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Trump to Attack Clinton's Failed Policies Today; Trump and Clinton Sharpen Attacks on Their Records; Trump Campaign Shrugs Off Money Concerns. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 22, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

[05:59:56] SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. Good to see you. So, it's no doubt that Trump has had a rough couple of weeks. He fired his campaign manager seemingly out of nowhere. He's been struggling in the money race, but today he is trying to move beyond all of that and turn up the heat on Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: So many of the things she said were outright lies.

MURRAY (voice-over): Donald Trump is aiming to put Hillary Clinton on defense.

TRUMP: You know, she's crooked Hillary. Let's face it. She's crooked Hillary, she always has been, and nothing's going to change.

MURRAY: The presumptive GOP nominee preparing to deliver a speech in New York City today, targeting everything from immigration to Clinton's e-mail scandal and even accusing the former first couple of improper dealings when Clinton was secretary of state.

TRUMP: Her record is a disaster. In addition to taking in tens and tens of millions of dollars from people for lots of different things in lots of different ways and countries that should not be giving her money or her husband money.

MURRAY: On Tuesday, he fired off preliminary shots, even questioning Clinton's faith at a gathering of religious leader.

TRUMP: She's been in the public eye for years and years. And yet, there's no -- there's nothing out there.

MURRAY: Trump's focus on Clinton, coming as he tries to pivot from days of staff shake ups and dismal fund-raising. Trump ended last month with $1.3 in the bank compared to Clinton's $42 million. But the real estate mogul argues her dollars come with a price.

TRUMP: All of the money she's raising, that's blood money. That's blood money.

MURRAY: The billionaire businessman still dangling the idea of self- funding in the general. TRUMP: I'll be honest, you know, I've never raised money before for

this, because I've never done it before. I think I would be very good at it. As far as I'm concerned, I would be very happy to continue to self-fund. You know --

MURRAY: Even though he spent Tuesday evening looking to shore up his campaign coffers at a New York City fund-raiser.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reince, how are you feeling about the campaign?

MURRAY: As Trump and his top GOP allies put on happy face, and downplay concerns about the candidates' campaign war chest, going into a head-to-head battle against Clinton.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, Trump continues to face reservations from members of his own party about his ability to go head-to-head against Hillary Clinton in the general. And a number of them say, look, the fastest way to unify Republicans is to get everyone onboard against Hillary Clinton. Today will be a better test for Trump of just how well he can prosecute that case against Clinton -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this is the first time he's facing somebody who actively goes at him. And that's what we're seeing with Hillary Clinton. First it was, no finger on the button. Now it's, no hands on the economy. Clinton blasting Donald Trump as the problem when it comes to business. A string of failed enterprises and flimsy ideas for what to do as president. She says that would make him a danger to the economy. She also slammed him for hypocritically criticizing American companies for taking jobs overseas, while some of his own products are outsourced.

CNN's Chris Frates live in Washington with more. Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Chris. Well, Hillary Clinton used Donald Trump's business record against him yesterday, painting the billionaire as more bankrupt deadbeat than business genius, who would be a danger to the world's economy as president. And it fit into her larger message, that Trump is unfit to hold the highest office. The nation's highest office.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He's written a lot of books about business. They all seem to end at chapter 11.

(LAUGHTER)

FRATES (voice-over): In the battleground state of Ohio, Hillary Clinton hit Donald Trump where it hurts. His business record.

CLINTON: Trump ties are made in China. Trump suits in Mexico. Trump furniture in Turkey and I would love for him to explain how all that fits with his talk about America first.

FRATES: Trump responded directly to the charge

TRUMP: It's true. And you know, why? Because they devalue their currencies and they make it impossible for companies to compete. Unfortunately, my ties are made in China.

FRATES: Clinton is also calling out the four bankruptcies Trump filed for casinos he once owned in Atlantic City.

CLINTON: We can't let him bankrupt America like we are one of his failed casinos.

FRATES: And branding Trump as dangerous to the economy.

CLINTON: Trump would take us back to where we were before the crisis. He'd rig the economy for Wall Street again. Well, that will not happen on my watch. I can guarantee you.

FRATES: Trump responded to the attacks in real time, live tweeting as the hits kept coming. "How can Hillary Clinton run the economy when she can't even send emails without putting entire nations at risk?" And, "I am the king of debt. That has been great for me as a businessman." Trump even posting this video response on Instagram, as Clinton continued unloading.

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton's only right about one thing. I understand debt and how to handle it. I've made a fortune with debt. But debt for this country is a disaster. And Obama has piled it on and she's been there watching.

FRATES: The latest CNN/ORC poll shows voters believe Trump would be better at handling the economy than Clinton, a perception she's hoping to turn around.

CLINTON: He has no real strategy for creating jobs, just a string of empty promises, but then maybe we shouldn't expect better from someone who's most famous words are "you're fired."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[06:05:17] FRATES: Now, today, Clinton will continue to talk about the economy, but instead of trashing Trump, she'll way out her version, detailing plans to make college debt free, expand Social Security, and raise taxes on the super-rich. And a little later this morning, she'll meet with House Democrats on Capitol Hill, as she continues to try to put a tough primary battle behind her and unite her party. Alisyn, Chris, back to you guys

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much, Chris. OK, Sara, stick around, if you would. Because we want to discuss the economic battle between Trump and Clinton with CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston and Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich.

Great to have all of you. OK. Hillary Clinton was basing some of her attacks on Donald Trump's economic policies on Moody's Analytics, the well-regarded economic research group. This is what they found in their research, what they concluded was, if Donald Trump's economic policies went into effect, there would be 3.5 million fewer jobs. Unemployment would go up to seven percent. The average household income would stagnate, stock prices and house values would drop.

Mark, is it a problem that the lead author of this, Mark Zandi, contributes to Hillary Clinton's campaign?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, it certainly gives the Trump campaign some pushback to say that in fact that Mark Zandi, you know, favors Hillary Clinton not only her economic policies but perhaps her as a person. Having said that --

CUOMO: And he didn't disclose it in this analysis that he had given --

PRESTON: Right. Right. Right. But if you do talk to the folks in that world, they'll tell you that he is one of the best. He knows exactly what he's doing. He did help John McCain back in 2008. And that this is just a smoke screen by the Trump campaign to try to knock down his critical analysis.

CUOMO: In fact, you can say the same thing about economic analyses, right? You know, what's the old joke from the President? Give me an economist of one hand, you know, because they always say on the other hand, you'll find ten people to say that this plan is great and that Clinton's plan is a problem. How heavy does this land?

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, I think it depends on who those people are who say it's great. And right now, the people that saying it's great aren't necessarily, have the credentials of someone like advantage --

CUOMO: Who donated to Clinton? I mean, don't you think it's a little bit of like, you know, and he didn't even disclose it --

KUCINICH: He should have disclosed it. That is absolutely right. But it still doesn't, and it does -- as Mark say, give the Trump campaign cover. However, if they basically predicted this back to the future II, the whole biff scene in this, and when you actually read it, it also says that there's no specifics. So, this actually could change. They say that in some ways, they can't even make a full prediction, because Trump has been light on the specifics.

CAMEROTA: But hasn't he said he's going to lower the corporate tax rate to something like 15 percent. He's going to increase tariffs on foreign countries, lower the personal tax rate.

MURRAY: Well, he has given a little bit of, you know, sort of meat on the bones, particularly on tax policy. I think when people look at these trade policies, this is where you're seeing a lot of this economic impact. And we have seen other economists say a similar thing to Mark Zandi. And I will reiterate which what Mark Preston said, is that politicians on both sides of the aisle have pointed to his numbers in the past. But what I think is remarkable, is a week ago, you wouldn't have seen anything from the Trump campaign saying anything about Mark Zandi. For the first time, they're actually able to put out some kind of

rapid response and say, here's why you shouldn't trust this economic analysis. And whether you walk away from that saying, OK, you know, I feel a little bit weird about trusting this because he gave to Clinton, or whether you say, OK, I still trust this analysis, at least the Trump campaign was finally able to put something out there to refute it. And that was something that their campaign was not capable of doing --

CUOMO: They're just missing a nickname. He should come up with something like Zanny Zandi --

MURRAY: Right.

CUOMO: Or something like that.

MURRAY: You know, what, like maybe give it a couple of days.

CUOMO: Is this a little bit of a missed opportunity for Clinton, in as much as trade is a real basis for policy debate. There are two different directions this country can go. It's made a set of decisions that leads it down, having open markets and doing that. You know, that's what the country supposedly believes in. And Clinton could debate it on that basis. But she didn't do it yesterday. She just used it as a hammer on him.

PRESTON: She used it as a hammer and she didn't in a state by frankly that they both need to win Ohio. A state that's been, you know, in some ways, wrecked by trade policies that have been enacted over the past 20 plus years. But here's the thing, though. If you look at the CNN/ORC poll, right, that was release yesterday, on the issue of trade, she actually does better than Donald Trump on that issue which is kind of amazing, because Bernie Sanders really clubbed her over the head all during the Democratic primary on the issue and Donald Trump continues to do so.

But yet she's still coming out front, which might say something that even though when you talk about the economy as a whole, because he's done a very good job of framing the debate on the economy, that he would be a better leader. On this one issue which is as you point out Chris --

CUOMO: You know, I'm going to say it, you kind of ignore it and then you point it out in the poll, it's the best idea of the morning.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Brilliant Mark. MURRAY:

MURRAY: How you said it.

CAMEROTA: Yes, exactly. So let's talk about what she's going after Trump for. And that is the bankruptcies of his casinos. So, let's listen to what Hillary Clinton said about this yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) [06:10:12] CLINTON: He says he's a businessman, and this is what businessmen do. Well, CNN pointed out that no major company has filed Chapter 11 more often in the last 30 years than Trump's casinos. So, no, this is not normal behavior.

CAMEROTA: Before you respond, it's probably fair to let Donald Trump respond to that. So here's what he told David Muir.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: What I've done is I've used brilliantly the laws of the country. And not personally, just corporate. And if you look at people like myself that are at the highest levels of business, many of them have done it many, many times.

DAVID MUIR, ABC ANCHOR: But do many average Americans pay the price though for that?

TRUMP: But I'm running a business, you have to understand, I'm running a business. I'm running a business for myself, for my company, for my employees and for my family. Hillary wouldn't have any idea how to do that. Don't forget. Somebody has to understand debt. She doesn't understand debt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. So does this resonate with voters?

KUCINICH: This is the Obama 2012 playbook against Mitt Romney in a lot of ways. They took him from a successful businessman to a vulture capitalist over the course of the election. So that's what she's trying to do. She's trying to define him on this bankruptcy, on these bankruptcies, before he can do it himself, with the broader electorate. Of course, he pushed back during the debates. You see him pushing back there. But that's why they're going so hard. Because he's using his experience as a businessman as an asset to his entire campaign. And if they can put a chink in that armor, that's going to be really bad for Trump.

MURRAY: And there are some similarities here. I mean, you remember that one of the big regrets for Mitt Romney's campaign is that the Obama campaign was up on the air hammering him on these issues for months when he didn't have the money to respond to it on the airwaves. And we're seeing a similar sort of activity play out right now, where Hillary Clinton is spending tens of millions of dollars on the airwaves, running ads against Donald Trump and her Super PAC is doing the same, the Super Pac who supports her.

And Trump isn't on the air. He has no response to that. Now, this is a different media environment. Trump has proven to be very adept at getting free media. And so we'll see how that all shakes out. There's no doubt it's a different landscape than it was four years ago, but that's one of the things that's really unsettling to Republicans, is sort of wondering if this is just act II of the nightmare that they watched in 2012. CUOMO: Another thing that we heard from Trump yesterday was a kind of

out of in where question about Clinton's faith. We don't really know anything, we don't really know anything. Then he had a couple of surrogates come out and say, well, he means it in terms of parsing her positions. What do you think the plus/minus is on this strategy?

PRESTON: Well, the plus for him yesterday in that moment was to try to get the social conservatives and the evangelical community to rally around him. And what happened yesterday is we saw these quote/unquote evangelical leaders come here to New York to talk to Donald Trump, to see if they can walk out of that meeting and feel like they could support him. You know, when we talk about this election, like we really should just talk about it in two ways.

One is, Donald Trump really needs to get the base behind him. That is the evangelical leaders. By him calling into question Hillary Clinton's faith, he's talking to them, he's feeding them red meat. At the same time, the minus is that he is, perhaps, alienating the middle when he really talks up faith and attacks someone's faith.

CAMEROTA: Whether or not people believe that Hillary is a secret Methodist is what he -- is what --

CUOMO: At the same time, she's -- her ability to come out and say, here's my preacher from when I was a kid, I've been a Methodist my whole life, here's what I've done, here's what I've said about it, here's why. Can he match those types of descriptions of his own faith? The biggest thing he's said so far to us about it is that he thinks he gets audited by the IRS because he's such a strong Christian.

PRESTON: Right.

CAMEROTA: OK. Panel, stick around. We have many more questions for you. One quick programming note. Tune in tonight for a CNN town hall with a libertarian ticket for the White House, Gary Johnson and William Weld will join somebody named Chris Cuomo --

CUOMO: They headed me to the ticket.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: For a conversation on the issues and the race. That's at 9:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

CUOMO: All right. So, Trump has been taking some hits, but he's shrugging them off, especially when it comes to money. Now, Hillary Clinton, we've been showing you the number, she has got a huge war chest, certainly outspending him in the battleground states. Trump says he can self-fund and match anytime he wants. We're going to discuss the reality of the money race and why it matters, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) [06:18:19] TRUMP: All of the money she's raising, that's blood money. That's blood money. She couldn't take care of Wall Street. She's getting tremendous amounts of money from lots of people. She is going to take care of all those people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: If it seems like what you're hearing is an unrelenting stream of negatives from both candidates, you're right and you'll get more of it today. Trump is going to give a speech to respond to what Clinton did yesterday, because what she did was put him in a little bit of an unfamiliar position, where his business, she saw as a liability. He's going to talk money today, why he has it, and why any speculation about it in the race as his disadvantage is bunk.

Let's bring back Sara Murray, Mark Preston and Jackie Kucinich. Sara, the theory of the case is a simple one. You look at the numbers, she's got 40-something here, she has got a million here. He has small numbers. He says that is an illusion, I can self-fund whenever I want and I haven't tried to raise money. How do you see it?

MURRAY: Well, I think this is a different landscape. There are very few people who are saying Donald Trump needs to raise the same amount that Hillary Clinton needs to raise. Because everyone knows he's good at getting free media. But having $1.3 million in the bank is not a stable cash position. That means you cannot run ads in basically any battleground state. And so far, we haven't seen Donald Trump come to the rescue and write a $10 million check. He's loaning his campaign money. He's not giving his campaign money.

And at this point, he's not even loaning that much. Now, there are a number of Republicans and skeptical Democrats who be out there saying, we don't even know if Donald Trump is liquid enough to give his campaign the kind of money you need to really fight a war in the general election. But the bottom-line is, whether he's going to raise it, whether he's going to loan it, whether he's going to donate it, he hasn't done any of those things in any big way yet.

CAMEROTA: Mark, we just had a graphic up of how his cash on hand compared to some of his competitors in this race. Let's look at that. So he has 1.3 and you can see, you know, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, even Ben Carson had more than that. But look at his cash on hand compared to previous GOP candidates, nominees. John McCain and Mitt Romney. But isn't this a big "so what"? I mean, they lost. So obviously cash is not, you know, dollars does not equal votes.

PRESTON: Dollars does equal votes, and here's why. Especially at this time in the campaign. This is all about framing and defining. OK? You know, most of America will focus on this election after Labor Day and that's when they'll be all into it. But the idea that he has $1.3 million, Hillary Clinton right now is trying to define him as best she can. Now, he does have an advantage, because he's very TV ready. He understands how to manipulate the media. But having said that, he doesn't have staff in the states. And the Clinton campaign right now is better prepared to frame this election and to try to put doubt in the voters' minds. CAMEROTA: But that doesn't have anything to do with money. I mean --

PRESTON: What's that?

CAMEROTA: Well, everything you're talking about is sort of strategy, not money. I mean, if he --

PRESTON: Well, money pays --

CAMEROTA: It pays for the ads. And you're talking about staff everything. So, I mean, so you think it is a very big deal that that's the number --

PRESTON: It's huge. It's huge. Because right now, we might not see it now in the CNN/ORC poll, which is five points or what have you. But what it does do, is that this will play out over the next couple of months and we'll look back at this time and say, that's why that's a big --

CUOMO: Sara was saying that earlier, Jackie, that you know, she's trying to define him, he's not able to be on the airwaves rebutting the presumptions that she's putting out about him. And that's going to be the battle. He says, I'll make it up for --

(CROSSTALK)

Well, here but not on commercial is paid time on those sections and there's a reason people spend the money on it. But he's making two different points. He's saying, one, I got the money. And you'll see it when I want you to see it. I don't need it right now because I'm on top. And two is, why do you reward Clinton for dirty money. One of his guys are going to come on this morning and say, you media, you don't want to talk about what happened with the Clinton Foundation. That their top list of donors are all banks and law firms and Time Warner, you know, which they'll going to bring out every chance they get. How strong of an argument is that?

KUCINICH: It' all fun and games when you have money and no one's donating to you to criticize a person that actually has money and has donors. Because Donald Trump, you bet, if some of these banks are trying to give him money, he's not going to say no.

CUOMO: He can't say right now, I have said no. I have not taken their money yet.

KUCINICH: Right. Right now he can't, but that -- if he wants to -- where does he think the money is going to come from? From these Republican donors that right now, there's a chilling effect out there. They're looking at this guy and they don't think he can win. So, why would you make that investment if you're a successful businessman? Donald Trump wouldn't invest in his campaign right now if he was on the outside.

CAMEROTA: Well, he's talking about that and last night he talked about whether or not he would self-fund going forward. So, listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: As far as I'm concerned, I would be very happy to continue to self-fund. You know, I have --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to continue to self-fund?

TRUMP: I may. I may.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much?

TRUMP: To me, I think, I don't know, I can do whatever I want. She's going to spend $1.2 billion on an election. And I'm trying to say, where do you spend that money? Remember this, I spent $50 million and I won. Other people that were running against me spent many times that amount and they lost. Not even close.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you spend another $50 million in the general or more?

TRUMP: I might, I might. I really might decide to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:23:09] CAMEROTA: OK. So, Sara, he says, I mean, he started by saying he's happy to self-fund. So, why doesn't he just do that?

MURRAY: That was a great question. He was self-funding during the primaries, he clearly made this shift to the general election. Look, part of the reason the nominee partners with the RNC, partners of all these state parties, is then you can raise money in bigger buckets. You're able to do something that can help down-ballot races. You can lay some foundation in his battleground states that's going to help you and also candidates lower on the ballot.

And that was sort of the idea of partnering with the RNC and saying, I'm doing this to help the party. I'm the nominee, everyone rally behind me. But he hasn't seen the sort of embrace from the Republican Party that he's been hoping for, and he certainly hasn't seen that kind of embrace from donors. But the other thing is, Donald Trump just doesn't like fund-raising that much. He doesn't like going to the events that much. He doesn't like scheduling the events that much. He doesn't want to make phone calls.

CUOMO: Welcome to politics. And he's gotten some polish on him by saying, I don't need the big names. These big names GOP people, they don't want to back me, it's fine. They're part of the problem. The problem with that problem is, you don't get their staffs, you don't get their lists, you don't their network. And that winds up leading to dollars and boots on the ground.

PRESTON: Right. Unconventional candidate, unconventional campaign, but guess what, convention is what actually wins, specifically in a general election. He can talk all about, to his credit, how many votes and how many people he brought into the Republican primary. We're in the general election now. Different world. We're not talking about nine million people. We're talking about 60 million people. It's a different world at this point. $1.3 million doesn't even fund a Congressional campaign at this point.

CAMEROTA: So, he did self-fund, leading up to this point. But did he lose money? I mean, it sounds like he paid some of his company and staff and family members with some of that self-funding. It sounded like it was sort of a rearranging of the dough.

KUCINICH: Well, this is another place that it's been really interesting, and specifically, in this campaign. Because, usually, candidates stay away from something like this. So there isn't -- so if they have the ability to toast things in places they own, they stay away from it, because there does become a legality. Are you underpaying for that value? Because then that's an in kind donation to the campaign, and that could be illegal. Or if you're overvaluing it, then you're making money. So, he's treading into some really shady legal territory as well.

CAMEROTA: Hmm. Okay, panel, thank you very much. Great to have all of you here.

CUOMO: The money, the nastiness, the lack of plans for the future. All of this is feeding the perception that, boy, I wish I had another choice. Right? How many of you are saying that to us on social media and elsewhere. Well, there is a libertarian, there is the green party. So tonight we'll going to give you a town hall introducing you to the libertarian ticket. You got former governors there Gary Johnson and William Weld from New Mexico and Massachusetts. You'll going to learn about them, you'll going to learn about what makes them different from the Republican and the Democrat. That's at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.

CAMEROTA: Another hit for the Rio Olympics. One of the world's top golfers announces that he is pulling out of the games there. Why Rory McIlroy says he has no choice but to withdraw. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:29:55] CUOMO: North Korea test-firing two ballistic missiles over the Sea of Japan. The first considered a failure, but the second missile traveled almost 250 miles, and that caught the attention of the Pentagon. We have CNN International correspondent Paula Hancocks live in Seoul with more. What do we know, Paula?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, this is certainly what everyone's looking at in this region. That second launch.