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Benghazi Report: Clinton Should Have Realized Risks; Trump Changes Tone on Muslim Ban; U.K. in Damage Control After Brexit Vote. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 28, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I made mistakes. I don't know anyone who hasn't.

[05:58:31] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The official report on the deadly Benghazi terror attack released.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is kind of mind numbing to really wrap their heads around the kind of bureaucratic mess.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said countries linked to Islamic terrorism would be blocked in terms of immigration.

TRUMP: Countries with great terrorism.

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's about making sure the immigration policies of our country put Americans first.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you come up with this new policy, it's as idiotic as the first one.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a victory for abortion rights supporters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With this historic ruling, justice has been served, and our clinics can stay open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As controversy surrounds "The Daily Show's" reaction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. Victor Blackwell joins us today. Great to have you here. We have a lot of breaking news to get to right now, because House Republicans will release their long-awaited report on the Benghazi terror attack today. CNN exclusively obtaining a portion of that report, which finds, among other things, that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should have realized the risks.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Democrats on the committee and Clinton's campaign are already blasting the report. So is there a smoking gun that could impact the 2016 race? That's the question, and we're getting on the answers for you this morning. We have complete coverage, starting with CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash live in Washington.

Dana, the House created this select committee more than two years ago. What can you tell us about what's in this report?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, we can tell you what was in about 200-plus pages of what we were given exclusive access to. and this is a portion of what we're told will be 802 pages. That's how long this report is going to be.

And the section that we got describes the events leading up to the deadly attack on the Benghazi compound, and the committee says that they got the information using 75,000 new documents, 81 witnesses never questioned by Congress before. And it really paints the narrative of the outpost of Benghazi as a bureaucratic and diplomatic no man's land, which made it unnecessarily hard to get crucial funding, even more crucial security. And that's especially given how much the security situation deteriorated on the ground during that year between 2011 and 2012 when the deadly attack happened.

But what we reviewed, the answer to your question, Chris, there doesn't seem to be a smoking gun when it comes to Hillary Clinton's culpability when she was secretary of state. But it does conclude that the former secretary and her top aides had the intelligence to realize just how high a risk Benghazi was for personnel.

Let me just read you a quote from the report. It said, "It's not clear what additional intelligence would have satisfied either Kennedy," who is one of her top aides, "or the secretary in understanding that Benghazi compound was at risk short of an attack.

Now let me just, as I'm tossing it back to you, tell you that other news organizations were given different sections of the report based on different timelines. FOX News is reporting on the explanation after the attack from the administration -- saying that the report concludes that the administration got this information from -- not from the people on the ground, but they crafted their response in Washington. And that initial response which they admit was wrong was that the protests and the attack was sparked by anti-Muslim video -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: So Dana, that's been one of the lingering questions, obviously, of why they blamed it on the video. But one of the other questions has been why was Ambassador Chris Stevens even in Benghazi on September 11, given that he knew it was so violent and that he was concerned for the security of himself and the personnel there. So any answers to that?

BASH: We do have some new information based on some e-mails that they got from the late ambassador and other documents and interviews, where it shows that Ambassador Stevens we knew saw Benghazi as a crucial part of Libya, wanted to make permanent diplomatic U.S. consulate there.

And apparently, what Stevens learned through this report, we know, is that funding would actually have been available to make that happen but only through the end of that fiscal year. So only through September 30, the time, 2012. So he had to get there fast to help make the case to secure funding back to Washington.

Also, this is interesting and something we didn't know before. Emails indicate that Secretary Clinton and her top aides actually planned to go to Libya in October of 2012, and the people on the ground and senior aides in Washington thought that having a permanent consulate in Benghazi, rather, could be a, quote unquote, deliverable for her.

You know, one thing I will say is that Stevens has been described for years now as somebody so tenacious, maybe he took too many risks. But this report talks about an incident right -- a month before he was killed where he decided not to go, because it was simply too dangerous.

CUOMO: Well, there's so many tactics at play here, too. There's something that started with a simple mandate of let's get to the truth of this situation. Now you have this report being released in phases. The Democrats put out a preemptive report before this report. Basically, what do you think their conclusion is, that, you know, there's nothing new learned here, that this is a witch hunt? When you look at this special 200 part of this 800-part -- page report, what's your take?

BASH: It doesn't seem to be, from this part, and it really is kind of written as a narrative, as here's what happened, and here's the story as it unfolded without specific fingers pointed, especially at the secretary.

Trey Gowdy, who is the chairman, decided he just wanted to do the narrative with no conclusions. So they don't draw any conclusions in this larger report.

However, Chris, other Republicans on the committee, two in fact, Congressman Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo, they don't think that that is sufficient. They wrote their own 42-page report, where they do draw conclusions, including that the secretary's role was a desire to sweep the terror attack under the rug. That was true, they say, for the entire administration, because it was so soon before the 2012 presidential election.

[06:05:11] Let me just quickly tell you that Brian Fallon, spokesman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, tweeted this morning about this: "Far from honoring the four brave Americans who died, the Benghazi committee has been a partisan sham since its start."

Back to you guys.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Dana, thanks so much. We'll talk more about this throughout the morning. And of course, the full report coming out in just a couple of hours.

Now to Donald Trump, once again appearing to shift his tone on one of his more, many would say most controversial proposals. He says his Muslim ban will not apply to all Muslims. So then to whom does this apply?

CNN's Phil Mattingly joins us now to break down what we know. And Phil, the campaign is saying that this is not a shift.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right. And that's not necessarily true. What we're seeing right now is Donald Trump is edging further and now more explicitly away from that proposed ban on all Muslims entering the United States.

Now, in many ways this has been a process that's occurred in fits and starts over the last couple of months. Take a listen to Trump in December and then Trump in May.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS: But the way that everybody read it, it was across the table.

TRUMP: We have exceptions. And ideally, you won't have a ban very long.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And Victor, now advisors say his campaign is in the midst on working on a memo outlining very specific kind of a tailored approach to it. Now, campaign aides are pushing back on that idea that this is some wholesale change.

But here's the reality. It is. And it raises questions about what happens next for a proposal that really has played very well in the Republican Party up to this point. Even though top GOP leaders like Speaker Paul Ryan, they remain steadfastly opposed.

But what we're seeing is, in many ways, as one GOP advisor called it, a quote, tale of two Trumps. The candidate willing or unable to let go of what got him to this point. That whether or not -- whether he likes it or not, the general election is a very different moment than a primary and he's targeting a very different electorate now.

So in that, we've slowly started to see a more professionalized campaign. There's the building of a real fundraising operation, and there's also targeted travel. Take a look at Trump's schedule today. A big economic speech in Pennsylvania. A stop that follows that in Ohio, two crucial states. Two states Trump has to win.

If his theory of the race is accurate, for all the uneasiness and outright opposition out there, this is more or less exactly what Republicans have to ask for out of their candidate. And now they 're getting it -- Chris.

CUOMO: They've asked for those types of trips. I think the ride that got them to these two trips is something nobody was asking for on that side of the fence. But we'll see how it plays out. You're right. It's a new election now with the general.

So stay with us. And let's discuss some of the implications of the Benghazi report that's coming out and now what Trump is doing on his position. Let's also have Dana Bash, and let's bring in CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr and CNN senior political reporter Nia- Malika Henderson.

Barbara, let me start with you. This is unusual to have a report put out in pieces like this selectively before it comes out. Obviously, they're concerned about the perception of this.

One of the big issues was did the military do what it was supposed to do under these circumstances, and if not, was it intentionally held back? Do you hear of any new findings on that or conclusions that are relevant, in your estimation?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, was the military held back? I think that is beyond unlikely. What we do know is that night, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, defense secretary at the time, talked to the president. Everything was ordered up then. The Pentagon says could be. They put forces on alert. Contingency forces. Emergency response forces. Marines. Special Operations forces. But by the time anything could really get moving, forces were just too far away. The attack was over.

There was a lot of discussion during all of these hearings about why wasn't there some kind of air strike? You know, in emergencies, people do like to turn to the military. They think the military can do something about it. But on that compound that night, a very confused picture, and you had U.S. diplomats moving around that compound very rapidly. So exactly where would you drop a bomb if you could get aircraft over the site in time? It was a very confused situation.

CAMEROTA: But Barbara, I don't mean to interrupt but just on a smaller scale, what about the security guys who were at the annex who say that there was a stand down or whatever? The rumor was that, on just a much smaller scale, that those guys were somehow given a stand down order, and they say they could have run over to the compound and saved some lives.

STARR: Yes. You know, that has been out there. I think it is fair to say that there's little to no evidence that people who could have helped -- let me say this very bluntly, people who were trained, equipped, ready and could have helped were told absolutely don't go. That has been out there.

[06:10:25] I think the question remains that could something have really been done, and I think it gets back to the point. I mean, let's be clear. Four people died here. Something went very wrong. That never should have happened. Could the U.S. military have turned it all around?

BASH: I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Barbara. I didn't mean to interrupt you. I want to add one thing to that, just to augment what Barbara is saying. Is that over and over in the sections that we've read. It specifically says that they wanted to on the front end have military support for security, but were told no all the way up to the chairman of the joint chiefs, because it would violate President Obama's no boots on the ground policy.

And that the implication here in that narrative is that, had they more military support on the front end, they wouldn't need to have the kind of rescue mission and other problems that led to not being able to help these four Americans who were killed.

CUOMO: So, Nia, what is the political play here? Because you know, we're treating this very thoroughly, and we're going at it as we ordinarily would. I don't know that's the right tack, because this commission was put together for one simple reason. They believe the fix was in here, that the place was left vulnerable. It was done so on purpose. And once the attack came it was handed poorly, maybe on purpose, and then in the aftermath it was all covered up for political reasons. The question is, will there be "there" there in this report?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think that's -- that's the big question. And this has been an ongoing conversation within the context of this campaign with Hillary Clinton emerging as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

In October of last year, she of course gave that 11-hour testimony on the hill there and, from the perspective of the Clinton campaign, that sort of has been enough; and they have come out and, of course, of this recent report is essentially a partisan witch-hunt. They called it a sham.

You know, I mean, the big question is whether or not all of the things we know about Benghazi -- and there's some new information here -- is essentially already baked into the cake in terms of how average voters see Hillary Clinton.

You certainly see Donald Trump trying to make some hay over her involvement with Benghazi. I'm sure he'll certainly do that with this, as well. He, for instance, has said that Hillary Clinton was literally asleep while this was happening, even though it happened at something like 3 p.m. Eastern Time. He later sort of backpedaled and said she was figuratively asleep at the wheel or at the switch.

So yes, I mean, this is going to be an ongoing line of attack against Hillary Clinton, and we know what their comeback is going to be.

CAMEROTA: OK. So we will bring you developments as they emerge this morning as we sift through more and more of the pages and the findings. Let's move on to Donald Trump and the campaign and particularly his evolution, I suppose you can call it on the total and complete Muslim ban that he called for immediately.

You know, this was one of the main sort of tenets of his platform. It's certainly gotten some of the most attention, and since then he has sort of changed the wording on it. Let me play for you the different things he's said about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there anything you've heard that makes you want to rethink this position?

TRUMP: No.

It will be lifted, this ban, when and as a nation we're in a position to properly and perfectly screen these people coming into our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Now his spokespeople are saying, well, only from terror states, though they haven't defined those. Where are we with this?

MATTINGLY: What we're seeing right now is kind of a window into Donald Trump on policy throughout the course of the 13 months that he's been running for present.

However, to your point, there's the wall and there's the Muslim ban. These are the two policies that are really synonymous with the Trump campaign. These are the policies that drove him throughout the Republican primary.

The most interesting element of Trump throughout this entire campaign has been inability to pin him down on a specific issue, right, or on a specific set of facts. He's so agile. He's so able to kind of shift, jab and move across. He hasn't done that with the Muslim ban so explicitly.

However, this weekend in Scotland, he told our colleague, Jeremy Dunn, that he just wanted to target terror states. And his campaign spokesman walked that back. Now they're going further on that again.

It think what's happening here is you have Donald Trump, who is unwilling to move off the issues that have made him so successful up to this point; and you have campaign advisors who are saying, "You need to move off these issues if you want to be successful in the general election." It's a constant tug; it's a constant push and pull. It's a push and pull you'll see today.

He has a very scripted speech scheduled in Pennsylvania, and then he has a rally scheduled over in Ohio. Watch the two Donald Trumps play out there. It's almost a perfect window into what's actually happening inside his campaign right now as they try and formulate what Trump campaign and the general election actually is.

CUOMO: Dana, look, you don't need to have a political consultant to know that some issues play well in a primary and poorly in a general. A Muslim ban is exactly that by definition. But the question is: how do they finesse the change? Can't do a 180, because he's a guy who doesn't play the game. Right? So isn't that what we're seeing here? And, you know, pretty much needs only shallow analysis.

BASH: Yes. And it's especially surprising since, if we were to follow that typical political convention of moving to the center in the general, then after the horrific massacre in Orlando, instead of doubling down on his temporary ban on all Muslims, immigration into this country, he would have started the shift that Phil has been reporting on.

But he didn't. He doubled down, and he added at the time that he would add some -- the countries where there seems to be the most dangerous of potential terrorists. Now he's shifting to just...

CUOMO: Which could, like, conclude France, by the way. Right now.

HENDERSON: Or a lot of countries.

CUOMO: It's a very dicey definition.

BASH: And just remember also what we're talking about here, that the killer in San Bernardino and in -- in...

CAMEROTA: Orlando.

BASH: ... Orlando were Americans. They were born in America. So that's beside the point.

But go ahead.

CAMEROTA: So -- so Nia, I mean, do his supporters mind that he has this, you know, sort of ever-shifting policy? Or do they think that, you know, once again this is him sort of telling it like it is at the moment?

HENDERSON: I mean, that's the thing. Donald Trump supporters who I talked to on one hand, view him as strong and sort of going against the tendency towards political correctness but also see him as flexible. Right?

So on the one hand they say it's good that he's saying these things about the Muslim ban, about building a wall, although they don't necessarily believe he'll actually follow through with them. So there's a bit of a contradiction there.

I think with this, more broadly, I think his main problem is he has talked about the Muslim ban, a temporary Muslim ban over and over and over and over again. I mean, it's on tape. And you can expect that the Clinton campaign and Democrats more broadly will use his own words in ads where he's talking about this.

I mean, yesterday Elizabeth Warren talked about this when she was in Ohio. So it's hard, I think. You know, everybody wants to Etch-a- Sketch in sort of the famous words of Mitt Romney in 2012. Everybody wants to Etch-a-Sketch going into a general election. But I think this is going to be very hard for him to do.

CUOMO: And remember, he was pitching to about 50 percent of about a third of his party. They were the angriest, most frustrated, most demanding of something extreme. And he gave it to them on different fronts.

Now he's not just trying to catch the moderate and, you know, more concerned wing of his party but all those independents and Democrats that he can get. He's going to have to change. The question is will they let him?

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. Obviously, we will have you all on standby throughout the program.

BLACKWELL: All right. Let's turn now to the deepening fallout after the Brexit vote. And for the first time since that historic vote, British Prime Minister David Cameron is meeting face to face with E.U. officials in Brussels.

This is the start of a long process about how the U.K. will break away from the E.U. CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is live in Brussels with the latest for us. And this comes moments ago as we saw the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, draw some very bold and important lines as this divorce moves forward.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, this meeting may not be a terribly pretty one when David Cameron gets here in an hour or so. What he has heard from the German and from the French is you need to hurry up and get this divorce process going. You need to trigger that Article 50, as it's called, to make it official.

What we heard from Angela Merkel is that the European Union can go it alone -- go it alone without Britain, but there are very, very clear lines here. No. 1 is no pre-negotiations, no side negotiations, no kind of -- set side deal or some terms of before you get into that final exit negotiations.

But also, as well, you're not going to get access, the message is very clear from the Germans and the French. You're not going to get access, Britain, to those -- to that free trade zone inside Europe unless you let E.U. workers come into Britain. And that's a huge issue. That's essentially one of the biggest issues that Britain went to vote on in voting to leave the European Union.

[06:20:09] So of course, David Cameron gets here and leaves a big political mess back home. No real leader back home. The opposition party in crisis mode. Scotland is threatening to break off from Britain. Picture somewhat of a mess -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: It is a mess, Nic. Thank you for explaining that so well. So with all this backlash building, is there any way the U.K. could actually back out of the Brexit referendum. Our Christiane Amanpour joins us live with answers from London next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAMEROTA: Well, the U.K. is in damage mode this morning as President Obama makes his first remarks since Britain's vote to leave the E.U. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that the best way to think about this is a pause button has been pressed on the project of full European integration. I would not overstate it. There's been a little bit of hysteria, post-Brexit vote, as if somehow NATO is gone and the Trans-Atlantic Alliance is dissolving and every country is rushing off to its own corner. That's not happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:25:18] CAMEROTA: So what is happening? Joining us now to discuss this is CNN chief international correspondent, CNN i-anchor, Christiane Amanpour.

Christiane, great to have you here. What a mess as Nic Robertson just reported from Brussels. And one of the things that seems to be happening today, Christiane, is that these leaders who had led the Brexit charge seem to be backtracking on the promises that they made to the voters that allowed the voters to vote for Brexit.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Alisyn, it's been sort of very clear in this week right after, you know, Brexit happened that there is no plan from the leaders, everybody is asking where is your plan.

I asked one of the leading lights of the leave campaign, you know, what's the plan. They said, "Well, we hope David Cameron would lead us through a plan." I'm like, well, you want the loser to figure out your plan for you? And where are, by the way, the likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, who were the faces and the main proponents of the official leave campaign. They haven't been seen in public.

And what about mitigating some of these very, very vital issues that won the leave vote for them. That was immigration and the whole slogan of take back control was about immigration, and it was about paying dues to Brussels. And on both issues, there's been some prevaricating. So nobody quite knows. And there's been, you know, some pretty testy talk, trying to hold -- get some facts out of one of the leave campaigners on the show.

CAMEROTA: You did. You confronted the member of the European Parliament, and let's just play for everyone that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So you're saying -- you're saying that Parliamentary sovereignty could quite easily allow the same number of people to keep coming in?

DANIEL HANNAN, BRITISH MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: It could be a decision for Parliament. That's how dangerous it is... AMANPOUR: This whole thing was run on...

HANNAN: No, you guys have been shouting racist and not listening to what we were actually saying.

AMANPOUR: Did I say that?

HANNAN: When you retract that right now.

AMANPOUR: Did I say that?

HANNAN: When have I ever made immigration...

AMANPOUR: Did I say that? Did I say that?

HANNAN: You accused us of backtracking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So Christiane, tell us. Tell us the back story there. I mean, you were trying to say to him, so in other words, the same amount of immigrants could be coming in, the very thing that has -- that sort of animated this whole movement, that nothing would change.

AMANPOUR: Well, here's the thing. Because they see it -- it was quite a narrow vote. Because they see the backlash. Because they see that Europe is, at least at the moment, not about to grant them any special deals if they want to be part of the single -- single market. They're not going to grant them any sort of stop in the free flow of migrants.

You know, again, I think it's a vision, that kind of outburst from that gentleman of not knowing where to go next. And he told me that they were going to have to temper and make the -- make the phase of taking back sovereignty as they put it, more gradual.

And you're trying to say hang on a second. Your voters voted for these specific promises that you're now saying may or may not go into effect. So that was that issue. And it's a very serious one.

Because as you heard from Brussels, Angela Merkel, all the other leaders -- and I spoke to Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, and I said, "You're seeing what's happening in Great Britain in the Brexit camp right now. Is there any room for a Britain outside of U.K., E.U. to be a part of the single market and also have, you know, limits on migration? This is what I said to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Is there any room, according to the E.U., to allow Britain to remain part of the single market and give Britain more ability to restrict the free movement of European people of labor.

MATTEO RENZI, ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER: In my view, it's impossible to remain in the community only with the good things and not with the bad things. In every family if you belong to family, you must accept the good things and the bad things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, given all of this and that there does seem to be some regret, certainly among voters who wanted to -- wanted a protest vote. They wanted their voices heard but not necessarily all of this chaos that's come. Is there any chance that Brexit does not happen or that there is a second referendum where people rethink their original vote?

AMANPOUR: Well, these are, you know, really live questions that are happening here in Great Britain and perhaps even across the continent. Although everybody is saying we have to respect the voice of this democratic -- this democratic referendum.

But here's the thing. We know that the majority of the British Parliament is against out. They want to remain. But are they going to counter the people's vote?

We also know -- and this very real -- that there are two major leadership challenges happening in the two main parties.