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Paul Ryan Withholds Endorsement of Donald Trump; FBI Nearing Conclusion of Investigation into Hillary Clinton's Email Server; General Election Preview. Aired 8-8:30a ET
Aired May 06, 2016 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Everybody is out. I'm the only one left. That's OK, right?
(APPLAUSE)
REP. PAUL RYAN, (R) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I hope to support our nominee. I'm just not there right now.
TRUMP: You know why it's never Trump? Because I'm going to stop the gravy train.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For some people it takes a little bit of time to get to a full embrace.
RYAN: The future of America is on the line.
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I can only tell you what the facts were. I followed the law.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The investigation is ending.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a good thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One major step left for investigators is to interview Secretary Clinton.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At best this is incompetence. At worst, this is criminal behavior.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nearly an entire town engulfed in flames.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people here are going to stake it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those flames are bright. They're big.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fire seems to be showing no signs of abating.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, May 6th, 8:00 in the east. Chris is on assignment this morning. John Berman is here with us. Great to have.
BERMAN: Good morning.
CAMEROTA: Good morning to you. Happy Friday.
BERMAN: Thank you. It is happy.
CAMEROTA: It is. Up first, the nation's highest ranking Republican, House Speaker Paul Ryan, says he is not ready back Donald Trump. The two trading jabs after Ryan questioned Trump's conservative principles and whether Trump would be a party unifier. Trump responding, saying he is not ready to support Ryan's agenda. The two men set to meet in Washington next week.
BERMAN: All this as the last two Republican presidents and the last two Republican nominees say they will skip the convention. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is hoping put the e-mail controversy to rest. CNN has learned that several of her former State Department aides have now been questioned by the FBI about whether classified material was on her private e-mail server. So far, CNN is told there is no evidence that Secretary Clinton willfully broke the law.
We are all over all these developments this morning. Let's begin with Phil Mattingly here with us in New York this morning. Phil?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. For Donald Trump, Capitol Hill outreach has been a key component of his new team's plan. They want to build bridges there, try an ease the concerns of reluctant lawmakers in backing Trump. Yesterday, in one jarring interview Paul Ryan made clear they have a lot of work to do.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REINCE PRIEBUS, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: They're both committed to sitting down and work -- and actually talking this out.
MATTINGLY: RNC chairman Reince Priebus in the middle of the fight to unite, confirming Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan will meet face-to-face next week.
RYAN: I'm just not ready to do that.
MATTINGLY: Only hours after Ryan told CNN's Jake Tapper that he is not ready to back Trump.
PRIEBUS: What he is saying is look, I want to get there. I think I will get there. But I want to talk to Donald Trump and I want to work with him.
MATTINGLY: Priebus trying to explain why Ryan and some in the Republican Party are so reluctant to back the new standard bearer.
PRIEBUS: For some people, an endorsement is a full embrace, and for some people it takes a little bit of time to get to a full embrace.
MATTINGLY: The chairman not promising 100 percent the party will fall in line, but optimistic that there won't be a contested convention come July.
PRIEBUS: The platform of the party will be written in Cleveland, and I think you're going to get another conservative platform out of the party.
MATTINGLY: But not so fast. Trump firing back at Ryan in a statement, saying, quote, "I'm not ready to support Speaker Ryan's agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people."
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do you know that thing never-Trump. You know why it's never-Trump? Because I'm going to stop the gravy train for all these consultants and all of these people.
(APPLAUSE)
MATTINGLY: Ryan making clear that his focus is on one thing -- protecting the party's House majority, something some analysts predict could be in jeopardy with a Trump nomination.
RYAN: My focus this fall is, has been, and will be the House majority.
MATTINGLY: And warning the fight for unity rests mostly on the shoulders of the nominee.
RYAN: I think what is necessary to make this work, for this unify, is to actually take our principles and advance them, and that's what we want to see. Saying we're unified doesn't in and of itself unify us.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: In an ideal world what, would happen now is the two would meet. They start to hash out what it will take to not only get an endorsement but to help unify the party. But it's Donald Trump, and things don't necessarily follow a natural pathway. Trump already out tweeting this morning, pointing out that he has had so many great endorsements yesterday, except for Paul Ryan. "We must put America first and make America great again." The idea of Donald Trump taking the relationship behind closed doors and trying to figure it out, maybe not necessarily going to happen. John?
BERMAN: But it does look like they'll meet next week, Phil. What will that meeting look like? Let's discuss now with Katrina Pierson, national spokesperson for the Trump campaign, and Ben Howe, who is not a spokesperson for the Trump campaign. He's a contributing editor for RedState.com. He is a conservative who does not and will not support Donald Trump.
[08:05:04] Katrina, Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, we're told they're going meet next week in Washington. What does Donald Trump intend do at the meeting?
KATRINA PIERSON, NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Well, I think he's going to talk to Paul Ryan and say, look, you are not just against me. You are against lot of your voters. And this is something that has been indicative for the last couple of cycles. You have had the leadership rejecting its own voters, silencing them, ignoring them, campaigning on one issue and not following through. And that's why we have a nomination of Donald Trump.
BERMAN: If the Republican speaker of the House does not come around to supporting the Republican nominee, do you think that Paul Ryan is still fit to be speaker?
PIERSON: No, because this is about the party. Look, you have to understand, the last two presidential cycles, we were told John McCain was a conservative. His conservative review score cord is 37 percent. We were told Mitt Romney was a conservative. He was pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-adoption, gave us Obamacare. And we were told to hold our noses and vote for the sake of the party. These same people are now telling us because their guy didn't win they want to hurt the party. The issue here isn't about Donald Trump. If you can't hold yourself to the standard that you hold everyone else, the problem is with you.
BERMAN: So just to be clear, when I said should Paul Ryan still be speaker if he doesn't support Donald Trump, you say no.
PIERSON: Speaker of what, just speaker of the House of Representatives? We are a party. Paul Ryan needs to be -- he is the leader right now. We're told Donald Trump is only the presumptive nominee. He's not the nominee until 1,237. So really it is incumbent on Paul Ryan to help bring unity to the party together.
BERMAN: Is that the position of the Donald Trump campaign right now, either Paul Ryan gets on board or we don't want him --
PIERSON: They're going to meet next week. We'll find out.
BERMAN: Ben, what's your reaction to this? That's pretty strong words, Paul Ryan not fit to be speaker if he is not willing to support Donald Trump?
BEN HOWE, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, REDSTATE.COM: I think it's surprising to hear that we need to get behind the candidate no matter what he said, no matter what he has done. This has been the exact opposite that the Tea Party taught us over the last several years. We were told that having an "R" next to your name didn't mean we need to support you. Donald Trump is less conservative than Romney, who she just mentioned, less conservative than McCain, who if I'm not mistaken, I think Katrina actually voted for Obama.
PIERSON: Yes, you're mistaken.
HOWE: Well, that's what I was told. But Donald Trump, who for decades supported Democrats, for decades created the gravy train he is claiming now he wants to stop, comes into Washington and starts telling the Republican Party how they need to operate. We don't have to vote for him if we don't think he lines up with our values, and I certainly won't.
BERMAN: But, Ben, didn't more Republicans in the primary vote for Donald Trump than any other candidate? What is Paul Ryan saying to these voters, these voters whose have chosen whether you like it or not, have chosen Donald Trump?
PIERSON: They need to pick which talking point they're going to use, because I was told they brought in millions of new voters. And these new voters came into open primaries. They turned primary that may have gone to Ted Cruz, may have gone to Marco Rubio. Are these new voters coming out for the first time, or are they Republicans to get in line in 2008 and 2012?
BERMAN: All right, Katrina, some of the positions that over time we've known that Paul Ryan is somewhat uncomfortable with. He spoke out against Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States temporarily. Any chance that Donald Trump will move off that position?
PIERSON: No, not at all. We still have a problem. We still have ISIS. We see outposts being set up in Lebanon to bring even more of these infiltrators into the country. The bottom line is I was there from the beginning of the Tea Party movement. The Tea Partiers wanted to fight for a Republican conservative in the primaries. Never did the Tea Party ever say go and support a Democratic, or worse, a Clinton for that matter. Everything is at stake. The voters have spoken. We have always said, let the process play out. The leaders said let the process play out. They wanted Donald Trump to sign a loyalty pledge, and now we are seeing everybody else fall backwards on their own words.
BERMAN: Ben?
HOWE: No, first of all, I didn't want him to sign a loyalty pledge. I just wanted him to get out of the race. But in terms of what the Tea Party said in the very early years, what we wanted was a conservative. The party was just the vehicle that conservatism was using in order to get our values into Washington, D.C. Republican Party, if it doesn't rep conservatism, we have no obligation to support the candidate.
BERMAN: Hang on Katrina. You need people like Ben, you know. At the end of the day, Donald Trump, if he wants to win the election, should be able to get rank and file Republicans, including the speaker of the House, to vote for him. So how are you going to do that?
PIERSON: There's obviously an ideological difference between those on the ground and those in Washington D.C. So the question is, is Donald Trump going to become the Washington establishment? I think not
[08:10:01] And there is a huge difference when it comes to what the Tea Party said. The Tea Party never advocated for Democrats. They never said we're going to throw an election because we didn't get our way. And more importantly, conservatism, there was a pocket of conservatism in the Republican Party and that was under Reagan. We have not been governing or leading as a party as conservatives since 1989.
BERMAN: Quickly, I want to get both your instant reactions. When you heard, I was surprised when Paul Ryan came out and said what he said yesterday. Ben, when you first heard it, in 10 seconds or less, what was your first reaction?
HOWE: My first reaction was thank you, and I hope that other people follow your lead.
BERMAN: Katrina, your first reaction?
PIERSON: I was actually not surprised, but I have to admit that this just is another indicator to disenfranchise Democrats and independents that Donald Trump is not a part of the system. He does not sport a trillion dollars spending bill for special interests.
BERMAN: You would are rather have disenfranchised Democrats and independents than Paul Ryan.
PIERSON: No, we're just making the case. We are not part of the establishment. We are outsiders, unlike what everyone wanted to say in the beginning.
HOWE: You funded the establishment.
PIERSON: And there's more proof that Donald Trump is an outsider candidate and wants to go against Washington.
BERMAN: Ben, I'll give you the last word. Paul Ryan going into the meeting, Paul Ryan says he hopes he'll support Donald Trump. If Paul Ryan ends up supporting Donald Trump, will you support Paul Ryan?
HOWE: Oh, absolutely not. I'm very disappointed in Governor Perry. I'm very disappointed in Rand Paul. I'm disappointed in all the people who said -- they called him a liar, a pathological liar. They were right. They said all of these things that they believed he was. Now they're turning around and saying he is our best chance for freedom. What does that say to voters?
BERMAN: If the Paul Ryan/Donald Trump meeting goes like this next week, that will be interesting. Ben Howe, Katrina Pierson, thanks so much for being with us, really appreciate it. Alisyn?
CAMEROTA: OK, John. The FBI will interview Hillary Clinton in the next few weeks as it nears the end of a nine month investigation of whether classified material on his private e-mail server as secretary of state and whether she knew that. CNN has learned the FBI has already interviewed several aides in Clinton's inner circle. So what have they found? CNN's justice correspondent Pamela Brown is live in Washington with the latest. Hi, Pamela.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Alisyn, good morning. That's right, several people in Clinton's inner circle have been brought in quietly to a room in the FBI's Washington field office over the last few weeks for these interviews, including Clinton's longtime confidante Huma Abedin. She is definitely one of those people according to officials we've been speaking with, and she is cooperating, those officials say.
These interviews have been focused on whether classified information was mishandled in security of the server. Investigators think, bottom line, this should have never happened, that there should have never been this private server for the secretary of state with work e-mails. Even Clinton admitting having a private server was a mistake. But at this point in the investigation, officials tell us there is no evidence to prove criminal wrongdoing so far.
But the investigation is not over. In fact, one of the most anticipated steps hasn't even happened. Of course, that is the interview with Hillary Clinton. That's expected to come in the coming weeks. A statement from the Clinton campaign says "From the start, Hillary Clinton has offered to answer any questions that would help the Justice Department complete its review, and we hope and expect that anyone else who was asked would do the same. We are confident the review will conclude that nothing inappropriate took place." So this investigation is expected to wrap up in the coming weeks. While the FBI is staying focused on the facts here, investigators are mindful that this is an investigation involving the potential Democratic presidential nominee just a couple months from the Democratic convention. Back to you.
BERMAN: Pamela, thanks so much.
Donald Trump getting roasted by late night comics, but he wasn't the only one. Bernie Sanders did, too. Here's tonight's late night laughs. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump observed Cinco de Mayo. He posted "Happy Cinco de Mayo. The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics." All is forgiven I guess. He even built a little wall around the Mexican salad.
(LAUGHTER)
JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": Now that Trump has the Republican nomination locked up, "The New York Times" ran an article that details Donald Trump's plans for his first 100 days in office. Trump was like, can I get a copy of that, because I really didn't think this through?
(LAUGHTER)
CONAN O'BRIEN, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Despite falling behind in delegates, Bernie Sanders insists he still has nine states left to go. Nine states.
(APPLAUSE)
O'BRIEN: Unfortunately, unfortunately, five of those states are denial, anger, grief, bargaining.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: I saw that one coming mid-joke there. Even I picked up from that.
CAMEROTA: "A wall around the salad," that's a good one. You can eat through that wall.
BERMAN: It's difficult. I'm not a fan of taco bowls.
CAMEROTA: What?
BERMAN: I said it.
CAMEROTA: Why have you been keeping it from me.
BERMAN: Just have a taco.
CAMEROTA: I'm going to convert you.
Meanwhile, the two likely nominees have very different styles, Trump's unconventional, unscripted style versus Clinton's more scripted, detailed approach.
[08:15:00] We'll talk about the messaging battle with President Obama's former speech writer, Jon Favreau. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: Donald Trump of course is known for his free-wheeling style of speech on the campaign trail while Hillary Clinton has a more scripted approach.
So, how will this battle over messaging and their styles play out in the general election, as it heats up? I ask you, Jon, joining us now -- a different John. President Obama's Former Speechwriter, Jon Favreau.
Great to have you here.
JON FAVREAU, BARACK OBAMA'S FORMER SPEECHWRITER: Thanks for having me.
CAMEROTA: You are a professional speechwriter, so do you feel Donald Trump's unscripted file is going to put you out of business?
FAVREAU: I think it's going to put him out of business, unfortunately.
No, I mean, look, I think it had some -- it works a little bit sin the primary, but I think --
CAMEROTA: A little bit. He won the nomination. It worked tremendously well in the primary.
FAVREAU: Well, right. He won 40% of a 17 person field. But look and I think there is a lot of value to unscriptedness. But as we've seen from Donald Trump, you have to be incredibly self-disciplined to be able to do a script like that, and he is not.
[08:20:00]
And so many of the things that he said in the primary when he wasn't on script, they're going to come back to haunt him.
CAMEROTA: But people find it refreshing. I mean, the voters say that they've find the unscripted file refreshing. They've been looking for this.
FAVREAU: I think voters find someone who is comfortable in their skin. Refreshing to a point until that person becomes like, you know, a serial liar and all the other stuff to something.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: What do you admire about Donald Trump's communications skills?
FAVREAU: Look, I think that he is clearly tapped into plenty of grievances on the right. And he knows, like, he checks out all the conspiracy theories that are in right wing media and he can parrot them very well to great success.
So he knows how to do that. He knows how to get media attention, because he knows how to say a lot of crazy things, a lot of bombastic, patriotic things. And that gets media coverage. And so he is very good that way of getting attention for himself.
CAMEROTA: In fact, in terms of where he gets some of his information, this was precipitated by what he said about Ted Cruz's father -
FAVREAU: Right.
CAMEROTA: -- and that connection to Lee Harvey Oswald, so he was asked where he gets his information --
FAVREAU: Yes.
CAMEROTA: -- and how voters should take it and respond to it. So listen to this, what Donald Trump explained.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When I cite reports or when I cite, you know, major magazine articles or something, it's up to people to believe it or not believe it. I am not writing it myself, I'm not going out and doing the research. So, I think, that's, you know, very acceptable thing to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Believe it or not believe it. I mean, that's a different -- that's the Trump doctrine.
FAVREAU: You look at human internet comment section. This is where he gets his research from. He like trolls the blogs, trolls like Twitter eggs, and that's how he finds his best lines, I mean, so you know.
CAMEROTA: We should mention you're a Hillary Clinton supporter now?
FAVREAU: I am, yes.
BERMAN: But you weren't always.
CAMEROTA: In case that doesn't become obvious.
(Crosstalk)
BERMAN: Like you are not always.
BERMAN: And in fact, you spent, you know, well over a year of your life trying to defeat Hillary Clinton.
FAVREAU: I was not a fan in 2008.
CAMEROTA: And so how do you come around?
FAVREAU: So I ended up -- we worked together in the White House, and I was just so impressed. First of all, she was the hardest working member of the administration. I would sit in cabinet meetings, and the president would go around and ask every cabinet member about their issue, but then he would ask Hillary about everyone else's issues too. And she was always the smartest person in the room. She was the most qualified, smartest and impressive. I was just blown away.
BERMAN: As a communicator on the trail right now --
FAVREAU: Yes.
BERMAN: --where is there room for improvement?
FAVREAU: I mean, I think that with Hillary, what she'll do as the campaign continues is she will tend to feel more comfortable in her own skin. She will have a stump speech that she will practice and that she'll get good at by the time --
(Crosstalk)
BERMAN: She does.
FAVREAU: Yes.
BERMAN: Right. I mean, you know, she has been a public figure for a long time. She ran for president once before. If someone in the game this long, is there any hope that they will change?
FAVREAU: Look, I also think message-wise, and on the stump general elections become easier than primaries, because at a primary, you're really arguing about personality differences and you're really looking for differences with your opponent. The general election is going to be so many differences on such big issues that this is really where she's going to shine, I think.
CAMEROTA: But, you know, the wrap on her is that she is too scripted, she's too handled, she's too scripted. Some people have said that she comes off as robotic. Maybe she should tear up the scripts -
FAVREAU: Right.
CAMEROTA: and take a page truly to ran with the metaphor from Donald Trump and speak sort of more extemporaneously.
FAVREAU: I think she will. I think there'll be plenty of moments like that where she goes off the cuff. I think in interviews, you know, especially not just speeches. She'll be able to speak her mind a little bit more.
BERMAN: So you're out in L.A. right now?
FAVREAU: Yes.
BERMAN: But I sense you're still somewhat close to this White House and know the thinking. You are one of the sources familiar with the thinking of the president, perhaps. How much is he itching to get in this race? Because it is still a competitive primary he hasn't been able to get involved.
(Crosstalk)
FAVREAU: I think that he's going to get out there. I think that has come the convention and then past the convention, he'll be out on the trail a lot. Because, look, he sees the stakes. He really want, you know, I think he wants a democratic to be president, probably going to be Hillary and he wants to make sure that, you know, the country doesn't deal with the national catastrophe that would be Donald Trump as president.
CAMEROTA: So if you were still writing for the president, what would you have him say in his speech?
FAVREAU: That, you know, we shouldn't be electing a pathological liar.
CAMEROTA: Would you really have him go that far? Would you really use language that that's wrong?
FAVREAU: I think he'll go pretty far. I think he'll go pretty far. I mean, the man is a pathological liar. The man is a misogynist. The man has stirred racial resentment.
BERMAN: So here is the thing. As the president, President Obama, has got that word president before his name when you introduce --
FAVREAU: Yes he won't be saying it like I am.
BERMAN: So what is -- how far will he go? Will he be an attack dog on the trail?
FAVREAU: I think he'll be very blunt. I don't think he'll sugarcoat a lot of what Donald Trump has said or could mean for the country. I think he'll be very blunt about it.
CAMEROTA: If you are writing for Hillary Clinton, would you have her use stronger language than loose cannon, which is what she said this week about?
FAVREAU: I think, loose cannon is great. I think Hillary has a lot of surrogates that are going to get fan out in using stronger language, but look, I think loose cannon is a very apt metaphor for Donald Trump. I think he is an extreme risk. And I think people know that.
[08:25:00]
I think at the end of the day, for Trump, do you want this guy's finger on the button?
BERMAN: People in the primary already said yes.
FAVREAU: Yes, like less than a half of them did. But yeah, they did. But now we're going to, you know, he has a 70% unfavorable rating with the rest of the country. And we're going to see him campaign and I don't think it will be pretty.
CAMEROTA: Jon, Favreau, you've made your perspective clear. Thanks so much for giving us an inside look and how the speech writing works.
FAVREAU: No ambiguity there at all.
BERMAN: All right. Just moments ago, I asked a spokesperson for Donald Trump that if Paul Ryan does not support Donald Trump, should he still be speaker. The answer was no. So what does that mean? How will that change things? We'll assess.
Coming up also, Bernie Sanders, we should say, will join Wolf Blitzer in a situation and that is at 5:00 p.m. tonight, right here on CNN. Be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: Moments ago, right here on "New Day", Donald Trump campaign spokesperson, I think peer, and said that Paul Ryan should not be speaker of the house if he does not come on board to support Donald Trump. Paul Ryan says he is not there yet.
CAMEROTA: Right. So let's discuss all of this with our CNN Political Commentators Anna Navarro and S.E. Cupp and CNN Political Commentator, and Former Reagan White House Political Director, Jeffrey Lord. Great to see all of you, guys.
JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.
CAMEROTA: Good morning, Jeffrey, I'll start with you. So part of unity doesn't seem to have taken hold yet. What do you think of this new divide between the highest elected Republican, Paul Ryan, and Donald Trump?
[08:29:58]
LORD: I have to say, I went back and read Paul Ryan's agenda speech and I really think this divide - excuse my voice this morning -- is a little overrated. I mean, you read some of this, he says about, you know, the threat or China and all of this other things. It sounds like Donald Trump. So I don't there's all that much --
