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Trump Challenges Russia to Hack Hillary Clinton's Email; Which Party's Message Will Resonate With Voters? Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired July 28, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:31:36] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. How big a deal will this be?

Donald Trump challenging Russian hackers to find thousands of Hillary Clinton's missing e-mails. The Democrats are up in arms. They're saying that Trump compromised national security. Some are even calling it treason.

CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott live in Washington with more.

What do you make of the situation? How serious is it?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, the message by the Clinton campaign is that Trump's comments the first time really a major presidential candidate has encouraged a foreign power to spy on his opponent go way beyond politics and are a serious national security issue.

And last night on the convention floor, Democrats used this 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 (voice-over): 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 I definitely 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 calls Russia a global menace led by a devious thug and even whose own running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, is warning of serious consequences if Russia is interfering in the election, Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We'll be exploring that topic later in the program.

Elise, thank you very much.

So the Republicans' model of tapping into the fear, or the Democrats' message of rejecting the fear, which one is most effective? We discuss that with our panel, next.

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[06:38:58] CAMEROTA: All right. Interesting contrast to look at this morning. Let's listen to Donald Trump at the Republican convention and then President Obama at the Democratic convention. They offer Americans two very different pictures of America today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The problems we face now -- poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad -- will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them in the first place.

OBAMA: We're not a fragile people. Our power comes from those immortal declarations first put to paper right here in Philadelphia all those years ago. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now to talk about this is John Phillips. He's a CNN political commentator and talk radio host. He's a Trump supporter. And Jennifer Granholm, former governor of Michigan and senior adviser for Correct the Record.

Thanks so much for being here.

John, how do you characterize those two different visions?

[06:40:01] JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Hillary's essentially running for President Obama's third term. If you're the party in power, the argument that you have to make to the public is you're better off now than you were eight years ago. That's what the president was doing.

Donald Trump saying you're not better off, you're not safer, you don't have more economic security, and the comparison last night that President Obama made to President Reagan with his sunny optimism, I think he got the wrong election, because he was talking about 1980. With Donald Trump, the election he's running, the campaign he's running this time around is more akin to Ronald Reagan's 1966 gubernatorial election when you had all the problems in the state university system in California, and he ran on a very law and order platform. He's tough enough to bring California back around. I think that's the Reagan comparison that works here.

CUOMO: Why are the Democrats not tone deaf to the despair and the darkness that exists in the country and around the world?

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CORRECT THE RECORD: I think Joe Biden addressed that. I think the issue for the Democrats, and this is something that the Republicans have tried to be the mantle of the patriots, and last night, there was nobody more patriotic about the future of America than Barack Obama and all of those speakers.

We -- you know, I'm a naturalized citizen. I was brought to this country when I was 4 years old. Those -- the world looks at America the way that Barack Obama described last night, with hope, with people want to come here because it's such a fantastic place and don't trash our country.

That notion of pride, of being part of this, that is something that -- the reason why you saw this incredible emotion in the hall. It's because we have such pride in this country. Yes, there are still problems, and he acknowledged that, the president did. But he also acknowledged we have come a long way, and we still have work to do. Hillary Clinton is going to take us to the next step. CAMEROTA: See, there are both these competing, and I think

satisfying, messages that each side has. Last night President Obama said Americans reject cynicism and they reject fear. That's satisfying. You feel proud when you hear that.

And Donald Trump says, make America great again. That's satisfying. But they're mutually exclusive in this race somehow.

PHILLIPS: Well, when voters go into the voting booth, they're going to ask themselves the question, do I have safer now than I did eight years ago? Do I feel like I have more economic security with my job, with keeping my house than I did eight years ago? If the answer is, "yes, I feel safer", then that's good news for Hillary Clinton. If the answer is "no, I don't", then Donald Trump has a real pathway to victory.

CUOMO: That's all about how you architect the question.

PHILLIPS: Yes, yes.

CUOMO: In one way, a campaign comes down to whose question wins, whose proposition, or now the word we use today is narrative, whose narrative wins. The definitional compromise is, who do you want to be, America? Who do you want to be?

The Republicans are saying, I'll tell you who I want to be. I want to be tough against these people trying to kill us, not trying to make friends with, to bring this country back to what it was before all this PC madness, and PC madness means what you want it to mean. The Democrats are saying the exact opposite.

Which do you think wins and why?

GRANHOLM: Well, first of all, if it's take America back again, we know there's a whole swath of populations that don't feel that America was good for them. So you're carving out all of the people, the rising American majority. Donald Trump is all about -- I'm going to make you afraid again. And that fear message, you know, love trumps hate, positivity trumps fear.

CUOMO: But they see it as strength, calling out darkness, calling out danger, terror.

GRANHOLM: Chris, look at the messenger. This messenger is a messenger that will not just make you feel safer. In fact, he will create more danger, will make America more at risk based upon what he has said. Every single day, there's stories out about how risky he is, how unstable he is, how his temperament is unfit to run this country. That is not a message that is a winner message for the Republicans.

CAMEROTA: I want to the switch gears because I want to talk about this CNN investigation that drew griffin is leading. I want both of your takes on this.

This is about Donald Trump and who he hires to work at his companies. He has said he's going to bring American jobs back. He's going to employ Americans again.

However, when CNN looked at his own business practices over the last 15 yeast, they found he had hired many, many foreign workers, 1,338 foreign workers to work at Mar-a-Lago and his Jupiter Golf Club, for jobs such as waiters, waitresses, cooks, things that Americans can do. You don't need specialty from foreign workers. He particular liked hiring a attractive women from South Africa and places like Romania.

John?

PHILLIPS: He likes marrying them too.

CAMEROTA: How does he justify this as someone who he says is going to just give Americans jobs?

PHILLIPS: He says that he is a businessman that knows what's wrong with the law. He practices the law as it's written and knows how to change it.

This is the same argument the Democrats use on campaign finance reform when Al Gore was at the Buddhist monk raising in California, when super PACs go in and spend money on Democratic races. They say, hey, we don't agree with it. We want to change the law. But as the law exists now, this is what you have to do to compete.

CAMEROTA: But do you trust him when he says, I'm just going to emphasize Americans getting jobs here when this is his record?

PHILLIPS: Lots of people don't agree with laws that are on the books that follow them because they're the law. Donald Trump says that's the category he fits into.

GRANHOLM: Here's the problem. He's not abiding by the law. So many of the lawsuits that have been brought against him --

CAMEROTA: But this is legal. Everything that he's done hiring as foreign workers, there were visas for them.

GRANHOLM: But here's the problem is that over the course of his existence as a business person, starting with Polish workers in the '70s and '80s, people have brought lawsuits against him because he's violated wage laws, violated hour laws, brought in people and made them work overtime with no extra compensation. There's a lawsuit out of his casinos in Las Vegas where he just had to pay a settlement.

He does not treat workers fairly. As a business person, for him to say, I'm a business person, we all do that, that's not right. Business people treat their workers fairly, and he does not.

CAMEROTA: Governor, John, thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

CUOMO: All right. So the latest gift to the Democrats from Donald Trump is what he said about the Russians maybe hacking Hillary Clinton's e-mails and trying to find those deleted e-mails for the rest of us to see. Now, you have Democrats calling that treason. Is it really that serious, or is this more politics at play? What should it mean to you? Next.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:50:09] TRUMP: I will tell you this, Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. Be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Did that just happen? Did Donald Trump just ask Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's e-mails or wherever they think they would find them and release them to the press?

A lot of people don't like that. They're actually accusing Trump of treason and saying this is proof that even if it isn't treason, it's proof that Trump is unfit to be commander in chief. Are they taking it too far?

Let's discuss with former undersecretary for political affairs, former State Department official, and former ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Nicholas Burns, thank you very much for being on NEW DAY.

How seriously should we consider this? Is this just Trump hyperbole and just throwing something out there that's really a political jab, or do you see this as something more?

NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO NATO/HILLARY LINTON SUPPORTER: Oh, I think this is shameful. What he did yesterday --

CUOMO: Shameful like politics shameful, or shameful, dangerous, policy, Russia mingling.

BURNS: Shameful in terms of the honor of the United States and in terms of the policy of the United States. Russia is our greatest adversary in the world. Russia is trying to hack the United States. We know that. To suggest the Russian government go after Hillary Clinton or the Democratic national committee's e-mails is wrong, and it shows extraordinarily poor judgment. He also said in that same press conference that he might consider recognizing Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and lift the sanctions.

What he's effectively doing, in my judgment, is contradicting the policy of every American president, Democrat and Republican, since Harry Truman, which is we need to contain Russian power and we need to be strong in our commitments to the European allies. He's -- you know, his kid glove treatment of Putin, his constant denigration of the Germans and the French and the British, is a strange way to try to run for president and show the American people he's got good judgment.

CUOMO: What do you see in this? A lot of Democrat types keep introducing this confluence of events, that Russia hacks the e-mails. It seems that's what the FBI thinks happened. Russia denies it.

Trump then says this to Russia about the e-mails. Paul Manafort is running Trump's campaign. He has connections to Yanukovych who is --

BURNS: Former Ukrainian leader.

CUOMO: Yes, Ukrainian leader, ties to Russia. And he has other ties to Russia.

And the GOP platform winds up, as you say, seeming to pull back from stopping Russia's annexation of at least half of Ukraine. What do you make of that? A coincidence, does it not really matter, is this political hay, or is there something there?

BURNS: You know, Donald Trump, it's hard to know what he believes about foreign policy because he knows so little, frankly. He's ignorant about foreign policy.

What he said in his press conference yesterday, and he's repeated this before, is we need to have a good relationship with Putin, I can work with him, I alone can get through to him. So he gives up long- standing American positions that Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Dwight D. Eisenhower in the '50s held, and that's not smart because the Russians obviously are going to take advantage of someone like Trump who doesn't have experience in foreign policy.

Last week, Chris, I think he said something equally bizarre. He said under his presidency, h, would not guarantee our NATO allies that he would protect them if Russia attacks them. He was referring to Poland and the Baltic States. That's a direct refutation of what the Republican Party has always stood for.

CUOMO: The pushback of these two things. One, he would say, I'm not bailing on NATO. I'm saying pay your fair share. This has gotten too expensive for the U.S. You've gotten a free ride.

He's saying, if you care so much about my foreign connections, why aren't you as upset about the Clinton Global Initiative and all the money that came into that place from bad governments that the United States wants nothing to do with while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state? Where's your outrage on that?

BURNS: I was ambassador to NATO on 9/11. The day after 9/11, the NATO allies pledged to go to war with us against Osama bin Laden. They invoked Article 5. This is the clause of the NATO treaty that an attack on one is an attack on all.

They were there for us when we needed them. So, we can't treat this, NATO alliance, as some kind of Tony Soprano protection racket where if they don't pay up by Monday morning, we cut them off.

CUOMO: But they should pay -- they should pay their fair share.

BURNS: Of course they should. And 20 of the 28 NATO allies have increased their defense spending since Putin went into Ukraine. CUOMO: And what about the foundation? If we're worried about the

influence of bad actors abroad on U.S. politics, why isn't there similar questioning and concern about the Clinton Foundation?

BURNS: The two are not at all comparable would be my answer to Donald Trump, because we're talking about one of the most vital American strategic interests in the world.

[06:55:05] That Europe remain free and democratic. You see the Russians invading Georgia, Ukraine, and pressuring the Baltic States. We need to stand up to that.

What Hillary Clinton wants to do, what President Obama is doing, is to stand up to the Russians. Donald Trump is caving to the Russians, and it's shocking to see a major presidential candidate take such a weak position on a core American national interest.

CUOMO: Nicholas Burns, appreciate your perspective on this. You're always welcome on "NEW DAY."

BURNS: Thank you.

CUOMO: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

So, what did we see last night, and what will be its effect on the election? Did President Obama and Vice President Biden deliver for Hillary Clinton last night? You know how we talk about the bounce that can come out of a convention? Will that be why Hillary Clinton gets one? We're going to discuss it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: America isn't about "yes, he will". It's about "yes, we can".

SEN. TIM KAINE (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Yes, we can. The brightest future for our country is the one we build together.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: I'm a New Yorker. I know a con when I see one.

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He has no clue about what makes America great. He has no clue, period.

OBAMA: There has never been a man or a woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to say madam president.

OBAMA: Elect Hillary Clinton and show the world we still believe in the promise of this great nation.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)