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CNN NEWSROOM

Trump Insists His Campaign is United; Clinton Tops Trump in Three Key States; U.S.: $400M Payment to Iran Not Linked to Hostages. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 4, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:01] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much. NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Trump touting unity.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's never been so well united.

COSTELLO: Putting the past aside.

TRUMP: I just visited with some incredible folks. Some really amazing Gold Star families.

COSTELLO: Back on message and attacking Clinton.

TRUMP: She should get an award from them as the founder of ISIS.

COSTELLO: While Trump's opponents target his temperament.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a showman. He is pipe piper. He's the -- he's the music man. A noun that comes to my mind is a screw loose.

COSTELLO: Let's talk live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

The race for the White House, and very different measures of momentum. Donald Trump scoffing at reports that his campaign is unraveling and pointing to a new surge in fundraising, and he's doing it without the big party donors who have become increasingly squeamish. But Trump will need that cash because a new poll showed Hillary Clinton is making big gains of her own. She now leads in three critical states. We're going to get to those polls in just a moment. But we want to begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly with more on Trump.

Good morning, Phil. PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. And the

money is a big story. A lot of support from small-dollar supporters. And that is a very big deal, as you look forward in the -- for the rest of this campaign. There's no question about it. There are serious problems with Donald Trump's campaign. Inside the Republican Party. His advisers saying they are unified as a whole, as a campaign, ready to move forward. And they have plenty of messages to attack on. If they can only keep their candidate on message.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: The campaign is doing really well. It's never been so well united.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Donald Trump, pledging unprecedented unity within his campaign after days of turmoil.

TRUMP: I would say right now it is the best in terms of being united that it's been since we began.

MATTINGLY: It's a message echoed by his top advisers, at least publicly, who tell CNN Trump's team is under control.

PAUL MANAFORT, DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN: The campaign is focused. The campaign is moving forward in a positive way.

MATTINGLY: Those sources insist there is frustration within his staff with the candidate. Getting back on message, Trump putting Hillary Clinton directly in his crosshairs. Attacking her record as secretary of state.

TRUMP: It was Hillary Clinton that she should get an award from them as the founder of ISIS. That's what it was.

MATTINGLY: And touting his latest fundraising haul.

TRUMP: And we just took in this month, I think it's $80 million or $82 million.

MATTINGLY: Despite closing the gap with Clinton, it's proving difficult for Trump to collect checks from the country's top donors. His campaign war chest trails Clinton's by $20 million.

TRUMP: We're raising a lot of money for the Republican Party, and the money is coming in. We're just doing great. But small contributions. I think it was $61 each. And few Republicans can do that. Maybe no Republican can do that.

MATTINGLY: And with several Republicans now saying publicly they won't support Trump, including rising GOP star, Adam Kinzinger, there's still great cause for concern within the party.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R), ILLINOIS: Donald Trump for me is beginning to cross a lot of red lines of the unforgiveable in politics. And so, you know, I'm not going to support Hillary, but you know, in America, we have the right to write somebody in or skip the vote and vote for Mark Kirk in Illinois for instance. And that's what it's looking like for me. I just don't see how I get to Donald Trump anymore.

MATTINGLY: Trump's decision not to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in his primary battle infuriating RNC chair Reince Priebus. Trump's most stalwart establishment backer, even Trump's running mate, Mike Pence splitting with him, Ryan giving a full throated endorsement.

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I strongly support Paul Ryan. I strongly endorse his reelection. He is a long time friend. He is a strong conservative leader.

MATTINGLY: The controversy is leading some top supporters to question Trump's perceived self-sabotage. Newt Gingrich, a finalist to be Trump's running mate, telling the "Washington Post," Trump is helping Hillary Clinton to win by proving he is more unacceptable than she is.

NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: In the last couple of weeks, he has been remarkably underperforming.

MATTINGLY: Gingrich later backtracking, telling Politico, he is, quote, 100 percent for Trump.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, Carol, that was a message Newt Gingrich reiterated in a private phone call to the campaign. Also, complimenting Donald Trump on staying on message in his two rallies in Florida yesterday. And that's really the issue. Republican officials, they don't expect Donald Trump to become a tried and true political candidate. He's made very clear over the course of his campaign he simply is not that. But if he can just stay focused on a few key issues and attack those issues, as opposed to being distracted, the fell like that will at least give him an opportunity to win in November -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Phil Mattingly, reporting live for us. Thanks so much.

Now let's get to those polls I was telling you about a minute ago.

[09:05:02] Hillary Clinton coming out on top in three polls in key states. Besting Donald Trump in New Hampshire, Michigan and Pennsylvania. And boy, do the numbers tell a story. CNN political director David Chalian is breaking it down for us this morning.

Take it away, David.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: It is three critical states, just as you said. Let's go through the numbers first then we can talk about it.

In New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton up 15 points over Donald Trump, 47 percent to 32 percent. In Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton is up 11 points, 49 percent to 38 percent. And in Michigan, Hillary Clinton is up nine points, 41 percent to 32 percent.

Now these polls are done while she is experiencing this post convention bounce. This is part of the halo effect after her convention. We've seen it nationally and now we're seeing in these states But that means that Donald Trump's task to get to 270 electoral votes is getting tougher, not easier. These are the kinds of states that he needs to be really competitive in in order to have a viable path to 270. These numbers narrow that path for him. They do not expand.

COSTELLO: All right, so let's -- David, you stay right there. And let's add into our discussion, the editorial director of the National Journal Group, Ron Brownstein, and co-director for the Harvard Center for Public Leadership, David Gergen.

And David, you have so many titles I can never remember them all but you're awesome. And so are you, Ron. Thanks to all of you.

OK, so let's about --

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: And so is David.

COSTELLO: That's right. So are you, David. I want to talk about the New Hampshire poll first because Bernie Sanders won in the primary in New Hampshire. And Trump won in New Hampshire. And I know it's a Democratic-leaning state, David. So why isn't Mr. Trump doing better? Is it just the bounce or is it something more?

GERGEN: I think it's the bounce plus. And the plus is that Donald Trump has had a miserable seven days since the convention. I think it is perhaps the worst week that I can remember for any major candidate. The bounce was in effect got higher and higher for Hillary Clinton and his numbers have been going down, and that is -- you know, this is bad news.

Coming out of a convention is -- at the ends of the of the convention, that's when voters start to focus and begin to make up their minds more firmly. And to have Donald Trump in almost near free fall here in the last days has badly hurt his campaign. That does not mean he cannot win. He still can, but it's a catch up game that's hard to play. And at this moment, you know, he's still going backwards.

COSTELLO: So, David Chalian, in Michigan, just so we can parse the polls a little bit more, Donald Trump is even losing in what Republican strongholds in that state.

CHALIAN: Well, the state overall is state that tends to be Democrat.

COSTELLO: Leans Democrat, right.

CHALIAN: So -- but it is the kind of state, it's the birthplace of the Reagan Democrats, it's the kind of place and electorate that Donald Trump was hoping to have success with, right. This is -- his rustbelt strategy, this is Pennsylvania and Ohio, places like Michigan and Wisconsin. He has to take these states that have been reliably blue, except for Ohio, true back and forth state of late, and actually upend the trajectory and so when you see Hillary Clinton with a nine point advantage there, he is not doing that. And that means that, again, like I was saying, that means that narrows his path to an electoral majority. COSTELLO: So, Ron, you know, he painted this dark picture at the

Republican National Convention that blue-collar workers were in danger of never finding a job. So is that message not resonating? Should he tweak it?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, he -- the view he portrayed in America was actually I think very accurately reflected. Those are his core supporters. But it struck many other voters as just too much, too dark, too divisive in particular. I mean, this is kind of -- it's kind of an extraordinary moment, Carol. You can go back to World War II, you know, we've only had one instance where the party in power has held the White House for more than eight consecutive years and that was Reagan and Bush in 1988.

And the reason is, I think the big reason is, after eight years, you pick up a lot of nicks and bruises running the country. And certainly there are plenty of nicks and bruises evident on the Obama administration. Slow growth in the second quarter, an Iran deal that is raising eyebrows among many people, but Donald Trump has achieved something almost unimaginable, which is that after eight years of a sitting president, this is more a referendum on him than it is on the referendum on the presidency itself.

And that is because he is a candidate who's so provocative, so outside the boundaries, 60 percent of the country consistently saying they don't think he's qualified. He has made this more about him than he has about change. The question is, is he the kind of change that you want, rather than if you want change at all. And that I think is a big, big reason why he was looking up in the polls.

COSTELLO: Well, let's just talk about the change candidate, the change agent because there was a CNN/ORC poll out, too, David, right? It shows President Obama's approval rating at 54 percent.

GERGEN: Right.

[09:10:02] COSTELLO: But it also showed that 54 -- what, I think 54 percent of people in the country think the country is going in the -- you help me.

CHALIAN: Wrong direction.

COSTELLO: Wrong direction.

CHALIAN: Although you have to remember, some of those people in there are Obama supporters because they think things are going badly for a whole host of reasons. Congressional gridlock or things that the government doesn't seem to be working properly. So they can still approve of the president's rating and say that the country is going in the wrong direction.

COSTELLO: So some of the people in the 54 percent who think the country is going in the wrong direction might think it's because of gridlock in Washington, not because the economy is so sluggish that they don't think they can't recover. CHALIAN: I'm sure that's part of it also. Those folks who are in

that 54 percent. And I do think you're right that that 54 percent, the entire makeup of it, whether they are pro-Obama, and maybe open to Hillary Clinton or not, they could be core Trump supporters, a combination of what they do want is things not going exactly as they are right now. That is what Ron was just talking about. That is the hunger for change there.

The question now, what each campaign will try to frame for the next 96 days is what kind of change do you want.

COSTELLO: OK, so, David, what should Mr. Trump do?

GERGEN: Well, he's got to -- he needs to sit back over a weekend and sit down with some people who are heavyweights and figure out where he goes from here. I don't think he ought to be doing this on the fly. The very significant number in all of these polls today is the president's approval rating. As Ron and David will tell you, when a candidate runs and from the same party as the sitting president, the approval rating of that sitting president is all important to the candidate.

If that president is sitting down below, like 45 percent, almost certainly, Hillary Clinton would lose. If it gets around 50 percent, but now he is at 54 percent, the highest number we've seen for his approval, he's cresting at just the right time for this campaign. At 54 percent, he is at the highest number since before he was inaugurated for the second term and he's in the same neighborhood that Ronald Reagan was when George H.W. Bush ran as his successor.

That 54 percent gives a lot of lift just in and of itself to the Hillary campaign and makes it harder for Trump. So it's a very, very significant number. And the fact that he is losing so badly now, Trump is losing so badly in these breakaway states, he thought he could get in, you know, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, they were so important, and she is opening up these leads, this is a very good news day for Democrats in the polls.

COSTELLO: But, Ron, Mr. Trump is in a pickle because his core supporters really dislike President Obama. So it's not like he can even say anything remotely positive about the president, right?

BROWNSTEIN: That's a good point, right. I mean, it's kind of Trump's problem in general, which is, you know, from the beginning, he has narrowed rather than broadened. I mean, he has tended to energizing his core supporters, the convention seemed extraordinarily aimed at basically the same kind of voters who are already with him, rather than reassuring voters who are more in the middle, who may be opened to change or doubtful and uncertain whether Trump is the kind of change they can accept.

And you know, he is facing, I think, two fundamental hurdles. And the first is that 60 percent, they consistently again in the FOX poll yesterday questioning whether he has the qualifications and temperament to serve effectively as president, and also a very large number of voters both nonwhite voters and particularly college educated white voters who view him as racially divisive. And that is preventing him from benefiting from what has been his clearest advantage in the polls all the way towards the people who are more likely to say that he, rather than Hillary Clinton, will bring change to Washington.

David is absolutely right. The single most important number in a race to succeed in an outgoing president is that president's approval rating and probably 80 percent of the people who approve of Obama or more will vote for Hillary Clinton. 80 percent of those who disapprove will vote against her. If he is well over 50 percent, it is a very, very hard hill for the out party to win the White House.

COSTELLO: And before I end this segment, I want to go back to David Chalian one more time. So you can put all of these polls into perspective for us.

CHALIAN: Well, advantage Hillary Clinton. Both conventions have happened. The country is now starting to tune in in a bigger fashion. We will see if it settles down, if this is somewhat elevated because she just came off of a positive convention for herself. But as we head towards the fall, advantage Hillary Clinton nationally, advantage Hillary Clinton in the states, and Donald Trump had a really huge impressive fundraising total and he's going to need that money now to engage in this campaign fully.

COSTELLO: All right. David Chalian, David Gergen, Ron Brownstein, thanks to all of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the White House fighting off accusations they paid hundreds of millions of dollars to free American hostages. So how did the deal really go down?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:46] COSTELLO: The White House is fighting off claims that it paid $400 million to Iran in exchange for the release of four American hostages. The money was loaded onto a cargo plane and flown into Iran around the same time hostages were freed.

The Obama administration says it was part of an arms deal dating back to the 1970s, but Donald Trump pounced on the issue at a rally in Florida, calling the president incompetent and blaming Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This was all started, this was all started by Hillary Clinton. This was -- everything was started by her. They relied on her. They relied on her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Keep in mind, Mrs. Clinton stepped down from her job as secretary of state in 2013, three years before the hostages were released.

But what was that $400 million for?

Let's talk about that with former political advisor for U.S. Central Command and director of the State Department's Iran regional presence office, Ramin Asgard.

Welcome, sir.

RAMIN ASGARD, FORMER POLITICAL ADVISER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here.

Before we get into it, can you imagine what $400 million in cash looks like?

[09:20:00] ASGARD: Well, on a pallet, it would pile pretty high. That's quite a bit. It wasn't in dollars. It was in Swiss francs and euros. So, that would be even higher probably.

COSTELLO: It is mind-boggling, how much it would weigh, $400 million.

OK, so, let's get right to the deal. Four Americans, including "Washington Post" journalist Jason Rezaian and three others were released in January, to much fanfare, right? At the same time, John Kerry said, hey, this proves that diplomacy works.

But $400 million, that $400 million is being delivered to Iran at the very same time, coincidence?

ASGARD: Well, it certainly looks bad. It certainly looks like there is some connection between the money, which is actually the first payment of $1.7 billion settlement that was for an old arms deal that went away with the revolution back in '79. So the timing could not have been propitious. It appears inconvenient coming into this election year.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, David Gergen said on Erin Burnett's show last night, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

ASGARD: Yes, well, I mean, what we're looking at is we're looking at the Iranian government looking -- I mean, when we stepped into that negotiation, we're stepping into the bizarre. You know, millennia of negotiating tactics and experience that we're having to deal with, and a 30-year-old, 35-year-old issue was kind of added to the negotiations, and you know, it came to a head at the same time as the nuclear agreement, and you know, again, the appearance is very, very unsavory.

COSTELLO: OK, so you're saying the United States back in the dark ages, in the 1970s, sold military equipment to the shah of Iran for $400 million. The military equipment was never delivered to Iran, so in essence, the United States owed Iran its $400 million back.

So if that was the case, why didn't President Obama or anyone else in the administration talk about that at the time those hostages were released and at the time it was delivered to Iran?

ASGARD: Well, I mean, you know, it had gone into litigation. There is something call the U.S./Iran Claims Tribunal. It looked at all the different cases going on generally during any kind of international litigation, you're not going to get into the details, because it is ongoing litigation. You don't want to prejudice any of the eventual findings.

The idea was to, you know, solve the outstanding problem. And unfortunately, you know, we really need to look at the government of Iran for putting human beings lives into this as pawns and bargaining chips for any kind of solution. That's, I think, the most unfortunate and most unsavory aspects of this whole issue.

COSTELLO: And you're right about that. Because Iran, you know, I mean, supposedly it knows exactly why it got this $400 million. Yet Donald Trump says Iran bragged about that, that being ransom. He even said he saw super secret video. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They have a perfect tape, done by obviously a government camera. And the tape is of the people taking the money off the plane, right? That means that in order to embarrass us further, Iran sent us the tapes, right? It is a military tape. It is a tape that was a perfect angle, nice and steady.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, it wasn't really a secret video he is talking about. It was a video that aired on FOX News. But, you know, he is right about one thing. Iran bragged about the payment being ransom.

So that's bad, because you're right. It puts -- it puts Americans all over the world in somewhat -- I mean, in dangerous conditions, right? In danger, I should say.

ASGARD: Carol, not just Americans. There has been two Iranian Americans held after. There has been a French citizen, a Canadian citizen, British citizen.

I mean, this practice of Iran of grabbing people and holding them as hostages, I mean, if there was any country that would want to get away from a narrative, which involves hostage taking in exchange for something, it would have to be Iran.

So, it's -- you know, trying to solve n way that are, you know, in compliance with international norms is something that Iran was -- I suppose trying to do with the nuclear agreement, but some of the old ghosts came back, and you know, we got into this whole trading people for money, trading people for favors.

[09:25:09] That is unfortunate. It has gotten into, you know, domestic politics in this country. But you know, it puts every single person that travels to that country in jeopardy of being grabbed and held for some future deal that might come about or not come about. It is a very unfortunate situation.

You would hope that they would want to get away from this, if they're actually serious about joining the international community because this is a medieval for taking hostage taking in exchange for money or some kind of political favor. That is the most unfortunate part of this.

And the fact that the administration was looking to solve the nuclear issue, I got to tell you, Carol, when I was at state, the fate of Americans held in Iran was always a significant priority. That was a major, major issue. Constantly, getting them back was a major priority.

It is unfortunate that it all got wrapped up in such an unsavory exchange. But when you're dealing with a government like this, you know, things are sometimes going to go that way.

COSTELLO: All right, Ramin Asgard, thank you for being with me this morning.

ASGARD: Sure, thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

The Iran payments will come up this afternoon when the president takes questions from reporters during a news conference. We'll carry that live, 4:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN.

Still to come, an American is stabbed to death in London. We just learned about the suspect, next.

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