Return to Transcripts main page
New Day
North Korea Claims Another Nuclear Test; Trump Stands by Praise of Putin; Gary Johnson: 'What is Aleppo?'. Aired 7-7:30a ET
Aired September 09, 2016 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But we've seen some of the strongest sanctions on record against the reclusive country have done little to stop Kim Jong-un and his regime from developing these nuclear weapons.
[07:00:14] It is estimated that this explosion was a ten-kiloton nuclear weapon. The previous nuclear test in North Korea in January was four or five kilotons. So twice as strong, however, still weaker than the bomb that was dropped by the United States on Hiroshima back in 1945.
World leaders concerned, strong condemnation coming here in Japan and South Korea, also in China, which is North Korea's strongest ally. But China is not saying right now whether they were warned ahead of time that this nuclear blast might happen, even though a North Korean nuclear official, we believe, is in China right now -- Chris and Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Thanks so much, Will, for all of that reporting. We'll check back with you.
The Pentagon calling North Korea's brazen nuclear test a serious provocation. President Obama is promising serious consequences. Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is here in studio with more on the U.S. reaction.
Barbara, great to have you here.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
CAMEROTA: What are you hearing about what the U.S. will do?
STARR: This time around it is much different. This is not about the words. This is not about the rhetoric. If, indeed, the North Korean regime did test a nuclear warhead, this puts them a huge step closer to being able to actually put a warhead on a missile, shoot off that missile, and potentially someday be able to strike the United States.
What my sources have been telling me for the last several weeks is there is increasing concern the North Koreans are getting better at this step by step by step with every test. They're having successful missile tests. They're now having this warhead test. And they have developed a mobile capability, which means in time of war, they can put a nuclear missile, potentially, on a mobile launcher, move it around. U.S. satellites have to chase down where it may be. It's very interesting. The intelligence analysis in the last several
weeks has really fundamentally been different. They really believe the North Koreans are making progress, and they're not sure how they're doing it.
CAMEROTA: So what's President Obama going to do?
STARR: You know, what do you do about all this? We keep hearing the language. Sanctions, talk, rhetoric. You may have some leverage with the Chinese, but the Chinese are upset that the U.S. has put some missile defenses into South Korea. The South Koreans are upset. The Japanese are upset. The region is really on edge at this point.
Fundamentally, the South Koreans and the Japanese now are in a state of alert of some sort at all times against the possibility of a North Korean attack.
And going into the presidential election, this is -- you know, this is very serious business in the view of the U.S. intelligence community. Rhetoric can get very dangerous here. The North Koreans just are not backing off.
CUOMO: And our -- Barbara Starr, thank you very much.
Our discussion of what we're doing vis-a-vis the world's bad actors extends into the campaign dialogue. Donald Trump is standing by his praise for Vladimir Putin. He's now getting support from his running mate, the man who's supposed to walk back Trump's reckless talk.
Hillary Clinton is slamming Trump's comments and just moments ago getting new military support as she prepares for a sit-down with national security experts.
We have CNN's senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, following all the developments for us -- Jeff.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.
The praise Donald Trump is showering upon Vladimir Putin is a remarkable break from the traditional boundaries of American politics. It's outraging Democrats and even making many Republicans uneasy about the blurred lines of country versus party.
Now, Hillary Clinton says it's the latest sign Trump is not fit for the presidency.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He is really very much of a leader.
ZELENY: Amid ongoing criticism of his praise for Russian president Vladimir Putin...
TRUMP: I mean, he's been a leader far more than our president has been a leader.
ZELENY: ... Donald Trump, in an interview that aired on a television station funded by the Kremlin, telling Larry King he thinks it's unlikely the Russian government is meddling in the 2016 election through hacking.
TRUMP (via phone): I think it's probably unlikely. I think maybe -- maybe the Democrats are putting that out.
If they are doing something, I hope that somebody's going to be able to find out so they can -- they can end it. Because that would not be appropriate at all.
ZELENY: Trump's team telling CNN they did the interview as a favor, claiming they had no idea it would end up on "Russia Today."
His running mate, Governor Mike Pence, defending Trump's comments about Putin in a CNN interview with Dana Bash earlier in the day.
GOV. MIKE PENCE (R-IN), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think it's inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country. And that's going to change the day that Donald Trump becomes president.
ZELENY: Hillary Clinton highlighting Trump's continued praise of Putin. She says it's the latest example of how her opponent is unfit to be president.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: That is not just unpatriotic. It's not just insulting to the office and the man who holds the office. It is scary. It is dangerous.
[07:05:007] We have never been threatened as much by a single candidate running for president as we have been in this election.
ZELENY: And Clinton also casting Trump as a divider in this new ad hitting the airwaves in swing states this morning.
CLINTON: Donald Trump says he alone can fix the problems we face. Well, I don't believe that's how you get things done in our country. It takes Democrats and Republicans working together.
ZELENY: This as both candidates continue trying to paint themselves as the better commander in chief.
TRUMP (on camera): I opposed going in. And I did oppose it, despite the media saying, "Oh, yes, no."
ZELENY: Trump sticking by his false claim that he opposed the Iraq War early on, despite evidence from 2002 that proves otherwise.
HOWARD STERN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Are you for invading Iraq?
TRUMP (via phone): Yes, I guess so.
ZELENY: As Clinton qualifies the language around her pledge to never put troops back on the ground in Iraq.
CLINTON: We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again, and we're not putting ground troops into Syria.
ZELENY (on camera): Isn't that, A, ignoring some ground forces who are there and, B, boxing yourself in?
CLINTON: There is no, in my opinion, path forward to ground troops that would be in our interests.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZELENY: Now, Clinton is hoping to highlight her commander-in-chief credentials by rolling out the endorsement of now 110 retired generals and admirals after she convenes a bipartisan meeting of homeland security experts later today in New York.
She's also drawing attention to Trump's comments on Putin by evoking Ronald Reagan. Yesterday on the campaign trail, she asked this: "What would Reagan say about a Republican nominee who heaps praise on Russia's president? I think we know the answer," she said -- Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Jeff, thanks for all that.
Let's bring in our CNN political commentators. We have Christine Quinn, Hillary Clinton supporter and vice chair of the New York State Democratic Party; and Corey Lewandowski, former Trump campaign manager, who is still receiving severance from the Trump campaign. Welcome to both of you.
CHRISTINE QUINN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: Great to have you here.
Corey, why does Donald Trump continue to praise Putin?
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think you heard what Mike Pence said, that Vladimir Putin has had a stronger influence on his country than Barack Obama has had here. He's been a stronger leader.
CAMEROTA: You believe that? You believe that Vladimir Putin is stronger than President Obama?
LEWANDOWSKI: I think that, for his people, Vladimir Putin has been a fighter. And what he has done for his people is to say, "Look, there's an opportunity sometimes to work with our -- what would be normally an adversary."
And what Donald Trump has said was, "Let's engage with Russia for a common goal, which is defeat ISIS."
CAMEROTA: Sure, but this is different.
LEWANDOWSKI: It hasn't happened. CAMEROTA: Vladimir Putin is a dictator. Does Donald Trump believe in locking up your political opponents? Does he believe in shutting down a free press?
LEWANDOWSKI: I think Vladimir Putin has done some terrible things, and there's been some speculation and conjecture of what's taken place inside the Kremlin.
CAMEROTA: So why praise him?
LEWANDOWSKI: But what we do know -- what we do know is that, when there are times to work together to defeat the biggest crisis of our lifetime right now, which is ISIS, we should be working with our adversaries so they can become our friends.
CAMEROTA: He's gone further. Go ahead, Christine.
QUINN: That's a -- that's a strategic decision, right? Who you're going to work with, who you're going to not worth with. But that's not really what we're talking about.
What we're talking about is a presidential candidate, a nominee of the Republican Party, praising a man who is, without question, a brutal dictator. To say he's been a strong leader, he's a dictator. He's not a leader.
CAMEROTA: Does Donald Trump understand that distinction? Dictator versus strong leader?
LEWANDOWSKI: Of course he does. Of course.
QUINN: Then how does he praise him?
LEWANDOWSKI: Look, I think again, you have to remember, you know, Hillary Clinton tried to do a reset with the Soviet Union, with Russia. It didn't work. Right? What we need to do is we need to have a better relationship with our friends and our enemies across -- across the world...
CAMEROTA: So why then...
LEWANDOWSKI: ... so we can defeat a global terrorist community crisis.
CAMEROTA: Why is Donald Trump giving Russia a pass on hacking, possibly, into the DNC computers?
LEWANDOWSKI: Look, we don't know if they hacked into the DNC computers.
CAMEROTA: The intelligence officials believe that Russia was behind hacking into the DNC computers.
LEWANDOWSKI: Let's see if that's actually true or not. We don't know.
CAMEROTA: But why are you giving them the benefit of the doubt? Why give Russia the benefit of the doubt?
LEWANDOWSKI: It could have been the Chinese. I mean, you know, the biggest adversary that we have right now in the economic world is the Chinese. They continue to manipulate the currency. Right? We don't see that with the Soviets; we don't see that with the Russians. Right?
What Donald Trump has said and continues to say is let's find a way to work with Russia so that we can defeat ISIS. That's the No. 1 priority.
QUINN: He has said that Putin, and I'm paraphrasing, but a terrific leader, a strong leader. A man's praise who I will accept.
This man, again, I just don't understand how you praise someone who has oppressed his people, is a terrible dictator, has a long record of human rights violations. It just is totally counter to the United States' values. And to kind of double down on it, not to talk about it in the more kind of parsed out way that you are, Corey, but to double down and really embrace him, it seems, to quote Secretary Clinton, just un-American.
[07:10:08] CAMEROTA: Then Christine, tell me if you understand this. The polls are tightening. Despite all of this, all of this rhetoric that you find offensive, the polls are tightening.
Look at these Quinnipiac polls. These are the latest polls in the swing states. This isn't a national poll. These are the states that matter. Pennsylvania, yes, Clinton is still up, but by a shorter -- smaller margin, 48 to 43. North Carolina, 47 to 43. Look at this: Florida is in a dead heat. And in Ohio at the moment, Donald Trump is up a point. How do you explain that?
QUINN: We all knew this would happen. I think if you asked the internals of either campaign, they would have said...
CAMEROTA: But I mean this week. In this week particularly, as he's praising Putin, as all the things that you think are sort of disqualifying -- and I'm putting words in your mouth.
QUINN: That's fair.
CAMEROTA: Why don't voters see it that way?
QUINN: I think we will see voters see it that way. Look, the race -- presidential races always tighten after Labor Day. Both sides know that. Both parties know that. I think we're going to see things change over the next few weeks.
And again, I want to go back to what Errol Louis said earlier on the show. Those swing state numbers are in states that are typically not ones where the Democratic Party wins. So when you look at them all together, they are not -- being up in those swing states is not bad, but we knew it would close. There's no question.
CAMEROTA: OK, Corey. LEWANDOWSKI: This week we saw Donald Trump lay out a very specific plan when it comes to education choice. We saw him lay out a very specific plan when it comes to rebuilding the military. We saw him answer questions in a commander in chief forum. And the first seven minutes of that forum were focused on Hillary Clinton's e-mails. And she continues to be dogged by this criticism. The news networks have not accepted this notion that no e-mail was, you know, labeled as classified. It's just not the truth.
And so what you saw this week was Donald Trump winning. And with nine weeks, less than nine weeks to go in the election, you don't have to win every day. You have to win every hour. And if he continues to win, these numbers are going to continue to improve, and he'll be elected president.
CAMEROTA: Hold on, Christine. I just want to get to one thing, because this has also come up this week. Does Donald Trump believe that President Obama was born in Hawaii?
LEWANDOWSKI: Look, of course, he said that. He said he's not going to talk about it.
CAMEROTA: No, he hasn't.
QUINN: He hasn't.
CAMEROTA: He hasn't talked about it. He's never said he believes that.
LEWANDOWSKI: He has said that Barack Obama has produced his birth certificate, and he doesn't want to talk about it anymore. That's what he said.
CAMEROTA: Why doesn't he say, "I apologize for saying that he was not an American"?
LEWANDOWSKI: No, no, he asked a question. He said, "Produce your birth certificate." The birth certificate's been produced. He's moved on.
QUINN: But that doesn't mean he accepts the birth certificate.
CAMEROTA: It doesn't.
QUINN: He never said.
LEWANDOWSKI: Are you saying it's not a real birth certificate?
CAMEROTA: Very tricky, Corey. Hold on a second.
QUINN: I want to know what Donald Trump thinks.
CAMEROTA: I can tell you what Donald Trump thinks. Let me play for you what he told Bill O'Reilly, who brought it up. OK, Bill O'Reilly, not just Democrats, FOX News is bringing it up, because Donald Trump is so unresolved on this issue. Let me play this for you. QUINN: He never said he was born in Hawaii.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL O'REILLY, FOX NEWS HOST: So you think your birther position has hurt you among African-Americans?
TRUMP: I don't know. I have no idea. I don't even talk about it anymore, Bill. Because...
O'REILLY: No, I know. But it's there. It's on the record.
TRUMP: I don't know. I guess -- I guess with maybe some. I don't know why. I really don't know why.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: That's all he says: "I don't talk about it anymore. I don't know why. I don't talk about it anymore." He never says, "I now think I was wrong."
LEWANDOWSKI: The question -- the question was, is this, you know, hurting you with African-Americans? What we saw in the last two polls was Donald Trump is getting about 8 percent of the African-American population.
CAMEROTA: That's not my question. My question is, why doesn't he say, "I was wrong?"
LEWANDOWSKI: Look, it's a nonissue.
CAMEROTA: It's not a nonissue. It keeps coming up everywhere.
LEWANDOWSKI: He's not running against Barack Obama in this campaign. If he was, he'd win. If he runs against Hillary Clinton, which is the third term of Barack Obama, he's going to win. Let's talk about Hillary Clinton, who's running for president of the United States.
CAMEROTA: OK. Last word. Last word.
QUINN: Let's talk about Donald Trump. He's insulted the president of the United States, spread lies about his citizenship, and insulted the first African-American president of the United States. And now that he's running for president, that does deserve an apology.
And yet again, Donald Trump can't admit that he's wrong and dog whistles out there across the country to divide us, not bring us together.
LEWANDOWSKI: Look, the president has attacked Donald Trump on multiple occasions from the White House. And if he wants to apologize to Donald Trump, I'm sure Donald Trump will apologize.
CAMEROTA: He's not saying he's not a citizen. He's not saying he wasn't born here.
LEWANDOWSKI: He's said a number of egregious things and questioned his patriotism. He's questioned a number of things of Donald Trump.
CAMEROTA: This is in a different category.
LEWANDOWSKI: He's supposed to be the president of the United States.
QUINN: And Donald Trump...
CAMEROTA: Will we ever hear Donald Trump address it?
LEWANDOWSKI: For Barack Obama to determine if Donald Trump is fit to be president of the United States, he gets one vote like everybody else.
QUINN: Who is Donald Trump to question whether the president of the United States, for years now, is a citizen?
CAMEROTA: All right. Got it. All right. We're leaving it there. Corey, Christine, thank you very much.
QUINN: You're welcome.
CAMEROTA: Got it. Chris.
CUOMO: All right. So Alisyn, even in this gaffe-a-thon of an election, this moment stands out. Libertarian candidate for president Gary Johnson completely muffs a question about the city at the center of an international crisis. How did Gary Johnson not know what Aleppo means? What will it mean for the campaign? We're going to talk to Johnson's running mate, former governor William Weld. There he is.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[07:18:56] MIKE BARNICLE, MSNBC: What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?
GARY JOHNSON (L), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: About?
BARNICLE: Aleppo.
JOHNSON: And what is Aleppo?
BARNICLE: You're kidding.
JOHNSON: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: That's the Libertarian ticket leader, Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, with his major setback during an interview, an uncomfortable moment, to be sure. He blanked on Aleppo. That's the Syrian city in the north of the country. It happens to be the epicenter of that country's refugee crisis.
The mistake comes as the Libertarians work to get to the 15 percent threshold that would get them on the debate stage, if they had 15 percent in the five polls that the committee on debates chooses.
Joining us now is Johnson's running mate, former governor of Massachusetts, William Weld.
Governor, thank you for joining us. How big a deal -- how big a deal do you think it should be that your running mate did not immediately understand what Mike Barnicle was asking about when he said, "Aleppo"?
WILLIAM WELD (L), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You know, no denying it's quite a moment on television. But I think Gary just didn't realize the context was Syria or geography or anything like that.
[07:20:02] I thought Mike Barnicle wrote a very nice piece yesterday saying, "Look, I asked the question. Don't blame Johnson. Could happen to anybody. The wider context is, you know, what are we going to do about Syria?" And I've heard Gary Johnson talk about that virtually every day for the last month.
CUOMO: Well, Barnicle...
WELD: He just didn't follow the word.
CUOMO: Barnicle may have been charitable afterwards, but he wasn't during that moment. He looked at him with nothing short of disdain when he said, "You can't be serious," about not knowing it.
And obviously, what that goes to, other than the opportunism of the questioner in that moment, is if you're running for president, you have to know the things that maybe 85 percent of other Americans don't know. I'm using that number because that's the number you used, Governor. You said, "Probably 85 percent of Americans can't find Aleppo." That's not really the point, though, is it?
WELD: Well, no, that's right. But I mean, there are a lot of towns in Syria. There's Aleppo. There's Homs. There's Palmyra. There's Damascus. You know, I note for the record that the paper of record, "The New York Times" reported that Aleppo was the capital of Syria. It's not. Damascus is. And "Times" also reported that Aleppo was the headquarter of ISIS. It's not. Raqqah is. And, you know, "The Times" is paid to get these things right also.
CUOMO: So what do you think this does to the campaign?
WELD: You know, I suppose we're going to have to wait and see whether people think that not picking up on the name of a town in Syria is a mortal sin or a venial sin. I don't think it does a great deal. I don't think it's something that will last.
It comes as we're in the final stretches of the decision making about who's going to be in the debates, and that's really what's front and center on our minds. We're pretty close. We were 13 percent in the last "Washington Post" poll and very competitive in a whole bunch of swing states.
CUOMO: Yes. WELD: So we think that, when the polling is showing that 80 percent
of the people, 76 percent of the people in the country want Johnson/Weld in those debates, I would hope the commission would pay attention to that. They're supposed to be an educational organization.
CUOMO: Well, they have their threshold of 15 percent. Let's put up our poll number. Most recently has you at about 7 percent. I've seen you at 10. I saw you once at 13. I've never seen you at 15 in any of the polls that the...
WELD: No, 13 -- 13 is the highest I've seen.
CUOMO: Right.
WELD: But, you know, we're moving. And we're spending money. And the last poll that had us at 13 does not reflect any of our media buy since we started doing that to move the numbers.
CUOMO: But there's got to be a standard. Right? You know that about 100 people, you know, file to run for president in each cycle. They have to draw a line about who can get on that stage so that there's some type of focus on those with a legitimate chance of winning.
WELD: Well, we have two two-term governors, you know, two two-term Republican governors, reasonably successful ones, in blue states who worked across the aisle, which people do not do in Washington.
We have a different portfolio mix of positions than either other party. We're fiscally conservative. We're responsible. We're socially inclusive. The Democrats don't look terribly fiscally responsible these days. And the Republicans most certainly are not socially inclusive. So we offer the voters a clear choice.
I would think that would weigh with the commission also. I mean, I think there's a national interest in having us in this -- in this discussion, in this debate. And it's not like we're polling at 2 percent. We're polling at 13 percent.
And Gary's first among active military. He's first among young millennials. He's second among independents. It's also not like he's in third place in everything.
CUOMO: Why isn't the gaffe on Aleppo disqualifying for Gary Johnson?
WELD: One word? I mean, Gary said he didn't realize that Mike was talking about geography. He thought he was talking about...
CUOMO: An acronym.
WELD: ... an acronym. Yes.
CUOMO: But I mean, you don't think that it is a metaphor for what he understands?
WELD: Like V.P. CUOMO: Yes, I get it. But thank you for telling me what an anachronism [SIC] is, Governor.
What I'm saying is the idea that not knowing what Aleppo is, is a metaphor for his not understanding the detail of foreign policy the way a president would have to.
WELD: No, I think it's just a linguistic matter. If he'd said, "Well, what do you think about the terrible atrocities of the refugee problem in Aleppo," that would put it in context. There's no way that Gary wouldn't have known that he was referring to the Syrian city of Aleppo.
CUOMO: Let me ask you something.
WELD: There's no context. "What would you do about Aleppo?" It kind of hung out there.
CUOMO: Understood. The larger context of what we're seeing in the election, something that's really resonating right now is this ongoing thought from the Trump campaign that Putin should be elevated above the president of the United States when it comes to leadership.
It is certainly odd in an election, it's certainly odd for a Republican to say something so flattering about a communist leader. What do you think the intention is, and what do you think the impact is on this race?
[07:25:03] WELD: I just think everything -- virtually everything Mr. Trump says about foreign policy is beyond belief. This is just one example.
Saying that we need to close our borders and have a closed economy, turn our back on free trade. He's virtually said we should abrogate our treaties. He said we should multiply the number of nations that have nuclear weapons. Wouldn't it be a handy idea for Japan and South Korea to have nuclear weapons?
He just -- he knows nothing about international economics or history, as far as I can tell, and doesn't seem interested in finding out, either. You want information deficits, go hunting in the Trump campaign.
CUOMO: Governor William Weld, thank you very much for making the case for your ticket and your comments on the race, as well. Thanks for being on NEW DAY.
WELD: Thanks, Chris.
CUOMO: All right. Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Let's talk a little more about this, because coming up, is Gary Johnson's Aleppo blunder a finishing blow to his campaign? Our Michael Smerconish has some thoughts. He weighs in next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAMEROTA: All right. So you just heard from Libertarian vice- presidential candidate Bill Weld as the clock ticks on them qualifying for the upcoming presidential debates. Was the Aleppo misstep by Johnson a disqualifier?
