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Trump on the Defensive Over His Past; Clinton & Sanders Focused on Primary Battles Tomorrow; Corpus Christi Hit by Flooding. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired May 16, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And President Obama is focusing on Trump, as well, using a commencement speech to slam Trump without actually naming him, Obama telling graduates, quote, "Ignorance is not a virtue in politics," and blasting Trump's calls for a wall and a ban on Muslims.

[07:00:14] What are the implications? What else is at play in the 2016 race? We have it covered the way only CNN can. Let's begin with Phil Mattingly -- Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, it's only a couple days ago that Donald Trump left Washington with a lot of good news on his plate, and it appeared the party was unifying. Party leaders who were very skeptical of his candidacy seemed to be coming onboard.

Then this weekend hit: attacks from every direction, including the man who holds the highest office in the land.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Donald Trump facing a not-so-subtle critique Sunday from the man he's campaigning to replace.

OBAMA: It's not cool to not know what you're talking about. That's not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That's just not knowing what you're talking about.

MATTINGLY: The presumptive Republican nominee coming under fire amid new allegations of inappropriate behavior with women. Dozens of women revealing to the "New York Times" accounts of, quote, "unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, and unsettling workplace conduct."

TRUMP: Nobody has more respect for women than I do.

MATTINGLY: A defensive Trump lashing out on Twitter, slamming the report as a lame hit piece, dishonest, and a witch-hunt. Trump's allies offering a defense.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), ALABAMA: People have not expected purity on his part. What they're concerned about, they're deeply concerned about, is this: somebody strong enough to take on Washington.

MATTINGLY: RNC Chairman Reince Priebus acknowledging it's an issue he will have to confront but won't change the voters' decision.

PRIEBUS: These are things that he's going to have to answer for. All of these stories that come out, and they come out every couple of weeks. People just don't care.

MATTINGLY: Trump also denying reports that he used to pose as his own publicist in the '80s and '90s under the names "John Miller" or "John Barron"...

"JOHN MILLER" (via phone): He's somebody that has a lot of options. And frankly, he gets called by everybody. He gets called by everybody in the book, in terms of women.

MATTINGLY: ... despite previously admitting using both pseudonyms.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Is this campaign seriously claiming that that isn't Mr. Trump?

MANAFORT: I could barely understand it. I couldn't tell who it is. Donald Trump says it's not him, I believe it's not him.

MATTINGLY: Trump's latest controversies amid continued efforts within the GOP to mount a third-party candidate to derail him. Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse and Mark Cuban both declining the job.

PRIEBUS: They can try to hijack another party, and they get on the ballot but, look, it's a suicide mission for our country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: So no clear candidate, no clear money commitments, and no real clear path forward for a third-party candidate. That's all good news for Donald Trump, and when it comes to how he's being attacked and how he's treating female employees, it's worth noting, guys, there have been a number of female employees who worked for Donald Trump, said very positive things about his time as their boss, his efforts running a company. And I think it's safe to say, when you talk to campaign officials, those women will be trotted out publicly over the next couple of weeks to try and defend Donald Trump, something he desperately needs as these attacks continue -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, Phil. Thanks so much for previewing all of that.

Joining us now is the co-chair of the Trump's New York campaign and Councilman of the 51st District of New York City, Joseph Borelli.

Councilman, thanks so much for being here.

JOSEPH BORELLI, NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMAN: Good morning. Thanks for having me back.

CAMEROTA: OK. Did you hear the tapes over the weekend of Donald Trump -- what appears to be Donald Trump masquerading as his own spokesperson in the '90s?

BORELLI: Right. Yes, I certainly heard them, yes.

CAMEROTA: What do you make of Donald Trump appearing to have pretended to be someone else?

BORELLI: I think, like a lot of people around the country, I think the tapes are kind of funny, and that's fine. He denies that they're him. He has the right to deny it. Some people disagree with him. That's fine.

The real question is whether or not these stories actually matter. I mean, news networks have 24 hours a day, had to come up with these surrogates to explain to people why these tapes actually matter in their lives. And they've done a pretty poor job. And I think a lot of people in the public really don't seem to care.

CAMEROTA: Well, here's one theory. The idea that the man who you would use as your president would pretend to be somebody he's not and then pretends not to know that he had done that. Doesn't that say something about character?

BORELLI: Right, but look, it's a silly story. And if it is him, he should come clean. If it's not him, he should continue denying it.

The story becomes even stupider when you have the journalist who made these recordings coming on TV and saying that Donald Trump himself leaked the case.

This is one of these silly stories that isn't going to stick. The only way we can measure whether these things actually matter are polling. And we see now from a poll in Georgia, a state that's presumably 50 percent women, a state that's 30 percent African- American, we're told these voters would never support Donald Trump. And yet we still see people supporting him.

[07:05:03] CAMEROTA: So do -- you don't think this is any reflection on character?

BORELLI: No, no. He's denied it. And if he's denying it incorrectly, then he should come out and say that. But let him.

CAMEROTA: Do you think it sounds like Donald Trump?

BORELLI: I have no idea. Look, as I told Chris, I was young at the time. I don't remember what Donald Trump sounded like then.

CAMEROTA: All right. We have a little clip of it. Let's play it for everybody.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

"JOHN MILLER," TRUMP PUBLICIST (via phone): He's got a whole open field, really, and, you know, a lot of the people that you write about. And you people do a great job, by the way, actresses, people that you write about, just call to go out with him and things. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: There's some vintage Trumpisms in there.

BORELLI: Look, it sounds like the Apollo landing, you know? And people can make up their own mind.

But the reality is, in every single poll since March 23, Hillary Clinton has continued to trend down, because Donald Trump is talking about jobs. Hillary Clinton is essentially a tone-deaf patrician who is talking about putting out of business one of the biggest industries in this country.

CAMEROTA: You're talking about the coal miners.

BORELLI: Of course I am. That's what people care about.

CAMEROTA: Of course. In fairness to Hillary Clinton, she says she was down at our CNN town hall, where she was saying we have to look towards the future to do something else, to come up with another industry for these people, because the coal industry may be phased out.

BORELLI: Right. As someone whose grandfather was a coal miner in West Virginia, I can tell you that that wasn't something that went out over very well, as evidenced by the elections.

CAMEROTA: OK. There's a "New York Times" article this morning in which Donald Trump is quoted about talking about Hillary Clinton and some of the same line of attack that he's been trotting out that he continues to use about her part and her husband's sexual past. Let me read this for you.

"Just getting nasty with Hillary won't work," he says. "You really have to get people to look hard at her character and to get women to ask themselves if Hillary is truly sincere and authentic, because she has been really ugly in trying to destroy Bill's mistresses, and she is pandering to women so obviously when she is only interested in getting power."

Now, again, going back -- I mean, you know, I know the Trump side.

BORELLI: Now we're going back in history. Fine.

CAMEROTA: The Trump side doesn't like to go back to the '90s.

BORELLI: Right.

CAMEROTA: But here he is going back to the '90s and talking about...

BORELLI: Look at the double standard in the media. This is the fourth day of us talking about this phone conversation no one really cares about. You know, this Hillary Clinton audio out there from 1975, where she talks about how she defended a child rapist and how she blamed the victim in that case.

Four days on this story, and that's no way the moral equivalent of that particular tape that Hillary Clinton has denied.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about this, that he's going back to the '90s to talk about what Hillary Clinton's actions were about Bill Clinton's sexual past. So which one is it? We're going to go back in time and look at all this and dredge it all up or not?

BORELLI: I think it's OK now, because Donald Trump's life in the 1990s was largely on page 6, not only page 6. It was on the front page of most tabloids. Donald Trump's supporters don't really -- they have to have been living under a rock to not know the things he was doing, his sort of lifestyle that he lived. Hillary Clinton is much more vulnerable in this? And Donald Trump is the first person...

CAMEROTA: Why? Her supporters were members of the '90s. Everybody remembers that, as well.

BORELLI: I don't know. Arianna Huffington was someone who first coined the term enabler, and yet seemed she seems to have this selective amnesia, as do a lot of people on the left, how they viewed Hillary Clinton, how she treated women in the '90s.

CAMEROTA: So in other words, you think this will be effective? You think that going back to the '90s and talking about Hillary Clinton's response to what was going on, that that will be effective, whereas Donald Trump, you think he will be immune to this?

BORELLI: I think we need to end sort of the media double standard. Hillary Clinton did an interview in 2014 with Diane Sawyer, where she effectively said, after being questioned about how she denounced and, you know, demeaned Monica Lewinsky, "I don't want to answer any questions about how I treated women in the '90s."

And after that, it was -- the media never followed up, has not answered those questions about why don't you want to speak about that? So once we stop getting this double standard of hands-off Hillary, I think you'll stop seeing problems there.

CAMEROTA: This is what you're saying as a Trump representative. Look, it's not relevant what he did in the '90s but everything is relevant what she did in the '90s.

BORELLI: But I have poll numbers that I can point to to show that, even since these articles have broken, you see continuously Donald Trump gaining in the polls and continuously Hillary Clinton going down.

Again, just last week, as I pointed out with the coal miners, you had one person talking about protecting American jobs. Another person talking about, you know, putting jobs out of business.

CAMEROTA: She was talking about creating new jobs for coal miners.

BORELLI: You'd like to think, but most people who worked in a coal mine didn't think so. CAMEROTA: Third-party candidate. You know many Republicans are

talking about if they could find somebody to draft as a third-party candidate to run against Trump. What do you think of that possibility?

BORELLI: At this point it's a pipe dream, and it's just something that the media keeps rehashing. But let's talk about a third-party candidate. Let's talk about a third-party Democratic candidate.

A week ago today we had this scenario where the Republican Party was -- was unable to consolidate around a candidate. Now we've seen, thanks to some leadership from Reince and from Donald Trump himself with Paul Ryan, the party has cohesively come together around Trump.

CAMEROTA: Not completely. I mean, not entirely.

BORELLI: The party has come together around Trump. There's always the Bill Kristols of the world out there who are going to, you know, do whatever they do.

[07:10:03] CAMEROTA: Paul Ryan hasn't endorsed him. Seems like he's still waiting to see Trump if comes around.

BORELLI: Nancy Pelosi hasn't endorsed Hillary Clinton. The Clinton campaign is in as much if not more disarray than the Republicans are. This nice guy named Bernie Sanders really seems to have this inconvenient problem for Hillary. He keeps winning the elections and the votes.

CAMEROTA: I want to play for you a new interview that the London mayor has just done with Piers Morgan about Donald Trump has -- sorry, let me correct this. This is Donald Trump and Piers Morgan about the London mayor, and about what Donald Trump has said about Muslims, and letting them into the country, and as well as the mayor's own Muslim background.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, when he won I wished him well. Now, I don't care about him. I mean, it doesn't make any difference to me about him. Let's see how he does. I mean, we'll see if he's a good man.

PIERS MORGAN, JOURNALIST: Are you offended by what he said?

TRUMP: Yes, I am, because he doesn't know me, never met me, doesn't know what I'm all about. I think they're very rude statements, and frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. Very nasty statements.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The mayor had said that Trump was -- Trump's position on Muslims was ignorant.

Do you think that we'll see Donald Trump softening his position on Muslims now that he's said, you know, the ban was just a suggestion?

BORELLI: I think he's been somewhat clear in saying that he does not believe Muslims should come into the country if not verified of what their past is.

CAMEROTA: I mean, that's different. He called for a total and complete ban. You're giving a...

BORELLI: Then a month later, he basically said, Rudy Giuliani, a bunch of people in his circle of friends have come out and clarified the position clearly.

The London mayor has a right to have whatever opinion he wants. He's a newly-elected mayor, and he's trying to get himself out there on the international stage. He's successful at that, and I wish him well. I hope he does half the job that Boris Yeltsin did.

CAMEROTA: Councilman Joe Borelli, thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

Coming up on NEW DAY, we will speak with former presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson, who is helping lead the search for Donald Trump's running mate. He'll join us live in our next hour.

Also, tonight, Anderson Cooper sits down exclusively with John Kasich for his first interview since leaving the GOP race. Would he consider being Trump's V.P.? You can find out tonight at 8 Eastern only on CNN.

CUOMO: All right. Let's take a little turn out of the political tabloids and back to what matters, the ballot box. Kentucky and Oregon up for grabs tomorrow; and Clinton and Sanders are working it hard. Hillary revealing what role her husband would play, and it's a key role in her administration. What difference would that make?

Let's get to CNN national correspondent Suzanne Malveaux in Washington with more. Good morning, my friend.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Chris.

Well, Hillary Clinton, she's making a final big push for Kentucky. She made four stops on Sunday. She's making more today. First of all, she is counting on African-American voters to put her in a better place in West Virginia. A win here could dampen some of Sanders' momentum. Clinton has gone now to criticizing Sanders over not supporting the auto bailout.

Now for the most part, Chris, she continues to run her campaign as if she is already in the general election. She's hitting Trump with attack lines, very similar to what we saw over the weekend with President Obama. That he is too ignorant and dangerous to be the next commander in chief.

Now, Kentucky's the state that she easily won over Obama. That was back in 2008. But this time, she's come under criticism for saying that her policies, quote, "would put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." Well, she has since disavowed this, and now she's talking about this new role for her husband, Bill Clinton, to reassure voters that they're not going to be out of work.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: My husband, who I'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy, because, you know he knows how to do it, and especially in places like coal country and inner cities and other parts of our country that have really been left out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: She's not only being nostalgic here, but it's also meant to win over those white male voters who Bill Clinton has a greater appeal with, quite frankly, and Clinton is leading Sanders now by nearly 300 pledged delegates going into tomorrow's primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, but Sanders, he continues to win contests, and he has pledged to stay in the race until the July convention. And right now, he believes that Oregon is looking good for a pickup, but the Clinton team believes that the race is competitive in Kentucky. So that's where she is today, Chris.

CAMEROTA: I'll take it, Suzanne. Thanks so much for all of that.

Breaking overnight, a flash flood emergency in Corpus Christi, Texas. First responders rescuing people from cars and homes and rising floodwaters this morning. Let's get to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. He joins us now with the forecast there. How's it looking, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Still raining in some spots, Alisyn. In fact, some spots on radar had 14 inches of rain overnight. Now, that was mainly over the bay, Corpus Christi Bay back up towards Ingleside. Still raining, still coming down.

This is what the radar can see. After you add it all up, the radar says this is where the rain was, and it was right over the bay. Right over Corpus Christi and all the way down to about, oh, about North Padre. Heavy rain, lots of lightning, and it's still raining today. And there will be more rain tonight and into tomorrow. So this is not over just yet.

There's the live, local Doppler radar from Corpus Christi. And you're still seeing those flash flood warnings, those flash flood emergencies still going on in the city. People being rescued there. We're trying to get pictures of that right now.

Local affiliates are a little busy. But anyway, more rain all the way from Houston back up toward Lafayette, all the way now into New Orleans.

We have had a very cold couple of days in the northeast. I don't have to tell you. But it gets better, then it gets worse again. So if you planted your garden, you may have to replant it again, New York all the way to Ohio Valley, but it does warm up a little bit, guys. It's going to warm up all the way to 74 for you, Chris, on Friday. CUOMO: Oh, that's nice to hear. I always plant the tomatoes last, by

the way. Just so you know, Chad.

MYERS: Very good.

CUOMO: Stay ahead of the curve. You know? Talk to you later.

All right. So as the blame game continues in the election, there's a turn in the Benghazi debate. A letter from two Democrats on the panel accuses Trey Gowdy of damaging credibility of the committee beyond repair by ignoring the reality that Clinton and the military acted properly, if ineffectively. What's their proof? They say Gowdy's own lawyer told officials in a closed-door meeting nothing could have changed what occurred in Benghazi, but Gowdy obviously ignored that during proceedings.

CAMEROTA: This is a terrible story. The Coast Guard is calling off the search for a cruise passenger who went overboard near Texas. Thirty-three-year-old Samantha Broberg was reported missing from a cruise to Mexico on the Carnival Liberty. Surveillance video suggests that she tumbled backwards off a deck into the Gulf of Mexico.

CUOMO: Terrible and happens much more than you might imagine.

CAMEROTA: I mean, I can't believe that -- you can get off the decks. You can tumble off the decks. I thought that there was more sort of security railing to avoid that.

CUOMO: Nope.

So we are learning some of the high-profile conservatives who will be meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week, remember, there are concerns about bias. Radio host Glenn Beck, former White House press secretary Dana Perino and CNN commentator S.E. Cupp are among the heavy-duty attendees. Facebook is answering to these allegations that the site suppresses conservative news in its trending section. The meeting is set for Wednesday.

CAMEROTA: It will be interesting to see what comes out of that.

Well, Bernie Sanders needs a mathematical miracle to pull out the Democratic nomination. Will Kentucky and Oregon help keep him alive?

Next we'll ask the only U.S. senator backing Sanders' bid, Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:21:47] CUOMO: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders preparing to face-off tomorrow in Kentucky and Oregon. Now, this morning Donald Trump calling on Sanders to run as an independent saying, quote, "Bernie Sanders is being treated very badly by the Dems. The system is rigged against him. He should run as an independent. Run, Bernie, run."

Senator Jeff Merkley is a Democrat from Oregon, the only sitting senator supporting Senator Sanders. That's not easy to say. The only sitting senator to support Senator Sanders.

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D), OREGON: Absolutely.

CUOMO: Not easy to say. Not easy to do, but you are steadfast. First, do you accept Donald Trump's proposal? Do you think Bernie should do that?

MERKLEY: Absolutely not. You know, Bernie went into this, and he said, "There's no way I'm going to be Ralph Nader. We're not going to split the party. We're not going to empower the Republicans. He understands the damage that Bush did to this nation, and he's not going to allow Trump to follow on and do even more damage.

CUOMO: So give the response. I know this sounds tedious and tired, but it remains true. And that's why we keep having to say it. Math, math, math, math.

Bernie Sanders, you know he's on this show a lot. You know, always happy to have him. Always happy to have the campaign. Understand the momentum. But math is a limitation here to getting the percentage of delegates pledged and super that he would need to contest at the convention in a real way. Isn't that just true?

MERKLEY: Well, it's certainly true that he would need two-thirds of the vote. It's an uphill climb. Two-thirds of the vote to get the pledged delegate majority. If you get the pledged delegate majority, then it would be a whole new conversation. We've seen campaigns in the past that had a surge and won two-thirds of the vote. We've seen it recently. We saw what Trump did here in the New England area.

And so -- but the important thing is that the issues that Bernie Sanders is bringing forward. We're having all of these salacious scandal stories about Trump. What Bernie keeps talking about is the fact that America is off track, that working America has been getting the short end of the stick for four decades. Nine out of ten Americans have not been sharing in the new wealth of America, and that it's not just small changes we need. We need substantial dramatic changes in how we operate our nation.

CUOMO: What you get hit with most often is, you know, Sanders, very critical of Clinton. You know, it's going to hurt her. What kind of Democrat is he?

Let's leave that to the side for a second. Leave that to voters within your own party. Do you think that Trump is fundamentally understanding, misunderstanding, who Sanders is? He seems to be patronizing Sanders, seeing him as almost some type of colleague in terms of the nature of their campaigns. What do you think Senator Sanders will have in store for Trump if he doesn't get the nomination?

MERKLEY: Yes, he fundamentally misunderstands, because Sanders is energizing the Democratic base, and that base is going to be his worst enemy when it comes to the general election.

CUOMO: Trump thinks he'll get a lot of Sanders voters? MERKLEY: He'll get some, yes, he'll get some. You have the space

where the right and left might meet. But the fundamental thing is it's going to become very clear that Trump is a self-promoting huckster, and Bernie is going to help make that case as the nominee, and if he's supporting the ticket and not the nominee.

CUOMO: How deeply does the senator believe that? How deeply, because he doesn't talk about Trump that much. You know, he seems to keep him to the side as much as he can.

[07:25:07] MERKLEY: No. He's trying to focus on these issues, on the issue of global warming, the issue of cash and politics, on the issue of jobs and working America and not get distracted by all the daily Trump stories that are just -- it's more a soap opera than it is a campaign for the presidency of the United States.

And -- but when this all clears, when the dust clears after a week from tomorrow basically all states will have had their primaries. Then there's going to be this moment when the Democrats are going to come together. They're going to go into the convention arm in arm. They're going to go into the election shoulder to shoulder.

And -- but it's critical that the issues he's raising get addressed. But part of that coming together will be the understanding that we have to let America know about how Trump is not a serious person to lead America. He is a self-promoting huckster. And all his stories that you've been carrying, these stories show that. What he did 25 years ago. His university that ripped off middle-class Americans on a real-estate scam.

CUOMO: Well, that's right now. That's real. The New York attorney general that's going to trial. In truth, that's not even in the calculus right now. This other stuff, how he treats women. Was he on the phone pretending to be John Miller? Because I don't know who this John Miller is, if it wasn't Trump.

MERKLEY: John Barron, Miller, aliases.

CUOMO: The other side says, that's all you got? That's all you got is what he did 25 years ago?

MERKLEY: Well, talk about what he's doing right now. Even as he talks about creating jobs, he imports workers from overseas instead of hiring Americans. He's imported something...

CUOMO: Because of these lousy trade deals that he's going to fix even better than Bernie could.

MERKLEY: But it's not the trade deals that make you get an H-2B visa and import people. You hire them because they're cheaper. You import them because they're cheaper. He's never been about creating jobs for Americans, and it's going to become clear.

And think about what a huckster he is on taxes. He talks about helping middle America. And he puts out a tax plan that gives huge gifts to billionaires in America. I mean, Trump is by and about himself. And that, the substance just

doesn't go deeper, which is why we're ensnared in all of these stories about this personality and his life and the way he treats women and so on and so forth.

CUOMO: What do you think happens tomorrow? Your home state, Oregon, sets up politically to be advantageous to Sanders. But we don't talk about the polls when we get this close. Because they're too wildly incorrect on a regular basis. But it being a closed primary meaning only Democrats vote. Usually, that favors Clinton. What's your thought?

MERKLEY: Well, it is true in Oregon. A lot of independents that have been coming out to the Bernie rallies aren't going to be able to vote. That's unfortunate. But I can tell you, I do a lot of town halls. And when people come to my town halls, I see Bernie shirts. I see Bernie buttons. I haven't seen a Hillary button yet.

And that tells you a couple things. One, how Bernie's message is resonating on these core issues facing America, and, second, if Hillary does end up being the nominee, as you say, the math is difficult. The path is uphill. She's going to need to reach out and understand these core issues that are so connecting with ordinary individuals.

CUOMO: Senator Merkley, it's good to see Oregon in the spotlight having its moment tomorrow, and thank you for being on NEW DAY as always.

MERKLEY: The best state in the union, I might add.

CUOMO: That's what I've heard from that chair -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, thanks so much.

Donald Trump catching some heat over his interactions with women. Next, we'll ask two women, including a Trump supporter, if the issue will have an effect on the women's vote for Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)