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Trump to Give Immigration Speech as Questions Loom; Two Brothers Charged with Killing NBA Star's Cousin; Trump to Appeal to Black Voters in Detroit This Weekend. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 29, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:04] PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The scare at L.A.X. comes just two weeks after a similar incident caused widespread chaos at New York's JFK airport. Both incidents highlighting how on edge travelers are following recent terror attacks abroad.

And just where did this start? L.A.X. is shaped like a large horseshoe. And at the end of one of those horseshoes, this would be terminal eight, gate 82. They say a passenger who had made it through TSA said that he had heard this loud noise that sounded like gunfire. Back to you.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And Paul, in an unrelated story, police found a man in a Zorro outfit that they thought might have been connected to this?

VERCAMMEN: Not connected as of yet. He was surrounded. Several officers around him, up to as many as eight, and him saying the whole while that this is not a real sword. We'll see what in the world this had to do with anything. But clearly panic had set in at L.A.X. as that initial report sort hopscotched throughout other parts of the airport -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Got it, Paul. Thank you very much for all that reporting.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And guess where he was headed. Vegas.

CAMEROTA: You don't say. We will keep you apprised of all the developments on that story. But now we want to turn to the 2016 race. Donald Trump planning to give a major speech on immigration this Wednesday. Many questions about Trump's policy after he softened his signature position of forcefully deporting more than 11 million undocumented immigrants. Trump's campaign also says that he will start taking his message to black voters directly in the inner city.

CNN's Sara Murray is live in Washington with more. Give us the latest, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. Well, Donald Trump's campaign originally said he would do an immigration speech. Then they said he wouldn't do an immigration speech. Now it appears the speech is back on this week in Arizona. And it may be an opportunity for Donald Trump to clear up some questions after he's taken nearly every tone on immigration over the last few weeks. There are many wondering whether he is wavering on a foundation of his candidacy, this pledge it deport millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We are going to get rid of the criminals, and it's going to happen within one hour after I take office. Believe me.

MURRAY (voice-over): Donald Trump announcing he'll deliver a highly anticipated immigration speech Wednesday in Arizona after all.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: If you want to be here legally, you have to apply to be here legally.

MURRAY: The Trump campaign insisting a proposal won't amount to amnesty or include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

CONWAY: We all learned in kindergarten to stand in line and wait our turn.

MURRAY: But the question mounts about whether Trump is softening his hardline position from the primaries --

TRUMP: At least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally, they will go out.

MURRAY: Even his allies appear unclear on his stance.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: What about the millions in this country right now? What happens to them?

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think Donald Trump will articulate what we do with the people who were here. But I promised you --

TAPPER: Well, he already has.

MURRAY: The GOP chairman even saying deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. is complicated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's reflecting on it, and his position is going to be known.

MURRAY: This as Trump plans a Labor Day weekend trip to a predominantly black church in Detroit, part of his ongoing effort to woo minority voters.

TRUMP: African-Americans, Hispanics vote for Donald Trump. What do you have to lose? It can't get any worse. What do you have to lose?

MURRAY: The Republican nominee sparking controversy over the weekend for politicizing the death of Chicago Bulls Star Dwayne Wade's cousin, tweeting, "Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will vote Trump." An hour later, Trump offered his condolences. This tweet just the latest example of Trump facing criticism for touting his political positions in the wake of tragedies. TRUMP: It's horrible. And it's only getting worse. I say vote for

Donald Trump, I will fix it.

MURRAY: As Trump continued to blame the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton for minority hardship and racial tension --

TRUMP: They've run the inner cities for years and look what you have. They're like war zones.

How quickly people have forgotten that Hillary Clinton called black youth super predators. Remember that? Super predators.

MURRAY: Both Trump and Clinton's campaigns using their opponent's own words against each other.

TRUMP: What the hell do you have to lose?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, as the Trump campaign aims to close this gap with Hillary Clinton in key battleground states, they are now preparing to throw a little bit more money at this problem. They're going to go up on the air in nine states with a new ad buy that's going to be worth $10 million. We should have more details on that later this morning. Back to you, Alisyn and Chris.

[06:05:05] CAMEROTA: OK. Sara, please let us know when you have that. We appreciate it. So what is Trump's deportation plan? Let's discuss this and much more with our panel.

CNN political analyst and national political reporter for "The New York Times," Alex Burns. And CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis. Gentlemen, great to see you.

So, he has announced that on Wednesday he'll be giving this immigration speech. Do we have any idea yet if it will have a coherent plan in terms of the deportation piece of all of this?

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: We don't. What we know is that he's been talking in somewhat greater detail about the mechanisms that you would use to enforce our existing immigration system, mechanisms like e-verify to track the employment of people, to track the immigration status of people who are employed. But those are all measures that every presidential candidate has either endorsed or talked about. That's stuff Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio were talking about. So, the big question here that is just hanging over Trump this week and I think really for the remainder of the campaign is, what do you do with the 11 million people who are already here illegally? And does he stand by the idea of rounding them up and deporting them? And we just don't know the answer to that right now.

CUOMO: And just to be clear, the only reason we don't know the answer, Errol, is because he changed. We're in the spin cycle right now. We're trying to be convinced by people that he didn't change. We wouldn't be having this conversation if he hadn't obviously changed on this part of the piece. Is there any other interpretation?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, of course not. He is changing in a way that actually makes him more of a traditional politician. You know, normally what you see is in the primary season, promises are made to the base of the party, whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans. And then you sort of come to the middle and see if you can sort of trim the sails, adjust it a little bit broaden the appeal somewhat to bring in some of the undecided voters who are not part of it.

CUOMO: That's an idea that he hates. Right? I mean, what you just said is exactly what he doesn't want to be. So that, I think, has been what the finesse point here is. How do I do what I need to do without being what I never want to be?

LOUIS: Exactly right. Because just as Alex suggested, he's moving towards the Bush/Rubio sort of stance, which is really the only place you're going to end up. John Kasich said during the primary system that it's not an adult conversation to talk about deporting 11 million people. It's not realistic. It's not reality. It's probably not legal. The resources aren't there. The public doesn't support it. There's no reason to even talk about it. But that was the Trump position.

CAMEROTA: And yet, even this weekend, his top people, his VP nominee Mike Pence, and his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, were not speaking from the same script about the deportation. So, listen to what they said this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PENCE: His position and his principles have been absolutely consistent. We're going to secure the border. We're going to build a wall, have a physical barrier. We're going to enforce the laws in this country.

CONWAY: We all learned in kindergarten to stand in line and wait our turn. And he's not talking about a deportation force, but he is talking about being fair and humane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. So his position absolutely consistent, Mike Pence says, with when he said we are going to have deportation force, which was in November. And now Kellyanne Conway saying, we're not talking about a deportation force.

BURNS: Well, what they're trying to finesse here is making the case that his principles -- you heard Pence say his principles are totally consistent. So, his principles of being tough on immigration, cracking down on the border, those remain the same. And the mechanisms are going to change. I don't know that that's how it works for a candidate who has really staked his entire campaign on being tough on immigration. You heard Kellyanne Conway say, he is not talking about a deportation force, present tense. No, he's not actively talking about it but the position is on his

website. He's talked about it throughout the campaign. So, you've seen Trump kind of do this in a couple of different places where he got pretty far out on a limb during the primary. The mass deportation. The ban on Muslim immigration. It's not that he explicitly said, I'm not for that anymore, I would never support that. It's just that he starts talking about something else in hopes that people forget the previous position.

CAMEROTA: Should we talk about medical records? Donald Trump has called for Hillary Clinton to release her medical records. Isn't the answer for her to say, you first?

LOUIS: Well, that's one answer. I mean, the other answer is to say that, you know, federal law sort of provides some pretty serious privacy protections to anybody's medical records. So, she doesn't have to release anything but she doesn't want to.

CAMEROTA: I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, haven't a previous presidential candidates released more than what Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have to date?

LOUIS: Yes, that is certainly true. And if they could both get beyond the point of, you know, five minutes scrawled out while somebody's waiting for you in the limo outside, that would probably be a good.

CUOMO: Alisyn cannot let that aspect of this story go.

CAMEROTA: I believe what you're referring to, Errol.

CUOMO: Truth. We were all trying to get to come on record. Because, yes, there's a lot of speculation that this letter sounded very Trumpian, you know, how it was written. And now it turns out there's a doctor, he does own the letters, as he wrote it.

CAMEROTA: His gastroenterologist has said, yes, I did write that. He is my patient, Donald Trump. And I did write that letter saying that he is in the greatest health of any person who's ever run for president. So here is that doctor now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:10:12] DR. HAROLD BORNSTEIN, TRUMP'S PERSONAL PHYSICIAN: I thought about it all day, and at the end -- I get rushed and I get anxious when I get rushed. So I try to get four or five lines down as fast as possible so that they would happy. I sat right at this desk and write that letter while the driver waited for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Errol.

LOUIS: There you have it. There you have it. I mean --

CAMEROTA: Case closed. CUOMO: The next surgeon general of the United States of America.

LOUIS: Yes. Could be. Right. The quality of the medical information and the source of the medical information clearly matters, right? So anybody who feels more assured about Donald Trump's health condition based on what this gentleman has done, I think, is really going in a different direction than what most of us want. And the reality is, we have, through the process -- the process sort of works. I mean, we all complain about the long presidential campaign season, but the reality is the stress test of it, all of the different rallies, all of the traveling, all of the going back and forth, people can look with their own eyes and see whether or not somebody is tired, whether or not somebody is fatigued.

CAMEROTA: Sure.

LOUIS: Whether somebody is physically sharp.

CAMEROTA: By the way, both of these candidates appear to have stamina for this long -- rescued election.

CUOMO: It just goes to the authenticity of transparency. You know, whether it's, you know, this gentleman as Errol said writes the letter and has this bizarre excuse for what it is. But then Donald Trump with unmitigated maxi, Alex says, we don't know enough about Hillary records. She should release them. When he knows that this is the man who is standing testament to his own health in this crazy letter. He says, we don't know enough about her. That's the nature of the dynamic in this election right now.

BURNS: Hundred percent. And you've really seen -- especially since the convention, I think, every time Hillary Clinton goes at Donald Trump on a specific issue, he comes right back around and says, I know you are, but what am I. Right? When she was saying that he was, you know, a potential dictator, he's out there this weekend saying, that she wants to be an imperial -- an imperial leader in charge of the country.

When she was questioning his -- when Tim Kaine was questioning Donald Trump's sort of stability and temperament for the presidency, Donald Trump comes back around with, I don't think she's all there. Right? So now making that gesture. So, I think you're going to see a lot more of this, and the health is, I mean, it may be the most hilarious example, but I don't think it's the last one.

CUOMO: Well, I can't get enough of this doctor. I want you to know that right now. I love you guys, but if I could have swapped them in for one of these two chairs this morning.

CAMEROTA: We have more. So, you'll be very happy throughout the program. We actually have more from the doctor. Stay tuned for that. Guys, thank you very much.

CUOMO: All right. There are also some new developments in the shooting death of NBA superstar Dwayne Wade's cousin. Two brothers, described by police as gang members who are both on parole, are now charged with her murder. We have CNN's Rachel Crane in Chicago with the latest. What can you tell us?

RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, today this family still in mourning. Yesterday at Nykea's friends, her family, her loved ones came together to hold a beautiful vigil to honor Nykea's life. I had a chance to sit down and speak with Nykea's mother Diane in a very emotional interview. And she had a powerful message for the shooters.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRANE (voice-over): Chicago police say these are the two men responsible for killing a mother of four over the weekend. Brothers Darwin and Derren Sorrells charged with first-degree murder.

EDDIE JOHNSON, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT: When will enough be enough?

CRANE: Police voicing outrage over the shooters' lengthy rap sheets, saying they're both gang members and convicted felons out on parole. Derren, 22, was released from prison just two weeks ago with six felony arrests. Darwin, 26, got out of prison in February. He had been serving a six-year sentence for a felony gun charge.

JOHNSON: We need to put them in jail and keep them there.

CRANE: Caught in the deadly crossfire was 32-year-old Nykea Aldridge, cousin of Chicago Bulls superstar Dwayne Wade. The tragic death in Wade's hometown shining a spotlight on Chicago's ongoing gun violence epidemic.

PASTOR JOLINDA WADE, DWAYNE WADE'S MOTHER: Just sat up on a panel yesterday, the undefeated talking about the violence that's going on within our city, Chicago, never knowing that the next day we would be the ones that would be actually living and experiencing it.

CRANE: Aldridge was pushing her baby in a stroller when she was struck in the head and arm by stray bullets. She was on her way to register her older children for school.

DIANN ALDRIDGE, NYKEA ALDRIDGE'S MOTHER: It's just heartbreaking. It's really -- oh, God. It's heartbreaking. To not be here to raise her own children.

CRANE: But through the pain, Nykea's mother had this emotional message for her daughter's killers.

ALDRIDGE: I truly, truly from the bottom of my heart, I forgive them.

CRANE: Dwayne Wade tweeting under the "# Enough is enough," writing, "Another act of senseless gun violence. Four kids lost their mom for no reason, unreal."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[06:15:21] CRANE: Now, Chris, it's very difficult to hear and see the pain that this mother is going through. And just remarkable that despite that pain, she's still able to forgive these shooters. And unfortunately, this is not the first time that Diane has lost a child. She lost her eldest daughter about ten years ago, also to gun violence.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. What a history, Rachel. And what a statement from her of forgiveness. Thank you for all of that reporting.

Well, the Trump campaign is planning a direct appeal to voters in Detroit's black community. Will the new outreach work? Our panel on that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:03] TRUMP: Millions of jobs, far better schools, safe communities where you can, in fact, walk outside and walk down the street with your child, with your wife or your husband, by yourself, and not be kill and not be shot, not be mugged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: There's Donald Trump. He says he's now planning to do what many say he should have done from the start, which is make his pitch to black voters directly in front of a black audience.

Let's bring back our panel. CNN political analyst Alex Burns and CNN political commentator Errol Louis. Let's do the plus/minus on this, Errol. He's going to go to Detroit. We're doing this with the backdrop of the latest example of the reality in Chicago and other urban areas like it of Dwayne Wade's cousin Nykea getting shot by gang members who were supposedly on parole. What is the upside for Donald Trump? How can he make advantage by what he wants to do now?

LOUIS: Well, the upside is that he has almost nowhere to go on the downside. And he can't do quite as poorly with black voters as he appears to be doing according to the polls. In 2012, Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama in seven states. The black vote was the margin of victory. But listen to which seven states it was. It was Florida, it was Ohio, it was Michigan, it was Pennsylvania, it was Virginia, it was key swing states. Maryland as well and Nevada. These are key states that he can't afford to write off.

So he doesn't have to get all of the black vote, but he can't do -- you know, if six percent of the black vote, which is what Mitt Romney got, was not enough to win in all of these various states, he can't come in with one percent, zero percent, which the polls have suggested in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and hope to get anywhere. So, he's got to make some kind of a gesture. It also, frankly, gets him a lot of sort of a moderate white voters who really don't like the antipathy.

They don't like seeing all of the protests. All of these polling numbers and so on. They want to feel like their candidate has some kind of a connection and is frankly not a bigot. You know? So he's got to do something. He has, in some ways, a pretty small task to do to accomplish in Detroit. He's got to hope that it's going to be a controlled situation where there won't be a lot of protests, where there won't be a lot of antipathy, where he won't be branded once again as the guy that black America has no interest in. CAMEROTA: Alex, Donald Trump has been criticized for the tweet that

he sent out about Nykea Aldridge's murder. I'm going to read that for everybody. "Dwayne Wade's cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will vote Trump." An hour-and-half later, he sent out this tweet, or his account did. "My condolences to Dwayne Wade and his family on the loss of Nykea Aldridge. They're in my thoughts and prayers." Does that clean up that original tweet that seemed insensitive?

BURNS: I don't think it does. I think that if you read the two tweets, you see there's been this consistent pattern on Trump's Twitter feed where he himself will go on and type something that is intemperate or really just does not fit the mood of the moment. And then an hour or two later, somebody who appears to be a staff member will tweet something much more conventional.

CAMEROTA: How do you know a staff member? Why do you think a staff member twitted the second one?

BURNS: Well, because we've never seen Trump himself speak or write in language as conventional and measured as that. And also because there are ways of checking what device a tweet was sent from, whether it's an android or an iPhone. There is a pattern that the hotter tweets tend to come from the android. But look, I think the bigger picture beyond just these tweets is that the attitude that Trump brought into that first tweet is why it's been so hard for him to broaden his base in general. He's not particularly interested in massaging or re- crafting his message in order to meet communities on their own terms.

He wants to point to the message he's been delivering all along and point to public events and say, I'm right and this is why black voters or Hispanic voters or women ought to vote for me. I think the challenge of him going to a place like Detroit is, can he add something to that message is going to persuade people who have taken a look and decided, that's not for me. I think they ought to take another look, I think delivering the same message over again in maybe starker or more alarmist terms, is not the way to do that.

CUOMO: Yes. I think the bar is a little bit higher though. I mean, your analysis is right Errol in terms of how much worse can he do in terms of the polls, but he has got a couple challenges. One, what we see in this first tweet, is that this dynamic maybe new to him. Right? He thought it was an a-ha moment to see Dwayne Wade's cousin get shot down in Chicago. But that's the social condition in Chicago. There are thousands of kids of young adults like Nykea. So, it's new to Trump, but it's not new.

The second challenge is, he's going to go to the Detroit, which is a place with a pronounced back and forth with the police. And he's on record all over the place making it the community's fault when it comes to what happens with police. So, he has to overcome those two things. Otherwise, he could wind up cementing a position for himself that might leave him worse off than Romney.

LOUIS: Look, if he comes in with more than promises, then he'll have to do exactly that. I mean, the reality is, I don't know if he or his staff understand fully how insulting it is to suggest that people in black communities, somehow they forgot to care about, you know, good schools and safe streets. Right. That, you know, it hasn't worked for the last 50 years, 60 years, whatever he's talking about, and here he is with some solution. OK. That in itself is insulting, but let's get past that. OK. Fine, what's your solution?

[06:25:28] CUOMO: He'll say jobs, better schools, and you don't get shot.

LOUIS: Well, yes, but that's an end point. Right? That's not a method, that's not a process, that's not a program, that's not a plan. So, if he's got a plan, I'd love to hear it.

CAMEROTA: School choice is what his VP nominee told me, Mike Pence, when I put that question directly to him. He thinks that they, through their other policies, will be bringing jobs, that will help the inner city and school choice will help parents in the --

LOUIS: And flood these communities with cops. I mean, he's sort of suggested all of those things. There's of course an operational question about how much of that can you do from the Oval Office. Right? I mean, these are quintessentially local issues. Something like 18,000 police departments, schools we know are locally controlled. So, you know, again, the mechanism sort of matters. If it's just bombast and promises and sort of saying, you know, Democrats have run this town for decades and the town is in bad shape. I think it will be a pretty short conversation and it won't end favorably on his terms.

CAMEROTA: Alex, Errol, thank you. Great to talk to you both.

All right. Another big story. NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick --

CUOMO: Yep.

CAMEROTA: -- says that he is standing up for victims of racial injustice by sitting down during the national anthem. So we will debate that controversy ahead.

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