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EARLY START

Donald Trump Accepts Republican Nomination; Roger Ailes Out At FOX News. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired July 22, 2016 - 04:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I am the law and order candidate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump says this is a country in crisis, the crisis that only he can fix. This was the last night of the Republican National Convention. What is it like the morning after?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: It is a little noisy.

BERMAN: It's what it's like the morning after.

ROMANS: If you listen carefully, you can hear them.

BERMAN: It's jackhammer.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Putting America back to work and you didn't realize it.

BERMAN: Why do they need a jack hammer to break down the set?

ROMANS: There it is. Well, they're moving. We're moving on fast there

Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START, everybody.

[04:00:01] I'm Christine Romans at the Republican National Convention or what's left of it in Cleveland.

BERMAN: Impressive. The remnants of the Republican National Convention.

I'm John Berman. It's Friday, July 22nd. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East. We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and all around the world.

And, yes, the party is over as we've already joked repeatedly. They are sweeping up behind us right now. There is leftover confetti on the floor. That confetti fell.

The balloons dropped a few hours ago on the head of Donald Trump accepting the Republican nomination for president. He gave a long speech, an history long speech that painted a picture of a country in serious trouble. The economy a disaster he says. There's lawlessness in the streets, he says. Immigrants are flooding the border, he says. And he says, there is only one man who can fix it.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police and the terrorism of our cities threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Donald Trump last night.

CNN's Manu Raju joins us with more on his big night -- Manu.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: This was Donald Trump that was tapping into the economic anxiety of the country, painting a rather bleak picture of the United States right now and promoting what he believes would be a strong United States if he were to become the commander in chief. He was railing on trade deals. He was taking a very hard line as he's done all this trade deals.

Listen to the hard line he took by saying the country's immigration is leading to the economic problems that are happening here in this country.

TRUMP: Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration which is what we have now. Communities want relief.

Yet, Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration and mass lawlessness. Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages.

We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities.

RAJU: Now, the question out of the four-day event, Christine and John, how much does Donald Trump reach out to swing voters, the independent voters? Because we know those kinds of remarks that he made really riled up this crowd and conservatives base. But what does it mean for his candidacy headed into the general election? We won't know that for a few days and we won't know until the Democrats have their convention next week in Philadelphia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Manu Raju, thank you for that so much. Let's discuss last night's main event with CNN political analyst Josh Rogin, columnist for "The Washington Post". And our three CNN commentators, Ben Ferguson, host of "The Ben Ferguson Show", Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, KABC talk radio host, John Phillips.

Good morning again, everyone. Four a.m. here in the east, and they are tearing down the stage behind us.

I want to talk about something Trump talked about with foreign policy. And I want, Josh, I want your respond on the other end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: After 15 years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before. This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton -- death, destruction, terrorism and weakness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Josh, that played well in that room.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It did play well in the room. It plays well broadly.

The problem is that, first of all, he made several mistakes about the actual foreign policy of Hillary Clinton, right? This whole notion that she was leading Barack Obama around and that she was in charge of policy is just wrong, OK? It is the Obama administration's policy. But set that to the side.

This notion that the Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama foreign policy has made the world less safe, less stable is widely held and the polls show that, all right? The problem is that we saw in "The New York Times" interview where Donald Trump laid out his foreign policy vision, and I talked to his advisers about this on Thursday, yesterday, his vision of foreign policy, A, is sort of self- contradictory, right? He's going to kill everybody that's against us, but he's going to retreat from American commitments.

His statements are already throwing the allies into a tizzy. I thought that many diplomats who are here at the convention who are just besides themselves, sending cables back to their capitals.

[04:05:04] They don't know what to make of it, and he doesn't have any specifics for how he's going to go after ISIS, and how he's going to solve all of these problems beyond, quote/unquote, "meetings", right?

So, it's very popular and there is an audience that the Clinton/Obama foreign policy has failed. I'm actually sympathetic to that argument. But Trump doesn't feel the need to figure out how he would change it, and what exactly he would do and how that really makes sense. That is fine until we get to the debate where is they are head-to-head and it will be a problem for him.

FERGUSON: And I think by the debates, he's going to do just fine on this issue. One, I think it's an issue where he says --

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: One, I think it's very clearly, he says that we are weak on going after terrorism. We have had a limited response to terrorism. The Hillary Clinton foreign policy which is an extension of the Barack Obama foreign policy, she is not saying that they ever did anything wrong when she was in the State Department. The fact that -- and he's going to hit on the issues of where she put foreign policy -- our national security at risk, whether it be Benghazi, whether it'd be the e-mails.

And I think he's also going to be make a very clear point, and that's going to be this. Look at how we are right now and how many terrorists are actively killing people in cities that are that civilized nations.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGIN: It's not a real thing.

FERGUSON: No, but what he is saying he says I'm going to go after terrorists where they are and I'm going to take the gloves off and I'm not going to sit here and act like the terrorists are not being successful.

(CROSSTALK)

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What does that mean? He never puts any meat on those bones, which again --

FERGUSON: Well, I think Hillary Clinton can challenge it.

CARDONA: Hang on. Exactly. Last night, it worked, right?

And one of the things we have seen in the polls is foreign policy as a category in polls, he loses to her, each and every time.

ROGIN: But he wins on terrorism.

CARDONA: He does.

FERGUSON: He wins terrorism.

ROGIN: It depends on how you ask the question.

CARDONA: So I actually think it was last night in t room and followers, but it's not going to be enough to sustain it, because he's going to have to put meat on those bone, and that is what the Clinton campaign is salivating.

JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Let's be honest about it. What people care about in terms of foreign policy is terrorism, is what happens domestically. People are concerned with what's going on on the opposite side of the world, but that's not something that affects them personally. What happened in San Bernardino, what happened in Orlando, that does affect them. BERMAN: The risk he runs is the Republican foreign policy

establishment, I put that in quotation marks because that is how it appears in articles written by people like Josh Rogin. But when you say that, you're talking about people who worked for George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, and are still very active in policy.

Those people viscerally do not agree.

CARDONA: Not only that, John, they are supporting Hillary. There were 100 people supporting.

ROGIN: We're not just talking about the establishment. We're talking about the leadership in the Senate and House. We are talking about the people he's going to have to work with. We're talking about the Pentagon and State Department.

The people who do this for a living look at what Donald Trump is saying. They say, A, this doesn't make sense. B, this makes the country less safe. Not more safe. As he undoes --

PHILLIPS: We had an election on that, though. In South Carolina, don't forget that debate where Jeb Bush was going to make his last stands.

BERMAN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: They had a debate on foreign policy with George H.W. Bush in the audience. Donald Trump took them on and won that South Carolina primary.

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: It was impressive.

ROGIN: The thing about foreign policy is when you say America first and you fear-monger against Muslims, yes, there's an audition for that. That can bump your --

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: Especially in the Republican primary.

FERGUSON: Let us be clear, I don't think he's going to go there with Hillary Clinton. I think --

ROGIN: He's going to go there.

FERGUSON: No, I don't think in the way you think he is. I think what you're going to see from him when he goes head-to-head with Hillary Clinton is what have you done to stop ISIS? Look at what's happening? Because when you see attacks in Nice, there are a lot of people that look at that city like that, and think that could be my city.

ROMANS: That's true.

FERGUSON: And I think it connects. So, I think when you see these attacks happening in places where they can truly connect and say, a subway attack in Germany, a knife attack.

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: He's not going to be able to come out and say here's what I'm going to do. He hasn't been able to say -- here's what he says. I'm going the bomb the S out of them.

ROGIN: You cannot fight terrorists at home, only their home, right? In order to solve the big problems, America has to be active outside its borders. So, Trump's whole frame that we have to retreat --

(CROSSTALK)

ROGIN: It doesn't make sense.

ROMANS: We have a lot to talk about, a lot of opinion here. We will get to that.

We're also going to talk about this -- Donald Trump's daughter going to bat for her father, earning her rave reviews last night and showing maybe a softer side of her father. Will her speech win him new votes? Why does Maria Cardona say was that the Democratic National Convention last night?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:14:08] BERMAN: There were a lot of people who are looking at Donald Trump's acceptance speech last night and saying it was one of the most inclusive Republican Party speeches on the convention floor that they have ever heard. The nominee specifically reached out to the LGBT community. He talked about African-Americans, Latinos as well, and both he and his daughter talked extensively about women.

So, let us discuss with our panel, Josh Rogin, Ben Ferguson, Maria Cardona and John Phillips.

We'll get to the LGBT statement in a moment which I think was actually the one that was history. But, first, let's talk about Ivanka. I mean, this campaign -- Ivanka is a very important adviser to her father. She has been very active in this campaign and the campaign is eager to showcase her in high profile moments.

FERGUSON: Sure. She's good.

BERMAN: She absolutely. And it was clear they had her out there last night to sort of soften the edges. Listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[04:15:00] IVANKA TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S DAUGHTER: At my father's company, there are more female than male executives. Women are paid equally for the work we do and when a woman becomes a mother, she is supported, not shut out.

My father values talents. He recognizes real knowledge and skill when he finds it. He is color blind and gender neutral. He hires the best person for the job, period.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: And she talked about the equal pay. She talked about child care. She talked about universal pre-K. She talked about a bunch of things that are actually in Hillary Clinton's platform.

BERMAN: It was interesting to hear -- John Phillips.

PHILLIPS: She's glamorous. She's telegenic. She helps Donald Trump in every possible way.

And, look, the Trumps have always been an ala carte family when it comes to politics. He's not a doctrinaire Republican.

BERMAN: She said. She literally, the first words, no, I sometimes vote Republican, sometimes Democrats. I used to vote how I feel.

PHILLIPS: But think about what the Republican primary voters did. They had that option. Ted Cruz was the conservative Republican. He ran as the philosophical guy and he lost to Donald Trump.

So, he's an ala carte candidate, ran as an ala carte candidate and comes from an ala carte family.

ROMANS: You tweeted that she sounded like a Democrat. You said, what convention is this?

CARDONA: I was like, wait, am I at the Democratic convention already? I thought she was fabulous. So poised and elegant.

FERGUSON: We're courting you, Maria. Just so you know.

CARDONA: Beautiful. And then she started talking about all these things that excite Democratic women to the point that when she introduced her dad and Donald Trump came up on the stage, I got nervous. I really did, because I was like, if this man actually comes on to the stage and says, you know, Ivanka, my daughter. Terrific, look what she talked about. I support all these things, then I think Democrats would be in trouble.

But then he went on to give the speech he gave. We're good.

BERMAN: I was watching the dials. We're testing the focus groups, it was just between us. Ivanka Trump speech was all positive. They love her. She never hit a ten, but all six and seven, they love, love, love her. Like, like, like.

Donald Trump walks up to the podium. It dipped negative for the first time. No, we don't want to hear him. Keep her.

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: She is great.

FERGUSON: The greatest asset for Trump is his kids. I said that yesterday and it's been true every day. His kids are going to be his best surrogates because they soften him. I think you then realize Donald Trump must be a pretty decent person to be able to raise children like that. He must be a really good father.

Take politics out. I'm just saying as a human being, as a human being, he definitely did not screw his kids up.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGIN: But the point here is that Donald Trump is not going to make up his gap on women despite his relatives soften him, right?

Let's remember what Paul Manafort said today on another network. Women will vote for Trump because, quote, "their husbands can't afford paying for the family bills", OK?

CARDONA: And that's how women think about Trump.

ROGIN: This is the Trump campaign. This is where they are. It is like Neanderthal, OK? So, having Ivanka Trump who's an effective messenger, who said all the right things is not going to change the fundamental problem in the Trump campaign is they are not really speaking to women --

CARDONA: The hole he is in with women is way too deep. No matter how good Ivanka is. It's not going to help.

ROMANS: He also talked about African-American youth unemployment. But he didn't prescribe any kind of policy to fix that. And he's right that those numbers are too high.

ROGIN: This is what I like to say kabuki outreach. I'm outreaching to women. I'll say something nice about Muslims, and Latinos and the gay community and African-Americans, OK, it's not actual outreach.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: His outreach to LGBT was newsworthy last night.

ROGIN: Is he going to follow-up? Is there an actual follow-up?

FERGUSON: When Ivanka talked about her dad bringing people in and giving them a second chance in their careers and talking about reaching out to people and painting that picture, here's what I think Donald Trump is going to say to Hillary Clinton. You guys didn't do jack squat for minorities, especially young African-American men to give them a better economy and better job market for them. That's going to resonate with people watching --

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

ROMANS: A Silicon Valley legend supporting Donald Trump last night. Peter Thiel says he is proud to be gay, he's proud to be Republican, and he's proud to be American. But he thinks his party's focus right now is misplaced.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER THIEL, TECH ENTREPRENEUR: I don't pretend to agree with every plank in our platform, but fake culture wars only distract us from the economic decline. And nobody in the race is being honest about it except Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:20:00] ROMANS: So immediately following that speech, high profile tech leaders came out to blast Thiel's comments.

You know, Thiel has not always been a Trump supporter. His biggest donation this election cycle was $2 million contribution to Carly Fiorina's super PAC. But his business background, who is this guy? Well, his business background makes him a pretty strong Trump ally. He's getting a lot of attention for his alliance right now.

He founded and later sold PayPal, you probably heard of it. He's a Facebook board member and its first big money investor. Forbes says Thiel is worth $2.8 billion. He was an investor in Spotify, Lyft and Airbnb. So, that is who Peter Thiel is and he really had a remarkable moment on the stage last night.

BERMAN: I think he is doing all right financially.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: He's doing OK.

OK, the head of FOX News out. Giant news in the media business -- frankly, giant news here at the Republican convention. You could feel the shock waves through the city. Roger Ailes gone. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:25:27] BERMAN: I have to say, one of the biggest stories in Republican circles may not have been Donald Trump accepting the nomination here in this hall last night. It's Roger Ailes out at FOX News.

ROMANS: Right.

BERMAN: The 76-year-old executive who has been at the helm of the channel since inception, he resigned effective immediately in the wake of the sexual harassment allegations.

Former Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit, accusing Ailes of firing her for spurning advances. Ailes walks away, though, with a $40 million settlement. So, he's gone. Who is going to run the ship? At least for now, Rupert Murdoch will serve as chief executive until Ailes is replaced.

ROMANS: All right. Donald Trump last night accepting the nomination for his party for president. What he says is wrong with America and how he says he will fix it. We've got more on the big night, the big speeches, next.

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