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Trump's History of Shattering Donation Limits; Obama on TPP: 'Eventually, It Will Get Done'. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 07, 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: My top generals will have 30 days to submit a plan towards defeating ISIS.

[05:58:16] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: After all of his talk, the only thing that is clear is he has no clue.

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R-IN), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's been amateur hour for the last 7 1/2 years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He made a political contribution to the attorney general of Florida, and mysteriously, the investigation vanished.

TRUMP: How about the 33,000 missing e-mails that were acid-washed?

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: When Gadhafi was looking to stay in America, he found one guy willing to host him. You were saying something about judgment, Donald?

TRUMP: Putin looks at her and he laughs. OK? He laughs.

CLINTON: We're going to stand up to our adversaries, not cozy up to them.

TRUMP: Wouldn't that be nice if we actually could get along with Russia? Wouldn't that be nice?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: A lot to talk about this morning. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY, Wednesday, September 7, 6 a.m. in the east.

Up first, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump clashing over national security. Trump says, if elected, he would give his top generals 30 days to come up with a plan to defeat ISIS. Clinton says Trump has no plan.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Trump getting a taste of his own medicine when it comes to pay-for-play allegations. The alleged chain agent has a long history of violating campaign giving limits. All right. Here are the numbers to remember for you. Remember, 62

days until the election. The stakes couldn't be higher. First votes, 16 days. That's when early voting begins in some states. Nineteen days, that's when the first big debate happens between Trump and Clinton. We have all the developments for you.

Let's begin with CNN's Sara Murray live in Greenville, South Carolina -- Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

Well, when Donald Trump was campaigning here last night, it was almost like he was laying out his first 100-day plan talking about building a wall along the southern border, repealing Obamacare. But he was really hitting the national security theme hard yesterday. And part of that was saying that, if he is president, he will convene his generals, and he will call on them for just 30 days, coming up with a plan for how he would defeat ISIS.

Now, as he aims to get this edge over Hillary Clinton on the question of who is best prepared to be commander in chief. He's also seizing on the FBI report about her e-mails, as well as what we've learned about, what her interview was like. Take a listen to what he had to say about that yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They used hammers to destroy phones so they couldn't be turned over. And by the way, who uses 13 different iPhones in four years? The only people who use that many phones are usually involved in very, very -- and I mean very shady -- activity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: You see Trump in his typically colorful language there, accusing Hillary Clinton of shady activity. And we're expecting a lot of him -- a lot of these contrasts to continue between Trump and Clinton today. He's going to go after the differences in his foreign policy vision versus hers.

But he's also going to call for an end to the sequester, and he's going to talk about what he would do to beef up military spending and the U.S. military capacity. He's campaigning in some places that aren't exactly traditional for Republicans today. He'll be in Philadelphia and New York -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Some would call it colorful talk. Others would call it hyperbolic and baseless talk. So we'll continue down this road.

Sara, thank you very much.

Hillary Clinton just returning the favor, pouncing on Donald Trump, accusing him of concealing his foundation's $25,000 donation to the campaign of Florida's attorney general, as she was considering investigating fraud claims against Trump University. Now, we're learning there's more reporting out there that this

violation may not be Trump's only one when it comes to political donation limits.

CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny has that -- Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, good morning, guys.

The allegations of pay-for-play are back in the presidential race. This time it's Donald Trump, who's under fire for a long history of questionable political contributions. In some cases evading limits and even breaking campaign finance law.

He's been a big critic of the Clinton Foundation. But it's his own foundation's $25,000 donation to the Florida attorney general that's under fire, because it came as his [SIC] office was set to review allegations of fraud at Trump University. Now foundations are not allowed to make such political contributions so he was fined $2,500 by the IRS.

This morning, both Bill and Hillary Clinton going back on offense about all of this and his tax returns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Truly, the list goes on and on. The scams, the frauds. The questionable relationships. The business activities that have stiffed workers, refused to pay small businesses. Clearly, his tax returns tell a story that the American people deserve and need to know.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I got tickled other day when Mr. Trump called my foundation a criminal enterprise. He made a political contribution to the attorney general of Florida, who at the time had her office investigating Trump University. And mysteriously, the investigation vanished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Now, Trump says he never discussed this case with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi or anyone. But a comment he made last summer is still resonating. He said when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do. A reference to his long line of political contributions suddenly coming under fresh examination.

CUOMO: So, he's got this burden on his side. He want to be a change agent, but the more you look into his past, the less he looks like change.

ZELENY: Right.

CUOMO: "The New York Times," they're not bringing out new information. They're just cataloging what has been recorded about him since the '80s, and almost none of it is good in terms of his approach to politics. ZELENY: It's certainly not clean tweaking, if you will. Look, a lot

of these donations were made to Democrats as well as Republicans. He's given to both sides over the years.

Let's take a look at some of these allegations here. Not allegations, actually, just a record of things he's done. And in 1985, he evaded donation limits using 18 subsidiary companies. In the '90s, fined for exceeding donation limits by nearly $50,000.

2000, fined $250,000 for not disclosing lobbying activities. And now, of course, these donations to these attorneys general who were looking to Trump University. So at the very least, this reminds people, wait, he is a politician. He's done some things like this. And it flips the script, if you will, on what he's trying to use against the Clintons.

The question is do voters care about any of this? But it certainly may bring down his trust numbers, because he has a long history of actual allegations pay-for-play, not just talking about it.

[06:05:12] CAMEROTA: And it also takes away the high road about payola, if there's all of this evidence of actual payments to politicians to get what he wants?

ZELENY: If there is a high road in this campaign. I'm not sure there is. But the Clinton campaign is going to be sure that they're going to be using all of this, I'm told, possibly do a web video, even advertising, reminding people of his history, as well.

CUOMO: Well, that's what we're going to do. This is a phase in the campaign where we need to draw as sharp a focus as you can on what sets up each of these candidates. We're going to spend just about every day enlisting the help of good reporters like yourself to tick off all of these existing issues in this character contest between these two candidates and let you know what has some substance for you to focus on and what is just bunk.

CAMEROTA: In our 7 or 8 o'clock hours. In the meantime, President Obama is in Laos, preparing for an east Asian summit later this morning. But when he returns to the U.S., a White House source tells CNN, he does plan to hit the campaign trail.

White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski is traveling with the president. She joins us now live from Laos -- Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, you look at this historic trip. The first time a sitting U.S. president visits Laos to try to build this relationship after the Vietnam War.

President Obama really wanted to spend some time here. Today we saw him meet with the victims of the U.S. bombs that are still on the ground and still explode here. He sat down with some young Asian leaders, and that gave him the chance to again talk up the TPP, the Transpacific Partnership. This big trade deal with Asia that's really supposed to be the jewel in the crown of his rebalance to Asia. There are plenty of Republicans in Congress that agree with him on

this, but Congress won't take it up. And he saved some words for them, as well. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, we're in a political season right now, and it's always difficult to get things done. Congress isn't doing much right now. They're all going home and talking to their constituents, trying to get re-elected. So after the election, I think people can refocus attention on why this is so important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: So what about President Obama and the election? We really haven't seen much of him. He did that one event with Hillary Clinton in Charlotte. He had two other fund-raisers.

But a White House source tells us he wants to get back out on the trail. He sees the enormous stakes involved. He sees the poll numbers. He wants to get his point across again and again that he feels Hillary Clinton is the only one qualified to be president.

So where does he go from here? This month is tough, not just because of this trip that we're on, but the U.N. General Assembly coming up. So, he has one event next week in Philadelphia. Another fund-raiser in New York. But beyond that it's going to be tough, so that leaves only October to pick up the pace. There have been some reports out there that he's going to spend virtually the entire month on the trail. We are told that's going to be difficult, but we will see much more of him -- Chris and Alisyn.

CUOMO: All right. Michelle, thank you very much. And the question becomes what will the focus be? Well, if you look at the new CNN/ORC poll, there's some good indications of what voters want to talk about. Immigration is a big issue, but people are divided over whether Clinton or Trump would do a better job on the issue.

You see a slight majority of those polled say the nation's first priority on immigration should involve developing a plan to allow -- allow undocumented immigrants with jobs to stay. Thirty-six percent say stopping immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally should be the top priority.

CAMEROTA: Now, the poll also shows a clear majority, about 6 in 10 people, oppose building that wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. A higher number doubt that Mexico would ultimately pay for the wall, as Trump continues to promise. And there is overwhelming agreement from Democrats and Republicans that undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of other crimes should face deportation.

CUOMO: The nearly 30-year-old mystery of a missing Minnesota boy has been solved. Have you been following this at all? His name, Danny Heinrich, he's confessing in court that he kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed Jacob Wetterling in 1989. The now 53-year-old's admission was part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors on child porn charges. As part of the deal, Heinrich won't be charged with Jacob's murder. That is very controversial. He faces up to 20 years behind bars anyway when he's sentenced in November.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, I can't believe how long the parents have been waiting for that.

CUOMO: And that's the problem with him not being charged with it as part of the deal, is that where is the closure for the victim's family?

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

Well, meanwhile, more than 500 people have been killed in Chicago this year alone. The city is now on pace to reach a homicide level not seen since the 1990s. Chicago has seen more murders than New York City and Los Angeles combined.

[06:10:08] This weekend alone, 13 people were killed in shootings, making it the most violent holiday weekend of 2016 in the city. Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he will lay out a new plan for public safety later this month.

CUOMO: Bill Cosby's criminal trial now has a start date, June 5th of next year. The comedian's legal team attacking attorney Gloria Allred, who represents dozens of Cosby accusers, claiming he is a victim of racial bias and prejudice. But Allred isn't involved in Cosby's criminal case.

Cosby has pleaded not guilty to three counts of felony aggravated indecent sexual assault. Those charges related to a 2004 sexual encounter with Andrea Constand, a former employee at Temple University, which is, of course, Cosby's alma mater.

CAMEROTA: All right. It's a big day in the tech world. Apple set to unveil its latest electronic devices at its fall launch event. The main attraction expected to be the iPhone 7. Among the possible upgrades, more storage, better camera, and a new shade of black.

CUOMO: Ooh.

CAMEROTA: One rumored new feature has people angry, though, Chris. The new iPhone may not have a headphone jack. Now what?

CUOMO: Forces you to go Bluetooth.

CAMEROTA: I don't think I like that.

CUOMO: You don't like it?

CAMEROTA: I'm old school. I mean, first of all, I use a stone tablet.

CUOMO: I saw you rocking that Walkman the other day.

CAMEROTA: Don't kid. CUOMO: Mix tapes, by emotion.

CAMEROTA: I like all of those things.

CUOMO: All right. So we do have breaking news within the understanding of the controversy surrounding these candidates. Suddenly, it is Donald Trump's charity that is in the spotlight. Can he continue his pay-for-play high ground against Clinton when he has this long and dubious record of how he treats political donations? A closer look next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:16:02] TRUMP: So, I'm going to convene my top generals and give them a simple instruction. They will have 30 days to submit to the Oval Office a plan for soundly and quickly defeating ISIS. We have no choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That's Donald Trump laying out a plan saying, if elected, he will demand a new plan from his top generals in the first 30 days in office. National security has become a big issue on the campaign trail this week.

Let's discuss it with CNN political analyst and presidential campaign correspondent for "The New York Times," Maggie Haberman; CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis; and CNN senior political reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson. Great to have all of you here.

Maggie, what are you hearing about this becoming the focus, national security becoming the focus, and whether or not this plays well for Donald Trump?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: National security is very much the theme of this week. You've seen Donald Trump roll out a list of endorsement from 88 retired military figures. Hillary Clinton just this morning put out her own list of 95. So we are doing a numbers game.

There's a new poll out at NBC, showing that Trump does better with veterans and we're going to hear a lot about them with him, and they're going to be at a forum tonight. This is -- a lot of this is Clinton sort of playing to what she comes by in her campaign's mind naturally, which is passing the commander in chief test.

Trump has a harder bar to pass for that. He has never held public office. He has struggled on sort of the basic issues of national security and foreign policy. And so I think the question is going to be much more how he fares tonight and how he does with this.

What hurts Hillary Clinton is the bar has been lowered for Trump repeatedly, because he keeps getting graded on a curve, as her supporters would say and which I think you can see. And so the question is does he sort of merely pass and have that yet recorded as, yes, he did very well.

CUOMO: Errol, what are you hearing from the campaign, Trump supporters, about why this is a good move, saying 30 days to come up with a new plan? Because I 'm sure all of the phones and devices were buzzing last night with military sources who are very disgusted by this idea that they don't have a plan right now?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's right. Although I will tell you that there's also a certain amount of sort of disdain for the notion that the military up till now, hasn't been told, or you know, somehow forgot to come up with a 30-day plan.

Presumably, this has already been presented to the president long ago. Doesn't seem to have worked, and we're in for sort of a long haul. I think what we're going to hear tonight from a lot of the feedback from veterans in particular, they don't like being used as pawns. You know, we're talking about 15 million people, who are voters, in the 2012 election. And they voted at a higher rate than everybody else.

They're watching this very, very closely. They have a very sophisticated understanding, not only of the foreign policy aspects of it but how it's going to sort of trickle down and affect real people in the real world. So I don't think he's going to get away with, you know, hey, in 30 days, you know, we'll get a plan, and that will really work.

What people really want to hear about is what are we going to do as far as employment. What's going to happen as far as the pay? The Veterans Administration, the healthcare benefits, the aftereffects of war. If nothing else, I think we know that the Mideast wars, the '90s and beyond, have taught us that there are huge effects that go on for years afterwards that people have really sort of ignored.

CUOMO: The IAVA, which is the group behind the meeting, the town hall, Paul Rieckhoff, he talks about this all the time. He says, you know, people always talk about how we died. They never talk about how we live as veterans, our jobs, our G.I. Bill, etc. It will be interesting to see if they get attention.

CAMEROTA: So Hillary Clinton has a new ad out, talking about veterans and what she thinks is Trump's sort of checkered history with them. So, watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I know more about ISIS than the generals do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John McCain, a war hero...

TRUMP: He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump compared his sacrifices to the sacrifices of two parents who lost their son in war. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How would you answer that father? What sacrifice

have you made for your country?

TRUMP: I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. Built great structures. I've had tremendous success.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those are sacrifices?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, that's her take on Donald Trump and veterans. But of course, when he first came out, first announced his presidential run, I mean, he said that was one of his first things. He said, "We need to treat our veterans better. I support the veterans. They're wonderful people." So, you know, what are you hearing about where he is with this?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think first of all, that ad is very effective, because it uses Donald -- Donald Trump's words against him. It's essentially an update of the role model ad, where the kids were sitting there and listening to Donald Trump. It's effective, because you almost don't even need to look at it. It's just his words. You can be in the other room ironing your dress for NEW DAY in the morning.

CUOMO: Chris is always doing that.

HENDERSON: So I think it's effective. I mean, I think he has an advantage. Any Republican really has an advantage with veterans. Mitt Romney won veterans by 20 points in 2012. John McCain won them by 10 points in 2008. So either way, I think he goes in with that advantage that a Republican candidate would have.

But I do think he's got to get more specific. Talk about the G.I. Bill, for instance. I've talked to a lot of folks who served overseas, come back. They want to take advantage of the G.I. Bill. And they don't have enough money. There are not enough funds there in terms of getting them through school. So he's got to get specific.

On this ISIS plan, you know, it's sort of a nonplan in some ways. It's like that he's going to ask the generals. But get them in a landing place, I think, because he's been all over the place. He's talked about 20,000 to 30,000 troops. He's talked about very few troops, as well. He's also said he knows more than the generals.

CUOMO: But with policy, he's coming up the charge that he doesn't know enough. On politics, he's now going to start taking charge that he knows too much. He always says he's not a politician. Your newspaper is reporting this morning. It's nothing new to those of us who have been following him for a long time. To put it in place for voters 60 days out, this man has a long and dark past when it comes to trying to get around rules to get influence in politics, true or false?

HABERMAN: This phone is going to bring when this episode is over. He has been a New York real-estate figure for a very, very long time.

And so some of these donations, you look at in the context of that, but not all of them. He did a lot of donations to various attorneys general who handle regulatory issues. There was a major fine for casino gambling and lobbying. A major, major one where there was no admission of wrongdoing, but an apology had to be issued. And you do look at essentially there is a pattern there.

The issue with this Bondi donation is that a law was broken. In isolation, he would say this is a tax law. It's a small fine. But Trump likes to brag about it. It was so interesting listening to him talk about this in the last couple of days. He bragged about the primary. Yes, you're right, I gave all this money. You know, people -- Hillary Clinton came to my wedding, and this and that. It makes it, at minimum, muddies the waters in terms of hitting Clinton on the Clinton Foundation. And it also is complicated for him on the debate stage, because I suspect he will get asked about this.

CAMEROTA: He's also made it sound as though he's used loopholes, but when you dig into it, actually, there was some illegality happening. It wasn't just a loophole that he found. Let's look at the list, at least that "The New York Times" has compiled this morning, because it is instructive.

In 1985, he evaded donation limits using 18 subsidiary companies so he could make the limits through all of those, thereby, you know, timesing it by 18.

1990, he's fine for exceeding donation limits by nearly $50,000.

In 2000, fined $250,000 by New York for failing to disclose the extent of his lobbying activities.

And now of course, donating those tens of thousands to four attorneys general, not just Pam Bondi of Florida, who were at the time considering investigating Trump University. It went to Democrats and Republicans, but how big of a problem, Errol?

LOUIS: And by the way, that's a lot -- there's a lot more. That's sort of scratching the surface. The first of those items, by the way, really is kind of a loophole issue, not so much illegality. Where, if you own real estate, each separate building might be a separate corporation. New York has interpreted that as each building gets to make a maximum contribution.

CAMEROTA: So is there -- so, on the scale of, you know, problematic, is it -- has he just sort of exploited loopholes, or is there something here?

LOUIS: I mean, there's something. That $250,000 fine he essentially bought the entire legislature, you know, and ran a bunch of ads and muddied the disclosures so nobody could tell where the ads were coming from. He was trying to kill off Indian casinos or casino gambling in the Catskills. It would have been competition with his New Jersey casinos at the time. So it's up to the...

CUOMO: That was a Roger Stone deal also. Stone had to pay a fine there also.

LOUIS: Absolutely. It was up to the Clinton campaign to make a stink or not, you know.

CAMEROTA: They're trying.

HABERMAN: And a certain point, if they want people talking about this, I'm surprised that their tactic is to hit the media and not put it on the air on ads.

[06:25:07] CUOMO: It's all been reported.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much. Great to get all of your reporting on this, this morning.

CUOMO: All right. We have an update for you on a different story, the Virginia teenager who stepped on an explosive device in Central Park and had part of his leg blown off. A big step in his recovery and his message to supporters when NEW DAY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:29:20] CAMEROTA: Iran flexing its military muscle in the Persian Gulf U.S. Officials say an Iranian fast attack boat harassed a navy patrol ship coming within 100 yards of the ship. And forcing the navy to take evasive action to avoid a collision. The Pentagon calls this maneuver, quote, "unsafe and unprofessional." The revolutionary guard vessel was one of seven boats involved in this encounter.

Cuomo: The Senate is back from a seven-week summer recess but is still gridlocked on Zika virus funding. More appalling is why. They had two bills ready to go to fund the growing problem. Democrats blocked them, because those measures would have also cut Planned Parenthood funding while permitting Confederate flags to fly at military veteran cemeteries.

CAMEROTA: Well, that Virginia teenager who was severely hurt after stepping on an explosive device in Central Park is walking again.