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EARLY START

Trump Recalibrates Anew On Immigration; Clinton Accuses Trump Of Racism267 Killed & Nearly 400 Injured In Central Italy Earthquake; Ryan Lochte Charged In Brazil. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired August 26, 2016 - 05:30   ET

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


[05:30:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: All right, overnight a CNN exclusive where Donald Trump seems to throw everything he has said the last week about immigration out the window, we think.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: Plus, Trump is calling Hillary Clinton totally bigoted as she attacks him for stoking racism. The presidential election more heated than ever.

Welcome back to EARLY START, it's Friday morning. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. Thirty minutes past the hour right now and overnight, everything changed when it comes to Donald Trump's immigration plan or changed back or didn't. At this point it's really difficult to tell but it all played out in an exclusive interview with CNN.

The basic question is this. Does Donald Trump still believe that all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States need to go, by force if necessary? Until last week he said yes, definitively. But then he seemed to say no. Some immigrants could stay, he said. This was a softening, people called it.

But now, in an exclusive interview with Anderson Cooper, Donald Trump is back to saying that undocumented immigrants will leave -- will have, I should say -- undocumented immigrants will have no path to legal status unless they leave first.

All this on top of a remarkable three-hour stretch of campaigning when both candidates hurled insults and charges of bigotry at each other and explosive language. CNN's Jason Carroll has it all for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine, John, the Trump campaign trying to sort their way through a muddled message on immigration. The Trump campaign has been very specific, saying that Trump has been very consistent when it comes to his point of view, saying that he's always said no path to citizenship, no amnesty.

But what is clear is that the message is unclear, and the only one who can clear it up is Donald Trump. Listen to how he tried to clear up the message last night with Anderson Cooper. ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": So if they haven't committed a crime, is there going to be a path for legalization? I'm talking about citizenship.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There is not a pass. There is no path to legalization --

COOPER: I'm talking about taxes --

TRUMP: -- unless people leave the country -- well, when they come back in, if they come back in, then they can start paying taxes.

COOPER: So they still have to leave the country?

TRUMP: But there is no path to legalization unless they leave the country and come back.

CARROLL: So that's what he told CNN's Anderson Cooper, but he's also made other conflicting statements in other interviews on the subject of immigration.

TRUMP: They'll pay back taxes. They have to pay taxes. There's no amnesty, as such. There's no amnesty --

SEAN HANNITY, HOST, "FOX NEWS", "THE SEAN HANNITY SHOW": Right.

TRUMP: -- but we work with them. Now, OK, but when I look at the rooms -- and I have this all over. Now, everybody agrees we get the bad ones out. But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject --

And I've had very strong people come up to me -- really great, great people come up to me and they've said Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person that's been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it's so tough, Mr. Trump. I mean, I have it all the time. It's a very, very hard thing.

You're going to have to send people out. I would get people out and I would have an expedited way of getting them back into the country so they can be legal. They've got to go out. They've got to leave.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: But how do you do it in a practical way? You really think you can round them up --

TRUMP: They've got to leave. You're going to have a deportation force.

CARROLL: I've spoken to a number of Trump supporters who tell me that if Donald Trump, in any way, "softens" his position on immigration, Trump is going to end up losing their votes. One supporter, in particular, told me that one of the reasons why he likes Donald Trump so much is because he's plain spoken. And clearly, this is a subject where he has not been as clear as he needs to be.

Once again, the only one who can ultimately clear this up is Donald Trump. The campaign hoping that he will finally be able to do that when he delivers his policy speech on immigration next Wednesday in Phoenix -- Christine, John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, Jason. Hillary Clinton has launched a scorching attack on Donald Trump. At a rally in Nevada, she accused him of racism and argued that he has handed the Republican Party over to hate groups and the alt-right political movement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Of course, there's always been a paranoid fringe in our politics, a lot of it arising from racial resentment. But it's never had the nominee of a major party stoking it, encouraging it, and giving it a national megaphone, until now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:35:00] ROMANS: Trump responding in-kind, doubling down on his accusation that it is Hillary Clinton who is a bigot. In his interview with Anderson Cooper, Trump made clear he is deliberately calling out Clinton, herself, and not just her policies for being "totally bigoted against minorities" -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: You called, last night, Hillary Clinton a bigot. Previously, you called her policies bigoted. You directly called her a bigot and --

TRUMP: Well, she is a bigot because you look at what's happening to the inner cities. You look at what's happening to African-Americans and Hispanics in this country where she talks all the time. She's talking, look at the vets, where she said the vets are being treated, essentially, just fine. That's it's over-exaggerated, what's happening to the vets, not so long ago.

COOPER: How is she bigoted? Bigoted is having hatred toward a particular group.

TRUMP: Because she's selling them down the tubes because she's not doing anything for those communities. She talks a good game but she doesn't do anything.

COOPER: She has hatred or --

TRUMP: Her policies are bigoted. Her policies are bigoted because she knows they're not going work.

COOPER: But you're saying she is personally bigoted.

TRUMP: Well, she is. Of course, she is. Her policies -- they're her policies. She comes out with the policies and others that believe like she does, also. But she came out with policies over the years. This is over the years, a long time. She's totally bigoted. There's no question about that. COOPER: But it does imply that --

TRUMP: Look at what --

COOPER: -- she doesn't -- she has antipathy. She has hatred toward, in this case, I guess, African-Americans, but I don't know --

TRUMP: I think she has been extremely, extremely bad for African- Americans. I think she's been extremely bad for Hispanics. You look at what's happened with her policies and the policies of President Obama and others. Look at the poverty, look at the rise in poverty, look at the rise in violence.

COOPER: But hatred is at the core of that or dislike of African- Americans?

TRUMP: Well, I -- or maybe she's lazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, let's talk about all this. CNN politics reporter Tal Kopan is with us from Washington. Tal, we're going to get to the battle over bigotry I suppose, in a second, but I want to start with immigration because it's extraordinary where Donald Trump has been the last few days on his signature issue.

Again, this was the issue he ran on more than any other during 14 months since he got in the race in June, and then it all changed this week. He opened the door to possibly allowing some of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country to stay. Last night with Anderson, though, all of a sudden he seemed to shut the door on that again. I want to play you what he told Anderson again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There is no path to legalization unless they leave the country and come back. There's no legalization, there's no amnesty. And if somebody wants to go the legalization route what they'll do is they'll go, leave the country, hopefully come back in, and then we can talk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, so they have to go before they come back and get legal status. Some people call that a touchback policy even though his own campaign manager, the other day, said no, he doesn't support a touchback policy. Do we know what he does support, Tal?

TAL KOPAN, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: No, the short answer is we don't know what he supports at this point. I mean, we have what he said night. As you said, this is where it stands at this moment. But over the past week and throughout this campaign we have seen from Donald Trump a tendency to continue changing, refining, tweaking, being vague about various policy positions and really not being able to be pinned down on them, and that's what we're seeing here.

And I'm not sure that there's anyone angrier about this than his former primary opponents who said this would happen, you know, who -- Ted Cruz, who tried to be the farthest right on immigration in the primary, was outrighted in some ways by Donald Trump's immigration policy and warned that he would change when it got a general election.

And Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, who were more moderate on immigration during the primary, they also said what you are proposing is not tenable from a general election perspective. And that clip from Hannity where he talked about ripping families apart and people have been here 15 years, that's something that could have come out of Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio's mouth. So it's really remarkable to see him testing out these positions at this point.

ROMANS: He said we'll work with them. We'll work with them, which is really a new line until last night when it wasn't a new line anymore. Another line -- another sort of storyline over the past 12 hours or so. Hillary Clinton, she's in Nevada and she's really trying to paint Donald Trump as someone who is out of sync with the Republican Party and, instead, in bed with the fringe right. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: These are racist ideas, race baiting ideas, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-women, all key tenants making up the emerging racist ideology known as the alt-right. So the de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump campaign represents a landmark achievement for this group. A fringe element that has effectively taken over the Republican Party. And this is part of a broader story. The rising tide of hardline, right-wing nationalism around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:40:00] ROMANS: Now, Tal, in that room were Democrats but she was also talking here to Republicans.

KOPAN: Yes, that's absolutely right. This is really geared towards some of those squeamish Republicans. Think of Mitt Romney, for example, who gave a speech not that dissimilar to the one Hillary Clinton gave yesterday, earlier in this campaign season, sort of warning about what Donald Trump represents for the Republican Party. It's that type of Republican who's conservative but may just be put off by Donald Trump being too far from the mainstream.

And she's sort of hoping that she can -- she can help that along. That she can portray Donald Trump as so scary, so out of touch with the core of Republicanism that some of the people may either vote for her or just may stay home and not give him the votes he needs to win.

And so she's making a very concerted effort to distance him, in some ways, from moderate Republicans so they have a little bit of cover if they want to go cast a vote against him. Saying you're not voting against Republicanism, you're voting against the sort of alt-right movement.

ROMANS: There's one thing certain in the race for president, Tal Kopan got up really early on a Friday and we appreciate it.

KOPAN: Thank you, guys.

BERMAN: What are we going to say, you're weekend starts earlier, Tal.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: All right, thank you so much.

KOPAN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Aftershocks in Italy just terrifying the rescue workers there, getting in the way of the rescue efforts. We're going to have a live update from Italy, next.

ROMANS: House hunting is going high-tech. Forget searching listings online, virtual reality will take you inside more homes in less time anywhere in the world. "CNN MONEY"s Vanessa Yurkevich shows us this real estate game changer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT, "CNN MONEY": Buying a home can be one of life's biggest milestones.

How many square feet is this home?

Buyers might look at dozens of homes before they settle on the perfect one. It can be a long and laborious process and even more so for out- of-town buyers.

GREGG LYNN, SOTHEBY'S INTERNATIONAL REALTY: The price of real estate keeps going up. Consumers get more discerning about their choices and sellers want to present their properties in the best light possible.

YURKEVICH: Typically, real estate companies use photos and videos to sell homes online but it's only a 2D experience. That's why real estate companies are investing in virtual reality.

LYNN: Open houses are only a couple of hours a week, but when you have virtual reality we can be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

YURKEVICH: Sotheby's hires the V.R. company, Matterport, to film their listings with a virtual reality camera.

MATT BELL, CO-FOUNDER, MATTERPORT: All you have to do is place it in a couple of different locations in each room of the house. The camera takes about 30 seconds to spin around and it grabs a 3D, 360 view of its surroundings. And as you move the camera from place to place you'll see these 3D views get stitched together on the iPad.

YURKEVICH: One-third of Sotheby's listings in the San Francisco Bay area can now be viewed in V.R., but next year they plan to make V.R. the norm in other top markets.

LYNN: V.R. has changed the game because it's added a third dimension to real estate. You're having a very different, richer experience. (END VIDEOTAPE)

[05:43:35] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:47:50] BERMAN: This morning, aftershocks hampering search efforts. This is after the devastating earthquake in central Italy this week. Two hundred and sixty-seven people, at least, now have died. Emergency crews are racing against the clock. They're looking, still, for survivors in the rubble. A state of emergency is now in effect there. And the first funerals for victims, they will be held today.

We want to bring in CNN contributor Barbie Nadeau. She is live in Saletta, Italy right now. Barbie, what's the latest there?

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, just a couple of minutes ago they brought a search and rescue dog over this particular part of rubble behind us. They took that dog down, going over again all these piles that line the streets in this area. Obviously, that underscores just how desperate they are to try to find someone who might still be alive.

They have now a better list of who might be missing and where they might have been and they've got -- it's given them cause to come back through and do another check of these areas. Of course, a rescue -- a miracle rescue at this moment would be great for these 6,000 civil protection, and army, and fire brigade workers who've been working around the clock in very dangerous conditions trying to find someone alive.

With each aftershock, and there have been 928 aftershocks since the earthquake took place -- with each aftershock it moves the rubble, it changes the landscape. But, more importantly, it puts those rescuers at more risk than they already are as they try to find someone alive, John.

BERMAN: Such a difficult, difficult job, not to mention emotional. Barbie Nadeau, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right, everyone is waiting today to see what the Fed does, what Janet Yellen has to say. And that EpiPen controversy not going away. We've got that next.

[05:49:40] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:53:50] BERMAN: American swimmer Ryan Lochte hoped an apology would be enough, it was not. Brazilian authorities have now charged Lochte with falsely reporting a crime. This is in the incident at the Rio gas station during the Olympics. He could be tried in absentia if he does not return to the country.

Let's get the latest from CNN's Shasta Darlington, following developments for us from Rio where, in some ways, the Olympics not over.

SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, John. Police have now charged Ryan Lochte with falsifying this police report, showing that his little misadventure at a gas station isn't going away.

Police say they're going to notify Lochte in the United States so he can prepare a defense and introduce it if he wants, but he isn't actually required to return to Brazil. If the judge finds him guilty, however, this is a crime that carries a sentence from one to six months in prison or the judge could slap a fine on him, instead.

But let's just remember how this all started. It was Lochte who went on T.V. claiming that he and three teammates were in a taxi when they'd been pulled over by robbers posing as police who put a gun to his head and stole his wallet. Well, when police looked into this they came out saying Lochte was lying. That there was an altercation at a gas station that involved the swimmers urinating in public, vandalism, and armed security guards.

[05:55:00] Now, in the end, all four swimmers have come out apologizing. The problem was, Lochte was no longer in Brazil so his teammate, Jimmy Feigen, actually had to pay a fine of over $10,000 to leave the country.

Now, with the Lochte case, what happens is next is prosecutors decide whether to take these police charges to a judge. But even if a judge finds him guilty it's really unlikely they're going to try and extradite Ryan Lochte. The real punishment, of course, coming from the sponsors, John.

BERMAN: I doubt we will see Ryan Lochte in Brazil anytime soon. All right, Shasta Darlington, thanks so much.

Authorities say a big heroin seizure in New York could have a big impact on opioid overdoses and deaths in the United States, going forward. Officials say that more than 65 pounds of heroin transported from Mexico across the U.S. border, here to suburban New York City, was seized around here this week.

Prosecutors arrested two suspected drug traffickers and they apparently crippled a sophisticated, well-run operation. They say that the sheer amount of the drugs seized could have filled three- quarters of a million individual doses.

ROMANS: All right, to money now. An early start on your money Friday edition. The world hanging on every single word from this woman, Fed Chief Janet Yellen. What will she say about the timing of the next interest rate hike?

The stock market is processing the idea that higher rates are coming because of a strong jobs and housing market. She speaks at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. Global markets are mostly lower this morning. Right now, futures are flat.

What started as an outrage for parents with kids of allergies has turned into a political problem for the pharmaceutical industry. Drug stocks under pressure from Mylan's EpiPen pricing outrage. Mylan jacked up the prices of the lifesaving drug more than 400 percent since 2009.

The Mylan CEO, in a P.R. offensive, defending the company, saying the broken health care system is to blame for EpiPen's price hike, not a quest for profit. Mylan said it would help make the pen more affordable with a new $300 savings card and more financial assistance, eliciting howls from critics who say OK, why not just roll back the price increases?

The economists who advised former presidents, they are no fan of Donald Trump. That's according to "The Wall Street Journal". The paper surveyed 45 former White House economic advisers from the past eight presidencies. Of the 17 Republicans polled, none of them -- none of them openly support Trump.

Now this isn't entirely surprising, as Trump has broken with the GOP on many traditional policy positions -- immigration, trade, a lot of other things. The paper also polled Democrats, 13 of whom came out in support of Clinton.

BERMAN: It's a really interesting article in the "Journal".

ROMANS: It is.

BERMAN: And again, of the people they polled, none, including other Republican advisers, supported Trump. But as you also say, Trump has deliberately distanced himself from --

ROMANS: Right, he's an outsider.

BERMAN: -- from past Republican administrations.

ROMANS: He doesn't want people who've already advised presidents. Those are the people who led us to the disaster America is today. That would be the Trump view.

BERMAN: All right, overnight on CNN, an exclusive interview with Donald Trump where he made news on his immigration plan. Why, how? Well, he seemed to change it all over again. "NEW DAY" picks it up right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: She lies and she paints decent Americans, you, as racists.

CLINTON: Trump is trying to rebrand himself, but don't be fooled.

TRUMP: And we're going to deport many people. Many, many people.

CLINTON: His real message seems to be make America hate again.

TRUMP: Well, I don't think it's a softening, it's a hardening.

CLINTON: By the way, Mexico's not paying for his wall.

BERMAN: Charged in Brazil. Ryan Lochte hoped an apology would be enough. It was not. DARLINGTON: This is a crime that carries a sentence of one to six months in jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Good morning, everyone, welcome to your new day. It is Friday, August 26th, 6:00 in the East.

Up first, Donald Trump's mixed messages on immigration. The Republican candidate shifting, yet again, telling CNN he has "hardened" his stance on undocumented immigrants just one day after he said he was softening it.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: The net effect, the campaign is now all insults, all the time, literally. You have both candidates for presidents debating who is really a bigot. Who wins in this fight? How do you not lose in all this? Our coverage begins with CNN's Jason Carroll in Manchester, New Hampshire. Good morning, Jason.

CARROLL: And good morning to you. The Trump campaign really struggling with a key question when it comes to their immigration plan. What happens to the 11 million undocumented people living here in the United States? I mean, do all of them have to leave or do some of them get to stay? The answer, Chris, still very unclear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There is no path to legalization --

COOPER: I'm talking about taxes --

TRUMP: -- unless people leave the country -- well, when they come back in, if they come back in, then they can start paying taxes.

CARROLL: Donald Trump struggling to clarify his immigrant stance, now telling --