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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Hillary Clinton Speaks in Ohio. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 21, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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


[12:00:12] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We've got some live business to take care of right now. Hillary Clinton, to the right of your screen, about to take that stage in Columbus, Ohio. That's officially the rust belt for those among us who are wondering where the most critical places to campaign might be lately. She's about to give an economic speech most likely targeting Donald Trump. Inside that hall, just out of the purview of the lens shot you're seeing right now, is our Brianna Keilar, who's a political correspondent for CNN. She's watching the activities today.

This is the kind of speech that we're looking at, Brianna, and correct me if I'm wrong, that is prong number three of the three pronged Hillary attack. So take it from there and tell me where we're going with this today.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And - exactly right, Ashleigh, and this fits under a larger umbrella of an issue that Hillary Clinton is clearly making, a key one when it comes to combatting Donald Trump during this election season, and that is his temperament. Polls show that voters think she has a much better temperament to be president of the United States than Donald Trump does. And so we saw her a few weeks ago take him on, on foreign policy. It was a speech billed as a foreign policy speech, but if you saw it you know that it was much more of a roast of Donald Trump using his words against him.

And what we've heard from a top aide to Hillary Clinton is, she's made the case - or she has said that Donald Trump is incoherent in his foreign policy stances and that everything that she has said about him and his temperament on that also pertains to him when it comes to the economy. So the underlying crux of what Hillary Clinton is going to say, and what she wants voters to sort of internalize, is that Donald Trump, she will say, will drive the American economy off a cliff. It will hurt middle class. It will hurt the middle class. It will hurt their jobs.

And part of the reason, Ashleigh, that she's doing this is, you look at the poll numbers when it comes to the economy and when you ask voters, who do you think would do a better job on the economy, they say Donald Trump. In fact, our latest CNN/ORC poll shows him eight points ahead of her in that regard. Polls are showing that they think Donald Trump would do a better job of creating jobs and so she wants to narrow that margin and hit him where he has this advantage.

BANFIELD: All right, Brianna, stand by, if you will, for a moment.

I want to bring in Mark Preston, our executive editor of CNN Politics on this one.

I have been curious - and, by the way, while I'm introducing you, I'll also introduce a couple of our other guests as well. Christine Romans, our chief business correspondent here at CNN, and Rana Foroohar, good to have you with us, our CNN global economic analyst. Thank you all for joining us.

First to you, Mark. Big picture here.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Right.

BANFIELD: We've been watching polls shift on Donald Trump and I think a lot of people are curious as to whether it's because of what Donald Trump's unforced errors have done to him or if they are what Hillary Clinton has been hammering away at. She's got a plan. She's got three prongs. If I need to remind you, they're Donald Trump on women, Donald Trump's volatility and now Donald Trump on business. She's been really good at sticking to that plan and hammering those home. Which one is it? What's causing the polls to go the way they have?

PRESTON: It's actually - it's different several things. One is we have a consolidation of the Democratic Party behind one candidate, and that being Hillary Clinton. We have the Bernie Sanders supporters, which there was a lot of talk that they weren't going to back Hillary Clinton, which was, quite frankly, nonsense. They are now coalescing behind Hillary Clinton. At the same time, you have Republican leaders who have a peppered response at best to their own nominee, offering candidates and voters, quite frankly, the ability not to support the nominee. We saw Paul Ryan, the House speaker, do that.

At the same time, this is the summer of definition. This is when a candidate gets defined before you head into November. And what we see right here about her talking about Donald Trump today is that she's going to say he's reckless on the economy. Yesterday we saw Joe Biden say that he was reckless on foreign policy. We saw Hillary Clinton say the same thing on foreign policy a week ago. You're seeing these themes that are being set up, reckless, reckless, reckless.

And if you look at the new CNN poll that's released this morning, that message is worsening right now because right now the question was asked, who is temperamentally better suited for the White House? Hillary Clinton is at 56 percent. Donald Trump's at 32 percent. So her message is working.

BANFIELD: Yes, but Donald Trump wipes up when it comes to how people feel about handling the economy.

PRESTON: (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: And that's your territory.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And he has consistently. And this is brand. This is honestly brand. He has managed to say, look, I am a successful businessman because I always look out for myself. And if I'm representing America, I will look out for us. And that has really resonated.

What Hillary Clinton, I think, really needs to do is show that she's the grown-up. Tell people that she's the grown-up. That on day one, she'll be able to go in there and if we want immigration reform, if we want tax reform, if you want a big infrastructure build, which is part of her economic plan, that she is the one that can work with Congress to get things moving forward again on the American economy.

[12:05:06] You know, Ashleigh, it's been seven years since there's been a recession. We're overdue for the economy to have a downturn. Now she's not going to say, the economy's going to go - have - go into a downturn and I'm going to be the best one to fix it, but she has to portray that in the inevitability of the business cycle goes in the wrong direction, she's the one who has the tools to be able to do the right thing and that Donald Trump just doesn't have the experience on the big macro stage like that or the temperament.

BANFIELD: Big macro stage.

And I'm going to ask you a strange question about your global title.

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Yes.

BANFIELD: And I want sort of the global look at the branding that Christine was just talking about.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BANFIELD: Oftentimes in an election it is hard to get through the rhetoric, the platitudes. I mean campaign speeches are filled with that crap -

ROMANS: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: Until Donald Trump came along and all of a sudden there was no crap. There was just other crap. It was very brandable crap. And so, generally speaking, if you have these meticulous speeches that are right on message and right on track that Hillary Clinton gives, right on teleprompter as well, and you compare them to headlines that Donald Trump gives that are very memorable -

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BANFIELD: They're making global brands. I mean people overseas know what Donald Trump is for before they know what Hillary Clinton is.

FOROOHAR: It's true. They may be terrified about it, but they do know what he's for. I think that he speaks to the emotional, right? She speaks to the intellect. What's interesting is that populism, you know, not just the U.S. but elsewhere, is very emotional, right? People respond to these things. And I think that's one of the - the fact that one of the biggest battle grounds is going to be in the rust belt, is going to be with working class white male voters that really respond to these anti-free trade slogans that Donald Trump has. Hillary needs to tell us how she's going to | help that group of people. And that may require addressing some of the legacy of her husband, Bill Clinton, in the '90s. You know, she can't just say the '90s were great because for some people they weren't, and that's going to be a message she's going to have to finesse.

BANFIELD: So what we're seeing right now live on the screen in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the introductory speeches for the candidate. Well, the presumptive nominee, I should say.

So we're going to squeeze in a quick break, if I can, right now. I want you to make sure you get off the top of the Hillary Clinton comments, though, just to see where her direction begins, what the beginning, middle, and the end is, because there will be a definite message you're going to get today. Thank you to Mark Preston, Rana Foroohar and Christine Romans, as well as our Brianna Keilar, who's going to stand by live in that hall.

Just before we get to this as well, we've got a couple of other things on the agenda as well, and that is, some of the things that happened in Donald Trump's avenue and arena yesterday and how that has changed to today. So you're going to get the full picture and it's all going to begin right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Back with you live. That was a quick break. Thanks for staying with us.

Just seeing one of the introductions to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who's about to take the stage in Columbus, Ohio. This is one of her big policy speeches. This one being billed as the big economic speech.

If you've been watching, she's been very careful in how she's cleverly tailored each of these addresses. And Donald Trump has done so as well, usually following what she's doing. I should let you know that Donald Trump has announced today he's going to be having a big policy speech of his own tomorrow. So we're going to watch that. He hasn't been so specific about it, but he has said that he's going to say where what he deems crooked Hillary has gone wrong in all of her policy addresses.

We should also let you know that there's some brand new fundraising announcements from Donald Trump amidst all of this today, that he's going to put out an emergency fundraiser and he's going to match all fundraising up to $2 million. This as some pretty dismal numbers in fundraising have emerged today. Hillary Clinton, about $43 million cash on hand. Donald Trump, about $1.3 million. Let me repeat, that's about $43 million to $1.3 million, which is very unusual except this is the guy who has said he's going to self-fund.

Mark Preston, jump back in here with me, if you will. Up until now, it hasn't matter that Donald Trump didn't hold a fundraiser specifically.

PRESTON: Right. BANFIELD: That he hasn't run a whole lot of ads. In fact, I think, let me just grab this because this is kind of weird. I don't think I'd ever seen any spending like this before, but Donald Trump spent $207,000 last month on hats and $120,000 on ads.

[12:10:09] PRESTON: Right.

BANFIELD: And that has not mattered. But we're in a brand new world with the general. Is it really going to matter but turn things up?

PRESTON: They were great hats, right? They were great hats.

BANFIELD: They were very smart hats.

PRESTON: Listen, the bottom line is, this is an untraditional campaign, but as we head into November, it's got to become a little bit more traditional. He needs to raise money. He needs to put people in the states. These are all important building blocks and it needs to happen now, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: The candidate, the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, now coming to the stage amid lots of cheering. Let's listen in.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Wow, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Wow, thank you.

It is - it's wonderful to be back here in Columbus. I want to - I want to thank Whitney for not just her wonderful introduction, but for all the hard work that she has done to build her career and the very strong endorsement that she has given to Fort Hayes Career Center. Everyone associated with Fort Hayes, I want to thank you. This is exactly how we will create more good jobs with more opportunities for more people and it's exciting to be here in a place that does just that.

I want to thank Governor Ted Strickland, who I hope is soon to be Senator Ted Strickland. Chairman David Pepper of the Ohio Democratic Party, Zach Klein, president of the Columbus City Council, John O'Grady, president of Franklin County Board of Commissioners, and all of you for being here with me. I have to say, I am pretty thrilled to be here for the first time speaking to any group like this as a grandmother of two now.

It was an exciting weekend. Chelsea and Mark had a little boy. And we are just truly over the moon. I have to confess, you know, I've talked so much about being a grandmother. Now I'm sure I'm going to be talking doubly about being a grandmother. New stories to tell.

It's always great to be back in Ohio. And I want to talk about a challenge that Ohio families know well, growing our economy and making it work for everyone, not just those at the top. For more than a year now, I have been listening to Americans across our country. You've told me how the recession hit your communities, how jobs dried up, home values sank, and savings vanished. And I have seen how hard you've worked to get back on your feet. If we've learned anything about the economy over the past 20 years, it's that a president's economic decisions have real consequences for families.

President Obama was handed the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Thanks to his leadership and the hard work and resilience of the American people, we have seen more than 14 million private sector jobs created over the last 6.5 years. And here in Ohio, the auto industry made a strong comeback. And how appropriate, as we are here in the area where students learn about autos, learn about how they're made and how they work.

So we know people are working harder and longer just to keep their heads above water and to deal with the costs, the everyday costs, the costs of basics like child care and prescription drugs that are too high. College is getting more expensive every day and wages are still too low and inequality is too great. Good jobs in many parts of our country are still too hard to come by.

[12:15:01] Now, these problems are serious, but I know we can overcome them together. I really believe in this country because I believe in the American people. America's economy isn't yet where we want it to be, but we are stronger and better positioned than anyone in the world to build the future that you and your children deserve.

And I have spent my adult life working to even the odds for people who've had the odds stacked against them. I helped break down barriers to education for poor and disabled children as a young lawyer, fought for health insurance for all and have been committed to that since my days as first lady. I worked to bring opportunity back to upstate New York in a lot of depressed communities there as senator and went to bat for American workers and businesses as your secretary of state. And everything I've learned and everything I've done has convinced me we are stronger when we grow together. And I've said - I've said throughout this campaign that my mission as president will be to help create more good paying jobs so we can get incomes rising for hard working families across America.

It's a pretty simple formula. Higher wages lead to more demand which leads to more jobs with higher wages. And I've laid out a detailed agenda to jump start this virtuous cycle. And you can go to my website, hillaryclinton.com and read all about it. And I do admit, it is a little wonky, but I have this old fashioned idea that if you're running for president, you should say what you want to do, how you're going to pay for it, and how you'll get it done. I actually sweat the specifics because they matter. Whether one more kid gets health care may just be a detail in Washington, but it's all that matters to that family worrying about their child.

Tomorrow, in North Carolina, I will set out ambitious new goals that will help us build a stronger, fairer economy. We'll work with both parties to make transformational investments in good-paying jobs in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and small business. And we'll tackle the twin problems of college affordability and student debt. We'll pursue innovative ideas like corporate profit sharing because everyone who works hard should be able to share in the rewards of their hard work. And to pay for these investments, we will make sure Wall Street corporations and the super rich contribute their fair share. And through it all, we're going to make sure our policies match how

families actually live, learn, and work in the 21st century. And so that's what I'll be talking about tomorrow in North Carolina and throughout this campaign. But today, I want to talk about what Donald Trump is promising to do to the economy.

After more than a year, it's important that he be held accountable for what he says he'll do as president. And we need to clear the way for a real conversation about how to improve the lives of working people. A few weeks ago I said his foreign policy proposals and reckless statements represent a danger to our national security. But you might think that because he has spent his life as a businessman, he'd be better prepared to handle the economy. Well, it turns out, he's dangerous there to. Just like he shouldn't have his finger on the button, he shouldn't have his hands on our economy.

[12:20:17] Now, I don't say that because of typical political disagreements. Liberals and conservatives say Trump's ideas would be disastrous. The Chamber of Commerce and labor unions, Mitt Romney and Elizabeth Warren, economists on the right and the left and the center all agree, Trump would throw us back into recession. One of John McCain's former economic advisors actually calculated what would happen to our country if Trump gets his way. He described the results of a Trump recession. We would lose 3.5 million jobs. Incomes would stagnate. Debt would explode. And stock prices would plummet. And you know who would be hit the hardest? The people who had the hardest time getting back on their feet after the 2008 crisis.

One of the leading firms that analyzes the top threats to the global economy, called the Economist Intelligence Unit, comes out with a new list of threats every month. It includes things like terrorism and the disintegration of Europe. And this month, number three on the list is Donald Trump becoming president of the United States.

Just think about that. Every day we see how reckless and careless Trump is. He's proud of it. Well, that's his choice. Except when he's asking to be our president, then it's our choice.

Donald Trump actually stood on a debate stage in November and said that wages are too high in this country. He should tell that to the mothers and fathers working two jobs to raise their kids. He said, and I quote, "having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country." At a time when millions working full-time are still living in poverty.

Back in 2006, before the financial crash, Trump said, and again I quote, "I sort of hope that the housing market crashes" because he'd make money off of all the foreclosures. Over the years, he has said all kinds of things about women in the workforce. He once called pregnant employees, and I quote, "an inconvenience." He says women will start making equal pay as soon as we do as good a job as men, as if we weren't already.

Now, these are the words, not of someone who thinks highly of women who work, or who cares about helping parents balance work and family, but instead he clearly doesn't know much about how we have grown the economy over the last 40 years, which is largely thanks to women getting into the workforce and adding to family incomes.

And he wants to end Obamacare, but has no credible plan to replace it or to help keep costs down. It really wouldn't be good for our economy, would it, if 20 million people lost their health insurance and we were back to absolutely skyrocketing costs for everything. It would be devastating to families. It would also be bad for the economy.

Here's exactly what he's promising to do as president and why I believe it's wrong for America.

First, there's his plan for Wall Street. After the 2008 crisis, President Obama fought to enact the toughest, most comprehensive set of Wall Street reforms since the Great Depression. They're designed to protect consumers and ensure that Wall Street can never again take the kinds of risks that crashed our economy the last time.

[12:25:05] So what would Trump do? He said he wants to wipe out the tough rules we put on big banks. He said they created, quote, "a very bad situation." Well, he's got it backwards. The very bad situation was millions of families seeing their homes and savings disappear.

He also wants to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The new consumer watchdog that Senator Warren helped create to protect families from unfair and deceptive business practices. That new agency has already secured billions of dollars in returns for people who have been ripped off. Donald Trump wants to get rid of it.

Trump would take us back to where we were before the crisis. He'd rig the economy for Wall Street again. Well, that will not happen on my watch. I can guarantee you. I would veto any effort to weaken those reforms. I will defend and strengthen them both for the big banks and the shadow banking system. And I will vigorously enforce the law because we can't ever let Wall Street wreck main street again.

Now, second, there's Donald Trump's approach to our national debt. Now, I have a plan to pay for all my proposals because I take America's long term financial health seriously. Donald Trump has a different approach. He calls himself the king of debt. And his tax plan sure lives up to that name. According to the Independent Tax Policy Center, it would increase the national debt by more than $30 trillion over 20 years. That's trillion with a "t." It's much, much more than any nominee of - either party has ever proposed. And economists described it with words like, not even in the universe of the realistic. And how would he pay for all this debt? Well, he said, and I quote, "I would borrow, knowing if the economy crashed, you could make a deal."

It's like he said, you know you make a deal before you go into a poker game. Well, actually, it's not like that at all. The full faith and credit of the United States is not something we just gamble away. That could cause an economic catastrophe. And it would break 225 years of ironclad trust that the American economy has with Americans and with the rest of the world. Alexander Hamilton would be rolling in his grave. You see, we pay our debts. That's why investors come here even when

everything else in the world goes wrong. You don't have to take it from me. Ronald Reagan said it. He said, we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility, two things that set us apart from much of the world. Now, maybe Donald feels differently because he made a fortune filing bankruptcies and stiffing his creditors. I'll get to his business practices in a minute. But the United States of America doesn't do business Trump's way. And it matters - it matters when a presidential candidate talks like this because the world hangs on every word our president says. The markets rise and fall on those statements. Even suggesting that the United States would default would cause a global panic.

Trump also says, we can just print more money to pay our debt down. Well, we know what happens to countries that tried that in the past, like Germany in the '20s, or Zimbabwe in the '90s. It drove inflation through the roof and crippled their economies. The American dollar is the safest currency on the planet. Why would he want to mess with that?