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New Day

Donald Trump Campaign Accused of Anti-Semitic Tweet; Hillary Clinton and President Obama Campaign in North Carolina; Saudi Arabia Rocked by Three Suicide Bombings in a 24-hour Period. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 05, 2016 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And they probably won't. Over the next month the federal government plans to flood Rios tourist zones and Olympic venues with troops. But for Rio's residents living in the shadow of the games, it's security they will never see.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DAMON: And Alisyn, the 85,000 extra security personnel expected to be arriving over the next few weeks plus access in and out of the venues will be heavily guarded with those trying to get to the games going through x-ray machines and metal detectors.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Arwa, thank you very much for that reporting. So interesting to hear from those two guys.

Well, we're following a lot of news, so let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump is not apologizing for the controversial tweet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The imagery evoking anti-Semitic stereotypes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a pattern that to us that is perplexing, troubling, and wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is nothing anti-Semitic about Mr. Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary Clinton will appear on the campaign trail with President Obama.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can the president help her sliding poll numbers?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The single deadliest terror attack in Iraq since 2003.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very bloody, deadly last few days of the holy month of Ramadan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we're going to see, unfortunately, a lot more of this. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would be surprising to me if ISIL is not trying

to hit us in our homeland.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: PBS under fire.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they use old fireworks footage during a live broadcast?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Fireworkgate. PBSgate.

CAMEROTA: Yes. We will tell you the controversy shortly in the program. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to you NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, July 5th, 8:00 in the east. Chris is off this morning. John Berman joins me. Good to have you.

BERMAN: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: So Donald Trump on the defense over a now deleted tweet with a graphic that originated on an anti-Semitic website. Trump blaming, quote, "the dishonest media" for this firestorm.

BERMAN: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, they both head to North Carolina today. This is a big day on the campaign trail. Donald Trump is bringing a potential running mate. Hillary Clinton's got her own special guest on stage later on today, President Obama. This is their first joint appearance of the election season. CNN has complete coverage of the 2016 race, starting with the twitter battle, "star wars," if you will. Jason Carroll joins us now. Good morning, Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, you remember first Donald Trump lashed out at the media for stirring up the controversy, then he pointed fingers at Hillary Clinton. Now the campaign has also offered up an explanation of who posted the image and how that person apparently got it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: Donald Trump firing back at critics who say the star shape in the tweet his campaign posted evokes anti-Semitic imagery, calling the attacks "false" and "ridiculous." Trump singling out Hillary Clinton's campaign, which called his tweet "blatantly anti-Semitic and part of a pattern." In statement Trump says the former secretary of state is trying to divert attention from dishonest behavior of herself and her husband. But the Clinton campaign is not alone in condemning the image.

JONATHAN GREENBLATT, DIRECTOR, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: The Trump campaign has invoked bigotry and anti-Semitism and racism, and now it's hard to call it any other than a pattern.

CARROLL: Daniel Scavino, Trump's former New York golf course caddy turned social media director for the campaign now says he selected the star, not the Jewish Star of David, but as he called it, a sheriff's badge, explaining he found it from Microsoft shapes. Scavino said in a statement the image was lifted from an anti-Hillary Twitter user where countless images appear, and not sourced from an anti-Semitic site.

But CNN through use of an Internet archiving site found that the same graphic tweeted by Trump appeared 10 days earlier on message board filled with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and neo Nazi ideology.

GREENBLATT: It's an interesting question to ask why is your fact finding department focusing on fiction and how a major presidential campaign can be looking at racist websites or anti-Semitic sections of other online sources and using it to find content to share with the American public.

CARROLL: Trump deleting the tweet on Saturday, reposting the graphic, replacing the star in question with a circle.

ED BROOKOVER, SENIOR ADVISER, DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN: These memes float around the Internet. Not every six sided star is a Star of David. There is no anti-Semitism in Mr. Donald Trump's body, not one ounce, not one cell.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: So Alisyn, still no apology from Trump on the issue. Trump's critics say the campaign needs better checks and balances. They say someone in the campaign should have known that a six-pointed star posted with money invokes anti-Semitic imagery. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Yes, Jason, from all the surrogates we've talked to it doesn't sound like an apology is forthcoming. Thank you very much for the reporting.

[08:05:00] So on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton hitting the campaign trail for the first time with President Obama. The two will head to North Carolina aboard Air Force One, which has Donald Trump asking who is paying for that ride. CNN White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski is live in Charlotte with more. Hi, Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn. The White House has been getting the question for months now. When is President Obama finally going to get out on the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton? Of course the answer is today, right here in Charlotte.

And when you think about it, what picture could be better for the Clinton campaign than to see the two of them fly in together on Air Force One, descending the stairs together, then appearing together on stage in this battleground state. And one of the questions is, how much will President Obama hit Donald Trump? Will he actually mention him by name, because he rarely does?

And later on today Donald Trump will be in North Carolina also but in a different city, in Raleigh. You mentioned it. He was the one who brought out the question and it often comes up whenever a president takes these trips for a campaign, who is paying for that Obama/Clinton trip. The answer is, you may have guessed, you the taxpayer pick up a big chunk of it. Air Force One is expensive. It costs more than $200,000 an hour to operate.

But the campaign also needs to kick in. What they do is prorate it. So the campaign would pay roughly what it would cost to charter a plane of that size for that amount of time. This is the way it's been done for decades. You generally don't know the breakdown of those numbers until people start filing Freedom of Information requests. So we may know those numbers later on. John?

BERMAN: Michelle Kosinski, thank you so much.

I want to discuss the battle for North Carolina and this big day on the campaign trail. Joining us, former Trump campaign advisor Michael Caputo, and CNN political commentator and former South Carolina state representative Bakari Sellers who supports Hillary Clinton. Bakari, let me start with you. This is a big day on the trail today. In some ways a day that's been a long time coming and later I think than maybe the Clinton team wanted. Barack Obama, the presidential of the United States, side by side with Hillary Clinton on the trail. Important?

BAKARI SELLERS, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Very important. The imagery today is going to be amazing. I mean, descending from the steps of Air Force One, standing shoulder to shoulder together. I'm excited. That's all anybody's talking about. North Carolina is going to be a pivotal state. If Hillary Clinton somehow manages to win North Carolina it's going to be a really long night for Donald Trump. He is actually playing defense here. But this's no better attack dog, there's no better unifier, there's no better campaigner than Barack Obama. Barack Obama won the presidency of the United States not once but twice, and he won in landslides both times with mandates from this country. So today is a great day. I hope you can feel my excitement John because it really is exciting here in North Carolina.

BERMAN: Bursting through the seams, Bakari, as always. Michael Caputo, you as well. Let's talk about North Carolina. This was a state that President Barack Obama won in 2008 but Mitt Romney won in 2012. Is it really a battleground this time around? Is this a state that Republicans fear losing?

MICHAEL CAPUTO, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER: No, it's not, actually. I think what we talked about, what we called it in the Trump campaign is a must hold state, not a battleground state. It's a state that we shouldn't plan on losing. It's one that if we do lose as Republicans, it will be much harder to get the math together to elect Donald Trump president. So it's a place where you'll see Donald Trump campaign, you'll see some aggressive activity, but it's not, let's say, Nevada, New Hampshire, Colorado, Florida, one of the true battleground states where it's going to be a real toe-to-toe.

BERMAN: He's there tonight, which says something. He didn't want to cede today on the calendar to Hillary Clinton and President Obama. I guess he's there with Bob Corker of Tennessee, the senator, which is interesting because Corker is a name that's been floated as a possible vice presidential pick. There are other names as well being floated by the likes of Donald J. Trump. Just moments ago Donald Trump went on Twitter, literally about three minutes ago, and said "It was great spending time with Joni Ernst yesterday. She has done a fantastic job for the people of Iowa and U.S. We'll see her again." We'll see her again? What does that mean? Is he trying to float the notion that Joni Ernst is now a leading contender in the whole veep stakes race?

CAPUTO: I think he's not just floating. It's the truth. Joni Ernst is in there and someone who is being strongly considered and has been for a while.

What you're seeing here is a very interesting new kind of twist on the modern presidential campaign. It appears to me -- I don't know, but it appears to me that they have internally made the decision to announce the vice president before the convention. I was at the convention before I left the campaign. We were always planning on announcing the vice president at the convention, a very important plot point in a very important show for Donald Trump.

But now it looks as if Donald Trump is teasing this out, bringing up the names himself on Twitter, a very innovative way of marketing, of building the drum beat to this announcement, a way to also get Republicans who are doubtful about the campaign to turn their heads and say, maybe this is something we can get behind.

[08:10:17] BERMAN: Bakari, you were nodding your head. You do think this Trump version of veep-stakes is successful right now?

SELLERS: I think it's very successful. I think he's controlling the narrative. He's on offense. He's teasing the country. He's giving some people something to think about. Last week the conversation was whether or not it was going to be Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich. The fact of the matter is, if you have Newt Gingrich on the ticket, that's six wives, that's six marriages on one ticket. And I think that Donald Trump realizes that. He realizes that you negate some of the personal salvos he wanted to throw against the Clintons, some of the ethical issues he wanted to throw against the Clintons.

And so now you're out here, you're teasing Tom Cotton, your teasing Senator Ernst, and what you're realizing is that some of these people come back after you tease, and people can galvanize behind Senator Ernst and people can galvanize behind Tom Cotton. I'm not certain that anybody wants to tie their political future and destiny to Donald Trump. That is the question. But it's a hell of a strategy, and it's working.

BERMAN: Michael, I want to talk about Twitter again. We had a back and forth yesterday and it's been going on over what Donald Trump posted and took down that had the images of the $100 bills and what people considered to be the Star of David, some people at least. Some people thought the images were anti-Semitic.

Last night the Trump campaign finally offered an explanation of what happened. Dan Scavino, who runs social media for them says that he found this image. It was on a Twitter feed that he says posts anti- Clinton material and he copied and posted it, and he took it down when he realized it was offensive.

Now, there may be holes in that story. It doesn't explain exactly if that anti-Clinton twitter feed is also a Twitter feed that includes anti-Semitic material. That aside, the fact that it took them three days to offer an explanation, did they just cede three days of political real estate here that really was a time that should have been very difficult for Hillary Clinton after the interview with the FBI?

CAPUTO: This is really much ado about nothing. We went through this yesterday. I think the controversy over the tweet is something Clinton have ordered up just to subsume the news that she was interrogated by the FBI in a federal investigation into her actions.

The fact of the matter is, what I got upset about yesterday and what still bothers me is I shared an officer with Dan Scavino. There's not a more decent, honest, forthright person on the planet. A family man who doesn't spend much time with his kids because he's devoted to electing Donald Trump planet, misses his family every single day.

And for people to go out there and accuse Dan Scavino of being some kind of neo Nazi image finder out on the Internet late at night, gleefully looking through these awful websites, that really bothers me. Here's the thing. We know that Hillary Clinton cannot win this election unless she labels successfully Donald Trump as a racist, a bigot, a misogynist. She can't win this election unless she does that. But when the Democrats go out and the media helps to do this, they really tar good and decent people like Dan Scavino, and that's infuriating.

BERMAN: First of all, it was Republicans who were out earliest and loudest, albeit never-Trump Republicans who made the first stink about this tweet.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: But they were Republicans nonetheless. Hillary Clinton didn't put out a statement, the campaign didn't until yesterday. If what you say about Dan Scavino is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, wouldn't the Trump campaign benefit from an organization that maybe has some checks and balances before tweets like that go out? An organization to elect a president does sometimes indicate what organization a future president might have.

CAPUTO: You're right. There's no question about that. The Trump campaign has been operating lean and mean for a year. And they've been looking to build out the digital department, the social media department. Dan Scavino has been drinking from a fire hose for over a year. I've never seen a guy spend so much time on a campaign, devoted to it, up late at night than Dan Scavino, ever in my 30 years in politics. He could benefit from some more help, of course he could. And he'll get it. As we approach the convention, he'll be working with a very strong digital team at the convention as well. I think you're going to see what you're talking about.

BERMAN: Mike Caputo, Bakari Sellers, thanks so much for being with us guys, appreciate it.

SELLERS: Thank you.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, John. As Ramadan comes to an end, several countries are mourning the victims of violent attacks. In Iraq, ISIS taking responsibility for that weekend truck bombing that killed at least 215 people. You can see the massive devastation that is left behind from this refrigerator truck bomb. This video just tells the terrible tale of the scope there.

[08:15:00] In Saudi Arabia an attack near one of the country's holiest sites in Medina. This is one of three suicide attacks in just the past 24 hours. And while ISIS has not said yet that it is responsible, police suspect the group is involved.

BERMAN: Officials in Avon, Ohio, are apologizing for the mistaken arrest of a man from the United Arab Emirates. Police body camera video shows the man falling to the ground outside hotel as officers charged him with guns drawn. Turns out they responded to a false report about a man pledging allegiance to ISIS. The UAE is now warning its citizens against wearing traditional address when traveling to the United States.

CAMEROTA: All right, here's the fireworks gate, PBS Capital Fourth fireworks show lighting up. Well, it's lit up the sky in social media because the network admitted using a combination of the best fireworks from this year and previous years live in its broadcast last night. PBS saw nothing wrong with it. It tweeted it was the patriotic thing to do to use the best, why not. But viewers disagreed. One tweet said the stock footage fireworks are amazing. The live version, not so much. What did another say John?

BERMAN: Another said, I knew public broadcasting was powerful until tonight, I didn't know it could clear cloudy skies and scaffolding.

CAMEROTA: And then this, only in D.C. could a PBS show become a scandal. So, they just wanted to show the best fireworks. Is that out of bounds?

BERMAN: Think of the money they could save. You don't have to ever stage any fireworks. Just use stock footage.

CAMEROTA: And you know what, many fireworks shows do look exactly alike. When you happen to see it live that's how you know it's happening live but when you're watching on T.V., they do look alike. And last night was raining. So, were they so wrong?

BERMAN: I hope congress gets involved here. I hope their investigations in here.

CAMEROTA: Then we'd have action.

BERMAN: Let's hope. All right, 15 minutes after the hour. Even the CIA director acknowledges the anti-ISIS strategy isn't limiting the reach now of the terror group. So, is it time for a change? We're going to speak to someone who has commanded the U.S. army in Iraq. That's next.

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[08:25:00] CAMEROTA: Saudi Arabia rocked by three suicide bombings in a 24-hour period. And those attacks followed the deadliest terror attack in Iraq in more than a decade. ISIS increasing attacks as it suffers defeat on the battleground in Iraq and Syria. And with us all our CNN military analyst, Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling who once commanded all of northern Iraq, he joins us now. Good morning, general.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning Alysin.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about this, the horrible attack in Baghdad and the reaction to it. The victims' families were so distraught and outraged that they not only blamed ISIS for the attack, they also blamed the Prime Minister al-Abadi when he went to visit the scene, they rushed his car. They yelled insults and names at him. They have lost confidence that he is able to protect them, obviously. So what is the answer there in Baghdad?

HERTLING: Yeah, that's tough. And the explosion in Karrada the crowded district of Baghdad was one of the largest they've had since 2003 as you reported. The challenge that Mr. al-Abadi has is bringing his government together. The Shia within Baghdad itself in Karrada is a Shia district, some Christians in that district are furious at him because he hasn't been able to provide security.

But as anyone who knows who's been there Baghdad is continually rocked with car bombs. This is a situation where they thought they could get more action out of Mr. al-Abadi, that he would stop the corruption, that the police would take firmer action against those who are making car bombs probably within the city. And it hasn't happened to the degree they'd like. So it continues to be problematic for his government as he's trying to bring that very diverse government together in Baghdad. That's part of the challenge that he faces, it's not only conducting the military operations in the west and in the north, but also bringing his own government together in a very tenuous situation.

CAMEROTA: Look, it's obviously very complicated that nobody's gotten it right. His predecessor didn't either. It is very -- Iraq is a very, very complicated place. And now to see this heinous attack, I mean, children, you know, being slaughtered, it just seems as though we are not winning the fight against ISIS.

So let's talk about that because obviously there's been a debate, we just heard it again this morning, we had Tony Blinken from the state department who said that line again but we are winning. They -- The ISIS is decreasing in size. We're taking back territory, we're liberating Fallujah but this doesn't feel like winning. HERTLING: Yeah, it doesn't, does it? And truthfully, Alisyn in all my time in combat in Iraq, I've never used the term winning because you can't win. You can't put a final stake on it. You have to gain in this kind of insurgency. And what's been happening, and in fact I received several messages from members of the Iraqi security forces in both in Fallujah and in the north. They have told me that the army is coming back together and they are establishing security. That's a good thing. The army is regenerating, they have good leadership, they're attacking, they're making gains on all fronts.

But then you have the unfortunate situation that along with the army you have to rebuild the cities that have been destroyed like Fallujah, like Baiji, like Tikrit and at the same time the government has to come together. And it's -- Truthfully, the government in Baghdad is still challenged by different sects. It's the same kind of things that we went through in the 1700 with our war for independence but it's 200 years later and it's unfortunate because people want action.

CAMEROTA: And let me be clear, he didn't say, I want to be clear, Tony Blinken didn't say winning, he said successes. And, you know, I'm saying that show us which one is success outweighing what seems to be the failures of all of these attacks.

But let me just play for you what the head of the CIA director has said about ISIS. Let me read it for you actually, "Unfortunately despite all progress against ISIS on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism capability and global reach." And that's why the question remains, is this success?

HERTLING: Well, and that Part of the point and what Mr. Brennan said was including the messaging of ISIS, the fact that other organizations like Wilayat al-Sinai, (inaudible), some of the other organizations throughout the world who have been conducting attacks on their own are now buying into the ISIS brand.

[08:25:08] So the criticality of defeating ISIS on the battlefield while continuing to conduct actions against their linked organizations in other places around the world is extremely important. But by doing that you have to eliminate not only the flow of fighters, the money that ISIS can spend and there has been successes in that category although they are still receiving quite a bit of funding from various sources but you also have to establish good government. And that's what's trying to occur in Iraq. It's a long way from occurring in Syria. There are other places around the world like Libya, Yemen, Bangladesh that are having challenges with this.

And when you have those kind of governments that aren't taking care of their people completely, you're going to have that kind of space where ISIS breeds. And where organizations that want to connect to ISIS will continue to conduct these attacks. That's the problem and the challenge.

CAMEROTA: Our Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, thank you very much. Always nice to see you on New Day.

HERTLING: Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Let me go over to John.

BERMAN: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, both with record high unfavorable numbers. Coming up, how the race could ultimately come down to who is disliked the least.

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