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New Day
Clinton Retakes Lead Over Trump in New Poll; Backlash Grows Over Trump's Feud with Gold Star Family. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired August 02, 2016 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Shame on you, Donald Trump.
[05:58:14] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have a son in the military. How do you tolerate his disrespect?
GOV. MIKE PENCE (R-IN), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I have never been around someone more devoted to the armed forces and to the veterans.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I was viciously attacked, as you know.
KHIZR KHAN, FATHER OF FALLEN U.S. SOLDIER: You can attack women, minorities, Muslims, judges and nobody can question your caliber?
TRUMP: All I did is respond. I will always respond.
WARREN BUFFETT, INVESTOR/PHILANTHROPIST: I ask Donald Trump, have you no sense of decency, sir?
TRUMP: I'm afraid the election's going to be rigged. She's the devil.
CLINTON: I have to tell you, I've had the best week.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, August 2, 6 a.m. in the East. Chris is off this morning, and John Berman joins me.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.
CAMEROTA: Great to have you. Great to see you.
Well, up first, Hillary Clinton getting a big bounce after the Democratic convention. Clinton retaking the lead over Donald Trump in a new CNN national poll. It has erased most of Trump's gains after his convention. So we'll break down all of those numbers.
BERMAN: In the meantime, Donald Trump is telling his supporters that he is afraid the election is going to be rigged. And he's still smack dab in the middle of a very public feud with the family of a slain Muslim-American war hero.
We are covering this from every angle this morning. Let's begin with CNN's political director, David Chalian, live in our Washington bureau with these brand spanking new poll numbers -- David.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Good morning, John.
Well, Hillary Clinton did indeed get that bounce that Alisyn was talking about. Take a look at this. After the Democratic convention, 52 percent to 43 percent. That's the state of the race. A nine-point lead outside the margin of error for Hillary Clinton.
And look at where she came from. Before the Democratic convention, 45 percent. After, 52 percent. That is her seven-point bounce.
Let's make -- take a look at with all four candidates. You know Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, Green candidate Jill Stein also on the ballot in nearly all 50 states. And you can see here, the convention did not have an appreciable effect, really, on Johnson or Stein. It does, of course, take from both Clinton and Trump.
Here her bounce went from 39 percent to 45 percent. She's besting Trump by eight points, 45 to 37 percent when all four are included.
So let's look at that bounce just as it is. Hillary Clinton, as I said, she got a 7 percentage-point bounce in her convention. That compares the week before with Donald Trump, who got a 6 percent bounce out of his convention in Cleveland. But remember, a bounce, it's up and down just like when a ball bounces. He has come back down after his convention. We'll see if Hillary Clinton can sustain.
Another key finding in our poll, John, is independents. Now you know strategists on both sides says this is really going to be more about a base election, turning your base out. But the independents cannot be ignored. And take a look at this. Her bounce with independents, 28 support before the Democratic convention, 37 percent after the Democratic convention. That bounce is even bigger among independents than it was overall for Hillary Clinton. She is now besting Donald Trump by four points, 37 to 33, among independents.
And then, of course, there's the issue of party unity. This was one of the major goals of the Democratic convention. And it seems to be a successful part of the convention for Hillary Clinton.
Take a look. Democrats say -- 44 percent of them say they're united. Forty percent say they're divided but will unite come November. Only 14 percent say they are divided and will not unite by November. You remember Bernie Sanders going to the convention floor, helping deliver the nomination to Hillary Clinton.
This is a different story among Republicans. Take a look. Not as successful in the unification effort. Twenty percent, only 20 percent of Republicans say they are currently united. Forty-six percent say they're divided, but they will unite. Thirty-one percent, nearly a third of Republicans, believe that they are divided now, and they will not unite by November.
This is a huge warning sign for Donald Trump and something he needs to work on. As you can see from this last weekend of controversy, though, it's going to be tough. Lots of Republicans still have concerns about his candidacy.
BERMAN: A political house divided against itself, as they say, well, it runs into trouble. David Chalian, no one told me there would be math this morning. Thank you so much.
CHALIAN: Thank you.
BERMAN: Donald Trump now warning supporters that the election is going to be rigged. All this as his feud with the Muslim parents of an American war hero killed in battle is being met with a chorus of contempt from some quarters. And now Trump's running mate is feeling the heat.
CNN's Phil Mattingly joins us now with more -- Phil.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
The backlash has been fierce, and frankly, it's been almost entirely from within his own party. Top Republicans very wary and warning the Trump campaign, both publicly and behind the scenes, I'm told, they need to move on.
Donald Trump not apologizing, not backing down. This is an issue where he believes he's right. He's not changing his position any time soon.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: He made a deal with the devil. She's the devil. He made a deal with the devil.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Donald Trump ramping up his personal attacks on Hillary Clinton while criticizing Bernie Sanders for supporting the Democratic nominee.
TRUMP: She picked a vice-presidential candidate who is like the opposite of him.
MATTINGLY: And suggesting that if he loses in November it's because...
TRUMP: I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged.
MATTINGLY: All as the ongoing feud between Trump and the parents of slain Muslim U.S. soldier Captain Humayun Khan escalates.
TRUMP: I have great honor and great feeling for his son, Mr. Khan's son. But as far as I'm concerned, he's a hero.
KHAN: You can attack Muslims. You can attack judges, and nobody can question your caliber? Your lack of empathy, and you want to be commander in chief?
TRUMP: I was very viciously attacked, as you know, when you have radical Islamic terrorists probably all over the place. We're allowing them to come in by the thousands and thousands. And I think that's what bothered Mr. Khan, more than anything else.
KHAN: He says, "Oh, I am being severely attacked, harshly attacked." Well, this is political season. You're a candidate for an office. And I have the same rights as you do.
MATTINGLY: The dispute rocking the GOP. Dozens of Republican leaders forced to come out in support of the Khans.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: We want to honor the families of those who have served and those who have sacrificed for all of us.
MATTINGLY: Trump's campaign bombarding their supporters on Capitol Hill with e-mails, urging them to back his position, but instead getting the cold shoulder.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our Gold Star families deserve our full and total support.
MATTINGLY: Emotions running high. At a rally for Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, a woman whose son in the Air Force booed for bringing up the issue.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trump has disrespected our nation's armed forces and veterans, and his disrespect for Mr. Khan and his family is just an example of that. Will there ever be -- will there ever be a point in time when you're able to look at Trump in the eye and tell him enough is enough?
PENCE: That's all right. Folks, that's what -- that's what freedom looks like, and that's what freedom sounds like. OK? I want to honor your son's service to the country and your family's service to the country. I truly do, ma'am.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: That's the biggest issue clearly reverberating on the campaign trail already, and that is the biggest issue here the Republicans are worried about, that isn't something that Donald Trump can just move on from. It's not something that's going to go away. It's going to be something that sticks with him going forward. And there's a lot of Republicans see it sticks to him in a very negative way -- John and Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: OK, Phil, thanks so much for all of that background. Let's talk about it. We want to bring in our panel. We have CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis; CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich; and David Chalian, CNN's political director.
David, let's do one more beat here on the new polling out, because this is the first time that we get a real look at how the convention has affected the candidates. So if we understand you correctly, you say that Donald Trump got a 6 percent bounce; Hillary Clinton got a 7 percent bounce. That sounds to me tied, but I know you see bigger nuances in there.
CHALIAN: Well, it does suggest that both accomplished some of the larger goals of their convention and were able to emerge from their convention with some momentum, Alisyn.
But remember, Hillary Clinton got the last word at the convention. So that last bounce is perhaps more important than the original bounce, because Donald Trump, we saw him get his bounce, but we saw him return to earth after taking a pounding at the Democratic convention as they were doing all of their messaging against him.
Hillary Clinton, because of the timing of the conventions, she gets the last word. The big question now is does her bounce have a downside or is she able to sustain this, and is this the new reality of the race heading into the fall campaign?
BERMAN: Let analyze the arc of the bounce, shall we, and the exact angle where it exists as we leave the convention? The interesting thing for me, David, is you look at the independents within our poll right now and seeing how they move. Because they moved even more in the Clinton convention, the Democratic convention.
Errol, I did -- I was doing a focus group during the Republican convention with Republicans and independent, undecided voters. And they saw the Republican convention in completely different ways. Republicans loved it. They liked everything Donald Trump said.
Independents had a starkly different view right now. I have to believe that independent voters right now are the ones maybe looking at a lot of this feud with the Khans that Donald Trump is having, and they perceive this election through a different lens.
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's exactly right. Independents, by definition, are not interested in the partisan red meat or at least not nearly as interested as Democrats and Republicans are.
The Republican base strategy that Trump has been running is almost designed to sort of either sideline them or disgust and dismay them. And I think that's what you're seeing in some of the numbers, is that they're not going to come running to chant, you know, "Lock her up, lock her up." That's not where -- that's not how they see politics. That's not how they see the Clintons. That's not how they see this race.
And so Trump has been playing sort of a very dangerous game with them by ignoring those kinds of concerns, while if you go back to Democratic convention, the Democrats played to them almost every day, putting Mike Bloomberg up there; talking over and over again to them. I mean, the Mike Bloomberg speech in particular at the Democratic convention was not aimed at anybody in the arena. It was specifically aimed outside the arena to all those independents. And so they think that they're -- they are a large and persuadable group. And Trump has king of given them away. In the swing states it could be a really important kind of a problem for them.
CAMEROTA: Jackie, let's talk about the feud with the Khans. I'm not sure that the Khan family knew that they would be front and center in this, you know, campaign beyond the convention, but here they are. And so Khizr Khan, the dad, was on television again last night on CNN, talking about his beef with Donald Trump and what he thinks it's about. So listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KHAN: Well, this is political season. You're a candidate for an office. And I have the same rights as you do.
You can attack Mitt Romney. You can attack John McCain. You can attack Ted Cruz. You can attack Jeb Bush. You can attack women. You can attack minorities. You can attack Muslims. You can attack judges, and nobody can question your caliber, your lack of empathy, and you want to be commander in chief?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Jackie, I mean, it's hard, you know, to think of a sort of more articulate person to make this argument against Donald Trump. How is Trump responding?
[06:10:00] JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, really quick, another thing at play here, Clinton and Kaine took their show on the road after the convention, talking about middle-class jobs. Meanwhile, Donald Trump decides to wage war against a Gold Star family. Again, no wonder their numbers have bounced so high.
But it really is perplexing, which is why I think you see so many Republicans coming out against Donald Trump. In terms of how he's responded, I mean, he kind of responded poorly in terms of not apologizing, doubling down, what we've seen with Donald Trump before.
I don't think this will hurt him with his people, but as different as this election is, it is going to come down to those middle voters, those independents, and right now Donald Trump is not putting out a good look.
BERMAN: Look, those were the voters that Mike Pence seemed to be addressing last night. Mike Pence running an alternate campaign. Mike Pence trying to take some of the air out of this controversy last night and perhaps help his running mate move past this. It will be interesting to see if that continues today.
All right, guys. Stick around. We have a lot more to discuss.
Warren Buffett, you've heard of him. He's got a lot of money, and he's the latest billionaire in Hillary Clinton's corner to really go after Donald Trump and go after him hard. Buffett is challenging Trump to release his t returns, suggesting that there is something to hide. CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny in his hometown of
Omaha with more -- Jeff.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. One, Warren Buffett has already been a supporter of Hillary Clinton, but he is rarely a critic. He did break his soft-spoken style last night at a rally here in Omaha. It's part of the Clinton campaign's effort to build businessmen against Trump. It's also an effort to get under his skin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BUFFETT: Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!
ZELENY (voice-over): Hillary Clinton arm in arm on the campaign trail with billionaire Warren Buffett. The 85-year-old oracle of Omaha unleashing a scathing attack on Donald Trump.
BUFFETT: I've never known another businessman that brags about his bankruptcies. To tell you the truth, why not? I mean, it's his -- it's his claim to stardom. I don't know anybody else who's had six bankruptcies, but there he is.
ZELENY: Buffett condemning Trump for refusing to release his tax returns.
BUFFETT: He said it several times. He said he can't do it, can't release it because he's under audit. Now, I've got news for him. I'm under audit, too. I would be delighted to meet him any place, any time between now and election. I'll bring my tax return. He can bring his tax return. Nobody is going to arrest us.
ZELENY: The billionaire investor forcefully rebuking Trump's attacks of the Muslim parents of a soldier slain in Iraq.
BUFFETT: How in the world can you stand up to a couple of parents who lost a son and talk about sacrificing, because you were building a bunch of buildings? I ask Donald Trump, have you no sense of decency, sir?
ZELENY: Buffett is the latest in a string of billionaire businessmen to speak out against Trump, part of Clinton's strategy to discredit his record. Last week at the Democratic convention, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg questioning Trump's competency.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK: I'm a New Yorker, and I know a con when I see one.
ZELENY: And Saturday, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban in his hometown of Pittsburgh calling Trump crazy.
MARK CUBAN, BILLIONAIRE ENTREPRENEUR: Leadership is not yelling and screaming and intimidating. Right? Yes, she knows.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ZELENY: And there's another reason Hillary Clinton in Omaha, as well, John. This is one of the two states, Nebraska and Maine, that have split their electoral votes. She's eyeing that singular electoral vote here in this congressional district. President Obama won it in 2008. She believes, because of the diversity in this district -- black voters, Hispanic voters and white liberals -- she can win this electoral vote. And Warren Buffett said he will personally drive people to the polls here if they vote for Hillary Clinton -- John and Alisyn.
BERMAN: Donald Trump headed to Maine to kick off that one electoral vote there that's available in a split system. Every vote being sought here. Jeff Zeleny in Omaha, thanks so much.
Let's bring back our panel: Errol Louis, Jackie Kucinich, David Chalian.
Jackie, you know, Warren Buffett has got a lot of money and is very good at what he does. Michael Bloomberg has got a lot of money and is very good at what he does. Mark Cuban has a reality show that I've never seen but also a lot of money and very good at what he does.
KUCINICH: I've heard of it. It's very popular.
BERMAN: These people are lining up behind Hillary Clinton, but in a way don't those optics help Donald Trump? Can't he just say, "Look, these are all the rich people. These are all the people in the system right now. They're with her. I'm the rogue billionaire, as it were, vote for me"?
KUCINICH: Well, this doesn't come without a risk, because it's a parade of a lot of her rich friends. That said, a lot of people can't really conceive of what being a billionaire is like. So you are trotting out these people that are Donald Trump peers, in a lot of ways, to say he's bad at his job. So they're hoping that people will see that side, rather than these people are -- she's bought and paid for.
[06:15:03] CAMEROTA: David Chalian, Mike Bloomberg -- no. Warren Buffett is pressing Donald Trump, as are many people, to release his tax returns. Is there any movement from the campaign? Is there any suggestion that Donald Trump is going to do that? Because it seems as though he's pretty dug in and says he doesn't have to. It's his prerogative.
CHALIAN: No movement whatsoever that I can discern in any way, Alisyn. Donald Trump was asked about it again this weekend. He clearly said, "I'm under audit." He was pressed what about releasing the years that are not being audited. He said "No, they're all linked together in an audit. And when that audit is done, I'll be happy to share."
But he clearly has no intention of backing off that position right now. And I'm not sure that Warren Buffett is going to be the person that's going to be able to apply enough public pressure for Donald Trump to change his stance. BERMAN: It is the Democratic issue, Errol, it seems to be. Democrats
care about Donald Trump's taxes. We haven't seen much evidence that anyone else does.
LOUIS: No. I think it's -- it's an important issue just because, you know, of what factually there are all kinds of allegations that are out there that cannot be resolved. So I don't know if it's so much a political partisan issue so much as, you know, people are just kind of curious.
BERMAN: Every candidate has done it since, you know, way, way back. So it is something that we all want to see. Transparency should reign.
LOUIS: That's right. I mean, look, he makes all kinds of claims that can't be backed up unless you actually see the taxes around his charitable giving, around whether or not he paid taxes. We know that there were some years in 1970s, thanks to an odd loophole that involved -- that's only available to people in the real-estate business, he can depreciate the value of his buildings, count it against his income and then to pay zero taxes. He's done that at least a couple of years that we know about. Came out, you know, sort of a side channel with this casino violence. This was discovered.
So David K. Johnson has sort of written about this stuff extensively. So that will continue to be out there.
One last word, though, about the other billionaires. What's interesting is, put Mike Bloomberg aside. He is an elite billionaire. But Mark Cuban, whose show I do watch, "Shark Tank." It's a good show. As well as Warren Buffett, these are sort of blue-collar billionaires if you want to call them that. You know, they have an appeal and a lifestyle that doesn't really put them in this sort of remote category. They're in the same sort of general ballpark as Donald Trump. They, too, have also flirted with the idea of running for president.
So this is not something where he can sort of dismiss them as "They're the system and I'm not in the system." You've seen those sort of homespun kind of discussions that Warren Buffett has with his investors, the way he drinks his Coca-Cola and he wears kind of regular suits and that sort of a thing. And Mark Cuban, you know, almost every -- on any given night you can turn on "Shark Tank" and see him interacting with regular people, talking about issues, talking about products, the economy and so forth.
CAMEROTA: He wears jeans.
LOUIS: He campaigned in a Batman T-shirt for God's sake.
CAMEROTA: Jackie, last word. Are these tax returns becoming the sort of birth certificate of this election, where the drumbeat for him to release it and release it will at some point have to be heard?
KUCINICH: I mean, the difference is that the tax returns are actually important to becoming a commander in chief. I mean, it tells you a lot about a person, particularly as rich as Donald Trump is, where his money is coming from.
CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. Great to have you here with us this morning.
All right. There is growing fallout from Donald Trump's escalating feud with the Khan family as we've been discussing. So will some Republicans pull their endorsements from Donald Trump? How is this impacting veterans who were planning to vote for Donald Trump? That's ahead on NEW DAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:22:35] BERMAN: Donald Trump not backing away from comments he made about Gold Star father Khizr Khan as Khan continues to speak out interview after interview, now asking Republican leaders to publicly denounce Donald Trump. Let us discuss right now.
Joining us, CNN political commentator John Phillips, radio talk show host who supports Donald Trump. Also with us Haroon Moghul, a senior fellow at the Center on Global Policy.
John Phillips, I want to start with you, Donald Trump supporter, and I want to play some sound of Donald Trump in an interview last night with an affiliate where he talked about, again, this ongoing feud, explaining why he thinks it's still going on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Border security is very big. And when you have radical Islamic terrorists probably all over the place -- we're allowing them to come in by the thousands and thousands; and I think that's what bothered Mr. Khan, more than anything else. And you know, I'm not going to change my views on that. We have radical Islamic terrorists coming in that -- that have to be stopped. We're taking them in by the thousands.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: There is no evince that thousands and thousands of radical Islamic terrorists are coming into the United States. In fact, there's evidence to the contrary of that.
But John Phillips, specifically, when he said, "I think that's what bothers Khizr Khan, I think the implication there was that somehow, because Donald Trump wants to stop terrorists from coming into the United States, that bothers Mr. Khan. I think this is the type of exchange, if I've been listening to you correctly, you would like to see Donald Trump stop engaging in, John?
JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right. I think this story would go away if he would stop talking about it, just stop digging the hole deeper, then would move on and talk about something else.
I think -- I think this father, Khan, spoke on Thursday of the Democratic convention. I was on set with you on Friday. And it was certainly part of the story. We spent a lot of time discussing it, but we spent a lot more time talking about Hillary, possibly even just as much time talking about Chelsea. It wasn't the story coming out of Thursday night, but Trump keeps making it the story.
And the real damage that he's doing by doing this is not only the denunciations from other Republicans, but it's the fact that we aren't talking about Hillary Clinton getting four Pinocchios from "The Washington Post" for fibbing about national security. That would be the story today if he didn't just keep digging on this story.
CAMEROTA: And Haroon, the irony is that Mr. Khan is the wrong person to have picked this fight with, because he -- you know, you hear people say, moderate Muslims need to speak out. Moderate Muslims need to support America. This family personifies that. They represent everything that's right with America and what everyone calls on Muslims to do.
[06:25:16] In fact, in December of 2015, more than six months ago, Mr. Khan said this in an interview. He said, "This is the time for us American Muslims to rat out any traitor who walks among us. This is high time for Muslims to stand firm against terrorists. Among us hides the enemies of the value system of this country, and we need to defend it. And if it means ratting out the traitors who hide behind an American passport, that's what we need to do."
What are your thoughts?
HAROON MOGHUL, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER OF GLOBAL POLICY: It's kind of amazing that here's this guy with a completely unpronounceable name, kind of a funny Pakistani accent. He's got the Harry Potter glasses going on a little bit. And he's, like, body-slamming Donald Trump over and over and over again. And nobody has been able to stop or slow down Donald Trump. I mean, there have been issues along the way, speed bumps, but it's this guy and his wife, you know, wearing a traditional head scarf who have somehow captured the imagination of the nation, which I think also says a lot about America.
But to the second point, what he said and I wish more people would understand this, when I disagree with American foreign policy, when I say we should do this or we shouldn't do that, I'm not saying it because I'm Muslim or because I'm brown or because my name is Haroon. I'm saying it because I love this country, too, but I have maybe different ideas or different thoughts on how to keep us safe and how to keep us prosperous. And unfortunately, a lot of Americans are perceived as somehow, because they're Muslim as being disloyal or not seriously American.
And what he's shown is that that's actually not true. He is Muslim. He is of Pakistani origin. He obviously cares about the country. He raised a son who gave his life in Iraq. He has ideas that maybe some people agree with, some people disagree with, but nobody can doubt his patriotism. And I think that's what Americans are responding to right now, is the genuineness of this family, the normalcy of this family.
BERMAN: Haroon, you said something interesting. You said that Khizr Khan is body-slamming Donald Trump again and again and again. Doesn't that, to an extent, prove, though, a point that Donald Trump is making, that he is being attacked by this guy now for days on end? Yesterday he did a whole lot of TV interviews, including two with CNN. I mean, if he's body-slamming Donald Trump, how does Donald Trump respond to the body slams?
Donald Trump is the only politician I know in recent memory who uses terms like "He started it," and so do some of his supporters, unfortunately. But let's take his logic, because we're all kind of descending to that level.
It is actually Donald Trump who started this. He's the one who came up with the Muslim ban. He's the one who talked about mass deportation of Latinos. He's the one who went after women and John McCain, a prisoner of war. He's been doing this now for months and months and months. People are going to respond.
If Trump hadn't taken this line of attack in the first place, Khizr Khan wouldn't have to say the things that he's saying about his son, Humayun Khan.
So in fact, if he's body slamming Donald Trump, it's because Donald Trump is going to war with the Constitution. People need to speak out. He's actually doing his patriotic duty as an American to say, "No, you can't simply say that, because I'm Muslim or because I'm brown or because I believe a little differently than you, that I don't have the right to be part of this country and be part of our conversations."
CAMEROTA: John, what are your thoughts? Final word.
PHILLIPS: Look, I mean, this is the absolute wrong target. These people seem like perfectly lovely people. They have sacrificed a lot for this country, for all of our liberty and freedom.
And if you're going to debate the merits of immigration or you're going to debate the merits of the military, do it with other politicians. Don't do it with a grieving Gold Star family.
Jamiel Shaw Sr. had his son, Jamiel Shaw Jr., killed by an illegal alien gang member here in Las Angeles, and he tried to change the law so that we would end our sanctuary city policy. And the same thing happened to him. He was -- he was treated horribly by the political establishment here in Los Angeles. And it's one thing for politicians to go at it with one another, but really, they should just leave the families out of it.
BERMAN: Again, look at Governor Mike Pence, Trump's running mate, for a different way to handle an issue like this.
We want to know you take, of course. You can tweet us @NewDay or post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay.
All right. We've heard from Hillary Clinton. We've heard from Donald Trump. Tomorrow, though, it's the Libertarian ticket's turn. Join us for a CNN town hall with Gary Johnson and William Weld. Anderson Cooper hosts the Libertarian town hall tomorrow at 9 p.m., right here on CNN.
CAMEROTA: They look very serious in that picture.
President Obama green-lighting an expansion of airstrikes against ISIS. The U.S. now targeting the terrorists in Libya. How long will this offensive last? We have a live report from the Pentagon next.
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