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Trump Warning to GOP: I'll Got It Alone; Trump to Meet With NRA On Gun Control; Orlando Shooting Sheds Light on Gay Muslims; Disney Gator Attack: 2-Year-Old Boy Found Dead; Gator Attack Survivor Speaks Out. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 16, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:31:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump defiant, issuing this directive to Republican Party leaders. Get behind me or I will go it alone. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE: Our leaders have to get a lot tougher, and be quiet. Just please be quiet, don't talk. Please, be quiet. Just be quiet, to the leaders, because they have to get tougher, they have to get sharper, they have to get smarter. We have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself. I'll do very well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: So, let's bring in a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, Sam Clovis, the co-chairman of the campaign. Sam, good to have you. Was this a head in the hands moment for you? We both know how political leaders just love being told to be quiet and that if you don't do it their -- my way -- I'm going to go it alone.

SAM CLOVIS, TRUMP CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIRMAN AND POLICY ADVISER: I don't think so, Chris. And first off, I want to compliment you and Alisyn on the work you're doing in Orlando. I've been watching you daily and I think you guys have done a tremendous job and I appreciate it, and I really appreciate --

CUOMO: Appreciate it, Sam.

CLOVIS: -- the empathy that you showed to people and allowing people to speak their minds. I just -- I don't want to get off on that, but I just wanted to let you know I really appreciate that. I think that --

CUOMO: I appreciate it. It's good of you.

CLOVIS: Yes, I think from our perspective and through the campaign many of us have the scars of going out and running campaigns where we've had to run against the tide. We've run against the establishment. We've had to fight the establishment. The establishment has come in and outspent us. The establishment has control of media. There are a lot of these other issues and some of us have been successful, others not so much.

I think, for our case, what we're saying is the Republican Party -- the leadership of the Republican Party needs to figure out what they want. Either they want to get behind the presumptive nominee, who will be the nominee of this party, and make sure that we do everything we can to win in November, or we're just asking them if they can't do that then just shut the hell up. That's what we're asking them to do.

CUOMO: Yes, but you know what their response is, Sam. Stop making it so hard to get behind you.

CLOVIS: Hard for whom?

CUOMO: You know, stop saying things that jeopardize the party's chance to win the general.

CLOVIS: Hard for whom? I mean, the things you've been talking about, Chris --

CUOMO: Hard for them.

CLOVIS: Well, it --

CUOMO: Hard for people who are trying to unify. You know what the blowback was after the last election. That you needed to be a broader tent. You needed to reach out, be less damning of diversity, and they feel that Trump is part of the problem, not the solution, on that score.

CLOVIS: Well, I think you need to go the rallies that are there and look at the people that comes to those rallies. We have broadened our tents.

CUOMO: I've seen them.

CLOVIS: We brought out millions more people to people to vote. People who have not ever been part of this. I'm really struggling with that argument to come out here. What I think is still going on, and you and I've talked about this many times, Chris, is that there is a push to push Mr. Trump into a particular template. Let's get control of him. Let's have control of our candidate. And that's really what the Republican establishment has always wanted, is control of the nominees in the party.

I talked to a young fellow yesterday running for office in a western state. And I'm sitting there listening to what he had to say and I said I'm struck by the fact that he's essentially not getting any support. This is a guy who's the nominee for a major office in a western state and he's not getting any help. And I'm sitting there asking why isn't he?

[07:35:00] Well, because he is a person who won a primary, who is now running for office, and the establishment of the party can't get behind him right now, or doesn't seem to be able to get behind him, because he doesn't comport to the exact mantra that we hear out of Washington, D.C. This is troubling and this is going on all over -- CUOMO: But, Sam --

CLOVIS: -- the country.

CUOMO: Sam, you've got to look at the record, though, also. When you have a situation like this, and I want to talk to you about Trump reaching out to the NRA because that's an interesting state of --

CLOVIS: Yes.

CUOMO: -- play within the party. He's trying to do, what he says, is the right thing and the NRA is basically saying we are who we are. But, when you had this situation here in Orlando and Trump comes out of the box saying hey, this is why. We've got to ban Muslims from countries where we have problems. Not only does it have no application to the facts of this situation but it sends a message that is threatening to a lot of people in the country in a bad way. How is the party supposed to put their arms around that?

CLOVIS: Well, you're asking, again, about the party and I think what you're talking about is the party leadership because we're not talking about the party. The party is behind Donald Trump or he would not have -- he defeated a field of 17 people, Chris. We've been through this for a year. Today is one year that Mr. Trump announced his candidacy.

CUOMO: You say you've got a lot of new voters, Sam.

CLOVIS: Yes.

CUOMO: A lot of Independents, a lot of new Trump Republicans --

CLOVIS: Well, the party's changing.

CUOMO: -- so maybe you don't have the base that you need.

CLOVIS: No, I don't believe that. I think the party is changing and I think what we see here is we see -- we're seeing an evolution in the Republican Party. We're seeing an evolution and the addition of a populous movement to the establishment of conservative principles. And I think we have, right now, leadership in the Republican Party -- and it pains me to say this. I've been a Republican my whole life.

But we have Republicans in the -- leadership in the Republican Party, right now, who simply have shown great distaste for the Tea Party. They've shown great distaste for any of the populous movements that we've ever seen, at least in the last 20 years. And they've shown great distaste for someone who is willing to reach out and do things in an "unorthodox manner". And yet, that person has won the nomination of this party.

So, it's either the leadership that's wrong or we're wrong, and it can't be both. I think right now we're the ones that are winning, they're not. They haven't done anything to stop the expansion of government.

CUOMO: Well --

CLOVIS: Let me finish this. They haven't done anything to stop the expansion of government. They haven't done anything to work toward the balancing of the budget. They have gutted the military and they have done nothing to protect the cultural values of this country. So I'm really tired of the Republican establishment coming out and shooting their mouths off and talking about how we need to comport with them. That's not the way this works. We're the people --

CUOMO: Sam --

CLOVIS: -- we're going to win this election.

CUOMO: Sam, that's a compelling case, it just happens to not be the case that Trump is making. What he's doing is he's coming out with a lot of bigoted statements that upset your leadership. This isn't a fundamental fight of conservative values, it's about how he depicts other slices of this country and the world. But we've had that discussion, it will continue.

CLOVIS: Sure.

CUOMO: Let's get to something that's central and focused right now coming out of Orlando.

CLOVIS: Sure.

CUOMO: Trump says I'm going to the NRA. I can cut a deal. They immediately say love to take the meeting, we're not changing who we are. Our position is this, terrorists should not have guns, which is one of the most simplistic, to the point of absurd, positions I've ever heard.

Who have you ever heard say I think terrorists should have guns? Although, functionally, that's exactly where the law puts people like this Orlando murderer right now. He's not on any list. The FBI knows he's got stink on him but they don't have the legal authority to do anything, and they can't even flag his gun app.

Now, Trump says I want to reach out with them. That's not where your party is. How does he get this done?

CLOVIS: Well, I do think -- and again, you're asking us to be orthodox in this thing and follow the orthodoxy of a party that is, frankly -- I think that what Mr. Trump said yesterday, what I said on your show on Tuesday is exactly and consistent with the notion that due process works, probable cause works.

If a person is on terrorist watch list they should be flagged and they should not be allowed to buy a gun. It's simple. And the other factor here --

CUOMO: What if they're not on the list?

CLOVIS: Well, if -- well, how do you then know what the issues are? If they're under investigation -- we have many state laws around the country that if you're under investigation for criminal behavior --

CUOMO: What if they're not under investigation?

CLOVIS: Well -- so they should be allowed to buy a gun, don't you think? If they're not under investigation, there's no probable --

CUOMO: That's the Orlando guy.

CLOVIS: Well --

CUOMO: That's the Orlando guy.

CLOVIS: So, what are you asking? I'm not sure what you're asking? I'm not sure what --

CUOMO: I'm asking -- everybody says they're so upset about this, Sam, and everybody's so upset about Orlando. It can never happen again. We have to fix it. We've got to figure it out.

CLOVIS: There's no simple solution, Chris.

CUOMO: The guy wasn't on a list.

CLOVIS: Chris -- Chris, come on.

CUOMO: They had a case against him. Well, the FBI -- people may have --

CLOVIS: Look, there's no simple solution.

[07:40:00] CUOMO: They say that this ardor to protect Second Amendment rights has overreached and you've bound their hands. And the same people who are calling to have Muslims kept out of the country because they're a threat, are fighting to protect the right of this man to have a gun. And there's an inconsistency there that has to have a political solution.

CLOVIS: I just read a report -- Chris, I just read a report that said if we start to prohibit the sale of guns, many of these federal law enforcement agencies are saying that is, in fact, how they start to find out who some of these people are, is in the fact that they apply for guns and they go through a background check because then they're able to start connecting the dots.

CUOMO: Sure.

CLOVIS: So we can't have the story both ways, Chris. And so, I just think that this is -- let's make sure that we -- there's no simple solution. You know this, I know this, and you and I -- and I love to talk to you about these things because you have a conscience about these issues that may not agree with mine but at least we're having a civil conversation about it, Chris. And this is exactly what we're asking.

We're asking for a civil conversation because this is not a simple bimodal problem where you go switch one way or switch the other. There are other fundamental complicated issues that have to be addressed. And I think we, as a society, owe it to ourselves to have this discussion in a quiet, sober, and deliberate manner. And that's all we're asking. We want to go to the NRA and we want them to have a sober, deliberate conversation about these issues because we know where we are on it --

CUOMO: Yes.

CLOVIS: -- we know where they are on it, and we know where you are on it. And so, these things are not always in G and we need to find out how to get in G so that we can do what's best for the country.

CUOMO: Look, Sam, I don't know where I am on it. I just know that I've been to too many of these things and everybody says it's going to change --

CLOVIS: I know, well --

CUOMO: -- and it's much easier to say than it is to do. But, Sam, thank you for being on NEW DAY to make the case, as always. Appreciate it -- Alisyn.

CLOVIS: Thanks, Chris, as always, and great job down there.

CUOMO: Thanks, Alisyn --

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you. Thanks so much Chris and Sam. The Muslim view of the LGBT community is in the spotlight after that terror attack at the gay nightclub in Orlando, so we'll discuss those two communities and whether they can co-exist. That's next.

[07:42:25]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:30] CAMEROTA: Investigators looking into why the Orlando terrorist carried out that attack at the gay nightclub. They are now interviewing people the gunman met on gay dating websites. This tragedy also shedding light on being gay and Muslim, and whether those two things can co-exist.

Let's discuss it with the founder of Constitutionalists For Gays & Immigrant, Miguel Ali. Mr. Ali, thank you so much for being here, and there is a lot of confusion about this and we're glad to have you here and have your expertise. Is being gay incompatible with being Muslim?

MIGUEL ALI, FOUNDER, CONSTITUTIONALISTS FOR GAYS & IMMIGRANTS: I actually don't think it is. And, of background, I was raised as a Muslim. I consider myself an interfaith practitioner but religious study is a big interest of mine. I've never read a sentence in the Quran that prohibitively and explicitly said that homosexuality is a sin.

Now, it's attributed a lot to the story about Lot, where Angel Gabriel came and visited Sodom and Gomorrah. However, with that story in the Quran, the townspeople gathered around the angels, demanded that Lot release them so that they could rape the angels, and that's what motivated the destruction of that town.

When you read the Quran, that town was destroyed because the people were rapists. Angels were sent down, they wanted to rape them. That's what motivated the destruction. The destruction wasn't motivated by homosexuality.

Now, in a lot of the Muslim countries and the cultures that predated Islam, homosexuality was looked down upon, and I think that's been inserted within the religion to try to say that it's an anti- homosexual religion. What I would say, though, is the Quran doesn't celebrate homosexuality. The Quran does encourage men and women together for the purpose of procreation.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

ALI: But I have never read a sentence in the Quran that explicitly said homosexuality is a sin and you're going to go to hell for it. I've never read that in the whole book.

CAMEROTA: That is very interesting to hear and to know because, obviously, people have their own interpretations. In fact, the gunman's father was on our air with Don Lemon, and he seemed to suggest that the Quran -- or the religion does forbid homosexuality for that very reason, so listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEDDIQUE MATEEN, FATHER OF ORLANDO NIGHTCLUB SHOOTER: Anything any person does, it is between him and God. And God is the one who make a judgment, not a human being. We have no right to make a judgment about anybody.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR, "CNN TONIGHT": And so, do you think it's a sin? Does it go against your religion?

MATEEN: I -- that's their own choosing the way to live, so a general rule of thumb that God created man for woman, woman for man. So, as a teaching of religion, and that's what it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, so you heard him. God created men for women and women for men. Obviously, he is from an older generation, but inside the Muslim world is that the thinking still?

ALI: Well, unfortunately yes, it is the thinking amongst the majority. And the answer I would give to that, quite frankly -- unfortunately, a massive amount of Muslim economies are still based on feudalism. You have major amounts of people who are working for food and shelter. They're not getting money. And because they're not paid with an income you don't have any social mobility.

[07:50:00] So really, the way to change the Muslim world -- it's not going to be a P.R. campaign by dropping pamphlets and telling people OK, you need to reread the Quran. What needs to happen is we need to build economies. The Muslim countries that are doing well, that are progressing with

their economics -- Indonesia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates. These are countries where you can be gay and you're going to be very safe. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, or it's unlikely that something bad is going to happen to you.

Once we have a good economy and people can actually open businesses, and get educated, and get a loan for those things, that's when literacy starts to go up, that's when more people start to read the Quran. That's when less Muslims are being told what the Quran says by men who are trying to manipulate it. They read it for themselves, literacy goes up, and we have better education.

So it's a matter, I think, of really fixing the Muslim economic system. I think the banking system is really far behind. Insurance -- deposits aren't insured. People don't trust the banking system. Money is kept in mattresses, the little that is made.

So we have a lot of improvements to make on the Muslim economy and that's going to reduce terrorism, that's going to reduce anti-women initiatives, anti-gay initiatives. But yes, I think it can happen. It's going to take some time and countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates -- they're showing that it can happen.

CAMEROTA: Well, there you go. Miguel Ali, great to get your expertise on this. Thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

ALI: Thank you. Thank you so much.

CAMEROTA: All right, in light of the Disney World tragedy that we've been covering, we will hear from a woman who was attacked by a gator -- she survived. What was going through her mind, what was that like? We'll talk about all of that next.

[07:51:40]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:54:25] CUOMO: It's just one of those stories where you just can't believe it happened and you have no idea how you would deal with it. Imagine having a 2-year-old boy, you're on vacation, he's down playing in the water, and an alligator comes out of nowhere and takes him from you and drowns him. That's what happened to this Nebraska family at Disney World.

We have someone on the show right now who knows the pain of dealing with an alligator all too well. She lost her arm swimming in Florida last year, barely a year ago. Her name is Rachael Lilienthal and she joins us now. What kind of name is Lilienthal?

RACHAEL LILIENTHAL, SURVIVED ALLIGATOR ATTACK IN 2015: It's German.

CUOMO: It's a beautiful name.

LILIENTHAL: It actually means Lily of the Valley -- a little white flower. CUOMO: Beautiful name, beautiful name. So, you're dealing with your own situation coming out of this -- how to be now, what it means to you, and then you hear about this. What was your reaction?

[07:55:00] LILIENTHAL: Well, at first I was shocked that it happened to such a small child. You know, the parents must be experiencing such loss. And then several hours later I found out that it happened on Disney property and that was even more shocking because you feel of all the places you're going to be protected, Disney's it.

However, we're in Florida. There's fresh water. Any puddle could have an alligator in it. Any retention pond, any fresh water at all.

CUOMO: And you guys go out of your way to protect the alligators. I mean, many years ago they were really on the border of extinction, we were hearing from many experts. Now you have a million of them here, they estimate, so it's like one for every 20 people.

So you're aware, but the reality is there's going to be a randomness. You're swimming in the water. What happened to you?

LILIENTHAL: Well, I was swimming just outside of a popular swimming area by a bar on the Wekiva River and I was really just minding my business and swimming along, and an alligator left the bank, crossed the river, swam up to me and attacked me.

CUOMO: You saw it coming?

LILIENTHAL: I did not see it coming. A witness from further upstream saw it. And I struggled to get out of the situation as best I could, and I couldn't do it on my own. I hollered for help and people did come to help.

CUOMO: But by all accounts -- hold on, I've got to stop you. By all accounts, you put up a hell of a fight and a fight that many may not have made. They say this alligator was like eight to nine feet.

LILIENTHAL: Yes, almost nine feet.

CUOMO: Had a good enough grab on you that it was shaking you around by your arm, but you continued to fight in the water.

LILIENTHAL: Well, it rolled me around in the water, and as it was rolling me around I didn't fight. I just, you know, hoped I would be let up for air, and each time I was. The first time I was rolled around under the water I didn't know how long I'd be there and should I hold my breath, but I didn't. So I punched it, you know.

That's the most struggle that I did. I punched it several times. Every timeI punched it, then it punished me. When the rescuers came and a big, strong guy hit it with a paddle, then it tossed me around even more and eventually, thank God, did leave. With my arm, unfortunately, but it did leave.

CUOMO: How was the recovery for you physically, but also emotionally, psychologically? LILIENTHAL: Well, I do have some post-traumatic stress. I notice that sometimes when somebody touches my back, even in the kindest, nicest way -- my Yoga teachers, for example, they'll just touch gently and it's a lovely touch, actually. But the first reaction is a little bit of a shock. And then it's like OK, it's just Teresa or Calvin, it's fine.

And so, certainly I had some nightmares at the beginning but I'm sleeping very well now, thank God. Physically, it continues to be a struggle. A struggle to keep some muscles so that I'm able to one day have a prosthetic and use the muscles to control the hand. But I did heal very well. I think my recovery was excellent, thank God.

CUOMO: Now, I know the statistics suggest that there's almost like no chance of this happening. So much better chance of other maladies that we deal with every day in life. But, when you see what happened to this kid -- and not an adult, just a toddler -- does it make you think at all like wow, this was bad but imagine what they're going through. Imagine what else could have happened. Imagine if the guy wasn't there. Do you think about those realities?

LILIENTHAL: Very much, and I think that in my situation -- you know, it's very unfortunate that I was attacked, but if that alligator was a menace and was going to attack someone, it's kind of good that it was me. I'm very comfortable in the water, was able to survive the attack and recover nicely, rather than a small child, who had no chance.

CUOMO: What an amazing perspective that is. You say if this had to happen, better that it was you?

LILIENTHAL: Well, I'm not happy that it happened --

CUOMO: Of course.

LILIENTHAL: -- but I think that I was able to deal with it better and I didn't -- I'm not somebody's mother and my life wasn't taken, where someone else's life probably would have been taken because these are vicious, violent beasts.

CUOMO: If you haven't learned already, I'm sure you are going to learn. What this is going to teach you is that you're not a limitation of whatever was taken. You're going to wind up being a function of what it is that allows you to overcome it.

LILIENTHAL: Sure, sure, and it's only an arm. It's not everything.

CUOMO: And that's what this family's dealing with right now.

LILIENTHAL: They lost their child, their love, yes. But hopefully, they're able to get past the what if's and the would have, could have, should haves, and just move forward and trust that their child's in a better place and hopefully that they can find themselves in a place of peace. I know it will be a terrible challenge for the whole family.

CUOMO: It will be a long time, if ever. But, if there's nothing else you can share with them, it's that once a gator is intent on doing something there's very little you can do to stop it.

LILIENTHAL: Of course.

CUOMO: Rachael, I wish you the best going forward.