Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Clinton Investigation Reopened; Interview with William Weld; Trump Donations to Vets. Aired 8:30-9:a ET

Aired October 31, 2016 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] REP. JERRY NADLER (D), NEW YORK: In some cases of public interest, where a lot of - when someone's name has been dragged through the mud, they decide it's fair to announce we're not going to indict and - and why. And that's fair also. Here, what happened was, back in July, Director Comey did two things. One was right. One was terrible. The first thing he did was he announced that having investigated all the allegations of the evidence, they decided that they're not indicting Secretary Clinton. That no -

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Why was that right?

NADLER: That no prosecutor -

CUOMO: Right.

NADLER: Would do so. Why was it right? Because her name had been dragged through the mud. It was being alleged by all kinds of people that she'd committed a crime. It makes - they have investigated that. It makes sense, it's fair, as I said before, to announce that we've complete - we've done this investigation. She hasn't done anything so far as we know where -

CUOMO: Right.

NADLER: Warranting indictment.

CUOMO: So what was terrible?

NADLER: What was terrible was that he then proceed to give his personal opinion on her conduct that was not criminal. He said she did this, this was reckless, this was reckless and he -

CUOMO: He said that he found proof - the investigation found proof that there may have been violations of some of the existing law, and that the evidence showed that she had been extremely careless in the handling of information.

NADLER: But she had been -

CUOMO: It's an opinion based on proof though.

NADLER: And he had - it's an opinion that had no business being stated. He's a policeman. He's not supposed to comment on the conduct of anybody, other than someone who's being indicted. So that was the first thing.

Now, this. He may have felt - and I understand, he was in a hard place, this thing comes to light, that is - not to light, but to the FBI, that Anthony Weiner's computer had a lot of e-mails from Huma on it, which may or may not have anything to do with the server, with - with - with anything.

CUOMO: But the metadata showed they may have gone through the server.

NADLER: They may - some may have gone through the server, in which case they probably, though not definitely, had already been seen by the FBI. But we don't know anything, basically. We don't know anything basically. Certainly it makes sense for them to take a look at this. But to announce without having taken a look at this, when it may have nothing to do with anything, to announce in the middle of an election campaign that there - that they're looking at this is a gross violation. It violates -

CUOMO: Facts -

NADLER: It violates two things.

CUOMO: What/

NADLER: It violates, number one, the FBI does not comment on ongoing investigations. Number -

CUOMO: Except that he did, right? They don't unless they do.

NADLER: Well, he did here.

CUOMO: And Comey changed the rules.

NADLER: But they're not - well, you can't change the rule.

CUOMO: But he did.

NADLER: And I asked Comey - I asked Comey at the hearing in September, early September, what about the Trump urging the Russians in effect to hack the DNC, or to release e-mails.

CUOMO: Right.

NADLER: And the fact that they have, in fact, hacked the DNC and are releasing all these e-mails, and 17 intelligence agencies say it's the Russians who are doing it and they're interfering in our elections, are you investigating that? I mean, what's the story? He said properly, we don't comment on ongoing investigations. So he won't comment on that, properly, but here he feels free to comment. And number one.

Number two, the other guideline, invariable guideline to the Justice Department is you don't - is you don't comment on anything that may affect an election within 60 days. The guidelines of the Justice Department say even if you're going to indict somebody, who happens to be a candidate, someone who's running for state senator and you're going to indict them for corruption, you don't announce that until after the election because -

CUOMO: But he felt a different responsibility based on what happened here prior.

NADLER: But that was wrong.

CUOMO: All right, fine. Even -

NADLER: But that was - because he had nothing - he felt that he had to tell Congress, if there's the - if there's information why we have to reopen the case.

CUOMO: Right.

NADLER: There is no information.

CUOMO: But -

NADLER: There may be information. Once they have read the e-mails, then you may have information.

CUOMO: You can criticize the decision. I'm not - I' not checking you on that. What I'm saying is, in politics, perception is reality.

NADLER: And that's the problem.

CUOMO: He has - he has said what he has said. They're going to run with their version of the unknown, which is every bit their political right to -

NADLER: Which is why - which is why the FBI and the Justice Department have those guidelines so that you don't do anything within 60 days of an election.

CUOMO: But - but he did it.

NADLER: Yes.

CUOMO: He did it because he felt that this was different, because he told Congress that he would tell them something.

NADLER: He did it because he was protecting - he did it because he was protecting his rear against subsequent criticism.

CUOMO: Maybe so. But here's your challenge now. One, you have to convince voters that it's OK to vote for Hillary Clinton because it is almost guaranteed that they may call for a special prosecutor, but they are most certainly going to do everything they can to go after Hillary Clinton if she becomes president-elect of the United States. How does she make a compelling case that she can lead this country when you know for better or worse they're going to do everything they can to stay on this as long as they can?

NADLER: Well, you cannot let the actions of people who want to bring the government to a halt and concentrate only on politics and only on obstruction affect everything else. That was the policy of the Republicans from the day that Obama took office, obstruct, even if you agree with him, oppose what he's proposing. Yes, they're going to try to investigate. That's a very good reason to have a Democratic House and a Senate so we can get on with the government, with the - with the business of the people, instead of wasting our time on all kinds of investigations that will ultimately go nowhere. You look at the entire Clinton presidency. Bill Clinton presidency. Whitewater, travelgate, this gate, that gate, nothing went anywhere until you got the Monica Lewinsky thing that didn't - that didn't even exist at the time of the special prosecutor being appointed. They just kept persecuting him on thing after thing after thing because they never accepted his legitimacy and they just wanted to - to undermine anything he tried to do. And, unfortunately, it worked to a large extent.

[0835:20] Here, you cannot - first of all, you cannot reward the saboteurs. They want to sabotage Democratic government by tying it up in investigations all the time. Hopefully they won't succeed in doing that. Hopefully we'll have a Democratic Congress and it won't be a problem.

CUOMO: All right.

NADLER: But even if you have a Republican Congress and it is a problem, you cannot reward them from that.

CUOMO: We heard from Goodlatte. We get to hear from Jerry Nadler. Both sides represented.

Thank you for being with us, congressman, as always.

NADLER: Thank you.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with mounting frustration surrounding the Clinton and Trump campaigns, the libertarian ticket remains an option for voters. What do they say about all of the latest campaign developments? We'll ask Libertarian Vice Presidential Nominee Bill Weld, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: As the battle between Clinton and Trump intensifies in this final week of the campaign, the libertarian ticket wants to remind voters that they are a third option. Vice Presidential Nominee William Weld was the former governor of Massachusetts, and a former U.S. assistant attorney general and he joins us now.

[08:40:10] Good morning, governor.

WILLIAM WELD, LIBERTARIAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, Alisyn. Good to be here.

CAMEROTA: What do you think of FBI Director James Comey's decision to send this letter to Congress before he knew what is on Anthony Weiner's laptop? WELD: Well, it's getting worse and worse. Friday was the letter.

Yesterday law enforcement officials said, we got a warrant to look at the e-mails that we told you we'd found. We don't know what's in them, but we got a warrant. So what's tomorrow? We got a warrant for a wiretap? We got a warrant - we got a subpoena from the grand jury? You know, those would be serious criminal offenses to say something like this. So they're totally off the reservation. And they're let's be honest, they're playing hit and run, right? There' no way that Mrs. Clinton -

CAMEROTA: What does that mean?

WELD: It means that there's no way for Mrs. Clinton to know what the evidentiary basis is on which they made this, you know, update to their investigation. And they've said themselves they don't know it. So that just makes it all the more unreasonable to have waded into these waters in the first place.

CAMEROTA: So why did he do it?

WELD: I think he just was concerned about criticism from Congress if it later turned out that three months from now one of those e-mails turned out to be relevant to his prior investigation. But I think Director Comey did the right thing in July in concluding that no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges. And I think that today most people would - senior and former Justice Department officials, would agree that no reasonable prosecutor would do what Mr. Comey has done here.

CAMEROTA: Do you think that Director Comey has broken the law in getting out ahead of this?

WELD: No, I'm - I don't know that I would say that. But I do think if he continues, and if there's a, you know, a press conference or an update or a leak every sine day, somebody's got to step in, either, you know, Attorney General Lynch has to do what she doesn't want to do, which is order him to stand down. It's just - it's a real mess. And it's a mess of his making.

CAMEROTA: So he did not have to - just to be clear, he did - he promised Congress that he would update them if there were any new developments. But speaking as your legal mind and with your former experience, he did not have to update Congress?

WELD: This is not a new development.

CAMEROTA: Well, it is -

WELD: This is not the sort of thing that would require an update.

CAMEROTA: We don't know if it's a new development. He's found (INAUDIBLE) these e-mails and we don't know what's on them.

WELD: OK. You don't know, keep your mouth shut. If you don't know, keep your mouth shut. Don't speculate. You know he's - he's - he's forwarding a gossamer thread saying, this might be something. We don't know. Probably we definitely don't think so now because we haven't seen the e-mails. Now he announces, or someone announced, we got permission to look at the e-mails. They're not even announcing we've looked at the e-mails. What's it going to be tomorrow? We looked at an e-mail. There was nothing there, but tomorrow we're going to look at another e-mail.

CAMEROTA: How do you think this affects the race?

WELD: I think it's disgraceful. Ten days to go. I think it's disgraceful.

CAMEROTA: Do you think that it will help Donald Trump win the election?

WELD: Well, you know, I hope not. Mr. Trump braying about this latest development reminds me of the guy in "Monty Python" who says, she's a witch, burn her, burn her. It has no more content than that. And - and the point of that skit in "Monty Python" was that those towns people were ignorant and stupid, not that they were great (ph).

CAMEROTA: You have begun speaking out more and more against Donald Trump and -

WELD: I do not have my candidate hat on here. I have on my former Justice Department hat. Honest. An I'm outraged by what's going on here because it's such a violation of Justice Department policies, procedures, whatever.

CAMEROTA: I know, but I thought that you veered then into your candidate hat where you were talking about Donald Trump because, correct me if I'm wrong, I mean -

WELD: Oh, yes. OK. Yes, you said the "t" word. That reminded me.

CAMEROTA: That's right. I mean you have begun, I think, being a much more vocal critic of Donald Trump. You're not willing to sit this out -

WELD: Oh, sure.

CAMEROTA: And sit on the sidelines. Let me read to you the statement, one of - a little portion of a statement that you just put out about Donald Trump. You said, "a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States must be stable, and Donald Trump is not stable. He has not exhibited the self-control, the discipline or the emotional depth necessary to function credibly as a president of the United States." Do you worry that by being in the race with Gary Johnson that you are taking votes away from Hillary Clinton, and thereby helping to elect Donald Trump?

WELD: Well, actually, my appeal is to moderate Republican voters and essentially in that statement I said, how can any Republican who believes in decency and elementary standards of civility in a president of the United States vote for Donald Trump, because that's not Donald and I don't think he can take the criticism that goes with being president of the United States. You've seen what happens in the debates when he gets criticized. He

turns red in the face. He waves his hands. He stands on one leg and holds his breath until he gets his way. He behaves as a six-year-old would. And we cannot have that in a president of the United States.

And I wouldn't make that point if I didn't think it translated into policy. I mean we've got serious issues out there, like nuclear proliferation, not having a closed economy, not totally withdrawing from the world, not picking a fight with every foreign nation. That's the way I think a Trump presidency would go. And it all traces back to his lack of stability.

[08:45:09] CAMEROTA: But you don't worry that by you guys being in the race, that you may inadvertently hand the race to Donald Trump?

WELD: No. I mean my two appeal - I still think our polling shows that we're pulling more from Trump than from Mrs. Clinton. And my appeal is to Republican voters, you know, think twice before you vote for Trump. And my other argument is, you know, in a way, libertarians can be a protest vote because we certainly stand for the opposite of whatever the status quo is in Washington, D.C. And I think that's part of Mr. Trump's appeal. So to the extent that we can make the point that we have that aspect, the protest against Washington, and we're two, two- term Republican governors, maybe we look better than Trump. That's my hope in any event.

CAMEROTA: Governor Weld, thank you.

WELD: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Great to talk to you.

Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: Well, one reason that team Trump loves all this FBI intrigue is that it's distracting from their own woes. "Washington Post" reporter called hundreds of charities, literally over 400 calls, and learned something about Trump that you should know, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:11] CAMEROTA: Time for "CNN Money Now." Chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here.

Hi, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

General Electric making a big bet on oil, you guys. GE announcing a multibillion dollar deal with oilfield services company Baker Hughes. Both stocks set to pop this morning, building on gains since reports of a deal surfaced last week.

Two presidential prediction models, two very different outcomes, you guys. The first, if the S&P 500 drops from August to October, the incumbent party loses the White House. It's accurate 86 percent of the time. That model suggests a Donald Trump victory. But another model shows Hillary Clinton will win. This one has picked every president since 1980. It cites a high presidential approval rating, cheap gas, a growing economy and a low jobless rate.

So two different prediction models. Only time will tell.

Chris.

CUOMO: Only time will tell with the finger thing there. Very nice, Christine. Happy Halloween.

All right, so, nobody gives more. Nobody loves the troops more than Donald Trump. That's what he says. But does the giving meet the talk? Joining us now is David Fahrenthold. He's a political reporter with "The Washington Post," and he made over 400 calls seeking a question - an answer to this question.

What did you find?

DAVID FAHRENTHOLD, POLITICAL REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": Well, we found that although Trump has given some money over his lifetime, more than $7 million going back to the '80s to charity out of his own pocket, he's often, as you said, made a lot of effort to make himself seem a lot more charitable than he actually is. He clearly knows people expect him to be charitable and he goes through a lot of effort to try to make - to inflate his own charity by promising donations he never gives, and even in some cases by showing up at charity events where he gave no money and sort of take - standing there at the front of the room and taking the credit he doesn't deserve.

CUOMO: Now, I read about that, obviously, in your piece, and it's getting a lot of pickup, that he showed up at a charity dinner that nobody expected him to be at, he sat in the podium, he took another benefactor's seat, and never gave them any money. But if I am the voter and I don't like Trump, or I am the voter and I love Trump no matter what, what is in this piece that might change my mind either way?

FAHRENTHOLD: Well, obviously I didn't write it hoping to change people's minds. It's hard to write journalism with that in mind. But the thing about this is, we now have looked at Trump's giving long enough to know something about his character, right? This is a rare time in Trump's life. He holds so much information close to the vest. You can actually judge him by whether he follows through on this very important moral part of his character, which is charity. And so by calling more than 420 charities and finding that basically there was almost no evidence, no evidence at all of gifts out of his own pocket for six recent years, between 2010 and 2015, you can - if you want to know something about whether Trump follows up on his promises and whether Donald Trump feels a moral responsibility to help others, I think there's some important information in there for you.

CUOMO: I also feel that from a journalistic perspective the idea of transparency seems to just scream out of your reporting that he just doesn't put the information out. That's why you had to make all these phone calls. And he doesn't want to talk about these things. What did you find in terms of transparency?

FAHRENTHOLD: Oh, basically none from him. He's given - has not released his tax returns, as you know. That would have made his personal giving very clear. His campaign, I sent them, you know, 70- plus questions in the course of reporting this story, asking them everything about specific details, you know, can you - do you believe this incident happed where he crashed the charity event and didn't give any money? Everything from that to, what does he consider the biggest charitable cause of his life? What money has he given in the last ten years? All those things. I sent them and I didn't - got no response, none at all, until after the story ran. And then after the story ran, all I got was a claim oh, he's given tens of millions of dollars out of his own profit. But then when I asked for proof or details or anything beyond just that - that assertion, I got nothing.

CUOMO: Hmm. David Fahrenthold, thank you very much for sharing your reporting with us, as always. You can read it in "The Washington Post." Thank you.

FAHRENTHOLD: Thank you.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Well, Clinton and Trump, of course, will be on the campaign trail today. How will they handle the FBI's e-mail probe now of Huma Abedin? Let's discuss it with CNN executive politics editor Mark Preston. He is "The Bottom Line."

Hi, Mark.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: So how is this going to play out on the campaign trail today?

PRESTON: Well, we're going to hear the Clinton campaign and all the surrogates go out and demand that Director Comey give more details, although I think they'll fall on deaf ears, as I think as we know from our reporting that Comey probably will not discuss this anymore. At the same time, we've heard Jason Miller, you know, one of the top spokesmen for Donald Trump, on this show just last hour say that they want answers, as well, but Hillary Clinton needs to give some answers. So expect Donald Trump, who will be speaking at noon, to address this as well, as well as his surrogates that are out there trying to hammer home the fact that they're going to say that Hillary Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, which is an Achilles heel for her.

CUOMO: Well, there's nothing tastier than the unknown when it comes to an investigation.

PRESTON: Right.

[08:55:02] CUOMO: And this is very helpful to Trump. This is not a day to confuse my name with Comey's name, by the way, Preston. I do not need any more heat on me than I currently have. Let me ask you something, in terms of what this means going forward, I

tried it with Jerry Nadler, let me try it from the analyst's perspective. Clinton, if she wins, is president-elect. She's now looking at a Congress who has the best opportunity they could have prayed for with what Comey just said to start their own sets of hearings about this and even ask for a special prosecutor stating political compromise and potential conflict. How real do you think that is?

PRESTON: Oh, I mean it's more real than you could imagine at this point. Listen, we've already had Jason Chaffetz, who is one of the top chairman in the House who investigated Benghazi with Hillary Clinton, come out and say, if she's elected, this is prior to these e-mails being discovered and announced on Friday, that he had two years' worth of investigations of Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is elected, expect House Republicans, if they maintain the majority, to go right after Hillary Clinton and try to investigate every little thing about her and every little thing about her administration, which in many ways that is their role, as they have oversight of the administration, but at the same time we're talking about a dysfunctional Washington that will even become even more dysfunctional. And - and the - you know, the wheels of progress will certainly come to a grinding halt.

CAMEROTA: Good times.

Where are the candidates going to be? Shows us the map today.

PRESTON: Well, a couple things. We'll see Donald Trump, who will be up in Michigan today. He'll be holding a couple events up there. And Hillary Clinton is going to Ohio. Now, what's interesting about this week in general is Hillary Clinton is hitting six of the eight battleground states over the next week, while Donald Trump is going to Michigan and we know he's going to Wisconsin tomorrow. What's puzzling about that is that these are two states that Hillary Clinton has a pretty good lead on Donald Trump. So Donald Trump still has a very narrow path to win the 270 electoral votes he needs. You have to wonder, why is he going to Wisconsin and Michigan and not focusing on the eight battleground states that he really needs to win.

CUOMO: Hmm. So, Hillary Clinton is trying to counter the FBI scrutiny with making a larger point about Donald Trump in a new ad. Here it is.

PRESTON: Right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was me in 1964. The fear of nuclear war that we had as children, I never thought our children would ever have to deal with that again. And to see that coming forward in this election is really scary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump asked three times -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three times, why can't we use nuclear weapons?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I want to be unpredictable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What safeguards are there to stop any president who may not be stable from launching a nuclear attack?

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER HEAD OF THE CIA AND NSA: The commander in chief is the commander in chief.

TRUMP: Bomb the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: "The Daisy Ad" hearkens back to 1964. We actually had the guy on who designed the ad here with us. Using his own earstwhile (ph) buddy Joe Scarborough to make the point that Donald Trump can't be trusted to make these big decisions. Effectiveness?

PRESTON: It could be very effective. And for all the millennials out there that are wondering what "The Daisy Ad" is, it is an ad that ran once during the '64 election, but it has been held up as the hallmark of the scare ad of all time. Basically what the Clinton people are trying to do is to say, listen, there was concern in 1964 during the Cold War of nuclear war. Well, guess what, if Donald Trump is elected, we should have that concern again. And, ironically, they're using the same actress, the one who was in that ad back in 1964, to narrate this one here in 2016.

CAMEROTA: I know it - it was interesting to see her as an adult there in that ad.

PRESTON: Right.

CAMEROTA: So, so, Mark, I mean, are you just waiting with bated breath for the new polls to come out that show whether or not Director Comey's letter to Congress has had some significant effect on how people are feeling about Clinton and Trump?

PRESTON: Now, Alisyn, you mean Director Cuomo, right, who's sitting right next to you?

No, I'll tell you what, no question -

CAMEROTA: The Cuomey (ph) that you called him.

PRESTON: No question. You know, you know, here's the deal. No matter what happens, the path to 270 is still very difficult for Donald Trump. This was good news for him. But we will start to see polls in the next 24 hours, 36 hours, to see if this has any real effect, specifically in these battleground states. Let's focus in on two of them, Florida and Pennsylvania, and we'll see what happens.

CUOMO: You know what we're not going to see, my prediction, my Halloween treat.

CAMEROTA: Go ahead. CUOMO: No Trump on TV. He is going to stay dark.

CAMEROTA: Today?

CUOMO: He's going to stay dark. You're not going to - like we're not going to get a call and say, hey, he wants to do television tomorrow morning, he wants to do it here.

PRESTON: Right.

CUOMO: They don't want him to step on what they see as a great opportunity. That's my guess. What do you say?

PRESTON: I totally agree with you, except we will see him get some rallies. The only caveat to that is, if Sean Hannity, his friend, asks him on, we could see that happen.

CUOMO: Well, that's different. That's different.

PRESTON: Right.

CUOMO: Yes.

PRESTON: Right. I agree.

CAMEROTA: Mark, thank you very much. Have a safe and happy Halloween, Mark, and everyone out there. We'll see you tomorrow.

Time now for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you so much.

[09:00:02] NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.