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Earthquakes Hit Parts of Italy; Associated Press Reports on Clinton Foundation; Interview with Congressman Chris Collins. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired August 24, 2016 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: That's absolutely right, Chris. You know, people come here to get away from it all. Now is when they actually don't need to be away from it all. They haven't been able to get heavy equipment into some of these outlying areas. They just don't even know who is there. Facebook activated its "I am safe" program just so people can understand who is missing and who is not.

Lots of people who live in Rome have their summer houses here. Lots of people send their kids to the grandparents to live out here in the countryside to escape the heat in the city of Rome. Sadly, we were watching for the better part of the morning behind me this rescue operation where neighbors worked alongside civil protection authorities to try to dig out people they thought were trapped alive in a bedroom on the main floor of this what used to be a multistory building behind me which is now just a pile of rubble. Sadly just a short time ago they sent in a stretcher and they removed the people they found, they held up a sheet, and we assume the body or bodies that they found.

Up the hill, now, those same neighbors and rescue workers have moved with the search and rescue dogs to look in the same way for other people that they know that are up there or potentially hidden underneath the rubble alive, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Barbie, obviously they're just starting the process of figuring out what's going on. We'll check back with you.

Let's get some more perspective from Emma Tucker. She is in La Marche. That's another small place in Italy that felt the effect of this morning's earthquake. Emma, we see you there in your car. You seem like you're OK, but we do hear that there was another after shock just recently. What happened?

EMMA TUCKER, WITNESSED EARTHQUAKE: Well, we were just setting up the shot for me to speak to you, and suddenly, there was another aftershock. And I have to say, it is much worse, each aftershock that comes is worse than the initial one because we now know what the hell is going on. We're hearing these terrible reports of these deaths and people missing. So I just ran out. As it is, we haven't had any electricity, so we've had to use the car which I'm sitting in to charge the iPad so I can speak to you. CUOMO: What a horrible situation for you to deal with. And obviously

you're not alone. You have lot of family with you. They were all in the house together when the initial quake took place. Take us through it.

TUCKER: Well, we are a party of 11, seven teenagers, four adults. The teenagers were all sleeping on the top floor. It was 3:30 in the morning, dead of night, even though I've never lived through an earthquake before, I woke up. The house was shaking very intensely. There was the most appalling noise. A rumbling like thunder, like a great big machine was approaching the house. I don't know what an earthquake is, I've never lived through one, but I was in no doubt.

My husband sat up, we all started yelling at the kids to come down. We then got out of the house into the garden. The electricity was gone, we couldn't see where we were going. We all then sat there, wondering what to do, because having grown up in country that doesn't have earthquakes, no one tells what you to do.

So after about a half an hour, the kids wanted to go back to bed. We thought, OK, we'll go back in. So we all trooped back in, got back into the bed, and within ten minutes this aftershock came that was almost more terrifying. And like I said we knew what was going on. So at that point we just abandoned ship altogether until the sun came up.

When the sun came up we could see how badly the house was damaged. Plaster everywhere, big chunks falling from the ceiling the walls, cracks in the walls. But all I can say is looking at the pictures, we're 50 miles from where the epicenter was. We felt it badly. Clearly, we had it lucky compared with what's going on in La Marche where I know there's been terrible devastation.

CUOMO: They're just really starting to get their hands around it now. Thank God you and yours are OK. Emma, thank you for checking in with us. We'll stay in touch with you throughout the morning, make sure you guys are OK as well. Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Chris, now to our top story here at home.

Donald Trump apparently trying to soften his stance on immigration. Instead of deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, Trump now says he'll consider allowing some to stay in America. He is also attacking Hillary Clinton after a new report further links the Clinton Foundation to the State Department. CNN's national correspondent Jessica Schneider joins us with the latest developments. Jessica, what do you have?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, Donald Trump used his rally to attack Hillary Clinton on two fronts, the Clinton Foundation and what he says is her lax stance on immigration. The immigration issue is something Donald Trump is still a bit murky on, but he is giving clues he may be backing down from his hardline stance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is impossible to figure out where the Clinton Foundation ends and the State Department begins.

[08:05:00] SCHNEIDER: Donald Trump honing his rally cry, attacking Hillary Clinton and her family's namesake foundation.

TRUMP: The Clintons set up a business to profit from public office.

SCHNEIDER: Trump seizing on a new report by the "Associated Press" that claims more than 50 percent of the private citizens Hillary Clinton met with during her tenure as secretary of state donors to the Clinton Foundation.

TRUMP: This is corruption, and this is why I have called for a special prosecutor.

SCHNEIDER: The Clinton campaign mincing no words in denouncing the AP's report, disputing the findings in a statement, saying "This story relies on utterly flawed data. It cherry picking a limited subset of Secretary Clinton's schedule to give a distorted portrayal of how often she crossed paths with the individuals connected to the charitable donations to the Clinton Foundation. The data does not account for more than half of her tenure as secretary and it omits more than 1,700 meetings she took with world leaders."

The State Department also releasing a statement, saying it is entirely within the law that individuals, including those who have donated to political campaigns, may contact or have meetings with officials in the administration. This, as Trump confirms he may consider softening his hardline stance on immigration, allowing some law-abiding undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S.

TRUMP: There certainly can be a softening, because we're not looking to hurt people. We want people. We have great people in this country.

SCHNEIDER: This is a major reversal from his key campaign proposal to roundup and deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

TRUMP: They've got to go out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you do you it in a practical way?

TRUMP: You know what, at some point, we're going to try getting them back, the good ones.

And 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out.

SCHNEIDER: At a rally in Texas the billionaire did not back off from another campaign promise, that wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

TRUMP: We are going to build the wall. And who is going to pay for the wall?

CROWD: Mexico!

SCHNEIDER: Trump planning to meet with Latino and African-American activists on Thursday as he also continues his pitch to minority voters.

TRUMP: I say this to the African-American community, give Donald Trump a chance. We will turn it around. We will make your streets safe so when you walk down the street, you don't get shot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: Trump there repeating the same lines about inner city crime that have raised eyebrows, but his campaign pledging he will continue that outreach. In fact RNC Chair Reince Priebus saying yesterday Trump he wants to go after every minority vote in the country. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Jessica, thanks so much for all of that.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN political commentator and former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. He is still receiving severance from the Trump campaign. And CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Paul Begala. He works for the pro-Clinton super PAC. Gentlemen, great to have you here.

Paul, let me start with you. Let's just start with what Jessica was reporting. This is the "Associated Press" that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have now responded to, that 85 -- Hillary Clinton, when she was secretary of state, met with 85 major donors to the Clinton Foundation. They gave something like in total $156 million to the Foundation. How is that not paying for access?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: How is it?

CAMEROTA: They gave money and got to meet --

BEGALA: Who were they and what did they get? This really infuriates me. The Clinton Foundation keeps millions of people alive. The biggest person that they talk about in this story, the AP, 40 paragraph story, I read it three times, 12 of those 40 paragraphs are about Hillary meeting with Muhammad Yunus. Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist who won the Nobel Peace Prize, the presidential Medal of Freedom from our country and the Congressional Gold Medal. He'd done more to relieve extreme poverty in the world than any personal alive. Of course America's secretary of states should meet with him. It's nuts.

CAMEROTA: So every one of these 85 people can be justified in that way?

BEGALA: Absolutely justified. No, this is wrong. In the whole wide world, there is only 17 million people who get lifesaving drugs, antiretroviral drugs, 17 million in the whole world. And 11.5 of those 17 get them because of the Clinton Foundation. Bill Clinton ought to win the Nobel Peace Prize for this. And the fact that folks are trying to attack that foundation is really scummy. COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Alisyn, I agree

with Paul. This is absolutely wrong. This is pay for play. What we know is one of the individuals she met with is the same person who held the fundraiser for her yesterday in California. He gave between, $5 million and $10 million to the foundation. He is on that list, had a meeting with here. He has nothing to do --

BEGALA: Who?

LEWANDOWSKI: Sabeem. Isn't that the guy's name?

BEGALA: I have no idea.

LEWANDOWSKI: He held a fundraiser --

CAMEROTA: But Paul is saying so what. You're allowed to give money --

LEWANDOWSKI: Of course you can.

BEGALA: Donald Trump gave $100,000 to that foundation. Is he doing pay for play?

LEWANDOWSKI: No one is questioning the work of the foundation. What they're questioning, not the work. Look, the Gates Foundation, partnering with the Clinton Foundation do some great work around the world.

CAMEROTA: What's the problem?

LEWANDOWSKI: They're questioning is, when you cannot get a meeting through the proper channels, what you do is you go to the foundation and then you get the meeting.

[08:10:02] Moreover, if the Clinton people if this is a subset of a subset of the schedule, then release the entire schedule. This is what the AP reported. Now the "Boston Globe" has called for the Foundation to be closed. "The Huffington Post" has called for the Foundation to be closed. And what the Clinton people have said on their own is if she is elected president Bill Clinton will step down from the Foundation. Why won't he do it right this very second?

BEGALA: This is politics at its worst. This is a completely new standard. This is what the press and the Republicans do every time the Clintons run. It's a different standard for the Clintons. I worked for Bill Clinton against George Bush Sr. He had the Points of Life Foundation which he himself set up while he was president. Every single day as president, he made a point of light to promote his foundation. We thought that was great. We never attacked it. Next time, we run against Bob Dole. Bob Dole ran the Senate. Bob Dole's wife, Elizabeth Dole, a very able person, was running the American Red Cross, a great foundation. We never attacked that.

CAMEROTA: Did all --

BEGALA: The press never looked at her donors. CAMEROTA: Did donors give $1 million to the Red Cross and then get a

meeting with Bob Dole?

BEGAL: We didn't even look. You didn't look. The press didn't look, because the Doles are honorable people. The Bushs are honorable people. But the Clintons are scum. We're going to treat them like scum. What that foundation does is saves lives and we ought to honor that. and the fact that that gets dragged into political muck is shameful.

LEWANDOWSKI: Alisyn, 40 people gave at least $100,000, 20 people gave almost $1 million, these are the people that met Secretary Clinton while secretary of state for access, and when they couldn't get access, they went to the foundation and said he is a friend, make sure we have access within 24 hours.

BEGALA: Was Trump doing pay for play?

LEWANDOWSKI: Donald Trump has giving to everybody.

BEGALA: So his motives are pure, but a Nobel Peace Prize winner we're going to drag through the muck.

Actually You hear what Corey is saying, they wouldn't have been given access had they not given money?

BEGALA: That's baloney.

LEWANDOWSKI: Ask the American people. Go out and walk out on the street and say if you give $1 million or $200,000 do you expect access, the answer is yes.

BEGALA: There is no wrongdoing.

LEWANDOWSKI: The number of the American people who think Hillary Clinton is honest and trustworthy, 11 percent, this doesn't help her.

CAMEROTA: Let's move on. There's a new documentary, this was taped in Britain. Kellyanne Conway, the new campaign manager for the Trump campaign, has given an interview for this documentary that will be airing next week. In it she communicates a line of attack that maybe we'll be hearing more of. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Hillary Clinton is a bore who many voters who think is not trustworthy and not honest. Her husband's problem is he had a casual relationship with other women. Hillary's problem is she has a casual relationship with the truth. The more people see her the more they're reminded what they don't like about her and what they don't trust about her.

CAMEROTA: Corey, is this the plan that now they will connect any complaints there are about Hillary Clinton to her husband's past with women? LEWANDOWSKI: Well, I think what Kellyanne said specifically was if

you look on who is on the ballot, which is Hillary Clinton, she does have an issue with the truth. We've seen it with the e-mail scandal. We've seen it with this pay for play scandal. It's always a drip, drip, drip with them. We released 30,000 emails. Here's another 15,000 e-mails. Oh, it's just a few more. The bottom line is the American people don't trust her. That's her fundamental problem.

BEGALA: This is typical Trump. You know, I said this last week, I'll say it again. They started in the gutter, they're going to finish in the sewer. The notion that they're going to attack Hillary Clinton for saving her marriage. Half of American marriages end in divorce. I have no judgment about divorce. But the fact that they held their marriage together, now Kellyanne Conway is going to stand in moral judgment of her I think is shameful and disgraceful.

What you are seeing is this campaign is panicking. The sure sign is not just that Kellyanne is trying to smear Hillary. It's that Trump himself is folding. Hillary is already backing him down. Like any bully, when you stand up to him, he backs down. He is backing down on immigration, his core issue. She can push this guy around. I can't wait for the debates. He may not show up.

LEWANDOWSKI: Alisyn, look, the Clinton campaign and the super PAC which Paul is part of, has spent $60 million or $70 million against Donald Trump and the best polls they have right now, the best polls national, Hillary Clinton is within the margin.

BEGALA: We never have, we never will.

LEWANDOWSKI: Trump isn't going anywhere. And they're scared to death because once the American people start focusing on Labor Day and they realize Hillary Clinton is so flawed, Donald Trump is the only person that is going to change Washington.

CAMEROTA: Back to the issues and with immigration, how is it that Donald Trump, this is not considered a flip flop, that he first said he was going to deport every single one of the 11 million plus undocumented immigrants here, and now says, well, some of them might stay.

LEWANDOWSKI: Look who is supporting Donald Trump. The border patrol union, the first endorsement they've ever made in a presidential race they've endorsed Donald Trump because they know he's going to uphold the law. Customs and border protection, they want the government out of the way so they can do their job. Donald Trump is says he's going to will build a wall. We're going to make sure if you're a convicted felon and you're here illegally, we're going to send you back.

CAMEROTA: Right. That's what he said. No, no. He also said we're going to send every single one of you back. He said that many time and again. All of them have to go. Now he is changing that.

LEWANDOWSKI: He said it from the beginning, we'll do it humanely. The problem is the federal government is so fundamentally broken, the CBP doesn't even know if there's 11 million undocumented workers here or 30 million.

[08:15:00] So first you have to get a handle of what the problem is and you have to stop the illegals from coming in.

CAMEROTA: That's not what he said during the primary. He said every single one of them would have to go.

BEGALA: Right, because every bully there is a coward. Hillary knows that. She has stood up to this bully. Now, he's revealing himself to be a coward.

He is backing off on his core issue. Does anybody believe that the facts have changed? No, we're 76 days before an election, Hillary is beating him like the bad little boy that he is. And so, like the coward that he is, he is folding to a girl. Oh, good job, Donald.

CAMEROTA: Paul, Corey, on that note, we'll leave it, gentlemen. Thank you for the spirited debate.

Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: What a dialogue that was.

All right. As we were just discussing, Donald Trump seems to be softening his previously very hard stance on immigration. Why? Will it gain him voters or lose him voters? We're going to talk to the first House Republican to support Trump, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And there's certainly can be a softening because we're not looking to hurt people. We want people -- we have some great people in this country. We have some great, great people. So, we're going to follow the law in this country. What people don't realize -- what people don't realize, we have very, very strong laws.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Who is this? Asking a lot of voters, Donald Trump saying maybe we should soften the stance on immigration policies. He is switching positions policies? Where does this leave his most ardent supporters?

[08:20:01] Let's discuss with one of them, Trump campaign co-chair and New York Congressman Chris Collins.

The criticism is obvious one, Congressman. First of all, thank you for joining us on NEW DAY as always.

REP. CHRIS COLLINS (R), NEW YORK: Good to be with you, Chris.

CUOMO: He got where he was in the primaries at the top of the list, because of this hard-line stance in part, attacking. Many people say the types of people who come into this country, now, he's saying, maybe we have good people here. Maybe we should go softer.

What is this switch about?

COLLINS: Well, I think it goes back, too, Chris, to his campaign promise was he was going to secure our borders. He is going to do that. He is going to build the wall. I have no doubt in that.

On the deportation issue, I know myself, from the beginning, I said there is just no logical way to ever deport 12 million people, and in the case of my district, which has a lot of dairy farmer, you have to milk the cows three time as a day, I have since day one called for deportation, I refereed to as a rhetorical deportation, bring people in out of the shadows, go into a room, when they walk into the room, they are illegal immigrants, they get work papers, Social Security, we know who they are, they walk out another door as legal immigrants with work papers, not citizenship.

So, they have been deported, just not taken back across the border.

CUOMO: Look, that's your position, and that's a fine position to have. That's not his position. He beat that position like a pinata for months, saying that's amnesty, not with me, pal, they're going back. I'm going to start an agency to round them up.

And now, he isn't. So, it creates hypocrisy issue. How do you deal with that?

COLLINS: No, no, no. Every campaign evolves. If you look at Hillary Clinton, time and time again, she says she is for TPP, Trans Pacific Partnership, then she is against it. I mean, campaigns do evolve.

Even on tax policy, Mr. Trump said it is what a CEO does. They throw something out on the table, they get other people's input and then the final solution evolves from there. That's a good, healthy chief executive doing --

CUOMO: I'll give you your word, an evolution to a lot of people, seems like a core principle he is switching because he is beaten over the head in the polls with it.

Next topic, something else the chief executives do is they fight for transparency. That's what this e-mail argument is about largely for the Trump campaign. She is not transparent.

He won't release his taxes. It seems, again, hypocritical. You go after her for transparency, which is a legitimate argument to make. But you're not doing it yourself. Why should he be seen as a change agent, when he won't release his taxes?

COLLINS: Well, I've said from day one, he shouldn't release his taxes. That's private information. The law requires a personal financial disclosure form that tells everyone for the last couple of years all your transactions --

CUOMO: Everybody releases their taxes. Everybody releases their taxes.

COLLINS: Well, no, they don't.

CUOMO: Everybody. Everybody since 1970, who has run for president.

COLLINS: I didn't.

CUOMO: You didn't run for president. Richard Nixon did it. He was under audit.

COLLINS: Again, that's a personal decision. There's nothing in the law that requires it. He is under an audit.

But also, in the extent of his investments, when you release a tax return, you're telling your competitors property by property, are you making money, are you losing money? What is going on in each and every property, your competitors --

CUOMO: So you're saying his business --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: You're saying his business interests are more important than the disclosure to the American people that he wants to lead as president?

COLLINS: He has fully disclosed to the American people everything he owns. Everything he owes, what everything is worth, every position in every company for the last two years, every transaction that he has had. My God, I don't know what else you could give.

CUOMO: Who isn't that? That's the kind of information that could burden him with his competitors. They just want to know his tax rate, how much money he gives. If he is going to be talking about taxes and what a charitable guy he is. Why doesn't he release just that?

COLLINS: I don't know what his tax rate is.

CUOMO: I know you don't. That's the point.

COLLINS: Every American, including the Clintons, pays the least amount of tax they can in accordance with our very complicated multi- thousand page tax code.

Do you really think anyone in America pays more? I would say to Hillary Clinton, why doesn't she check the box and send a little extra money if she doesn't think she pays a fair amount. No one should criticize anyone for following this most complicated law that should be simplified.

CUOMO: The criticism is --

COLLINS: And then coming back and saying you should have paid more.

CUOMO: The criticism is that you should be transparent if you're going to argue about transparency. One other point, speaking of transparency. You guys make a good point

of saying Donald Trump, they take his words out of context. You say that all the time, right, Congressman? They cherry pick his words, right?

COLLINS: Sure, that's correct. Absolutely.

CUOMO: You guys are doing that to me right now in an ad for your campaign. I want to play you a piece of sound I said on the show and I hope I get an apology for you it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: To your point, she does take quite a while longer what happens to other folks who want to --

CUOMO: It's a problem, because she is doing what they call in politics, freezing pockets, because the donors are giving her money thinking she's going to run. That means they're not gong to have available for other campaigns if she doesn't.

BALDWIN: Exactly.

CUOMO: And I don't think she's going to give it to him.

BALDWIN: She I on her way to deciding.

CUOMO: We'll see. We couldn't help her any more than we have. She has gotten a free ride so far from the media. We're the biggest ones promoting her campaign, so it better happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: One, I look much younger, and it was barely two years ago. I can't believe how this campaign has aged all of us.

The second one is this, I was talking specifically about the book tour that Clinton was going on a couple of years ago, instead of announcing her candidacy, and all the media was covering the book and what was going to happen with the book and when will she finally decide to run. That's what I was talking about. That's the context.

Your campaign took it out of context, made it sound like I said it yesterday as some type of admission that we're in the tank for Hillary Clinton. That's inaccurate. It is out of context, and it is wrong. You're raising money off of it.

Do I get an apology?

COLLINS: Well, personally, I would not run that kind of ad.

CUOMO: You are running it. You work with the campaign and they were running it.

COLLINS: I am not running it. I will say this, Chris. You're great guy. If all of that, that you said is true, I'll apologize to you. But that's politics as you know, I know when I ran four years ago --

CUOMO: I'm saying if you're going to complain. It was a couple of years ago. It was -- before I said the same things about Trump, that we were front running and hyping him to get him into the race, because these are the big names, they were the exciting names, it would make the campaign exciting and those are the kinds of people that you see getting attention early on. That was my point.

But if you're going to complain about being taken out of context, you shouldn't do the exact thing that you criticize, and that's what's going on in that ad. Fair point?

COLLINS: Well, here's what I would say. The liberal press is distorting what Donald Trump says. What you're talking about isn't what Hillary said, it's something you said, and I will accept you as an honorable person, what you're saying is true, and I would apologize for taking your words out of context. I'm not going to apologize to the Clintons.

CUOMO: Oh, no, I wasn't asking you to do that, one step at a time. I'm worried about myself.

Congressman Collins, thank you very much for joining us on NEW DAY. Always appreciate you making the case.

COLLINS: Yes, good to be with you.

CUOMO: Be well.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Chris, Hillary Clinton tried to laugh off the release of 15,000 new e-mails and documents with Jimmy Kimmel the other night, asking him, what's a few more? We'll discuss that with David Axelrod, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)