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FBI Recommends No Charges Against Clinton; Fear-Mongering Impact on Voters. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired July 06, 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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[08:30:25] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I know that Hillary Clinton is going to take it. That's why I'm fired up. And that's why I'm ready to go. And that's why I'm with her. And that's why I need you to work just as hard to make sure that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the next president of the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it was supposed to be Hillary Clinton's big day, finally out on the campaign trail with President Barack Obama, but that followed the surprise announcement from the FBI director on their findings about her private e-mail use.

Let's discuss all of this with CNN's senior political commentator and former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod.

Hi, David.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hey, how are you?

CAMEROTA: Doing well.

So, before we get to President Obama's role, how damaging do you think that the FBI findings about her recklessness or carelessness will be to the Clinton campaign?

AXELROD: Well, the honest answer is, I don't know. One thing that we all should have learned from this process to date, or relearned, is that a little humility is in order in judging events and their impact. The big - there's no doubt that Comey's language was very, very tough and he provided a lot of fodder for negative ads and opponents of Hillary Clinton. The question is, how much of it is baked in the cake already? How much of a hit has she already taken for the e-mails and how much will it or will it at all further affect people's attitudes towards her? And we just don't know the question - we don't know the answer to that. And sitting here in July, it's very hard to know what impact this might have in November.

One factor, Alisyn, will be how Donald Trump handles it. And, you know, this is one where you sort of want to let the facts - the facts speak for themselves. But Donald Trump never lets anything speak for itself. He always embellishes. And you saw yesterday, he has a tendency to overdo, to add elements that aren't necessarily warranted by the facts. And then he creates an opportunity for a counterattack. So we'll see what happens.

CAMEROTA: Well, House Speaker Paul Ryan is actually calling for Director Comey from the FBI to be interviewed by the Oversight Committee. So do you think this e-mail controversy continues on?

AXELROD: I have no doubt that this is a - this is politics and this can't - this is going to go on. I don't think the Republicans will let it die. They have an issue. They're going to beat that issue very hard from now until November. The question isn't whether it will die. The question is whether it will be impactful. And, again, that we don't know. Her numbers are already - have already taken a big hit as a result of this story going back to when it first emerged and whether people look at it and say we knew this already -

CAMEROTA: So you think that - so you think that her trustworthy numbers are because her - her - when you say a big hit, you know, we've heard some of her supporters be like, yes, voters don't care about the e-mail controversy, but you think that it has made a dent in her numbers?

AXELROD: Yes, I - there's no question about that. I think if you look at her favorable ratings and her ratings on trust from before this story emerged and after. That is a line of demarcation. And she's paid a big price for it.

That said, even with those numbers, she continues to lead Trump in polling. There's another one out today that I think is way out of whack but has her up by 13. But she's averaging about a five or six- point lead, even with those numbers. And trust - and Trump's numbers on trustworthiness are nearly as bad as hers.

So, you know, we'll - as I said, I go back to my - to Axelrod's rule, humility is the order of the day here. We don't really know how this will play out in the long term.

I'll tell you what, one short-term hit she took was that she got this wonderful endorsement from President Obama yesterday, who clearly was pent up and ready to go and been waiting for a long time to deliver it because he was sort of a, you know, ultimate enthusiasm yesterday. But that story was completely shoved to the side by what Director Comey did. Anybody who thinks Comey was in collusion with the Clinton campaign, the White House or anyone else, he obviously didn't get the memo because he stepped on what was going to be a very good story for her.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean it ended up, obviously, taking some of the glow off of the first joint appearance between President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

[08:35:07] David, do you think that there are still people in the Obama administration who are using private e-mail?

AXELROD: I really don't know. I mean we - you know, look, it was made clear to us from the very beginning that official business was to be done on official e-mail, but there was a recognition that people did have private e-mail and we were asked to transfer those e-mails to our public account when it had something to do with official business. And, you know, so I assume that's still the case. I imagine that there are people who have private e-mail accounts, but are doing what they were required to too, which is to transfer them over to their public accounts.

CAMEROTA: Yes, this has been quite the cautionary tale about all of that.

David Axelrod, thank you. Great to talk to you.

AXELROD: OK. Good to see you.

CAMEROTA: Let's get to Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's not over for Donald Trump, that's for sure. He's saying that this e-mail scandal is a complete window into everything that's wrong with Hillary Clinton. He says she bribed the attorney general to get out of this situation. He also had some kind of qualified praise for Saddam Hussein. How did that come up in the midst of the e-mail scandal, and why would Donald Trump say anything good about Saddam Hussein? A top adviser to Donald Trump will explain, or try to, next.

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[08:40:27] CUOMO: Donald Trump accuses Hillary Clinton of getting out of the e-mail situation by bribing the attorney general.

Joining us now to explain the context of that situation and how this will play out in the election in general, and a little bit of a bump on who's going to speak at the convention, because that's up to the Trump team as well, let's bring in senior adviser for Donald Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Sarah, always good to see you and congratulations to your father. He's one of the only names that we've had out there that will be speaking at the convention.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SENIOR ADVISER FOR DONALD TRUMP: Thank you. It's great to be here. And always a pleasure.

CUOMO: All right, so, it was a bribe, Sarah. I believe that you're not going to make that case here today. But should the presumptive nominee for the party say it is a bribe? That is a charged word. It is a felonious word. Should he have said it?

SANDERS: Well, there's certainly a lot of evidence surrounding that. I mean she did, in a very public setting, absolutely say that she's considering keeping the attorney general on. I mean I think that's very hard to argue that she didn't do that when she did it in a public way. And you have her husband meeting randomly on the tarmac. They just coincidentally run into each other? I mean when there's smoke, there's fire, and there's a whole lot of smoke around this situation and it certainly is coincidental that all of the cards are falling into place for Hillary Clinton and on a holiday weekend nonetheless.

CUOMO: Well, but you had the FBI director come out. You know what the point is. The point is that words matter, right? We always like to say that, especially about others. When we have our own miscues, we don't like to hear it. But bribe is a very strong word and clearly he can't prove it. Is that something that he should not say?

SANDERS: Words - words absolutely matter. And in this case, Hillary Clinton's words are the ones that matter most. She deliberately and clearly has lied to the American people as we know now based on the FBI's report. And their press conference alone proves that Hillary Clinton lied. At this point, it's not just about the crime, but the cover-up. And that's what I think has become most disturbing and frankly disqualifying for Hillary Clinton to be president.

When you have the Clintons, you have scandals. You have lies. They don't trust her. The American people don't trust her. And that's one of the many reasons I think Donald Trump's going to be president and beat her in November.

CUOMO: Now, all of those are good bases for criticisms and points of comparison for Trump to make. And he is. He's throwing his body blows about what this means and what it should mean to the voters. And that's all fair play. Then he makes this turn to Saddam Hussein and says he's a bad guy, except he was good in this respect, and then goes on to talk about him killing terrorists. Why did he make that turn? And why would he ever say anything positive about a man who killed women, children, his own, the innocent? Why? Why do that?

SANDERS: He certainly, I don't think, was trying to praise Saddam Hussein. That wasn't his point at all. The point was, he was making, as he's made many times and has for years, that he believes the Iraq War was a mistake and that we have to start putting American interests first. We left a major void there. The Obama administration and Hillary Clinton, in her role as secretary of state, has been failure after failure. The void left there has allowed ISIS to come in, to take hold and to continue daily, threatening American people and American lives. And there has to be a stop. There has to be a leader that stands up and says, we will put American interests first. And that's going to be his first priority. And that was the point he was trying to make because it clearly hasn't been done under this administration and certainly will continue under a Clinton administration.

CUOMO: You know, the Trump campaign is no stranger to calling out the media for being unfair to Trump, that he gets unfair scrutiny. That's what you guys like to say. Do you believe that it is somehow a gift then from the media that Trump gets a pass on this, I was against the Iraq War? There is not a single bit of proof that he ever said, and this is a man who's quoted all the time in the New York papers, as you know, and has been for decades, that he was against the war when it first started? Afterwards, when it turned south, when everybody realized there were no weapons of mass destruction, when yellow cake was something that you served at picnics, didn't have any role in what was going on in Iraq, then everybody was against it. But there's no proof that he was ever against it before, and yet this has become a pillar of his campaign. Isn't that a gift to you guys?

SANDERS: I'd hardly say that the media has given any gift to Donald Trump during this campaign. I think that the big issue here is that, you said everybody was against it, and that's frankly not true. There were a lot of people at that point that were still saying that it was a good thing, still trying to spin that, and Donald Trump came out when a lot of Republicans were still trying to argue that this was the right thing and said that it wasn't. And so - but, again, I think the bigger issue here is the contrast between the type of president that Donald Trump would be and the type of president that Hillary Clinton would be. Which one will keep us safe? Which one will put American interests first? And when you have that contrast, it's extremely clear and Donald Trump's going to win every single time.

[08:45:38] CUOMO: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, thank you for making the case on NEW DAY this morning.

SANDERS: Thank you, Chris. Great to be on.

CUOMO: Always. Take care.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris, words like terror and guns have been used to strike fear in the hearts of voters and Americans alike. What effect will they have come November? All that is next.

First, a young boy who dreamed of becoming an announcer for the Chicago White Sox, even as he battled cerebral palsy. That dream came true thanks to an unexpected "Turning Point" in his life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BENETTI, WHITE SOX ANNOUNCER: I was in elementary school at the time. The assignment was, I wonder what I'll be in 20 years. And I thought, well, I wonder if I could be the Sox announcer.

He got him in the outside corner.

I'm Jason Benetti. I'm the TV play by play announcer for the Chicago White Sox.

I was born prematurely. I got sick when I was young. I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. It led to a couple different surgeries. Then when I went to elementary school I'd either have a cast on or some inserts in my shoes.

I played in band. I was first chair tuba. Part of being in band was being in marching band. I didn't have the strength for that and the coordination. The band director said, look, why don't you be the announcer for our sets.

I went to Syracuse University. I was a broadcast journalism major. And I did a lot of radio until I started doing TV. There was a worry of, will people want me on TV because I can't look directly into the camera? I actually forget how I walk until I walk past a mirror and then I

think like, why did we invent mirrors? There were some hurdles and now it's really not an issue.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the message that Jason sends people is that anybody can do anything. I don't think he views himself as an inspiration, but he truly is.

BENETTI: If I can help a person do something tomorrow that they didn't do today, that's what I want to do.

Up into the stratosphere.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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[08:51:28] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We don't know who they are. We don't know where they come from. They have no documentation. They have no paperwork. And who knows. Who knows. But you know what, we can't take any more chances, folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was Donald Trump continuing his calls to ban Syrian refugees from the United States. Is this fearmongering or a real risk that he's talking about? And what impact will this and other fears have on voters this fall?

Here to lend his unique brand of insight is noted author, journalist and host of the new podcast, "Revisionist History," Malcolm Gladwell.

Great to have you here.

MALCOLM GLADWELL, AUTHOR, JOURNALIST: Wonderful to be here.

CAMEROTA: So your specialty is to look at things through an interesting, sort of unique lens. And when you look at this presidential campaign, how do you think history will view some of the fears that we're experiencing right now? Let's start with Syrian refugees and immigration.

GLADWELL: Yes. Well, we've - we've been through this before in American history. This is - we've had waves of anti-immigrant feeling in this country that generally follow periods of a lot of immigration. It's a kind of - almost a predictable cycle. But after letting in lots of new-comers, there's a moment where existing people get a little bit anxious. And I think that's what we're seeing is a - is a period of anxiety.

I don't think it's - it represents some kind of permanent shift in the nature of this country. This is a country based on accepting people from other parts of the world. I am - I am one of those people. I'm from Canada, you know? This country opened its arms for me. So - CAMEROTA: You don't seem scary.

GLADWELL: No, I try to be as innocuous as possible. But -

CAMEROTA: I mean, but, yes, the pendulum swings back and forth.

GLADWELL: (INAUDIBLE).

CAMEROTA: And that's some of what I think you're going to be doing in your podcast of "Revisionist History."

Let's look at something else, though, that does seem very gripping and very anxiety provoking to Americans, particularly during this presidential race, and that's these mass shootings.

GLADWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I've covered scores of them just this year, gone to Paris, gone to Brussels, gone to Orlando. So how could history ever look at these in a different way?

GLADWELL: Well, the odd thing about mass shootings in this country is that the average American citizen is substantially safer today than they have been in generations. I mean if you think just 25 years ago, the crime rates nationally were probably almost double what they are now. So what - we have a case where in general the country is - crime is at one of its lowest rates since the - probably the '60s. But we have these episodes of - these terrifying episodes of mass shootings that kind of pop up every - it seems like every couple of weeks. That's a very - there's some shift in the kind of crime that we see. But the basic fact remains that we're safer than we've ever been.

CAMEROTA: That's such a good reminder because they are so anxiety producing that - and it does seem to be a spate of them, that it feels like we're in danger.

GLADWELL: Yes, I think that explains why we never do anything about mass shootings because the fundamental psychological reality of American life is that we are - you know, crime hasn't been this low since probably the mid '60s. And so it's hard for us to kind of - on a policy level, figure out what to do with these things like Orlando or Sandy Hook, these terrifying acts that pop up every couple of - every couple of weeks.

CAMEROTA: OK, so tell us about your new podcast. You're - so you're transitioning from author and writer to being, you know, broadcast. And so what it's about?

[08:55:01] GLADWELL: It's so much fun. It's - so it's ten episodes. One every week for ten weeks. It's called "Revisionist History." And every week I examine some event from the past that has been either forgotten or misunderstood. So there's an episode about - the first episode was about a painting from the 19th century. But it was really about what happens when a woman enters a man's word. So it ends up really being about Hillary Clinton. It's a kind of forecast of what she - if she were to win in November, what might happen to her. How would people respond to this idea of a first time - the first time that door has been opened to an outsider. There was a - this week's episode was about the underhanded free-throw, but why don't - why don't - why - Rick Barry is one of the greatest free-throw shooters of all time and he shot free-throws this way.

CAMEROTA: Like I do.

GLADWELL: Yes. And no one copied him. So here was a guy who does something really profoundly well. And usually when someone does something incredibly well, everyone follows suit, right? Nobody followed suit. So the question is why. And that's what that episode was about. And so, you know, another episode was about a song that was - when it came out was a terrible song and then suddenly everyone thinks it's brilliant.

CAMEROTA: Oh, it's so fascinating.

GLADWELL: It was really fun, actually.

CAMEROTA: Well, it's called "Revisionist History." It's a podcast. Can't wait to listen to it. And great to have had you here, Malcolm Gladwell.

GLADWELL: (INAUDIBLE).

CAMEROTA: Great to meet you.

All right, "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello picks up right after this very quick break. And we'll see you tomorrow.

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[09:00:14] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning.