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New Day

Donald Trump Responds to "New York Times" Article; Interview with Trump Organization Vice President; Voting Begins in Kentucky Primary; Interview with Gov. Abbott. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 17, 2016 - 08:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: On the Democratic side you have Sanders and Clinton still duking it out. Today is a pivotal primary day. You got Kentucky and Oregon. Hillary Clinton is hoping to make some gains, hoping to hold off the momentum of Sanders. We have this primary and the politics involving all of this election covered the way only CNN can. Here is Phil Mattingly. Let's start with him.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. As you mentioned, today is a primary day, and within the Trump campaign, primary days are a little bit different now. He is the presumptive nominee, but still, no shortage of urgency inside the campaign. The reality is they are facing a general election fight. They need to unify the party. Donald Trump pushing back hard on negative reports, and overall Republicans trying to figure out what it actually means that Donald Trump is their nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Donald Trump, changing his tone from bombastic.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I went to the Wharton School of Finance. I was a great student. I built a fortune.

MATTINGLY: To everyday America.

TRUMP: I view myself as a person, and that like everybody else is fighting for survival. That's all I view myself as. And I really view myself now as somewhat of a messenger.

MATTINGLY: As the anti-Trump movement is struggling to find a figure head, unable to entice a candidate to join the fray with a third party run.

GOV. JOHN KASICH, (R) OHIO: A third party candidacy would be viewed as a silly thing. I don't think it's appropriate.

MATTINGLY: John Kasich, the Ohio governor and former presidential candidate, telling CNN he won't take the plunge.

KASICH: I gave it my best where I am. And I just think running third party doesn't feel right. I think it's not constructive.

MATTINGLY: Billionaire Mark Cuban also contacted about a possible run, also in the no column. MARK CUBAN, OWNER, DALLAS MAVERICKS: It's impossible for it to work.

There's not enough time to get on the ballot. The hurdles are just too great. It was a ridiculous effort, so I passed.

MATTINGLY: For conservatives like Erick Erickson and Bill Kristol, a very real effort with a small window to get it off the ground. They need a candidate, donor commitments, and a legal pathway, one that includes tens of thousands of signatures just to qualify for ballot access. All as deadlines loom, or, in the case of Texas, have already passed.

Meanwhile, Trump is battling with "The New York Times" via Twitter over their front page article about his inappropriate article about his inappropriate behavior with women. Trump's attorney leaving the door open to filing suit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that is a distinct possibility.

MATTINGLY: The "Times" standing by their story.

MICHAEL BARBARO, "NEW YORK TIMES" REPORTER: It was to pull back and say how does he interact with the office with someone who he is dating or trying to date? And that was the purpose of our story.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And Chris, Donald Trump not necessarily going the traditional route. Typically, candidates want negative stories off the front page, out of the headlines as quickly as possible. But Trump, making clear over the last 48 hours that strategically at least this is a fight that he is willing to have. This is a fight that he wants to have. Now, how that plays out in the days ahead, that will be the big question. Chris?

CUOMO: Phil, that's because the rules tend to change when politicians feel that the pieces are unfair or untrue. Donald Trump seems to feel both of those things are the case when it comes to "The New York Times." So let's discuss this morning with executive vice president for the Trump Organization and special counsel to Donald Trump himself, Mr. Michael Cohen. Counsel, always good to have you.

MICHAEL COHEN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION: The same.

CUOMO: Donald Trump says "The New York Times" put out a hit piece. The proof is that one of the main interviews in the piece starts off the piece, a woman, former girlfriend of Donald Trump, says the "Times" took me out of context, twisted my words, gave them different meaning. What do you think that means about the piece overall?

COHEN: There is an absolute, total false equivalency between the way that the media is handling the Trump campaign versus the Clinton campaign. Everything that you see in the media for the last week is all about Donald Trump, whether it's his taxes, whether it's "The New York Times" article, whether it's anything else that's related, you know, to Donald Trump. But yet you don't hear anything negative right now in regard to the

Clintons. So for example, a story that I saw that came out, $2 million, disappeared from the Clinton Foundation, paid for one of Bill Clinton's alleged ex-girlfriends. Where is the story on that? We're talking about people, who are looking to run for the presidency of the United States of America. It should be fair and unbiased. So as a segue into this "New York Times" article -- be fair, be honest, be the journalists you're supposed to be, be "The New York Times." They're acting more like a tabloid than they are.

CUOMO: They say they have 40 interviews in the story and that the woman said what she said. Brewer said what she said.

COHEN: She saying that's not what she said. That's not the context that she said it in.

[08:05:00] CUOMO: "The Times" could put out the transcript if the want.

COHEN: They could. But --

CUOMO: But even it got taken out of context at her own determination, you still have dozens of other women that led us to the same conclusion as readers, which he said a lot of things that are offensive to women.

COHEN: The conclusion was predetermined by "The New York Times" before they actually even started writing the piece.

CUOMO: How do you know?

COHEN: Because all the people that they tried to speak to that said nothing but positive things about Mr. Trump -- Mr. Trump is not a sexist. He is not a misogynist. I've walked shoulder to shoulder with this man for a decade, and I can tell you emphatically, I've never seen him behave any way that is described about Mr. Trump in this "New York Times" article, all right. I just have never, ever seen it.

CUOMO: When you look at the stuff seen by the super PACs are putting on now, and you know we're both intimately familiar with Mr. Trump and what he has said publicly, when you say things about women like what he says --

COHEN: When he says things about men, right, does that turn around and make him, you know, sexist as well?

CUOMO: I don't hear him saying is Cuomo too big for his suit, yes does he have a fat ass, yes? He doesn't say that about men. It might be more true if he says it about me. Maybe he says it behind my back. But you know, when you say that about women, it is seen as offensive, and that's why people criticize him for it.

COHEN: Donald Trump treats everybody exactly the same. He doesn't see, for example, the fight with Rosie O'Donnell, he didn't see that fight as she is a female. Somebody who attacked him, and the very first time I came on your show right after he announced, I told you, Donald Trump is a counterpuncher. If you come at him, he is going to come at you, and he's not going to stop, which is the same thing that he did with Rosie. He did the same thing for example to Chuck Todd when he would do it. He labeled him a --

CUOMO: It is not so much body related and looks related when it is with men. I've never heard him insult a man's looks.

COHEN: That's not true. I'll tell you what. I'll actually find a couple of examples and I'll call you later.

CUOMO: They're probably going to be about me. I don't want know if I want to hear them.

The super PAC, Donald Trump is tweeting this morning saying these super PAC ads are an example of what you're talking about right now, what he said being taken out of context, being wrong. Let me play you one of the ads and you get your comment.

COHEN: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her, wherever.

Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat ass? Absolutely.

You know girls that are five-foot one, they come up to you know where.

If Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her.

I view a person who is flat chested it's very hard.

And you can tell them to go fuck themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: So Trump is tweeting this morning this Clinton super PAC ad is taking everything out of context, and you have to know why he was saying those things. The ads is misleading.

COHEN: Don't you agree?

CUOMO: No, because I think certain things on their face are what they are. Sometimes context matters, sometimes it doesn't.

COHEN: If you take a snippet and you add it to another snippet to another in order to again get to the destination hat you want, which is to put out, again -- look, Hillary Clinton's biggest problem is she has the lowest in terms of factorability amongst men. So she has to stick with the women, right. Otherwise, she is going to be blown out of this race. So what is the best thing to do? She is going to turn around and try to create this gender warfare between Trump supporters and Clinton supporters.

CUOMO: But if don't say it, she can't play it.

COHEN: Unfortunately for her it's not going to work because women understand Donald Trump is not sexist. He is not misogynistic. He doesn't care. He is looking to do two things, make American great again and put America first. Women, like men, want jobs. They want to fix the economy. They want national security. That's all they're looking for. So when it comes down to these sort of super PAC ads attacking Mr. Trump, it's going to end up coming back to bite her.

CUOMO: But why isn't this the price of participation? I'm not saying with Clinton and Trump, I'm saying with the media, because one of the things your boss does very, very well is play the victim with the media. He uses the media better than anyone else, and then when he doesn't like the story. He has called me the best and the worst like five different times in the election cycle. But this is what happens when you run for president. Hillary Clinton, the enabler stuff that Trump is coming out with about her relationship to the different infidelities of her husband, that was vetted for years and years. She has been put into it.

COHEN: Hillary Clinton, Chris, Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump a sexist. Go back to the June, you know, interview that I had with you. He is a counterpuncher. You call him a sexist, no, no, no. You are an enabler, right. I am not a sexist. You're living with the sexist.

CUOMO: But you're saying -- that doesn't mean I'm not a sexist. If I say you're worse than I am doesn't mean I'm not a sexist.

COHEN: Of course it doesn't. But he is not. In other words, he treats everybody exactly the same. When it wasn't fashionable for a woman to be a general contractor in Manhattan real estate, which is historically a male dominated industry, Donald Trump put the first woman into that position.

[08:10:06] CUOMO: We did that segment on this show.

COHEN: You sure did.

CUOMO: To Trump supporters who say that we don't accurately reflect what's going on, we're the only show who did that. You came in with a big stack of papers and said these are all our female employees.

COHEN: And I showed it to you, and you looked at it and --

CUOMO: That's right.

COHEN: The Trump Organization didn't hire women because there was a political campaign that was going to be had 30 years later. The Trump campaign, the Trump Organization did it because that's how Mr. Trump feels.

CUOMO: What is Trump going to do with "The New York Times"? Is he going to let it lie, or is this just the beginning of a process? Is there a chance he could actually sue them, very high bar for the press? COHEN: It is a very high bar. I don't think that this is going to

end up in litigation. The truth is that "The New York Times" owes both Ms. Brewer and Donald Trump an apology, and they need to do a retraction. And they need to actually be fair because they're destroying their paper.

CUOMO: Counsel, thank you for making the case on NEW DAY as always. Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Chris, turning to the Democrats, Hillary Clinton's super PAC set to launch a $6 million ad campaign focusing on the general election and targeting Donald Trump. But with Oregon and Kentucky holding primaries today, Clinton first has to beat Bernie Sanders. Let's bring in CNN senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns. How is it looking today, Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, the polls have opened in Kentucky. It is raining in parts of the state, which only adds to concerns about turnout there today. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have spent time in the bluegrass state. But it's the former secretary of state who could use a win to try to make the point that she has got some strength, particularly in Appalachia.

Sanders has had a string of victories in the primaries in caucuses, and Clinton is far ahead in the department count but she has done multiple stops there in Kentucky, using her husband, the former president who has won elections there before, as a selling point, suggesting he'll have a role in steering the economy if elected. At the same time she continues to hammer away at Donald Trump. And overnight, she got a little help from Priorities USA super PAC which just rolled out new ads. You just saw one of them moment ago. Let's look at the other one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you cut off funding for Planned Parenthood?

TRUMP: Yes, I would.

You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle?

TRUMP: The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the woman?

TRUMP: Yes, there has to be some form.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: By the way, Donald Trump tweeting this morning, calling the ad "pathetic." Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is hoping the Oregon primary on the Democratic side with a strong tradition of voting for progressive candidates will give him another big victory today, but Sanders continues to set his sights on the state of California and its primary which comes on June 7th. In fact, Sanders election night rally this evening is scheduled Los Angeles County. Back to you.

CUOMO: California, the last big ticket, Sanders seeing it all the way through. Joe Johns, thank you very much.

So if you have Kentucky and Oregon. Now, in Oregon, you still have a couple of hours before the primary polls open there. The ballots will be cast. It's already happening in Kentucky, so let's get there, CNN's Brynn Gingras watching democracy unfold at a polling site in Louisville. How you doing, Brynn?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Doing great, Chris, thanks. This morning, it has actually been quite busy at this particular polling location despite the rain Joe was talking about going on outside. People anxious to get here and cast their ballots. The lines are petty long for this time in the morning, 8:00 morning rush, people heading here before they go to work and before they drop the kids off. At this particular location 2,500 registered Democrats are registered here, and so far, about 150 people have come to cast a ballot. So pretty good numbers so far.

And as we've been hearing all morning, this a state that Hillary Clinton wants to win. I've been talking to voters, and one woman actually told me she came here not really sure was it going to be Bernie Sanders or was it going to be Hillary. But what she looked at is who can beat Donald Trump now that he is the presumptive nominee. And she said Hillary Clinton, and that's why she cast her ballot for her this morning.

So there is a lot of sort of maneuvering going in and mind thinking and trying to figure out exactly who can go forward when it comes to November. So we'll see how all those votes turns out later today. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Brynn, thanks so much.

Breaking moments ago, we have to tell you about this, a third suicide attack in Baghdad this morning, a car bomb killing at least seven and wounding 21 others. Another booby-trapped car was diffused by a bomb squad. This follows two earlier attacks that killed 14 people and injured dozens more. The total death toll now stands at 21. ISIS is claiming responsibility for one of the attacks thus far.

[08:15:02] CUOMO: A federal court is ordering a Mississippi town to fully desegregate its schools. This is the culmination of a 50 year fight against the Justice Department. Black and white students are largely separated in Cleveland.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (voice-over): That's Mississippi's middle, junior and high schools. Under the order, the town's two high schools must become one, and students from the junior high and middle school must be combined. (END VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (on camera): No comment yet from the school district. Two earlier plans to desegregate were denied by the courts.

CAMEROTA: Okay, the primary season is winding down, but thankfully the punch lines keep coming. Cue the Late Night Laughs.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

SETH MEYERS, COMEDIAN: Tomorrow is the Kentucky Democratic primary, and in an act of desperation, Bernie is now going by Colonel Sanders.

JIMMY FALLON, COMEDIAN: A restaurant in Lithuania is stirring up controversy by displaying a mural on its wall that shows Donald Trump kissing Vladimir Putin. Trump said he's not mad that it shows him kissing a man, he's mad that it shows him kissing someone over 40. And that's - that is - I don't like it, no.

STEPHEN COLBERT, COMEDIAN: Secretary Clinton unveiled her secret weapon to fix the economy.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My husband who I'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy.

COLBERT: Now we know who the arrow on Clinton's logo has been pointing at. Come back, hey. What's up. I still got it.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO: I still got it.

CAMEROTA: Good impersonation busted out there.

CUOMO: Very good, very good.

All right, so talking about the race is also fun, but also very strange sometimes, especially the situation in the GOP where Republicans have been slow to warm to their presumptive nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (voice-over): But some are starting to come around and putting party first. One of them, a former Ted Cruz supporter, Texas Governor Greg Abbott. We're going to talk to the governor about why he's in Trump's corner, and his book, coming up.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:40] CAMEROTA: Donald Trump looking to unify the Republican party behind him, but many key Republicans still reluctant to support the presumptive nominee, while some are starting to come around. Joining us now, Texas Governor Greg Abbott. He's also the author of the new book, "Broken but Unbowed." It is available today. Governor, great to have you here in studio.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT, (R) TEXAS: Great to be here with you. Thank you so much, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Look very forward to talking about your book and the message of the book, which is such an important one, but first, let's talk about Donald Trump.

ABBOTT: Sure.

CAMEROTA: You are a long time Ted Cruz supporter, so why now are you getting behind Donald Trump?

ABBOTT: Well, because Ted Cruz has dropped out of the race. Understand where I come from here, and that is Ted Cruz is more than a presidential candidate to me. Ted Cruz is a friend of mine. When I was the attorney general of Texas, Ted Cruz was my solicitor general. So, I knew him from behind the scenes, I knew what he thought on a daily basis and where his convictions were. And so, I was a Ted Cruz guy. But after he dropped out, there is a choice. None of the above is not a choice. And I know the devastation that Hillary Clinton would wreck upon the United States of America, and the necessity of the Republicans defeating Hillary Clinton.

CAMEROTA: But what about your colleagues, many in Congress, who say that, you know, they're standing on their principles and their conservative values, that they can't get their arms around Donald Trump yet because they don't think that he reflects those.

ABBOTT: They are standing on their principles and not voting for the Republican nominee, that means they are aligning their principles with Hillary Clinton, which is far more dangerous. We have Supreme Court openings that need to be filled. We have Hillary Clinton causing havoc with regard to ISIS. We have Hillary Clinton promising to keep our borders open the same way that Barack Obama did. Hillary Clinton is not a viable option for the future of the United States of America.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask you about something that's gotten a lot of attention this week and in the past month, the so-called transgender bathroom law, the directive that has come down from the president that public schools, the students in them can use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. You're fighting this in Texas.

ABBOTT: We are, for the very same reason that I talk about in this book about the 31 fights that I waged against the Obama administration. And I did so because what Barack Obama has done is turn the Constitution upside down. By him issuing this directive, it is totally against what Congress chose to do. Congress is the branch of government in charge of making policy. Congress voted on this very issue. Congress voted not to add transgender to the Civil Rights Act, or to Title 9, and despite that fact, Barack Obama is acting as a king, acting as a dictator by imposing this is absolutely contrary to what the Constitution allows.

CAMEROTA: You're talking about the policy. What about the personal? What about the kids who for the first time sort of feel recognized and seen as though -- and maybe they're not oddities and they're going to be able to make this choice. Do you - do you relate to it on that level?

ABBOTT: I do. You raise such a critically important point here, and that is the perspective of the average American, they look - they look at the issue through the lens of the personal perspective, but you cannot annihilate the Constitution because of the personal perspective. If you annihilate the Constitution, it destroys the entire country. The way to look at it through the personal perspective is through the policy makers that are created by the United States Constitution and those are the members of the United States Congress. The president cannot mow down the Constitution just because he empathizes with these individuals.

CAMEROTA: I want to talk to you about your book, "Broken but Unbowed." You tell the story of what happened to you at 26 years old. You were out for a run and an oak tree collapsed on you, fracturing your vertebrae and your spinal cord, injuring it permanently. You are now permanently paralyzed, but not many people realize that. I have interviewed you via satellite and I didn't know that. How have you been able to sort of soldier on and not let people know that you're paralyzed?

ABBOTT: Right, and obviously, I don't know if people can see on the camera or not, I'm sitting in a chair, but I...

CAMEROTA: And you came in in a wheelchair.

ABBOTT: I always use a wheelchair because I can't walk, because I am paralyzed.

[08:25:00] And believe me, it was a very difficult time. I was 26 years old. I had been athletic my entire life, and suddenly I would never be able to walk again. But you piece your life back together and I learned maybe the most important thing you can learn in life, and that is our lives are not measured by the ways in which we are challenged, instead they're measured by the way we respond to the challenges we face. Your viewers right now, almost all of them, have challenges in their lives. Do not let those challenges bog down your life. Find a way -- pathway - find a pathway forward that you can respond to it in a way that you - will make you, your life and your community a better place.

CAMEROTA: You say in the book that your life was better after the accident. How is that possible?

ABBOTT: It's so hard to understand until you go through something like that. But for one, my connection with God was a whole lot stronger. For another, being able to persevere over a challenge like that gives you an internal strength knowing that you can take on any challenge in life. But also there's the thankfulness that you're just alive. And when - when you realize that you could have been dead but you're still alive, you realize to live each and every day in a way that's going to be productive and contributive to the world that we live in. CAMEROTA: Gosh, what a great reminder when we get so bogged down in our daily lives. Governor Greg Abbott, the book is "Broken but Unbowed." Thanks so much for sharing your story and for being here.

ABBOTT: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: What's your take on all of this? You can tweet us @NEWDAY or post your comments on facebook.com/NEWDAY.

Chris?

CUOMO (on camera): One word for the governor: strong.

We hear about threats and violence at Trump rallies all the time, but did you know it's becoming more common at Clinton rallies as well? And now we have Sanders supporters allegedly making death threats and personal attacks in the name of the Vermont senator. So how will their campaign respond? We're going to hear from the campaign manager about that and the state of the race, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)