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Battle of the Unlikeables; Capture of El Chapo; Trump Campaign Defends Deleted Tweet. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired July 05, 2016 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:30:20] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, a new poll shows the 2016 race is the battle of the unlikables, that famous Kevin Costner movie. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have major issues with unfavorability and trust. So will this race come down to who voters dislike the least? And what might the VP selection have to do with that equation?

Let's bring in CNN's senior political commentator, former senior advisor to President Obama, David Axelrod.

David, thanks so much for being with us.

You know, it is interesting, you look at the unfavorable numbers, the most recent ones coming out from "USA Today" and Suffolk University. Hillary Clinton's at 53 percent, which is bad. What's worse is Donald Trump at 60 percent.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BERMAN: You have those numbers. Plus you have the weekend that both these candidates had. Hillary Clinton sitting down with the FBI for three hours facing, you know, tough questions, we presume, about the e-mails. Donald Trump coming off of this Twitter controversy that a lot of people think is anti-Semitic. So a really interesting time in this campaign.

AXELROD: Well, there's no doubt we're in uncharted waters. Both these candidates have negatives that are higher than any nominees that we've seen. And so it actually puts some attention, yes, on the vice presidential selection, but also the conventions, which are the last big chance before the debates to command a large audience and tell your story in an unfiltered way. And I think both of them are going to try and use their conventions to tell a positive story. But at the end of the day, John, I have to believe that we're going to see a very, very negative campaign from now until November.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, that's exciting.

AXELROD: Yes.

CAMEROTA: The unfavorables coming to a theater near you this fall. But, David, does this - when people - when candidates are this - rate this highly with unfavorables and considered unlikable, does this motivate people to go to the polls because they hate the other guy so much or does it make people stay home?

AXELROD: Well, that remains to be seen. I do think that - that there will be motivation on both sides via the other candidate though. In one of these recent polls, there was more positive sentiment expressed about Hillary Clinton among her supporters than among Trump supporter who said they were mostly going to vote against - or many of them said they were voting - going to vote against Hillary Clinton.

So - but I think that one of the reasons the Democratic Party has come together rather quickly here, and there's been some consolidation of the base, is because of Donald Trump and very strong feelings he generates among Democrats.

BERMAN: So your guy's getting in the game today for the first time. President Obama, he is going out on the trail with Hillary Clinton. It's happening in North Carolina, which is interesting in and of itself. This is a state that you guys won in 2008, the Obama campaign won. In 2012, Mitt Romney won. How much of a difference do you think the president can have at this stage of the game? I mean his presidency is almost over. You know, opinions are sort of baked into the cake already about him.

AXELROD: Well, we're talking about approval rates. His happen to be pretty good right now. He's in the 50s, which, in a very polarized country, are quite high and it suggests that he has some sway with independent voters. More than anything else, he can do two things. He can provide a testimonial for Hillary Clinton, having been her opponent at one point, and then working closely with her in her job as secretary of state. And he can describe the demands of the presidency in a way that underscore the seriousness of the job. Because one of the problems that Donald Trump is having right now is that people, they may see him as an expression of anger about the status quo, but they're having a hard time picturing him sitting in that office. And the president can help draw that contrast in a way that is helpful to Hillary Clinton.

CAMEROTA: But, you know, Hillary Clinton continues to struggle with her trustworthiness. And so what specifically can President Obama do to help her in that department?

AXELROD: Well, I think, again, I think he can provide a testimonial to her as a public official. They worked closely together. I was there - I was, you know, I was there during the campaign and I was there when he told us that he wanted to make her secretary of state, which was surprising given the long battle they had. But he says, look, I respect her, I trust her and I think she would be loyal and effective. And they ended up having a very close working relationship. So he can speak from that perspective. And he has - he gets high character marks. So I think that's helpful.

The other thing is, having a president of the United States out there is going to be helpful with the base of the Democrat Party with whom he's very, very popular, minorities, young people. So that's going to be useful for her. He's a force multiplier for her. When you think about it, Donald Trump is really the star of his show and the supporting cast. She will have people out there, and the president chief among them, who can really bring the case.

[08:35:15] And this is unusual, by the way, because in the - in the past we haven't seen presidents who are leaving office playing an active role in the campaigns of the party's successor candidate. So the fact that she's calling on him is a very unusual development.

BERMAN: I want to ask you about the vice presidential selection process right now because Donald Trump is doing something very, very interesting. And you've been part of this process before. When you went through it in 2000, it was very, very secretive, held very close to the vest.

AXELROD: It was. Yes.

BERMAN: Donald Trump is doing this in front of the world right now. He just tweeted moments ago that he loves spending time with Joni Ernst, the Republican senator from Iowa yesterday, and looks forward to meeting her again. What do you make of his public floating of names day after day right now?

AXELROD: I think, first of all, it's a way of changing the storyline from some more negative storylines. But, secondly, I think it's very important for Donald Trump. As I said before, the greatest hurdle he has is the credibility hurdle as a president of the United States. And the notion of interviewing vice presidential candidates is an elevating process. So it's, I think, smart of him to do this in a more public way.

I do think this choice is meaningful in terms of his candidacy because he does have to note (ph) a kind of seriousness and reassure people that he can govern. I actually think the guy he's campaigning with today, Senator bob Corker from Tennessee, is someone who could really help him if he were added to the ticket, convey that message. We'll see which way he goes.

CAMEROTA: He's on the short list.

All right, David Axelrod, thank you.

AXELROD: Good to see you guys.

CAMEROTA: You too.

BERMAN: OK, notorious drug kingpin El Chapo, he was hard to catch. Coming up, a look at the hunt to catch him, the efforts to find him and how he kept getting away. That's next.

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[08:41:02] CAMEROTA: This morning we're going inside the capture of a dangerous drug kingpin. This is all part of CNN's special report "Got Shorty: Inside the Chase for El Chapo." It's hosted by our own Chris Cuomo. Take a look.

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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Around midnight on February 17, 2014, El Chapo Guzman wants a snack and sends a guard out to get it. Mexican marines get lucky.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was grabbed. He was arrested. And he cooperated.

CUOMO: This is the house where the guard says El Chapo is hiding.

CUOMO (on camera): But when they got to the front door, they got unlucky. Not only is this a steel door, but it's several inches thick of reinforced steel. So they had to try to bash it in. And they were using a battering ram. Now, ordinary what happens is, as you batter the door, the metal heats up, it softens and you can gain entry. Not this door. Each one of these compartments is filled with water. This door did not heat up and it took them almost 10 minutes to get inside.

CUOMO (voice-over): That's all the time the king of tunnels needs.

CUOMO (on camera): Looks like a bathtub, right? Check this out. A signature El Chapo tunnel.

CUOMO (voice-over): And down he goes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Very cool behind the scenes stuff.

So let's bring in a man who was there when the dangerous drug kingpin was captured in 2014. Joining us now, the executive director of Pen Link and the former director for the DEA's special operations division, Derek Maltz.

Mr. Maltz, thanks so much for being here.

DEREK MALTZ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PEN LINK: Good morning, Alisyn. Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: You've described capturing El Chapo as being like winning the Super Bowl. Why was it so important to you personally?

MALTZ: Well, first of all, there's kids dying all over America. There's an epidemic right now going on in this country with fentanyl and heroin. And the Sinaloa Cartel is bombing the country with poison. It's in our communities all over the place. So as a law enforcement executive, my number one priority was to protect people in America, keep kids and people safe. So, obviously, with the Sinaloa Cartel's influence in America, it was very important to capture the head of the cartel, the "Forbes" magazine billionaire.

CAMEROTA: But tell us more about that because from a drug enforcement perspective, did the capture of El Chapo, while of course, I mean, that is the big kahuna, did it change anything in terms of what the Sinaloa Cartel is capable of?

MALTZ: Well, look, this is a long-term struggle. You know, you have to have a strategy. You need strong enforcement. You need prevention, education. You need training. You know, we have to keep up the pressure. If you look at Colombia, which is a model for global law enforcement, our partnerships around the world with DEA and the other agencies has been, you know, outstanding. And so you have to keep the pressure on.

If you go to Colombia today, you feel very safe in most areas, you know. So it's the same thing in Mexico. You know, Mexico has a lot of violence. You know, drugs corrupt people. There's tons of money available in this business. You know, drugs are generating like $400 billion around the globe according to the U.N. So there's obviously going to be a lot of violence associated with that.

CAMEROTA: Look, I know that you guys do God's work. You try. You're on the front lines every day. But do you think the U.S. is winning or losing the war against illegal drugs?

MALTZ: Well, any time you can save a life of a young child, you're winning, because, you know, this is - this is an epidemic and we need strong enforcement to continue going after these cartels. I mean, obviously, it's a battle. It's like war. And it takes a long time. We have to be patient. We have to stay focused. We have to have good solid strategies. We have to have the experts in the country on education, law enforcement, prevention, and we have to develop the best sound strategies. That's it. It's that simple. We can't raise the white flag and give up.

[08:45:14] CAMEROTA: Do you think El Chapo is still pulling the strings from inside a prison cell?

MALTZ: I would hope not. I mean, you know, I don't know anything about the prison. It's near the border of the U.S. and Mexico. Hopefully, after what happened in the maximum security prison, there'd be a lot more security and a lot more focus on his 24/7 activities.

CAMEROTA: I mean, look, this isn't the first time he escaped. He has this elaborate system of tunnels. That's part of what we've discovered from his escape. He, obviously, has help from the outside. He has these - I mean the sophisticated tunnels are well lighted, they're ventilated, they had a track for a motorcycle, you know, to get him out faster. Are you confident that he - that the Mexico prison where he is can contain him or do you fear that he'll escape again?

MALTZ: Well, I have confidence now in President Nieto Pena. He has shown his willingness to, you know, extradite Chapo. He made some statements earlier in the year. I have confidence in the legal system at this point. I hope to see Chapo, you know, facing justice here in the U.S. and maybe even in my home town of New York.

CAMEROTA: There you go. Mr. Derek Maltz, thank you very much for your perspective. Great to talk to someone who was there. Thanks for being here.

MALTZ: Thank you very much for having me.

Remember to tune in tonight for CNN's special report "Got Shorty: Inside the Chase for El Chapo." It's 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.

John.

BERMAN: All right, thanks, Alisyn.

The anticipation builds as Donald Trump fuels speculation that he could announce his pick for vice president soon. He's appearing with one person on the possible short list today. He just tweeted about another person on the possible short list. Are we days away from a pick? That's next.

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[08:50:37] BERMAN: Donald Trump is denying the tweet he posted and deleted on Saturday was anti-Semitic. The presumptive Republican nominee is now blasting the media and Hillary Clinton's campaign for trying to drum up controversy over what he calls a plain star.

I want to bring in senior adviser and pollster for the Trump campaign, Kellyanne Conway, and senior editor for "The Atlantic," David Frum.

David, I want to start with you because Dan Scavino, who runs social media for the Trump campaign, just tweeted this morning. Dan Scavino is the one who said he posted the image on Twitter on Saturday and took it down. And he said that he pulled it off on an anti-Clinton Twitter feed and then took it down immediately when he realized it was offensive. He just tweeted this morning, "for the MSM," for the mainstream media, "to suggest that I am anti-Semite is awful. I proudly celebrate holidays with my wife's amazing Jewish family for the past 16 years." So that's what he's saying this morning. You have an interesting take on this. You actually say, at this point, the discussion over whether this was anti-Semitic or not is mute. The real issue is what's going on inside the Trump campaign.

DAVID FRUM, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE ATLANTIC": Well, congratulations to Donald Trump's social media director for sharing this story he wants to go away, now extends into another day. He's just added 24 hours to this story all by himself.

So one of the questions we had about the Donald Trump campaign from the beginning is, I'm - I mean, you wouldn't run a campaign for city council this way. And now this is the campaign - purports to be a campaign for president of the United States. And at every level (INAUDIBLE) by, you know, did they intentionally pull a nasty image from an anti-Semitic website or did they just not know better? But they - if they didn't know better, that (INAUDIBLE) because the (INAUDIBLE) is also a complex organization. And if you're bad at running those, we're going to be ad running president (ph) - being president.

BERMAN: Kellyanne, we're having a tough time with David's Skype feed right now, but what he's essentially saying is, this gets to question of whether the Trump organization, you know, is running on all cylinders right now. You're a relative newcomer to the campaign. Does the campaign have its act together? KELLYANNE CONWAY, SENIOR ADVISER AND POLLSTER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Yes, it

does. And it's growing everything from its ground game to its data operation to its field directors. And I just want to comment very briefly on that. I just think that we all, everybody, really needs to look at the measure of somebody beyond 140 characters in a single tweet. I'm very sorry if people were offended and I don't speak for the social media director and I don't speak for Mr. Trump. However, let's - I'm going to - I'm going to side with Dan Scavino, who's married to a Jewish woman, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump on this. They know the full measure of a man and we all know that Mr. Trump opened up his club in Florida to Jewish members for the first time. That's much more important in my view in measuring someone's - the way someone looks at people.

Now, in terms of -

BERMAN: Kellyanne, you say - you say one thing that's very interesting. I'm very sorry if people were offended is so much more than came from the campaign in the first three days of this controversy. Had that come out on Saturday within hours, on Sunday, on Monday morning, instead of last night just with the statement about how it got on there, that's more than I've heard from anyone in the campaign.

CONWAY: Well, they deleted it. And I - and, look, in terms of the operation of the campaign, David raises a point that many anti-Trump Republicans and conservatives raise. Look, Governor Mike Pence, Senator Joni Ernst, Senator Tom Cotton, Newt Gingrich, certainly Chris Christie, there are many serious people who are involved at the highest echelons now in this campaign. Hillary Clinton spent this weekend being investigated by the FBI. Donald Trump spent this weekend interviewing serious people to be his running mate.

BERMAN: Well, you just floated those names, and you're not the first one to float them over the last several days. In fact, Donald Trump himself has been on Twitter over the last 24 hours mentioning Tom Cotton, mentioning Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, mentioning Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa. And, in fact, just moments ago, he went on Twitter 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!" Hmm, that was an exclamation point, but is that a dot, dot, dot, is Joni Ernst leading the list right now for VP choice?

CONWAY: Well, she's certainly on the list as evidence by the fact that Mr. Trump met with her. But the list is - the list is a really robust list of serious men and women.

BERMAN: How many?

CONWAY: It's not for me to say? I think -

BERMAN: More than five?

CONWAY: I think this has been a very public process in the last few days. Very unusually public, as opposed to, again, Hillary Clinton's process where you see a couple of names floated. But this is also - I think what Governor Pence said over the weekend is incredibly important. He said, look, I love my state, I love my country, but I'm going to do everything I can to help Donald Trump be the next president of the United States. I believe that he should be in the Oval Office a year from now. How many Republicans should really come forward and say that in support of their nominee, John? I mean now it's time - Donald Trump's done his job. He became the nominee of the party fairly and squarely. It's time for other people to come on board. And if you have nothing nice to say, as my grandmother and your grandmother always taught us, don't say anything.

[08:55:22] BERMAN: My grandmother had a few more choice, choice words when she would say it.

This week - are we going to get a pick this week?

CONWAY: Not - it's not for me to say. You'll certainly have a pick before the convention. That's very typical. And there will be excitement. Let's watch Hillary Clinton try to come back from her very rough week and weekend a bit while Mr. Trump is talking to serious people. It's a very personal decision. It's Mr. Trump's decision alone and we will all respect it.

BERMAN: David, I hope you Skype feed is OK. Thirty seconds or less, are you surprised Donald Trump is so public in floating names for vice president?

FRUM: He's trying to change the story away from I'm not an anti-Semite and -

BERMAN: All right, David Frum saying he's trying to change the story right now. The story had been, you know, the Star of David tweet. Now we're talking about vice presidential selection process. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will be in North Carolina today, a swing state, so we will watch that very carefully.

Kellyanne Conway -

CONWAY: Thank you very much.

BERMAN: David Frum, thanks so much for being with us.

"NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello picks up right after a quick break.

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[09:00:03] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Two candidates, one state, battle lines will be drawn in North Carolina.