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Trump Slams Hillary Clinton's Ties To Laureate; Clinton Mocks Questions About Health; Trump Demands Special Prosecutor Investigate Clinton Foundation; Trump Focusing Attention On Latino Voters. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 23, 2016 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:32:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Laureate International Universities describes itself as "the leading global network of higher education institutions". But it's not just any university system. Former President Bill Clinton was its honorary chancellor and its chairman has close ties to the Clinton Global Initiative. So, what does this all mean with Hillary Clinton now running for president?

CNN senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin joins us with more. Good morning.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. This falls under the 'nice work if you can get it' category. It's not very clear what Bill Clinton did as honorary chairman of this school -- or chancellor of this school -- but he did make a fortune working for the very type of for-profit university that his wife seems to have a problem with.

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GRIFFIN: It's being called Hillary's university problem. It's actually Laureate International Universities, run and owned by a good friend of the Clintons. It's private, it's for-profit, and the profits are huge. Laureate operates mostly in Latin American, has one million students worldwide, and brings in revenues of more than $4 billion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, T.V. AD: It all started with a powerful mission, the mission of making quality higher education accessible.

GRIFFIN: Its CEO, Clinton pal Doug Becker, made $2.4 million last year alone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, T.V. AD: The network of Laureate International Universities has grown to more than 70 educational institutions across 29 countries.

GRIFFIN: And Laureate is not without its own problems. It has faced investigations in Brazil over whether students were getting their money's worth. And in Chile, concerning its for-profit status. U.S. students have complained the school failed to deliver on its promised degree programs. Three of the five schools Laureate operates in the United States are under what the U.S. Department of Education calls heightened cash monitoring because of potential problems with its financial responsibility, though the school told CNN it disagrees with the government's methodology. It would seem like the exact type of business Hillary Clinton might have a problem with.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There are students who take out loans to pay for an expensive degree from a for-profit institution only to find little support once they actually enroll, or they graduate and discover that when it comes to getting the job they were promised their degree is not worth what they thought.

GRIFFIN: But you won't find Hillary Clinton saying one word about Laureate Universities. While she was traveling the world as Secretary of State her husband was traveling the world and being paid a fortune as the honorary chancellor of Laureate International Universities.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've traveled to 14 Laureate Universities in a dozen countries.

GRIFFIN: Bill Clinton was paid $17.6 million by Laureate from 2010 until 2015 when his contract was up and he stepped down, several weeks after Sec. Clinton announced her bid to run for president.

[07:35:00] DOUGLAS BECKER, FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN, CEO, LAUREATE EDUCATION, INC.: It's such an honor for us to have him as our honorary chancellor, but what most people don't know is that that actually started because of CGI.

GRIFFIN: Laureate, with Doug Becker at the helm, not only paid Bill Clinton $17.6 million, it has donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation and has partnered with the Clinton Global Initiative since 2008. And all along the way Becker has contributed to Democratic campaign funds, including Hillary Clinton's.

So what did Doug Becker and his Laureate International Universities get out of the $17.6 million it paid to Bill Clinton? It got a big- name U.S. president as a spokesperson. It got worldwide recognition by partnering with the Clinton Global Initiative. And so far, a presidential candidate who rails against the problems of for-profit universities is not mentioning its name.

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CUOMO: All right, so Drew, now as we move forward, the Clinton Foundation announces that they're not going to be taking any foreign donations in the future. But if Clinton were elected president what happens in a case like this where Laureate is a U.S. company, right, but it operates mainly overseas so the money's coming in that way. How do you see it?

GRIFFIN: I mean, technically, they would still be able to take this money. It's a corporation, it's domiciled in Delaware. But as you said, it does lots and lots -- almost all of its business overseas so it does seem to be a gray area. But if you're reading the letter of the law, in terms of the statement the Clinton Foundation released yesterday, they would still take money from Laureate Universities.

CUOMO: Drew Griffin, thank you very much, appreciate it.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, another issue dogging Hillary Clinton, rumors about her health. She laughed it off during an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" last night, but is it enough to make the conspiracy theories go away?

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[07:40:25] CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton taking on the conspiracy theories about her health last night. Clinton made light of the situation on Jimmy Kimmel's show, but Trump and his surrogates continue to make unsubstantiated claims.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

H. CLINTON: Here, you take my -- take my pulse while I'm talking to you.

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE": OK.

CLINTON: So -- make sure I'm alive.

KIMMEL: Oh my God, there's nothing there.

CLINTON: There's nothing there. What should I pick? Back in October, the "National Enquirer" said I would be dead in six months.

KIMMEL: Oh, wow. Oh, boy.

CLINTON: So with every breath I take I feel like it's a new lease --

KIMMEL: You have a new lease on life.

CLINTON: Yes, a new lease on life. I don't know -- I don't know why they are saying this. I think, on the one hand, it's part of the wacky strategy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now to discuss this and so much more, "USA Today" columnist and newly-minted CNN political analyst, Kirsten Powers. Kirsten, so great to have you here on NEW DAY. OK, let's start with Hillary Clinton's health. She seems to have mental acuity --

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, COLUMNIST, "USA TODAY": Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- as she always has. She can rattle off figures and stats like nobody, but has she been transparent enough about her health?

POWERS: Well, I mean -- I guess I have to ask why is there any concern about her health? And the only reason there is any concern about her health is because Donald Trump has sort of started his trutherism on Hillary Clinton's health. There's nothing to suggest she doesn't have stamina. I mean,

honestly, I don't even know if I could do the schedule that she keeps. There's nothing to suggest that she has any kind of problems with her stamina, with her health, with her mental health.

CAMEROTA: Well, she had that fall. I mean, this is the thing.

POWERS: OK.

CAMEROTA: She had a fall years ago --

POWERS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- and then she wore those big, sort of, Coke-bottle glasses and so they feel that there's a germ of maybe she had a mental -- maybe her concussion caused some sort of brain something?

POWERS: Yes, but what is that based on? There's nothing -- there's nothing to suggest that she's having any problems healthwise. And so, even this picture that's been circulating where somebody's helping her up the stairs, OK, so what if she fell down?

Or there's another email from Sidney Blumenthal where he refers to her getting rest because she's not feeling well and at the end of it he says get well. Well, nobody says get well to somebody who's seriously ill. That's not what you say.

So the things that they're pointing to I don't think support it. And, honestly, I think there's an element of sexism to this.

CAMEROTA: How's that?

POWERS: The way that they've talked about her, you know -- the way you watch "Drudge" posting things about granny and grandma. Well, Donald Trump's a grandpa so what's the idea here? That someone because she's a woman and she's a grandma that she's frail?

But he's this robust person who, according to the doctor, is in astonishingly excellent health, which is already, in itself, a kind of strange thing for a doctor to be saying. So I think that it's a really low blow attack against her.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's talk about the Clinton emails and Donald Trump is calling for a special prosecutor because he doesn't think, basically, that the FBI has done a thorough enough job. There are these -- there's a new batch of emails that "Judicial Watch" has gotten ahold of.

And there are a couple that I want to bring your attention to because there's this exchange between Doug Band, who's the head of the Clinton Foundation and Huma Abedin who, of course, was at the State Department and Hillary Clinton's top aide.

So here's one of them. This is about the Crown Prince of Bahrain. Let me pull it for everybody. Doug Band says to Huma, "Crown Prince of Bahrain in tomorrow to Friday. Asking to see her" -- meaning Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Good friend of ours."

POWERS: Right.

CAMEROTA: Whom Abedin responds to Doug Band, "Offering Bahrain Crown Prince 10 a.m. tomorrow for meeting with HRC. If you see him, let him know. We have reached out through official channels." What do you see there?

POWERS: Well look, I think it would have been better if they would have had a really bright line between the Foundation and the State Department, precisely because these kinds of emails don't look good. But the claim that it's quid pro quo, I don't think that that's come anywhere near being proven.

CAMEROTA: But it is following access? Bahrain gave millions of dollars to the Foundation --

POWERS: Right.

CAMEROTA: -- and then he wants a meeting.

POWERS: Well, that's the question. That's the question, though. The question is was there quid pro quo, was the money given so that you could get a meeting, and that, we don't know. We don't know if it's -- these relationships are complicated.

And so, is it that this is somebody that they're friendly with and they think that Hillary should be meeting with or is it that he basically said I'm going to give you money and you're going to get me a meeting with Hillary.

CAMEROTA: But either way, I mean, why didn't Doug Band know that there should be a firewall?

POWERS: Because, unfortunately, this is a little bit how the Clinton world operates. It's a little too incestuous and they didn't -- they weren't careful enough. I think it should have operated the way a super PAC in a campaign operates, which is basically you do not communicate with each other. And they should have been more aware of the inappropriateness of these kinds of relationships -- is that they are using their influence.

[07:45:00] And look, it's actually not illegal for a foundation to use their influence to get an appointment with somebody, right, but it's inappropriate at a bare minimum for -- if that's what actually happened.

CAMEROTA: Here's another email that actually shows, I think, the flipside of Huma Abedin saying no, we cannot do that, Doug Band. Doug Band was sending her an email. He wanted Huma Abedin, or at least the State Department's help in securing a visa for members of the Wolverhampton Football Club, one of whose members was having difficulty with the visa because of a "criminal charge".

So, Doug Band says -- this is regarding the Wolverhampton Football Club visa matter. Oh, sorry, Huma Abedin says to him "I got this now. Makes me nervous to get involved but I'll ask." Doug Band then responds, "Then don't".

POWERS: Right.

CAMEROTA: So, in other words, they do put up some parameters when there's something clearly sketchy.

POWERS: Yes, right, and that's what I'm saying. I think that in the other situation they didn't think that this was sketchy because this is just how they're used to operating. These are people who have all been working together, have known each other for 20 years, and so this seems normal.

But look, it also seemed normal to Hillary to set up a server so there's some judgment issues here going on. They don't realize that there are certain things that are, at a minimum, unethical. They may not be illegal but they're unethical.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about Donald Trump. We have reporting that your former boss, Roger Ailes, and mine -- we knew each other from Fox News -- is informally advising Donald Trump on debate preparations. The first debate will happen at the end of September here. Is Roger Ailes a liability or an asset for Donald Trump?

POWERS: Well, I think -- look, he -- Roger's obviously very controversial, especially concerning what's in the news right now, so there would be a downside for Trump on that front. But Trump has made very clear in interviews -- I've interviewed him, other people have interviewed him -- that he's all in with Roger.

They're old friends. He basically has taken his side on the issues in terms of the accusations and allegations about sexual harassment, and that's just something that Trump has -- he's just decided he's going to side with Roger. There's some liability there but I think, ultimately, there's a real upside for him because --

CAMEROTA: Why? What do you think he's going to give to Donald Trump in terms of debate prep?

POWERS: Because I think, you know -- because, like I said, love him or hate him, Roger Ailes is a television genius and he is somebody who has been preparing candidates for a long time. I mean, 50 years ago he was working with Nixon, helping basically package him and take a pretty unlikable candidate and make him likable and getting him elected President of the United States.

And so I think he's somebody that could help Trump and maybe the only person who could help Trump, especially because Trump respects him so much and he would listen to him. And as I think we have all noticed, Trump doesn't really listen to anybody and Roger is not the type of person to suffer fools. He will tell him what you're doing is wrong. You need to listen to me or I'm not going to work with you. And that is something that I think that Trump needs.

CAMEROTA: Kirsten Powers, great to have you here on CNN --

POWERS: It's great to be here. CAMEROTA: -- and here on NEW DAY. We'll see much more of you.

POWERS: Great.

CAMEROTA: All right, let us know what you think about all this. What's your take? You can tweet us @NewDay or post your comment on facebook.com/NewDay -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, so what do you think? Are Latinos, are African- Americans going to jump to Trump? Donald Trump is telling them they've got nothing to lose, they might as well vote for him. How's that pitch sound? We'll discuss it next.

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[07:52:25] CUOMO: I'm going to build a wall. I'm going to build a wall so fast it will make your head spin and Mexico's going to pay for it. Donald Trump still standing by that pledge but he is, apparently, changing on the issue, in general, of immigration. Deport all 11 million, remember that? Remember that there would be an agency to round them all up? Now we're being told by his campaign manager that is to be determined.

So, in a recent poll Trump trails Clinton by more than 60 points among Hispanic voters. Maybe that's why it is to be determined. What do these voters want? What are they hearing from Trump? Do they like it?

Let's bring in Alfonso Aguilar. He is the president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles and former chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship under President George W. Bush. Good to see you, Alfonso.

ALFONSO AGUILAR, PRESIDENT, LATINO PARTNERSHIP FOR CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES: Good to be with you.

CUOMO: So, the basic pitch is this. You have nothing to lose. Your communities are in squalor. Everyone else has failed you. Vote for me. How does that work?

AGUILAR: Well, you know, it's certainly a consideration. I think what we see with the Latino community, Latinos right now have the lowest salaries of any other group in the country and the unemployment rate continues to be higher than the national average, so it is a problem.

You know, Latinos, like the majority of Americans, feel that the country's going in the wrong path. So I think if Mr. Trump were to address Latinos -- engage Latinos and make that case -- I think many would respond favorably.

CUOMO: So the issue is real, then we get to the idea of well, how do you reach out? What should your message be? How do you feel about the criticism being levied on Trump this morning that he was speaking to Hispanics and African-Americans but he was doing it in front of a white crowd in Akron, Ohio? Do you care about that? Do you care whether or not it seems that he's playing on a stereotype or did you not take it that way?

AGUILAR: No, the only ones that are criticizing Trump over that are Hispanic elites and Hispanic liberal activists. The reality is the majority of Americans are not thinking -- of Latinos are not thinking about that. They're thinking about day-to-day issues, their jobs, how to feed their families.

So I think what he needs to do is proactively engage Latinos, I think, on immigration. And we saw on Saturday he seems to want to address the issue of the undocumented in a more, as he said, humane and compassionate way.

[07:55:03] What that means we're not completely sure.

But remember that a month ago in an interview to "Bloomberg" he did say that he doesn't want to deport everyone. He wants to deport only those with criminal records. So he may be opening himself to a form of legalization, a path to legal status, but that is consistent with the policies that he outlined.

Remember that in an interview he did with you, Chris, he's said from the very beginning that he wanted people to leave the country, but those good people who have no criminal record, he wanted them to come back to the country. So that's something that he's said from the very beginning.

CUOMO: Right.

AGUILAR: Perhaps that's something that could be done internally, what's called internal touchback --

CUOMO: Right.

AGUILAR: -- where people could go to an embassy or a consulate, register, and then come forward --

CUOMO: Right.

AGUILAR: -- and be given a path to legal status.

CUOMO: Well, I mean -- well, that would be a big stretch from where his position is right now. I mean, as you know, a lot of these mechanisms that we're pointing to in a hypothetical right now actually exist.

The law right now is you do deport, obviously, anybody who's involved in criminal activity in this country. That is supposed to happen. The Obama administration gets a lot of criticism for deporting more people than had been done in the past for that reasons and others.

I guess the political question comes down to is there an opportunity for Donald Trump to change on an issue where he's been so definite for so long, whether it's that -- look, we've got to change the vetting for Muslims coming into this country. We have to own the idea that a lot of these Mexicans coming across the border are the worst that Mexico has to offer. And a lot of other ugly comments along those lines.

AGUILAR: Right.

CUOMO: Do you think Latinos would be open to a shift from Trump?

AGUILAR: Yes. Look, I've been very critical of Mr. Trump's comments throughout the primary. I certainly feel that they've antagonized and insulted many Latinos. But, like many, we feel that the alternative is terrible, Hillary Clinton. That her policies are so dangerous in terms of the economy, how to deal with terrorism -- with the threat of terrorism -- judicial appointments, especially Supreme Court, that we're open to consider Trump.

I think that -- you know, he's not going to win the Latino vote. He only needs to become more competitive with Latino voters in battleground states that he needs to win to win the White House. States like Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and North Carolina. And by, at least, likely more constructive on this issue by talking about a way to bring people out of the shadows.

That may be enough to become more competitive with Latino voters. It may be that he doesn't have to get to the 40 percent that a traditional Republican candidate would have to get -- 40 percent of the Latino vote. He can do -- he can get 30 -- get to 30 or 32 percent and that may be enough because remember that he's bringing in other voters that haven't participated in the political process before.

But I think there's a recognition into the campaign that they need to at least do a little bit better with Latino voters.

CUOMO: Right.

AGUILAR: Remember the last "FOX" poll shows him at 20 percent. I mean, that's pretty low but he hasn't done anything to engage Latinos. His numbers can only improve. So if he gets to 30, 31 percent that may be enough for him to win those states.

CUOMO: It will be very interesting to watch, Alfonso Aguilar, especially because this path of potential citizenship he's been very definite on that -- there will be none of that. So we'll see if he shifts. Alfonso Aguilar, thank you very much for joining us on NEW DAY, appreciate it.

There's a lot of news coming out of the campaign and from around the world. A new call from a special prosecutor from Donald Trump to investigate Hillary Clinton. Can that happen? Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The favors done. Require an expedited investigation by a special prosecutor immediately, immediately, immediately.

H. CLINTON: I do feel, sometimes, like this campaign has entered into an alternative universe.

TRUMP: You'll be able to walk down the street without getting shot. What do you have to lose? I'll do a great job.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He must think we are pretty darn gullible.

TRUMP: We're going to get rid of all of the bad ones.

TRUMP RALLYGOERS: Build that wall, build that wall.

TRUMP: That wall will go up so fast your head will spin.

CAMEROTA: President Obama headed to flood-ravaged Louisiana today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There has been no shortage of criticism for the president for choosing not to cut his vacation short last week to visit the victims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had seven foot of water inside the house. We've lost it all. It's tough to swallow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

CUOMO: Good morning, welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, August 23rd, 8:00 in the East. Up first, Donald Trump saying the FBI and Justice Departments cannot be trusted. He says there should be a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton Foundation, a charity that he says should be shut down.

CAMEROTA: Clinton is also dealing with 15,000 recently discovered emails and attachments that a judge wants released to the public as soon as possible.