GRIFFIN: We've been asking. We have no idea where this money went. Donald Trump himself, I think he said he was going to pitch in a million dollars. We don't even know where that million dollars is right now. You have been asking, we have been asking, other news organizations have been asking, where's the accounting of this? You know, it's a big dollar amount, but it's not high math when you're dealing with hundred thousand dollar checks and $6 million in donations. It should be easy to do. A charity navigator, one of the groups that follows charities, says the money should be disbursed by now. We continue to ask and get no answers.

CUOMO: I mean, absent the possibility that the pledges depend on people stepping up and giving the money as they promised, it's going to be a focus of whether or not he's just delivering on what he said he would do. And just to be clear, this is what Katrina Pierson, the spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said when I asked her about it on "New Day".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: They want to see where the money went from the big event, the $6 million. They want to see which groups got it, how it was allocated -- they say it hasn't been put out yet. I couldn't find it on the site. Is that something that you could put up or explain for us?

KATRINA PIERSON, SPOKESPERSON, TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT: Absolutely. There is a list on the website. That list, I think it was 22 or 23 organizations that received the money. I just saw an article yesterday of one of the organizations that received a $100,000 check and they were surprised, but there are some articles coming out now of those organizations that did receive those checks and the list is on the website.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Just to be clear, you didn't see it and I didn't see it on the website and the campaign didn't tell you otherwise.

GRIFFIN: That's right. We had to call the groups, and some groups, like we're reporting, did get the money, and they're happy for it, but at the time, many, many veterans groups, privately, were telling me they were concerned this was just a stunt, once again, a politician using veterans as a prop, the Iraq/Afghanistan veterans associations came out and said that they didn't want the money, they still don't want the money. They're unconvinced about Trump's support for them. The Disabled American Veterans voiced concerns that this was just another kind of a political stunt, not making a political charge against Trump, but these veterans groups have heard this many, many times, and they quite frankly are being tired of being used by politicians for politicians' gains but not their own. All we wanted to know, Chris, is, where is the money? This is not hard. Trump deals with big dollars all the time. And what we're seeing is the same thing we've seen in other charities that we have investigated. We get a lot of confusing answers but not a lot of hard facts and numbers of the accounting of this.

CUOMO: And again, the urgency is largely motivated by the fact that we're talking about our veterans. Drew Griffin, thank you for staying on this for us. Appreciate it.

So, what do you think about this situation? Tweet us @newday or post your comment on facebook.com/newday. There are a lot of developments on both sides of the race this morning and there's some big headlines from around the world. So let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald is a Washington deal-maker.

TRUMP: Politicians don't know what they're doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 2012 Republican nominee speaking out today against the 2016 frontrunner, Donald Trump.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We cannot elect someone who is trying to carry out a con job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a very dangerous time for Republicans.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is serious business.

CUOMO: The staffer who helped set up Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server is ready to talk.

CLINTON: Together, we will build the future.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is a tough fight. We knew that from the beginning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: New images if debris found along the southern shore of Mozambique.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a very high likelihood it's from MH-370.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the biggest aviation mysteries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Periera.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. There is turmoil in the Republican party and it's reaching a fever pitch. Mitt Romney, the party's 2012 nominee, will call out Trump in his strongest language yet. In a speech today, Romney plans to label Trump a quote, phony and a fraud and he will warn that a Trump presidency will make America and the world less safe. We have a preview of that speech for you and Trump is responding this morning.

CUOMO: Is insulting Trump going to change anything? Now, most of the remaining GOP candidates are preparing to take him on in their last debate tonight. Meantime, a former Hillary Clinton staffer who set up her private e-mail server just accepted immunity from the Justice Department to cooperate with the FBI's investigation. Let's begin this hour with CNN's Sunlen Serfati in Overlin Park, Kansas, on the GOP race. Sunlen --