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Sources: FBI To Release Clinton Interview Notes To Congress; Trump Blames Campaign Woes On Media; NY Times Looks Into Manafort's Ties To Ukraine; Gabby Douglas' Mom Talks About Olympic Experience. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 15, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Congress is expected to get the FBI's notes from Hillary Clinton's interview with the Bureau as soon as today. This is about her use of a private email as Secretary of State. Reports suggest the Obama administration was hesitant to release these notes. They're concerned that they are too politically sensitive.

So here to discuss is CNN commentator and Clinton supporter Bakari Sellers. Bakari, good morning, great to see you.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: What are these notes with the FBI going to reveal, do you think?

SELLERS: Well, I think first and foremost we have to understand that this is really a bad precedent to set. The United States Congress, the House Oversight Committee, they're really not the checks and balances of the FBI so this is a really, really slippery slope that the FBI is on and the Department of Justice is on.

With that being said, I hope that we don't release bits and pieces. We know that these notes are going to be leaked the same way that Cheryl Mills' trip to New York, which was a story much ado about nothing, was leaked from Sen. Grassley's committee. We understand that these are going to be leaked, as well. So my suggestion, my hope is that they all come out as a whole, not piecemeal, not one part in another. But I hope that all of these notes come out so the American public can see it all as one, not piecemeal.

CAMEROTA: Look, you say that the Cheryl Mills trip to New York was much ado about nothing but obviously that's not what Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence think, as well as many Republicans. Mike Pence was just on the Sunday shows yesterday saying that the content of these emails they do find very significant. Let me play for you a portion of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R-IN), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The public has a right to know because this -- really and truly, this is exactly the kind of 'pay to play' politics the American people are sick and tired of. But frankly, it's just one more example of the way I do believe that the Clintons have been operating over the last 30 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Bakari, what he's referring to is this new cache of about 300 emails that came out at the behest of Judicial Watch, which is that conservative watchdog group, and they show evidence of a connection between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department that Mike Pence, you heard there, characterizing as 'pay to play'.

SELLERS: Well, that's just completely absurd and not true. Let's go to the two emails that are in question. You have one email where you have an individual who's not asking for anything from the State Department but, instead, wants to give them information on an election that's going on overseas, that's first.

The second, you have -- you have a young man who was a volunteer in Haiti, who was an advance person and who wasn't a donor to the Clinton Foundation, who was not an employee of the Clinton Foundation, simply seeking employment. That happens a lot. I don't know if he got the job. I would say that he should have gotten the job because he worked hard enough to get it, but we don't even know if he got the job.

CAMEROTA: Well --

SELLERS: And then we have Cheryl Mills trip -- who she went on her own time. She didn't use State Department funds and the Clinton Foundation does extremely good work. It is a public charity that does good work.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

SELLERS: I don't see any qualms about that.

CAMEROTA: Well, Bakari, let me just focus and zero in on the very first one that you said because that's the email from Doug Band, who's a top executive in the Clinton Foundation, and he's talking about this Lebanese billionaire. Let me pull it up for everybody.

He says, "We need Gilbert Chagoury to speak to the substance person" -- at the State Department -- "regarding Lebanon."

SELLERS: Correct.

CAMEROTA: "As you know, he's a key guy there to us and is loved in Lebanon." In other words, it sounds to -- or at least to Mike Pence and Republicans -- as though there is some sort of paying for access.

SELLERS: Well, first of all, we need to make sure that we're clear about what this gentleman wanted. What he wanted to do was give information about a presidential election in Lebanon. He was not asking for anything in return. That is what 'pay to play' means. That is not what occurred here.

And the second part, which Mike Pence knows and which Mike Pence knew when he went on air -- went on T.V. and just didn't give all the information, is that the conversation never happened so there's no 'pay to play' here. There's no fire here, there's no smoking gun here. This again, are emails that the American public is tired of and that's why Hillary Clinton is still, in the recent CNN/ORC poll, up 49 to 40 when it comes to honest and trustworthiness over Donald Trump.

[07:35:00] CAMEROTA: You say that there's no smoking gun and you're right, thus far, of course. There is no evidence connecting that there wasactually a 'pay to play' scheme, but there's also not the bright line here between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation that Hillary Clinton had said was going to exist or certainly the Obama administration had insisted upon when she went to the State Department. If there's these emails and these conversations of please do a favor for this person or please grant access to this person, that's not a bright line.

SELLERS: Well, I have to push back on that a little bit, Alisyn, because when you're talking about please do a favor for this person, we're talking about the email where this young man really wanted a job with the State Department so he could further his work in Haiti. And God forbid somebody doing good work around the country is not able to get a job. I hope that young man actually got it.

But let's -- what I hope the Clinton campaign actually does, though, is push back on all these false narratives about the Clinton Foundation. We need to start talking about the 9.9 million young people who got the HIV and AIDS medication they needed because of the Clinton Foundation.

CAMEROTA: That's true.

SELLERS: We need to start talking about the young people in Ethiopia and Malawi who were saved because of the Clinton Foundation. We need to start talking about this good work because right now this message has completely gotten out of control and clouded, and people don't understand that this public charity has literally saved lives around the world.

CAMEROTA: Bakari Sellers, thank you for your perspective on all of this. Always great to talk to you.

SELLERS: Thank you, Alisyn. Have a great morning.

CAMEROTA: You, too. Let's get to Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump is taking aim at the media. This time, specifically, "The New York Times". The paper reports about trouble in the Trump campaign. He says they have it all wrong because they didn't speak to him directly. Their concern, can he stay on message? We debate it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:40:15] CUOMO: Donald Trump's campaign wants to address concerns about being on message but he's doing it by giving a big speech today, but also by saying he's not running againstHillary Clinton, he's running against the media. Is that on message? Joining us now to discuss, CNN political commentator and former Donald Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. If you're wondering, yes, he is still receiving severance from the Trump campaign. And CNN political commentator and Republic consultant, Margaret Hoover -- she is not.

Corey, when we take a look at what's going on inside the campaign -- stay on message, talk about big things, help the American people -- we got it, we got it. Now he turns around and says I'm running against the media, I'm a victim of the press, that's what's going on. I should be up 20 percent in this race. They're taking it from me. Is this what he's supposed to be talking about right now? Is this going to help him get elected?

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think what he's trying to do is to remind the American people that every -- look, Donald Trump is unbelievably accessible to the media. He does rallies, he does speeches, he does policy speeches on a weekly basis. And what happens is the focus from his policy speech from last Monday was taken off the table by a comment that he made and then that became the narrative for the week, and not the policy speech. I am hoping that's not the case today.

CUOMO: But where's the responsibility for what comes out of his mouth?

LEWANDOWSKI: Well, where's the responsibility for Hillary Clinton? Where is her policy speech? I mean, she has disappeared. She was not anywhere this weekend.

CUOMO: She just gave a big policy speech.

LEWANDOWSKI: Right, and where was she this weekend? Nobody saw her, nobody heard from her. Donald Trump was in Connecticut --

CUOMO: Does that mean he doesn't have to be responsible for what comes out of his mouth? You and I have had this conversation a dozen times.

LEWANDOWSKI: No, no. What it means -- what it means is when he is laying out detailed policy discussions, that is the narrative that the media should be picking up on, and not some sidebar comment about something else. He should be entitled to lay out those detailed policy plans and that's what should be discussed.

CAMEROTA: Margaret, has the media been unfair to Donald Trump?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, the media -- if you're a Republican you constantly think, and I think with some good reason, that you're never going to get a completely fair objective shake from a media that is -- I mean, it's well-proved to be dispositionally, orientationally center left, not sympathetic to conservative leanings.

But that was true for Ronald Reagan, that was true for George H.W. Bush, that was true for George W. Bush. That's true for every Republican who's elected so, suddenly, the same fair measure doesn't apply to Donald Trump. Look, if he's going to give a speech today 90 -- 80 days out from the election -- railing against the media, this just proves that he simply isn't capable of running a general election campaign.

That would be a great message for a Republican primary candidate but he is no longer in a Republican primary. And the challenge is that now he is struggling to hold onto states that Republicans have easily held onto for general election candidacies -- Utah, Georgia, Arizona.

Suddenly, you have a gentleman who is running for President of the United States who is supposed to be representing the Republican Party and can't even get his head around 30 minutes of briefings to study for his debates that are coming up. You have somebody who is constitutionally incapable of disciplining his mouth.

CUOMO: Well look, he's been wildly successful through his use of tactics. Let's give the man his due, and you as well. You were in there working on the campaign. Some would say it was a more stable ship when you were there than what we're seeing right now. But this is a tactic. A year ago this week I'm interviewing Trump. He's whining, he's in a big whine mode. Somebody calls him out and says he's a whiner and he didn't push it away, he embraced it. Watch this. Wait for it.

All right, so he says yes, I whine. I like to whine. I'm the king of whiners. Do we have it?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: Good, because I'm not doing a good impersonation. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Well, I think he's probably right, I am the most fabulous whiner. I do whine because I want to win and I'm not happy if I'm not winning. And I --

CUOMO: Are whiners winners?

TRUMP: -- am a whiner. And I'm a whiner and I keep whining and whining until I win. And I'm going to win for the country and I'm going to make our country great again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Is that what he's doing right now, is that he doesn't like the coverage he's been getting, he does not want to take responsibility for why he's getting the coverage. So, instead, blame the media -- whine, whine, whine. Eventually, his supporters will say OK, we get it, that's what it was, and then he moves on. Is that what's going on?

LEWANDOWSKI: What I think, and Rudy Giuliani touched on this with your interview, right? If you look at "The New York Times" coverage of the Trump campaign, the front-page stories in "The New York Times" have consistently been negative stories about the Donald Trump campaign. Whereby, when you look at the Clinton campaign, Cheryl Mills and the email exchanges and her desire to have a donor from the Clinton Foundation potentially meet somebody, there's no front-page coverage of this.

So clearly, it's bias. Clearly, it's bias against Donald Trump, and so pointing that out with his meeting going directly to the people, I think is something fair to do, absolutely.

CAMEROTA: Corey, I want to ask you about something that you tweeted about Paul Manafort. "The New York Times" reporting that Paul Manafort, when he worked for Yanukovych in the Ukraine -- that he got $12.7 million worth of cash off the books. Why did you decide to tweet that little tidbit?

[07:45:00] LEWANDOWSKI: Because you know what it does? It goes exactly to the point I just made. The media is now focusing on a private person who had a private business model which no one says is anything illegal about what he did. And, as a matter of fact, he's saying he didn't receive the money.

But Cheryl Mills, the chief of staff to the State Department, doesn't make the front page of "The New York Times" when she's doing personal favors. She's leaving New York on a train to come to -- she's leaving D.C. on a train to come to New York -- the State Department doesn't even know about it -- so she can interview people for the Clinton Foundation.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LEWANDOWSKI: This is amazing.

CAMEROTA: But your tweet didn't clarify that you were trying to show --

LEWANDOWSKI: I didn't shed anything. All I did was --

CAMEROTA: You tweeted out the link.

LEWANDOWSKI: A story.

CAMEROTA: Right.

LEWANDOWSKI: It was just a story. My point is --

CAMEROTA: But it wasn't meant to somehow denigrate Paul Manafort?

LEWANDOWSKI: No, of course not. But look, if you read the story Paul is very clear in there and he's said this today. He didn't receive the money. "The New York Times" is writing a staff story which has nothing to do with the candidate, but when it is a staffer of the Clinton campaign there is a different method --

CUOMO: We covered it. All week long we covered Cheryl Mills.

LEWANDOWSKI: You did, but it wasn't the front page. It's not the front page of --

CUOMO: Most of what you know about the Cheryl Mills situation you probably got sitting on our sets.

HOOVER: To be fair, though, Corey, apples to apples. This is an independent bureau in the Ukraine, as you know, that is intended to investigate anticorruption. It is funded by the West in order to receive aid from the West. And $12.7 million of line items directed towards Paul Manafort -- there is no kind of accusation from an independent bureau like that about Cheryl Mills. I mean, it's simply jumping on apples to apples here.

LEWANDOWSKI: Number one, Paul says there was no received. Number two, there's no proof there was any money received. Number three, Cheryl Mills was a government employee at the time --

HOOVER: It merits --

LEWANDOWSKI: -- that she said in an email --

CUOMO: Did he work -- did he work for Viktor Yanukovych?

LEWANDOWSKI: I have no idea. I don't who Paul worked for.

CUOMO: You don't know if Paul Manafort worked for Yanukovych?

LEWANDOWSKI: That's a question for Paul to answer. The answer is --

CUOMO: The answer's yes, he worked for Yanukovych.

LEWANDOWSKI: The answer is that Cheryl Mills was a government employee taking emails from the Clinton Foundation to do favors, which are government favors. It's 'pay to play'. That is here in this country and no one wants to report on that. No one wants to --

CUOMO: We did it all week.

LEWANDOWSKI: They don't want to put it on the front page of "The New York Times".

CUOMO: We did it all week. Who cares about "The New York Times"? We do what we do here on NEW DAY. What comes out of Alisyn's mouth is what she controls.

LEWANDOWSKI: True.

CUOMO: What comes of out of my mouth is what I control.

LEWANDOWSKI: True.

CUOMO: That's what we do. We covered it all week.

LEWANDOWSKI: I understand, but where is the equal coverage? Look, that's the point of the biased media is they want to write a staff story --

CUOMO: It sounds like -- I'll tell you, it sounds like whining --

HOOVER: It's a great write but it's not going to win a presidential election.

CUOMO: -- coming from a guy who rode the media like a bronco horse to where he is right now. That's where I just -- it does not ring true, I've got to tell you. It just doesn't, not coming from him.

CAMEROTA: Speaking of the media, Donald Trump has spent less on T.V. ads -- campaign ads -- than the Green Party. He is spending zero --

HOOVER: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- to run campaign ads. What's the strategy, do you believe, Margaret, with that?

HOOVER: Look, I -- Corey was now just telling me this is a guy that, at least, he's settled up Republican primary voters saying it's OK, don't worry about the money, I'm going to write the check, right? Now, where's the money? I mean, this is a time now where rubber hits the road. He's not doing great on his big dollar fundraising. The only fundraising that's going well for him --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HOOVER: -- is frankly, the small-dollar online donations.

CAMEROTA: So, Corey, why isn't he running any campaign ads?

LEWANDOWSKI: Look, he raised $80 million last month.

CUOMO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Great.

LEWANDOWSKI: Sixty-eight million dollars in small-dollar contributions.

CAMEROTA: So why not spend some of that on campaign ads?

LEWANDOWSKI: What he's doing is he's taking that money -- the big money is going to the RNC. He's taking small-dollar contributions to --

CUOMO: Corey, when you were running the campaign why didn't you need to raise money to run ads?

LEWANDOWSKI: Because Donald Trump funded his own campaign in the primary.

CUOMO: Why weren't you needing to run commercials?

LEWANDOWSKI: Because CNN --

CUOMO: Where were you getting your time?

LEWANDOWSKI: CNN would cover all the --

HOOVER: A billion dollars of earned media.

CUOMO: The media covered his events in full.

LEWANDOWSKI: Well, that's exactly right.

CUOMO: Kellyanne Conway, good personal friend, running for Cruz. One of a group of people who were saying when are you going to stop covering Trump all the time? When you are going to stop giving him a pass? When are you going to start checking what comes out of his mouth? And now you guys are complaining that you don't get enough media fairness?

LEWANDOWSKI: Oh, no, no. Don't say you guys. Look, he's got $85 million sitting in a bank account right now.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LEWANDOWSKI: There are 82 days left in this campaign -- 83 days left.

CUOMO: And he's spending time, 82 days out, talking about this. He's giving a big speech about ISIS today. Why isn't he just focusing on that?

LEWANDOWSKI: He's going to talk about ISIS and his plans today to defeat ISIS.

CUOMO: Well, why did he put out all these tweets about the media?

LEWANDOWSKI: Look, I --

CUOMO: How does that help?

LEWANDOWSKI: I think what you're going to see in the next 12 weeks of this campaign is Donald Trump on television, his field program growing, his state plan growing, his state staff growing. And working directly, he has a better relationship with the RNC and the synergy between the campaign and the RNC than any presidential candidate in the last 20 years.

HOOVER: Because he's outsourced his entire campaign apparatus to the RNC because he doesn't have his own. And the problem is RNC just doesn't have enough money to build out, to get out the vote operations that they're going to need. In the states that he's supposedly going win, like Florida and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan --

CAMEROTA: Are you worried about that, Corey?

LEWANDOWSKI: I'm not worried because I think it's a different campaign, it's a different way to do things. The money is there. They'll start spending the money. He's raising $70 million or $80 million a month which is competitive, or more, than what Hillary Clinton has been doing. And don't forget, the knock always was Donald Trump can't raise money. He raised $80 million last month.

HOOVER: You know --

CAMEROTA: And so you think he will start spending money on --

LEWANDOWSKI: Of course.

CAMEROTA: -- traditional campaign ads.

HOOVER: How much did Hillary Clinton raise last month?

LEWANDOWSKI: Ninety million.

HOOVER: Yes, exactly, and she's been doing that at the same tick consistently throughout the course of the campaign. This was his biggest fundraising month and it simply is -- it's apples to apples. We have nothing on them.

CUOMO: And yet today we have another opportunity for him to show that he can be on message, talk about something that the Americans care about, and offer something better, so we'll see.

CAMEROTA: We'll be watching that very closely, as we know you will be.

LEWANDOWSKI: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you both for being here. So, gold medal-winning U.S. gymnast, Gabby Douglas tearing up as she describes how tough her second Olympic experience has been. But what is it like for the parents of these Olympians? We will speak with Gabby Douglas' mom live, next.

[07:50:35] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Well, for female gymnasts a second chance at Olympic gold is a rare opportunity. Gabby Douglas, of course, was the golden girl of the 2012 Olympics. She has had that chance this year but it has not been easy for her. She's faced an army of online critics who are watching and analyzing and criticizing her every move. But despite the distractions she did help the "Final Five" win a team gold. And her mother, Natalie Hawkins, joins us live now from Rio. Good morning, Natalie.

NATALIE HAWKINS, MOTHER OF U.S. OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST GABBY DOUGLAS: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: Great to see you. It looks beautiful down there. So tell us what it's been like to watch Gabby -- to watch Gabby this time around, particularly with that shaky performance on the uneven bars.

[07:55:00] HAWKINS: This time had its own challenges. In 2012, I would say the bulk of our challenges revolved around our lack of finances and trying to see how to keep her in the sport so that she could make it all the way. And then we also had some challenges where the coaching situation was concerned. But when she landed in Iowa she went at it 100 percent. And then after London, we thought oh, it's going to be amazing. She's going to come back for 2016. The financial issues have pretty much resolved themselves. But we ran into a lot of coaching situations -- a lot of negative coaching situations again. And so --

CAMEROTA: What does that -- what does that mean?

HAWKINS: Yes, a lot of -- well, a lot of what she went through we haven't discussed publicly but she had challenges going on the background. So, for her to come out here and fight for her team and then get the onslaught of all of the online criticism and all of the negativity that people just threw her way was overwhelming. It proved, in the end, to be a little bit too much.

CAMEROTA: I do want to get to the online bullying in a second, but in terms of those coaching situations that you say have been such a challenge, I know you haven't spoken about them publicly. Can you tell us more about what the problem was?

HAWKINS: Yes. Well, I've been asked a lot about that, especially after trials when they saw just one particular coach instead of another. And so, I chose to really not speak on it because I want it to come from our perspective. And sometimes when you have one-minute segment or you're speaking to a reporter and you just have a couple of quotes, you're not able to really get all of it across.

And for me, I want to be able to speak to the parents. I want to be able to speak an audience of people who have their kids in this sports, or any sport, and I want to let them know the challenges that we went through.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HAWKINS: What we did to overcome it. And I want to take what was negative and turn it into a positive. That's what I've always taught my kids. That's what I'm teaching Gabriel now. Even at 20 she knows that lesson but sometimes it's really, really hard when no one knows what you're going through in the background.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HAWKINS: They know the online adversity because you see that --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HAWKINS: -- but you don't know what's been going on behind the scenes.

CAMEROTA: Right.

HAWKINS: So I want to have a chance to really tell that in our own words.

CAMEROTA: I understand. I mean, we have two minutes left right now. Do you want to send a message to those parents who are listening right now? HAWKINS: Be on the lookout. There's something coming your way. And you're not alone, and I often felt that I was alone, but you're not alone. And I would like to just say can we just stop with the hating? Can we stop with the fighting? We are one nation and when we're divided we fall. Can we unite as a nation and help other nations who are looking to us as a great power?

CAMEROTA: And I assume that you're talking about, in terms of stop with the hating, all the online vitriol that Gabby has gotten. People have criticized her hair, they've accused her of bleaching her skin, they have talked about her body, they call her "Crabby Gabby" because she's not smiling enough. How has she responded? How's she coping with all of that?

HAWKINS: Well, not good, you know. How well can you cope with things like that when you go from people's adoration to being the brunt of all the criticism and the hatred? And it's hard because her nature is so giving and so kind. She literally is just a very tender-hearted person and so she was devastated.

She tried to push it off and tried not to focus on it, but in the end she couldn't understand it. And she's a people pleaser. She loves to please people and so when she saw everybody was attacking her for something that she didn't know that she even did wrong, which I don't say that she did anything wrong. I don't put my hand over my heart when the National Anthem is played at. We came from a military community and my entire life, growing up in the Hampton Roads area, we never put our hands over our heart, for the most part.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HAWKINS: Everyone I know who has -- you know, my friends and family -- my mom is a Navy veteran, my dad is a two-time Vietnam veteran. They all said we don't put our hands over our heart when the National Anthem is played. We salute or we just stand at attention.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HAWKINS: And so it was harsh to boil down your patriotism to one act -- the act of putting your hand over your heart. That doesn't determine how honorable you are or how happy you are to compete for your country.

CAMEROTA: Of course.

HAWKINS: No, it's in your actions. It's in how you treat one another. It's in how you interact with people online. You have a responsibility.

CAMEROTA: Of course, and it's making the sacrifice to bring home the gold for the U.S.