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Trump Officially Becomes Republican Nominee; Christie "Prosecutes" Clinton in Mock Trial. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired July 20, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

DONALD TRUMP, JR., DONALD TRUMP'S SON: For my father, impossible is just the starting point.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm so proud to be your nominee for president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump is a man of vision.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: A couple years ago, Bill and Hillary camped out in my state, telling anyone who listened why they ought to vote against them. Tonight, I'm here to return the favor.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Hillary Clinton in charge of putting herself ahead of America. Guilty or not guilty?

CROWD: Guilty!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to see a woman be president, but not that woman. Not today, not now, not ever.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Fellow Republicans, let's see this thing through.

ANNOUNCER: This is "NEW DAY" with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. We're live in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention.

And Donald Trump has won. Thirteen months after launching his campaign, he is now officially what many said he would never be -- the Republican nominee for president of the United States. We also saw the best attempts yet to show Trump's softer side from two of his children. One sounding a lot like a politician in the making.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good point. That's a good tease. We'll talk about that.

But the name mentioned the most on the convention stage was Trump's rival Hillary Clinton. Republican uniting around attacking her with chants of "lock her up" and "guilty" electrifying delegates around the room.

So, we have the convention covered from every angle.

[05:00:00] Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Phil Mattingly. He's inside the convention center.

Good morning, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

No longer presumptive. Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. And Trump and his advisers seeking to turn the page on Tuesday from of a rather turbulent first 24 hours of their convention.

Helping him along the way: his kids, the unquestioned stars of last night's show.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, JR., SON OF DONALD TRUMP: It is my honor to be able to throw Donald Trump over the top in the delegate count tonight.

Congratulations, dad. We love you!

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Donald Trump formally clinching the Republican nomination.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm so proud to be your nominee for president of the United States.

MATTINGLY: Trump's children stealing the spotlight with emotional speeches about their father.

TIFFANY TRUMP, DAUGHTER OF DONALD TRUMP: Donald Trump has never done anything halfway, least of all as a parent.

MATTINGLY: His 22-year-old daughter Tiffany getting personal.

T. TRUMP: I still keep all of my record cards, some dating back to kindergarten because I like to look back and see the sweet notes he wrote on each and every one of them, contrary on what you might expect from someone who places emphasis on results.

MATTINGLY: Eldest son Donald Trump, Jr. calling his father his mentor and best friend, casting him as the blue collar billionaire.

D. TRUMP JR.: I was there by his side on job sites, in conference rooms from the time I could walk. He didn't hide inside out behind some desk in a executive suite. He spent his career with regular Americans. He hung out with guys on construction sites pouring concrete and hanging sheet rock.

MATTINGLY: Trump's children from different marriages delivering powerful testimonials of their dad. D. TRUMP JR.: For my father, impossible is just a starting point.

That's how he approached his business projects. That's how he approached his life.

MATTINGLY: Twenty-four hours earlier, Trump's wife Melania's well- received speech overshadowed by charges of plagiarism.

MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: You work hard for what you want in life.

MELANIA TRUMP, WIFE OF DONALD TRUMP: You that work hard for what you want in life.

OBAMA: That your word is your bonds that you say what you say you're going to do.

M. TRUMP: That your word is your bonds.

MATTINGLY: The campaign repeatedly deny wrongdoing, first on NEW DAY.

PAUL MANAFORT, TRUMP CAMPAIGN CHAIR: To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama's words is crazy. This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she seeks out to demean her and take her down.

MATTINGLY: And then hours later in a press conference.

MANAFORT: The American people did focus on what her message was. You all are focusing on trying to distort that message.

MATTINGLY: The campaign dismissing calls to fire or discipline someone over the speech controversy.

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Whoever was the staff person who wrote the speech should be held accountable and should be fired. I know accountability in the Trump campaign. I know what it's like to be fired from the Trump campaign.

MANAFORT: We think that Melania Trump speech was a great speech.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, guys, I can tell you talking to Republicans throughout the day yesterday, from congressional staffers to Trump supporters, even in the Trump campaign, disbelief was the best way to describe the reaction to the allegations of Melania Trump's speech.

But there's an actual strategy behind the Trump response here, in talking to Trump advisers throughout the day at one point, they eventually kind of settled in. They were going to fight. And continue to fight this issue. Not acknowledge or apologize for anything. They just hoped to get to the evening schedule. They believed that we will turn the page, that the Republican Party will turn the page and hopefully, people won't focus on this anymore -- guys.

CUOMO: Deny, deny, deny, well, that seems to be what the strategy was.

Now, let's talk about whether or not it worked. Phil, thank you very much.

There are two big aspects to get to, one, what we heard from the kids, and another aspect what we did not hear from just about anyone which was ideas to fill out the stated theme of the night, you know, get America back to work.

Let's discuss. CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis, CNN politics editor Juana Summers, and CNN political analyst and host of "The David Gregory Show" podcast, David Gregory.

Let's start with the kids, my brother. They came out. They were strong. They were effusive.

Is there still a risk, or are these kids old enough to expose them to the scrutiny of making the case for their father?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, I think they're old enough. I think they're part of a great family. I recall, I think one of the highlights of the primary season was the CNN town hall that exposed the Trump family to the glare and to the spotlight and they performed exceedingly well.

And, you know, this is a huge part of Trump's legacy and who he is as a family man. He may have been married multiple times, and that may bother certain people. But by all accounts, he's a great and dedicated family man.

And that matters because it just -- it fills out a sense of who he is. He may have kind of harsh things to say on the campaign trail but these are things of who he is.

[05:05:04] And I think those kinds of testimonials are really important at a time that have so many Americans wondering, is he qualified? Is he going to do things that scare people? That's a portrait that's very important to be to share with tens of millions of people without any filter whatsoever.

CAMEROTA: Particularly interesting, Juana, to hear from his daughter Tiffany who is not as well-known as Ivanka, who doesn't speak publicly about her father that often. And she gave possibly the most personal anecdote we've heard yet.

JUANA SUMMERS, CNN POLITICS EDITOR: Absolutely. I think her speech was really effective. And in many ways, more effective than Melania Trump speech, because you heard their personal anecdotes. I remember talking about those report cards talking about how someone close in her life died and her father was the first to call her and reach out to her.

That is not the Donald Trump you see in reality TV. That is not the Donald Trump you see on the campaign trail. I think it's the Donald Trump that voters are curious about, and she handled that very daftly and skillfully I think in delivering her speech eloquently.

CUOMO: And it also helps, Errol, because the man presents himself as a little bit of a caricature, right? So, it always nice to hear him humanize, makes him more relatable to people.

Donald Jr. had a different tact than his sister. He sounds like someone who has political ambitions. He also said is things about Clinton that will expose him to criticism. Now, what happens if the campaign starts to speak back to what is alleged by a Donald Trump Jr. or an Ivanka on the stump?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I didn't hear anything from Donald Trump Jr. that was outside of Republican orthodoxy. I will say he's a quick study. He didn't sound like his father to a certain extent. He sounded like a mainstream Republican even more so than his father.

CUOMO: Right. He wasn't just pro-dad. He went after Hillary a little bit, you know, somewhat unusual for a kid to do. But he's not a kid, he's in his 30s.

LOUIS: He's clearly --

CUOMO: Usually, you leave the kids alone is what I'm saying. When they talk about the other side, then maybe you get a response.

LOUIS: I don't think we're going to see too much of a response. I think the Clintons have been consistent in their careers staying away from kids in part because their own child Chelsea Clinton insisted being sort of insulated from a lot of the rough and tumble. Also, they get no points by going after Donald Trump, Jr. He doesn't represent anything that is causing a problem for them.

If he or anybody else wants to say you can tax your way from prosperity, there will be an answer from the Democratic side, including from Hillary Clinton for sure.

CAMEROTA: So, David, let's talk about the Melania fallout from the plagiarized speech. We now know from Maggie Haberman's reporting in "The New York Times" that in fact two well-known high powered speechwriters were hired to craft this speech. They were speechwriters for George W. Bush. But Melania didn't love what they came up with, so, she reworked it.

So, now what? Is it over? Do we move on or did it say something larger about the campaign?

GREGORY: Again, what it speaks to, they aren't able to handle some of the very simple mechanics of the campaign at this level. You know, they've moved so quickly. It was an improvisational campaign for so long. They weren't really prepared for all of the mechanics that go into putting together a convention and a campaign of this level that is now a national campaign, operating on a conventional platform, as well as in the battleground states, focusing on a number of things at once. And on the first night, your big primetime speaker to screw that up is

a big deal. And the reason it's a big deal, competent, how you run this enterprise matters, how you respond to it, and Manafort response to Chris yesterday is so interesting because when they're confronted with a problem or they're confronted with a mistake, they deny the reality of the mistake and just say, no, no, it didn't happen. It's you guys, you're wrong. You didn't see what you just saw.

What does that tell us about how they would operate in the White House? That's what voters are thinking about. Nobody cares about this, per se. I don't think this last. But all of these are measures of how they would actually govern the country.

CUOMO: Juana, what are you looking for?

SUMMERS: I think tonight, the biggest thing I'm looking to see how Mike Pence performs. Stylistically, he's drastically different than Donald Trump. He's more measured, more practice. Not an attack dog, so to speak. So, the contrast of a Mike Pence and Donald Trump.

The other thing I'm looking for is, will we see or hear from Donald Trump again tonight? He's been unconventional thus far. We've heard from him every night.

CUOMO: Didn't you hear last night in the video, I'll see you again tomorrow?

SUMMERS: It sounded like we will see him. That will be another unconventional step by this candidate who has not taking the road traveled by most traditional politicians.

CUOMO: Hmm. Errol?

LOUIS: I'm going to look for the former rivals scheduled to speak, Ted Cruz, Newt Gingrich, Marco Rubio by video. They're all sort of maintaining some political I think ambitions or sort of side moves that are not perfectly in keeping with what I think the Trump campaign and the Republican leadership would really like to see.

So, I'm not entirely clear on whether or not we're going to hear Ted Cruz say I support and endorse and I'm going to work for Donald Trump because I think he'll be a great president. We've never heard from him.

[05:10:01] We don't why Marco Rubio is sending a video and couldn't set foot inside the arena.

CAMEROTA: He said he has a Senate campaign that he has --

LOUIS: I'm sure he's very busy shaking hands in Tallahassee.

And then you've got Newt Gingrich who always on a good day might be sort of free-styling. So, I'm going to be watching for that.

CUOMO: Do you want to make a bet whether or not we hear endorsement from Ted Cruz tonight, the actual word endorse? What do you got? CAMEROTA: I say yes.

CUOMO: I say no.

CAMEROTA: What?

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: We'll see tomorrow.

Panel, thank you, stick around. We have much more to talk about on the second night of the Republican National Convention, felt more like a courtroom at times with Hillary Clinton on trial. One speaker after another, hammering the former secretary of state and the crowd chancing lock her up.

CNN senior political reporter Manu Raju joins us now with highlights from other speeches.

Hi, Manu.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Alisyn.

And leading that prosecution last night was Chris Christie, the man actually that Donald Trump passed over to be his running mate. But what we saw in that convention hall was that anti-Hillary Clinton message was a unifying one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (voice-over): A second night of stinging attacks against Hillary Clinton, becoming the rallying cry of the Republican National Convention.

CHRISTIE: Hillary Clinton lying to the American people about her selfish, awful judgment in making our secrets vulnerable. What's your verdict? Guilty or not guilty?

CROWD: Guilty.

RAJU: For 15 minutes, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie prosecuting Clinton in a mock trial before a national audience.

CHRISTIE: In Libya and Nigeria, guilty. In China and Syria --

CROWD: Guilty.

CHRISTIE: In Iran and Russia and Cuba --

CROWD: Guilty.

CHRISTIE: And hear at home, for risking America's secrets to keep her own and lying to cover it all up --

CROWD: Guilty.

RAJU: Christie's prosecutorial takedown drawing sharp criticism from both sides of the aisle.

The Clinton campaign tweeting soon after, "If you think Chris Christie can lecture anyone on ethics, we have a bridge to sell you."

Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake also tweeting, "Clinton now belongs in prison? Come on, we can make the case that she shouldn't be elected without jumping the shark."

Trump's other former rival, Dr. Ben Carson, going as far as to link Clinton to Lucifer.

DR. BEN CARSON (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One of her heroes, her mentors was Saul Alinsky. He wrote a book called "Rules for Radicals." On the dedication page, it acknowledges Lucifer.

So, are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer? Think about that.

RAJU: Speaker after speaker, linking Clinton's e-mail and Benghazi controversies to a lack of trust.

MCCONNELL: She lied about her e-mail. She lied about her server. She lied about Benghazi. She even lied about sniper fire. Why in the world would Democrats put forward such a candidate?

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON (R), ARKANSAS: A Hillary Clinton presidency will endanger our national security.

LESLIE RUTLEDGE, ARKANSAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: Deception and dishonesty are all second nature for Hillary.

MICHAEL MUKASEY, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: No way, Hillary. No way on earth.

RAJU: And House Speaker Paul Ryan, scarcely mentioning Trump, focusing his attention on the risk of electing Clinton.

RYAN: Watch the Democratic Party convention next week, that four-day infomercial of politically correct moralizing. You can get through four days of it with a little help of a mute button. But four more years of it? Not a chance.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Now, House Speaker Paul Ryan also downplaying differences with Donald Trump saying that it's, quote, "signs of life that the party has differences even though his differences are very, very significant, everything from that ban against Muslims to how Donald Trump treats Mexican-Americans judge -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Manu. So, you had Chris Christie going for the guilty verdict. And you have Dr. Ben Carson going for outright damnation last night. He was trying to take it to another level. Absolutely he did.

Seven o'clock hour, the man himself, Dr. Ben Carson is going to be here to explain what he was trying to achieve last night.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, with all of the talk about Hillary Clinton at the convention, should the Republican Party be worried about all of the attention she's getting during Donald Trump's big day? We'll take a closer look at that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:18:59] CAMEROTA: The convention here in Cleveland is supposed to be all about Donald Trump, but most of the speakers are focusing on his opponent Hillary Clinton, talking about a lot about her, especially Chris Christie, who went back as his roots as a prosecutor to make a case against Clinton and he fired up the crowd.

Listen to this.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's bring back our panel. We have David Gregory, Juana Summers and Errol Louis.

Errol, let me start with you. What they were saying, in case you couldn't hear it, it was, "Lock her up, lock her up."

Is this the most vitriolic, vehement convention that you can remember?

LOUIS: It was pretty angry out there and pretty ugly, you know? I mean, sometimes it's spontaneous. It's not as if Chris Christie was calling for that, but he did nothing to silence it. People lift on their feet, the California delegation, shaking heir fists at the podium saying "lock her up."

[05:20:03] I was waiting for some kind of steering of the conversation, or steering of the energy by Chris Christie to say, we're not trying to lock her up. We need to just vote her out. This is a political fight.

This isn't some -- you know, he didn't announce one legal violation that she was alleged committed. He was just saying she's done some things that we didn't think would work. She's pursued some policies that we think are dangerous to the country. That's a valid conversation. The fact that a lot of people interpret that as she belongs in prison I think is --

CAMEROTA: Well, he was saying "guilty." I mean, he was sort of delivering a verdict.

LOUIS: It was a metaphor. It sort of frame as like, you know, on the facts, we'll see if she's guilty or not guilty of doing this, doing that, screwing up this policy in this region or not. So, you know, it was very easy to sort of lead people down that path. I think it's sort of a metaphor of what the Republican Party has done, basically, they have really demonized Hillary Clinton.

It's the one unifying principle over these few days that --

CUOMO: There were go.

LOUIS: -- that they can rely of legal --

CUOMO: There you go. You finally got to it at the end, Father Louis. You were very forgiving of Chris Christie.

He was saying guilty, guilty, guilty, what's the response going to be? Of course, it's going to be "lock her up". What happens when you're guilty?

But it's an interesting dynamic there that I think, honesty, I think Errol is too nice about it. I mean, I'm not on that floor at night, and I'm telling you, they're owning Hillary Clinton for two reasons, one, they don't own Trump the way they usually do their nominee. It's such an unusual atmosphere on the convention floor, because usually people know each other for like 50 years. This is all new. These people are all new.

The second point is, nothing galvanizes them like their outright hatred of Hillary Clinton. It's like she kicked every one of their dogs.

GREGORY: There's no doubt about it. And let's remember, I mean, there's a lot of liberals in this country who are riled up at the idea of calling George W. Bush and Dick Cheney war criminals.

CUOMO: Sure.

GREGORY: I mean, this idea of demonizing politicians to where they're corrupt, lying criminals is not something that's new. But it is a unifying force here.

There are some, like Jeff Flake, the senator from Arizona, who thought it was over the top. Using the tweet they are jumping the shark, that they can take her on politically without going that far. But I think there's a larger point ton made. The Trump team, and they're late in this trying to define her this way.

All of this is baked in that people don't trust her. But if they can say to the country, those persuadable voters, look, you may have doubts about Donald Trump, he may not be qualified in your mind, maybe there's problems in how they run things, the choice is simply unacceptable, and that's so much what this week is about.

CAMEROTA: Juana, you know, fact checkers went to town after Chris Christie's speech, and they felt that he had jumped the shark on many things, blaming Hillary Clinton for Boko Haram's kidnapping of the school girls, blaming Hillary Clinton for the aftermath of the chaos in Libya, after Gadhafi, they felt that that was too much.

SUMMERS: Absolutely. And our reality check seemed that the great job of kind of sassing out some of those details. I think that's what's been the most interesting about serious speeches like Christie is that it's a prosecutorial case, you heard that from Asa Hutchinson, from some others last night, as well as night prior. But it's often can be very fact-free or they're playing fast and lose with facts here. But honestly, to Chris' point, this was energizing people on the

ground. I don't think they care. I'm not sure if they necessarily know that there are maybe some factual cracks and deficiencies into these arguments.

CAMEROTA: Because she was secretary of state. I think they just see that as the umbrella of the overarching crime, if you will, to use that metaphor is that she was secretary of state. Those things shouldn't have happened.

SUMMERS: Absolutely. They see that resting on her shoulders. Whether or not there's details that may or may work, the common enemy is Hillary Clinton and has been.

GREGORY: And by the way, she's going to have to own the Obama foreign policy and the mistakes that were made in Libya. That's a fair debate. We're not going to have a very substantive debate about that here. But that is a legitimate criticism to bring up in a form where you really have a debate.

Now, do you open yourself up to the contrast of what Donald Trump knows about foreign affairs?

CUOMO: Well, you're also doing something else. They're doing her a favor in a way by blaming her for everything that has ever happened that is negative. They're making a classic blunder to paraphrase the "Princess Bride", classic blunders in dealing with the Clinton is taking it too far.

I had somebody last night turn me around and say, why do you say she didn't send classified information? I said, knowingly. I'm using shorthand. She would have been indicted had she knowingly sent classified information to an uncleared person. That triggers the intent portion of the statute.

So, obviously, she didn't. I'm telling, to a person, they look at you and say, yes, she did. Now, when you expose yourself to, Errol, he's going to say that at some point. She's going to say, no, I didn't. And he's going to be wrong and then you wind up playing advantage too far.

LOUIS: That's right. What happens in the world of conservative media, conservative talk radio in particular, in the world of this convention, frankly, there's a factual base that's laid.

[05:25:08] And it doesn't have anything to do with what's happened in the real world. But through repetition, over and over again, you get people doing something. And that's actually where the Melania Trump issue gets to be really interesting, because they're playing out on a much larger stage what goes on in conservative circles, which is, they decided this wasn't plagiarism and this was somehow Hillary Clinton's fault.

CUOMO: Claimed on her also.

GREGORY: She wrote it. COMO: We can all look at the video, and they say, we don't see what

you're looking at. You're seeing it wrong. What this really means is that Hillary Clinton somehow went back in time and made Michelle Obama do this.

GREGORY: And you've got to call it sexism. I mean, Manafort saying that any woman who he gets too close to Hillary, she's going to destroy as a deflection point was I think over the top.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much. Great to get your insight.

We do have a reminder for everyone, NEW DAY, and for you, too. NEW DAY will be live all week starting at 5:00 a.m. here from the RNC in Cleveland. So, set your alarm clocks extra early.

COUMO: I don't believe that to be true. I'm going to check that for you. I don't know that we're starting at 5:00 all week long.

CAMEROTA: That's what I heard.

CUOMO: That's not what I -- it doesn't say that in my contract.

People are still buzzing about Rudy Giuliani's fiery speech on the opening night of Republican convention. We have not seen Rudy like this before. What got him so fired up?

There is actually an answer. And it may not be who you think. The answer is next.

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