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Ex-Wife Ivana Slams Trump's Affair With Marla Maples; Trump Biographer Releases Interview Tapes To NYT; Obamacare Premiums Set To Soar 22 Percent Next Year; Election Woes Weigh On Businesses; Nearly 10,000 Soldiers Ordered To Repay Enlistment Bonuses. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired October 26, 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] (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVANA TRUMP, EX-WIFE OF DONALD TRUMP: -- but she broke up our marriage because -- and immediately when I find out his affair, I file for divorce.

INTERVIEWER: This is it?

I. TRUMP: I was the one, yeah. Because if you cannot trust your spouse, you know, it's over.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Trump upended the presidential election with much more than fiery rhetoric. The interviews show he did it with a singular, unyielding belief in himself.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The most important thing is being able to have the proper vision and then never quitting. You know, a lot of people say oh, you have to -- you can never give up. Well, you can give up if you have a stupid vision. So I always say vision is the most important thing.

MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, DONALD TRUMP BIOGRAPHER: Yes.

D. TRUMP: You need the proper vision and then you have to have the ability to get it done.

LAH: Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we have a lot to talk about so let's bring in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio. He's the author of "The Truth About Trump". He is the one who you hear on those audiotapes. Also with us is "New York Times" national political reporter Michael Barbaro, who obtained the tapes from D'Antonio. Great to have you both with us.

OK, so why, Michael, did you release these tapes now after -- this was done in 2014. Why now?

D'ANTONIO: Well, I considered them supporting material for the book. It's almost as if giving -- I would give someone the documents I use, which I would do. It's all part of the record so Michael asked me and I just said yes. I said look, the funny thing is if anyone else had asked I probably would've said yes to them, too.

CAMEROTA: Oh, we should've thought of that.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I did, he's lying. Let me ask you something, Michael. Why did you want them? What do you see the value as?

MICHAEL BARBARO, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "NEW YORK TIMES": It always occurred to me that you could get a more poignant and candid Donald Trump if he weren't on stage and if he were being -- if he were prodded sufficiently by a skilled interviewer.

And when Michael had told me that the interviews were voluminous -- I mean, hours and hours of conversations -- I wondered what would have happened by the end of those conversations if he would've seen, you know, the facade fall and Trump would have opened up a bit?

And as it happens, he did. I mean, by the end of these interviews you hear him talking about how vital a force public affirmation and adoration is. That's not something you normally hear. You hear this kind of performer Donald Trump, not the more vulnerable one who is kind of searching his soul a little bit for a sense of who he is.

CAMEROTA: So, Michael, when the facade falls there and you hear that -- that's your fourth sit-down interview with him --

D'ANTONIO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- what do you think was most revealing in sitting down with him, from all the time you spent with him?

D'ANTONIO: Well, I think it was this comment about how he doesn't like to analyze himself because he's kind of afraid of what he'd realize. But I was actually quite moved by him near the end of this process. He would be the guy that the public should see, actually. It's a calmer, more sincere, reflective person and I would hope for some of those qualities in a president. But he, in public, only has one speed and it's at bombast and aggression.

And I -- you know, it's funny. I like him when he's quieter like that. You can almost get attached to him. But the other fellow is hard to grasp.

CUOMO: Well, you know, it's interesting. A longtime political kind of doctor for candidate said to me Trump's biggest problem is he's only got one tool. That he's very good at the counterattack and going all in, but it doesn't work equally well in all circumstances. And in some of these interviews you see where that comes from.

BARBARO: Yes.

CUOMO: What do you get from that?

BARBARO: His childhood, and Michael can speak to this even more than I can. But he was sent off at the age of 13 to a military academy, which was not just a really disciplined place where you had to shine your belts and your shoes, but where combat was part of life and you had to be the best, in part, by kind of making sure no one else could compete with you and you pushed them down.

And he talks in these interviews about loving the fight. Not tolerating the fight or just grudgingly participating, he lusted for the opportunity to fight, and that began at that age of his life and it has continued on.

And I think the other thing we learned about him is that he fears, most profoundly, losing that kind of a fight and being embarrassed in public. And throughout the interviews you see him dumping and being incredibly contemptuous of anybody else who falls from grace, who's embarrassed, who loses their status.

And it became very clear to me, reading these interviews and listening to them, that one of Donald Trump's greatest animating fears is that he will be publicly embarrassed -- he will be humiliated. He will be forgotten. And I think that's a really fascinating lesson when you think about what makes him act the way he does, seek the public affirmation, go out and run for president, be a celebrity, and be a reality T.V. star.

CAMEROTA: So, Michael, what does that mean for November 9th? If he were to lose, then what happens to Trump?

[07:35:00] D'ANTONIO: I think it could be very difficult for him personally. I would expect him to retreat, but only briefly. As Michael said, he loves this fighting. And I realize that he feels secure fighting. It's not -- it's when the fight is not happening that he's worried about what might come next. It's -- and that's unusual. Most of us don't want to jump into conflict and would rather --

CUOMO: No, it's not unusual for the species that we're discussing, right? Candidates are different, especially -- and candidates for president are way different than anybody else. You are going into a crucible that is different than anything else and you have to want it more than you want anything else in your life. For all they talk about their families, this is the main child that they must covet. So, is he that different in terms of the makeup of this typical species?

D'ANTONIO: Well, I think it's just more extreme. He admires Bill Clinton -- that's a good example -- and --

CAMEROTA: Oh, we have that, actually. Let me pause you for one moment because it's interesting to hear him talk so glowingly about Bill Clinton.

CUOMO: Back then.

CAMEROTA: Back then. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. TRUMP: Bill Clinton is certainly a great politician, and you should call Bill Clinton and ask him about me. He was on Larry King the other -- he said Donald Trump is a great golfer and he's a friend of mine. And, you know -- now, of course -- now it's a little different because a lot of people -- a lot of people want me to run and his wife is obviously going to be running if she's healthy.

(Crosstalk)

You could ask him that, maybe. I mean, you know, he may say something interesting. No, but he's a great politician.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: How times have changed.

D'ANTONIO: Well, and Bill was the guy who could bite his lip and feel your pain and would actually sit next to Hillary during the scandals and respond in a way that made us feel for him.

CAMEROTA: And you're saying that Donald Trump responded to that? He liked that about him?

D'ANTONIO: No, that's the part that Donald can't do, you know. So you see this whole thing of I'm going to grab them by the "you know what". Some other people would say OK, I'm going to just lay myself open to this question and let Chris interview me and get it all out. Donald is attack, attack, attack and he's not going to give us that part of him.

BARBARO: But the other thing about that moment, and it happens throughout the interviews, is he's telling you call this person, call Don King, call Bill Clinton. They will tell you, essentially, how great I am. And that's not the normal way of an interview with a politician. Call Chris, call Michael, they'll tell you how wonderful I am. I mean, he needs the world to know. He's offering you the crumb trail to the person who's going to tell you the thing he most wants to read in the book, in the story.

CUOMO: As you learned very well, Michael, and you relayed well, he is a master of the self, from telling you who to talk to, to how he sees himself. Even in interviewers he would often say Alisyn, you know I'm right about this.

BARBARO: Right, right.

CUOMO: He's great at the self. We'll see how great on November 8th.

CAMEROTA: Gentlemen, thank you very much.

BARBARO: A pleasure.

CAMEROTA: Thanks for sharing the tapes with us, as well.

D'ANTONIO: Thank you.

CUOMO: The Obama administrationadamantly defending the ACA -- the Affordable Care Act. Why? Because premiums are going up in a big way. What can you expect? We'll give you the real numbers, stripped of the politics, with the secretary of Health & Human Services, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:41:30] CAMEROTA: The Obama administration is defending the Affordable Care Act even though Obamacare premiums will rise an average of 22 percent next year. In some places premiums will more than double and insurance options will shrink. Donald Trump and Republicans now claim that state-run exchanges are headed for collapse.

So let's bring in Sylvia Matthews Burwell. She is the secretary of Health & Human Services. She joins us from Washington. Secretary, thanks so much for being here.

SYLVIA MATTHEWS BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES: Good morning, thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: So this is not good news. This is not what was supposed to happen. This is not what President Obama said would happen with premiums. He promised that premiums would go down. I mean, he was pretty unequivocal about that, so how did he get this wrong?

BURWELL: So, I think what's important is to focus on what actually is happening to consumers. And for the 150 million people that have employer-based care -- and that's most of the viewers -- or the 55 million folks in Medicare or the 70 million folks in Medicaid, that's not what these numbers are about. And it's important for that to know that before those 150 million, what we know is in the last six years they've seen five of the slowest years of growth in their premium in history.

And so, for people in the employer-based market, their premium growth has actually slowed.

CAMEROTA: Sure, but this was --

BURWELL: And with regard to the marketplace --

CAMEROTA: Yes, but just one second, Secretary, because this was not -- the selling of Obamacare to the American public was not for people who were covered by their employers because we all have insurance. This was for the uninsured.

BURWELL: You know, I think that's really one of the biggest misconceptions about the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act was about three fundamental things -- access, affordability, and quality. And it was about everybody, not just the uninsured. While we've seen a historic drop in the uninsured of 20 million people and our lowest uninsured rate, for everybody else there were really important benefits.

For everybody else who already had coverage you no longer need to worry if you or a family member has asthma or cancer in their past because you can't be locked out for preexisting conditions. If you already have coverage -- when you go in, as I go in, with our nine and seven year old, I don't actually have to pay for their annual child wellness visits -- all that preventative care.

And also for folks who actually have a lot of conditions, they don't have to worry about annual or lifetime limits. And finally, if you have a kid who needs to be on your plan until 26, that can happen.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BURWELL: And those were all what the Affordable Care Act was about as much as it was about making sure that we get those folks who don't have insurance, insurance.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and those are all of the benefits. I mean, you've done a great job of spelling out the benefits of it. Everybody likes the idea of preexisting conditions being covered.

But there were promises that were broken. I mean, as we've discussed, President Obama said premiums will go down. They have not. He said if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. That has proven not to be true. He said the projections of how many people would be covered -- you say there are 20 million. Yes, that is true, but that is short of what the projections said it would be, which was 32 million in two years from now.

BURWELL: You know, I think let's even focus on the projections. One of the things I think is so important about this is to make sure that we actually get the substance and the facts out there. When one looks at what predictions were made about the coverage and how many people would be in the marketplace, it's one of those things that I think has been one of the myths about the Affordable Care Act and the marketplace.

Those predictions were based on the fact that there were criticisms that people would move from employer-based care. That companies would move their folks into the marketplace. The biggest differences between the numbers and where we are right now and the congressional budget office numbers, which I think are the numbers you're referring to --

[07:45:15] CAMEROTA: Yes.

BURWELL: -- comes from the fact that people didn't move from employer care. We haven't seen a big change in that and that's one of the things in terms of the myths overall. People said that there would be job creation issues and we know we've had some of the strongest private sector job creation in history.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BURWELL: People said people would dump into the marketplace. That hasn't happened. People said that there would be more people that would have part-time work and that hasn't happened either.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BURWELL: What has happened is we have reduced the uninsured rate by a dramatic and historic amount. And the other thing that has happened that's very important is the quality of coverage for all of us who had it has improved.

CAMEROTA: And again, those are the benefits and you're doing an excellent job of spelling out the benefits. But there were some promises that were made that actually turned out not to be true. So let's just zero in on the idea that your premiums will go down.

There are some states, Secretary, such as Arizona, where premiums are going up 116 percent next year. Alabama up 58 percent. North Carolina up 40 percent. Florida, 14. The average is 22. That was a promise broken.

BURWELL: So, Alisyn, I think what's important is to focus on where we were before. For so many of those people in the marketplace they had no coverage at all. They had no alternative at all. They had plans that were even more expensive, especially because many of those people had preexisting conditions. And when one is looking at the marketplace, the other thing I think is very important to focus on is what do consumers actually pay.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BURWELL: And this system was designed as a system where there are tax credits and subsidies, and 85 percent of folks in the marketplace receive those tax credits and those subsidies. For those people, they will be insulated against these changes because that's the way the tax credits were designed.

CAMEROTA: OK.

BURWELL: The other thing that I think is very important is --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BURWELL: -- premiums came in in the marketplace much lower in the early years than those CVO projections that you referred to earlier.

CAMEROTA: OK. Secretary Burwell, thank you very much for joining us on NEW DAY with your perspective in explaining all of this.

BURWELL: Thanks so much for having me.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right. We have a wrong that needs to be righted and we're not letting it go. There is pressure growing on the Pentagon. Veterans fighting back to keep reenlistment bonuses that they were promised and the government is trying to get them back and creating very onerous situations, and it has to be fixed. Another chapter in this tale, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:51:50] CAMEROTA: Time for "CNNMONEY" Now. Several big-name companies says the presidential election is hurting their sales. Chief business correspondent Christine Romans is in our money center. Is that true, Christine? CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Blame it on the election. Could the economy-bashing on the campaign trail be weighing on the minds of consumers? A surprising list, Alisyn, of companies using this election excuse in the latest round of corporate earnings we've seen.

Dunkin' Brands says consumers are in a funk. McDonald's says consumer confidence is muted. Yum! Brands -- they own KFC, Taco Bell -- I'm getting hungry -- Pizza Hut. They think the election is making customers wary. Same sentiment from Popeye's. Even the R.V. maker, Winnebago, says the election is hurting its bottom line.

Now, it might seem hard to believe that people are holding back on grabbing an iced coffee or a cheeseburger because of fears about a Trump presidency or a Clinton presidency, but it does support something we've seen throughout the election cycle. Americans are worried about the future, even if their current financial situation is OK.

But there's another measure of corporate America that does not show this trend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, guys, is just 2.5 percent below its all-time high hit earlier this year, about 470 points away -- guys.

CUOMO: The difference between Main Street and Wall Street -- I have to tell you this all the time. You see the different effects here.

ROMANS: Schooled by Cuomo, once again.

CUOMO: I can't self-soothe. I'm going to eat everything that you just described.

All right. So, Defense Secretary Ash Carter is dealing with a real problem at home while in Paris. He is promising to resolve the bonus controversy. It has impacted tens of thousands of the American soldiers who should be dealing with it least. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASH CARTER, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Anybody who volunteers to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States deserves our gratitude and respect, period. I'm aware of the specific issue that you're speaking of -- it's got its complexities to it -- and we are going to look into it and resolve it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Yes, six years after they first found out about it. That's what we're dealing with right now. That's how long they've had to fix this.

Joining us now is the founder and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paul Rieckhoff. And we also have Sergeant First Class Robert Richmond, one of the soldiers battling to keep his bonus. Sir, thank you -- both of you, thank you for your service. Thank you for joining us, as always. Robert, let me start with you. When did you get your bonus?

ROBERT RICHMOND, SERGEANT FIRST CLASS, U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES: I received my reenlistment bonus in November of 2006.

CUOMO: OK. When did they ask you for it back?

RICHMOND: I received a letter May of 2014 demanding my bonus back.

CUOMO: OK. And you, obviously, complained about it. Did you put out that grievance? Did the -- not just National Guard, but did anybody else have reason to know that there were a lot of Robert Richmonds out there dealing with this?

RICHMOND: When I first received that letter, I thought I was the only one. And I started calling my headquarters and calling the numbers provided on the letter to get to the bottom of it. And through my research I discovered that, at the time, there was going to be 17,000 soldiers affected by it. And, you know, at that point I became an advocate for fighting it because it was a -- 10 years -- you know, almost 10 years had gone by, by the time they started wanting to collect the amount due.

[07:55:15] And it just -- it didn't seem right, it didn't seem moral, and so I've advocated against it from the very beginning.

CUOMO: Understood, and we're talking about $15,000 as the initial amount, but then this turned into like a straight up IRS scenario where it was all about penalties and interest, and everything else. How onerous has this become for you in your life?

RICHMOND: Well, it's been -- it's been awful. Initially, I received a -- they pre-taxed the bonus. It was $11,000 and then they wanted me to pay back the full $15,000 with penalties and interest. They turned me over to the Treasury Department who tacked on 28 percent more. And now, four months after the collection started I'm owing them $19,000 -- almost $20,000 for an error they claimed that they made when I signed a contract in good faith and fulfilled it.

It has crippled my finances. They attacked my credit. I was self- employed at the time, between jobs, and I relied on my ability. I had good credit to do business deals and they crippled my credit right in the middle of the time that I used my cash to go into a business deal, and I was left nearly penniless with a family and a couple of kids. And I really struggled at -- for a time, to just get by.

CUOMO: Man, I'm sorry to her that. Let's bring in P.J. here for a second. You know, I'm disgusted that like I didn't know sooner. That we weren't able to get on this sooner. Let's put that issue on the table. They're all saying now -- we had Takano on here. He's a Democrat from California. He's a senior member on the Veterans Committee. He says we're going to deal with this. They've known for years about this. This is not new, fair point?

PAUL RIECKHOFF, FOUNDER AND CEO, IAVA: Yes, we've been hearing stories anecdotally from our members for years. You know, every time I come on with you it's to talk about something outrageous coming out of Washington. This is a whole new level. I mean, this is off the charts. Everybody across America is outraged and these folks need to be -- have their situation fixed.

The hashtag we've been using is #paythemback. Go to paythemback.us, sign our petition. But we need more than just outrage from members of Congress. They've all put out press releases -- both sides of the aisle -- but they're not outraged enough to come back from recess --

CUOMO: Right.

RIECKHOFF: -- to actually fix it. They're not going to come back until after the election. So we need the Secretary of Defense to fix this right away.

CUOMO: Now, something that Takano said to me, I want your head on this. Paul isn't just an advocate, he actually spends all this time understanding these issues, so it's not just like he's a veteran. He's become an advocate that's read in on all this.

RIECKHOFF: Right.

CUOMO: Takano says we're not sure what we need to do here because, one, it's layered. You've got people like Richmond and thousands of others like him who started paying things back. How do you get them not just to not have to repay, but reimbursed for what they did have to repay? And how do you deal with his credit? How do you deal with all of this ancillary and collateral damage?

He says the DOD can already do this and we're going to point out to the DOD where in the law it says that they have digression. Now, is that true? I read it. It's a little bit layered.

RIECKHOFF: The Secretary of Defense should be able to find a way fix it and if he can't, the president should.

CUOMO: But if he wanted to fix it wouldn't he have fixed it already?

RIECKHOFF: I don't know. I mean, that's the question for him. But right now, you know, they can do a strategic strike from a drone 10,000 miles away but they can't fix this guy's credit? I mean, this is not putting a man on the moon. If they have to go through individually and put people in the Pentagon, gong one by one to reconcile the situation, that's exactly what they should do. Everybody in Washington should fix it. It's an issue of recruitment, it's an issue of moral, it's an issue or morality.

I mean, this guy and his family should not be put in this situation after he served honorably. So pay them back, fix it immediately, and let's move on to other issues. But also, what are we going to do to fix the situation long-term because this is putting stress on him, on his family --

CUOMO: Yes.

RIECKHOFF: -- and it's another reason why everybody needs to get involved. We can't just sit back and wait for Washington to fix it. These folks need to get paid back. It needs to happen immediately. Don't wait until December or after the Election Day. We're calling on them to fix it before Veterans Day, but they should be able to fix it before the end of the week.

CUOMO: And Robert, to end on you here -- and we're going to keep this discussion going. It's not a -- it's not a one-time thing because as Paul is laying out, we have to stay on it because they're not even in session now and you have the election. And then after that you'll have the inauguration, and then you have the 100 days, and you're going to have to really stay on this.

Hopefully, they'll be looking to do something that's relatively simple and positive right out of the box and help people like you. But just to nail this point down, once again, for the entire audience, you said to your C.O. -- you said to people this is wrong. And what did they say back to you when you were saying this is just wrong that I have to repay something -- no matter who was guilty of fraud, no matter who got caught doing it the wrong, you were doing it the right way. What as the response?

RICHMOND: They told me that I had to go through a certain process. There's multiple processes to request an exemption to policy. At one point, I had to admit that I received a payment erroneously versus in a promise -- in a contractual agreement. The process has been going back and forth. I've been at this process for two years. They're telling me I just have to wait one more year and then they'll make a decision on to whether I can have this case resolved or not.

In the meantime, within 30 days of my first collection letter they ruined my credit with all three bureaus. And three months after that the Treasury Department tacked on this interest and is coming after me for my civilian wages.