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U.S. Investigates Potential Russian Plan To Disrupt Election; Trump Charity's Donation To Florida AG Questioned; Apple Expected To Unveil iPhone 7 Today; RNC Bolsters Trump's Battleground State Infrastructure; 70+ Republicans Sign Letter Begging RNC To Abandon Trump. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired September 07, 2016 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00] REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: So it's pretty clear who the Russians want and it's pretty clear that the Russians also want to impeach our very democracy.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Troubling stuff. Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you for being on NEW DAY and talking about all of that.
SCHIFF: Thanks, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Let's turn it over to Chris.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Clinton has her troubles and Donald Trump has his. A big controversy of his own brewing right now. A $25,000 campaign donation in question. Fined by the IRS. Was it pay-to-play politics in action? We ask an adviser, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CUOMO: As we count down to Election Day it is becoming more clear that both campaigns are banking on the character test. So, here on NEW DAY, we're going to dig deeper into the growing list of controversies plaguing both candidates and press their campaigns about them as a service to you.
[07:35:00] In the next hour we're going to take on Hillary Clinton's controversies with one of her surrogates. But right now, we're going to discuss Donald Trump facing new questions this morning about whether a $25,000 political donation to Florida's attorney general is an extension of this history he has of trying to get around the system to benefit himself.
We have Attorney General Pam Bondi involved in that, but let's discuss what's going on with this whole category of concern. Senior adviser for the Trump campaign, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is with us. It's good to see you, as always.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Good morning, good to see you.
CUOMO: So the primary criticism, before we get into the specifics, is the system is corrupt. People don't like how it is. They need a change agent. How can Donald Trump be the change agent when he so actively engages in what is the problem?
HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think it's very, very simple. He's the only candidate in this race that isn't completely controlled by the donor class. Hillary Clinton is controlled by the Washington to Wall Street axis of power. She has been since the day she stepped foot in Washington and she's proved that time and time again.
Donald Trump can actually come in and shake things up. He's not beholding to the donor class in the way that Hillary Clinton is. He's the only person in this race that can do that -- that can come in and really change the way that Washington works.
CUOMO: But he's also the only person that we have in the race with proof of someone who has abused the system for their own gain. I mean, where do you get confidence that he'll do it the right way when the only record we have is of him doing it the wrong way?
HUCKABEE SANDERS: I don't think it's fair to say he's done it the wrong way. I think he's done it by the way that the rules have been set by Washington -- by people that are corrupt, like Hillary Clinton. They've set this kind of process up of the way that Washington works. If you want to, as a business person, as a private citizen, get access, you have to be donor. Donald Trump was a businessman and that's why he was part of that process.
But as president, knowing how that system works, knowing how corrupt it is and not being beholding to the donor class, he can actually come in and change the way that Washington works. And he's the only person that can do that --
CUOMO: But --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: -- and it absolutely has to happen.
CUOMO: But knowing the system is different than abusing the system, right? It makes you go from cop to criminal, in a metaphorical complex. Now, you may understand --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think it's pretty unfair to call Donald Trump criminal here.
CUOMO: No, but look --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: If anybody's going to be a criminal in this race it's absolutely Hillary Clinton.
CUOMO: Nobody --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: Somebody who actually broke the law.
CUOMO: Nobody is a proven criminal and if we talk about breaking the law, put up "The New York Times" reporting. You know, this -- again --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: Because they're such a credible source.
CUOMO: Well, look, all right, fine.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: Let's believe it if it's in "The New York Times".
CUOMO: All right, fine. You know, all they did was go through the record of different things that have happened that have been recorded as fact. He used the 18 subsidiary companies back in the 80s. I'll give you that as a loophole because each of the different buildings was found in New York to be able to have its own pocket when it came to politics, so he did that. They didn't like within the election laws -- they went after him. He was then fined several different times for circumventing the laws.
This Bondi thing -- the IRS caught his charity doing a donation --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: Actually, they self-reported, so it wasn't that the IRS caught -- Donald Trump's organization self-reported and paid every penny back and corrected that mistake.
CUOMO: Well, there was a correction to the record. Once the IRS flagged it and find it they corrected it. So he has paid fines for these things more than once so it's not just using the system as a businessman, right? It's abusing the system. Isn't that a fair reckoning?
HUCKABEE SANDERS: There's nothing of -- there's nothing wrong with a Republican giving money to another Republican. What is wrong is a Secretary of State --
CUOMO: Or to a Democrat. He gave a lot to Democrats also.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: -- taking money from a foreign government. That's corruption, that's pay-to-play, that's a problem, that's what disqualifies Hillary Clinton. What Donald Trump was -- give money as a private citizen to somebody he's known for years, somebody he supports as a candidate, and, frankly, has been a great attorney general for Florida.
And so to compare the type of activity that Donald Trump is in versus the type of thing that Hillary Clinton has done is completely absurd. What's she done has disqualified her from being president.
CUOMO: Which of the two has been found to have broken the law when it comes to pay-for-play?
HUCKABEE SANDERS: Well, I think Hillary Clinton has certainly broken the law.
CUOMO: Which one has been found to have broken the law? Look, I get the argument you want to make about what's wrong with Clinton and you can do that. But don't you have to own what Trump has done? He has been fined and caught more than once for breaking the rules.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: Well --
CUOMO: Don't you have to own that? HUCKABEE SANDERS: I would say that the situation with Pam Bondi is a clerical mistake. They self-reported, they corrected it immediately, and Donald Trump paid that full price back, every single penny.
CUOMO: And the timing of the attorney general contacting Trump, asking for a donation, then saying she's considering looking at Trump University, getting a donation then not going after Trump University.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: I don't think she ever said she was considering looking at Trump University. In fact, a Democrat attorney general from --
CUOMO: The "Orlando Sentinel said that the office --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: -- multiple other states also --
CUOMO: -- was looking at it and they got it from the office. If Hillary Clinton did something like that --
[07:40:00] HUCKABEE SANDERS: A lower-level staffer --
CUOMO: -- what would you say?
HUCKABEE SANDERS: -- also admitted they never sent it up to Pam Bondi, so it never made it to her desk.
CUOMO: Boy, when that was said about Hillary Clinton with reference to what was going on with security measures in Benghazi, Donald Trump laughed it out of hand as a suggestion --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: Well, I think --
CUOMO: -- and said how could you not know what's going on in your office if you're the boss? But now, when it comes to Pam Bondi that rationale is perfectly acceptable to you.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think those are pretty big differences. Very minor, where you have one complaint filed in a state where they receive thousands upon thousands of complaints every day --
CUOMO: They didn't get just one complaint --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: -- versus the national security measures --
CUOMO: -- in Florida about Donald Trump. They got many.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: At the time that Pam Bondi was in office they only received one complaint the entire time that she was in office. There were other complaints filed prior to her taking office but from the day she took it on there was one complaint --
CUOMO: So there were other complaints there to look at it. Look, I'm not saying that there is proof that he did this but I'm just saying it doesn't look good, and that is the measuring stick for what you're doing with Clinton. There's no smoking gun. There's no proof of pay- for-play but certain things don't look good. Taking a hammer to a Blackberry doesn't look good. It's not illegal, according to the FBI, but that doesn't mean it's right. And so I'm asking, where is Trump's high ground here?
HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think there's a very big difference. Again, I go back to try to compare a Republican giving money to a fellow Republican to support them --
CUOMO: And Democrats.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: -- versus a --
CUOMO: He gave to both.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: -- foreign government --
CUOMO: Everybody got their handout.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: -- giving money to a Secretary of State. The level of corruption there is absolutely incomparable. I mean, those two things are not even remotely similar, in my mind.
CUOMO: And as we move forward in this campaign on this basis of what to do, Donald Trump hasn't said how he would change the system yet. Doesn't that matter? If he's going to be a change agent and he understands the system so well, what would he do differently? How would he fill in those holes that he, himself, exploited and actually broke those rules? How would he fix it?
HUCKABEE SANDERS: Well, I think, for starters he actually has the freedom to go in and do a lot of the things that he's campaigned on. You know, whether it's securing the border, helping education, reforming health care.
Hillary Clinton is so beholding to the donor class she has no freedom even if she wanted to do some of the things that she talks about. She's controlled by a group of 15 to 20 major donors that will dictate every move she makes.
Donald Trump doesn't have that same kind of handcuffs on him and he can go in and actually make big decisions, make bold reforms, and Hillary Clinton has no capability or freedom to do that.
CUOMO: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, these are not easy questions to deal with and we appreciate you doing just --
HUCKABEE SANDERS: Thank you.
CUOMO: -- that here on NEW DAY. As always, a pleasure to have you here.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: You bet.
CUOMO: So, you've heard the allegations, you have heard the defense of them, what do you think? Tweet us @NewDay or post your comment on facebook.com/NewDay -- Alisyn. CAMEROTA: Well, just hours before its big debut all the buzz surrounding Apple's new iPhone 7 is about what it might not include. Find out what's missing, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:46:20] CAMEROTA: It's time for "CNN MONEY" now. Apple unveiling its highly-anticipated iPhone 7 today. The new version, though, has some questionable changes. "CNN MONEY"s tech correspondent Samuel Burke is live in San Francisco where the announcement will be made. It's early there but what are you hearing, Sam?
SAMUEL BURKE, "CNN MONEY" TECH CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the question that will be answered today. Take a look at this list and you can decide for yourself. We are expecting a water-resistant phone. Drop your phone in a river, a pool, whatever body of water and hopefully it will survive. We're also expecting a dual lens camera, so you can take pictures. Hopefully, it will look like something a wedding photographer would take.
Also, we're expecting more storage -- 32 gigabytes instead of 16 gigabytes, starting out. And, of course, the elimination of the headphone port -- that little hole where you plug in your headphones. So how we listen to music -- a lot of people think that you'll have headphones, possibly, that will go through the charging port.
Also, wireless headphones. Those are already out on the market but maybe Apple will be selling some of their own. And you can maybe just use an adaptor. Those are already out on the market. I've been trying them. They work fine and they're cheap, so keep the pair of headphones that you have.
A lot of people asking me how can Apple think that they can get away with such a big change like this. We've used the headphone port for years but they have a long history of getting rid of the floppy disk drive, removable batteries, the DVD drive, and then the rest of the industry follows suit. And that is why all eyes will be fixed right here today, Chris.
CAMEROTA: Samuel, thanks for the sneak peek. I don't know -- plugging your headphone into the charging port sounds like it could be dangerous.
CUOMO: It could. But I think everyone's moving towards Bluetooth. My thing -- I say this every time, so Iapologize -- the glass -- the gorilla glass.
CAMEROTA: You think not strong enough?
CUOMO: Yes. As someone who's often likened to a gorilla, I must say that I am offended that this glass is called that. It breaks so easily. I can't believe they can't do better than this.
CAMEROTA: You can weigh in on gorilla affairs in a way no one else can. CUOMO: It is true. I am highly Simian.
CAMEROTA: Agreed.
CUOMO: New questions swirling over Donald Trump's outreach in battleground states. Is he doing enough to catch up to Clinton's ground game? We're going to speak with the RNC's chief strategist, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:52:35] CAMEROTA: This morning, Donald Trump will address national security in Pennsylvania. CNN's latest battleground state map had that state leaning Democratic and helping Hillary Clinton surpass the 270 electoral vote threshold. But there are new reports that the Trump campaign may be stretched too thin in the ground game.
So let's ask Sean Spicer. He's the chief strategist and communications director for the Republican National Committee. Great to have you here.
SEAN SPICER, CHIEF STRATEGIST & COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, RNC: Good morning.
CAMEROTA: How would you describe Donald Trump's ground game today?
SPICER: Phenomenal, excellent. When you look at the ground game that we've put out this cycle working hand-to-hand with the campaign it's the most comprehensive ground game that only political operation has ever put out.
CAMEROTA: But is that the same as biggest ground game -- comprehensive?
SPICER: Well, first of all, there's two issues. One is we do have more staff than we've ever had before. We're covering more states, we've made more voter contacts. So, I mean, from an output standpoint, at the end of the day what matters is the number of voter contacts you're making, the amount of data that you're collecting, and figuring out who those targets are that you're either going to get out early or persuade to vote for you on Election Day or before.
Right now we're ahead of the curve on that. We feel very good going into the final stretch.
CAMEROTA: Then help us understand these numbers, Sean, because these are the amount of offices that Donald Trump has in battleground states versus Hillary Clinton.
SPICER: Right.
CAMEROTA: So let me pull this up for everybody. In Ohio, he has half -- less than half of hers -- 16 to her 36. In Florida, he has one, she has 34. In Pennsylvania, two, she has 36. In North Carolina, zero. How is that comprehensive? SPICER: Well, first of all -- and I don't mean to be facetious when I say this -- but offices don't vote, people do. What we learned from Obama in '12, Obama looked really comprehensively at the Bush-Cheney '04 model and figured out what they did well and improved upon that.
What we did at the party is looked at what they did and improved upon that. And that's what we've focused on, which is voter contact, getting people trained, out into the field, making contact with voters, persuading them, registering, understanding more about them.
We've had over 5,000 volunteers. Comprehensively -- I mean, these are fellows that are having weekly metric trained. We've got over 1,000 paid staff on the ground. Each one of those people is going out and making sure that we understand every single voter that we need, where those turfs are where people live, what's making them vote, what issues are important, who the key influences are. Are they voting early, absentee.
But again, we've got the most comprehensive ground game that we've ever had in the party, and I would dare say that any party's ever had, and the proof's going to be on Election Day. But offices don't vote. Remember --
CAMEROTA: But this --
SPICER: -- you can have -- you can have a million people sitting in an office. What you want is a bunch of people out in the field, knocking on doors, talking to voters.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
SPICER: Making sure you understand what those issues are, what the concerns are that they have.
[07:55:00] CAMEROTA: Sure.
SPICER: Are they going to vote, do they have an absentee ballot in their hand, are they voting early? When are they going to vote? What are those key influences that are going to help them decide that in the election, and then following up with them.
CAMEROTA: I hear you. So in other words, in North Carolina, say, you're saying that you do have tons of volunteers, they're just not in an office. You don't have a physical office.
SPICER: No, in some cases we do have victory centers or they're working out of a county party, or whatever. What we recognized at the last couple of cycles is getting a bunch of people to sit around an office is not helping us win an election, and that's what we had been focused on.
I think what Obama did effectively over the last two cycles is recognize that voter contact -- community organizing, as they called it, was a much more effective way of getting out into the community, understanding those voters face-to-face, learning about them, learning about the issues that were important to them. And that propelled him to victory.
I think in a good, close election, which this is going to be, a good ground game is worth three to five points.
CAMEROTA: Absolutely, and so that's why we were asking about the ground game. So you think that the Trump campaign is pulling its weight. You don't feel that the RNC is having to -- we've read some reports that you're having to supplement the Trump campaign's ground game.
SPICER: No, no, it's not a question of supplement. I think early on, coming out of 2012, chairman Reince Priebus said no more T.V. ads. We're not putting those -- there's a bunch of folks that put money on T.V. but what we're going to focus on is building those comprehensive data operation and ground game operation. We've put all of our money on that. No more stockpiling money.
And we told all of our candidates at the beginning of this process, when you are all focused on becoming the nominee, we're going to focus on building the best, most-comprehensive ground game out there. Don't worry about it, we got it. You guys focus on your candidacy on building out that campaign, and that's what we've done.
And we've worked now, hand-in-glove, with the nominee to make sure that we have the most efficient program going so that we're not stepping on each other. We've got people out there. They're putting out state directors and other key people in states that are helping to direct where we need those key people in different battleground states. But it is a hand-in-glove operation that is working absolutely seamlessly and effectively.
CAMEROTA: It doesn't sound like you feel as though you're stretched too thin, though that was the worry when these 70 GOP officeholders sent a letter to Reince Priebus last month where they worried that there wasn't basically going to be enough manpower and energy for the down ballot candidates.
SPICER: Yes.
CAMEROTA: Let me read it to remind you and our viewers. "Only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump- emblazoned anchor around its neck." That's a strong message.
SPICER: It is.
CAMEROTA: What do you say to those people who are worried?
SPICER: I respectfully disagree. It's a hand -- you can't cut off the top of the ticket and expect the bottom to survive. Anybody who has a fundamental understanding of politics understands that you need a robust and vibrant top of the ticket for anyone at the bottom of the ticket to win. It just doesn't work that way.
What they believe should happen is that somehow you should bifurcate the ticket. But we need every one of those people that's out there and trying -- and remember, almost every one of the battleground states is also a key Senate state. Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida, they're all battleground states and that's the difference.
It's one thing if you had battleground states that weren't Senate- competitive states and you were trying to figure out how to allocate resources. In almost every one of those circumstances the competitive Senate races are competitive battleground states presidentially. And so it is -- you can't separate the two and that's where I think they're frankly, respectfully mistaken.
CAMEROTA: Sean Spicer, you sound energized.
SPICER: I am, thank you.
CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for breaking it all down with us on NEW DAY. Great to have you here.
SPICER: You bet.
CAMEROTA: We're following a lot of news this morning so let's get right to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My top generals will have 30 days to submit a plan for defeating ISIS.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: After all his talk, the only thing that is clear is he has no clue.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Hillary Clinton is the superior candidate in every respect.
TRUMP: She's a disaster in so many different ways.
BILL CLINTON (D), FORME PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He made a political contribution to the attorney general of Florida and, mysteriously, the investigation vanished.
TRUMP: How about the 33,000 missing emails that were acid washed?
CLINTON: The scams, the frauds, the business activity. The list goes on and on.
TRUMP: Putin looks at her and he laughs, OK? He laughs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone, welcome to your NEW DAY. Up first, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton clashing over national security. Trump says if he's elected he would give his top generals 30 days to give him a new plan to defeat ISIS. Clinton insists that Trump's secret plan is no plan at all. CUOMO: And Trump is getting a taste of his own medicine when it comes to pay-for-play allegations. There's a new report showing a long history of violating campaign giving limits by Trump.
Big numbers for you to remember. Sixty-two days until Election Day. Stakes could not be higher. When are those first votes cast? Not 62 days, 16, that's when early voting begins in some states. And just 19 days until Trump and Clinton face off in their first debate.
There are new developments, we have them covered. Let's get to CNN's Sara Murray, live in Greenville, NorthCarolina -- Sara.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Chris. Well, Donald Trump is trailing Hillary Clinton on who is best prepared to be commander in chief in our latest CNN/ORC poll.
