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Protestors Rush Stage at Sanders Rally; Trump to Reveal Details on Veterans' Charity Money; Trump University 'Playbooks' to Be Unveiled; Zoo Stands by Decision to Kill Gorilla. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 31, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step away right now.

[05:58:29] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Protestors tried to storm the stage at a Sanders rally.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't get intimidated easily.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE; We won. We -- we. I'm just the messenger.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via phone): This is not a reality show. It's not just politics.

TRUMP: Hillary can't even beat Bernie, and beating Bernie would not be tough.

SANDERS: I'll do everything I can to see that Trump is defeated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gorilla has a child.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This child was being dragged around. This is not a gentle thing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was he looking at this child to protect or was he looking at it as just a rag doll?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was no other decision to make.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rio de Janeiro. The host of the 2016 Summer Olympics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything's going to be ready on time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't come here expecting everything to be, you know, perfect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are Rio's Olympics somehow cursed?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, May 31, 6 a.m. in the East.

Up first, Bernie Sanders back on the campaign trail after a big security scare at a rally in Oakland. The Secret Service racing to shield Sanders when protestors rushed the stage.

Sanders and Hillary Clinton barnstorming California today, one week before the critical primary there.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump, it's disclosure day. He's expected to provide a full accounting of which veterans' charities benefitted from that controversial Iowa fund-raiser back in January. You'll remember, he claimed to have raised $6 million.

Now Trump says he's the only one to raise money and that this analysis is unfair. Others say it's about delivering on a promise.

Now, the more critical disclosure for Trump today is his internal playbook documents from Trump University. Those are also being unsealed today.

We have the race for the White House covered the way only CNN can. Let's start with senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns -- Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

A huge crowd in California getting to see how quickly the Secret Service protection detail can spring into action after a few protestors from an animal rights group seeking to put a spotlight on its stance against agro-business tried to rush the stage. It was all over in moments, but will be remembered as one more event in a strange and unpredictable presidential primary season.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step away. Right there, right there.

JOHNS (voice-over): Dramatic moments at a Bernie Sanders rally in downtown Oakland, California. Secret Service agents jumping onstage, pulling the presidential candidate away from the microphone.

At least four protestors leaped over barricades, yelling and attempting to rush the podium. Secret Service detail quickly apprehending the individuals. One of the protestors appeared to be hit by a security member's baton while another was carried out of the venue by his arms and legs.

Grassroots group and animal activists Direct Action Everywhere taking responsibility for disrupting the event, this latest skirmish on the 2016 campaign trail only one of several incidents this year causing the Secret Service to jump onstage.

Commotion breaking out at a Trump rally in Ohio in March, when a protestor tried to rush the stage.

TRUMP: I was ready. I don't know if I would have done well, but I would have been out there fighting, folks.

JOHNS: And in April, Trump's motorcade stopping along a highway in California after protestors blocked the hotel entrance where a GOP convention was being held, forcing the Republican candidate to exit his vehicle and cross the freeway on foot.

Sanders uninjured and seemingly unfazed by this incident.

SANDERS: We don't get intimidated easily.

JOHNS: The senator cheering on the Golden State Warriors later in the night, continuing to barnstorm California.

SANDERS: Does this guarantee me the California primary?

JOHNS: Before June 7's delegate-rich primary in the state, his attempt to wrest the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Bernie Sanders got his Secret Service detail all the way back in February when the primary season was just getting started. At that time aides said privately that the candidate reluctantly asked for and accepted the protection -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Joe. Thank you very much.

Today is also potential good news/bad news day for Donald Trump. Today is the day he's going to tell us how many veterans' charities benefited from the millions he raised back in January, but it is also the day that internal documents from the Trump University fraud lawsuit are being unsealed by a judge. What will they tell the rest of us?

CNN's Sara Murray is live in Washington with what we expect to learn. What do you got?

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

Well, it is a day of transparency for Donald Trump, some by his own volition and some of it under court order as you explained there.

Now, Trump is going to attempt to set the record straight this morning on just how much money he raised for vets and were exactly that money went. Remember, he skipped a FOX News debate right before the Iowa caucuses to hold this fund-raiser in Iowa instead. But ever since then, questions have dogged him about exactly how much money he raised, which veterans' groups are benefitting.

CNN has independently confirmed about $3 million of those donations, as well as a $1 million from Trump himself. But he's going to hold a press conference at Trump Tower later this morning, where he's expected to lay out all the details of which veterans' groups are benefiting from this. And I think you can bet he'll be slamming the press along the way for all the scrutiny he's gotten from this. Now, his other brush with transparency today is a little trickier.

This one is coming under court order. That's after a judge presiding over the Trump University fraud case has directed that a number of documents be unsealed. Now, we're expecting these documents to give us a better sense of how these real-estate courses were run, as well as how executives sold them to consumers.

Remember, a number of students paid tens of thousands of dollars for these real-estate courses. They felt they were defrauded. Donald Trump says a number of students gave the courses good reviews. He says he could have settled this at any moment. And he even went so far last week as to attack the judge who is presiding over this case.

Now, Trump University was shuttered in 2011. You can bet that his political opponents are going to be looking for any sign in these documents that Trump is a billionaire who preyed upon average Americans and took advantage of them. So that's how we expect this could be played politically.

Back to you guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, Sara. Stay with us, if you would. We have a lot to talk about. So let's bring in our panel: CNN political analyst and host of "The David Gregory Show" podcast, David Gregory; and senior politics editor of "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich.

OK. Let's start with what's going to happen at 11 a.m., East Coast time today, and that is Donald Trump is going to make good, we think, or at least explain what happened at his fund-raiser for the vets. He had said that night would not -- we're not talking about the Trump University yet. Just the vets.

[06:05:09] The night that it happened he said that they had raised $6 million. Then over the next, previous, the last four months, they had a hard time producing that and explaining where it went.

Jackie, what are the chances that Donald Trump has something up his sleeve and today he'll come out and say, "You're right. We didn't raise $6 million. We raised $8 million." Something like that to put it to rest?

JACKIE KUCINICH, SENIOR POLITICS EDITOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": Yes, there could be, like, a Publisher's Clearing House check situation. I don't know.

But the fact of the matter is, I mean, no one in his camp could verify this $6 million for the last couple of months. "The Daily Beast" called the New Hampshire representative who was supposed to be managing as its vets chair. And the guy told us that, you know, it wasn't really high on his priority list where this money was.

Corey Lewandowski gave a number that was something like $4.5 million during an interview in another publication. So the damage might be already done here with people who are already skeptical about Trump's record with veterans. But we'll have to see, as you said. He could make -- he could -- he's

been known to turn things in his favor before. Why should we think anything differently today?

CAMEROTA: Sure.

CUOMO: Well, look, David, as you know, CNN's had a lot of the spotlight on this. We've been asking about the money early and often. Drew Griffin did a couple forensic-type looks at what it was and what you can figure out from the veterans' side, and the Trump campaign doesn't like it. They say this is unfair. He's the only that's raised money, and you guys were all over him just because it's Trump.

The pushback is, that's actually not true. You just want to see what was done, and it's a little bit about delivering on a promise, but how do you see the plus/minus on this?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's also about transparency. And look, Trump is a guy who's known to tell it like it is, but he doesn't like to show and tell. And that comes to his tax records and his tax returns and what his wealth actually is, what his contributions actually are.

So this is about how he organizes, what kind of organization he puts together, how he balances the books; and ultimately, does he make good on his promises?

You know, this is a candidate who is holding back financial information but who makes huge claims about his business acumen and his business record and, in this case, how he's supporting veterans. So he has a blind spot here. He's going to draw more scrutiny. This is what it means to be a presidential candidate.

And it's so interesting how he has to carve out time now from the beginning of a general election race to answer these kinds of queries to account for his -- his own management style and his own recordkeeping. Certainly, not what he expects to be talking about, but there's very little that he expects to talk about that he ultimately does. He tends to, you know, not necessarily follow a strategic path on the trail.

CAMEROTA: OK, Sara. Something else interesting is happening today. At noon today, those documents related to Trump University are being released. Here's what will be released, we believe: the 2009 playbook, the 2010 playbook. And by this they mean, I guess, the standards and practices and how they went about marketing and sales stuff. The field team playbook and the sales playbook. So what do we think will be revealed today?

MURRAY: Well, I think, obviously, you're going to see how they sold these courses, and we're going to get a better sense of what Donald Trump's role actually was in all of this.

I mean, one of the sort of secrets behind Donald Trump's businesses is that, while he puts his name on a lot of things and insists he's going to be directly involved in a lot of these things, whether they're real-estate courses or whether they're buildings.

A lot of times, it's really his name that's involved. It's not he himself, the billionaire, who is intimately involved in that. So I think you'll see a little bit of that.

And I think, you know, the political fallout here is, if there is any indication, you know, anything for his opponents to seize on to say they were up-selling people who didn't necessarily have the means, that they were, you know, potentially misleading the individuals, we will see whether any of that is in the documents. But if you were in Hillary Clinton's camp right now, that is definitely what you're going to be looking for.

CUOMO: Right, but Jackie, this is not about politics. This is about law. You have class action suits. You also have the New York attorney general that wants to take him to trial for fraud. I mean, this is different than just what we think about it. I mean, the numbers are impressive. You've got $40 million, 10,000 people, these class actions.

The Trump people push back and say, "Hey, we can show you people in these class-action suits who have actually since recanted." Twelve out of thousands have done that. So this is a legal matter; this is a big problem. What kind of legs can this have if he's not able to push off all these trials until after the election?

KUCINICH: Well, even with -- even with the specter of these trials, even if they are after the election it can be problematic for Donald Trump. You said it's not political, but it is. I mean, just like, you know, some of the things going on with Hillary Clinton and the law are political.

So I mean, he needs -- he needs to put this to bed, but it doesn't really look like he's going to be able to yet. They've also said that most of the reviews were -- of Trump University were positive. But then it came out that, in fact, a lot of the people that took these courses were pressured to give them good reviews.

[06:10:03] So, really, this is a problem for Donald Trump. And, you know, disparaging the judge in one of the cases is not something that's going to bode well for him.

GREGORY: You know, this is not a policy dispute, either. I mean, this is -- this is about, I think, whether Donald Trump is true to his word, or whether he's a phony.

I think if his opponents, whether it's in this lawsuit or politically, can cast him as a guy who's not everything he says he is, in a sustained way, that has the potential, at least, to undermine him among his supporters and undermine him among those pool of persuadable voters out there that he's going for. Maybe not his tried and true supporters, but I do think this is a personal characteristic issue and less about, you know, a matter of debating policy, where he seems to have been pretty tough to -- to hurt.

CAMEROTA: Sara, one of the things that's interesting about this back and forth with the judge is that the Trump people do say the judge is biased. They say that he's anti-Trump. They also say that he's Mexican. That was one of the first things that Donald Trump said about him.

And yesterday I got into an exchange with Katrina Pierson, Trump's spokesperson, about that. She's admitted, basically, that she doesn't know if he -- the judge is American. But that didn't stop them from saying that he was Mexican and trying to connect him with La Raza. La Raza is the civil rights advocacy group that had been protesting at some of Trump's events.

But the judge is actually connected to La Raza Lawyers Association, a completely separate group. So this is part of how they sort of cloud the issue around these documents being released.

MURRAY: Right. I don't think that, you know, anyone looks at Donald Trump and say this is a guy who doesn't play it fast and loose with the facts. He just sort of throws things out there, and we've seen that throughout this campaign. And then he'll say, "Well, you know, like that's what I thought" or "That's what I heard." And you know, "It's not me who is saying this; it was someone else."

And I do think that is a way for him to sort of paint this as the, you know, book being stacked against him, that this is a judge who's against him in this case, that these people don't have real complaints.

And it is extremely rare, I mean, maybe unprecedented, to see a presidential candidate like this going after a federal judge, presiding over one of these lawsuits, but it is seem clear it's a way for Donald Trump to distract from the core issue here, which is this is his business. This was one of his businesses, one of the things he's touted on the trail as to why he's such a great success and why you should elect him to the White House, that he's had so much success in business. And so if there's a way to undermine that, I think that could be an issue.

CUOMO: Donald Trump would rather talk and be criticized for calling this judge Mexican all day rather than talk about the substance of that suit. I guarantee it.

CAMEROTA: At noon today, that might change. I mean, yes.

CUOMO: He may start talking about the judge again, because it's a great distraction from what's going on in that lawsuit.

CAMEROTA: All right. We shall see. Thank you very much to the panel.

In the next hour, Gary Johnson will be here. He's the Libertarian presidential party's nominee as of this week. He joins us live here on NEW DAY.

CUOMO: All right. Now to the growing outrage over the death of the Cincinnati Zoo's silverback gorilla, Harambe. The zoo is defending its decision to save the child by killing the gorilla. But many animal rights activists say that decision should be questioned and that the parents of the boy who snuck into Harambe's enclosure, well, they should be held responsible.

Let's bring in CNN's Jessica Schneider, live for us from Cincinnati. This is not going away. So how is it continuing to exist? How is it making manifest there on the ground?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Chris, there is wide- ranging outrage online. Hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for those parents to be prosecuted, but the zoo director is saying that he refuses to lay any blame; and he's stressing that those silverback gorillas are extremely dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THANE MAYNARD, CINCINNATI ZOO DIRECTOR: We did not take the shooting of Harambe lightly, but that child's life was in danger.

SCHNEIDER: The Cincinnati Zoo standing behind their call to kill the gorilla named Harambe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God! Oh, my God...

SCHNEIDER: After a 3-year-old boy fell roughly 10 feet into this moat Saturday, coming face-to-face with the 450-pound 17-year-old silverback.

MAYNARD: This child was being dragged around. His head was banging on concrete. This was not a gentle thing.

SCHNEIDER: But outrage continues to grow over the decision to shoot. The anger spreading online. A Change.org petition now garnering nearly 300,000 signatures demanding authorities investigate the little boy's parents for not watching their child.

The hashtag #justiceforHarambe trending on Twitter. "Don't take your kids to the zoo if you are unable to keep your eyes on them at all times," one user writes. And some are questioning how the protective barriers around the enclosure were breached. That's now under review by zoo officials, who claim the rails and wires the boy crawled through meet all safety requirements and have been in use for 38 years without incident.

MAYNARD: You can lock your car. You can lock your house, but if somebody really wants to get in, they can.

SCHNEIDER: The child's parents thanking the zoo in a statement, saying we know that this was a very difficult decision for them and that they are grieving the loss of their gorilla. One of Harambe's former caretakers emotional when recounting the silverback's fate.

[06:15:06] JERRY STONES, HARAMBE'S FORMER CARETAKER: He was in a situation where, there's this strange thing here that I don't know what -- what do I do? And do I fight it? Do I run from it? What do I do? And an unforeseen circumstance was born, and he had to lose.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: And so far no charges have been filed against the parents.

The zoo, meanwhile, says it will continue to breed gorillas. In fact, they say Harambe's sperm has been saved, and there have already been numerous requests for samples -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Jessica, we'll be talking more about this throughout the entire program. Thank you for that.

But first, we have some breaking news for you overnight. Northern Taiwan rattled by a strong earthquake, a 6.1 magnitude just hours ago. It was enough to shake office buildings in the capital city of Taipei. Some schools were evacuated. You can see here these schoolkids outside covering their heads. So far no reports of injuries or significant damage.

CUOMO: North Korea's latest attempt to launch a missile looks like a failure. That according to South Korea's military. The North's medium-range missiles are supposed to be able to reach Japan and U.S. military bases in the Pacific. But in a string of high-profile failures, ruler Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang has now tried four times to launch one of these missiles with no success.

CAMEROTA: The Florida Highway Patrol investigating this apparent case of road rage you're about to see. The driver of the silver car, aye- yi-yi, running over a motorcycle carrying two people. A fellow driver started recording after the car cut the motorcycle off, he says, and an argument ensued. The unidentified driver of the silver car was pulled over and arrested. Minutes later the two on that motorcycle were taken to the hospital but should be OK.

CUOMO: Charges there to get very heavy on the driver of that car.

CAMEROTA: You see it all the time. People need to somehow control their anger on the road.

CUOMO: All right. So back to growing outrage over the shooting death of that gorilla at the zoo. Here's the question: Do you think the gorilla posed an imminent threat to the life of that little boy, who was 3, not 4, by the way. There's that question. So there's one question.

And then there's the question of how did the happen? That goes to the safety of the zoo but also the parenting involved. A closer look at all of these questions, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:21:33] MAYNARD: Naturally, we did not take the shooting of Harambe lightly, but that child's life was in danger, and people who question that, who are our Monday morning quarterbacks or second guessers, don't understand that you can't take a risk with a silverback gorilla. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well, that's the director of the Cincinnati Zoo, defending the decision to kill a rare gorilla to save a boy who had slipped into its enclosure. But some critics believe the gorilla's death could have been prevented, and many blame the boy's mother.

Joining us now is Jeff Corwin, host of ABC's "Ocean Mysteries" and animal expert; and Mel Robbins, CNN commentator and legal analyst who wrote about this issue for CNN.com. Check it out online.

Thanks to both of you for being here.

Mel, I want to start with you. As of this morning, there are 300,000 signatures to an online petition of people calling for an investigation into the home environment of that little boy. As a lawyer, because I know you also write as a mother on this, but as a lawyer, can that happen?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR: You know, not on the facts as we have them, Alisyn. I mean, what you're looking at is people who are rightfully upset and angry over this tragedy and are looking for somebody to blame. So why not just sound off on a petition? But are they going to investigate the home life, based on the facts as we know them? Absolutely not.

CAMEROTA: Jeff, part of why people are so angry is because we're showing the part where the gorilla dragged the boy like a rag doll through the moat.

However, there were also parts that witnesses say where it looked like Harambe was protecting the little boy. He was standing over him. He pulled up his pants, the boy's little shorts at one point. He was holding his hand at one point. And that makes the witnesses think that maybe he was going to take care of him and not hurt him?

JEFF CORWIN, ANIMAL EXPERT: Well, this was an incredibly chaotic situation and, of course, we get to Monday-morning quarterback the scenario and look at these little bits and pieces of moments and piece the story together.

But this is an incredibly powerful creature, through no fault of its own found himself in a precarious and highly chaotic situation.

So what we have to keep in mind about these gorillas is that, like human beings, these are primates with incredibly complex, diverse emotions. And in a stressful environment like this, anything is possible.

The other thing we need to remember, incredibly powerful creature, 400 pounds, easily eight times stronger than someone built like myself.

CAMEROTA: In fact, the director of the Cincinnati Zoo yesterday made an analogy that I think really brings home just how powerful and erratic a gorilla can be in a situation like this. So listen to what he said yesterday. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYNARD: This is a dangerous animal. Now, I know you've seen photos, videos, gosh, he doesn't seem dangerous. We're talking about an animal with one hand that I've seen take a coconut and crunch it. He was disoriented. He'd never had anything like that going on. And that also led to the decision, of course, not to dart the animal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: He can crush a coconut, Mel, with one hand, in a split second. So they decided not to use the tranquilizer dart. In your mind, Mel is there anything else, any other way they could have ended this scenario rather than killing the gorilla?

[06:25:10] ROBBINS: You know, not -- a couple things. First of all, I think people have to remember, let's think about the alternative. Let's say they did try one of these crazy things that I've heard people say, like lure the gorilla away from the boy with his favorite piece of fruit.

CAMEROTA: But let me stop you for one second there, because there were two female gorillas in this enclosure, and zookeepers were able to lure them out of the enclosure after the boy went in. So they did use -- they tried to use what was at their disposal.

ROBBINS: But the female gorillas hadn't been alerted to the boy yet. They were taken out, and they weren't even interacting with the little boy. Totally different scenario.

Imagine if the zoo had tried to tranquilize the gorilla, and it didn't work right away; and it agitated the gorilla, and the gorilla killed the little boy? You know what? The zoo is strictly liable for the actions of that animal, when they start making decisions about how to control it.

They did the only thing that they could do, which was to basically protect the little boy's life; and it was a tragic choice that they had to make, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

ROBBINS: I don't see any alternative here.

CAMEROTA: The alternative of -- the scenario that you're painting, would have been so much worse for the witnesses to watch something so unthinkable happen to that little boy.

But, Jeff, you made a great point yesterday when we talked to you, and I want you to reiterate it. Zoos are not babysitters, and I mean, you made the point that we go to the zoo. We think it's all playful, that there's no harm that can ever happen. Do you blame the parents at all for taking their eye off this 3-year-old, and somehow he got into -- I mean, he went through sort of three different gates of an electric fence, of a moat, you know, a guardrail -- for him getting in? CORWIN: I think -- I think that's something we need to explore,

before we get into that, but to touch onto what Mel had said -- they had tried all those options before they came to this last-case scenario.

And regarding that tranquilizer dart, remember, they're trying to immobilize an animal that weighs 400 pounds, that is agitated, that has adrenaline, you know, again, through no fault of its own, through its system, and if that had not worked perfectly it would have been absolutely even more disastrous and catastrophic.

The other thing, too, to keep in mind, when you deliver one of these sedatives, these tranquilizers, it's not instantaneous.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CORWIN: It can take 10 to 15 minutes. And what if they had missed and hit the child with that tranquilizer dart? Do you think that child could have survived a dose of sedative designed for a 400-pound creature?

CAMEROTA: Right.

CORWIN: So now to answer your other question.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Quickly.

CORWIN: I don't think we can blame the parent here. We can't blame the parent here. I'm a parent. I've lost my kids in the supermarket, and -- but yet we do have a responsibility when we're in these places, whether at a zoo or a national park. They're your kids, and you need to keep an eye on them and make sure they have a rewarding, rich experience and not a catastrophe like this.

CAMEROTA: Great reminder. Jeff Corwin, Mel Robbins, thanks so much for all of your perspective this morning on this. We'll talk about it throughout the show later -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. A very different story in the news, as well. The NBA finals are not set. Our "Bleacher Report" has the outcome of the amazing game between the Warriors and the Thunder, and the finals matchup predictions, next.

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