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Philando Castile Death Probe Reveals Contradictions; Poll: Trump & Clinton in Dead Heat in Battleground States; Trump Calls for Justice Ginsburg to Resign. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired July 13, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:01] JUANA SUMMERS, CNN POLITICS EDITOR: That other list is pretty short. Donald Trump's pick is likely to be out of the box. It's probably anyone's guess.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Anyone's guess, and it could come any moment. Thank you so much, all three of you. We appreciate it.

Coming up next on NEW DAY, finger pointing following the deadly police shooting of Philando Castile in Minnesota. Now, conflicting reports about whether the officers administered first aid to him after he was shot. A live report from Minnesota, next.

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HARLOW: Well, this morning, the family of Philando Castile is still demanding answers a week after his death. An investigation is unveiling really a string of contradictions. He said, she said, including whether or not Castile received medical aid after he was shot.

Our Rosa Flores is live in Minnesota with more.

Look, this is -- this is critically important when you look at when emergency services are usually called and when you look at what the governor said the next day versus what we're now hearing from police. What are police telling you, and how does that counter what the governor said?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPPONDENT: Well, Poppy, all of those details are very, very important.

[06:35:01] That traffic stop happened on this street, that fatal shooting near this memorial. Like you mentioned, all new this morning, we're learning from a neighboring police department what they say they did to try to save Philando Castile's life.

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FLORES (voice-over): You've seen the dramatic cell phone video of Philando Castile in a white t-shirt covered in blood after being shot by a police officer.

POLICE OFFICER: I told him not to reach for it! I told him to get his hand off it!

FLORES: Now, we're hearing from police what they say happened after the camera hit the ground.

RICK MATHWIG, ROSEVILLE CHIEF OF POLICE: We are people.

FLORES: Roseville Police Chief Rick Mathwig says it's his officers who arrived first on scene.

MATHWIG: At that time, our officers didn't know who had shot whom. It was a chaotic affair.

FLORES: But within three minutes, he says, they administered CPR on the street right outside Castile's car.

MATHWIG: One officer from Roseville of the four that did CPR showed me his blood-soaked pants of Mr. Castile's blood. Another showed me his blood-soaked boots of Mr. Castile's blood. So, Roseville officers performed professional, caring CPR on Mr. Castile and tried to save his life.

FLORES: A clear contradiction of what Minnesota Governor Dayton said Thursday about what happened.

GOV. MARK DAYTON (D), MINNESOTA: She recounted it this morning in front of the residence that Philando was not given first aid, nobody tended to his condition as they were attending to the condition of the police officer who did the shooting.

MATHWIG: It hurt me as the chief of Roseville Police Department to hear the governor of Minnesota saying that Mr. Castile did not receive CPR. It hurt.

FLORES: But that's not the only contradiction Chief Mathwig points out.

DIAMOND REYNOLDS, VICTIM'S GIRLFRIEND: I didn't arrive home until about 5:00 this morning.

MATHWIG: She wasn't held all night. She was held for just about two hours.

FLORES: Reynolds was held in this room, the chief says, called a soft interview room because it has toys, books, and blankets for children to play.

REYNOLDS: They manipulated me to go to the station, where they agreed to feed us and give us water, and they didn't. They separated myself and my daughter.

FLORES: A state investigator ended up helping her that night.

MATHWIG: She had talked about how her groceries were in the car and her child hadn't eaten all day. So Chris Olson took $40 out of his own billfold and gave it to her.

FLORES: And before dropping her off at home just before 1:00 a.m., Chief Mathwig says a police officer gave the little girl a teddy bear.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Now, since that governor's press conference, he has come out publicly several times in support of law enforcement. Right after the Dallas shooting, he thanked police for their service and for saving the lives of so many around the country.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Rosa, this isn't going to be just he said, she said. This is going to matter. This is a fundamental element of any litigation that is to come in this case. We'll stay on it.

Rosa Flores, thank you.

Let's take a quick break. The race for the White House growing tighter. Polls out this morning, key battleground states. Remember, this election is going to come down to not just a few states but a number of counties. That's how tight it is. We have the numbers next.

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[06:42:12] CUOMO: So much has happened in the country and in the race. How is it reflected in the polls? Now we know.

This morning, we have new numbers, showing Trump and Clinton locked in a dead heat in key battlegrounds states.

Clinton is taking a big hit in Florida, losing the eight-point lead she held just a few weeks ago. What does it mean?

Once again, David Gregory and Juana Summers.

David, answer my question. Do you see this as just a moment in time? Do we see something that we can discern as a trend?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think there's two things. One, I think you had such a dismal month that Donald Trump was in the middle of with these self-inflicted wounds where he was driving up his negatives among every voting group. So, it really couldn't have been worse for him. So, I think he's been able to right the ship a little bit.

At the same time, you had Hillary Clinton have this e-mail conclusion come her way. Obviously not facing charges but facing withering criticism from the head of the FBI. I think all of that has mounted for her and really cast a pall over some of her polling. So I think it is more of a reflection of where we are in this particular moment.

She's got some consolidation among -- inside the Democratic Party, but there's a cementing of that view against her among a lot of voters. I think that's what starts to play out here.

HARLOW: Juana, let's look at Ohio and Pennsylvania, because if history is an indicator, you can't take the White House without taking Ohio. If you look at Pennsylvania, it is so much more in play this time around. You know, you've got the comparison between sort of Philadelphia and the suburbs versus the rest of Pennsylvania and the Rust Belt of Pennsylvania.

What do you make of the pretty much tie we're seeing in these states?

SUMMERS: Sure. The first thing I note when I look at these is that all of these results are all within the margin of error. So these are all very, very close races. What this tells me is how much these states are up for grabs and how much that's going to have to do with just how much effort the candidates, along with the respective party committee, how much work they can put on the ground to convince those persuadable voters.

The other big thing I saw looking across all of the polls just released this morning is this trust issue that's come up again for Hillary Clinton. She's taking knocks again for a trust deficit with voters. David mentioned the e-mail controversy, the FBI saying that there would be no charges and what-have-you. I think that's going to be really important if Hillary Clinton does hope to regain those leads she has. It's certainly something Donald Trump could be able to capitalize on.

CUOMO: Certainly does seem to be a lot baked in.

David, let me ask you something. There's this confidence among the Clinton people and supporters that she's going to win, and it seems to all come down to not message, not how she sizes up against Trump even personally, but ground game. A lot has been written about that on Trump's sides a negative. How do you see it?

[06:45:01] GREGORY: Well, I think it's ground game, and it's ultimately demographics. So, you know, the math for her is simple, which is to replicate Barack Obama's demographics and his turnout in 2012 -- young people, minorities, women. She has a full embrace of Barack Obama now, the president, and she's embracing President Obama as tightly as she possibly can. So, she's putting all of these pillars in place here. She does have this deficit among younger voters and this trust issue, which I think is significant.

Here's the difference. As far as we can tell, Trump is not deploying the kind of resources in terms of get out the vote, in terms of targeted media and advertising that we're seeing on the Clinton side. We're in the middle of the summer. By the end of the summer, the Clinton team hopes that they have had a slew of very targeted negative ads against Trump that will define him among these key voting groups so that by the end of the summer, perhaps she can build up enough of a lead that is sustainable.

And we're still early in that. So, they're looking at those numbers. They see there's a lot of work to do.

And because of her high negatives and because of the bad press she's getting and this lack of trust, it can depress her turnout. That's what Trump is after. When Trump was criticizing Bernie Sanders and saying that Bernie supporters won't support her, it's not that he thinks they'll go to him. It's that he wants to keep those people home.

HARLOW: To David's point, Juana, is it conceivable in your mind that even if the Clinton camp does everything right on the fundraising front, on the ground game front, follows it textbook perfectly, that she doesn't have the enthusiasm that Donald Trump has and that once again, we will see a surprise to his side what we've seen in this election so far because his supporters are so energized about him just like Sanders supporters were.

SUMMER: I think that that's certainly possible. If you look at not just this poll but the body of polling that's been out over the course of this election cycle so far. You have two candidates in Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump who have the lowest unfavorability numbers that we've seen historically in the modern presidential era. You have two candidates that do not inspire the same levels of enthusiasm.

So, I think what I'm looking forward to see is whether or not Donald Trump claims repeatedly, you know, I've brought new voters into the fold, whether or not he can do that in the general is going to be his big test.

HARLOW: Yes.

CUOMO: Well, it's trending that way, though, right, because he's knotted up in the polls. So, we're going to see how this ground game plays out and who wants to come out and vote the most.

Lady, gentleman, thank you very much.

All right. So Donald Trump, we've been talking about him this morning in very different context. The polls are tight, and now he's in a tight fight with a Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He's calling for her to resign for saying mean things about him.

We're going to talk to the CNN analyst whose interview with Ginsburg ignited the controversy, next.

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[06:51:49] CUOMO: You criticize Donald Trump, you're going to hear from him, and he's going to come back stronger. He's doing that even with the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She criticized him. He says, resign. She called him a faker for a CNN interview, kind of doubling and tripling down on what she has said in previous interviews.

Here's Trump's quote this morning. "Justice Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very dumb political statements about me. Her mind is shot, resign."

Let's discuss with the writer whose interview with Ginsburg ignited this controversy. CNN legal analyst, Joan Biskupic. And joining us, CNN senior legal analyst and author of "The Oath", Jeffrey Toobin.

Joan, you know what you're doing when it comes to covering the Supreme Court. You know Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You sat down with her after she had put this out there, gave her a chance to walk it back, and what happened?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, just to be clear, I was in there on Monday evening talking about a lot of different topics. The chief, what had happened in this recently completed term, and then I referred to the fact that she had made these comments that had been in other news outlets, including the front page of "The New York Times" that morning. I said, you know, what do you think of the criticism you're getting? She repeated the -- she said she wasn't surprised and repeated that line about moving to New Zealand.

Then I said, well, elaborate, tell me why you think that of Donald Trump. That's when she went on again. I wasn't surprised, in part -- look, if I hadn't seen what she'd already said, I might have been a little bit taken aback, but I knew she'd already been out there. This is a woman who doesn't have that kind of political instinct. Okay, what should I be saying here?

She's saying what she wants to say. She's measured. She's thoughtful. It seems totally out of context for us all now because it's about this candidate and we're in such an unusual political cycle here, but she obviously felt that way. Given a chance to walk it back, decided not to.

HARLOW: So, let's show our viewers exactly what she said to you. She said, "He's a faker. He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes to his head at the moment. He really has an ego."

Jeff Toobin, to you, you know the bench well. Frankly, she's saying what's on her mind, just like Donald Trump says what's on his mind. I guess in that respect, they have something in common. Is there any chance that she would resign?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: No, I don't think there's any chance she will resign, but I think it's appropriate to criticize her about this. This is not how Supreme Court justices have talked traditionally. They do not get involved in day-to-day political controversies. They do not endorse or un-endorse candidates.

And I think there are lots of good reasons for that, not least of which is something involving the election may come before the Supreme Court in a Bush v. Gore type case. I think she'd have to recuse herself at this point.

I just think as someone who's a great admirer of Justice Ginsburg, she's completely wrong in this situation, and she should not be making these sorts of political statements.

[06:55:00] HARLOW: But there is no -- there is no official code of conduct.

CUOMO: There is none. It's interesting. A lot of legal minds are debating this now and saying that this is proof of why you should have one. But it wouldn't be enforceable anyway.

Joan, let me ask you this. Is there anything we can draw as an analog to this, maybe when Alito mouthed something during the president's speech, some of the things that Scalia, you know, said on the bench but certainly off the bench that played to political issues before the court. Is there anything that's been like this?

BISKUPIC: No, not in our recent times. Certainly, Justice Antonin Scalia, who I knew well from writing his biography, people always say, do you believe what he's saying now? Shouldn't he be impeached? But a lot of his comments were directed to groups, not toward individuals, and not certainly in a political campaign like this. So, I would say you'd have to go back decades and decades to find these kinds of statements.

But again, look, there's no -- Jeff is right. Ife had another Bush v. Gore, a Trump versus Clinton, it would be a direct issue that could possibly raise the recusal question. But right now there is no Trump case before the court. She probably was thinking of it -- she probably wasn't thinking of it in the legal context at all, which may have been something that folks would fault her for.

But I can't imagine she was thinking that suddenly she would have some sort of case before her that would give rise to questions about her -- any kind of bias or impartiality in a lawsuit.

TOOBIN: And if I can just add, I mean, imagine if each Supreme Court justice announced his or her preference in the election. Samuel Alito comes out and trashes Hillary Clinton. Is that really what we want of our Supreme Court? You know --

HARLOW: Why do you think this time, Jeff? Why do you she's done it? Because she's done it three times now in the last week.

TOOBIN: Well, you know, she's 83 years old. In my experience, people become more like themselves as they get older. She has certainly got all her marbles. She is definitely, you know, very on-the-ball Supreme Court justice, but I think her political leanings are becoming closer to the surface, and she decided to express them, unfortunately.

HARLOW: Is that why, Joan?

BISKUPIC: Well, I think she's a very honest individual. I can't get into her mindset. I just can tell you that she wasn't going to back away from it given the chance.

HARLOW: Yes, clearly. Great interview. Go to CNN.com, read the entire thing.

Jeffrey Toobin, thank you. Joan Biskupic, thank you.

Three of Dallas' finest being laid to rest today. What an important day in that city. Will President Obama's call for unity really be heard and acted on? That's the key. We'll talk about it next.

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