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Trump Ignites Firestorm With Russia Hack Remarks; Former CIA Director Hammers Donald Trump; CNN Reviews Trump's Record Of Hiring Foreign Guest Workers; Obama Delivers Rousing Speech To Support Hillary Clinton; What Will Clinton Say Tonight?. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired July 28, 2016 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:31:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump igniting another political firestorm. This time he's challenging Russia to find Hillary Clinton's missing emails. His critics call that an act of treason. CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott is live in Washington with more. What is the latest on this, Elise?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, the Clinton campaign says that Trump's comments, the first time a presidential candidate has encouraged a foreign power to spy on his opponent, go beyond politics and are a serious national security issue. And last night on the convention floor Democrats used that as further evidence that Trump is unfit to be commander in chief.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEON PANETTA, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: As someone who is responsible for protecting our nation from cyberattacks, it is inconceivable to me that any presidential candidate would be that irresponsible.

LABOTT: Former CIA director, Leon Panetta, changed his planned convention speech to sound the alarm bells over a challenge by Donald Trump to the Russian hackers to go after Hillary Clinton.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

LABOTT: Trump laughing off claims Russia hacked DNC computers to help him win the White House.

TRUMP: It is so farfetched, it's so ridiculous. Honestly, I wish I had that power.

LABOTT: But intelligence officials have little doubt Russian military intelligence was behind the hack, even if they won't say it publicly.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Russians hacked our systems. Not just government systems, but private systems. But, you know, what the motives were in terms of the leaks -- all that -- I can't say directly. What I do know is that Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin.

TRUMP: I said that Putin has much better leadership qualities than Obama, but who doesn't know that?

LABOTT: Trump batted away allegations that business ties were at play.

TRUMP: I built an unbelievable company, but if you look there you'll see there's nothing in Russia.

LABOTT: His only connection, he said, a Russian billionaire who bought his Palm Beach mansion, netting Trump a huge profit. He denied any dealings with Vladimir Putin but the Russian leader has praised Trump as brilliant and talented, to CNN.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIAN FEDERATION (through translator): But there's one thing that I've paid attention to and that Idefinitely welcome, is that Mr. Trump said he's ready to restore full-fledged Russian-American relations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LABOTT: Now, whether Russia is manipulating the U.S. election to help get Trump elected is an open question, but even members of Trump's own party are warning the Kremlin to butt out. A spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan calling Russia a global menace led by a devious thug. And even Trump's own running mate, Indiana governor Pence, is warning serious consequences if Russia is interfering in the election, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Elise, thank you very much for the reporting. So, the proposition, as we go to break here, for you to consider is pretty simple. Is this about compromising national security or is this simply about discretion? How is this going to play out in the election?

We're going to also talk about growing scrutiny over something you haven't heard about, Trump's hiring practices. Is he taking jobs away from Americans for his own pocket? We're going to explore the truth, next.

[05:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Donald Trump doing the Democrats a favor yesterday, getting steeped in controversy after calling on Russian hackers to find Hillary Clinton's missing emails. And, CNN has done its own independent investigation into Trump's hiring practices, uncovering a very different picture than the one he touts.

Let's discuss these issues and see how important they are to you and to the panel. CNN political commentator and New York State Democratic Party vice-chair, Christine Quinn, a supporter of Clinton. And, John Phillips, CNN political commentator and talk radio host. He is a supporter of Trump.

Now, let's let people decide for themselves what he said and what it means. Here's Donald Trump -- here's exactly what he said about the Russian email hackers and Hillary Clinton's emails.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I will tell you this. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:40:00] CUOMO: John, at the high side, you have people politically motivated, saying this is treason, OK? On the low side, you have this was just a dumb thing to say for someone who wants to be president. Where are you?

JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's impulsive. I think that this has been the campaign season of hijacked storylines, right? You had the Republican Convention and the first night was hijacked by Melania's scandal. And then you had Ted Cruz hijack the convention with him not endorsing Donald Trump. And then you had Debbie Wasserman Schultz on day one of the Democratic convention.

What he was trying to do here was shift the storyline from what President Obama was going to do and focus on the emails. Now --

CUOMO: But did he go too far? What's your take?

PHILLIPS: Well, my advice would be to stop the material on Russia's international screwing with emails and leave that to Yakov Smirnoff. Don't do that. Don't go down that road because it's a serious thing, it's a crime. It should be dealt with seriously.

CAMEROTA: Christine, where are you?

CHRISTINE QUINN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think a key word we just heard says a lot about what happened yesterday and a lot about Donald Trump -- impulsive, right? That was the word used, impulsive. And it very well may have been. It may have just popped into his head right there in Mar-a-Lago and he said it.

But that speaks to why he's not fit to be president. Why he's not fit to be leading our international affairs. He didn't say yesterday what they're now trying to say he said, which was if you have them, give them to the FBI. You played the clip. We don't hear those words. He urged Russia, not one of our present-day allies at all -- urged Russia, a country led by a dictator, to go and hack more and find emails. It is outrageous.

Not everything is about opponents against each other. Not everything is about women or who's fired and who's not fired. Some things are bigger issues about protecting America and I really agree. I saw that yesterday when I saw it first. It was practically treasonous, in my mind. People worked their lifetimes to end the Cold War and make the world safer, and here's a guy who's already said he thinks Putin has good leadership skills --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

QUINN: -- urging him to use them --

CUOMO: Right.

QUINN: -- to hack our government.

CUOMO: One more beat on this, though, because he said what he said -- what was his intended effect. We always have that discussion about Donald Trump, it seems. But this issue, Russia, what he just said -- whether or not they did this hacking to help him. The main guy in his organization has a really dark tie to Yanukovych and Russian oligarchs.

And then you have your platform at the convention, which for some odd reason adopted a position that none of you guys talk about, about backing off being aggressive to help Ukraine and its fight against Russia. Does it bother you that this kind of nexus -- this coincidence of factors?

QUINN: I mean, that's a pretty strong hat trick if you think about it, with yesterday.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's interesting because if you go back to 2012, Mitt Romney said that Russia was our enemy and everyone said he was the dumbest person on the planet --

CUOMO: Nobody says it the way GOP --

PHILLIPS: -- for saying that.

CUOMO: But nobody goes after Russia the way the GOP does. I mean, they've been very strong in America's patriotism. John McCain will talk about Putin all day as one of the worst people he's ever met in his life.

PHILLIPS: Right. Well, he was mocked for doing that back in 2012 by Obama, among others. Now Trump has moved from that position and now he's being mocked for that position. Republicans can't win with the issue of Russia.

CUOMO: But I'm saying the party platform, Manafort's ties, do these concern you?

PHILLIPS: Look, I think what Trump sees is he sees himself as being like an FDR. When FDR saw Stalin, he thought he could charm Stalin into coming over and being a power player and being someone who's a friend with us, and it didn't happen. I think Trump kind of sees himself in that mold and I think that's probably a mistake.

QUINN: Well, first of all, I shudder at the comparison of Donald Trump to FDR.

PHILLIPS: But FDR did think that with Stalin.

QUINN: I can't -- I just -- I have nothing to say. It's just too upsetting this early in the morning to think about that. But, you know, I think we really need to see this connection that Chris brought out.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

QUINN: I mean, the platform matters, and to say you're going to back off protecting the Ukraine sends a terrifying message to that part of the world. And you couple that with his statements on NATO, that he's going to check the balance sheet --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

QUINN: -- before he helps people.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's switch gears because there's a CNN investigation that we want to get to. Drew Griffin has led this investigation and they looked into Donald Trump's hiring practices because he has made a big point of I'm going to bring jobs back to American workers. In his own businesses, he has not always done that.

In the past 15 years, CNN found that he has hired 1,338 foreign workers to have jobs such as waiters, waitresses, cooks, hostesses at Mar-a-Lago and at his golf clubs. These are jobs, obviously, Americans can do. We don't need to go to foreign workers for that. He has specialized in attractive women, no surprise, from South Africa, with a beautiful accent or Romania, the investigation found. So he doesn't exactly walk the walk, John, when it comes to only hiring American workers.

[05:45:00] PHILLIPS: Well, his argument is that he knows the rules, he's exploited the rules, he knows how to fix the rules --

CAMEROTA: It's legal. Absolutely, it's legal.

PHILLIPS: -- which, by the way, is the same argument that the Democrats used on campaign finance reform. When Al Gore is with the Buddhist monks in California raising money and people say oh, this looks bad, what are you doing? He said well, you have to play under the existing rules and then try to change the rules. I don't see the difference between what Democrats with campaign finance reform.

CAMEROTA: So, hypocrisy on the both sides is what you're saying?

PHILLIPS: Well, the people -- look, if you're a casino and you're trying to find someone who knows how to stop people from cheating the casino, you hire people to do that. Donald Trump is saying he's a guy who is uniquely qualified to stop these problems -- to fix the laws.

QUINN: First of all, you're in a tough spot when you're harkening back to Al Gore to find a point of comparison, but I just want to repeat what Mike Bloomberg said last night. The only thing rich about Donald Trump is his hypocrisy and this is yet another example of it.

You know, I work with homeless women. Forty-six percent of the moms in our shelter are working but they're in a shelter. I'm sure there's same situations, tragically, in Florida. With proper training and support these would be great jobs, but he doesn't care about people like that. He cares about women he thinks are tens and making money, and this investigation proves that.

CAMEROTA: Christine, John, thank you.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Tonight, Hillary Clinton delivers the probably most important speech of her career. What must she say to convince voters that she can be trusted? We will ask her senior adviser that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: You've got to get in the arena with her because democracy isn't a spectator sport. America isn't about yes, he will, it's about yes, we can. And we're going to carry Hillary to victory this fall because that's what the moment demands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:50:00] CAMEROTA: That was President Obama making the case the Hillary Clinton at last night's Democratic Convention, using his own campaign slogan, "Yes, We Can". For reaction to all of this let's bring in Jeremy Bird. He's senior adviser to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. He also served as national field director for President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign. Jeremy, great to have you here.

JEREMY BIRD, SENIOR ADVISER, HILLARY FOR AMERICA: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: What did you hear in President Obama's speech last night that you thought was particularly effective?

BIRD: It was -- it was remarkable in a lot of ways. I mean, you saw there he was talking a lot about getting active, getting involved. Then people started to boo and he said don't boo, go vote. I thought it was a really good call to arms. He made the case for her as commander in chief for her leadership. But what I thought was most striking is there was more optimism in his first minute of his speech than you saw the entire time in Cleveland, as he talked about the vision for this country.

CAMEROTA: Well, and there is the juxtaposition that we keep talking about, and that is where are the American people? If you take their temperature are they optimistic or are they fearful and sort of pessimistic, and which message is going to work with them? I mean, that is an open question today.

BIRD: Well, you heard him say this a lot last night. The America that he knows -- the America that he has seen over the last seven plus years and in the Oval is a country of optimism. Yes, we're -- people are struggling. Yes, as he said last night, we haven't made it all the way there. But this is an optimistic country and this is not a country that you saw in Cleveland with all the hate, with all the fear. And he really played, I think, to the best of the American people.

CAMEROTA: You've been on both campaigns. Hillary Clinton's now and President Obama's in 2012. What's the difference?

BIRD: Well, I mean, it's a different year but I think -- I think -- in terms of the campaign, themselves?

CAMEROTA: Yes, in terms of the message, the campaign, the mood. I mean, you're on the front lines so what's changed in four years?

BIRD: Well, I think what we've seen from the time that Obama came in in 2008 -- the 2012 election until the 2016 election is you've seen a lot of progress over the last eight years. And as the campaign is getting a running of the same battleground states -- virtually the same map.

But her campaign -- she learned a lot from the 2008 campaign. She's got an incredible staff, she's got incredible volunteers in all these states. They've taken the lessons that we found from the 2008, 2012 campaign and they've taken them to the next level.

CAMEROTA: Such as, and what's she going to do differently?

BIRD: Well, I think what you see on the campaign is they've got an incredible field operation that's very integrated with digital in ways that we didn't get to in 2012. So if I come online -- if I'm on Twitter, on Facebook talking about Hillary Clinton, I'm getting -- I'm getting hit up by the organizer to come into the office in a way that we just never got to in 2012. Their campaign is very sophisticated.

CAMEROTA: I don't have to tell you that the polls suggest that Hillary Clinton still struggles with the trustworthy issue. What's she going to say tonight to deal with that?

BIRD: Yes, I mean, I think you're going to hear tonight, she's going to do what you saw last night, too, which is talk about the kind of leadership. She's a woman, as Barack Obama said last night, who is more qualified than anybody, himself or Bill Clinton, to be president of the United States -- to be commander in chief.

You're going to see that from her, plus you're going to see the side of her that we've seen this week, as well, as people have talked about who she is as a mother, who she is as a grandmother, and who she will be as a leader for this country.

CAMEROTA: Do you think that her surrogates, who have been out speaking at the Democratic Convention, have addressed that in as head- on a way as they need to?

BIRD: I think they have. I mean, I think they have made the case. I thought last night was probably the best night of any party convention in the last couple of decades because they made the case for the future of this country, which is what people want to know. Where are we going and how is she going to take us there? And they made the case for her as the person who's ready to be commander in chief. They also contrasted that to Donald Trump, who is just not fit to be commander in chief.

CAMEROTA: Here's what the Trump campaign's statement -- that they put out in response. I want to read it to. He's saying this about the Democrats. "They offered no solutions for the problems facing America. They described a vision of America that doesn't exist for most Americans, including the 70 percent of Americans who think our country is on the wrong track. Never has a party been so disconnected from what is happening in our world." What's your response to that?

BIRD: I mean, that's typical -- that's typical Trump campaign. There was not one single policy solution presented in Donald Trump's speech last week, not one. He said we want good trade deals, not bad trade deals. No details on that. I mean, just on issue after issue he offered no solutions at all.

What you heard last night were solutions. What you heard last night was a commander in chief who, for the last eight years, has fought for the American people, who has seen our economy move forward, who talked about how we're going to get there. You're going to see more of that tonight, which is a vision but also the details behind that, which you just didn't see in Cleveland at all.

CAMEROTA: Jeremy Bird, thanks so much for being here.

BIRD: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Great to have you on NEW DAY. Up next, more on the big speeches from last night by President Obama and Vice President Biden praising Hillary Clinton and, of course, attacking Trump. Will their message carry beyond the convention? We'll look at that.

[05:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: America is already great. America is already strong.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: With Hillary, it's not just words, it's accomplishments. She delivers.

OBAMA: The American dream is something no wall will ever contain.

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's trying to tell us he cares about the middle-class. Give me a break. That's a bunch of malarkey.

MARTIN O'MALLEY, FORMER GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND: It's time to put a bully racist in his place and a tough woman in hers, the White House.

OBAMA: Not yes, she can -- yes, we can. We're going to carry Hillary to victory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)