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New Clinton Ad Hits Trump with Republicans' Own Words; Leaked Video Shows McCain Worried About Reelection Chances; Forecast of Trump's Potential First 100 Days; Judge Rules Sandy Hook Families Can Continue Lawsuit. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired May 5, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: As for the former secretary of state, you saw the Democratic front-runner saying right here exclusively to Anderson Cooper that she is not running against Trump, she's running her own campaign and yet -- have you seen her new ad? It hits Trump and his party hard by using Republicans' own words to tear down their presumed nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am a unifier. We're going to be a unified party.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a con artist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A phony.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump is the know-nothing candidate.

SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald is a bully.

GOV. MITT ROMNEY, (R) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter.

TRUMP: I don't remember.

ROMNEY: Who attributed a reporter's questions to her menstrual cycle.

TRUMP: Blood coming out of her wherever.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency.

CARLY FIORINA, HEWLETT PACKARD CEO: The man who seems to only feel big when he's trying to make other people look small.

TRUMP: Don't worry about it, little Marco.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That is just a piece of the whole thing. Let me bring in CNN Political Commentator Donna Brazile, the vice

chairwoman of Voter Registration and Participation for the Democratic National Committee, and Tana Goertz, the senior adviser to the Trump campaign.

Ladies, welcome.

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hello.

BALDWIN: Hello.

Tana, you know, Democrats may call Hillary Clinton's ad crafty. You call it what?

TANA GOERTZ, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Desperate. I mean, we haven't even gotten started and she's already desperate making a statement, but let me tell you what. I know what's going to happen here. Or I believe I know what's going to happen here. And all those people that said those things about Mr. Trump will definitely get behind him and support him because they would rather have Mr. Trump in the White House than Hillary Clinton when it comes down to it.

BALDWIN: But, how is she desperate if she didn't say a single word? She uses Republicans' own words against Mr. Trump.

GOERTZ: I meant desperate in the fact that she is putting out an ad already. I mean, she hasn't sealed up the nomination.

So, you know, I just think that it was -- she was striking first and, hey, I don't have anything to do with the Hillary Clinton campaign and so whatever she chooses to do is her business. I just -- I watched it and thought, "Wow", like, "Why did she go ahead and do that already?" That seemed a little unnecessary. But, whole line to figure what the Hillary Clinton campaign is doing.

BALDWIN: What do you think the Hillary Clinton campaign is doing, Ms. Brazile?

BRAZILE: Well, I can't speak for the Hillary Clinton campaign because as you know, I'm a neutral super delegate and we still have a race on the Democratic ...

BALDWIN: As my dib on this panel. How about that?

BRAZILE: That's right. That's right. Although she leads in both delegates in the raw vote, there's no question that the Republicans have given not just Secretary Clinton, but the entire country a lot of material to choose from. Donald Trump has given us perhaps more material than we can even use because we don't have enough time.

So there's no question that these ads that are relatively easy to make because the material comes directly from the candidates who competed against him in the primary. Donald Trump has one major challenge today and that is to try to unify the Republican Party. And Hillary has to continue to look not just to what Philadelphia and the Democratic convention, but also the fall election while she will go up against a very unusual, uncanny candidate.

BALDWIN: How does, Donna, just staying with you, you know, it's all the Republicans' words that are used against Mr. Trump, you know, Secretary Clinton sat down in an interview with Anderson just yesterday and, you know, she was asked about that Elizabeth Warren tweet, Elizabeth Warren. The senator very forcefully, you know, called Trump a misogynist, and a sinophobe and other, you know, negative characteristics. And Anderson said, "Well, would you agree?" And she said, "Well, I think Elizabeth Warren is a very smart lady."

How long will she walk that line?

BRAZILE: Well, first of all, Secretary Clinton has to talk about her message. She has to talk about what she intends to do and her vision for the country. Secretary -- I mean, I'm sorry, Senator Elizabeth Warren, you know, sent out a tweet. I might have retweeted it. And, you know why? I probably retweeted it because she is absolutely correct.

When you say the things that Donald Trump has said about Mexicans, about Muslims, when you meet, you know, I can't even say what he said, you know, about other groups of Americans about women.

And there's no question that it's offensive. And people are going to use that against him to try to distance him from the rest of the Republican Party, so no question that what Secretary Clinton has to do, just put her own vision out there, put her own message out there. Likewise, Donald Trump had to do that on the Republican side and a lot of material, he has given us a lot of material.

He's a reality TV star. He's quite entertaining, but he can also be very serious when it comes to building a wall and doubling down on banning Muslims, including Muslim Americans from entering the United States. I think all that has to be on the table.

BALDWIN: OK. Tana, let me just focus back on you and let's just take the Dems (ph) out of it for a second. Specifically on Cleveland, we -- you know, we just learned in the last hour that Mitt Romney says he won't be attending the Republican convention in Cleveland.

[15:05:02] We've also learned that ...

GOERTZ: Bummer.

BALDWIN: Facetious?

GOERTZ: Yes.

BRAZILE: She says bummer.

BALDWIN: Yes, correct. Just so I'm clear. Bush 41 and 43 ...

BRAZILE: Bummer, I say, yes.

BALDWIN: ... the last two Republican presidents, you know, they will not be endorsing Mr. Trump. We do know that the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell essentially is saying, you know, "Yes, I will support Donald Trump, with expectations that he meets my obligations."

You know, you may not be so bummed that Mitt Romney is not there. We remember his speech from Utah, not so nice about Mr. Trump. That said, you need some of these voices to help unify the party. How does he do that?

GOERTZ: He will definitely do that. I mean, we just learned this information, you know, Tuesday night. So it's new. It's fresh. It's raw. And Mr. Trump will continue to reach out to the American people and also other Republicans. All of the people that were running will probably -- most the majority of them will probably get behind Mr. Trump because at the end of the day, they do not want to see Hillary Clinton in the White House and they will rally behind him.

Mr. Trump does have a lot of work to do unifying the party, but he is capable of doing it. He's more than a reality TV star. I happen to know him very well. He's not only a master builder but he is a master businessman. He is the best in the business. The list goes on and on.

I would highly suggest to all of your viewers to go get a copy of "The Art of the Deal", not for Mr. Trump to make anymore money, but you will see the brains behind this man. He is more than just the Trump brand. He is -- he is the best.

BALDWIN: I understand, but what about the Bush Republicans? What about, you know, Romney Republicans? Even though you don't care Romney won't be there, I mean, do you not agree that you need them?

GOERTZ: Well, we do. And I have a lot of people that have reached out to me from Utah that are Romney Republicans and they're completely 100 percent on the Trump train.

So, I'm not concerned that Mitt's following, they're all going to stay with Mitt. I believe that they're going to come over. I mean, at the end of the day, they're Republicans. If they're true Republicans, they will vote for the Republican nominee and that's Donald Trump. And then we will win and Hillary Clinton, Democrat, will not be in the White House.

So, I'm not so worried about Mitt Romney following. I believe they're coming. And just a few of them, like I said, have already reached out to me and said, "We're all aboard the Trump train."

BALDWIN: OK. Final question on another Republican who's been around for quite a while, John McCain, someone that, you know, Trump attacked many months ago.

You know, we have this recording of him behind closed doors because he's at a fundraiser. He is worried about his own political future with Trump at the top of the ticket. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: But have no doubt that if it is Donald Trump at the top of the ticket here in Arizona, with over 30 percent of the vote being a Hispanic vote, no doubt that this may be the race of my life. People are angry, they're upset, they feel that there is this disconnect.

So, and if you have friends here or you listen to or watch Hispanic media in this state or in the country, you will see that it is all anti-Trump. (Inaudible). The Hispanic community is aroused and angry in the way that I have never seen in 30 years, and so this is going to be a tough campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Tough campaign because of Donald Trump. This is John McCain. This is someone a lot of Republicans listen to.

BRAZILE: And a lot of Americans respect for his service to our country. Look, John McCain has run ...

BALDWIN: Right.

BRAZILE: ... for president. He knows what it takes.

He also understands that the Hispanic vote is a very fast run demographic vote in this country. And if you look at the registration numbers, whether it's Texas, California, Nevada, et cetera, Arizona, people are angry at the kind of hateful rhetoric that they heard from Mr. Trump and thus they want to go out and register and want to participate. And you know what I say? Good.

BALDWIN: That's Donna. Tana, you want to respond? We got to go.

GOERTZ: Yeah, I was just going to say, I know a lot of people are upset but there are a lot of people, a lot of Hispanics. I was in Nevada when Mr. Trump won the Hispanic vote there and in Arizona. And there are a lot of Hispanics that are 100 percent behind securing the borders. Mr. Trump is resonating with a lot of them.

And I agree with John McCain. You know, this is going to be a tough struggle. But at the end of the day, he is a Republican and Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. And it's either, you know, we vote for -- they vote for Donald Trump or we have Hillary Clinton in the White House.

I understand it's going to be a little bit difficult. But, if we all -- you know, if they get behind him 100 percent focused on winning the, you know, the election, we can do this. And we will do this.

BALDWIN: Tana Goertz, thank you.

BRAZILE: Hispania Americans deserve better.

BALDWIN: Donna Brazile, I saw your fingers.

[15:10:00] BRAZILE: No. I was just saying it's going to be a very small, small percentage of Hispanics that might support Donald Trump.

They want a leader who will unite the country and who will ... BALDWIN: Right.

BRAZILE: ... stand up for all Americans, and that's not Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: Donna Brazile. Tana Goertz.

GOERTZ: But we'll see in California.

BRAZILE: We'll see.

GOERTZ: Thank you. Bye.

BRAZILE: Bye-bye.

BALDWIN: We'll see. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you so much.

CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger, hello, hello. Why don't we bring you in all of this?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Hello. Hello.

BALDWIN: What about, you know, some of the other Republicans, about sharing, you know, John McCain's concern, for example? You know, he's certainly not the only Republican who's concerned about down-ballot issues. Some Republicans saying, "Where's the third party, you know, potential candidate?" What say you?

BORGER: Well, I think -- I talked to lots of Republican, lots of Republicans who are working on Senate and House campaigns. And their feeling is that it's each man for himself. That in this presidential race, you're going to have to run a local race. You don't have to run like you're running for sheriff, OK. Even if you're running for the United States Senate. Particularly those Republican senators who are up for reelection in blue states. You know, this is tough for them.

So they have to walk a -- you know, they have to walk a very fine line and they have to say, "Look, I'm a Republican." But this is what I believe and this is where I disagree with my presidential candidate, Donald Trump, or this is where I agree with him.

If there's a third-party candidate, it becomes a little bit more tricky. But I also think this is where the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan comes in. It's very important. Ryan is going to have an agenda. And it is an agenda that lots of Republicans would kind of agree with.

So, if, for example, they disagree with Donald Trump on the question of deportation, right, they can then say, "But you know what? I agree with the House Speaker and his agenda. And we, as Republicans, will be able to work it out."

So they're trying to find a way for these Republican candidates who -- to thread the needle. There are going to be lots of races, particularly House races, where Donald Trump is going to have very strong coattails, will do really well and will help a lot of Republican candidates and they understand that as well. But for some of them, it's going to be a very difficult path to navigate and that's what I think you heard there from John McCain.

BALDWIN: Yep. Yep. As far as the Trump team beefing up, adding a finance ...

BORGER: Yeah.

BALDWIN: ... guy ...

BORGER: Yeah.

BALDWIN: ... you know, focused on raising money for the general, he knows he needs to match Hillary Clinton dollar for dollar. How do they catch up?

BORGER: Well, it's interesting, of course because Brooke, you know that Donald Trump has been running a campaign that says that people who raise money from special interests are the puppets of the special interests, and beholden to the special interests.

So now you've got a super PAC being started. We'll see what Donald Trump says about that. He's going to have a joint fundraising committee with the Republican National Committee. We'll see how they raise money for that. We'll see what size donations his campaign takes, you know, for individuals, the max is $2,700. Does he limit it to the Bernie Sanders $27? Does he take larger contributions? How much of his own money does he put in? And how does he adjust his narrative to say, "Yes, I am now taking money, but I am still not beholden to the special interests the way that Hillary Clinton is." You know, that's going to be something he's going to have to deal with how he navigates that.

BALDWIN: Gloria Borger, always a pleasure.

BORGER: Thanks.

BALDWIN: Thank you so much. You know, Gloria mentioned, had some great points about House Speaker Paul Ryan. He will be on with my colleague, Jake Tapper, on The Lead 4:00 Eastern. Do not miss that.

Coming up next, Donald Trump outlines what he plans to do first 100 days if in fact he is elected president of the United States. Priority number one for Mr. Trump, we're about to tell you.

Also ahead, this was former Mexican President Vicente Fox reacting to Donald Trump just three months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICENTE FOX, FORMER MEXICO PRESIDENT: I'd be clear. I'm not going to pay for that (inaudible) wall. He should pay for it. He's got the money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, now, Mexico's former president is saying this about Trump now that he's the presumptive nominee. We'll have that for you ahead. You're watching CNN. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:18:34] BALDWIN: A pair of (ph) nominee, de facto nominee, presumptive nominee, yes, Donald Trump still needs more than 150 delegates to officially claim the Republican Party's nomination, but his general election campaign has essentially begun.

However, Trump has been talking about what he would do on his first day in office since the very beginning. Here's a campaign video from February.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So many people are asking me, what would I do on my first day in office? Well, you have executive orders all over the place, so many would be terminated. The good thing about an executive order signed by our president is that it could be unsigned immediately. You don't have to go through Congress.

So I would get rid of the attack on our Second Amendment because that's what Obama is doing when he does that. I would very, very strongly get rid of the attack on the border. We have a border that's like a piece of Swiss cheese.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK. Hyperbole or reality? My next guess today is "New York Times" offers a forecast of what Trump's first 100 days in office would look like.

Welcome, Patrick Healy, Political Correspondent for "The Times." Nice to see you.

PATRICK HEALY, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Good to see you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. First 100 days, what is priority number one for him?

HEALY: I think it's rescinding Obama's immigration executive orders, that seems very sort of high on his list. And then he wants to sort of telegraph very quickly that he's got designers and engineers working on what the wall on the Mexican border would look like, ordering an audit of the fed which a lot of his conservative base voters want to see quickly.

[05:20:15] And then, talking to the State Department and his national security team about putting in a temporary ban on Muslims coming into the United States.

He has talked also quite a bit about how much he's going to turn to military generals and others in the armed forces for advice, not just on the border, but also on national security challenges, more than to sort of foreign policy experts and intellectuals and folks like that. So, he clearly wants to send a message that if he gets elected, change is going to happen very quickly. BALDWIN: Following through on what he's been running on. What is

this I read in your piece about turning the Oval Office into a boardroom?

HEALY: He, as you know, Brooke, thinks of himself as a dealmaker, as a negotiator. That everything that one could want can be achieved through the art of the deal as his book was titled. And his notion is that there's no better place in the world to do a deal than in the Oval Office.

And, you know, I asked him, well, does he really want to live in the White House, does he want to spend time there, you know, when he's got his, you know, penthouse apartment, he's got Mar-a-Lago in Florida. And he said absolutely, bring in CEOs who are looking at moving jobs out of the country, bring them into the Oval Office, you know, sort of sit them down. You know, jawbone them into what his, you know, position is or find some kind of common ground.

And he just sort of kept talking in very kind of business terms because as you know, Brooke, that's what he's comfortable with. That's the kind of power that he's comfortable projecting.

BALDWIN: Negotiating. You know, you talked about common ground. And he talked to you -- he talked about building a government based on relationships. What did he mean by that?

HEALY: That's right. It's -- the idea is, is that he's not going to just be reaching out to people who he raises money for, necessarily. The way presidents sometimes build allies in the House and Senate by going and holding fundraisers for them and raising money.

For him, it's sort of the art of the schmooze, it's bringing, you know, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell down to Florida, golfing with them, you know, winding and dining them, you know, talking about kind of what they want to get done, where they can find common ground.

As you know, both President Obama and President George W. Bush were not the biggest schmoozers. They liked to sort of keeping their personal times to themselves. President Obama has been criticized for not reaching out more to Republican leaders and kind of, you know, using the perks of the presidency to kind of bring them into the fold. And ...

BALDWIN: Or when he has, he's been criticized for playing golf with them.

HEALY: Right. Exactly.

BALDWIN: Final question, just quickly, will we have a gold-plated White House?

HEALY: Doesn't sound like it. It sounds like he's not going to go, you know, crazy on the redecorating. He'll leave that on the plane.

BALDWIN: OK. Patrick Healy, thank you very much, The New York Times. Coming up next, just into CNN, a breakthrough in the court battle for

the parents of those children killed in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. What a judge just decided and what it means for gun manufacturers, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:17] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Just into us today, marked a huge victory on a long legal battle for the families of victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.

Let me bring in Deborah Feyerick who's been (inaudible) from the beginning. What happened?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the judge today basically said that for the families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School, they can go ahead and begin the discovery process that the gun makers must turn over these internal documents that the families believe will prove that the gun makers aggressively marketed this AR-15 semi-automatic.

And, this is key. They believe that this could be as big as what was found in the tobacco industry lawsuits which showed the tobacco industries knew that they were marketing a product that was addictive to the general population. It completely changed a company and an industry that was once untouchable.

This is what the families believe can now happen because they say that marketing strategies used by the gun makers essentially targeted a violence-prone segment of the population. That they took these firearms made for the military, made for combat and put them in civilian hands without any sort of instruction, without any sort of qualification for using these.

And that because of that, this really became the gun of choice for people in these massacres. And we've seen many massacres and it's no coincidence that the gun that's used is the AR-15. And that's because it is powerful, it is fast and you can get a lot of bullets off very quickly.

And, you know, I spoke to some of the families. And they say, "What makes a firearm OK when it fires seven to eight bullets in seconds into a child?" And so, that's really what the argument is. But now, the gun makers were saying, "Look, we shouldn't have to even undergo to this lawsuit because federal statutes says we cannot be held criminally liable if one of our guns is used to commit a crime.

[15:30:05] The families are saying, "Oh, we're not going after that. We're going after the fact that you're deliberately marketing to people you know are not qualified to handle these firearms." So, it's a very interesting strategy.