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Trump Ramps Up Attacks; Clinton Pay for Play; Trump Testing Journalists. Aired 8:30-9:00a ET
Aired August 11, 2016 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think that is healthy for a democracy to have a president of the United States that encourages people to turn on its media?
RUDY GIULIANI (R), FORMER NYC MAYOR: I'm giving - I'm giving - first of all, the media -
CUOMO: Would you do that?
GIULIANI: If you treated me the way you're treating him, you're darn right I would. And I did. When - you think I was treated fairly as a Republican mayor in New York City?
CUOMO: I think no politician thinks that they are treated fairly.
GIULIANI: Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. You treat Republicans (INAUDIBLE) you treat Democrats. And you can't live up to it. And you do. You do. It's true. It's just the truth. It's been true since day one.
CUOMO: It's not - it is your truth.
GIULIANI: I know you think it's my truth. It's absolutely true. And as the Republican mayor of New York City, I knew I had to over perform. I knew - I knew "The New York Times" would, if I raised my voice this much would say, mayor storms out a conference.
CUOMO: Pop said the same thing, that they would call him a hotheaded Italian. Whenever he said anything, he had to keep his temper down. And he was no Republican.
GIULIANI: That's true.
CUOMO: And he was no Republican, right? I get why politicians don't like the media.
GIULIANI: And no - look, no, I think your dad - not - not - not that your dad was hotheaded. It is true that Democrats get bad coverage. But - if you look at any objective analysis, the negative coverage of Republicans is about three to one to the coverage of Democrats. The media -
CUOMO: I don't know where that number - where that number comes from.
GIULIANI: It comes from studies. CUOMO: Just - look, I'm only responsible for what I do. Let me ask you
one more other question.
GIULIANI: Chris, I'm -
CUOMO: I don't want to have a media debate.
GIULIANI: I'm on - I'm on your show -
CUOMO: I know.
GIULIANI: Because you're a fair man.
CUOMO: I know. And I respect that. And you - and you know that I -
GIULIANI: But I don't think - I don't think that the overwhelming majority of your profession is fair.
CUOMO: I get it. I get what you feel. I'm just saying, it's not worth our time right now. Let me ask you one other thing.
GIULIANI: Well, it is.
CUOMO: No, it isn't, because I can't have a media range of conversations. There's so many different outlets. You have different people with different agendas.
GIULIANI: Look, the American people - because - because the - the American - the American people have to make their own decision about this on influence by a media that is substantially bias against Donald Trump.
CUOMO: Not all media is the same and I will say this to you -
GIULIANI: And I'm not talking about you.
CUOMO: Donald Trump causes his own coverage cycles by what comes out of his mouth. We do not have to hunt for situations with him.
GIULIANI: Well, you did in this one.
CUOMO: He presents them.
GIULIANI: (INAUDIBLE) -
CUOMO: The cause of an established patter with him -
GIULIANI: And this -
CUOMO: And an inability to ever apologize for anything that he says.
GIULIANI: OK. If we grant all that is true -
CUOMO: Right.
GIULIANI: I'll take that over an attorney general - CUOMO: That's your decision. That's the voter's decision.
GIULIANI: Who was extremely - you're (ph) asking you about me, my decision.
CUOMO: True.
GIULIANI: I would take that over a secretary of state who is extremely careless about the use of national security information on thousands of occasions, against a secretary of state who turned the State Department into a pay for play organization.
CUOMO: That's your interpretation.
GIULIANI: Well, you're asking me my view.
CUOMO: I know. I know.
GIULIANI: You're asking me. Why -
CUOMO: I - just to clarify for the - because you're very compelling, so I want to just clarify it for my audience.
GIULIANI: But why do you have to clarify? You -
CUOMO: Because there is no finding that she turned the State Department into a pay for play organization. You have e-mails out there right now that suggest that people from the foundation were talking to people in the State Department about meetings and trying to find jobs.
GIULIANI: Yes, how about - how about - how about -- how about a meeting for a guy with the American ambassador to Lebanon, and the guy is a convicted money launderer, and he makes a one to five million dollars contribution to the Clinton Foundation and -
CUOMO: They asked for it. The ambassador says the meeting never happened.
Let me ask you about something else. The debates, you're going to negotiate for Trump. I would have thought that Trump would jump at the chance to have as many debates with Clinton as possible.
GIULIANI: He does.
CUOMO: It doesn't seem like that. He came up with this story about the NFL, saying they were unhappy with some letter that never existed.
GIULIANI: Donald Trump - Donald Trump is going to participate in all three debates and the negotiations are going to be about, as they always are and have always been, about how we do it.
CUOMO: So he'll do all three? These stories about he's going to only do one, you don't buy it?
GIULIANI: He's going to do all three debates. The negotiations, which the Federal Commission has always allowed between the candidates -
CUOMO: Absolutely.
GIULIANI: Is going to happen about, you know, I don't know, how big is the podium and do you - do you wear red ties or does she wear a blue suit and -
CUOMO: All those things.
GIULIANI: All that crazy stuff they negotiate over. How much water do you put on? Can you take notes? Can you bring notes out with you? Those negotiations have to take place. He has told me two weeks ago he wants me and Paul Manafort to negotiate the terms of the debate. He's told us the things that are critical to him. None of them have to do with not debating. There are things that he thinks are important to him and are fair to him. None of them are unusual or unprecedented. They are things that have been done before. So I see no reason why there are not going to be debates. I believe that the debates are critical for him.
CUOMO: Yes, I think you're right.
GIULIANI: Because I believe he needs to go above the press and talk directly to the people. There was once a headline in "News Day" when I was mayor and it was called "Air Mayor." And "News Day" had actually figured out my strategy. After 12 months of being viciously criticized by "The New York Times" in particular, and the liberal media in New York, they figured out my strategy. I was on radio and television so often that I was delivering my own message to people, because I didn't want "The New York Times" saying "the angry mayor," "the mean mayor" -
[08:35:15] CUOMO: Yes, that's right.
GIULIANI: "The mean mayor trying to take people off welfare and requiring them to work."
CUOMO: You'll always be your best advocate. That's why we offer this platform to all the candidates, including Trump.
GIULIANI: I would - yes.
CUOMO: I would encourage you to encourage him to come back on.
GIULIANI: I'm going to tell you - I'm going to make a deal with you.
CUOMO: Yes.
GIULIANI: I'm going to encourage him to come back on this show with you.
CUOMO: Good.
GIULIANI: Because he is his best advocate when he gets to explains it for himself.
CUOMO: No, I have said that myself. GIULIANI: And "air Trump" should be part of the strategy.
CUOMO: NEW DAY is an open forum for all relevant people.
GIULIANI: That's why it's called - it's also called NEW DAY. We can - we can have a new day and start over.
CUOMO: Thank you very much. You got it.
GIULIANI: All right.
CUOMO: Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here, as always.
GIULIANI: Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure and you're always fair.
CUOMO: Appreciate it.
GIULIANI: Tough, but fair.
CUOMO: Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Chris, what does the other side think about all of this? We will speak live with Democratic congressman and Clinton supporter Jim Himes, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: We just heard from Rudy Giuliani. So how do Hillary Clinton's supporters responds? How do they feel about Donald Trump's claims about her e-mails being pay for play? Some of these new e-mails just released by Judicial Watch.
Joining us now to talk about it, we have Connecticut congressman and Clinton supporter Jim Himes.
[08:40:03] REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: Good morning.
KEILAR: So you were able to listen to what the former mayor said, his extensive comments, but I do want to play one in particular because he is accusing Hillary Clinton of breaking the law. Here's what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NYC MAYOR: Pattern of the press exaggerating what he says. And 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, to me, is a racketeering enterprise, and the State Department was a pay for play organization.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: All right, what is your response to that?
HIMES: You know, it's sad for me as a guy who worked in lower Manhattan on 9/11, who still has some good feelings for Mayor Giuliani for his response to 9/11. It's sad for me to watch him probably shred whatever political legacy he has by standing up for this guy, Donald Trump, having the argument that he just had with Chris, standing up for the kind of violent language that Trump has been using, not just last week, but week after week after week.
Look, I mean, the clip you played there, criminal, racketeering, fraud. That language is just so consistent with the very dangerous undermining of frankly all of this country's institutions that the Trump campaign and Trump himself has been doing. Look, let's look at what we know about this supposed racketeering, fraud, criminal enterprise, as that former prosecutor and former mayor of New York described it as. What we know is that an aide to the Clinton Foundation asked the State Department to set up a meeting.
KEILAR: Thee top aide. Thee top aide.
HIMES: An aide to the Clinton Foundation asked for a meeting which apparently never happened. Now, the mayor knows, as every governor knows, as every senator knows, as every congressman knows, that you get these requests. And sometimes they look a little borderline. If a meeting had occurred, now this is potentially something of interest.
Now, by the way, even now, look what happened to the governor of Virginia. The governor of Virginia is getting watches and vacations and everything and a court does not convict - or I should say a court convicted him, but that convention was overturned, and yet Rudy Giuliani is calling this criminal and racketeering. It's profoundly irresponsible, I think.
KEILAR: But isn't she undermining herself and her top aides, haven't they undermined her, because this is what people don't like? If Bill Clinton is at the Democratic Convention casting his wife as the change maker, this is not the kind of thing, this business as usual, that makes voters say, oh, that's a change maker.
HIMES: Look, every organization, I - you know, it's not at all clear. In fact, it doesn't appear that Secretary Clinton or former President Clinton knew anything about this.
KEILAR: OK, I want to stop you right there because -
HIMES: So to say - to say that that's a problem for her assumes that she knew, assumes that she signed on to it. Remember, a meeting never occurred here.
KEILAR: Well, that is - that is - no, and it didn't occur. That's important because we're talking about a meeting -
HIMES: It's important.
KEILAR: Between a donor or - that was proposed, coming from a top aide to Bill Clinton and one of the founders - co-founders of CGI, to get a major donor in touch with the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon. That former ambassador says it did not happen.
The reaction from the Clinton campaign says, "neither of these e-mails involve the secretary or relate to the foundation's work." This is something that you're echoing. They say these "are communications between her aides and the president's personal aide." And indeed the recommendation was for one of the secretary's former staffers, who was not employed by the foundation. That's about this kind of ask for looking - looking for a job.
But I want to challenge you on this, because this happened on her watch. And this is not someone removed from Hillary Clinton. This is - this is Huma Abedin responding to one of these e-mails. This is Cheryl Mills being e-mailed. This is Doug Band. This is the top aide to Bill Clinton. This is the right-hand guy for Bill Clinton, and the right- hand woman for Hillary Clinton. These are almost extensions of Hillary and Bill Clinton.
HIMES: But, again, let's use the four words that you used, "it did not happen," OK? Those are the four words that I think would be in any way relevant to Rudy Giuliani's wild charges that this is racketeering, that it is fraud, it is criminal. You said it yourself, it did not happen.
KEILAR: But the idea that it could happen was normalized in these communications.
HIMES: Well, and - and -
KEILAR: It's not - it's not that they said, oh, that's not going to happen. I mean there is record here of aides trying to set this up.
HIMES: Yes. Yes, but, again, we don't know the facts here. And so maybe Huma Abedin - and I don't know the facts either. But the point is, it didn't happen. Maybe at State they were saying, hey, this is inappropriate. We should stall it. We shouldn't do it. We should - you know, it shouldn't - it did not happen.
KEILAR: That's not what the e-mail - that's not what it says. Doug Band e-mails, "we need Gilbert Chagoury to speak to the substance person re (ph) Lebanon. As you know, he's a key guy there and to us and is loved in Lebanon. Very important." Huma Abedin responds, "it's Jeff Feltman, I'm sure he knows him. I'll talk to Jeff." That being, at the time, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon.
HIMES: OK. But, again, the meeting never happened. If a meeting had happened, now I think we're talking about legitimate allegations, not fraud, not criminal enterprise, not racketeering, none of the wild language that Rudy Giuliani used, we're talking about legitimate allegations. But a meeting did not happen. And so, you know, to suggest that this is any of the things that Rudy Giuliani suggested was is just - is just crazy.
[08:45:03] Now, look, the Clinton campaign, and you read it, said that the secretary was unaware. Clinton was unaware.
KEILAR: Sure, but I want to ask you, because I only have 30 seconds, Congressman Shays, your predecessor -
HIMES: Right.
KEILAR: He is now endorsing Hillary Clinton. He's a Republican. He said one of the things I don't like about Hillary Clinton, though, is that she takes it to the line. Isn't this an example of that?
HIMES: Again, if she had known, and if she had made a statement about it, maybe - maybe it would be. But that is not where we are. Look, I think Congressman Shays said it - said it very well. He said, you know, and he said to me in the green room, he said, if Hillary Clinton had just come out and said, you know, from the start on this e-mail thing, terrible mistake, wish I hadn't done it, apologized, it probably would have gone away. And I think he's right - I think he's right about that.
But this is not, again, to - this does not even approach what Rudy Giuliani suggested it would be. And this is part of a pattern, and it happens every single week, with threats of violence, with wild - I mean we didn't talk about the founder of ISIS. Think about a country of 350 million people, some of whom are running around actually believing that the current president of the United States is the founder of an enemy of the United States. This kind of daily use of language is going to lead to violence. And it is beyond irresponsible for Trump and his various surrogates, like Giuliani, to be using this language.
KEILAR: Congressman Jim Himes, Connecticut well represented today here on NEW DAY.
HIMES: (INAUDIBLE) that's right (ph).
KEILAR: Thank you so much for joining us.
HIMES: Thank you.
KEILAR: Chris.
CUOMO: Well said, Brianna, well said.
Well, there's no question that Donald Trump likes to use the defense that the media is against him. That we twist his words. The latest example would be that's how he explain what he said about Second Amendment supporters. But many journalists say they're facing a struggle when it comes to covering Trump, staying objective. We're going to discuss Trump's war with the media, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:50:41] KEILAR: Well, Donald Trump is under fire for his remarks about the Second Amendment. Trump says he said nothing wrong and that the media is twisting his words again. But critics and Hillary Clinton, they're saying, you know, words matter. So let's discuss this. We have CNN's senior media correspondent and host of "Reliable Sources," Brian Stelter, and media columnist for "The New York Times," and a contributor for "The New York Times Magazine," Jim Rutenberg.
Thanks, guys, for being here.
And I want to start off with a piece that you've written, Jim, that sort of gets to this question of how do you stay objective. You say in this, "if you're a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation's worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators, and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him. That's uncomfortable and unchartered territory for every mainstream, non-opinion journalist I've ever known, and by normal standards, untenable." This is a different election this cycle.
JIM RUTENBERG, MEDIA COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": We just saw it on this program with a, you know, half hour almost interview with Rudy Giuliani. There's a lot that's coming out of the Trump campaign that creates kind of different journalistic relationship, right? Like we just saw Chris with the mayor, who is very much a Trumpian (ph) surrogate, where Chris had to repeatedly say, did you - is that really true and wait a minute and that's not quite what - accurate. So it's a different dynamic. We always do that as journalists, but it's all turned up to 11 right now.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I'd like to answer a question you asked Mr. Giuliani.
CUOMO: Go ahead, Brian.
STELTER: You said, is it appropriate, is it healthy in a democracy, for people to be chanting "lock them up," talking about the journalists in the room. The answer is no. And we all sort of know that deep down inside, don't we? Journalists are exercising their First Amendment rights by covering Donald Trump. The protesters can say whatever they want. They also have a First Amendment right. But to suggest that those journalists should be locked up. We're at the point where Trump and his supporters, some of his supporters, are delegitimizing institutions the United States holds dear.
KEILAR: And -
STELTER: Not all supporters. But think about this, voting systems, he's saying the election could be rigged. The judiciary, think about his attacks on Judge Curiel. The media. I don't know if Trump's doing this systematically, but he's de-legitimatizing institutions. And that has consequences beyond this election.
You know, when you're covering politics 101, journalism 101 rules apply. When you're not covering politics 101, journalism 101 rules go out the window. And that's where we are right now.
CUOMO: But you know what, the same standards apply, though. You know, Jim, you're very smart. People should read your piece. But, to me, it's - Trump's been very simple. Dealing with the aftermath of covering Trump is not simple. It's frustrating. And I get why people like you, Brianna, who are out on the hustings with these guys on a regular basis, Katie Tur (ph), I feel for her. That would be hard to be in that crowd. I know what it's like to have Trump people be against you.
I'm OK with it because I feel like, look, if you test somebody about what they say, that's your job. You get into it, Trump's going to make it hard for you. He's going to make it hard for you afterwards. Clinton's going to make it very hard for you. Nobody ducks a question the way Clinton does. And I don't means that as a compliment necessarily. But that's your job and what they answer and don't answer, people can then judge.
The problem is, there is a perception out there that we favor the Democrats. When Hillary Clinton was getting ready to run and Trump was getting ready to run, I said on the show, man, we're doing Clinton's work for her. Boy, you know, the media is like begging her to run, you know, so she better do it already. People said, oh, you see, you're giving her a pass. No, I was saying that the media wanted her in the race because it would be a better race to cover. We did the same thing with Trump. But people's tendencies are, you're a bunch of lefties, and that means you're not going to do to Trump what you're doing - you won't do to Clinton what you're doing to Trump. Do you think that's true?
RUTENBERG: All right, well, first of all, that perception exists and in many cases it exists for good reasons over the course of history, right, in recent decades. That said, it can't be reason to not do your job when you're covering Trump, to worry about the perception. We're not in PR. We're in journalism. We have to be just - we have to scrutinize Hillary just as hard as we can. She -
CUOMO: Do you think we do? Do you think that the (INAUDIBLE) equally tough on each?
RUTENBERG: I think equally tough, yes. Does Trump throw up more things that need be scrutinized, especially as a brand new want to be public figure? You know, that's - that's the difference.
STELTER: Fact checking Trump is different.
KEILAR: Does it give her an advantage? Does it give her an advantage in some ways? And I will (INAUDIBLE) who has covered her now for over two years. Going into that, you just know when you're covering Hillary Clinton that there's going to be a lot of scrutiny. But it seems like, you know, in the end, time is finite, resources are finite. If a lot of fact checking is going on with Donald Trump, does it, in some ways, help her?
[08:55:13] STELTER: I think the e-mail coverage this week is showing that Clinton is being vigorously covered and fact checked. But Trump is different. Donald Trump says Barack Obama is the founder of ISIS. Now, on one level, that's a reference to a foreign policy decision by the Obama administration. On another level, that is a coded message suggesting the president of the United States is a traitor. That's what this is, it's a coded message. When we repeat that message, and then we come on the air and we fact check it, some people just take away the idea that it's true. They just hear it and they believe it. In fact, it re-enforces people's beliefs in some cases. That's a problem for the media that I - I don't have the answer to, even if we talked for an hour, I don't know what we'd do in those scenarios. What we're doing right now isn't working.
KEILAR: It's such a great conversation. Thank you guys so much.
"Newsroom" with Carol Costello is picking up after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The biggest rigger of the system is the media.
ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS. He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder. He founded ISIS.
