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GOP Civil War: Trump v. Ryan; Trump: Clinton 'Enabler' of Her Husband's Infidelity. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 09, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I didn't get Paul Ryan. I don't know what happened.

[05:58:27] I was blindsided a little bit.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I just don't believe Donald Trump is a reliable conservative Republican.

TRUMP: I'm allowed to change. You need flexibility.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: You have to listen to people that have chosen the nominee.

TRUMP: This is called the Republican Party. Not called the conservative party.

Hillary hurt many women.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Some of the statements he's made I find concerning.

TRUMP: She's married to a man who got impeached.

CLINTON: He doesn't think much of women, it turns out.

TRUMP: If she didn't play the women's card, she would have no chance of winning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: What do independent voters think of this election? Our panel weighs in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I won't vote for Hillary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump really hasn't talked about the issues.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The ultimate election is really up for grabs.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: So much to say. I wasn't even close to finished writing it yet. Let's see how this goes. Good morning to all of you. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Monday, May 9, 6 a.m. in the east.

Up first: simply said, the GOP has a problem. Trump says he could unify, sure, but he seems just as likely right now to rupture the GOP. Trump saying he doesn't know if unity matters anymore. He doesn't know if Speaker Paul Ryan shouldn't be ousted as the convention chairman.

Sarah Palin is back. She's some kind of Trump super-friend now, calling for the defeat of Ryan. All this has context with this big meeting between Ryan and Trump. What will happen when that happens? My friend Alisyn, does anybody know the answer?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Super-friend. I like that.

We will talk to Donald Trump about this and so much more when he joins us live in our next hour.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton says she's hearing from a lot of Republicans who want to help her campaign. Clinton blasting Trump for being, quote, "reckless" on foreign policy, and clueless about how government operates. This as Trump ramps up attacks on Bill Clinton saying the former president is, quote, "the worst abuser of women in political history."

So we will talk to a panel of independent voters about all of this. The Trump/Clinton fight and GOP the revolt. They are standing by throughout our show. Great to have you guys here.

We have this 2016 race covered the way only CNN can. Let's begin with Phil Mattingly.

Hi, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Well, Donald Trump has really spent the last 11 months explicitly running against the Republican Party, against its preferred candidates and policies. The party on the whole. So it's no surprise that reconciliation for the presumptive nominee would take some time. But for Republican leaders who thought Trump would be moving closer towards them, they have a major problem.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: I'm going to do what I have to do. I have millions of people that voted for me.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Donald Trump, upping the ante in his battle with the GOP, escalating tensions with House Speaker Paul Ryan.

TRUMP: I will give you a very solid answer, if that happens, about one minute after that happens. OK?

MATTINGLY: Trump, suggesting that, if the nation's highest-ranking Republican doesn't endorse him, the presumptive nominee may try to remove Ryan as chairman of the Republican National Convention. TRUMP: I'd like to have his support. But if he doesn't want to

support me that's fine, and we have to go about it.

MATTINGLY: Former vice-presidential nominee and Trump top supporter Sarah Palin going further, pledging to help defeat Ryan in the race for his Wisconsin seat.

SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think Paul Ryan is soon to be Cantored as an arid Cantor. His political career is over, but for a miracle, because he has so disrespected the will of the people.

MATTINGLY: Trump saying he won't just go rogue with Ryan but with the entire party.

TRUMP: Does the party have to be together? Does it have to be unified? I'm very different than anybody else, perhaps, that's ever run for office. I actually don't think so.

MATTINGLY: Trump's fiery words setting the stage for a face-to-face meeting with Ryan on Thursday as the GOP riff widens between those who support him...

JAN BREWER (R), FORMER ARIZONA GOVERNOR: I'm willing to serve in any capacity if I can be of help with Donald on.

MATTINGLY: And those who don't.

TRUMP: Jeb Bush is not an honorable person. Lindsey Graham is not an honorable person.

MATTINGLY: Some drawing a hard line, vowing to skip the convention or not vote.

MCCAIN: You have to listen to people that have chosen the nominee. I think it would be foolish to ignore them.

MATTINGLY: Senator John McCain, who once called Trump's statements " "uninformed and, indeed, dangerous," says he'll now support him, with conditions.

MCCAIN: I think it's important for Donald Trump to express his appreciation for veterans.

MATTINGLY: Others pressing feverishly for a third-party option, including one group, Conservatives Against Trump. Their concern: that Trump isn't conservative enough to carry the party torch.

TRUMP: This is called the Republican Party. Not called the conservative party.

MATTINGLY: This as Trump continues to change his tune on tax hikes for wealthy Americans...

TRUMP: I've come up with the biggest tax cut by far of any candidate, anybody, and I put it in. When it comes time to negotiate, I feel less concerned with the rich than I do with the middle class.

MATTINGLY: ... and on minimum wage.

TRUMP: I like the idea of, let the states decide, but I think people should get more.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And those policy differences are just that with Paul Ryan. And that's no small thing. While Paul Ryan has pointed out, guys, that the tone of Donald Trump's campaign has been concerning up to this point, there's also SOME serious problems on the policy front.

Much of what Donald Trump has been running on is the polar opposite of what Paul Ryan has made his career on. Guys, no question about it, when you think what is going to happen in a face-to-face meeting, these aren't the kinds of issues that you can solve in one face-to- face meeting.

BERMAN: I did like that civil war poster behind you. Looks like the Captain America/Iron Man movie.

CUOMO: Which is which?

BERMAN: That is the question. They both like to wear tights.

Intensifying his attacks on Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, Trump blasting her as a, quote, "nasty enabler of her husband's infidelity." Hillary Clinton firing back, calling Trump's foreign policy plans reckless.

CNN's Chris Frates live in Washington with more this morning. Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

Now, election day may be six long, long months away, but Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, well, they're already trying to draw blood on the campaign trail, stumping out west this weekend. Trump invoked Bill Clinton's impeachment and accused Hillary Clinton of enabling her husband's sexual misconduct.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Hillary was an enabler and she treated these women horribly. Just remember this. And some of those women were destroyed, not by him, but by the way that Hillary Clinton treated them after everything went down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:05:12] FRATES: Now, Trump also said Clinton wants to take people's guns away. Clinton's camp fired back, saying Trump has no regard at all for the facts, and Clinton continued to argue that Trump is a loose cannon, questioning his past statements including his suggestions that the U.S. killed the families of terrorists, round up and deport the nation's millions of undocumented immigrants and punish women who have abortions.

Now, Trump has walked back his calls to kill the family members of terrorists, which is a war crime, and punishing with who have abortions. But Clinton's attacks this weekend showed how she plans to turn Trump's words, which helped make him the presumptive GOP nominee, against him.

Alisyn, Chris, back to you guys, my friends.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, thanks so much for all of that. Let's discuss all this with Phil Mattingly; David Gregory, CNN political analyst and host of "The David Gregory Show" podcast; and Jackie Kucinich, the Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast." Great to have you all here and our first panel.

Jackie, let me start with you. Let's talk about what's going to happen this week when they have this Paul Ryan, Donald Trump meeting. You know, true to form, what sometimes happens, overheated rhetoric and this ratcheting up of the rhetoric, and then, when Donald Trump sits down with one of his rivals or one of his, you know, sort of sworn enemies, everything comes out fine. Because somehow in person they are able to make it work. What do we think is going to happen with this meeting?

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE DAILY BEAST": You're exactly right. I've been told that many times by Republicans who have met with Trump behind closed doors. And they said that it was, through all the bluster, through all of kind of ginning up these meetings, they actually get face-to-face with Donald Trump, and it's very civil.

And it is true: Donald Trump does hold a lot of cards, but he doesn't hold all of the cards, and Paul Ryan, he did -- he did seek the Republican nomination. The Republican Party did not seek the Trump nomination.

So there -- he -- there is some hope that there will be, you know, we've talked about this before, not meeting in the middle, but maybe meeting 40 percent of what Paul Ryan, secretary of the party, wants, because he does need their votes come November.

CAMEROTA: David what do you think?

GREGORY: Well, I think there's a process in any nomination fight where the rest of the Republican Party has to fall in line and rally around the nominee.

Now, in this case, that is starting to happen, but very, very slowly, and there are a lot of Republicans, particularly conservative Republicans, who are not there on Trump, some who will never get there, who are establishment Republicans or more conservative Republicans, and Paul Ryan does have his own base of political support. Not just for his own seat but within the Republican Caucus of the House. So, you know, he doesn't have to fall in line, and he doesn't have to

fall in line yet. He has an agenda that he's going to pursue no matter what. He has an ability to say, look, this is important to me where you are on this, Mr. Trump. And let's negotiate this?

And I suppose if he came to it, he would not have to endorse. All kinds of different calculations. Ryan could be thinking about his own political future. He has to be thinking about the future of this particular agenda that he's got here, but he's also got a lot more clout among the House caucus that a John Boehner did. He was elected, he was drafted, to become the House speaker, so he's going to play those cards with Trump right now, particularly because he has a problem with all kinds of things that he stands for, his squishiness on some of the issues here, and some of the things he's said in his tone. He can assert that as the House speaker.

CUOMO: You know, the tone shifted, also. Phil, I was in Mexico last week. Ryan's guys, Trump's guys were all reaching out and saying, "This is all on you guys. This is the media. This is bogus. They don't have any problems with each other. All the speaker said was, he's not ready yet." That's not...

CAMEROTA: That's a problem. Isn't it?

CUOMO: But that's an advantage for Trump, based on a lot of the other party elders and senior officials, who are saying they're not with him and that this is being borne out.

But then yesterday happened, and Trump on the minimum wage and on taxes said things that are inimical, that are enemy statements to the conservative agenda. And then he said the Republican Party isn't called the conservative party. Those are real problems. When they sat down, as you suggested earlier, that doesn't just go away with rhetoric.

MATTINGLY: I think this is kind of being slightly overlooked. There's no question what Paul Ryan did is politically motivated, helps provide cover to those in his House conference that don't want to run with Donald Trump. It gives them an opportunity right now to distance themselves. That's certainly an aspect of this.

But the policy side of things, everything Paul Ryan has worked for in the last 20 years of his political career, everything on his agenda, everything that he's fought for. Gun laws...

CUOMO: Take what's on the table.

MATTINGLY: Donald Trump wants to save Social Security. Doesn't want to touch Medicare. Doesn't want to do any of that. That's the exact opposite of where Paul Ryan is.

On trade, Paul Ryan fought like heck to get the trans-Pacific partnership basically cued up for passenger for approval. Donald Trump is the exact opposite on that.

[06:10:10] On immigration, Paul Ryan certainly was not in the full amnesty category of things, if you want to use that term, but he's always been open to the idea of immigration reform. Donald Trump is the exact opposite of that.

Everything that Paul Ryan has worked for: the budgets, everything that's led him to his position right now, both as House budget chairman, as House Ways and Means Chairman and now as House speaker, Donald Trump is running against. And that's the issue that, on tone Donald Trump can make concessions. On policy, how do you concede these things when the gulf is extraordinarily wide?

CAMEROTA: Jackie, that was so -- go ahead, David.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I was going to say, look, an aspect to Trump not only winning as many votes as he won. But the idea that he is so malleable, is so flexible, as he said to George Stephanopoulos on ABC yesterday, that's a big selling point for a lot of voters. Independents, even Republicans who want to see Washington change a little bit. And that is kind of the remaking of the Republican Party that a lot of conservatives are going to be uncomfortable with.

CAMEROTA: Jeff, back to Paul Ryan for a second. You know, Sarah Palin predicted that he will be Cantored in August when he faces, you know, his next race. Does his political future hinge on what happens this week with Donald Trump?

KUCINICH: You know, Sarah Palin doesn't have the greatest record when it comes to the candidates that she supports or doesn't support, but he's also from Wisconsin. When you look plain at his district, only a very -- a small part of his district went for Trump. Seems like anything can happen in 2016.

But it seems like Paul Ryan's political future is just fine. His district mostly went for Cruz, just like the state of Wisconsin.

CUOMO: What a difference a week can make. A week ago we were talking about Ayotte and everybody else, who was worried about not being able to win re-election, because Trump is going to be the standard bearer of the party. Now it's with Paul Ryan, one of their bright lights, may be in jeopardy because of Trump.

It does make you wonder how much of this is huff and puff out of the media and the spinmeisters versus reality? I'd be very surprised, Phil, if Ryan is in any way jeopardized by Donald Trump. In anything, I bet Trump tries to come out of this, saying, "You know what? It turns out I we're like this."

MATTINGLY: I think that would be -- kind of track historically with how Donald Trump operates in these things.

I think Jackie makes a great point. There's some perspective needed when it comes to Paul Ryan being, quote unquote, "Cantored." Everything on the ground in his district is the exact opposite of what Eric Cantor was facing in his district.

Paul Ryan goes home every weekend. That was part of his deal to become House speaker, was to go home.

CAMEROTA: Really. Him with his little kids.

MATTINGLY: He has an enormous war chest, as Jackie pointed out. Ted Cruz beat Donald Trump by 19 points in Paul Ryan's district. Paul Ryan has a 76 percent approval rating in the most recent Marquette poll.

CUOMO: Paul Ryan's phone is ringing off the hook by people asking him to put himself out there as a potential presidential nominee.

MATTINGLY: I think some perspective is needed there. But again, all we're going to be doing is watching this meeting. This is no longer Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump. This is Donald Trump versus Paul Ryan.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you. Stick around. Because we do want to talk about Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump in a moment.

CUOMO: And who better to ask the questions than the man on the screen himself? In our 7 hour, what will Donald Trump say today about the state of his party?

J.B.

BERMAN: All right. A BBC correspondent and his team expelled from North Korea. Correspondent Rupert Winfield Hayes was detained and questioned at the airport on his way out of the country. Authorities called his reports of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un disrespectful. Winfield Hayes has since been released. The BBC is now working to make sure he gets out of that country.

CUOMO: The clock is ticking down to a 5 p.m. deadline. That's when North Carolina's governor, Pat McCrory. That's when he has until to respond to the Justice Department about the state's controversial transgender bathroom law. Get rid of it -- it's up to them -- or get sued for discrimination and face the loss of billions in federal funding.

As you know, the law forbids people from using public bathrooms that don't match the gender listed on their birth certificates. So where is the country on this? A CNN/ORC poll released just minutes ago shows what you see. Thirty-eight percent favor such laws. That means about 57 percent are opposed.

CAMEROTA: All right, everyone, check your Powerball tickets. The lone winning Jackpot ticket sold at a 7-Eleven in Trenton, New Jersey, remains unclaimed this morning. The ticket carries a payday of almost $430 million. And since there is only one winner, the recipient is entitled to the entire jackpot, making it the third largest lottery ticket ever sold in the U.S. You want to check your numbers right now. They are 5-25-26-44-66 and the Powerball 9. Anybody? Anybody in the studio? Nothing?

It's cartoonish. Stage right.

BERMAN: That's right.

CUOMO: Never liked you.

All right. Donald Trump in rare form, blasting Bill Clinton for his infidelity, hammering Hillary Clinton for the way she handled it. The great enabler, he's calling her now. Is this what the campaign is going to be like for the next six months?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:19:16] CUOMO: The Trump/Clinton matchup certainly heating up. Tramp slamming Clinton for her policies. No, no, no. He's going after her husband for his infidelity and her for enabling it. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: She's married to a man who was the worst abuser of women in the history of politics. She's married to a man who hurt many women, and Hillary, if you look and see a study, Hillary hurt many women, the women that he abused. She's married to a man who got impeached for lying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, this is what Donald Trump said he was going to do. When he would promise, "Wait until I get started on Hillary." So this doesn't come as a surprise. The question is, will it work, and why?

[06:20:05] Let's discuss. Bring back David Gregory, Jackie Kucinich and Phil Mattingly.

David Gregory, start us off here, the plus/minus.

GREGORY: Well, look, I think a lot of this will be in Hillary Clinton's response. I think we've seen some of that response already, which she's going to kind of wave it away and say this is, you know, what Donald Trump wants to get into in the kind of discourse in this race.

I think people will, you know, not view it well. That's been her position. I think this is classic Trump in terms of what we've seen in the nomination fight, which is -- try to keep his opponents off balance, and running against a woman who wants to make history, becoming the first woman president, to try to bring all of this up.

I don't know what the ultimate impact of this will be. We'll see over time. My suspicion is that a lot of these people, a lot of voters who already dislike Hillary Clinton, their views about the Clinton marriage and about Bill Clinton's activities, all of that has already been considered and is included in their views of the Clintons.

So the bet here, I suppose, is that you're going to reach new, younger voters, who will somehow be persuaded by this. And I don't know. My suspicion is, it won't sway new people.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, I want to ask you about Hillary Clinton's response to this, because she has ample opportunity to return in-kind sort of attacks on Donald Trump. Donald Trump also has a notorious sexual past.

In fact, he predicted himself that that would actually trip him up if he ever were to run for president.

Let me remind everyone of what he said in an interview with Chris Matthews. Chris Matthews asked him back in 1998, "Why don't you ever run for president? Did you ever think about that?"

Trump said, "People want me to all the time."

Matthews says, "What about you?"

He says, "I don't like it."

Matthews says, "Why?

Trump says, "Can you imagine how controversial that'd be? You think about President Bill Clinton with the women. How about me with the women? Can you imagine?

Now, why doesn't Hillary Clinton make more hay of this?

KUCINICH: You know, we've seen it with Marco Rubio. When candidates have gone down to Donald Trump's level, they haven't won. And I think the Clinton campaign is acutely aware of that.

Now, I would keep an eye on the super PACs, because it seems like that's where -- that's who's going to do the dirty work. That's who's going to go after Donald Trump's past. And Hillary Clinton will try to sort of float above it throughout the campaign.

CUOMO: Well, look the calculation is, this is going to be the phase of Donald Trump, where he sprays a lot of stuff out there and sees what tends to resonate and what doesn't. There's something empirical about this for him. Right?

But what do you think the concern is in terms of the best situation here is for women -- some women to say, "You know what? I'm OK with Trump calling some women fat pigs or whatever the ugly things are that he's said that have struck a chord, because she's bad where women are involved?" Where's the chance that you get women to turn on a woman in this way?

MATTINGLY: If you talk to Trump advisers, a little bit of what David Gregory said. That they look at a large portion of the electorate that just wasn't around or wasn't paying attention to politics when these issues were coming up in the '90s or early part of the 2000s. That's who they're trying to reach, but that's...

CUOMO: Women specifically he has the problem with.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Specifically and believes that women, they are -- literally targeting women on this that were not aware. They believe that they can change kind of the perspective of how this is viewed. Back then, every time Hillary Clinton got attacked, her numbers went

up. It's historically what's always happened with her. They believe that they can paint Hillary Clinton as, you know, the enabler, as somebody who attacked women in order to protect her husband.

They think they can shift the narrative of what's happened with a group of people that weren't paying attention back then, don't already have a set view on how that occurred. There is little to no evidence that that will actually happen, but it's a play that they're willing to make and with good reason in the sense of 70 percent plus of the general electorate, of women polled in the general electorate have negative views of Donald Trump. Why not try something, I think, is what you hear from them.

Their biggest concern right now is that they have no real play to reach women voters and are willing to try this, or at least Donald Trump is willing to try this. Is it going to work? I think there's been a lot of questions about that. I don't think the Clinton team thinks this has any shot of working, but they believe it's something, and I think that's why they're going all in on it.

CAMEROTA: So David -- go ahead, David.

GREGORY: The question, I think, for Donald Trump, what is it that's disqualifying about any of these personal characteristics that he's so concerned about in terms of how Hillary Clinton would be as president? Is it any different than whatever, you know, issues he's had in his marriages over time in terms of how he would be president?

So I don't even think he wants to get into that. I think he'd like to just kind of throw this out there, and I think, to Jackie's point, I think Hillary Clinton will be loath to try to get in, you know, go toe-to-toe with him on this. There's lots of other people, including David Roth, who runs one of her super PACs and was one of the big critics of the Clintons back in the '90s, who's now on her side, who's going to be leading the super PAC. So I think that we'll leave it at that level to go after Trump.

[06:25:02] CAMEROTA: I mean, Jackie, it would be helpful if we had some information as to how voters responded to this. You know, this is just a theory, as Phil was saying, from the Trump campaign, that this might work. It might take root.

CUOMO: But we do know. What Phil was saying earlier has been true, Jackie. You know this. You go after her about Bill Clinton, she usually benefits from it.

CAMEROTA: Years ago her numbers went up during all the impeachment, et cetera. But now, it's hard to know: Do young women respond to this sort of thing?

KUCINICH: You know, I asked around about this very early on in the campaign, about whether young women cared about the Clinton scandals of old. And, you know, they were sort of were like, "Well, that's in the past. Why would this matter now?" Now that was just the conversations I had. Perhaps there is interest in a broader electorate. But it almost seems like a sort of swift vote-like attack, where they're trying to attack Hillary Clinton on something she's very strong on in hopes of diminishing her a little bit. And it's just -- again, there really isn't any evidence that would back that up at this point, but we'll have to see.

CUOMO: I'm just saying it turned my Mother's Day table ugly early when I brought this up as a topic of conversation. I was like, do any at the women at the table feel that there is this enabler dynamic, and I got the gas face from everybody. And I was like, or, these flowers are beautiful.

CAMEROTA: You know what? There's not a single meal that you have at your house that you don't turn into a focus group, and I don't know how your family feels about this.

CUOMO: And I have very little percentage of success what I'm trying to tell you, and this did not help. All right. So forget about us talking about it, because this is dangerous territory. It raises the question, why bring it up at all? Guess who says it's a good idea? The Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump. He's coming on in the 7 a.m. hour to explain why this issue works for him -- John Berman.

BERMAN: Firefighters in Alberta, they may be turning a corner in the battle against a devastating wildfire there. Temperatures, they are cooling down. The humidity is heading up. If the wind changing direction, it could create new problems. A live report is next.

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