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Trump & Clinton Exchange Bruising Attacks; Clinton to Deliver Major Foreign Policy Speech; Dangerous Flooding Rages in Texas; Top Pentagon Official Charged in Battle with Nanny. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 02, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

CUOMO: ... policy record, insisting she has, quote, "no actual talent."

[07:00:05] CAMEROTA: OK. Clinton firing back, accusing Trump of being a fraud for ripping off students in his now-defunct Trump University. Clinton preparing to deliver a major foreign policy speech in California to contrast her policy with Trump's.

We have the 2016 election covered the way only CNN can. Let's start with Jason Carroll. He is live from Los Angeles.

Hi, Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you and good morning. It is very clear these candidates are going to continue to go after each other. They're going toe to toe on a number of issues, including foreign policy. Look for more of the same from both candidates today here in California.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton, she lies.

CARROLL: After a day of intense scrutiny over his controversy-ridden Trump University, Donald Trump hurling a barrage of assaults against Hillary Clinton.

TRUMP: Hillary is not a talented person. One of the worst secretaries of state in the history of our country. She's not qualified, because she has bad judgment.

CARROLL: Trump trying to get ahead of a Clinton speech today, where she criticizes his foreign policy proposals, including one where Trump suggests arming South Korea and Japan with nuclear weapons.

TRUMP: They sent me a copy of the speech, and it was such lies about my foreign policy that they said I want Japan to nuke. I want Japan to get nuclear weapons. Give me a break.

CARROLL: But Clinton unleashing her sharpest attacks yet against the presumptive nominee, relentlessly slamming him as a fraud.

CLINTON: He is trying to scam America the way he scammed all those people at Trump U. CARROLL: The Democratic frontrunner capitalizing on newly-released

testimony from ex-staffers, accusing Trump University of unethical, misleading and dishonest conduct, "a fraudulent scheme" that "preyed on the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money."

CLINTON: Trump and his employees took advantage of vulnerable Americans, encouraging them to destroy their financial futures, all while making promises they knew were false from the beginning. Donald Trump himself is a fraud.

CARROLL: President Obama also bringing the heat against Trump.

OBAMA: He just says, "I'm going to negotiate a better deal." Well, how -- what -- how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is he doesn't have an answer.

CARROLL: Trump, unsurprisingly, vowing to hit back.

TRUMP: He's going to start campaigning. Well, if he campaigns, that means I'm allowed to hit him just like I hit Bill Clinton, I guess, right?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: Well, let's wait to hear what Trump has to say about the president at his rally in San Jose later today. As for Trump University, his campaign team says basically these allegations are all fore -- are false, and his legal team has put forth a number of people, Ana, who say they were quite satisfied with what they received from Trump U.

CABRERA: All right, Jason Carroll. Thanks for that report.

Now, Hillary Clinton is set to begin five days of campaigning in California. She has a major national security address today targeting Donald Trump's foreign policy plans.

CNN's Chris Frates joins us with more on that. Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Ana. You're exactly right. Hillary Clinton is set to slam Donald Trump again today in what her campaign is billing as a major foreign policy speech.

Now, the speech is designed to cast trump as a lightweight and a security risk. And Clinton's campaign says she'll paint Trump as unfit to be commander in chief, arguing that his policies, things like banning Muslims and questioning NATO, are dangerous. And yesterday on the campaign trail, Clinton gave a little preview of what to expect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump has disqualified himself completely. He has attacked our closest allies. He has said, "Let's pull out of NATO." He has praised the dictator of North Korea. He's advocated more countries getting nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: And this will be Clinton's first foreign policy speech since Trump became that presumptive GOP nominee. So she can really focus her fire on him. And politically the speech is aimed at winning over "never Trump" Republicans who are part of the national security elite and GOP women who question Trump's temperament. She's also trying to eat into Trump's lead among white men.

And aides say Clinton will contrast her experience on the world stage with what they say is Trump's constant trash talking of America and could -- will lay out what she believes the next president must do to keep the country safe and prosperous. She's going to deliver this speech in California, where she really needs to project strength, not just against Donald Trump but also against Bernie Sanders.

A new poll there shows Sanders and Clinton neck and neck in California ahead of the state's primary on Tuesday -- Alisyn.

[07:05:02] CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Thanks so much for all of that.

So let's go in depth with what Hillary Clinton plans to say about foreign policy today, Trump's and her own. We want to bring in the founder and managing director of Beacon Global Strategies, Jeremy Bash. He's the former chief of staff to Leon Panetta and a Hillary Clinton surrogate.

Mr. Bash, thanks so much for being here.

JEREMY BASH, FOUNDER/MANAGING DIRECTOR, BEACON GLOBAL STRATEGIES: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK. We have a little preview of what she plans to do in her speech. I can put it up on the screen for you and everyone.

She's going to tout her record of tough calls as secretary of state. She's going to declare Donald Trump unfit and unqualified for the job. She's going to stress the potential Trump presidency and how it would weaken the U.S. alliances and embolden the enemies.

Of course, Mr. Bash, it's not enough for her to just criticize Donald Trump. She has to sort of tout what she believes she's done well. And so let's talk about her tenure as secretary of state, because her critics say that it was marked by some tragic failures. What do you think was her greatest success in that role?

BASH: Well, she has a very strong record as secretary of state. She's going to be putting that record forward. Her effort to get diplomatic sanctions, tightening the screws on Iran. Her effort to win this ceasefire in the Middle East and protect our ally, Israel, to protect our allies all over the world and to really rebuild America's alliances.

And that is going to be in stark contrast to what Donald Trump is offering. And you know, as I've talked to Pentagon leaders and military officials, intelligence professionals and people across the national security world, they're really concerned here, Alisyn, because they're concerned that Donald Trump has not got the right temperament for the job, and we're going to be handing this guy the nuclear codes, command and control of our more than 2 million forces in uniform.

Do you really want someone whose hand is on the button, who lashes out at allies, who's got such thin skin, who really says the most unbelievable things about our friends and our enemies, the one who wins applauds from Kim Jong-un, the dictator in North Korea?

So there's a very stark contrast that's going to unfold here over the next several weeks in this campaign.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about what some of Secretary Clinton's critics say will come back to haunt her in terms of foreign policy, and one of them is what happened in Libya. And in particular, it's what President Obama calls one of his biggest mistakes as president, and that is failing to plan for the aftermath of the ousting of Libyan leader Gadhafi. Was that an oversight by Mrs. Clinton, a bad judgment call?

BASH: Well, most certainly we could have all done better. Our country and our allies could have done better in helping the Libyan people rebuild their country after Mr. Gadhafi was taken out.

But it was incredibly important to give support to the opposition in Libya, because Gadhafi was threatening to annihilate the civilian population there.

Our Arab allies, NATO, was going to engage in a military campaign, and we could not have sat on the sidelines. So I feel very strongly that what we did in Libya to support that military effort was very important. We could have all done better to rebuild Libya afterwards. But that's a very challenging task, and it's really something that I think the next president will have to be dealing with.

And so the question here, because voters going into the election booth in November are going to have a choice. And the choice is going to be whether you want someone who is tested, who has judgment, who has the temperament to be commander in chief, that's Secretary Clinton. Or you will have someone whose finger's going to be on the button with the wrong temperament, someone who lashes out, someone who has thin skin. Someone who doesn't understand the importance of allies. And that's really what Donald Trump is offering.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Bash, let me show you the latest poll. This is from a Quinnipiac University poll. And it also spells out what could be another vulnerability for Secretary Clinton, and that is it asks Americans who would best handle ISIS. And Donald Trump wins this one. He gets 49 percent to her 41 percent. Why do you think Americans have that impression?

BASH: Well, clearly, Donald Trump has no idea what is required to take on ISIS. To take on ISIS, we have to intensify our military effort, as Secretary Clinton has laid out. We have to engage with our allies in the region, as she has taught them. We have to get intelligence. We have to engage in cyberspace. We have to intensify our air campaign against ISIS's command and control.

Donald Trump has no clue on earth what it takes to defeat terrorism. He has no clue on earth what it takes to get our allies working together to take on a terrorist threat.

CAMEROTA: I mean, let's remember: It was President Obama who called ISIS the JV team, who underestimated them. And some foreign policy experts say that Secretary Clinton never rebuked him for that. She didn't sort of, you know, counter that at the time that it was happening, and that also makes Americans distrustful of the fight against ISIS.

BASH: She has laid out in a series of comprehensive foreign policy speeches, going back to after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino and Brussels, a comprehensive strategy against ISIS. It has numerous elements. You're going to hear more about it in the speech today.

And that again, is in sharp contrast to Donald Trump's bombast and his rhetoric.

[07:10:14] You know, again, as I talk to people who have served in the Pentagon, who have served in our military, who have served in our intelligence posts overseas, what they keep coming back to is we want someone who is a commander in chief, not someone who is a reality TV star, who has no idea what it means to command our nuclear forces, to command our military units, and to really lead America on the world stage.

And I think she's going to put out a positive vision about America, and he's going to denigrate America and talk about we're a third-world country, and the world is laughing at us. He fundamentally, I think, thinks America is weak and that our best days are behind us.

And she is going to lay out a very strong positive message about what America can achieve on the world stage to protect our interests here at home.

CAMEROTA: Jeremy Bash, thanks so much for being here to give us a preview of what Secretary Clinton will be talking about today.

BASH: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: To Chris.

CUOMO: All right. We have to keep an eye on Texas. Dangerous flooding is just wreaking havoc there, and there is more of the same expected through the end of the week. You're looking at the Brazos River. It's already at record levels.

The problem, it's still rising. CNN's Chad Myers has the latest this morning. We're live on the ground in Texas. What's it like there?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Chris, I'm standing in the river right now. I mean, an inch of the river, but we are a quarter mile from where the river should be. This is not a boat ramp. This is a road that goes down to the river and then around the other side of the interstate.

The problem is that we are in a tropical air mass right now. If I walk over here to the grass, it's just a sloppy mess. You probably hear it sloshing below my feet, and the grass is like this everywhere.

The sun is going to come out today, and when it does, it's going to evaporate that rain there that's already on the grass back up into the atmosphere and we're going to get more and more rain.

This here -- this is a barrier that goes all the way down to the bottom of the river. There's a sign back there. You might be able to see it. It doesn't say "No Fishing." It says, "Merge Ahead," because cars should be coming up this direction.

So we are in this feedback mechanism, where it rains every day. It's a lot like when you're in a drought: you don't get the evaporation and then it doesn't rain every day.

There is a tremendous amount of rain to our west. It's going to rain here all day long. In fact, it's going to rain here tomorrow. It's going to rain here Saturday, and it finally ends on Sunday.

Even last night, in North Houston, they had areas that picked up 6 inches of rainfall just in about four hours. So there's some river flooding up there. We're worried about the flash flooding. I always look for the high water Mark, you know, to see where it is, where -- how far it's come down. We are still the high water mark.

This river is still coming up. It will come up all day today. And if we get more rain, it's going to come up a lot. I may be up this ramp about another 10 or 20 feet tomorrow.

CABRERA: Chad, is this because of El Nino or why are they getting so much rain? Is there an explanation?

MYERS: Well, originally, yes, because the storms were forced down across Mexico early in the year and then up here into Texas. And now because we're saturated with that early in the season rain, now the sun comes out, evaporates the water, and it rains again. It rains every single day, so yes, in part El Nino.

But I mean, just a couple of years ago we were talking about how this state was devastated by drought. So it just snapped its fingers and all of a sudden, we're on the other side of the drought.

CABRERA: Mother Nature. Thank you so much. Chad Myers, we appreciate it. Stay safe there.

Now to a completely baffling story. A top Pentagon official charged after allegedly threatening a nanny over a parking spot and then stealing her license plates. This is according to "The Washington Post." The big question this morning, why?

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is live in Washington for us. Suzanne, what have you learned?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Ana.

It is a bizarre and surprising story. Having covered the Pentagon during the Iraq war, I talked to Bryan Whitman on numerous occasions. He is one of their top spokesmen.

And court documents now obtained by CNN confirm the "Washington Post" story that on April 4 in a Capitol Hill neighborhood a note was placed on the nanny's windshield which said, quote, "I know you're misusing the visitor pass to park here daily. If you do not stop, I will report it, have your car towed, and the resident who provided this to you will have his privileges taken away."

Two days later one of the nanny's license plates was stolen, and two days after that, her second license plate was taken. The nanny replaced the plates, secured it with Allen bolts. And the nanny's employer -- this is a couple of a 1-year-old boy -- mounted a video camera from their home's front window.

They caught the culprit trying to steal these new plates. Well, they discovered it was their neighbor, 58-year-old Bryan Whitman. Whitman was charged with three counts of misdemeanor theft. According to "The Washington Post," they have agreed to have this case dismissed if he pays $1,000 restitution, performs 32 hours of community service and stays away from the nanny -- Alisyn.

[07:15:09] CAMEROTA: Suzanne, that's not even road rage. That's like parking rage. You know?

MALVEAUX: It's kind of a crazy situation in D.C., but certainly over the top, yes.

CAMEROTA: Wow. Suzanne, thank you for that reporting. OK.

Well, President Obama reportedly eager to get out on the trail and fire up Democrats. He dove right into the fray yesterday. What he said next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: The Republican nominee for president has already said he'd dismantle all these rules that we picked. That is crazy. Have we really forgotten what just happened eight years ago?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: That is President Obama hitting the campaign trail at a town hall in Elkhart, Indiana. He was there to draw distinctions between what he says needs to happen for the country and what Donald Trump is promising in an economic plan that he called, as you heard, crazy. He's said to be chomping at the bit to get out on the trail? Is that going to help? Is it going to hurt? What's the deciding variables here? [07:20;06] Let's discuss. We have CNN political commentator and Hillary Clinton supporter, Bakari Sellers; and CNN political commentator and Donald Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord.

Gentlemen, good to see you both. Bakari Sellers, what is the upside of having President Obama out on the trail going after Trump, trying to help Clinton or whomever the nominee is?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, this is what a lot of people have been waiting for, is to be completely honest with you. The upside is that the president has a 51 percent approval rating, which is more than 10 points higher than Donald Trump.

I don't think there's any question that, if this was a race between Barack Obama and Donald Trump, that Barack Obama would have a third term. The president's approval rating is even 2 points higher than Ronald Reagan's was at this point in the campaign.

And everything that he's hitting on, all of these metrics that he's hitting on, he's showing the difference between what a true leader is, in Barack Obama, versus what is somewhat a somewhat aloof, a caricature and someone who is very divisive in -- in Donald Trump.

But I will tell you this. This is not only political for Barack Obama but this is also very personal because we have to remember that Donald Trump is the person who put a $5 million bounty and began this whole birtherism thing -- birtherism movement against, trying to delegitimize the first African-American president of the United States.

CUOMO: Well, Trump -- Trump doesn't want to talk about that anymore, but he will talk about President Obama. And here's what he had to say at the suggestion of the president hitting the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we fall for, you know, a bunch of okie-doke just because, you know, it -- you know, it sounds funny or the tweets are provocative, then we're not going to build on the progress that we've started.

TRUMP: This is a president who doesn't have a clue, and this president now is very -- he's going to start campaigning. Well, if he campaigns, that means I'm allowed to hit him just like I hit Bill Clinton, I guess, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: We always like the promise, Jeffrey, of better to come. To Bakari's suggestion, I don't think we're going to hear about the birther thing coming out of Donald Trump this time, but what do you think his counter attack will be?

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think one of them, of course, will be the economy. And it is very interesting, the president's notion that thinks we're in terrible shape last year and that's how we got there somehow is because of conservative policies.

We got there because the government, a.k.a. Bill Clinton's administration, insisted that banks provide mortgages to -- to people, Americans who couldn't afford them. And there was a massive collapse of the economy because of that.

So I think this is a great thing. Let's bring it on.

CUOMO: Bakari Sellers, do you believe the economy is fertile ground for the Democrats?

SELLERS: Oh, there's no question about it. Millions of Americans agree with me. The fact is, we have about 84 straight months of private-sector job growth. The unemployment rate under the last Republican president was nearly two times what it is today.

The stock market if anyone out there this morning looks at their 401(k) today versus what it was when President Obama took office, you'll see that it's gone up tens of -- 10,000 points.

So I mean, we're talking about economy. And although wages are flat and although there are things we can do better, but we are talking about an economy that is definitely stronger.

CUOMO: Bakari, what about...

LORD: Not policies...

CUOMO: Jeffrey, I want to switch the topic, and I'll let you get in on it. You guys have given your point and counterpoint about the economy.

LORD: OK.

CUOMO: But foreign policy is going to matter also, and the perception of the country within the country right now, Bakari, is that we are weak. That the situation in the world is worse after the Obama administration. How much of a vulnerability do you think this is for him if he hits the trail?

SELLERS: Well, I don't think it's much of a vulnerability. In fact, I think that our country is continuing to deal with a great threat from ISIS and ISIL, but we have to remember that, when Barack Obama took over in office, the greatest threat that we were facing was al Qaeda. And what we realize now is that al Qaeda is decimated.

We were on the hunt, looking for the greatest terrorist that we've seen this century, and that was Osama bin Laden. And now Osama bin Laden is not here anymore to pose that threat to this country anymore.

And so there have been tough choices made by this president, and we still have yet a ways to go in combatting ISIS and ISIL. But we are a lot stronger than we were.

CUOMO: Jeffrey...

SELLERS: So I think that Americans will look at, and they'll also support the president and Secretary Clinton.

CUOMO: Jeffrey.

LORD: Yes, I mean, Iraq is a mess. We were on the verge of victory there. We were -- we were fine. I mean, you can argue whether we should have gone in or not, but once there, we did the job.

And President Obama took out the troops and decimated the place, and there is ISIL in its place. So that's not much of a record here, and that's before you get to Libya. And that's before you get to Benghazi. Where was he at 3 in the morning when the phone call came in for Benghazi? I mean, the Russian reset, all of these things are a disaster.

[07:25:10] So I really do think this is why Donald Trump's numbers on foreign policy, they believe he would be stronger with dealing with ISIS are so high.

CUOMO: All right. Let's keep it right there, because you guys did a very good job of laying out both sides of the argument, and now the people can decide what they want to hear. And we'll give it to them going forward. Bakari, Jeffrey, thank you very much -- Ana.

CABRERA: Well, the lesser of three evils is how some have really positioned this race, the 2016 presidential election. "New York Times" columnist Tom Friedman tells us that he came up with his answer when he looked at who's telling the biggest whoppers on the campaign trail. He'll tell us who it is and why he came up with his decision, next.

CUOMO: Whoppers?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Honesty, it is not something that voters think Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump have as their strong suits, but in a new Quinnipiac poll, 44 percent say Trump is more trustworthy than Clinton.