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Examining Trump University And Attacks On Judge Curiel; David French Rules Out Independent Party Bid; Hillary Clinton Clinches Democratic Nomination; Sanders Says He'll "Assess" After Last Super Tuesday. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 07, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:33:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It has been five weeks since Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee and the controversies just keep on coming. Lashing out at the press, so what. Lashing out at a judge, well, that's something different. Then you have the tax returns and also he's been making it clear that his behavior as a candidate is going to stay just the way it is. The question is will it matter to voters?

Let's discuss. CNN political analyst David Gregory joins us now to look at some of the recent missteps. All right, big brother, let's take a look at some of these moments. Now, we just had a little news flash you were telling me about. Reince Priebus -- tell me about that while I get the wall going here.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the head of the Republican Party has had a conversation, according to a GOP source, with Donald Trump about his attack on Judge Curiel. There's obviously been so much angst and anxiety among Republican leaders about how wrong this attack is -- a racist attack on the judge. Now the head of the RNC is talking to him about it.

CUOMO: This is what started it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE: You have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He's a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel. The judge who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great. I think that's fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right, but it isn't great. He doesn't think it's fine. He thinks it's the reason the judge has been biased against him in the case. Here's the problem. One --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Excusable --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Sorry Newt. One is that -- that was Newt Gingrich saying what all the GOP big shots are saying right now, is this was a mistake. Here's the problem. This is a good judge. He's the kind of judge that Trump says he wants. One who says during his vetting, I don't make law.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who just took over for "THE APPRENTICE" for Donald Trump, says I'm proud I nominated him. And the case record itself does not show any bias. The only ruling that mattered was continuing this case. And what did his lawyer -- Trump's lawyer -- just say?

[07:35:00] GREGORY: Well, what's amazing -- you talk about Judge Curiel. First of all, he's an American citizen, grew up in Indiana, former federal prosecutor who prosecuted drug gangs.

CUOMO: They targeted him.

GREGORY: Right, who targeted from for assassination.

CUOMO: Yes.

GREGORY: This is a tough guy. Not only that, here's what's most important. We just played the soundbite. Dan Petrocelli, one of the leading lawyers in America, has said -- what did he say? The judge is doing a good job, is just doing his job. They have not filed any motion to recuse the judge. So Donald Trump is attacking him as being biased against him -- his own lawyers have not sought to remove the judge, so it's completelydisingenuous.

Not only that, there's another question about what are we learning about Donald Trump through this whole process, Chris? Does he listen to people who he brings on? He has said for his surrogates to ignore advice to stop these attacks. He's doubling down. He's not listening to his own lawyer who says the judge is doing a good job.

John McCain said recently well, there's checks and balances. If a president Trump wants to attack the judiciary he'll have a White House counsel. Well here, he's got one of the country's top lawyers who is saying the judge is doing a good job and is not recusing him. What does that tell us about Trump?

CUOMO: A couple of other big months he's had is what happened with the veterans and what happened with his taxes. Both of these, basically, go to transparency and disclosure. Now, we'll remember this. He skipped the debate in January and said let's raise money instead. Said he'd raised $6 million. Sent some checks out but we couldn't get the information out.

GREGORY: Right.

CUOMO: How much money, who did it go to, and it wound up coming into this big event press conference where he basically blamed us for making something out of nothing. Your take? GREGORY: Look, it's very good that Donald Trump gives a lot of money, and he did in this case and it helps the veterans. But, it wasn't clear when he gave the money. He made a big pronouncement about making --

CUOMO: Does it matter?

GREGORY: -- raising a lot of money. Well, it may matter to some people about whether he was really making good on his pledge and being transparent about what he did. And also, his response to the criticism with the probing. Reporters are going to ask questions. They're going to try to find out what the truth of the matter is and he started calling them personal names and all the rest. Again, said something about his temperament, I think.

CUOMO: Now, the polls have not reflected the criticism that he often gets from the media and from his own party, by the way. This judge situation may be different, OK? He's going after an institution. It seems constitutional in its bases of insult, and he's going after someone's heritage when the guy isn't Mexican, he's American.

GREGORY: Right.

CUOMO: His heritage is Mexican but there seems to be no there, there. Maybe this will be different but so far, even with the taxes -- can we hear her? Let's see. I don't want to -- there you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE: Because when you run for president, especially when you become the nominee, that is kind of expected. My husband andI have released 33 years of tax returns. We got eight years on our Website right now. So you've got to ask yourself, why doesn't he want to release them? Yes, well we're going to find out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Or not, because it's up to him whether he releases them. The dynamic here is who's worse, right? Trump has kept introducing what makes Hillary Clinton bad from a character perspective. Then the taxes things come up. He doesn't want to show them. He says he's being audited, maybe because he's such a strong Christian and gets audited so much, he said to me after one of the debates.

GREGORY: Right.

CUOMO: What's the plus-minus on this?

GREGORY: Look, this is a convention of politics to release your taxes. Hillary Clinton has her own disclosure issues around the Emails and all of that are going to be an opportunity for her --

CUOMO: The FBI is her -- yes, situation --

GREGORY: Yes, it's a huge problem for her and we'll see how much of a problem it is down the road. But for him, why isn't he releasing his taxes? Is he worth as much money as he says he is? What are his associations, financially and otherwise, around the world? That's why to be transparent is to release taxes and it just invites the question, why isn't he doing it, what does he have to hide, is there something that we don't know here?

CUOMO: Now, when you see all these things -- you have set up the same two questions. Will the voters care and you believe that that answer is not just about taxes, not just about veterans, or even this judge, but about how he responds to them and how he deals with problems and criticism -- tell me.

GREGORY: What are we learning about the kind of president Donald Trump would be? How he responds to scrutiny, to criticism. Whether he will listen to advisers that he has around him. Again, in the case of the judge we know he's apparently not listening to his own lawyer. We also know he's not listening to other advisers who are telling him to knock it off.

There's a political thing, too, which is as a calculation is he wasting time? Is he squandering an opportunity to further consolidate the party when he's been getting endorsements and all the rest and trained his opposition against Hillary Clinton? He seems like he's on his way to having another really bad week -- missed opportunities.

CUOMO: And that's what we just heard from Steve Forbes, too. The I.G. report, what's going on with the economy -- this should have been an opportunity for Trump to dig in on what matters to the American people and take the case to Clinton. Instead, he's back on his heels. David Gregory, as always, thank you for making us better appreciate it.

GREGORY: Thank you.

CUOMO: Alisyn --

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, guys. For a minute last week the #NeverTrump camp had third party candidate that they said could win. But now that man, David French, says no, thank you. So what happened? David French is here and we'll ask him, next.

[07:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:43:40] CAMEROTA: The #NeverTrump movement is still holding out hope that an Independent candidate will come forward to challenge Trump, but one top choice is saying no, thank you, to that offer.

David French is a conservative writer for the "National Review". He's a lawyer and an Iraq war veteran, and David French joins us now here in the studio. Great to have you.

DAVID FRENCH, WRITER, NATIONAL REVIEW: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: You've had an interesting past few days. FRENCH: You could say that. It has been.

CAMEROTA: So when did you decide officially not to run?

FRENCH: Over the weekend I decided. I looked at all of the data. I felt like I just did an eight-day post-graduate course in an independent run for the presidency and I learned two things. First, there's a path. Sixty-five percent of Americans are looking for a third choice.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

FRENCH: Up to 90 percent of the millennials that say they'd be open to considering somebody else.

CAMEROTA: That sounds good. Those sound like two good reasons to run.

FRENCH: They sound like fantastic reasons. But the second thing I realized was that in this moment I'm not the right person to do it. You need to have somebody with an existing constituency. This moment is too important right now, especially as we're seeing Donald Trump melting down over a judge born in Indiana who's issued some just very minor procedure rulings against him, and he can't even handle that? I mean -- and so he resorts to race-based attacks. It's astonishing.

CAMEROTA: But you're making the case to run, basically. I mean, given that, isn't that a good impetus and motivation? Why not do it?

FRENCH: Well, you know, time is short so if you want to get on the ballot, which is a challenge that can be overcome, you have to have a pretty large amount of money right out of the gates. Not $250 million, like some people say, but about 10 percent of that. And then you've got to able to hit the ground sprinting.

[07:45:00] There is a window right now for somebody with a constituency to step forward and do the right thing for the country. Are you going to leave the country to this choice?

CAMEROTA: Who is that person?

FRENCH: You know, I think there's a number of people who could fill that role and I think the ideal person, honestly, is we've got a number of governors on the GOP side who have not bent the knee to Donald Trump, who have 70 percent approval ratings, have proven they can appeal across the aisle and get things done, and they can run, and they can be adult in the room.

CAMEROTA: Aren't you describing John Kasich?

FRENCH: Well, in theory, yes, but John Kasich had an audition in front of the American people and the American people rejected him.

CAMEROTA: And they all did. I mean 16 people did. So who do you think is still out there that is this sort of mythical candidate? FRENCH: Well, you know, we are making some direct appeals right now to some high-caliber people and I don't want to turn their lives upside down the way my life was turned upside down last week, so that they can think about this in quiet and private.

CAMEROTA: Are you talking to Mitt Romney?

FRENCH: You know, I'm on record. Ten days ago, or two weeks ago, I wrote a piece saying Mitt Romney, run for president. I think he would do an outstanding job.

CAMEROTA: And is he open to it?

FRENCH: You know, I think he took a very hard look at it and decided that this wasn't the right time for him.

CAMEROTA: You say that your life was turned upside down, and I do want to read something that was just published in the "National Review", your magazine, about this. It's about what happened with your wife.

FRENCH: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And it says, "One Trump operative reached French's wife's family in Tennessee and told them, according to French, that he was 'instructed to call and deliver a message that the race would be very difficult for me. It was a pretty big assault that really put pressure on David that this not happen,' says a source familiar with the communications."

Was your wife threatened?

FRENCH: You know, I'm not going to say threatened. I'm going to say a ham-handed attempt at intimidation. That somebody called and said this is going -- I've been instructed by the Trump team to call and say this is going to be very difficult.

CAMEROTA: Who was it on the Trump team?

FRENCH: I don't know the answer to that question. You know, it is not something that made the decision for me. I've been against Trump for a long time. My family has a lot of Trump's -- he has an online group of racist supporters that follow him and attack his opponents, and they've taken particular aim at me because I have a multi-racial family.

So, I knew from the get-go that going out publicly, even more publicly against Trump, would lead to backlash and we were prepared for that. But I just knew it wasn't the -- I wasn't the right person. I had a chance. If I did this and it didn't get traction, it didn't get legs, that what would happen is Americans would think the movement against him was smaller than it is when it actually is large, it's vibrant, and there is a path.

CAMEROTA: So, the so-called Trump operative didn't send a chill through your family enough to sway you? FRENCH: Not a chill enough. It was -- to see that happen, it's disgusting. But I'll be honest with you. I expected something like that. After all that I have seen I wouldn't have put my name forward if one phone call could dissuade me.

CAMEROTA: As we sit here right now on this morning, do you think that there will be someone who comes forward for this third party effort?

FRENCH: The honest answer is I don't know. I'm very hopefully. I'm very hopeful because the opportunity is there, and if there is any weekend and beginning of week to illustrate that it's this one, where he goes after a judge born in Indiana who hid from the drug cartels -- that's a heroic act. Defending the American people from drug cartels. And yet, he's disqualified because his parents emigrated from Mexico? I don't know how you say and argue that that's not actually racist.

CAMEROTA: David French, great to talk to you. Thanks so much for all your candor here on NEW DAY this morning.

FRENCH: Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: Best of luck in the future, and we do want to know what your take is on this. You can tweet us @NewDay or post your comment on facebook.com/NewDay. Do you think there will be a candidate who comes forward? Chris --

CUOMO: All right, so on the other side of the ball, Hillary Clinton now the presumptive Democratic nominee. Is it time for Bernie Sanders to throw in the towel in the name of party unity? We're going to talk to former presidential candidate Bill Richardson. What does he think, ahead.

[07:49:25]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:53:15] CUOMO: Breaking overnight, a moment in our collective history. Hillary Clinton has become the first woman from a major party to clinch a presidential nomination in the United States. Clinton hit the key delegate number ahead of the final six states voting today, including New Mexico. That's where the Latino vote is always key for both parties.

Let's bring in former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. He has endorsed Hillary Clinton, of course. Also the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Governor, ambassador, good to have you on the show, as always.

Let me put up a tweet from Hillary Clinton about her reaction to being the nominee. "We're flattered, @AP" because AP made the calls to the superdelegates who said that they were going to be for here and that's what put her over the required number, "but we've got primaries to win." Why underplay this moment in history. What's the strategy here, governor?

BILL RICHARDSON (D), FORMER NEW MEXICO GOVERNOR, ENDORSED HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I think the strategy is you don't want to take this vote today for granted. It's six states, millions of voters are out. I would think with New Mexico, which looks good, New Jersey looks good, that she will clinch the nomination. She's ahead by three million votes, 287 pledged delegates. She needs maybe 23 more.

It looks very good but you don't want to be disrespectful to a Sanders' electorate that has had a very good run, talked about a lot of issues. So I think the time has come to unite the party, but I think it's key not send a message to Sanders that you're not going to respect the run he has taken, which has been a very serious and significant run.

CUOMO: Something happened in that phone call with the president. Did you see the difference in the senator before and after that call? What do you think that call was like?

[07:55:00] RICHARDSON: Well, I don't know, I'm not an insider. But I think Bernie Sanders --

CUOMO: Whoa-ho, you're an insider, governor. You're an insider.

RICHARDSON: -- has three options. One, he can be --

CUOMO: Don't -- you're an insider. If anybody knows, you would know. That's why I'm asking.

RICHARDSON: Well, I think Bernie has three choices. He can be a party leader in the Senate, in the nation. He can be a statesman and unite behind Hillary Clinton, or he can be a spoiler. I think he will choose the first two options because he's a realistic politician, you know. He's run for mayor, he's run for Senate, he's run for president, very credible. He has a major role to play in the future of the party and the country.

And I suspect President Obama -- and I don't know about the phone call -- probably made those points and it could be over in terms of the delegates and the nomination tonight. But I think what is important, Chris, is when you run for office you don't want to get ahead of your supporters. I don't think there should be immediate pressure on Bernie Sanders to say I'm going to be for Hillary Clinton tomorrow. Give him a few days. Give him time to talk to his supporters.

CUOMO: Right.

RICHARDSON: And his supporters have to vent. He has to vent, so let's just be calm about it. But, it is a historic moment. The first woman candidate for president from a major party. We should celebrate that.

CUOMO: Absolutely, it means something to the collective history of this country, no question. And also, it's the anniversary of when Hillary got out in 2008. Obviously, the electoral calendar was a little different there.

But you know, supporters of hers keep reminding me the numbers were much closer then -- the numbers were much closer then, Cuomo. You know, we wound up separated by 69 delegates and not even a couple of hundred thousand votes. Hillary's got a much bigger lead than Obama did when she decided to drop out, so the message is there. We'll see where your party goes after today. This is the big day with New Jersey and California to end the race.

Let me ask you something else. What Donald Trump is caught up with right now going after the heritage of this judge, saying he should be removed, his own lawyer disagreeing with him, GOP leaders disagreeing with him. It looks bad, but do you think that it looks bad to the voters? This isn't the first time he's done something. This may be the worst, in some ways, but do you think it will matter?

RICHARDSON: Well look, I've been wrong about Donald Trump. I didn't think he'd get this far. But look, you don't win votes by insulting people, by insulting heritages, by insulting veterans and Muslims. The idea behind winning an election is to get votes, is for people to support you.

When you insult them, when you degrade them, when half of your party leaders is taking shots at you, that is not a way to unite the party. And I think this shows Donald Trump's amateurism. Everyone is perhaps thinking he's a genius for doing this but remember, he has a very small segment of the Republican Party that is wildly for him. He's not expanding his base by making these statements, so I don't see the logic. I don't see the politics. I think he's imploding.

CUOMO: And yet, he's knotted up with Clinton in the polls so far, but what's going to happen in the race, and that's why we're all examining everything that happens very closely. Governor, always a pleasure to have you on NEW DAY. Please come again soon, sir.

RICHARDSON: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, there is a lot of news to tell you about. We have some breaking details on the election right now. The polls are open in six states. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: We are on the brink of a historic moment.

CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton crosses the delegate threshold.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If the turnout is high we will win.

CLINTON: We're going to fight hard. We still have work to do.

SANDERS: Let's assess where we are after tomorrow before we make statements based on speculation.

TRUMP: This judge is of Mexican heritage. I'm building a wall. I don't care if the judge is Mexican or not. All I want him to do is give me a fair shake.

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: We're both big boys. I deeply disagreed on one item.

MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I told everyone that this is what would happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Former Stanford student, Brock Turner, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The message that he sent to women on Stanford is you are on your own.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If most rapists are getting 10 years, a Stanford rapist should get 10 years, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your new day. It is Tuesday, June 7th, 8:00 in the east. You all ready? Seems like there was a moment where you needed your pen?

CUOMO: I wanted to make sure that I was on the right side of the "don't' get too close to Alisyn" line. I thought I might have violated it, but --

CAMEROTA: Oh, you'll know, you'll know.