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New Day

Protestors Rush Stage at Sanders Rally; Trump to Release Details of Donations to Veterans' Organizations; Zoo Stands by Decision to Kill Gorilla; W.H.O. Issues New Zika Guidelines. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired May 31, 2016 - 07:00   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 there, right there.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (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.

[07:00:14] 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.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: 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: For her part, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton getting back into the grind after the holiday. She is still on the East Coast today with fund-raisers in New York and New Jersey, featuring former attorney general Eric Holder and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. She's expected to head back out to California on Thursday -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Joe, thank you very much.

Donald Trump today expected to reveal details about that veterans fund-raiser he held back in January, also internal documents from Trump University will be unsealed in just a few hours. CNN's Sara Murray is live in Washington with more on what we can expect today.

Hi, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Well, it is a day of transparency for Donald Trump, some of it by choice and some of it under order of the court.

Now, Donald Trump is planning to set the record straight in a press conference today at Trump Tower about just what happened with that event he had to raise money for the veterans back when he skipped that FOX News debate just ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

Now, at the time he said he raised about $6 million. CNN has independently confirmed around $4 million of that, and he's been dogged by press scrutiny about exactly how much he has raised and where that money is going.

He plans to clear that all up in this press conference today.

Now, his other brush with transparency today is going to be a little trickier. This is a judge who's overseeing the Trump University fraud case who has ordered that a host of these documents related to the case be unsealed. These are documents that are going to give us a better idea of how these courses worked and also a better idea of how they sold them to students.

Now, students who brought the case. Some of them spent tens of thousands of dollars on these real-estate courses. They said they felt like they were defrauded.

Meanwhile, Trump has said a number of students gave positive reviews about the case. He said he could have settled it at any point. And he even went so far last week as to attack one of the judges who's presiding over this case from the campaign trail, going after him, saying that this judge has a personal vendetta against Donald Trump, that he's a hater.

Now, even though Trump University has been closed in 2011, I think you can expect a number of his experts poring over documents, looking for anything they can use against him in the general election.

Back to you, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Sara Murray, you have teed up a great game for us to play called "Should we care?" at a lot of issues out there. Which ones should matter to you and why?

Let's bring in Margaret Hoover, CNN political commentator and former George W. Bush White House staff member; John Avlon, CNN political analyst, editor-in-chief of the "Daily Beast"; and Jeffrey Lord, my man, Trump supporter and former Reagan White House political director. It's great to see you all here.

So I am not joking. I think that there's so much out there, people have to decide what matters, what doesn't, and why. Let's start. The third-party scare by Bill Kristol. Do we believe there is some mystery candidate that will be formidable and have a real shot? Should we care?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's life still in it. Right? That Monty Python thing, saying, "Not dead yet." The dream's not dead yet.

I think -- and --

CUOMO: Hold on a second, Jeffrey.

HOOVER: Jeffrey, you'll get your turn. I'm joking, Jeffrey.

Look, there are Republicans, as you know, that will not vote for Donald Trump, and they will not vote for Hillary Clinton, and it doesn't matter. What we're going down the list, the problem is who. It's not going to be anybody we recognize insofar as a name. It's not going to be Mitt Romney.

CUOMO: Answer the question, though. If it's not anyone you ever heard of, can this person come in and be formidable?

[07:05:11] HOOVER: It becomes -- some would say in a year that is so unusual, could you have a social media campaign, a grass roots campaign, maybe a cult of personality swell up around somebody. Crazier things have happened.

CUOMO: John Avlon, do you care?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely, I care. As an independent, I care enormously about third-party challengers. It should be easier to get on the ballot. It should be easier to challenge the duopoly.

CUOMO: Hop off that soapbox.

AVLON: No, no, 60 percent of Americans said they want to see a third- party challenge. You know, 44 percent are self-identified independents. So there's a need. The problem is finding that candidate. Bill Kristol and ...

CUOMO: And the organization. AVLON: ... flailing around. Already, Texas' ballot is off. You're not going to be looking at the ballot in Texas. North Carolina looks rough.

But 35 states are in place in August and September, which raises the question, is the goal to win outright, barring some unpredictable "X" factor? Or is the goal of these folks to block Trump?

There still may be time to do the latter. The former is really difficult unless you get a candidate who is, can self-fund and has incredibly high name I.D. who can contrast with these two other candidates.

CUOMO: So high that none of us can figure out who it is.

Jeffrey Lord, do you have anything to add?

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, if it's not Margaret Hoover, I have no idea who they would get, to be perfectly candid.

You know, at this point, any serious Republican would be committing what I call, have begun to call Romneycide, named after Mitt Romney's father, George, who refused to back Barry Goldwater in 1964, and he, who was once a promising presidential candidate himself, his career rapidly went downhill. He got re-elected as governor of Michigan. His presidential campaign tanked because of his Goldwater antics, conservatives opposed him being put on Nixon's ticket, which as we eventually know, would have made him president.

CUOMO: All right.

LORD: That was more or less the end of his career. He served for a while in Nixon's cabinet, and that was it. So I'm not sure there's any Republican of any substance that's going to want to take this on.

CUOMO: Jeffrey, let me give you a softball here, but I'm more interested in the answer, the rationale for the answer that you're about to give. What matters the most to you and why? The -- what money Trump gave to the vets. The lawsuits, including one from an attorney general for fraud from Trump University, which is no longer able to be called a university. Or the I.G. report from the State Department about Hillary Clinton's e-mails?

HOOVER: I wonder.

CUOMO: I said -- the "why" is going to be what matters.

LORD: I'd say the I.G. report.

CUOMO: But why? Why?

LORD: What? Well -- for obvious reasons, because that concerns Hillary Clinton, and we get into all the issues of her credibility, et cetera.

But I will say on the issue of Trump University, I have a column in the "American Spectator" this morning, going into some detail. I think this -- I think that this whole issue is, this trial, et cetera is rigged.

CUOMO: Oh, come on. How is it rigged? How is it rigged?

LORD: How is it rigged? I think you've got a judge who identifies himself by race, who -- and you've got lawyers, liberal lawyers who are out there, Hillary Clinton supporters, Barack Obama supporters, Democratic Party supporters, who are out there to do in Donald Trump for political reasons, and that's why all of this.

CUOMO: But this judge is just one -- he's just one player in this. Has nothing to do with the attorney general's moves in New York. Is that rigged also? It would all have to be rigged, all of these people, all of these class-action suits?

LORD: The attorney general in New York is a political player who wanted money from Donald Trump, and then his entire family and then as business associates. You know, I think he went to Michael Cohen and not getting it, fast and...

CUOMO: I get your point. I get your point.

AVLON: There's a reason that case does matter, and obviously, you gave us a softball because we knew what his answer would be.

CUOMO: I want to hear the rationale. Rationale matters.

AVLON: Sure. The Trump University case matters, because it's yet another case where Donald Trump has been pretty promiscuous with his name identifying certain organizations which have very little connection to him. He said he selected the professors. We know he didn't.

What really is revealing, however, is that rant he made against the judge on Friday. Right? Because, you know, it's awful nice, the separation of powers you got. If anything happened to it -- you're calling out a judge in a political rally on racial grounds. Questioning his honesty and integrity and saying, "If I won president in November, we'll handle this then."

CUOMO: Great distractions of merits. If I'm Donald Trump, I want to -- I know that people are jumping on Trump for bringing up the ethnicity of this judge. And I get why people think that's wrong. But I'll tell you what, it's a heck of a lot better for him than talking about the merit to this fraud suit.

HOOVER: That's right. But let me just tell you one other thing. If you're -- Republicans break down in three groups right now. Never Trumpers, completely excited Trumpers like Jeffrey Lord. And then the people in between who are falling into line with Trump and are deeply uneasy about it. They should take real pause at Trump's behavior here.

[07:10:03] One of the things they told themselves is, well, maybe he'll learn on the job. Maybe he'll get a little bit more disciplined on the campaign trail. Maybe he'll really be able to pull it together and lead the free world. And you see his behavior, 13 minutes going after a judge in the case that he's named in and does not speak towards presidential character and behavior.

AVLON: The president of the banana republic, just not a Republican.

CUOMO: Well, but then you go to the rationale for what Jeffrey Lord is bringing up. If this stays a carnival of the absurd, what we're seeing in this election, in terms of the level of dialogue, which is all who's the worst person? Me or you?

AVLON: Right.

CUOMO: You would win that all day, but that's not the matchup. When you have that I.G. report hanging out there, until you get any time of closure in the FBI, if it decides to prove, is that the big hammer in this discussion? You can have your fraud trials. You can have what Trump says insulting everybody, seems to help him with his base, make everybody else scratch their head, but is that the big hammer?

AVLON: It has been the big cloud. I'm not sure it's the big hammer. Look, this whole fiasco on her part, totally self-inflicted scandal as the Clintons are wont to do, has cast a shadow over her campaign.

The question is, does it actually determine the votes of swing voters who might be undecided between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? I don't think so. We'll see what happens with the DOJ and the FBI. That could be the hammer, if they come down. That is, all of a sudden, a totally different home (ph).

This was a scathing report against her, no question about it, but will it sway swing voters? That is -- I'm not sure yet.

CUOMO: This was a very satisfying version of "Should it Matter?" Jeffrey Lord, thank you, as always. You know I love having you on. John, Margaret, thank you very much.

Coming up in just a few minutes here, we're going to talk about the realistic threat of a third-party candidate with the president's nominee for the Libertarian Party, former New Mexico governor, Gary Johnson. What is his case to you? Why he should be your choice, not Trump, not Clinton, not Sanders -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I just saw him in the green room. He is ready to come out here and make that case, Chris.

Meanwhile, we also want to talk about the growing outrage over the killing of the Cincinnati Zoo's silverback gorilla Harambe. The director of the zoo says they would respond the same way today if they had to do it all over again, but animal rights activists say the parents of the boy who snuck into Harambe's enclosure should bear some responsibility.

We want to bring in CNN's Jessica Schneider, live for us from Cincinnati. What's the latest there, Jessica? JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn, an outraged

ignited passionate debate on the Internet. Hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition online calling for prosecution of the parents, but the zoo director has been very careful to say he refuses to lay blame, refuses to point fingers, and he says he doesn't appreciate all the Monday morning quarterbacking.

(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 (voice-over): 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 an eye 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, 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.

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 love 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 the zoo director also noted that those barriers around Gorilla World have passed regular inspections by the USDA and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Jessica, thank you very much. We'll check back with you in a little bit.

We also have other breaking news overnight. Deadly airstrikes in western Syria. Bombs dropped on the rebel-held city of Idlib. Now some hit right near a hospital. Here are the reports: 23 dead so far, including women and children. There was a young boy. We have video of he's being rescued, pulled from the rubble. Initial report point to Russian jets. Russia strongly denies this.

[07:15:13] CAMEROTA: Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers return to work tomorrow. The tentative contract deal ended a walkout that stretched over 7 weeks. Union workers will get a raise of more than 11 percent over the next four years. Verizon, though, gets to make cost-saving changes to the company's healthcare plan. Union members still need to ratify that deal.

CUOMO: NBA star Pau Gasol is thinking about skipping the Summer Olympics this summer because of the Zika virus outbreak. The Chicago Bulls star is scheduled to play for Spain, but he says he's troubled about the uncertainty about health risks in Brazil. So Gasol claims that other Spanish athletes are also considering withdrawing from the games. He's calling on Olympic officials to release more clear information about the potential health risks.

CAMEROTA: Well, he's not alone. I mean, there are almost 200 doctors and professors who are calling on the Olympics to be moved or cancelled. People are worried.

CUOMO: The WHO just changed some timeline guidance on people, if you're thinking of conceding.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. So we're going to be talking about all of that. Because when it comes to Zika, the World Health Organization does have new guidelines out. We'll tell you what they are. So also, is the U.S. prepared? We're going to speak with a former White House Ebola response coordinator. The Ebola czar is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:24] CAMEROTA: The World Health Organization now increasing the amount of time for couples who visited Zika-affected areas to wait before trying to conceive a baby. The new guidelines going from four weeks to eight weeks.

This comes after months of debate in Congress over funding to fight the Zika virus but still no consensus on a plan of action.

Joining us now is former White House Ebola response coordinator Ron Klain. Mr. Klain, thanks so much for being here.

RON KLAIN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE EBOLA RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: This has been called -- Zika has been called something that could turn into an explosive pandemic. So why does the U.S. not have an action plan yet?

KLAIN: Well, President Obama sent an action plan to Congress in February, and Congress has failed to act. And I think it's hard to understand why. There's a lot of political wrangling over just how much money or how it's going to be paid for.

But this, we have already have 700 people in the U.S. and the territories with Zika, 150 pregnant women on the mainland alone. This disease isn't coming. It's here. We need Congress to pass this response package now, and get the funding out into the field as quickly as possible.

CAMEROTA: Here's what the president sent to Congress back in February, as you say. He asked for $1.9 billion. The Senate approved $1.1 billion. The house approved $622 million.

Now, Mr. Klain, was this a situation in which the White House was sort of inflating the number of dollars they would need, because they knew that Congress wouldn't agree to it?

KLAIN: No, I don't think so. First of all, you have to go back to the Ebola epidemic just to see how important this is. President Obama sent a $6.4 billion request to Congress to fight Ebola. Congress on a bipartisan basis, Democrats and Republicans, came together passed 90 percent of it. We put that money to work quickly and efficiently and stopped the epidemic, and saved thousands of lives and protected the American homeland.

President Obama's request was organized by Dr. Tony Fauci, Dr. Tom Fried (ph), two of the world's leading experts. Dr. Fauci was the advisor to President Reagan, both president Bushes.

This should be beyond politics. This shouldn't be a political dispute. The babies who will have Zika caused microcephaly are not Democrats or Republicans. They're just babies, and we need to step in to protect these pregnant mothers and their -- and their children now.

CAMEROTA: You, of course, were the Ebola czar, and Ebola scared the heck out of people. I mean, it just sounded like the most hideous thing, you know, you could ever contract. Does Zika scare you as much?

KLAIN: Well, you know, they are very different diseases. Ebola obviously could be fatal in a broad population.

But we're worried about what Zika is with just pregnant women and the babes are going to have, but it does scare me. Because you know, at the peak, we had three or four cases of Ebola in the United States.

We already have hundreds of cases of Zika in the United States and local transmission hasn't started. You know, the experts say that, as summer arrives and our mosquitoes get active, particularly in the southeastern and southern United States, we are going to see this disease actually being spread in America. People getting it in the United States who never traveled abroad. I think that should scare everyone, and I hope it would scare Congress

into passing the legislation need to help fight the mosquitoes, to fight the disease and to protect the American people.

CAMEROTA: Well, Congress says it still has to go through all of their conference committees. Do you think it's possible that those in Congress don't know the risks that the U.S. is confronting?

KLAIN: You know, I don't really know and I can't explain it, but I know that the mosquitos are not going to wait for the conference committee. The weather is getting warmer. We're about to be on the 1st of June. We know that's the peak mosquito season around -- around the Gulf Coast and over on the southern Atlantic coast. And the mosquitoes aren't waiting to see what Congress does. They are going to start to transmit this disease unless we get the funding to really strengthen mosquito control, take the other steps necessary to get this disease under control, and to protect the American people.

CAMEROTA: Almost 200 doctors and professors have written a letter to the World Health Organization saying that they believe the Summer Olympics in Brazil should be postponed or moved because of Zika.

Let me just read you a portion of it: "An unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the games, potentially acquire that strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic. It is unethical to run the risk just for games that could proceed anyway, if postponed and/or moved." Do you agree with these doctors?

KLAIN: Well, I think it merits a hard look. You know, I think the hard question is that Rio is a peak tourist destination, whether the games happen or not. In fact, more Americans will go to visit Rio now and the Olympics that will go for the O1ympics.

[07:25:05] And if we move the Olympics, other people just take those hotel rooms, and you have the same number of tourists, we're really not doing anything. So I think we have to look hard at the Olympics. I think it's a fair question to ask.

But right now, today, as we're talking today, there are about 100,000 Americans visiting Brazil. Right now, they are going to come home. They are at risk of spreading this disease if we don't get action taken to bring it under control in the United States.

So I think the Olympics are a fair question, but it shouldn't be the overwhelmingly question. The overwhelming question should be strengthening our defenses to fight Zika here at home.

CAMEROTA: Ron Klain, former Ebola czar. Thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

KLAIN: Thanks for having me.

CUOMO: All right. So very excited. We have the third-party candidate, the new nominee for the Libertarians, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. There he is, in our green room. Ready to come in and make the case to you. Let's put the nominee to the test. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: The Libertarian Party putting forward a pair of former Republicans governors to compete with Donald Trump.