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Trump Campaign Grapples with Tax Bombshell; How Does Trump Recover from His Rough Week?; Weld: 'Nobody More Qualified Than Hillary Clinton'. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 03, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton says Trump's returns confirm he is a business failure.

[07:00:04] There's a lot at stake. There are only 36 days left in this election. There's only one day until the V.P. debate. Just six days until the next presidential debate. So, we have all the implications and news coverage. Let's begin with CNN senior political reporter Manu Raju, live in Washington.

Manu, what do you know?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Chris.

Now before last week's debate, remember that Donald Trump had been on an upswing? Polls had shown him beating Hillary Clinton in a number of key battlegrounds, but then he stumbled in the debate, got into a day's long feud with a Latina beauty queen. And now new questions about whether he paid federal income taxes. And about this nearly $1 billion loss in a single year that shines a new light on his own business record.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He didn't pay any federal income tax. So...

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: That makes me smart.

RAJU (voice-over): After refusing to release his tax returns for months, Donald Trump and his campaign defending revelations in "The New York Times" that Trump once claimed a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax return, which legally could have allowed Trump to pay nothing in federal income taxes for nearly two decades.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), HEAD OF TRUMP TRANSITION TEAM: There's no one who has shown more genius in their way to maneuver around the tax code.

RAJU: Trump's high-profile advisors responding by praising the GOP candidate's business savvy.

RUDY GIULIANI (R), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: He's a genius. What he did was he took advantage...

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: OK.

GIULIANI: ... of something that could save his enterprise.

RAJU: Trump himself tweeting that he knows the tax laws better than anyone, and he's the only one who can fix them.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Trump goes around and says, "Hey, I'm worth billions. I'm a successful businessman, but I don't pay any taxes. But you, you make 15 bucks an hour, you pay the taxes, not me."

RAJU: Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani defending the practice in a contentious exchange on CNN Sunday.

GIULIANI: Most Americans take advantage of every deduction available to them.

TAPPER: Most Americans pay federal income taxes, though, sir, and Donald Trump apparently did not.

RAJU: Trump campaigning in Pennsylvania over the weekend, lobbing unfounded attacks Clinton despite warnings from GOP leaders to stay away from personal attacks.

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton's only loyalty is to her financial contributors and to herself. I don't even think she's loyal to Bill, if you want to know the truth.

RAJU: And again, attempting to raise doubts over Clinton's health.

TRUMP: Here's a woman, she's supposed to fight all of these different things, and she can't make it 15 feet to her car.

RAJU: Mocking her recent bout of pneumonia.

TRUMP: (MOCKS FALLING DOWN) Give me a break.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Now, the Trump campaign said that the candidate has done everything legal, paid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes like property and real-estate taxes, but has not yet denied the "Times" report.

Tomorrow, also, will be a key moment, as well. We'll see how Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, deals with questions about the GOP nominee's taxes -- Alisyn.

Camerota: Yes, we will. Many, thanks so much for all that reporting.

We want to bring in now CNN political commentator and former Donald Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski; and CNN political commentator and former New York City council speaker, Christine Quinn. Welcome to both of you.

CHRISTINE QUINN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So Corey, how are voters going to process this? The idea that, maybe for two decades, Donald Trump didn't pay income taxes?

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think there's a couple that you need to look at first and foremost. No. 1, we don't know if the documents are actually authentic. That's the first thing.

CAMEROTA: The campaign hasn't denied them.

LEWANDOWSKI: Well, here's -- here's what we know. "The New York Times" editor in chief, Dean Baquet, has told Harvard University when he's up there speaking, he's willing to go to jail to publish Donald Trump's taxes. Right? No. 1, that's a felony, OK, to publish someone's taxes without their permission.

So, "The New York Times" has a coordinated effort now to go out and, amazingly, two weeks after he says this, he receives a document in the mail, or one of these reporters does, that shows it's Donald Trump's tax returns. And they just decide to publish them without any authentication.

CAMEROTA: No, they went to the person who prepared them. They accountant who prepared them.

LEWANDOWSKI: But he's not also authorized to release those.

CAMEROTA: But listen, Corey, the deal is that Donald Trump didn't release his taxes for the first time since 1976.

LEWANDOWSKI: That's right.

CAMEROTA: This is what the media has to do. People are interested in his taxes and what he paid.

LEWANDOWSKI: Look, it's a crime to release someone's taxes and publish them without their permission.

CAMEROTA: peThe Pentagon papers say that if there's of national import...

LEWANDOWSKI: There is no national security interest to Donald Trump's tax returns. That's a fact. And "The New York Times" should be held accountable, and I hope he sues them into oblivion for doing this; because if the fact remains -- if it comes out that these aren't accurate, where's the recourse?

QUINN: So, I think this is a -- just another classic example of the Trump campaign trying to divert from the issue and attack the messenger. It's what we see over and over: ruin the messenger.

But there's a tremendous substantiation here from the person who prepared the taxes, from tax experts and, of course, the "Times" lawyers reviewed all of this before it was released.

CAMEROTA: Yes. QUINN: So the legality question, if...

[07:05:04] CAMEROTA: They say that they double checked, they triple checked, they are very confident that they have the law on their side releasing them. However...

QUINN: Right. And let me just say Donald Trump is a highly litigious person. If they thought there was a lawsuit, they'd be standing in front of court today. But the issue really is...

CAMEROTA: Let's get back to the issue and whether or not, by the way, everything he did was legal.

LEWANDOWSKI: A hundred percent legal.

CAMEROTA: So, where is the...

QUINN: I don't think -- I don't think anybody is saying what -- that we believe what he did was illegal. It appears to be legal. That's not really the point here. The point here is that Donald Trump has not, to date, released his taxes. So, clearly, one can assume that he didn't want people to know this.

Two, Donald Trump has gone through this presidential campaign saying, "Hedge fund folks don't pay taxes. That's outrageous. Other groups of Americans don't pay taxes. That's outrageous." And criticized other people for not supporting the needs of Americans. And then there he is...

CAMEROTA: Yes.

QUINN: ... not paying taxes.

And, again, they tried to write it off as a corporate...

CAMEROTA: Corey, just one second. Because I do want to say, in terms of the hypocrisy and the different messaging, in 2012, Donald Trump did hit Barack Obama. He sent out this tweet. He said, "Barack Obama who wants to raise all our taxes, only pays 20.5 percent on his $790,000 salary. Do I -- do as I say, not as I do." Not a...

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: And he didn't -- didn't pay a nickel.

LEWANDOWSKI: Two important things to note. Right? "The Wall Street Journal" poll says that 6 percent of people actually care about Donald Trump's taxes. Six percent, "Wall Street Journal"/NBC poll, you can look it up from two weeks ago.

Second thing to note: is this election really about Donald Trump's taxes or Hillary Clinton's e-mails?

CAMEROTA: It's about transparency.

QUINN: About hypocrisy. LEWANDOWSKI: Well, then let's talk about Hillary Clinton's e-mails

that have still not been released.

Why don't we actually talk about what the election is about, which is changing a broken Washington, D.C. And the American people have two choices. They can take a career, 30-year politician who has helped design the tax system which Donald Trump potentially took advantage of, or they could bring someone in who will actually change the system.

QUINN: Or they can...

CAMEROTA: Hold on. I just want to correct something. Monmouth University -- that's the last poll we have about Donald Trump's taxes and how voters feel -- 62 percent of them say they're not comfortable that he has not released them. People want transparency.

LEWANDOWSKI: Then they should want transparency...

CAMEROTA: They want to know about his charitable giving and about what tax rate.

LEWANDOWSKI: Then they should want transparency from Hillary Clinton and the money she has taken from the foundation.

CAMEROTA: They do.

LEWANDOWSKI: But -- but no one's talking about it.

CAMEROTA: Come on, we haven't talked about Hillary Clinton's e-mails for years?

LEWANDOWSKI: But, still -- they still go back to her foundation...

CAMEROTA: Come on.

LEWANDOWSKI: ... and the money that they have taken.

CAMEROTA: We've done stories on that.

Go ahead.

QUINN: Again, again, attack the messenger, divert the topic. There has been tremendous coverage of the Clinton Foundation, and we saw recently yet another important national charity organization say how great the foundation is. But that's not the issue here.

Corey, you put out a choice. Right? You said it could be this or that. Actually, the choice for Americans is do they want to vote for Donald Trump, a man who clearly, yet again, has shown how hypocritical he is, how he will lie to manipulate the public, and how he will use everything he can to make himself more wealthy.

And let's be clear. When he wasn't paying taxes, he left countless...

LEWANDOWSKI: But we don't know that. We don't know that. CAMEROTA: He has not denied it.

LEWANDOWSKI: But they don't...

QUINN: During the same period of time that we believe he wasn't paying taxes and has not been, wait, been denied.

LEWANDOWSKI: Potentially. Potentially.

QUINN: I said we believe. Stop.

We know for a fact he let -- left countless small business people in Atlantic City and the surrounding area without being paid.

CAMEROTA: OK. I do want to get to that.

QUINN: How is that something Americans feel good about?

CAMEROTA: Hold on for a second.

LEWANDOWSKI: Hillary Clinton has not created one private-sector job. She carried forward $700,000...

(CROSSTALK)

LEWANDOWSKI: ... paid $100 million since she left public service.

CAMEROTA: Fair enough. Let me show you her -- hold on. Hold on, Christine. Let me just get to her tax returns.

LEWANDOWSKI: How many small businesses did Hillary Clinton...

CAMEROTA: Let me show you her tax returns. This is from 2015. Hillary Clinton's tax returns.

Her salary, $10.6 million. Tax rate, 30.6 percent. Paid $3.24 million in federal income taxes, donated $1 million to the Clinton family foundation. Corey -- Corey.

LEWANDOWSKI: Did she get that money from Wall Street speeches? Let's see what she said in those speeches. Ten million dollars, let's see what...

CAMEROTA: I like that you want transparency -- yes, I know you want...

LEWANDOWSKI: ... where are the transcripts? You can't have it both ways.

QUINN: Corey, neither can you.

CAMEROTA: We want transparency.

LEWANDOWSKI: So let's have 10 percent transparency. Here's what Donald Trump said in the debate. Here's what Donald Trump said in the debate, and he was very clear about this. "I will release all of my taxes the second Hillary Clinton releases the 33,000 e-mails."

CAMEROTA: These are apples and oranges.

LEWANDOWSKI: No, no, it's not. He said, "I will release all of my taxes as soon as the e-mails..."

CAMEROTA: Presidential campaigns have released...

LEWANDOWSKI: Look, 40 years ago...

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Wait, wait, wait. I have another question for you.

QUINN: Wait, wait, wait.

LEWANDOWSKI: E-mail didn't exist 40 years ago. It exists right now.

QUINN: Corey, he has put out any number of...

LEWANDOWSKI: So look, he's willing to do it. Hillary Clinton releases her e-mails today, and Donald Trump's taxes go out today. Period.

QUINN: Corey is not authorized to say that.

Can I have one second?

CAMEROTA: Final word, Christine, go.

QUINN: Corey is not authorized to say that. Donald Trump has created any number of...

LEWANDOWSKI: He said it.

QUINN: Hold on.

He won't release his taxes in full, I believe, because they're going to show more of this. Him using the system to put more money in his pocketbook and being very different than average Americans.

LEWANDOWSKI: Eighty-five million people heard him say that.

CAMEROTA: I know you're fired up. We'll be talking more about it.

[07:10:07] QUINN: It's not really fired up. It is, again, diverting and attacking the messenger.

LEWANDOWSKI: Eight-five million people, say he'll release his taxes as soon as she released the e-mails.

CAMEROTA: Corey. Christine.

LEWANDOWSKI: Which she'll never do.

QUINN: No one believes that. He'll never release his taxes. LEWANDOWSKI: She'll never release the e-mails. Ever. Ever. Because she lied. She'd go to jail.

CAMEROTA: This show only goes until 9 a.m. Eastern, guys. Only until 9 a.m. Thank you, Christine, Corey -- Chris.

CUOMO: The good news is that conversation cleared my sinuses.

Donald Trump's tax problems is only one of many issues facing the Republican nominee. Can Trump turn around his rough week? How is he preparing for his debate on Sunday? Time is of the essence, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Rough week for Donald Trump on several fronts. You have the "New York Times" reporting he may not have paid federal taxes for nearly two decades, thanks to this massive loss that he recorded back in the '90s. He also had that debate loss he had to deal with. This fight with a former beauty queen, and his tweet storm from last Friday. Oh, and we're not even mentioning that he accused Hillary Clinton of cheating on her husband this weekend.

So how does he deal with this and move forward? Let's ask CNN political analyst and national political reporter for "New York Times," Alex Burns; and CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for "The Atlantic," Ron Brownstein.

[07:15:12] Professor Brownstein, let's start with assessing our own premise. Does any of this matter to you and, if so, which and why?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, it does matter. I mean, Donald Trump's principle obstacle in this race are the doubts about his personal qualifications. I mean, going all the way back through the primaries, we've had very, very little debate about the underlying issue agenda Hillary Clinton has made. And they put very little of her chips on disqualifying the Trump agenda.

So going into that first debate, you know, many people on his side, many people who sat, you know, in chairs like this on this show argue that he had the opportunity Ronald Reagan had in 1980 to show that he was not the caricature that they had painted of him personally, that he could be reassuring and then could make a lot of gains.

In fact, what the past week has done, starting with the debate and then the aftermath, is give ammunition to all of the case, every aspect of the case against Donald Trump. I mean, if you think about, in particular, the tweet storm with the former Miss Universe, it appeared vindictive. It appeared volatile. It offered ammunition to those who said he was racist and sexist. The entire case, personal case against him kind of summarized in 140 characters. That's a pretty efficient use of 140 characters.

CAMEROTA: Ron, I want to stick with you for one second, because I don't want to make Alex talk about "The Washington Post's" front-page story.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: But Ron, you have your finger on the polls of polling and voters, and "The Washington Post" says that they are in Ohio talking to voters ever since the news broke about Donald Trump's taxes and guess what? Voters do care, and they don't like the idea...

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: ... that he hasn't paid taxes. How do you think that voters and his supporters will respond to this?

BROWNSTEIN: I think this pushes right at the seam of the cultural divide over Donald Trump.

I think the campaign is right that there is a portion of the electorate that does believe that his argument that, because he is an insider who has manipulated the system, he is the one uniquely positioned to kind of reform it. That he is, essentially, a traitor to the leadership class that has abandoned them. And that is a portion of the electorate. It is not a majority of the electorate, though.

And he faces two other risks from these revolutions and really almost contradictory. One is that he has no civic sense of responsibility, that he's someone that is just out for himself. And again, it goes back to how his principle obstacles in this race are personal.

But maybe even more important, as you saw in those interviews in "The Washington Post," it causes voters to question his business acumen, really the foundation of his campaign that he has been a brilliant success who can take those private-sector skills and, in effect, do a turnaround on the government.

So, you know, I do think that there is the case that there are voters who respond to this in the way that he says, but there are others for whom it is going to reinforce personal doubts, which I believe are the principle headwinds that he faces.

CUOMO: Alex, is this too deep to make the argument that why would a man who benefits from the current system change that system, thereby doing something that we've never seen him do in this election or outside it, which is disadvantage himself? That's what you're hearing. His tax plan as articulated does not have as a headline "Nobody will ever do what I did, again." Does that matter?

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: In fact, there are elements of his tax plan like eliminating the estate tax that would benefit himself and his family members enormously.

I think it would be a lot easier for Trump to make the case that he is the best man to fix this system if there were a lot more detail involved in his description of fixing the system, as opposed to just this broad sense that, "Look, I gamed the system. I know how it's done. And now I can game the system for you." Because it's actually a subtly -- a subtle difference between those two arguments that "I know how to fix the system" and "I know how to work the system." What he has been saying is "I know how to work the system."

CAMEROTA: But what about what Ron just said, and that is that Donald Trump's surrogates say, "This shows that he's a genius. Look at him. He managed the tax code so that he didn't have to pay taxes. Good on him"?

BURNS: Right.

CAMEROTA: But what -- what this all stemmed from was that his businesses went bankrupt. His three casinos went bankrupt in 1995. That's why he had a huge loss. His airline went away. That's why he...

CUOMO: The Plaza Hotel.

CAMEROTA: The Plaza Hotel. How is this genius business acumen, Alex?

BURNS: That's probably a question for the MIA Rudy Giuliani, right? But look, I think what's -- there's important and significant new information in this tax scoop.

I think what's been really important, though, as well, over the last week, all the stories that Ron described is how they're -- they're sort of re-airing issues that we knew about already. We knew that his casinos failed in the 1990s. We knew...

CAMEROTA: But we didn't know he made financial hay out of that...

BURNS: No, of course.

CAMEROTA: ... and benefitted, how much he benefitted.

BURNS: But to the point of -- to the point of, well, where is the business genius in this? His surrogates want to say his business genius is that he totally collapsed, and then he built himself back. Right?

Whereas the argument that the Clinton folks are making and probably will continue to make is who lost money in the 1990s working in casinos?

CUOMO: What does he have to do, Ron, to turn the page on this? He has less than 40 days to go. There's a lot of self-inflicted wounds going on here. He's accusing "The New York Times" of being felons for putting this out. It's not going to wash. What does he need to do?

[07:20:09] BROWNSTEIN: Well, of course, the clock is running down. Right? I mean, he spent an entire week kind of wrapped around the axle on reiterating what he did 20 years ago, you know, relating to Miss Universe.

Look, I think he has to resolve -- I'm where I have always been. Roughly 60 percent of the country says that he's not qualified. Roughly 60 percent say they question whether he has the temperament, and nearly 60 percent say he is biased against women and minorities. He's having trouble getting above the low 40s, and now even post- debate, even into the low 40s in any poll. That kind of adds up to 100. There isn't "Spinal Tap." There isn't another 10 percent out there.

And I think that, you know, their -- their instinct and everything you saw yesterday on the show is to go, you know, again, turn it up to 11 on Hillary and the accusations against Hillary Clinton. But I still believe, unless he resolves more of the personal doubts about whether he is capable of being president and whether he reflects the values we want in a president is going to be hard for him to get from where he is to ultimately where he needs to be, somewhere in the mid-40s, to win the race.

That, to me, seems to have to be the top priority at the next debate. But by all indications, they are leading in the other direction toward elevating their criticisms of Hillary Clinton.

CAMEROTA: This show does go to 11, by the way. We can turn it up.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, thank you.

CAMEROTA: But -- but Alex, for Hillary Clinton's campaign, it's not good enough, or you tell us, to just say, "He didn't pay taxes." Does she have to somehow figure out how to translate that into what that means? So that means infrastructure. That means the V.A. hospital. That means military families. Is that what we're going to hear today from her?

BURNS: Well, we started hearing her say that last week after just that intemperate comment of his at the debate, where he said, "It would be smart of me not to pay any taxes." Then she went, then, to North Carolina and said, "Well, then he's not paying taxes to support troops, to support the V.A," et cetera.

I do think that, you know, all of this focus on Trump and his problems over the last week, there's still a need for Hillary Clinton to close strong with a positive message in this campaign. You talk to Democrats, there still is the sense that she needs to get out there and tell people what she's for, other than just not being Donald Trump.

But, you know, that may be the conventional wisdom. Donald Trump is doing, it seems, over the last week, doing his best to make not being Donald Trump enough in this race.

CUOMO: I mean, look, we're asking what does he need to do to get in front of this? The problem for Trump is we've already seen what he's doing to get in front of it. He went after Hillary Clinton, saying she cheated on her husband this weekend.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, right.

CUOMO: As a way of venting on this, and that's as big of a concern for this campaign as anything.

Alex, thank you very much.

Ron, as always.

Rudy Giuliani...

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

CUOMO: I thought he was going to be on the show this morning. It was a scheduling mix up. Rudy Giuliani is not doing anything to disadvantage the show. He's been a good friend to the show, and we hope to have him on soon.

Also, tomorrow night for the vice-presidential debate, please watch Indiana Governor Mike Pence and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. That begins at 9 p.m. Eastern. The coverage will start at 4 p.m. tomorrow. There's a lot on the line. This is their one chance to get at each other tomorrow night.

CAMEROTA: OK. Libertarian vice-presidential hopeful Bill Weld says Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person to be president. Wait a minute, that's not staying on message.

CUOMO: Too honest.

CAMEROTA: That will never work. We're going to ask him about that and more when he joins us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:27:09] CUOMO: Libertarian vice-presidential candidate Bill Weld making a surprising statement, saying that Hillary Clinton is the most qualified candidate to be president. What about his running mate, Gary Johnson? What about him?

Joining us now, former Massachusetts governor, Bill Weld.

Governor, injecting honesty into a process like this is never recommended.

BILL WELD, LIBERTARIAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's -- it's unthinkable, Chris. You're absolutely right.

CUOMO: So, what do you want to achieve by saying something like that? You know there's a reason that those types of statements aren't said, even if believed in politics. Why did you do it?

WELD: Well, I said I'm not sure there's anybody more qualified than she is on paper. I mean, she's got quite a resume. Six years as -- six or eight years as a senator. She was known for mastering her brief in the Senate. And four years as secretary of state. On paper, that's a pretty good resume. Pretty good qualification to be president of the United States.

You know, I went on to say that I think Gary Johnson would be the best president because of the policies. Fiscal and military and otherwise that he would implement.

CUOMO: Why is your confidence in Governor Johnson not shaken after his recent gaffes that show an apparent lack of understanding of world events?

WELD: Well, you know, pop quizzes on TV are just not Gary's long suit, but I think having the right policies is more important than doing well on a pop quiz.

And I think, for example, in Syria, I think Gary has pretty much nailed it from the beginning, saying that it's a mess. The only way out would probably involve Russia. But that's no day at the beach, given who you're dealing with there; and he called for a cease-fire shortly before a cease-fire was negotiated. And then that fell apart, as we know, because it is a mess. There's too many different rebel groups. You've got, you know, Nusra and Jabra and ISIS. And just going in in the first place, militarily, was not a great idea. And Gary Johnson has said that, and that's more important than the place names.

CUOMO: But you know that the situation isn't going anywhere, and you're going to have to deal with it as president of the United States. You have to understand its intricacies.

And this situation kind of leads to the elephant in the room, Governor, which is -- and I mean this with no disrespect. You know I respect the ticket.

WELD: Sure.

CUOMO: We did the town hall.

WELD: Sure.

CUOMO: That you are taking votes from someone. And I know there's a dispute about who it is. But there is a suggestion that, as with Ralph Nader, that these third parties, Libertarian or Jill Stein with the Green Party, will take it away from Hillary Clinton. And are you concerned that you may deliver Donald Trump a presidency?

WELD: You know, not really. In this year of all years, I think having an alternative to the two establishment parties is a good thing and healthy for the country.

And let's stick with the example we were talking about. The president has to deal with Syria, if you go into Syria. But if you are more restrained about your military incursions, then you're not in the middle of a civil war. So what the president decides to do can be tremendously important.