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Trump Attacks Clintons' 'Sordid Past'; Clinton's New Strategy to Court Millennials; Report: Trump Foundation Didn't Get Certification; What Caused Deadly Train Crash? Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 30, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The future of our country will be on the ballot.

[05:58:21] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The Clintons are the sordid past. We will be the very bright, clean future.

CLINTON: He's putting his personal and business interests ahead of the laws.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN CHAIR: It's fair game to think about how Hillary Clinton treated those women.

TRUMP: I have a very good history. A lot different than his. That I can tell you.

CLINTON: I'm not going to comment on how he runs his campaign. You'll be able to see.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard a bomb-like explosion. The train came in at a high rate of speed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just didn't stop. Just got thrown around. Lights went out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard a really loud bang, then deafening silence. Screams in terror.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, September 30, 6 a.m. in the East. And up first, the race for president has taken a turn. Donald Trump has beauty queen on the brain. The accusation that he insulted and fat-shamed a Miss Universe contestant has gotten under his skin. So he has decided to make the election about what he calls the Clintons' sordid past, despite warnings from many of his own supporters that this strategy could backfire.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Also, we have new investigative reporting to share about Trump's charitable foundation, and Hillary Clinton is still struggling to shore up support from a key voting bloc.

We have a lot to talk about, with just 39 days until election day. Nine days until the next presidential debate. We're covering it from every angle, beginning with CNN's Chris Frates. He's live from Washington.

Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Alisyn.

Well, after a week of fallout from Trump's lackluster debate performance on Monday, his advisors are talking about overhauling how the GOP nominee prepares for his next face-off with Hillary Clinton, with some suggesting that Chris Christie take the lead and bring some brutal honesty to that process.

Now meanwhile, Trump's preparing new lines of attack.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: The Clintons are the sordid past. We will be the very bright and clean future.

FRATES (voice-over): The presidential race is getting personal, Donald Trump hinting that he's considering bringing up Bill Clinton's infidelity the next time he faces off with Hillary Clinton on the debate stage.

TRUMP: Well, she was very nasty to me, and I was going to do it, and I saw Chelsea sitting out in the audience and I just didn't want to go there.

FRATES: The thrice-married candidate telling reporters he's not worried about this attack inviting scrutiny of his own marital history, like his well-documented affair with actress Marla Maples while he was married to his first wife.

TRUMP: I have a very good history. I guess, I mean, they can do it, but it's a lot different than his. That I can tell you. I mean, we have a situation where we have a president who was a disaster, and he was ultimately impeached over it, in a sense, for lying. So, we'll see whether or not we discuss it.

FRATES: The plan, an attempt to fight back against Trump's own controversial comments about women, detailing talking points obtained by CNN this week, encouraging Trump's surrogates to drop names from Bill Clinton's past, like Monica Lewinsky.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you, as someone who presumably wants more women to run for and win office and high office, feel any obligation, if Trump brings up your husband's past, to speak out against a spouse's indiscretions or past being brought into a campaign like this?

CLINTON: No. Look, he can say whatever he wants to say, as we well know. We have seen it in real time over the last many months. And I'm going to keep running my campaign. FRATES: Trump's also standing by his claim that he did a service to

the country by leading the birther movement.

TRUMP: I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate, and I think I did a good job.

FRATES: And going a step further, saying he's proud of his effort, while reiterating a false claim that Clinton questioned the president's citizenship when she ran against him in 2008.

TRUMP: I'm the one that got him to put up his birth certificate. Hillary Clinton was unable to get there, and I will tell you she tried; and she was unable to do it. And I tried, and I was able to do it. So I'm very proud of that.

FRATES: All this as Trump's foundation faces renewed scrutiny this morning, saying the New York state attorney general's office, "The Washington Post" reporting that the charity never obtained a certification that New York requires before charities can solicit money from the public. The Trump campaign has not responded to the paper's request for comment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRATES: Now, CNN has also reached out to the Trump campaign and has gotten no response yet.

And also this morning, "USA Today" has an editorial out, calling Trump unfit for the presidency. The first time in the paper's 34-year history it's taken sides in a presidential race.

But the paper noted it wasn't endorsing Clinton either. And yesterday, the paper ran an op-ed by Mike Pence, where the veep candidate made the case for his running mate -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Chris. Thank you very much.

Hillary Clinton hitting another key battleground today, stumping in Florida. Clinton is fighting on two fronts. She's continuing to take on Trump personally while trying to court a key group, millennials.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is live in Washington with details -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, Donald Trump continues to try to bait Hillary Clinton with threats of bringing up her husband's past infidelities. Clinton is now back on the road, and she's mocking Trump for his debate performance, using his own words about being smart for not paying income taxes. Clinton is going after Trump's tax plan, character, as well as his business practices.

She's in Florida today. She's making two campaign stops, and she's pushing to court the millennials, who polls now show are being drawn to the third-party candidates, particularly Gary Johnson. The threat now is Johnson could become a spoiler, so Clinton was faced with that question at a press gaggle aboard her plane. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Clinton: I think either Donald Trump or I will be THE president of the United States. And so people have to look carefully in making their decision about who to vote for, because it will be either him or me. And I am going to do everything I can to make sure it's me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: A new poll out of Michigan, giving us a first glimpse here now of Clinton's post-debate bounce. It shows Clinton now with a seven-point lead over Trump in both a head-to-head matchup, as well as in a four-way contest with the Libertarian and Green Party candidates.

Particularly revealing here is the 21-point lead she has among women. And, also, another poll out of New Hampshire showing Clinton is ahead of Trump 42 to 35 percent. And it should come as no surprise that today Trump is campaigning in Michigan. That, of course, where he is behind in this new poll -- Alisyn, Chris.

CAMEROTA: OK. Thanks so much for had of that background. Let's talk about everything that we've just raised.

Joining us now is CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston. We have CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich; and "Washington Post" reporter David Fahrenthold, who broke the story about the Trump Foundation never registering for the proper certification. So we will get to that in moment. David, thanks so much for being here.

Let's just first start with the battle of philanderers. Just so that we can quickly get through this. Mark, what is in it? Why are we here again? Why are we dredging up the '90s? What's in this, about who's the worst philanderer? What's in it for voters? What's in it for the candidates? What's in it for the media?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, a couple things. One is it's Donald Trump who decided to bring this issue up, even though he says he's not bringing up, by talking about it constantly, time and time again. He's the one who's shining the spotlight on it.

You know, the reason why he's doing it is that I think he's trying to go for the nuclear option at this point. He had a terrible debate performance. The polls are very likely to show the next couple days that Hillary Clinton was able to stop her slide and Donald Trump's rise.

CAMEROTA: Maybe. I mean, we don't know. Unknown right now.

PRESTON: But let me just -- let me just say that that's probably where we're going, because that is why he would address this at this point.

Why it's important for us to address it, specifically, is because then it comes into the issue of politics and strategy. And this is a stupid strategy by Donald Trump. It wasn't Hillary Clinton that was cheating on her husband. It was her husband cheating on him. And all he's doing right now is creating her as being the victim, again. And we've seen in the past, when that happens, her popularity goes sky high.

CUOMO: Jackie, we know how this usually plays out because of what Mark just said. But I think this is also a story about how Trump handles the negativity. I mean, his Twitter feed is on fire, even by his standards about this. He can't let the Miss Universe thing go. He just keeps pummeling this woman Machado, writing that, you know, "Hillary, you know, you didn't know about this, and she's terrible about that." And he's just tweeting and tweeting and tweeting.

What does it say about the ability to control him if he were ever in office and he got upset about something? You know, people don't know that, but that's how the presidency works. People come and say, "No, no, no. You've got to let this go. We have to focus on this." And these people who are in the office listen. Would he?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No, it doesn't seem like it. Donald Trump said long ago that he keeps his own council, and he's his best adviser. And whether or not that is true, that is what he continues to do.

And this does go to temperament. Why is he still talking about Miss Universe and he's dredging up all this negativity on how he's treated women in the past, which is why he's trying to talk about Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton's past. But it really does -- it shines back on him. Be in how he's treated his ex-wives, be it how he's treated female subordinates in the past. And it's not a pretty picture. So it really -- it really is wrong-headed and, as Mark Preston said, frankly, a stupid strategy. It doesn't make any sense.

CAMEROTA: But that is why it's so confusing, David. Is because Donald Trump and Bill Clinton exhibited much of these same behavior in at least through the '90s, maybe beyond. So, the hypocrisy. There is an error of hypocrisy of going after Bill Clinton's philandering and maybe worse when Donald Trump is accused of the same things. So how does it work?

DAVID FAHRENTHOLD, REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": Well, you're right. And I think the -- what Trump may not realize, as well, he thought at the time that his marital problems got a lot of publicity. It's been a long time ago. And they didn't get anywhere near the publicity that Bill Clinton's did. So the idea that people may not know about Bill Clinton's infidelities in the past, probably they know a lot less about Donald Trump's, and they're about to be reminded.

I think that Trump may not have really thought this through. He thinks he has an advantage here. He also consumes a lot of right-wing media where this is sort of taken for granted that this is a really powerful avenue of attack. He may not have thought about it sort of in the context of a general election.

CUOMO: And also, some of that influence is his own backyard, right? Mark, I mean, he's got Bossie, who's done an amazing job at Citizens United. He's got Bannon, who's the Breitbart guy. This is often their terrain.

PRESTON: Right. And this is what we call the right-wing media. That is the two folks who are running his campaign right now who have really made a career, specifically David Bossie has made a career of trying to take down the Clintons.

Talk about hypocrisy here, though. Let's take home on this. Donald Trump did an interview on CNN back -- back around 2008, 2009, where he said it was stupid for the House of Representatives to impeach Bill Clinton.

CUOMO: And it wasn't a big deal. That it was small potatoes, that they were judging him falsely, that he's a good guy.

Preston: And now he is out attacking him and attacking him very hard. I mean, it's like literally, he's gone to a knife fight. And Donald Trump has decided to take a cannon to it right now.

So again, stupid strategically, because what we're doing right now the spotlight is going to shine back onto Donald Trump. And does he want his personal life thrown out into the spotlight? If I'm him, I probably wouldn't want that.

CAMEROTA: David, let's move on and talk about the Trump Foundation, because you have new reporting where you've found out that the Trump Foundation, which operates as a charity, did not get the proper certification to be a charity. Why is that important?

FAHRENTHOLD: Well, it's important, because what they didn't get was permission from New York state, where the Trump Foundation is based, to raise money from other people. Now that matters, because the Trump Foundation has raised all of its money from other people since 2008, which is the last time that Trump himself gave any money.

And so they didn't file the right paperwork. But it's more than just the paperwork. It's more than just not paying the 25 bucks extra each year to get the right certification. By not doing this, Trump avoided a requirement that he submit to an annual audit, a real annual audit that might have looked into his foundation and found some of the violations of law that we seemed to have found along the way this year.

So by not registering, he not only prevented himself from legally soliciting money; he protected himself from some outside scrutiny.

CUOMO: And Jackie, just to kind of end this on, you know, a note that's somewhat worthy, this situation isn't so much about, "Hey, did you hear about this woman? Did you hear about this woman?" It's what will Donald Trump do when faced with something that he doesn't like? Is he going to make this campaign about what he says, which is let's not talk about the tawdry stuff. Let's talk about jobs and trade.

Or do you think he'll be unable to resist the urge to defend himself, as he sees it, and just go down this road to the end?

KUCINICH: Well, the next debate, at least, he will be constrained, because it is a town hall debate. There will be questions asked of him not necessarily by moderators but by, you know, everyday people.

So, that is -- I mean, that might change the dynamic a little bit. But he hasn't really shown the capacity to stay on message for any more than a couple of days.

Earlier in this campaign we kept on talking about, "Ooh, is there a pivot here? Is there a pivot there?" Pivots have been canceled for a very long time. This is what we're left with. This is Donald Trump. And whether he finally starts -- he's not going to start listening to his advisors. Whether he gets it in his head that you can't just keep on going on these tangents. You really should talk about things people actually care about, like the economy. We'll have to see, because we haven't seen it yet.

CAMEROTA: Mark, very quickly.

PRESTON: Let us put this on the table. What Bill Clinton did was terrible, and it was awful. And there's no way that anybody in the media right now is justifying what he did.

We're talking about the plain politics of where we are right now and whether Donald Trump is making a strategic decision. To your point, Chris, if he is getting -- if this is getting under his skin for this, what if he becomes president and Kim Jong-un gets under his skin? That's what the issue is.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. Stick around. We have many more questions for you.

CUOMO: And he's -- and he's doing well, because he was talking about these other things. That's what makes it so odd.

So other news. Federal investigators are trying to determine the cause of that deadly commuter train crash in Hoboken, New Jersey. One person lost their life, 114 injured.

What we do know is that the train was traveling at a high rate of speed when it slammed into a terminal wall at the height of Thursday's morning rush. The big question is, why was it going that fast? Could it have been avoided?

CNN's Brynn Gingras is live in Hoboken. And this often comes back, Brynn, to one phrase: positive train control, positive track control. Still don't have it. Would have controlled the train, no matter what the engineer was doing.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. There's a lot of questions about that. Federal lawmakers coming out saying it should have had that. But certainly, that's something the NTSB is going to see if that would have even played a factor with this particular crash.

Chris, it's important to point out, this is the first full day that the NTSB is here on the scene investigating. And so far they've been able to collect some evidence from the back of the train. That is an event recorder which registers the speed and braking of this particular train.

They haven't yet been able to access the front of the train yet where the engineer sits. And remember, that engineer pulled unconscious from the train yesterday. Now, the reason investigators can't get there quite yet is because you saw all that video. The structural damage caused by this crash made it impossible and just simply dangerous for investigators to get to.

And they want to pull some video recordings from that area. And they think, they hope they're going to get in there later this afternoon. And hopefully, that will tell them some more answers to those questions that you posed, Chris. As for now, though, some answers hopefully soon coming from the engineer. His name identified as Thomas Gallagher. Twenty-nine years he's worked for New Jersey Transit. Certainly, an experienced engineer at this point, but a crash that really is offering a lot of questions.

Injured 114 people who went to the hospital and, of course, killed that 34-year-old woman, identified as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon. Certainly a sad story here. And Alisyn, as we work into the morning commute on this Friday, this, of course, is a train station where thousands of people commute through. New Jersey Transit is shut down, so there will be snarls later this morning.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely, Brynn. OK. Thanks so much for that reporting.

Well, this morning, President Obama is in Israel, bidding a final farewell to the country's former prime minister and president, Shimon Peres. The president among dozens of leaders from around the globe attending the funeral for Peres, a Nobel laureate and one of Israel's founding fathers. In a 20-minute eulogy, Mr. Obama said Peres' legacy will live on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:15:05] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He knew better than the cynic that, if you look out over the arc of history, human beings should be filled not with fear, but with help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Shimon Peres died Wednesday two weeks after suffering a major stroke. He was 93 years old.

CUOMO: And you saw just in the representation of the world of people who came there to see him just what he meant. It will be interesting to see who replaces that influence in Israel.

CAMEROTA: It's not easy to find a replacement for someone like that who touched so many lives through so many generations.

CUOMO: He was one of a kind. Seventy years of service.

All right. So Donald Trump still fending off controversies from the first debate days later. What is he saying now about the birther issue? Yes, he brought it up. Why? Next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: It is the controversy that will not go away, mainly because Donald Trump keeps talking about it. Birtherism. Once again, here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm the one that got him to put up his birth certificate. Hillary Clinton was unable to get there. And I will tell you, she tried. And you look at her campaign, and everybody knows it happened. And I would say that pretty much everybody agrees with me. But she tried. And she was unable to do it and I tried and I was able to do it. So I'm very proud of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:21] CUOMO: All right. To the extent that the truth still matters, let's bring back our panel. Mark Preston, Jackie Kucinich, it's good to have you both. Hillary started it. She tried. I finished it. Is that true?

PRESTON: Thank God that he finished it. No it's not true. I mean, the bottom line is this is Donald Trump again saying something and saying, "Because I said it, you need to believe me." This has been fact-checked over and over and over and over and over and over. And I can go on for the rest of the show. It is not true.

CAMEROTA: Wait. It's not true that Hillary Clinton started it. But it is true that he, Donald Trump, as a private citizen, had the power and influence, because he talked about it so much. This is what he's proud of. He's not proud that he pedaled a crazy conspiracy theory. He's proud that he had the power as a private -- this is how he sees it, as a private citizen to get the president to release his birth certificate when other people had called for it.

PRESTON: Which, by the way, that's not true either.

CAMEROTA: How is that not true? Donald Trump kept it in the headlines long enough that the White House was compelled to release the birth certificate.

PRESTON: Listen. The fact that Donald Trump is trying to take credit right now for proving that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen is absurd. It is absolutely absurd.

CAMEROTA: He is trying to take credit fact that the president had to release his birth certificate. Isn't that -- didn't he play a major role in trying to get the president to release his birth certificate.

PRESTON: He was a loud voice in it. I mean, there were other voices, as well. But he was a leading voice. But it's still not true that Barack Obama is going to bow to Donald Trump. I just don't see that happening.

CAMEROTA: Well, of course. Look, that part is true. But Jackie, I guess my point is, is that Donald Trump sees this as a feather in his cap. He sees this as him having been powerful. And is there some argument to be made from Donald Trump that he did something others could not?

KUCINICH: So, as David said earlier, David Trump likes to wrap himself or surround himself by conservative media. And in that world, that is a very powerful point that he's making.

Unfortunately, in the real world and also as a symbol, particularly to black voters, that -- of a racist crusade. And that's -- one of the other reasons at the top of mind for Donald Trump. Michelle Obama has attacked him for it on the campaign trail this week, as has Hillary Clinton. This is another issue that he can't let it go. He needs to be right, even when he's wrong.

CUOMO: That's also interesting. Even the line of questioning, you know. Is there an argument to be made that he had input? It was -- even if that argument can be made, that's a terrible argument for him. That's why I don't understand. There's no satisfaction in that.

CAMEROTA: There's little bit of satisfaction for me, because I think that trying to get into Donald Trump's mind is sometimes a valuable exercise. And I think that he's talking about his power. He dismisses the fact that it was false and that it was a crazy conspiracy theory. That's second -- that's second...

CUOMO: He continues to lie. But it shouldn't be secondary to us. What I'm saying is that the guy's effectiveness is irrelevant. The fact that he did it when it was inherently racist to do this. It was trying to depict Obama as an "other." So why would you brag about being good at that?

CAMEROTA: Because when we talk about why is he bringing it up again? Why is he bringing it up again? Why is he still talking about it? Because I think that he associates it with power.

CUOMO: I'm not a psychologist. I think that...

CAMEROTA: I am.

CUOMO: People are telling him that it was a good thing. At the time -- at the time, Mark Preston, he was trying to become politically relevant. He embraced the alt right movement, what we call today, which then was just called extreme right. And he became popular with them. That's why he did it.

CAMEROTA: Relevance he proved.

PRESTON: And he has continued to lie throughout. He talked about how he sent investigators to Hawaii. He had found things, all kinds of stuff.

CUOMO: Never came out.

PRESTON: Never came out. And then he said he ended it in 2011.

CUOMO: But on our network here, he talked about it...

PRESTON: Exactly, exactly. So it's just one big lie. And to your point, though, Alisyn. I will give you this. He used it to try to gain power, and it certainly helped him get enough backing behind him from the real far, far, far, far extremes of the Republican Party.

CUOMO: That was my point. Her point was that there's some kind of psychological thing in there.

CAMEROTA: Yes, yes. But, Jackie, I mean, but let's take it one step further. He used it to get power and relevance; and then he ran for president and became the nominee. I mean, they're all connected.

KUCINICH: Well, but among Donald Trump's fans, in particular. I mean, Donald Trump really hasn't worried that much about expanding his base, despite -- despite what he said publicly. His actions really don't reveal that he cares a lot about, you know, expanding beyond the people that got him here.

And so -- so this is one of those issues that the people who love Donald Trump the most. They don't want to see him back down. They want to see him talk about it, because they do think that that's a sign to your point that he is powerful, and he gets stuff done, even when that stuff is questionable.

CUOMO: But even that's not true. Because...

CAMEROTA: How so?

CUOMO: ... the people who were into the birther movement are not who got Donald Trump here.

CAMEROTA: They're part of it.

CUOMO: They -- but they -- you had Ted Cruz, who was much more their person in terms of those hardline ideological conservative. These people are dirty. What's going on with the Democrats is conspiratorial and dirty. They were his people.

He created a mass movement here around disaffection. Wanting better jobs, feeling forgotten. A lot of those people are not all right people. And he's abandoning them now, Jackie, by going down this road of things they don't care about. This isn't about them.

KUCINICH: Well, but remember, Ted Cruz didn't exactly get out there and say that Barack Obama was born in this country when he was asked. I mean, I think he played that game. We'll take him at his word and sort of try to get out of directly answering the questions.

So, to say that Ted Cruz and some others didn't sort of pander to those people, I don't think is right.

CUOMO: Right. I'm just saying that that's not why Trump is here. Trump is here, Mark, because people feel disaffected. He's a great entertainer. They believe his promise on giving him more jobs. They believe his talk about being tougher on our enemies. And none of that is going to be satisfied by talking about the Clinton sex life or this crazy tweet parade that he's on about a former Miss Universe.

PRESTON: Right. Well, how about this? Let me bridge everyone together. All together. We come back.

CAMEROTA: The healer.

PRESTON: What Jackie's saying, and I think we can all agree, is that there was a baseline of support that Donald Trump was able to establish. Wasn't great, but it was a solid baseline of support.

And to your point, though, what Donald Trump did is that he -- once that base was established, he went out, and he did reach out to his blue-collar folks and these white folks.

Specifically throughout the Midwest, who feel that they're that they're frustrated and that they're being left behind. And also, he was able to capitalize on the rift in the Republican Party right now, because the Republican Party at the time was having these internal struggles about what the direction was.

Donald Trump came in. He was very loud. He's a showman and, quite frankly, all of the other Republicans that were running against him, they were not strong enough to take him on. They all backed off. I have -- I cannot tell you who they were, but I had many conversations back in the beginning of this campaign where these operatives will tell me, for each candidate, "We're stepping back right now and letting so-and-so take it, because he's not hitting us, and we'll let them battle it out. And we'll come out front." And you know what happened? Donald Trump came out front.

CAMEROTA: Mark, Jackie, thank you very much. Have a great weekend.

KUCINICH: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right. The headliner for the half-time show at Super Bowl LI has been confirmed. And let's just say the choice will have some fans dancing in their seats. Details ahead.

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