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New Day

Trump Calls for 'Extreme Vetting' of Immigrants; Finish Line Drama for Allyson Felix; Trump Campaign Chairman Named in Ukraine Probe. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 16, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We cannot let this evil continue. ISIS is on the loose.

[05:58:42] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald has been all over the place on ISIS.

RUDY GIULIANI (R), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: Trump has the intellect and the strength to confront our enemies.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He is not qualified to know the codes.

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton lacks the judgment to lead our nation.

ALLYSON FELIX, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: I'm going to go out there and run with heart.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Allyson Felix came up just short of a fifth Olympic gold medal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Breakout star Simone Biles takes bronze on the beam.

MICHAEL PHELPS, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: I'm definitely very happy I came back for one more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As high as I've ever seen it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Historic, deadly flooding in Louisiana.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This car is under the water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is still very, very dangerous. We still have waters rising.

(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's Tuesday, August 16, 6 a.m. in the east. Up first, Donald Trump calling for extreme vetting of immigrants

trying to come to the U.S. He talked about making them pass an ideological test.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Trump also trying to clean up his case against the president and Hillary Clinton for the rise of ISIS. No more talk about founding. Now it is about policy choices. Vice President Joe Biden taking on that accusation. He and Clinton made their own new case for what Trump could mean for national security.

We have every angle covered for you. Let's begin with Athena Jones live in Washington with more. Good morning, Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. The often unscripted Donald Trump was on message yesterday, talking about what he would do to defeat terrorism.

And he made a turn in the speech. After repeatedly questioning the value of the NATO alliance, he is now vowing to work with the U.S.'s NATO partners in this fight against terrorism. And with Clinton and her allies raising questions about his temperament, he is now trying to raise doubts about her judgment and fitness for office.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: I call it is extreme, extreme vetting.

JONES (voice-over): Donald Trump delivering a fiery speech on his ideas for fighting radical Islamic terrorism, proposing a different kind of admission test for people entering the United States.

TRUMP: In addition to screening out all members of the sympathizers of terrorist groups, we must also screen out any who have hostile attitudes toward our country or its principles, or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law.

Those who do not believe in our Constitution or who support bigotry and hatred will not be admitted for immigration into our country.

JONES: Trump calling for bans on immigration from countries with ties to terror...

TRUMP: We will have to temporarily suspend immigration from some of the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism.

JONES: ... and simultaneously trashing Hillary Clinton's capabilities.

TRUMP: With one episode of bad judgment after another, Hillary Clinton's policies launched ISIS onto the world stage.

She also lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS.

JONES: The Democratic trifecta -- President Obama, Vice President Biden and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton -- hitting Trump on all fronts.

At a DNC fundraising event Monday night, President Obama refusing to mention Trump by name but quipping, "I don't have to make the case against her opponent, because every time he talks he makes the case against his own candidacy."

Clinton and Biden together in Biden's hometown of Scranton, launching their preemptive attack.

CLINTON: Friends should not let friends vote for Trump.

BIDEN: This guy doesn't care about the middle class, and I don't even blame him in a sense, because he doesn't understand it. He doesn't have a clue.

This man is totally thoroughly unqualified to be president of the United States of America.

JONES: Biden slamming Trump as a threat to national security.

BIDEN: There's a guy that follows me right back here, has the nuclear codes. So God forbid anything happen to the president and I had to make a decision, the codes are with me. He is not qualified to know the code. He can't be trusted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: Trump holds a rally in a town hall in Wisconsin today while Clinton spends another day in Pennsylvania attending a voter registration event in Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, in a sign of confidence, Priorities USA, the super PAC supporting Clinton, now says it's not going to air any local ads in Virginia, Colorado or Pennsylvania through most of September, the 2nd through the 20th, saying in a statement, "We know at the moment these are tough states for Donald Trump, and there isn't as much of a need for us to air ads there" -- Chris, Alisyn.

CUOMO: All right, Athena. Thank you very much.

A lot to discuss. Let's do it. CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich; CNN senior political reporter Manu Raju; and CNN senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward.

Jackie, let's start with you. In terms of what Trump needed to do here, the test was obvious: meat on the bones. Do you think he did enough to distinguish himself from just one liners into policy?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This definitely was a more policy-laden speech than other Trump speeches, but again, than other Trump speeches. I don't know that he -- there was a lot of meat on the bones. There was a lot of sort of ideas, but he didn't really fill them out at all.

To me, this seems like another speech to Trump supporters. I don't know that this expanded his reach with other -- with other voters, particularly that line about the extreme test for immigrants. That isn't targeted to broadening the Republican base. That's directed solely to the folks that already support Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: So Clarissa, help us understand what the process is. Is Donald Trump right that there could be better vetting of refugees, or as the Department of Homeland Security says, do they already have what they consider extreme vetting in terms of a painstaking process? How does it work?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think the U.S. Is very well known for having one of the most stringent vetting processes that there is.

[06:05:00] As a result, the U.S. has only taken 8,000 Syrian refugees, as compared to the more than 800,000 that Germany alone has taken. So the idea that you would have some kind of a questionnaire really just beggars belief, to me, Alisyn, if I'm an ISIS operative, I'm not going to fill in a questionnaire saying, "I hate America. I want to hurt Americans and implement Sharia law."

So I'm not exactly sure how this questionnaire or this vetting process would work, but suffice it to say that ISIS operatives are at least sophisticated enough, I would think, to be able to handle that kind of questioning fairly adeptly.

And that is the entire problem. He talked very broadly about we must just ban recruitment, stop recruitment. Well, that sounds like a great idea. How do we do it? His suggestion was to shut down the Internet in certain parts of the world, which first of all, I don't think it's logistically feasible. But beyond that, I would venture to say that our security services glean a lot of their intelligence from information that they gather online.

So, as you just heard from Jackie, a kind of mishmash of ideas coming through, but none of them really seeming clearly to me to make the case for better security.

CUOMO: And Clarissa, as you've reported to us many times, the irony here is that the vetting for refugees from places like Syria is the most exhaustive. Because as another layer of U.N. vetting as well than typically entry into the U.S.

Manu, how about the political score here? It was clear intention by Donald Trump to put a lot of blame for the current status of what's going on in Iran and Iraq, specifically with ISIS, on Obama. How effective?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that's an open question. I mean, clearly part of this, too, Chris, was a design to show that Donald Trump has the experience and temperament to lead this country.

Remember, I mean, not only are polls showing that -- that Hillary Clinton is viewed as someone who could be a commander in chief, not Donald Trump. Increasingly so, Donald Trump is questioned, and his approval rating is slipping on that specific issue.

But -- and also the foreign policy establishment, 50 Republican national security officials coming out last week saying that Donald Trump cannot lead this country in a time of a perilous world, a time of so many national security trials (ph).

Donald Trump trying to reverse that. That is really the open question here. How much did he bring on, not just reach out to those independents, convince folks that, well, Obama and Clinton are to blame here, but also to convince his own party whether or not they could get behind him.

Yesterday it was interesting, Chris and Alisyn. We did not really hear a lot from the Republican foreign policy establishment, from members of Congress. There was a deafening silence from a lot of members of his own party.

It really just shows the challenge that Donald Trump has in selling folks on a lot of those ideas, particularly on that issue of vetting, the extreme vetting of immigrants coming to this country. It does not sound like the Muslim travel ban, but in a lot of ways it's a lot broader than the Muslim travel ban. That's what gives a lot of those folks in the Republican foreign policy establishment and members of Congress a lot of pause. So lot of questions about whether or not he was able to bring on his own party and reach out to some of those independents.

CAMEROTA: Well, we heard from Joe Biden yesterday. He made the case again, as Hillary Clinton has, that Donald Trump should not have his sort of finger on the button. And Joe Biden also talked about a guy who follows him around. So let's listen one more time to what Joe Biden said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: There's a guy that follows me, right back here, has the nuclear codes. So God forbid anything happened to the president and I had to make a decision, the codes are with me.

He is not qualified to know the codes. He can't be trusted.

I was proud my son Beau served for a year in Iraq, came back a highly decorated soldier. I must tell you -- I must tell you, had Donald Trump been president, I would have thrown my body in front of him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: What did you think of the effectiveness of Biden's speech?

KUCINICH: Not only is Joe Biden sort of not-so-secret weapon for Hillary Clinton when it comes to blue-collar workers, he also has a wealth of foreign policy experience because of his work in the Senate, and as well as being vice president for, you know, almost eight years.

So I think he was very effective, particularly to the audience that he was speaking to. I would not be surprised to see Joe Biden on the campaign trail in several Midwestern and Rust Belt states. Because, I mean, remember at the convention, he was one of the only speakers throughout that entire convention that was solely dedicated to speaking to that blue-collar vote that has so far been kind of resistant to Hillary Clinton.

CUOMO: So we have Clinton now with Biden, making the case that Trump cannot keep you safe.

Trump and his supporters' case is that Clinton and Obama have not kept you safe. Rudy Giuliani came out very strong on this, drawing controversy because of some context that he provided in his statement. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:10:11] GIULIANI: Remember, we didn't start this war. They did. We don't want this war. They do. Under those eight years, before Obama came along, we didn't have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States. They all started when Clinton and Obama got into office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, Clarissa, the obvious problem there is that Rudy Giuliani knows better than most the question about 9/11. The question is why doesn't he include that in his analysis of all of this and the idea in general of this all started under Obama's watch? What do you make of it?

WARD: Well, first of all, let's be clear. ISIS actually began in a military prison camp run by the U.S. in Iraq called Camp Bucca. That is where the al Qaeda zealots for the first time were being held in the same corridors as the Ba'athists, and you had this toxic brew that was made between ideological zealots and people who actually knew something about state running.

So it happened in Camp Bucca, before President Obama and Secretary Clinton entered on the scene. Beyond that, you heard in Trump's speech yesterday that he is essentially trying to lay blame for the entire Arab Spring at the feet of the Obama administration, which is just absurd, frankly, Chris, because the Arab Spring was a result of decades and decades of political repression in that region. This is not something that America singlehandedly somehow cultivated.

And the other thing that we heard coming from Trump was that we should be, in fact, cooperating more with these brutal dictators. In fact, he seemed nostalgic to the heyday of the Middle Eastern dictators. So I think he also upheld Syria and Libya. These are the classic examples, he said, of the failure of the Obama administration's policies.

But they're very different. In Libya, you had an intervention and disastrous consequences. In Syria, you had no intervention with even more disastrous consequences. And Syria, by the way, is where ISIS has really taken on a whole new life.

CAMEROTA: Panel, stick around. We have much more to talk to you about.

But first, we want to get to some good news, because the Olympic games, there's been many dramatic finishes and here's another one. This was the women's 400-meter sprint. And the Bahamian, Shaunae Miller, dove for the gold at the finish line, edging out star Allyson Felix. And gymnastics superstar Simone Biles picks up another medal. CNN sports anchor Coy Wire is live in Rio with more.

Tell us all the highlights, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Good morning, Alisyn.

So Simone Biles takes the bronze. And the positive in Simon Biles not taking a fourth straight gold is that we now know she is human. It just wouldn't be fun or fair if she were. So bronze in the beam competition, and that adds to the U.S.'s tally. Let's get you your medal count here on NEW DAY. USA leads the way with 75. China is in second with 46. Great Britain in third with 41.

But the thing everyone is talking about out of Rio this morning, 400- meter final with American Allyson Felix and Shaunae Miller, the Bahama mama with the finish line drama.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE (voice-over): Running sensation Allyson Felix setting out for gold, the favorite to win in the 400-meter final. But in the home stretch, the Bahamas' Shaunae Miller diving across the finish line in a photo finish, Felix denied gold by seven one-hundredths of a second, taking home the silver. Allyson Felix becomes the most decorated woman in U.S. Olympic track and field history.

ALLYSON FELIX, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: God has been so good to get me this far. It's been a fight all season. I just gave it all I had tonight. It's going to be tough, you know. Just try to pick myself up.

WIRE: All eyes were on Simone Biles in the beam finals. And in a crowd-shocking moment she loses her balance, touching the beam, a deduction that cost her the gold. Laurie Hernandez delivering a nearly perfect routine, outscoring Biles and landing the silver. The Netherlands, unexpectedly taking home the gold.

Meanwhile, Michael Phelps soaking in the rest of his time here in Rio, reflecting on what he has said are his fifth and final Olympic games.

(on camera): What's been the most impactful memory from these games thus far?

MICHAEL PHELPS, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: Having my son here is the best. Being able to share this moment with him in my last Olympics. And I'm looking forward to sharing these memories when he gets old enough. In a couple years, hopefully, I'll get a chance to take him to Tokyo and watch some events over there.

(END VIDEOTAPE) PHELPS: Greatest Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps, set to retire again after his fifth and final Olympic games. Let's show you what we have to look forward to today.

Twenty-five gold medals up for grabs. This will be the last time we see Simone Biles compete in Rio. She'll be in the floor exercise with fellow American and reigning Olympic champ Aly Raisman.

We'll also see the men's 110 meter hurdles. Devon Allen is one of the favorites there. And the huge beach volleyball semis final match of Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross of the USA taking on the team from Brazil. And let me tell you guys: it is going to be rocking here in Copacabana.

CUOMO: Wow. You're also going to get to see Usain Bolt run in his heat for the 200, right, Coy?

WIRE: That's exactly right. He'll be in a heat. I think he might break 19 seconds. We'll see, man.

CUOMO: That's the drama. I forgot how much I love track, because I got so distracted by the gymnastics and the pool.

CAMEROTA; Right.

CUOMO: You have to see the fastest people in the whole world whipping around that oval. Boy, it's amazing.

CAMEROTA: The Olympics are great, but Coy's wrap-ups are just as great.

CUOMO: Coy is the rhymin' diamond.

CAMEROTA: I know.

CUOMO: He really is.

CAMEROTA: I love that about him.

CUOMO: All right. So we want to talk about the policy; also have to talk about the politics at play in the election right now. Donald Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is under investigation in the Ukraine. Did Paul Manafort receive secret cash payments from that country's former pro-Russian regime? He says no. But that is only the beginning of what is going to be investigated about him.

Also, on the Clinton side of the ball, new more e-mails from Clinton's private server. What do they tell us? A closer look next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:25] CAMEROTA: Ukrainian authorities investigating Donald Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, for allegedly receiving illegal payments from the country's former pro-Russia ruling party.

Let's talk about it with our panel. We want to bring back Jackie Kucinich, Manu Raju and Clarissa Ward.

Manu, let me start with you. How big of a political issue is this investigation now into Paul Manafort and whether or not he actually received $12.7 million illegally in these cash payments that were found in this off-the-books black ledger, so-called. What's happening? What are the ripples about this in Washington?

RAJU: Well, I think lot of folks are watching very anxiously. I mean, Paul Manafort, of course, denies any wrong doing. He criticizes that "New York Times" report. He said he did not receive any cash payments.

But really, what it does, Alisyn, it shows a relationship or ties or however you want to call it between Donald Trump and Russia that a lot of Republicans frankly find unsettling. I mean, Donald Trump has praised Vladimir Putin repeatedly, calling him a strong leader. And at the same time as people like House speaker Paul Ryan have called Vladimir Putin a thug, and people like John McCain have criticized Vladimir Putin. So it really showcases a level, a relationship that folks is not comfortable with. So we'll see where this investigation goes.

Of course, Paul Manafort says it's much ado about nothing, but it does bring that relationship back into the spotlight. Something that a lot of folks in Trump's own party are just frankly not comfortable with.

CUOMO: All right. Clarissa, the money, this $12 million, this ledger may be a little bit of a distraction, because the true currency here are the contracts. Right? I mean, Ukraine, Yanukovych, that's only the beginning of the trail when it comes to what Manafort does. There was an entirely separate investigate into moving money for Russian oligarchs, and who was it around Putin, and how deep does it go? And that is what wound up raising the eyebrows when you saw that the Trump campaign got involved with changing the Republican platform on Ukraine.

Then those lines in the speech yesterday about working with Russia and that Russia told us about the Boston bomber. It's all seen in a different context now. How deep might those contacts go?

WARD: Well, Chris, let's just start out by looking at Viktor Yanukovych and what kind of a man and what kind of a president he was. This is someone who was jailed twice before becoming president for assault and for theft. This is somebody who rigged an election. This is somebody who was very to be one of the most rampantly corrupt leaders. This is somebody who ordered his own police to fire upon protesters after people came down to the square as part of an uprising against his corruption. Up to 100 people were killed in the Maidan revolution.

And I actually visited his home, his estate. I should call it a mini Versailles just outside of the Kiev in the days after that protest movement was attempted to be quashed by him and he had left the country. And this Versailles, frankly to be honest, Chris, it actually looks like some of Donald Trump's properties. You're talking about Swarovski-crystal-embedded private elevators, golden chandeliers, private zoos, millions and millions of dollars of Ukrainian money that had been funneled and embezzled.

On top of that, you're talking about very deep contacts in the very murky waters of Putin's inner circle. Oleg Deripaska, one of the most notorious Russian oligarchs slash gangsters who has very close ties to President Putin.

So what does this really say about the kind of foreign policy that Donald Trump would like to espouse and the kind of people that he would like to consort with and to support? Because as you heard just now, he has many times come out and said that President Putin is a good man. He seems to be, frankly, indifferent to his invasion of Crimea, which by the way, was part of Ukraine, a sovereign country.

And we heard yesterday in his speech, as I mentioned earlier, this kind of nostalgia for the heyday of the brutal dictator. So even if those $12.7 million are not an issue, the very deep association does raise serious moral questions.

CAMEROTA: Clarissa, you have painted quite a picture of Yanukovych's world for us. Let's talk about some possibly thorny issues on the other side of the aisle, and that's for Hillary Clinton.

So the House Oversight Committee is set to get the notes that the FBI took during their interview with Hillary Clinton at some time. So at the same time, this conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, has gotten their hands on more State Department e-mails from Hillary Clinton.

[06:25:16] Now, lots of people have said, "The public is over the e- mail issue. They've put that to rest." But if something is revealed...

KUCINICH: That's the thing.

CAMEROTA: If there's content in there, the public could turn on their interest again.

KUCINICH: Well, that's the thing. Yes, maybe they're bored about hearing about please print and maybe some murky connections between Clinton's staffers and possibly Clinton Foundation.

That said, if there is a smoking gun in these e-mails and the fact that this drip, drip, drip continues, that means the issue is still out there. That means it's not going away for Hillary Clinton.

And in terms of the notes that they're getting, you have to imagine that the oversight committee is going to be matching up to what she said to the FBI to her testimony to the Benghazi committee and to Republicans. Because if they don't match up, I mean, particularly with what she said the Benghazi committee, that's another can of worms that, you know, will keep perhaps an investigation but certainly the conversation going among congressional Republicans and beyond.

CUOMO: But at the end of the day, there was no -- there was a decision not to prosecute by the FBI, so the question is this can only be a political crime at the end of the day. They'll never be able to reinstitute this idea that she should be on trial.

CAMEROTA: What if there is new material?

CUOMO: That is -- that would mean that the FBI -- there's new material the Judicial Watch has, which they don't have anything that the FBI didn't have. That would mean that the FBI missed it, and we're going to find it? You know what I mean? They spent a year on this.

CAMEROTA: Right. And the thing is the Judicial Watch said these were previously unreleased e-mails.

CUOMO: Unreleased to us, not to the FBI.

KUCINICH: But that doesn't mean there won't be an appearance.

CUOMO: That's not a crime.

KUCINICH: It's not a crime but sometimes, in terms of the public, the appearance of wrongdoing is just as bad.

CUOMO: But if the appearance of wrongdoing is the new bar, they're not going to like anything that comes out of D.C. What's the standard?

KUCINICH: Such as the election.

CUOMO: Exactly right. It should be outlawed.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much.

CUOMO: A little bit of a programming note, in terms of the substance of the campaign, we did the Libertarians. Obviously, we've done the big two parties. How about the Green Party? Want to get to know their candidates? You've got Jill Stein, a doctor, and her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, he is going to be with her in a live CNN town hall, hosted by me at 9 Eastern tomorrow night. Right there on your screen. Real people, real issues about the Green Party and what they want out of this election to them.

Back to one of our top stories we've been following, this deadly once- in-a-century flooding in Louisiana. Nearly half the parishes in the state could be declared disaster areas. The rivers are still rising, believe it or not, in some areas. We have a live report on the status for you next.

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