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New Day
Donald Trump Criticizes President Obama and Hillary Clinton Regarding Rise of ISIS; Interview with Rudy Giuliani. Aired 8-8:30a ET
Aired August 11, 2016 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:01] ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, August 11, now 8:00 in the east. We have Brianna Keilar and Chris Cuomo here with you. And first, Donald Trump ramping up his attacks on Hillary Clinton and on President Obama, calling them the founders of ISIS. What do you think of that?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Trump is digging in over his controversial comment that Second Amendment people could stop Hillary Clinton's Supreme Court picks. In a moment, we'll talk with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. But we want to begin now with CNN's Sara Murray live in Miami Beach with the latest. Sara?
SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Brianna. For the last couple of days, Donald Trump has been dealing with the fallout from his Second Amendment comments. It is clear he is ready to change the subject. And last night he unloaded on President Obama as well as Hillary Clinton, criticizing her in a very heated way about her e- mails.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(APPLAUSE)
MURRAY: Donald Trump trying to shift the spotlight to Hillary Clinton's missing e-mails after a newly uncovered batch of messages raises questions about ties between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's called pay-for-play. And some of these were really, really bad, and illegal. If it's true, it's illegal. You are paying and you're getting things.
MURRAY: But the firestorm Trump ignited with his own words isn't going away.
TRUMP: Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick --
(BOOS) TRUMP: If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks, although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know. But --
MURRAY: Trump digging in and continuing to blame the press for twisting his remarks.
TRUMP: The biggest rigger of the system is the media. The media is rigged. It is rigged. It's crooked as hell.
MURRAY: The bombastic billionaire insisting he wasn't advocating violence.
TRUMP: There's tremendous political power to save the Second Amendment, tremendous. And you look at the power they have in terms of votes, and that's what I was referring to. Obviously that's what I was referring to.
MURRAY: A Secret Service official tells CNN they had more than one conversation with Trump's campaign on the topic. But Trump disputes this, tweeting no such meeting or conversation ever happened.
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Words matter, my friends.
MURRAY: All as Clinton fires back on the stump.
CLINTON: We witnessed the latest in a long line of casual comments from Donald Trump that cross the line.
MURRAY: Amid the uproar, Trump is ramping up his attacks.
TRUMP: ISIS is honoring President Obama.
MURRAY: Labeling the president the founder of a terrorist group.
TRUMP: He is the founder of ISIS. He is the founder of ISIS. He is the founder. He founded ISIS. And I would say the cofounder would be crooked Hillary Clinton, cofounder.
MURRAY: The man who once demanded the president's birth certificate to prove his citizenship now emphasizing Obama's full name.
TRUMP: The administration of Barack Hussein Obama.
MURRAY: Sitting behind Trump at the rally as it all happens, disgraced ex-congressman Mark Foley who resigned in 2006 amid allegations he sent sexual emails and messages to teenage boys.
TRUMP: How many of you people know me. A lot of you people know me. When you get those seats, you sort of know the campaign.
MURRAY: As Trump pounced on Clinton for having a terrorist father sitting behind her this week.
TRUMP: Wasn't it terrible when the father of the animal that killed the wonderful of people in Orlando was sitting with a big smile on his face right behind Hillary Clinton.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MURRAY: Now, as Donald Trump aims to get back on track, he'll be campaigning today across the sunshine state, starting right here in Miami. The latest battleground state polls show him neck and neck right Hillary Clinton right here in Florida. Back to you, Chris.
CUOMO: All right, Sara, thank you for the reporting.
Let's discuss the situation with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, an obvious Donald Trump supporter. Donald Trump just gave an interview on CNBC where he touched on some of his feeling about ISIS and the connections to President Obama and Hillary Clinton. Here is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He was the founder, absolutely the founder. In fact, he gets the -- in sports, they have awards. He gets the most valuable player award. Him and Hillary, I mean, she gets it too. I gave him cofounder if you really look at the speech, I think you probably did.
[08:05:01] But he and Hillary get the most valuable player award having to do with Iraq, and having to do with the ISIS situation, or as he would call it, ISIL. He calls it ISIL because nobody else does. Probably wants to bother people by using a different term, and whether it is more accurate or not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: With all the legitimate angles of attack on the current state of play with ISIS and the United States, why go the route of saying that president Barack Hussein Obama, as Trump likes to remind people, founded ISIS? He didn't found ISIS. Then he says ISIS honors Obama. ISIS doesn't honor Obama. Why say those things?
RUDY GIULIANI, (R) FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Well, first of all, I think what he is saying is legitimate political commentary, legitimate political --
CUOMO: But it's not true.
GIULIANI: It is true in the sense that before Obama, ISIS was an almost unknown small little organization. He even called it the jayvee. Totally wrong. And here is why it happened, because he withdrew the troops from Iraq. General Petraeus had secured the eastern part of Iraq, it wasn't in turmoil, it wasn't in revolution, it wasn't breeding terrorists. He had gotten the support of the Sunni tribes. When we pulled out and the Obama administration and our secretary of state were unable to get a security of forces agreement for our troops, that's when ISIS formed.
CUOMO: That's a legitimate argument to make, but he doesn't make that argument. He says the guy is a founder.
GIULIANI: That's what he means by it.
CUOMO: He doesn't make a legitimate argument about the Second Amendment. He says you know, oh, maybe you guys can go and do something. He makes a joke that winds up becoming the story.
GIULIANI: It wasn't a joke.
CUOMO: Well, you're not saying he had serious intentions about encouraging Second Amendment people to do something bad?
GIULIANI: Of course not. No more than Hillary Clinton had eight years ago when she said she was going to stay in the race because, remember, Kennedy was assassinated.
CUOMO: You know what she did after she said that? She apologized.
GIULIANI: Because she was wrong.
CUOMO: Why didn't he apologized?
GIULIANI: Because he wasn't wrong.
CUOMO: How is he not wrong? He encouraged people of the Second Amendment which are people who have guns that maybe you can do something?
GIULIANI: Chris, Chris, Chris, he didn't encourage them to do that. He was saying don't vote for her. It is the Clinton spin machine.
CUOMO: No, it isn't. I'm not part of the Clinton spin machine.
GIULIANI: You accepted it.
CUOMO: The context I accept. He didn't say during the election. He says if she picks the judges, it is over. You can't do anything. Well, maybe you can. That's after she is elected. You can only pick judges if you're president. That's not about voting.
GIULIANI: Let's play lawyer and plain language interpretation. Well, maybe you can, can be a reflection on thought you had before, which is, well --
CUOMO: You know what the problem is. Why have to explain what comes out of a man's mouth every two seconds.
GIULIANI: Because you don't give him a fair shot. You take his words and you parse them and take them apart. I was on the plane with him when they called him and they said to him, they are accusing you of saying kill Hillary Clinton. He said "what?" I didn't say that. What I said was --
CUOMO: He didn't say that, you're right. I never said he did.
GIULIANI: He said, I said don't vote for her.
CUOMO: He said something clumsy that was open to misinterpretation. GIULIANI: If you want to misinterpret it. On the other hand --
CUOMO: The guy behind him didn't get the message.
GIULIANI: The guy behind him had actually stroked his chin before he said it. I looked at the tape five times.
CUOMO: I looked at it, too. He also looks at his wife and he makes a face says, oh, can you believe that --
GIULIANI: You don't know what he said. How about he said, oh, wow, we could go vote.
CUOMO: He did not say that. He did an interview on CNN, where he said I can't believe he said it. Let's play what Trump said for everybody else because you're right, it shouldn't be a legal argument between us. You're going to win every time. Here's what Trump said.
GIULIANI: It is really outrageous.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick --
BOLLING:
TRUMP: If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIULIANI: "Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is" could mean you can vote against her. That is exactly what he meant. That is exactly what he meant.
CUOMO: It was open to interpretation.
GIULIANI: If you want to accept the Hillary Clinton -- the first people who put it out, because we got it from him, the first people to put it out, I got a call on the phone, it was from the Hillary Clinton spin machine. And then all of you jumped on it and it was the biggest story yesterday.
CUOMO: First of all, I don't think he was inciting violence. But it is part of a pattern. He does this all the time.
GIULIANI: It is part of your pattern.
CUOMO: No, I don't control what comes out of his mouth. The man blacklisted me. He won't come on the show because he doesn't like answering questions about what he says.
GIULIANI: Chris, it is a pattern of the press exaggerating what he says. Yesterday we get e-mails that demonstrate what I've been saying for four months, that the Clinton Foundation is a fraud. The Clinton Foundation is a racketeering enterprise. And the State Department was a pay-for-play organization.
CUOMO: The 44 e-mails that came out, we have covered here just as much as anything else. We're covering it. It doesn't mean this didn't happen.
[08:10:03] GIULIANI: But why isn't she being investigated? De Blasio is being investigated in New York City for pay-for-play.
CUOMO: I don't control who is being investigated. I don't control that. My job is to cover it.
GIULIANI: We're covering for the third day --
CUOMO: He says the media is doing this to me. The media is rigged. Do you think my coverage is rigged?
GIULIANI: No, I don't think yours is, but I think a lot of coverage is rigged.
CUOMO: How is it rigged? This comes out of his mouth, and you have to apologize for it.
GIULIANI: I have not apologized.
CUOMO: You come here and explain it and say, well, it could have meant this.
GIULIANI: No, I didn't say it could have meant that. I'm telling you he didn't say words of violence.
CUOMO: He didn't say go out and vote, did he?
GIULIANI: No. OK, but you say things in a lot of different ways in politics. You talk for 100 hours, so you say things in a lot of ways. I was a lawyer, I argued in court. Sometimes when I wanted to make a point, I might say something is the founder of something when the guy is the person who helped to enable it.
CUOMO: You had trouble with the media when you were mayor, sometimes you kept people out of press conferences. You never said the things he does. You've never said things in front of a crowd that had them start chanting "lock them up" about the media.
GIULIANI: For which --
CUOMO: Calling reporters liars when he knows it is not true.
GIULIANI: For which he steps back and says beat her. That's at the convention.
CUOMO: Katy Tur from NBC had to be escorted by her car by Secret Service because the crowd turned on her because he pointed at her and said she is a liar, remember that. She is a liar. President of the United States?
GIULIANI: Look, the coverage is not fair. If you can't see that, I can't help you.
CUOMO: No politician likes the media. No politician says the media is fair to them.
GIULIANI: Nobody, nobody brought up Hillary's comments about Bobby Kennedy.
CUOMO: What are you talking about? It is all over the place.
GIULIANI: No it isn't all over the place. Not three days the front page of the newspaper. The front page of "The Times" yesterday didn't have the pay for play scandal. The front page of the "New York Times" had three articles on Donald Trump, all negative, and --
CUOMO: Every outlet is different. I don't work for "The New York Times." We have been covering it consistently.
GIULIANI: And "New York Times" failed to point out in any kind of highlighted way the fact that a terrorist and the father of a terrorist was sitting behind Hillary Clinton, and they failed to ask the question, what attracted him to her? What attracted that Taliban --
CUOMO: What attracted Mark Foley to Donald Trump?
GIULIANI: I don't know. Lots of questions were asked about that.
CUOMO: Not as many as were asked about the Orlando father.
GIULIANI: He was asked about David Duke, who he has never met.
CUOMO: You don't think that's a legitimate question?
GIULIANI: Hillary hasn't been asked about the father yet.
CUOMO: That's not true. They've been all over the campaign asking.
GIULIANI: Her answer was thank you. Her answer was thank you.
CUOMO: No, just said, Rudy, you just said she hasn't been asked. The answer is that's wrong. She has been asked. You know what I'm saying? I understand why you support him. I get it. But you apologize and defend for him --
GIULIANI: Chris, I am --
CUOMO: And I think that's putting you in an awkward position.
GIULIANI: Not for me.
CUOMO: You're right. You don't apologize. It might be the more honorable thing to do.
GIULIANI: It wouldn't be the more honorable thing to do. What he meant was --
CUOMO: If you're saying it was on the media, that's not lying but it's also not accurate, right?
GIULIANI: Yes, the media --
CUOMO: But it is wrong.
GIULIANI: The media took words that were not violent words, and the media interpreted them as violent words. Those words are not violent.
CUOMO: Not just the media. Other people interpreted them way, and why? Because of the pattern, because of the pattern. This is what the man says. He says things that are either casual or hyperbolic to impress a crowd. And then they go too far and refuses to apologize and blames the media. It's happened at least 10 times that I can name right off the top of my head.
GIULIANI: Hillary Clinton is trying to paint a demonic picture of Donald Trump because on the record she can't get elected because she was engaged in significant criminal activity. The e-mails we know about --
CUOMO: She is beating him polls, someone suggested, exactly because of this behavior, that he should be winning right now based on the mood of the country but for his own temperament and actions of what comes out of his mouth.
GIULIANI: I have to say, whatever the past was with Donald Trump or whatever he said in the past, that day, what he was talking about was voting. And what the Clinton machine and the media turned it into was violence. He didn't say words of violence.
CUOMO: True, you know what would have said if I asked you this question. If I said to you, you know what the suggestion is, you know what you would have said. God forbid, I would never suggest that to people. I don't want anybody to do anything violent to anyone, let alone to Hillary Clinton. I don't want anybody to believe that. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry if someone took it that way. Let's move on. That's what you would say. Why doesn't he say that?
GIULIANI: People are different. They can say different things. He told the truth.
CUOMO: But it comes across like he enjoys or he think he benefits from the anger.
GIULIANI: He wasn't trying to create anger. In one way he was. He was trying to create a feeling among Second Amendment people, you've got to keep her out of office, because if she puts a justice on the court, they reverse Heller, the private right to bear arms will be taken away..
[08:15:05] CUOMO: She actually said she doesn't want to reverse Heller. And, what? What?
GIULIANI: I believe that, just as much as I believe she was in favor of the XL pipeline and now she's against the XL pipeline. If she -- if I would bet you, anything you want, that she puts a Supreme Court justice --
CUOMO: He said she wants to abolish the Second Amendment. We both know that's impossible.
GIULIANI: What he means by that, she wants to interpret it in a way to abolish it.
CUOMO: So, is this -- if he wins, if he becomes president of the United States, is that going to be your position, is that he goes out, he'll say things and you'll come on and say what he actually meant?
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Is that part of the job knowing how to use language in a way that doesn't confuse everybody?
GIULIANI: That doesn't confuse anyone. She will effectively abolish the Second Amendment. If you reverse Heller, you effectively abolish the Second Amendment.
CUOMO: She said she doesn't think Heller should be reversed.
GIULIANI: And I think if anybody believes that -- I told you, they believe that she legitimately changed her minds over the XL pipeline.
CUOMO: What does one have to do with the other?
GIULIANI: What it has to do with it is that nobody covers her in the same way that he is covered. Her flip flop on the XL pipeline got one story, one time, not three days of coverage.
CUOMO: Who says more things that confound reason? Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?
GIULIANI: Hillary Clinton.
CUOMO: On a regular basis?
GIULIANI: On a regular basis.
CUOMO: Tapes come out of the man obviously playing his own pr machine, he says it is not me.
GIULIANI: No.
CUOMO: The Star of David thing comes out, he says it is a sheriff's star. Why not just own things, say they are a mistake, move on, move on?
GIULIANI: Some things he has said were a mistake.
CUOMO: What?
GIULIANI: Other things --
CUOMO: What? Tell me one thing he has apologized for. GIULIANI: He said he has said that it was a mistake, the things he
said about John McCain. He said that he -- John McCain was a hero, he should have acknowledged that, he should have acknowledged his heroism and his public service. He did it five months ago, he did it two months ago, and he did it a week ago.
CUOMO: That's the one example you have? I don't remember him saying by the way. Obviously we'll check. I don't remember him saying I apologize for what I said about John McCain.
GIULIANI: I didn't say -- I don't remember him saying I apologize. I do remember him saying --
CUOMO: What does that tell you, though? Wouldn't you if you said something so insulting about a veteran?
GIULIANI: I might say it was a mistake.
CUOMO: You wouldn't apologize if you said that? I don't know that you would ever say, but.
GIULIANI: Maybe I would if that were the proper circumstances. You asked me where is the time where he owned up to a mistake, he own up to a mistake.
CUOMO: All the times that he doesn't, what does that mean to you? Why doesn't he do it? All the situations would go away. He won't come on. He won't come on the show, Rudy.
GIULIANI: Because honestly, this is -- I know, oh, you keep saying this over and over again, the press gets so up set and very defensive. Your coverage, I don't mean you, but the press's coverage of him is so unfair, the pay for play, secretary of state, who revealed e-mails that put the national security of this country in jeopardy. That is a massive scandal of huge proportions.
CUOMO: I'm not disagreeing with you about the need to cover it.
GIULIANI: Rather than fighting overlain wage and what language.
CUOMO: Look, by the way, I think that you're right in terms of the strategy here. That's why I'm asking you about the strategy. I mean, he could be talking about the e-mails, instead, he is defending what's coming out of his mouth.
GIULIANI: OK, let's try one other way. What he said was certainly not criminal. What she did with the Clinton Foundation and all the favors the State Department did for hundreds of millions of dollars is, to me, clear violation of the conflict of interest law. And I would be investigating it right now as a racketeering enterprise, as I did a lot of Wall Street people.
CUOMO: And if it is investigated, we'll cover it.
GIULIANI: I'm the person who helped contribute to --
CUOMO: We cover it and we would cover the investigation.
GIULIANI: There are allegations coming out day after day, e-mail after e-mail.
CUOMO: We cover them. They come out on this outlet.
GIULIANI: Not with the same vigor. Not with the same tremendous emphasis. Not with the same amount of time that you spend --
CUOMO: But also --
GIULIANI: One thing, he says --
CUOMO: But it matters.
GIULIANI: Why not accept his explanation?
CUOMO: He didn't give one.
GIULIANI: Yes, he did.
CUOMO: He said the media is rigged. They twisted my words. This is terrible. They're terrible.
GIULIANI: No, he said this is what I meant. What he meant is they should vote against her. They should vote against her.
CUOMO: But that's just not what he said.
GIULIANI: But he did say that. He said, I meant they should vote against her.
CUOMO: No, he said, I meant they should vote against her. He didn't say vote against her. He said something that was open to interpretation. That's what started this latest round.
GIULIANI: Everything I say is open to interpretation. Any words I use. You can't say --
CUOMO: That's why you have to pick your words carefully, as you did as an elected leader, because people are going to parse them.
[08:20:04] If you're president of the United States, they're going to do it more than anything in the world.
GIULIANI: What is wrong with those words? What is wrong with those words, you can do something about it, if you assume that the man is not there talking about violence? He used no words of violence.
CUOMO: True. But the things he said before raises a question, it raises a question. It just does. His decision on another front, the taxes. Are the taxes a big deal? No.
But his decision to not release them now becomes a big deal, because his argument about Hillary on one level, is what, transparency. You can't trust her. She won't be open with you. It is hard for him to make a compelling case when he is doing the same thing with his taxes. Why don't you advice him to just release the taxes to make it go away?
GIULIANI: Whatever I advise him is between me and him.
CUOMO: True.
GIULIANI: That's a personal decision, given all the things she has hidden, all the things she has destroyed, the fact that he is not releasing his taxes, when you have financial disclosure form which describes a great deal of his holdings.
CUOMO: Except the financial disclosure form rewards exaggeration.
GIULIANI: I grant you, it's an issue. But it's nothing in comparison to the 35,000 emails that she destroyed.
CUOMO: Except we had a dozen different official investigations of that issue, right? It is not like we ignored the e-mail situation, right? She gave 11 hours of open testimony on it. So, it's not like nobody knows anything about it.
GIULIANI: Sat down inappropriately with the attorney general of the United States three days before --
CUOMO: It never got to her, the head of the FBI, who you know and respect, I don't see a case to be made here. She was extremely careless.
GIULIANI: Nobody said there was not a case to be made.
CUOMO: Of course there was. Otherwise he would have referred a case.
GIULIANI: First of all, it is not his job to make a determination --
CUOMO: That's his conclusion.
GIULIANI: His conclusion was she lied on a number of occasions. His conclusion was that she was extremely careless in the --
CUOMO: Right, but he didn't see the case of a crime.
GIULIANI: And extremely careless, means grossly negligent, which violates the law.
CUOMO: He would have referred the case for prosecution, but he didn't.
GIULIANI: As his former boss, I believe Jim Comey's reading of the law is completely wrong. I think it is highly suspicious on the day he said that, Bill Clinton was on an airplane with Hillary Clinton.
CUOMO: Do you think James comey was compromised on this situation?
GIULIANI: I don't know
CUOMO: That's a very heavy, heavy allegation. GIULIANI: I'm not saying James Comey was compromised. He might have
told the attorney general or the deputy attorney general. I don't know who he told.
CUOMO: Told them what?
GIULIANI: His decision. Chris, you know politics. Are they going to put Clinton on the same plane with the president of the United States on the very day that the director of the FBI is going to give his report on this, if they think he is going to say --
CUOMO: Who is they?
GIULIANI: The White House. The White House.
CUOMO: The White House didn't put Clinton on the plane with the attorney general. Clinton made that happen. Maybe that was inappropriate.
GIULIANI: You're not getting my point.
On the day that James Comey made his decision --
CUOMO: Right.
GIULIANI: -- the president of the United States was going to appear with Hillary Clinton.
CUOMO: Right.
GIULIANI: If the White House knew that there was the possibility that there was going to be an indictment, right, the president wouldn't be there. I worked in the White House. I know that.
CUOMO: How does that undermine on Comey's decision?
GIULIANI: It means, there was a leak.
CUOMO: So what? Even if you're right, so what?
GIULIANI: Who should leak it?
CUOMO: That doesn't mean that his judgment was impaired. I'm saying, do you think Comey made a call that was influenced by somebody else? Yes or no?
GIULIANI: I don't know the answer to that, I can't make the charge. I believe he made a grossly --
CUOMO: He made a call --
GIULIANI: -- wrong.
CUOMO: For a year, he had his guys look into it.
GIULIANI: Yes, which he shouldn't have been looking at it for year. It should have taken about three months. But any event --
CUOMO: But I'm saying, if anything, you err on the side of caution. I don't understand you're trying undermine the confidence in the man's decision.
GIULIANI: Well, I do undermine, I disagree with his decision.
CUOMO: You can disagree with it, but it doesn't mean it was a bad decision.
GIULIANI: I think his decision was an embarrassment to the FBI.
CUOMO: But I'm saying that kind -- but there is two different things. You can say, he got it wrong, fine. But if you say, and why did he get it wrong, now you're going down a path of speculation that undermines the confidence in a system that a very dangerous thing to do if you don't have any proof.
GIULIANI: I'm not -- I believe his decision --
CUOMO: Was wrong.
GIULIANI: No, grossly inadequate.
CUOMO: OK, but fine, you don't think he made a decision for bad reason. You don't have any proof of that.
GIULIANI: I have no proof of that.
CUOMO: That's the question.
GIULIANI: I'm not suggesting he made it for bad reasons.
CUOMO: Because it sounded like you were. That's why I'm making you clarify it.
GIULIANI: I'll clarify it. I believe the decision was so wrong, I can't understand how he came to that conclusion. I don't believe he did it for bad reasons, because I think he is a good man.
[08:25:01] But the decision perplexes me. It perplexes Jim Kallstrom (ph), who worked for him. It perplexes numerous FBI agents who talk to me all the time. And it embarrasses some FBI agents.
So, I can tell you all that.
Why he made it that way, I can't tell you.
CUOMO: That's right, and that's where it should be left. That's not what Trump says.
GIULIANI: He laid out a case --
CUOMO: Trump says, oh, it was the -- there was something wrong there.
GIULIANI: You read that report until the last two pages, he laid out a case for a perfect prosecution, under a statute that has a grossly negligent standard and five years in jail.
CUOMO: As you well know, and again, everybody should know this about you, you were a prosecutor and a very good one, federal prosecutor, that statute is almost never used and when it is, they always look to show intent. They go way beyond gross negligence.
GIULIANI: That statute, as far as I can tell, the research you're able to do cases that are declined, that statute, there has never been a violation of it, at the level of which she violated it. Her violation was incredible, meaning thousands and thousands and thousands --
CUOMO: None of that can be denied. What I'm saying at the end of the day, he looked at it and it wasn't a crime.
GIULIANI: Under similar statutes, under similar statutes for which she could have been prosecuted, people have been prosecuted --
CUOMO: When they've been able to show that they lied to the FBI or knowingly did what is specified --
GIULIANI: She did lie. She lied to the public.
CUOMO: But not to the FBI. And one is a crime. Someone a crime -- I am taking it as your opinion. Someone a crime, one is not a crime.
GIULIANI: But evidence of intent. Lying to the public is evidence of intent, by the way.
CUOMO: But you would have to lie to the FBI to trigger the statute. I know we're in the weeds --
GIULIANI: Not to trigger that statute.
CUOMO: What I'm saying is you have to be careful about what you insinuate about the situation. Trump does that a lot, it undermines confidence in him, which is by the way, you get this open letter of 50 national security experts from the GOP who come out and say this guy can't be president. And you kind of brush it aside and say they have it wrong. You got Mike Chertoff, you got Tom Ridge, you know and respect these guys, and you brush aside their assessment.
Why?
GIULIANI: I believe they're wrong. They don't know Trump the way I know Trump. They don't realize and understand what Trump can do for the country that Hillary Clinton cannot do. They're not assessing properly how Hillary Clinton will appoint a Supreme Court that will destroy a lot of the rights we have and make the next president --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: They're talking about national security. They're talking about foreign affairs. How did they not know? What do you know that they know? GIULIANI: I know him better than they do. I also assess maybe more
strongly the fact that I don't want a president who has been grossly negligent with the handling of national security. I think that is a lot more serious than all these little arguments about we're having about what Trump mean about this, what Trump mean about that.
And, by the way, I have put people in jail for handling national security information improperly, people that did far less than she did. I have done cases that are so 10 percent of what she did with it. But this foundation --
CUOMO: But it went through the system and that's it now.
GIULIANI: That isn't it. I can still draw my conclusion --
CUOMO: Of course you can. I'm saying in terms of the -- there is something more there, it is what it is. They went through it. They did the investigation. Comey had his finding. You had 11 hours of testimony. It is baked in to voters, so that's it. That's what it is, 27 percent of people think she is telling the truth about it. Obviously it has sunk in.
GIULIANI: Worst case for both, you get a choice between a secretary of state, who was grossly negligent in handling national security and a president who says things that you find ambiguous --
CUOMO: No, that's not the proposition. Here is why. You're right, I'll give you one part of the equation. That's your opinion. I'm not saying it is accurate.
GIULIANI: No, no, no, that's not my opinion. That's what Comey said. Comey said she was grossly --
CUOMO: Extremely careless.
GIULIANI: If we want to use --
CUOMO: Extremely careless.
GIULIANI: Which is a legal definition of gross negligence.
CUOMO: We both know -- it would be an extrapolation. He picked those words on purpose.
GIULIANI: Go read the cases and definition of gross negligence.
CUOMO: All right.
GIULIANI: It is extremely careless is one of the four definitions.
CUOMO: Be that as it may, what's on other side of the scales, not of justice in this case, but presidential politics --
GIULIANI: Comey knows what I said. Jim knows that the definition of gross negligence, because he sat through enough trials in which gross negligence -- CUOMO: Look --
GIULIANI: -- has been defined --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: It came up, I get it, the end of the conclusion, though, he didn't see a case to bring forward.
On the other side of the scale, though, is Donald Trump, who not once, not twice, but man many times, undermines confidence in his ability to send across a clear message that is not inherently hostile or divisive. The man welcomes chants of "lock them up" about the entire meeting.
Do you think that's healthy, that encourages people to turn on the media?
