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Trump Shifts Tone; Clinton Becomes First Female Nominee. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired June 08, 2016 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:31:39] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump struck a more measured tone last night. He was trying to calm jittery Republicans. Was it enough to diffuse a week of controversy surrounding his comments about a judge's Mexican heritage?

Let's debate it. We want to bring in CNN political commentator, former Reagan White House political director and Donald Trump supporter, Jeffrey Lord, and CNN political commentator and senior writer for "The Federalist," Mary Katharine Ham.

Great to have both of you here.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Ali.

CAMEROTA: Good morning.

Mary Katharine, let me start with you. Donald Trump went so far as to use the much maligned teleprompter that he had actually mocked some other people for using.

MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: right.

CAMEROTA: It was a measured speech. He said that Republicans can trust him to - that he would make them proud is what he said. So has he turned a page here?

HAM: No. I mean he can give three quarters to one speech worth of measured rhetoric, and stay on message for that part. But, like, part of his appeal is just being Donald Trump. And being Donald Trump means he says whatever Donald Trump wants to say on any given day at any given moment and if he sort of gives that up, I don't think he's quite that brand anymore. But this is what all the GOP guys are looking at going, can I run with that and not know what's coming every single day and wake up going, what is he going to say and what am I going to have to answer for? They have to answer that question for themselves and it looks very risky.

CAMEROTA: OK, Jeffrey, what do you think? I mean do you think that somebody got to him or his own judgment that he will start sort of using more of those speeches that we saw last night as opposed to off- the-cuff stuff?

LORD: Well, I think the motto is, let Donald Trump be Donald Trump. But there are certainly going to be occasions - and I'm - I'm certain we will see others where he uses a teleprompter. The question is, will he use it all of the time, as President Obama does, or will he do his rallies and all of that kind of thing without that?

CAMEROTA: Well, no -

LORD: I'm sure there will be a mixture of both.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but, I mean, it's not the teleprompter, really, Jeffrey, it's the question of, will he take a more moderate tone and say what Republicans are hoping that he'll say, or will he continue to sort of freelance and say sometimes inflammatory things? And before you answer -

LORD: Well, Ali, I would -

CAMEROTA: OK.

LORD: I would - I would quibble with the term "moderate tone." Mitt Romney had a moderate tone. John McCain had a moderate tone. Gerald Ford had a moderate tone. And they all lost the presidency. I don't think, frankly, in this particular election cycle, that's what people are looking for.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LORD: They are - they are pretty upset out there and they want somebody who gives voice to that frustration and anger.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and you're certainly right, Jeffrey, that that is what has earned him the nomination. But let me tell you that there are also Republicans who are upset, obviously, with what he had said about the judge's Mexican ancestry. Let me put up a full screen of people who have actually spoken out publicly against it. These are Republicans. I don't have time to go through all of them, but, obviously, there have been some who not only have spoken out against it, some of these senators and Congress people, but they have gone further, and that was Senator Mark Kirk yesterday, who said this about those comments. He says, "I find Donald Trump's belief that an American born judge of Mexican decent is incapable of fairly presiding over his case is not only dead wrong, it is un-American. I cannot and will not support my party's nominee for president regardless of the political impact on my candidacy or the Republican Party."

Mary Katharine, he's basically retracting his endorsement, and we just had on Tom Ridge, former secretary of Homeland Security, who said he predicts more defections. What do you think?

[08:35:08] HAM: Well, yes. So I think Kirk made the decision, no, I cannot deal with this every day and manage to get elected. And I think here's the thing, you see a lot of Republicans going, well, maybe we can manage him or advise him. No, I think Donald Trump tells you every day that he will be Donald Trump and he will not be managed or advised or contained. This is like living with the grizzlies. You can think that you understand the grizzly and that he understands you, but he's still a grizzly. You ain't going to change it. And some day he might come at you.

This is - like, they can try to distance themselves in some cases, but as we've seen before with Susana Martinez, the day before he talked about her and criticized her quite openly, his campaign manager had said, feel free to distance yourself from Donald Trump if you need to. She does so, and she gets attacked for it. So I think you cannot look this guy in the eye and be like, yes, I can - I can trust what his team says, and I can trust what he says from day to day. It's just going change. That's the facts on the ground.

CAMEROTA: Jeffrey, is Donald Trump an unpredictable wild animal?

LORD: I don't think so. I don't think so. He's a very smart guy. He is the Republican nominee or will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States. No, I don't think so. What I - what does disturb me when I listen to this, and I'm not going to re-litigate the whole thing again -

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

LORD: But far - far too many - far too many of these Republican establishment figures that you pictured there - and I - I don't want to include Governor Ridge, whom I know I voted for twice. I think he's terrific. We just disagree on this. But it does concern me that the Republican Party seems to be embracing identity politics, which I find, you know, as I've said many times, is the descendent of slavery and segregation. There's no room for that in the Republican Party and I really do think -

HAM: I'm sorry -

LORD: I - I just thing that that's wrong.

HAM: I'm sorry, but bringing - he - wait, hold on. I'm sorry. But Donald Trump brought up the ethnicity of the judge many times unprompted. That was identity politics of the ugliest kind in and of itself and it is the reason we are still talking about this.

LORD: And -

HAM: And it is not - it is not some leftist capitulation to say that saying a man cannot do his job because of his ethnicity is a problem.

LORD: MK -

HAM: It should be a problem for many people who are conservative and who are in the Republican Party. It should be.

CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Jeffrey.

LORD: MK, with all due respect, the judge has made a career out of his ethnicity. He belongs to a group, I might add, that a year ago announced it was going to boycott all of Donald Trump's properties. That's not an impartial judge.

HAM: Then make - hold on - hold on - hold on. LORD: That is not an impartial judge.

HAM: Then - then make that argument either to the court and ask for recusal, or make that argument in public, but that was not the argument that Donald Trump made.

LORD: He - he -

HAM: You are making up his argument after the fact.

LORD: He - no, I am not. He - he said his Mexican heritage. That's Latino. Hello, it's the same thing. It's Latino. This is a judge who has made much of his Latino background. And this is where I say, this is a much larger argument than Donald Trump. When - when Judge Sotomayor boasted that she was a wise Latina who could make better decisions than a white male, liberal swooned over that. They thought, oh, that was fine. It's the same thing.

CAMEROTA: Well, Jeffrey, I mean there is a difference.

HAM: I -

CAMEROTA: Jeffrey, hold on a second. Jeffrey, just a second, because I have heard you use the Sotomayor analogy. One is about how you're enriched by your heritage, that's what Sotomayor was trying to say -

LORD: She said she could make a better decision than a white male.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And eight years later, she tempered that and sort of went back on those - that what some believed was clumsy language. But it was about how that has enhanced her experience. What Donald Trump was saying was that it negate - that him being of Mexican ancestry disqualifies you. It's actually the opposite of what Sotomayor's analogy you used.

LORD: When you have - Ali, I mean it's just basic 101. If you have a conflict in a case, if you're a judge and you have got a conflict with - with a defendant, it doesn't matter what the conflict is, you should get out of the case.

HAM: Right, and he made the argument that the ethnicity itself was the conflict. He did not make the points about his associations or what they backed or - he didn't make those points. What he said was many, many, many, many times that the ethnicity itself was the problem and that is why he was being called to task for it.

LORD: MK, with all due respect, that's not - that is not the point. And, again, this goes to the -

HAM: That is the point. That's the point he made 20 times in an interview the other day.

LORD: No, no, MK, I'm sorry, this goes to - this goes to the larger point of Republicans bowing down before the god of identity politics and there should be no room for it in the Republican Party, period, ever. HAM: Look, Jeffrey, what I - what I will -

LORD: This is the party of Abraham Lincoln. No, no.

HAM: Look, what I will say - no, no, what I will - I'm conceding a point to you. What I will say is that I have laid this comment entirely at the feet of Donald Trump. Here's what I think. I do think there is an appetite for a person who says I will not shut up. Even when I should apologize, I won't. There's an appetite for that because the media and the left, for many years, for several cycles has pretended that things like binders full of women is offensive when it was just leaving off the word resumes. They have pretended that Jared Loughner was motivated by Tea Party politics, when he was a schizophrenic mentally ill person with no discernable, political leanings. And people have looked at that and said, look, there's no reward for behaving well in public, and I want somebody who doesn't. And I want somebody who does not back down from these people.

[08:40:08] CAMEROTA: OK.

HAM: So there is an appetite for that and there is - there is some soul searching to be done in the media and with leftist activists -

LORD: Well - well -

HAM: About crying wolf too many times because now a wolf of is here saying wolf things and everybody goes, shrug.

LORD: All I - all I'm saying, MK, is that everything that you just described is all connected to a culture that - in the Democratic Party that obsesses about race and gender. They've been doing this for 200 years. To expect them to change now is fruitless.

CAMEROTA: OK.

LORD: I'm saying the Republican Party should not hate this. They shouldn't imitate it. They shouldn't sign on to it.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LORD: And that, I'm sorry to say, is what I think is being done here, and that's not healthy.

CAMEROTA: A -

HAM: A good way to do that would not be to bring up his ethnicity in three words in every speech.

CAMEROTA: There's so much more to say. I mean, look, we can - we can - we can debate every single point.

LORD: We've got five months.

CAMEROTA: Are they standing on principle? Are they, what you're saying, parroting liberal talking points? There's a lot - there's a lot that this has brought up. But Mary Katharine Ham and Jeffrey Lord, thank you very much for being on to debate it this morning.

HAM: Thank you.

LORD: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: Chris.

LORD: Thank you, MK.

HAM: Thank you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: That was good. That was good. And in the spirit of Tom Ridge, who was just on, saying we need civility in a dialogue, that's the way you have it. You don't call each other names, you just make the case for your own side.

There was certainly a major milestone experienced last night. History, her-story. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive nominee, that goes a long way for the country forgetting about partisanship. We're going to ask Senator Susan Collins what it's like to see her former colleague at the top of the ticket.

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[08:45:43] CAMEROTA: Time now for the five things to know for your NEW DAY.

Number one, Hillary Clinton winning big in the California primary and embracing her place in history as America's first female presumptive nominee.

Still, Bernie Sanders refusing to bow out. He pledges to fight on.

Donald Trump trying to prevent a Republican revolt. He's promising supporters he will never let them down, assuring them he understands the responsibility of carrying the mantle.

U.S. officials say a Chinese jet made a dangerous intercept of a U.S. Air Force plane in international airspace. China is already demanding an end to U.S. surveillance fighting over the East China Sea.

Investigators want to know how a rare leopard managed to get lose at a Salt Lake City Zoo. Zookeepers ordered everyone indoors while they tranquilized the animal. No one was hurt, leopard included.

And the Golden State Warriors will try to push the Cleveland Cavaliers to the brink tonight. The Warriors looking to go up three games to none in the NBA finals. Game three tips off at 9:00 Eastern tonight.

For more on the five things to know, you can go to newdaycnn.com for the latest.

Chris.

CUOMO: What he says may be racist, but he's our racist. Is that a winning proposition for the GOP? When we come back, we have a Republican senator to make the case.

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CUOMO: Hillary Clinton is now officially the first woman to become a major party's presumptive presidential nominee. Clinton took some time to embrace this moment before pivoting to her general election rival Donald Trump. Now, we have a great guest for you this morning, Republican Senator Susan Collins. She hasn't endorsed Donald Trump yet, but she is a GOP to the core.

Senator, it's good to have you with us. You are a woman, you are a pioneer in your own right. What does it mean that a woman is now the nominee of a major party?

[08:50:04] SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: Well, this certainly is an historic milestone, and I thought that Hillary had a very good night last night and generated a lot of excitement. It is an historic accomplishment, there's no doubt about that.

CUOMO: So we just had former Governor Tom Ridge on and he said, civility, civility is not a code for political correctness. You can disagree all you want, it's how you disagree so that there's some chance for progress. You are a Republican, but you have relationship with Clinton that allowed you to work together, even if you did not agree. Explain.

COLLINS: Hillary and I worked closely together when she was my colleague in the Senate, and when she was secretary of state. We worked together on issues like Alzheimer's disease, economic issues, and also the empowerment of women in Afghanistan. But the Republican and Democratic philosophies are obviously very different when it comes to how we can create jobs in this county. We Republicans believe that government's been too heavy-handed, that the debt has strengthened - has, rather, has inhibited the investments that small businesses can make. So there are philosophical differences, but I certainly do have a good relationship with her.

CUOMO: Senator, Donald Trump has a message for Republicans like you who are trying to figure out what to do. Let me play you a little bit of it last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Well, there's a lot of anger. I guess, anger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TRUMP: They just can't come back. They can't get over it. So they have to get over it, ideally. As to whether or not they endorse me, it's OK if they don't, but they have to get over it. They shouldn't be so angry for so long.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, he's talking about after the primary, all the people that he beat, their hard feelings. Other people had, you know, money and currency tied up with candidates who didn't win. Are you going to be able to get over it in the wake of things like what just happened with this judge and that's one on a list of many statements like that, that have come out of Trump?

COLLINS: Well, first of all, I would like to be able to endorse Donald Trump, but he really has to change the approach that he has taken. If I were giving him advice, I would tell him he should own up to making a mistake. He should apologize to the judge and to the American people. And he should stop insulting people and groups of people. He is the one who needs to start acting more presidential and articulate clearly what a Trump presidency would look like.

So, frankly, I really think the burden is on him to put forward a far more positive message. There's no doubt that what he says has resonated with a lot of people in my state and elsewhere who feel left behind, who have not participated in every recovery, whose incomes have stagnated. And he has connected in a very real way with people who have had economic difficulty. I think he's right on a lot of his criticisms. Some poorly negotiated trade agreements, for example.

CUOMO: So - so, senator, what do you say to a Republican or a Republican colleague whose proposition is, well, what do you want me to do? Is he bigoted? You know, it seems a lot of these statements fit squarely under the category of yes, but he's my bigot and I need to vote for a Republican because I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton. Do you want me to vote for Clinton? What do you say?

COLLINS: There are very difficult choices to be made. I am not inclined to vote for Hillary, despite our personal relationship. And I've always supported the nominee of my party. But I will tell you, I am struggling right now, and I think a lot of Americans are as well. We like parts of Donald Trump's message, but he does need to act more presidential and he needs to transition to a general election approach.

The primaries are behind us. He is the one who keeps bringing up grievances with those who ran against him in the primary. He needs to unite the party and to unite our country. And he needs to do so with a far more civil tone.

CUOMO: Senator, thank you very much for your perspective, as always. Be well.

COLLINS: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. "Good Stuff" is coming up, next.

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[08:58:45] CUOMO: "Good Stuff." Always need "The Good Stuff." David Blauzvern was on his usual run by the East River in New York and he sees something unexpected in the water.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID BLAUZVERN, SAVED A DROWNING MAN: If you look in the water, you see this big guy flailing his arms. He was clearly not able to swim.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Like a 300 pound guy, by the way.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God.

CUOMO: So he is a former lifeguard. You know what he does? He jumps into the East River to save the man. But that's not all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. GARY MESSINA (ph), NYPD: This is what we're here to do. We're here to help the people of the city of New York. And this is what we just did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: That's NYPD Captain Gary Messina. He saw David trying to help the man. He dove in too.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

CUOMO: And then a third good Samaritan jumped in. And then the harbor patrol showed up and all were pulled from safety - to safety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLAUZVERN: I don't think it's anything really that special, right? I mean, you know how to swim, you see a guy drowning, you jump in and help him out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Oh for the day that it isn't special, but that day is not today. This was amazing for him to do that.

CAMEROTA: That is so great. Thank goodness he was a lifeguard. Gosh, that is a blessing right there.

All right, that is your "Good Stuff." Time now for NEWSROOM with Carol Costello.

Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thanks so much. You guys have a great day.

NEWSROOM starts now.

[09:00:05] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The first time in our nation's history that a woman will be a major party nominee.

BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you