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Could Green Party's Jill Stein Be Spoiler For Clinton?; Trump's Fundraising Woes & Campaign Spending; Orlando Gunman Visited Club Hours Before Massacre; Maine Sen. Collins Introduces Compromise Gun Bill; Will Rubio Jump Back Into Senate Race?; Why Brexit Vote Matters. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 22, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00] JILL STEIN, GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: At the same time, we know that about 60 percent of voters are clamoring for another voice and another choice, one that's actually an honest broker and is not part of this very corrupt two-party system that's been throwing everyday people under the bus.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: People do clamor for another choice but they also sometimes consider a third party candidate or a Green Party candidate, a la Ralph Nader in 2000, to be a spoiler. What's your -- let me quickly just show you this poll because you've been referencing it.

Clinton is at 42 percent, Trump is at 38 percent. Johnson is at nine percent and you are at seven percent. Again, if you add that seven percent to, say, Donald Trump, he then beats Hillary Clinton. So what do you say to the spoiler criticism?

STEIN: So, first of all, polls have been showing that actually when Gary Johnson and myself are added in, Hillary Clinton's lead on most polls actually increases. So, it's not -- it's not straightforward at all or intuitive how this works. I'd say a lot of people really feel like the system is broken. I don't think we fix a broken democracy by suppressing opposition voices.

We could actually fix this very simply with the stroke of a pen, by passing an election reform called rank choice voting that actually lets you rank your choices. So if your first choice loses, your vote is reassigned to your second choice. We have this in many cities around the country and in many countries around the world, so I'd encourage people to go to my website, jill2016.com, if you want to find out how to fix it.

But the bottom line, I'd say, is that we have a very broken system, a very broken economy, a broken health care system --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

STEIN: -- broken international security under the two political parties that have been throwing us under the bus. We need to stand up and fix it because they're not going to fix it for us.

CAMEROTA: Well, there you go. Dr. Jill Stein, a pleasure to have you on NEW DAY this morning. Thanks so much for laying it all out for us.

STEIN: Thank you, Alisyn. Good to talk.

CAMEROTA: That's the take of one third party candidate. Tonight you will hear from another. There is a CNN town hall, the Libertarian ticket. Gary Johnson and William Weld will join our own Chris Cuomo for a conversation on the issues of this race. That is at 9:00 p.m. eastern only on CNN -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so when it comes to money it matters in politics, and right now Hillary Clinton is crushing it on the fundraising front. Donald Trump, not so much, but he says that's because he doesn't want the dirty money that Clinton takes. We're going to look at the money race here and why it matters, next.

[07:32:25]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:36:25] CUOMO: Money, money, money, money, money -- it matters in politics. And it's a real mixed bag when you look at the race right now. Let's take a look at what's going on with money with Clinton and Trump and what's motivating the raising of money, too, because the big question now is that Trump -- can he get the money? He says absolutely and I don't want the money that Clinton is getting.

Let's bring in our man, David Chalian. He is our CNN political director. It's always good to see you, my friend.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Good morning.

CUOMO: Money matters, we don't even need to discuss, but in terms of where he gets it let's take a look. OK, $3 million there -- $63 million overall, $1.3 million cash on hand. Now we compare it to Clinton. Obviously, a big difference. How do you see Trump's point of view on this about why he doesn't care?

CHALIAN: Well, listen, Donald Trump has a couple of good points to make on this. One, he says -- we haven't seen the proof of this yet -- he says he can open his checkbook and make that $1.3 million, match her 42 if he wanted to.

CUOMO: His guy just said it this morning. Michael Cohen said he could write a check like that.

CHALIAN: He could, but he hasn't done it yet and so, we'll see. Now, we saw him put money into the primary election and that helped him win the nomination, Chris, but here, what we do see is the discrepancy. Until he opens his checkbook -- she has this mountain of cash right now, compared to him, to fund the full infrastructure of the campaign that she's in charge of.

CUOMO: So he says so what, it doesn't matter. This year is different. But now here's the ratio you were just talking about. But the reason -- the pushback on Trump is history.

CHALIAN: Right.

CUOMO: That when you look at these other races the money differential has mattered in terms of whoever has more and winds up winning.

CHALIAN: Well, that's true here but also 2012, obviously, you had an incumbent president and the challenger, right?

CUOMO: True.

CHALIAN: So look at 2008, where it was like this time around it's an open seat.

CUOMO: Sure.

CHALIAN: And at least they were in the ballpark together. Yes, money does matter. It does seem to help the victor if you have more of it. But this was a competitive race. Now, Donald Trump says hey, I get a lot of free media, I have proven to win the Republican nomination by spending so much less than anybody else that's won the Republican nomination in recent history. All true.

The difference here is he said -- and he said it -- he's relying on the RNC now and their coffers to field his program, staffers. He has not done any television advertising yet, so right now she's owning the airwaves, defining Donald Trump.

CUOMO: And tell the audience why the general election is so much different than the primaries in terms of the importance of ground organization because you're not dealing with $9 million, you're dealing with $60 million or $70 million that you have to get out.

CHALIAN: That's right, in probably about eight to 12 states where you really have to focus because that's the path to 270 electoral votes. But take a look at this. I just want to point to this one first, OK? Ads -- do you see that there's not even a little television screen here?

CUOMO: Right.

CHALIAN: This is just online and print ads.

CUOMO: It's all online.

CHALIAN: He's not spent -- the real money in politics, as you know -- any campaign -- the lion's share of their money goes to television advertising. And right now in these key eight battleground states Hillary Clinton is defining Donald Trump negatively and putting her own positive message for herself out there, and it is going completely unanswered.

CUOMO: Now, people will hear that and they'll say wait, I don't get it, Trump is always on T.V. But remember this, when this show goes to commercial what pops up locally in your commercials? It may be Hillary Clinton saying something about Donald Trump. He's not competing on that level. He's just doing the interviews. You're saying that matters. CHALIAN: I'm saying it could matter. Listen, Donald Trump's broken every conventional and political rule --

CUOMO: True.

CHALIAN: -- and he may be able to break this one, too, but everything we know is that it does tend to matter.

CUOMO: Does Chalian care about this? The biggest expenditure he's had is on hats and t-shirts. And there's been a little bit of stink put on him about him paying his own companies to provide services to the campaign. Now, I haven't been able to work the numbers in any way that suggests he's making money on his campaign but does this matter?

[07:40:00] CHALIAN: We haven't seen a candidate who owns his own plane, who owns his own venues where he can hold political events, who owns his own vineyard, so this is just not something we've seen in the past.

Hillary Clinton's spending a ton on air travel also. She's spending to hold events at venues, as well. They just don't have her name on them. She doesn't own them. He does not seem to be enriching himself yet, that we can find out, as you said. This is just reimbursing his own company.

CUOMO: But this is politics, not litigation, so it's about perception being reality. It's about optics. Do you think it looks good for him to say hey, I'm loaning my campaign money, and by the way, a lot of that money that I'm loaning is going back into my own companies?

CHALIAN: I don't think it's terribly troubling for him because I think he has proven to be so much about the Trump brand that the fact that he stands in front of a Trump sign or on a Trump plane, that's part of who he is.

CUOMO: How important or powerful is it for him to say you know why I don't have the money that she has? Because I won't take it from the people that she takes it from. You look at her list of donors. His guy was happy to punch me in the nose by saying Time Warner's on the list this morning -- obviously, CNN's parent company.

But that banks, law firms, those who work the system. I won't take their money. The foreign money that went to the Clinton Global Initiative. I won't take that type of money. He can't in an election, right? You can't have foreign sovereigns, but is that a powerful point?

CHALIAN: It is, Chris, because at every Trump rally I went to throughout the nomination season this was one of the most salient points for his supporters was hey, no strings on me, right? I'm a totally independent guy. So the fact now that he is pivoting to try to raise money for the general election, to put out fundraising appeals, to go to big dollar donors and stand in fancy restaurants and say hey, I need your money or help the RNC raise money -- that's a little off-brand from where he's been. And this is also why -- Donald Trump is the kind of candidate like a Bernie Sanders, like a Howard Dean, who has this grassroots army out there of diehard supporters. Normally, they would get a ton of low- dollar donations but when you're a billionaire who has totally boasted about the fact that you're funding your own campaign it's a disincentive for folks that would normally be so excited to give you small dollar amounts that add up to a lot. He's now trying to turn on that spigot. We'll see if it works for him.

But, starting to raise money now and not fully self-funding is a different part than we saw from the nomination race, which was a successful piece for him.

CUOMO: David Chalian breaking it down. Make us smarter, make us better. Thank you very much -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, the gun control battle is ramping up again on Capitol Hill. Is there a possible breakthrough for this week? We will ask the Florida lawmaker leading a hearing on the lone-wolf threat. That's next.

[07:42:45]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:15] CAMEROTA: Investigators revealing the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando visited the club hours before the attack. The battle over gun control in Congress is now at a boiling point with a compromised measure to keep guns away from terrorists now on the table.

So joining us to discuss this is Florida congressman Ron DeSantis. He is the chairman of the oversight committee's subcommittee on national security. He is also running for Marco Rubio's seat in the Senate. Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

REP. RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA: Good morning, thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: So, as we know, there were these four measures, two Democratic, two Republican, that were presented on Monday, they all failed. And Sen. Chris Murphy, who was speaking out and was behind one of them -- he said that as a result basically by letting people on terror watch lists buy guns, he says, Republicans are selling weapons to ISIS. What's your response?

DESANTIS: Well, I think that that's rank demagoguery. I mean, we all, I think, want to terrorists to be dealt with -- no weapons, no explosives, and not even walking the street in our country. But I will say that I'm privileged to serve with a lot of post-9/11 veterans, including myself, who served in Iraq, on the Republican side and these are people that have actually fought the precursor to the Islamic state. So those types of comments, I think, just don't sit well and it's not productive to try to develop a strong anti-terrorism strategy.

Now, this guy obviously should not have been able to have a firearm but there were also a whole bunch of warning signs leading up to this and Islamic radicalism was the precursor. And when I see the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, saying in Orlando that we don't know why he did this, that is not instilling a lot of confidence in the ability of this government to be able to combat some of these threats.

CAMEROTA: OK, but let's stick to why and how he was able to get his hands on a gun. You're not comfortable with the idea that this shooter was able to get a gun, so what's the solution? What could have prevented him from getting his hands on a gun?

DESANTIS: Well, I think that the first gun store owner, where he was trying to get a lot of ammunition and body armor, they did the right thing. They called the FBI, they reported him. He was speaking Arabic and he was acting very strange, and this is somebody who had been on their radar before. He had attended the same mosque as Abu Sayyaf, the American suicide bomber in Syria.

And so I think the ball was dropped there and he was able to effectively go to another gun store a couple of days later or a couple of weeks later and get firearms. But the issue is he was not on any type of list when he should've been somebody who was flagged, and so I think there was a breakdown with law enforcement.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, look, the FBI says that the gun shop owner didn't have any information. They didn't have a name of anybody, their surveillance camera wasn't working to present video, so they say that basically that was a dead end for them. However, in Congress -- let's talk about legislation and if there's any legislation that can happen to prevent this from ever happening to another community.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, has a compromise bill that will be voted on this week. Basically, no-fly, no-buy. If you are on a watch list that doesn't allow you to get on a plane then you shouldn't be able to buy a gun. Would you vote for that?

DESANTIS: Well, I'd have to review it. I think for me, anybody who is a terrorist should not have access to firearms. On that list the vast, vast majority of them are already prohibited persons. But you also have to have an innocent American who gets put on the list erroneously has got to have the opportunity to defend their rights and an opportunity to be heard.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and there would be that.

DESANTIS: Now, I'm not sure how that bill --

CAMEROTA: Well, there would be a --

DESANTIS: Well, I'm not sure how that's done.

[07:50:00] CAMEROTA: Well, look, here's the thing, Congressman. The pendulum swings back and forth, as you know, about civil liberties and there are something like a few thousand Americans on a terror watch list. A couple hundred of them might be on erroneously, so are you saying that you feel more strongly about protecting that couple of hundred people who might be on erroneously, who can appeal being on that watch list, rather than the hundreds of millions of American who feel very strongly that more legislation needs to be passed to keep terror suspects from getting their hands on guns.

DESANTIS: Well, I think it's an open question whether there is the right to appeal because there have been people who've been on these lists for all the time. But there's the thing. When you're allowing the Executive Branch to deprive somebody of a constitutional liberty without any process that is something that affects all Americans because that's a precedent that can be used.

Maybe you don't care as much about the Second Amendment but maybe you care about the first, or maybe you care about the fifth. And so I want to make sure that people are not deprived of constitutional freedoms without having the ability to simply contest it. And if there's probable cause then the government can be able to delay it. But that's very important because you want to make sure this is being done in accordance with the law.

CAMEROTA: You are interested in Sen. Marco Rubio's Senate seat. Is Marco Rubio running?

DESANTIS: I think we're going to find out very shortly. Our filing deadline is Friday at noon and I think he's going to make a decision in advance of that, so a lot of people in Florida are waiting with baited breath to see what he decides to do.

CAMEROTA: As are we. Congressman Ron DeSantis, thanks so much for being on NEW DAY --

DESANTIS: OK.

CAMEROTA: -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, a big question. Will the U.K. leave the European Union? It's called the Brexit vote. And, why do you care? Well, you should. This vote is going to have a big impact on global economies no matter which way it comes out. Christine Romans is going to break it down for you, next.

[07:51:50]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:55:35] CUOMO: The Brexit vote takes place tomorrow and it is high stakes. The proposition is simple. Is Britain going to stay in the European Union? But the outcomes get very complicated very quick and there are a lot of ripple effects. You know how I know? Because CNN chief business correspondent, Christine Romans, says Cuomo, you better pay attention to this. So, let's start with --

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It's got its own made up word. It must be important.

CUOMO: I know, right. Thank you for explaining to me what it is, by the way. I never would have gotten it otherwise. So, what is it exactly that's going on here? ROMANS: Well, what's going on is you've got friends and allies who are disentangling. If you have the U.K. leave the E.U. that is something that we never planned for -- they didn't plan for when they were coming together as a more integrated Europe and that is disruptive. Markets don't like uncertainty, economies don't like uncertainty. It raises a lot of questions and it could disrupt business.

If you look at the U.K., it's a $3 trillion economy. It's actually one of the stronger economies in Europe. You have really high unemployment in some of these countries. The disintegration of Europe is something that would be very destabilizing for the rest of the world.

CUOMO: And especially coming out of 2008 or, for them, 2010.

ROMANS: Right.

CUOMO: You've had the "strong have to help the weak", uniquely, as we saw with what's happening in Greece. All right, but I'm still not sold.

ROMANS: OK.

CUOMO: I'm an American, I live on an island, that's Europe, I don't care.

ROMANS: Well, you should care if you have a 401(k) because a lot of the forecasters say you've got maybe a near-term five percent decline in the S&P 500 -- maybe up to 10 percent some people say and volatility spikes.

What does that mean? That means things are uncertain and rocky and markets go up and down and it gets kind of crazy and chaotic and it's difficult to navigate in a situation like that. So in the very near term -- short-term effects, you would see markets don't like uncertainty. It would be very uncertain and you would see markets react that way.

CUOMO: Nervous traders, your friends on Wall Street, looking for volatility so they can play the casino game that we call markets.

ROMANS: Oh, no question somebody's trying to figure out how to make money on all this -- no question. And there's a lot of betting on both sides going on right now. But when people play games like that it's never really good for your 401(k), right? When you're just sitting there and you see all of these red arrows, so --

CUOMO: Long-term effects?

ROMANS: Long-term effects, I think -- look, here's something interesting and I'm glad you asked that --

CUOMO: You told me to, Romans.

ROMANS: -- because when you look at the S&P 500 -- CUOMO: Don't you set up questions that you told me to ask.

ROMANS: That is a very smart question, Mr. Cuomo. One percent of S&P 500 company revenue comes from the U.K., so that's not a lot. So you could look further out and say, look, if they can get their act together maybe it wouldn't be long-term destabilizing for the United States of America and for investors here.

But look, this is a close ally. These are friends. These are friends who are really having, quite frankly, an existential crisis and you're seeing a lot of the experts here in the U.S., including the president of the United States and the chairman of the Fred --

CUOMO: They say stay in.

ROMANS: They say stay in. They say stay in. And, you know, the president got a little bit of grief from people who want the Brexit because they said why is he weighing in on our matters? Well, we have a very special relationship with the U.K. We have very close bonds with Europe -- big trading with Europe. And, you know, it matters to the U.S. -- it does.

CUOMO: What do you say happens, Romans?

ROMANS: I think it's going to be very close. I think in the end -- it feels a little bit to me like a Scottish referendum when there was all this nationalism for a while and in the end they decided that the status quo would be better.

CUOMO: I take the other side.

ROMANS: Do you?

CUOMO: No. We're following a lot of news. There are big headlines out of the campaigns, so let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

TRUMP: She has a bad temperament. She would do so badly with the economy.

CLINTON: The king of debt has no real plan.

TRUMP: She's crooked Hillary, she always has been and nothing's going to change.

CLINTON: Maybe we shouldn't expect better from someone whose most famous words are "you're fired".

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He went to the Pulse nightclub earlier Saturday night before returning to carry out his attack.

LORETTA LYNCH, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We're working to identify anyone he had contact with that night.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't want to hear thoughts and prayers. They want us to do something.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I put it on my head. I had no idea that it was going to get stuck. It didn't budge.

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

CUOMO: You're not supposed to laugh but you kind of have to laugh.

CAMEROTA: She's OK. The Barney head did not swallow her whole, she's OK. But having a Barney head stuck on you, is there anything more nightmarish, really?

CUOMO: Look, we have kids. We understandthat sometimes things get stuck on their heads, but it can be very scary but also funny.

CAMEROTA: All right, we will explain the outcome of that story. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your new day. It is Wednesday, June 22nd, 8:00 in the east. Donald Trump going on the attack today. He is set to deliver a speech targeting Hillary Clinton's record and judgment.