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Clinton Defends Private E-mail Use, Slams Report; Trump Willing to Debate Sanders for Charity; Obama: World Leaders 'Rattled' by Trump. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 26, 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; Bernie would be easier to beat. If I debated him, we would have such high ratings.

[05:58:06] SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We can win. Donald Trump is toast.

TRUMP: Crooked Hillary. Crooked Hillary. She's as crooked as they come.

CLINTON: He makes a habit of insulting women.

TRUMP: I was being hit by Pocahontas, Elizabeth Warren.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He seems to have something about women.

TRUMP: The inspector general's report. Not good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The time that she took office, the use of personal e-mail was not disallowed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As the secretary, she's supposed to abide by the rules.

CLINTON: It is not an issue that is going to affect the campaign.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gunshots rang out backstage before rapper T.I. performed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the midst of the concert, I heard two pops.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have identified four gunshot victims.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're running for their lives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was terrified.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. it is Thursday, May 26, 6 a.m. in the EAst. Alisyn and I are joined again by Ana Cabrera.

It's good to have you on.

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Happy Friday eve.

CUOMO: Up first, got big nose [SIC] this morning. A blistering report from the State Department's inspector general, claiming Hillary Clinton did violate e-mail rules. Clinton continues to defend her use of a private server during her time as the secretary of state. Donald Trump pouncing on Clinton, says she is as crooked as they come. President Obama was asked about this at G-7 summit, but he told reporters in Japan that world leaders are rattled by Trump.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN CUOMO: So Trump went on late night. He was talking on Jimmy Kimmel's show, where he said that he was willing to debate Bernie Sanders for charity.

All of this as we're learning more about a shakeup inside the Trump campaign, Trump firing a top aide who just came on board.

We have the 2016 race covered the way only CNN can. Let's begin with Joe Johns. He's live in Washington.

Good morning, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Hillary Clinton responding overnight to the latest development in the e-mail controversy that has dogged her campaign since she got into the race, pointing out that that scathing inspector general's report that says she broke the rules while she was secretary of state, that she should have surrendered all government-related e-mails when she left office. The message from Hillary Clinton was pretty consistent with what she's been saying over the last month or two, dismissing this report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Just like previous secretaries of state, I used a personal e-mail. Many people did. It was not at all unprecedented. I have turned over all of my e-mails. No one else can say that. I have been incredibly open about doing that. I will continue to be open. And it's not an issue that is going to affect either the campaign or my presidency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: Now, the I.G. audit pointed to system-wide weaknesses in electronic recordkeeping at the Department of State that spanned other administrations. The report was also critical of former Secretary of State Colin Powell's e-mail practices. But the audit also said Mrs. Clinton did not get official approval to conduct business on private e-mail or a private server, which contradicts assertions the campaign has made in the past.

Politically, yet another problem for the Clinton administration, putting her back on defense just a couple weeks away from the California primary. And as we heard just a little while ago, the president of the United States really deflecting when asked about the e-mail controversy and trying not to weigh in on it.

Ana, back to you.

CABRERA: All right. Joe Johns reporting. Thank you.

Now, Hillary Clinton won't debate Bernie Sanders, but it looks like Donald Trump will. He says he's ready to go toe to toe with Sanders, insisting they do it for charity just before the California primary.

CNN's Sara Murray is joining us live with this little twist in all the action -- Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Ana.

Donald Trump has gotten used to calling Bernie Sanders "Crazy Bernie" on the campaign trail, but it looks like that doesn't mean he wouldn't be willing to debate him, at least as long as it's on Donald Trump's terms.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY (voice-over): Donald Trump's jumping at an invitation from Bernie Sanders to debate before California's June 7th primary if the price is right.

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, ABC'S "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!": Yes or no. He wants to know if you will debate him.

TRUMP: Yes, I am. How much is he going to pay me?

KIMMEL: You would do it for a price? What would that be?

TRUMP: Yes, if I debated him, we would have such high ratings; and I think I should give -- take that money and give it to some worthy charity.

MURRAY: Sanders responding on Twitter, saying game on.

Talking to Jimmy Kimmel, Trump also admitting he has used aliases to scope out properties in the past.

TRUMP: You know, over the years, I've used aliases. I actually used the name Barron, and I ended up using it for my son, because I made a very good deal using that name. Many people in the real-estate business do that. You use alias. And you have to. Otherwise, they find out it's you, and they charge you more money. And nobody wants to pay more money.

MURRAY: This admission after the presumptive GOP nominee denied reports he'd posed as his own publicist under names of John Miller and John Barron.

But Trump attracted more than laughs Wednesday, also drawing protestors outside of Kimmel's studio.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you a racist, too? Shame on you, Jimmy Kimmel.

MURRAY: And even more outside of his rally in Anaheim, marking the second day of violent clashes between police and protesters at Trump's events.

TRUMP: Crooked Hillary, she's as crooked as they come.

MURRAY: Inside, Trump taking aim at Hillary Clinton over a report from the State Department's inspector general that says her use of a private e-mail server broke the rules.

TRUMP: Inspector general's report, not good.

MURRAY: And using the rally to unload on other political opponents including one of his most vocal adversaries, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren.

TRUMP: I was being hit by Pocahontas. Pocahontas, that's Elizabeth Warren.

MURRAY: Even attacking the Native American ancestry Warren once claimed.

TRUMP: I call her goofy. She is -- no, no, goofy. She gets less done than anybody in the United States Senate. She gets nothing done, nothing passed. She's got a big mouth, and that's about it.

MURRAY: The insults are nothing new for Trump, but his latest target, New Mexico's Latina Republican governor, Susana Martinez, has puzzled some.

TRUMP: She's got to do a better job. OK? She's not doing the job.

MURRAY: Ohio Governor John Kasich coming to Martinez's defense Wednesday, tweeting, "She's exactly who our party and nominee should be lifting up and supporting, not tearing down."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, the other big story in the Trump campaign this morning is yet another staff shakeup. Donald Trump is parting ways with his political director, Rick Wiley. That's just six weeks after bringing him on board. All of this appears to be going back to this continuing power struggle between two of Donald Trump's top aides, Paul Manafort and Corey Lewandowski. So clearly, still a few wrinkles to iron out in the campaign structure.

Back to you, Chris and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, Sara. Stay with us if you would, because we want to discuss this with our panel: CNN political analyst and the host of "The David Gregory Show" podcast, David Gregory; and senior editor for "The Atlantic," David Frum. Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here. [06:05:10] David, I want to start with you. Just to recap, let's look at the highlights, some of them, of the inspector general report. Let me just read to you what we've put in here.

Clinton should have surrendered all e-mails. It turns out she did not. Clinton did not comply with the State Department policies. Two staff members voiced concern about e-mail use and were told by bosses, "Nothing to see here. Don't worry about it." Clinton and staff declined to be interviewed, some of them did. This violated several rules.

How big of a deal, David Frum, is this?

DAVID FRUM, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE ATLANTIC": It's a reasonably big deal, especially when you sort of dust away the specific allegations to unearth what was really going on, which was the whole e-mail system was structured to defeat future freedom of information requests.

That is, these were not technical violations. The point of the plan was to make it harder for people to know what Hillary Clinton was e- mailing. And even to defeat legitimate inquiries from members of Congress. So that's news.

CUOMO: And what she decided to keep from people, David Gregory, is going to wind up being the best ammunition against her. What was deleted? There is nothing as tantalizing as the unknown in politics. How big is this going to play? And I say "play," because we're not talking about crimes. We're talking about violations of State Department rules, so it's a different context of consequence.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, exactly.

I want to disclose that my wife, Beth Wilkinson, who is a lawyer, represents several of Hillary Clinton's aides in this matter, including in the FBI inquiry, so it's important for our viewers to know that.

I think the political difficulty for Hillary Clinton here is how they have handled the release of these e-mails and a description of her e- mail practices and the private server practice. That has been slow. That communication has been really poorly handled in terms of sharing what the practices were and the actual e-mails themselves.

I think the most difficult issue here is the FBI inquiry, the handling of classified information. I think that's what people in and outside of the government are most worried about.

CUOMO: That's the legal one. That's where an indictment can come.

But the concern coming out of this report is you were told to hand over e-mails, and you went through them yourself first, decided what you should turn over, and deleted a bunch of them in a way where they could not be recovered. I think that's going to play more than anything else. Because until we hear from the FBI, we don't, but what we heard here, don't you think that's the takeaway? GREGORY: Yes, and I think that is -- again, I think that is the

problem, making decisions about what was personal and what wasn't off the personal server, I think were bad decisions that were made by Clinton and the rest of her team, as well as the others that were released.

So that's -- that's the political tricky part. I mean, there may be cover in this in the fact that this was systemic, that there were other secretaries of state who were also criticized, and that there was -- her e-mail practice were known. It's what she has said repeated, but it doesn't affect how bad the timing is and how politically complicated it gets, separating which of these inquiries is the most damaging.

CAMEROTA: Sara, there are just also things in here that seem to contradict, or at least belie, some of that the Clinton campaign has said. No. 1, she did it strictly for convenience. It doesn't sound like that. No. 2, that all it had been cleared and approved by the State Department.

Now these findings don't sound like that. What jumps out at you?

MURRAY: Well, I think that the broader problem here is that, regardless of the Clinton -- what the Clinton campaign has said, that this won't be an issue or that this isn't going to affect this campaign, it's clear that this has already hit her in her trustworthy numbers.

And if you have a drumbeat of reports like this, you know, people are going to keep looking back to this inspector general report, and they're going to keep pulling out tidbits, and they're going to keep saying, "Look, the Clintons don't play by the rules. You can't trust them." And that's the kind of thing that has already been damaging to her numbers with the American public and certainly not the kind of thing that's going to be helpful as she appears to be in this increasingly tight, potentially, general election fight with Donald Trump.

And so I do think that David Gregory is completely right that they haven't really crafted a narrative around this that the American public believes yet.

GREGORY: I do want to point out one other thing, just to -- I think what the Clinton team would argue about what David Frum said is that there was no organized effort to deny access via FOIA, that there may have been lapses in terms of the e-mail practices and how they kept track of these things.

And this is the kind of thing that is going to be sorted out through, you know, other inquiries and -- but is still separate from, I think, the bigger matters you pointed out, Chris, which has to do with the FBI probe.

FRUM: In the end, the Clinton defense on this matter is going to come down to this, which is "You just have to trust us, that we didn't mean anything bad and we deleted nothing important." And when you are dealing with a candidate who is not trusted, this

will -- her defense ultimately now will resolve to her own word, unless it is -- the missing e-mails are reconstituted. And that's not her best asset. Her own word is not a bond with the American public.

[06:10:05] CUOMO: So is the only saving grace at this point, I mean, you know, whether you want to use the word "contradicts," "belies," "proves to be wrong," they all wind up in the same place, which is you did something that was sneaky. You got caught, and then you tried to hide it, and you got caught again.

Is this all about whether or not there are any indictments? And at the end of the day, that's their only fall back, David?

FRUM: You mean David Frum?

CUOMO: Always, by definition. Whenever I say "David," I mean "Frum." When I'm talking about David Gregory, I usually use the word "handsome."

FRUM: As do we all.

I don't think the absence of indictments will make -- will go -- will settle the issue, because it will remain a cloud and an accumulating cloud.

Behind all of the argument of the headlines, two big things have happened in the past month. The first is that the Republican Party has really and truly consolidated around Donald Trump. There's not going to be a third party. Eighty-five percent of Republicans and rising are accepting his candidacy.

The second thing that has happened has been this plunge in support for Hillary Clinton about men, especially white men and, most alarmingly for her, college-educated white men. She always had trouble with the non-college whites, but she dropped 14 points in the past two months among college-educated white men. And she was counting on the defection of the more affluent, comfortable parts of the Republican coalition away from Donald Trump to put her over the top.

Things like this e-mail server, which go to that core problem with the Hillary Clinton appeal, is can she be trusted? Is she an honest person? And that is going to be especially damaging, since her best weapon against Donald Trump is the suggestion that he is unreliable and unsteady.

CAMEROTA: OK, David Gregory, let's move on to Donald Trump. He also is making news, as per usual. He seems to be in this fight with the New Mexico governor, Susana Martinez. He was appearing in New Mexico, and when asked of the governor, he said he would do a better job and she doesn't -- maybe he should run for governor of the state.

And she put out a statement saying that his statement was wrong now. His former rival, John Kasich, has tweeted a couple of things to support Governor Martinez. He says, "Governor Martinez is an outstanding governor who has brought conservative reform to a blue state." Second tweet, "She's exactly who our party and nominee should be lifting up and supporting, not tearing down."

David Gregory, what is the strategy here of Donald Trump going after a female Hispanic successful Republican governor?

GREGORY: There's no strategy. I mean, this is Trump being Trump. This is Trump reacting personally, being aggravated, having this, you know, this sense of pique, you know, that she didn't show up and was mildly critical of him. And so he lashes out at her, not thinking about the consequences, presumably not caring about the consequences.

This is Donald Trump having a post period of capturing, you know, becoming the presumptive nominee and making something of a pivot to the general election, and now just snapping right back to his instincts and to his gut performance, which has gotten him pretty far. It got him the nomination of the Republican Party.

But there is nothing that is served by attacking Susana -- Susana Martinez of New Mexico.

CUOMO: Sure there is.

GREGORY: It does absolutely no -- nothing but harm him at the time. I mean, there's no...

CUOMO: It makes him feel better, though, David. He does it, because it makes him feel better. That's why he does it. She wouldn't show up at the event. Had Sam Clovis on. He said, "Well, I think that's about her not getting on board, not coming to the event."

That's what it is. "You didn't come to my party. I think you stink."

GREGORY: Right.

CUOMO: That's what he said.

GREGORY: No, I get it. That's what I'm saying. This is -- there's no reason to intellectualize this. This is Trump being Trump, but it's just that there's an absence of any, you know, strategic thinking about how you put all of this together. I mean, he just makes pronouncements. "Well, Hispanics love me. I love Hispanics. They're going to come my way."

But this is even bigger than Hispanics. You have a sitting governor with the organizing potential that she has in that state and beyond, and he seems to be casting her aside.

CAMEROTA: All right. Panel, thank you very much for all of those insights. We will speak to you shortly. We want to get to Ana.

CABRERA: Well, President Obama weighing in this morning, giving a global indictment of Donald Trump, telling reporters at the G-7 summit that world leaders are rattled by Trump. Our panel will discuss this next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:18:31] CUOMO: What is President Obama going to do, right? That's been the big anticipation. How is he going to help Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, whoever the nominee is? We're getting a sense now about how the president wants to weigh in on the 2016 race. He's at the G-7 summit, right? He had harsh words about Donald Trump and how foreign leaders perceive him. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's fair to say that they are surprised by the Republican nominee. They are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements. But they're rattled by him. And for good reason.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The message and the meaning. Let's discuss. David Gregory, David Frum, Sara Murray.

Sara, let's start with you. Was this something that we knew was coming or was this a little bit of a surprise?

MURRAY: I think President Obama has sort of given this indication before, that some world leaders look at the things that Donald Trump has -- is saying, and they aren't sure how much of it he believes, how much he would really enact if he were president and if they are a little bit concerned about some of the things he said.

You know, he said that he would sit down with the North Korean leader. He has insulted some of our closest allies. And I think when you look at the race tightening in a potential general election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, we shouldn't be surprised to see that world leaders are asking President Obama some questions about how he thinks this would all play out.

But it is sort of stark to see President Obama on this foreign trip out there, talking about the potential impact of Donald Trump as president.

CAMEROTA: But David Frum, I mean, this was typically understated Obama. World leaders are surprised. They're unsettled. You know, he didn't say, "They're freaking out," as we've heard, you know, from some people who have come on our set who have been overseas. Is this -- is he strong enough on this?

[06:20:14] FRUM: Well, it's understated because of the audience he's appealing to. President Obama remembers that in 2008, because of Iraq and the financial crisis, he was able to pull many business leaders and many of the sort of more substantial people in the Republican coalition away from the Republican ranks to the Democratic Party.

In 2012, President Obama won with a much narrower coalition. A lot of those former nervous Republicans returned to vote for Mitt Romney. He's trying to revive the 2008 coalition. And you don't talk to those people in inflammatory ways. You talk to them in sober and settled ways to make the party look sober and settled. Hillary Clinton's problem is she is much less appealing to that 2008

coalition than Barack Obama was for a lot of reasons.

CUOMO: David Gregory, one of the things that you're very good at is telescoping when something -- when something happens in the moment, what is it going to mean down the road? This is one of those moments.

You have the president of the United States around all of these world leaders of the G-7, and he's talking about the key issue for Trump, which is temperament, you know, and how are you perceived, and what kind of risks do you present for the United States and stability? What could this mean?

GREGORY: Well, you know, Barack Obama is now in a unique position. He's the only president of the United States, and he's one of very few who are actually still alive, current and former. So he brings a sobriety to that and all that the office entails.

Because I do think that, when Obama is speaking to a particular audience, it includes people who think about the White House and think about the presidency. They close their eyes and they say, "Can I imagine this person being the president?"

Whenever they think of President Obama, they're thinking about that in terms of Clinton and in terms of Trump. They're also thinking about whether the president will do any harm on the world stage.

And so you have not the people at the Trump rallies, you have people who are persuadable. They are suburbanites. They are more moderate voters who are watching all of this, thinking about the choice for president, thinking, wow, is this person qualified, and will they do any harm?

So there is a risk assessment and an assessment of temperament about how they'd handle problems. And I think that's the subtle message that the president is delivering, which is they're worried there's a lot of risk here. How is it going to turn out? Do they want to take the chance? He's making that argument subtly now. I think he'll make it more overtly later.

CAMEROTA: But Sara...

FRUM: He's also trying to turn off the donor flow to Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: I'm sorry. What, David Frum?

FRUM: He's also trying to turn off the flow of donations to Donald Trump. "The New York Times" had a story a few days ago that found that the 50 biggest donors to past Republican campaigns, 42 had not yet made a commitment to Donald Trump; and many of them are -- they're just nervous.

And those are people whom the president would have a more direct connection to, and he's trying to signal to the 42 big Republican donors who have not yet committed to Trump, "Think again. Be cautious." CUOMO: And Paul Manafort just helped out this criticism. He did this

big interview with "The Huffington Post," and talking about Trump, he said, "You don't manage Donald Trump. You don't guide him that way."

I know that he intends it to mean he's strong man, he knows his own mind, but this is a process where you're supposed to be open to different opinions.

CAMEROTA: He also made big news in this interview by saying, "You know, that whole Muslim ban thing, he's moderating on that. He's going to start moderating. This is what Donald Trump does. He starts at the outer edge of something. That's his opener. And then he, you know, reels it back in towards the middle. This is how he negotiates," Sara.

MURRAY: Well, first I think Paul Manafort learned the hard way that you can't manage Donald Trump. I mean, he is the one who went to the RNC meeting and said behind closed doors that Donald Trump would sort of take on a new tone. He would be a little bit different. He would be a little more presidential; and there was pretty severe backlash after he said that. You know, Donald Trump and some of his close allies didn't like that.

So I think we need to remember that Manafort has learned his lesson in other ways.

But I even think Donald Trump has now said, "Look, when I talk about the Muslim ban, I've been saying it's only temporary. I'm saying this is a starting point. I'm saying we need to figure out what's going on."

So I do think, in some ways, Donald Trump has tried to moderate that position, but I think that's a very difficult thing to walk back on. We have video. We have Donald Trump at a campaign rally reading a statement saying it's time to ban all Muslims until we figure out what's going on.

CUOMO: Right. Trump...

MURRAY: And that's what's going to appear in general election ads.

CUOMO: From this quote, "You don't change Donald Trump. You don't manage him," do you think that's something that Manafort's going to want to walk back, because it goes directly to temperament. That's the concern with Trump.

This New Mexican governor, who lines up as someone who should certainly be his ally. You know, Alisyn's completely right: he should have just thrown his arms around her. She does something he doesn't like, boom.

Elizabeth Warren, they get into a spat back and forth. He doesn't attack her arguments; he calls her "Pocahontas." These are things that you can't do on an international stage, unless you want to foment tensions in a way that is really, now, dangerous.

CAMEROTA: David Gregory, take that.

GREGORY: Yes, I mean, I think that -- that is the problem, because I think the ultimate issue here, Chris and Alisyn, is that there's no knowing what is truly in Donald Trump's mind. What are his core beliefs?

And again, if you come back to temperament and risk, what is it that he really believes in? If the Muslim ban was just an opening gambit, you know, you want to be president of the United States, and you just kind of throw some of those ideas around? What are people to make of that? And what is -- what is the risk of things that you actually might follow through on if you have the vested authority as the president of the United States?

So I think that's what's difficult right now for other Republican leaders. Again, he's demonstrated a lot of success managing himself and shooting from the hip, but this becomes a problem on further consolidating the party, which as unconventional as Donald Trump wants to be, he still actually has to do if he's going to win the general election.

FRUM: That message may have been more narrow cast, though. Because there was a line forming of people inside the Republican Party, thinking they were just the head of the line, who were applying for the job of managing Donald Trump, who are saying, "Put me somewhere close." There's the vice president. There was White House chief of staff. "And I will manage him." Paul Manafort is warning them off as well as he's talking to the public.

CUOMO: Strong point.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Interesting. Panel, thank you very much for sharing all of your insights.

Let's get over to Ana with other news.

CABRERA: Believe it or not, there is other news than just politics we're talking about this morning. Deadly gun violence erupting at a New York City concert headlined by the rapper T.I. At least one person killed. I'll tell you what happened next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)