Trump Feuding with Republicans?; Trump on GOP Feuding: I'm Running Against Two Parties; Trump Rips GOP Rivals Who Broke Pledge to Support Him
KEILAR: More on the breaking news in the airport terror investigation ahead. Right now Donald Trump is railing at his critics within the GOP, saying his former primary rivals should pay a price for not endorsing him. There's no sign that the feuding is easing with the party's convention less than three weeks away. Our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, is in New Hampshire, where Trump had a campaign event just a short time ago. What did he say, Jim?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, Donald Trump was off script at times today. He was holding a town-hall-style meeting here in New Hampshire to talk about his plans for trade and the economy. The presumptive GOP nominee, as you said, he's been getting off the teleprompter in recent days and making his feelings perfectly clear about members of his own party who refuse to rally behind his campaign.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): Just weeks before he's set to become the Republican nominee, Donald Trump isn't feeling like the life of the party.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (via phone): Well, it's almost, in some ways, like I'm running against two parties.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No kidding.</s>TRUMP: I'm not sure it matters, because I think we're going to win.</s>ACOSTA: Trump is now openly complaining at his rallies about his past rivals refusing to endorse him, despite signing a GOP loyalty pledge to support the party's eventual nominee, a document Trump agreed to himself.</s>TRUMP (on camera): They broke their word. In my opinion they should never be allowed to run for public office again, because what they did is disgraceful.</s>ACOSTA: But it's not just Trump's opponents from the primaries. GOP senators are hesitating to get on board, big time.</s>SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: Donald Trump was not my second choice. He was not my third choice. And I'm going to see what happens at the convention. It's going to be very important to me whom Donald Trump chooses as his running mate. And that is arguably the most important decision that a candidate can make.</s>ACOSTA: On Trump's vice-presidential search, CNN has learned New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is being vetted by the campaign but one caution (ph), it's not clear how high Christie is on the list. Utah Senator Mike Lee, in an interview with "The Huffington Post," is urging Trump to consider Ted Cruz. But Lee is still furious that Trump once floated a bogus conspiracy theory about Cruz's father.</s>SEN. MIKE LEE (R), UTAH (via phone): We can get into the fact that he accused my best friend's father of conspiring to kill</s>JFK. ACOSTA: And Cruz hasn't even endorsed Trump. Lee says he's not ready to back him either.</s>LEE: I'd like some assurances that he is going to be a vigorous defender for the U.S. Constitution. That he's not somebody who's going to abuse a document to which I've sworn an oath to uphold and protect and defend.</s>ACOSTA: And Trump's tough message on trade remains a concern for Republicans. Consider his latest verbal assault on Mexico, a key U.S. trading partner.</s>TRUMP: Their leaders are so much smarter, so much sharper. And it's incredible. In fact, that could be a Mexican plane up there; they're getting ready to attack.</s>ACOSTA: Then there are his counterattacks on key GOP-friendly groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that are making party insiders even more nervous.</s>TRUMP: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is totally controlled by the special interest groups.</s>ACOSTA: Which brings some Republicans back to their last nominee, Mitt Romney.</s>MITT ROMNEY (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: My wife and kids wanted me to run again this time, interestingly enough. And I got an e-mail from one of my sons yesterday, saying, "You've got to get in, Dad. You've got to get in."</s>ACOSTA: But Romney added, don't hold your breath.</s>ROMNEY: The idea of running and asking people to come around me with the sole purpose of being a spoiler is not something I could go out in good faith to donors and to workers and voters and say, "Come help me stop this candidate or that candidate."</s>ACOSTA: Now, Trump and Clinton went back and forth today on the issue of trade. Trump accused Clinton and really guaranteed that she would sign the proposed Transpacific trade deal with only a few meaningless modifications. The Clinton campaign fired back late today, noting that many of Donald Trump's products, like his ties and so forth, are made overseas. Now, we should also point out, Brianna, a recent poll showed a little more than half of Republicans would rather vote for somebody else besides Trump. That is a lot of ground to make up with the GOP convention only three weeks away -- Brianna.</s>KEILAR: Yes. It is an eyebrow-raising figure there. Jim Acosta in New Hampshire for us. I want to bring in CNN correspondent Sunlen Serfaty, as well as CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny. We have "Washington Post" assistant editor David Swerdlick and CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger. Jeff, first question to you. But just as an aside, I'm looking at Mitt Romney there and it strikes me he's such a better candidate when he's not candidate, you know? He's --</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Sure. He has to have those thoughts in his mind like, why am I not in that position?</s>KEILAR: He just seems very comfortable. As we watch Donald Trump, it sort of seems like he keeps trying to do the reboot. But it's like someone who's learning how to drive stick shift. He's like stopping and starting and kind of all over the place.</s>ZELENY: He certainly is with people who aren't necessarily on board with him. His supporters, it's important to point out, are still, you know, fully, fully behind him. The problem with that is that there's a limit to those supporters. That's the Republican primary electorate. He has to broaden and grow, and that's what he's struggling and doing. I think one thing that is going to answer the question of if he can grow and expand is how he's doing in the states. They have a few more weeks to get things on the ground. Ohio, for example, this week, he hired a very smart, talented campaign strategist from the Rob Portman school of politics. In Iowa, he has a good operative. So, there are more things going on in the ground now, but the candidate is still not firing on all cylinders. It doesn't seem like. But this trade message is a potent one. The Clinton campaign thinks it is. They're watching this very carefully. So, again, far too early to make any long term predictions here.</s>KEILAR: The trade one cost her Michigan, right?</s>ZELENY: It did.</s>KEILAR: So, she's certainly very worried about that. Gloria, you hear Donald Trump. He said he's feeling like he's fighting both side here, Democrats and Republicans. This is so much discord when we're looking at party that is less than three weeks out from the convention. What is that convention going to look like if this continues?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's going to look different, Brianna. Look, he got to make a virtue out of problems he has. He has problems because people like Marco Rubio and John Kasich are not endorsing him, his former competitors who would usually be at that podium and give resounding speeches in support of him. So, what is he going to do? He's going to use his children who are his best spokesmen. He -- they are going to be the character witnesses for him during this convention. He will use business people, entrepreneurs, sports figure, perhaps. It will be a completely different kind of convention from anything we have ever seen. And I think the centerpiece of it will be Donald Trump, his family, his family values and presenting kind of a different side of Donald Trump that maybe we haven't seen in this campaign through the view of the people who know him the best, which is his family.</s>KEILAR: There's, Sunlen, alternative still, or not an alternative but an appetite for an alternative to Donald Trump. You have John Kasich, Ohio governor who is putting out a fund raising e-mail, that shows he fares better in a general election than Donald Trump. And then, walk us through this number where half of Republicans, 52 percent of them in an NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll, say they would prefer a different nominee.</s>SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is so striking. The fact this big number is coming up now, three weeks before a convention, exactly the time where Republicans want to be united. This is not the position Donald Trump clearly wants to be in. These continued nagging questions. Will there be an alternative? Is there a viable option? The fact is, there hasn't been a viable option that has stepped up now. That's really what has bedeviled the Stop Trump movement from the start. But certainly going into the convention, Donald Trump wanting to be riding high this month. This is the time he wants to be unifying the party. Instead, these continued questions keep coming up. And I think we have seen some frustrations boiling over him as we saw in Jim's piece, him talking about the people who aren't rallying behind his campaign that they're a disgrace in the party. So, clearly he's a little frustrated at this moment.</s>KEILAR: How bad is it for his prospects against Hillary Clinton if you're looking at this number that certainly is not what Mitt Romney had four years ago?</s>DAVID SWERDLICK, THE WASHINGTON POST: I mean, it does not look good. Donald Trump has time to regroup still before the convention and going into the general. But part of what's going on here is you see in these many clips of him talking about Republicans not supporting him, it's an issue of Republicans having to look out for themselves not just look out for the nominee. In 2012, Republicans were not enthusiastic about Mitt Romney but they didn't feel like he was doing damage to them or the brand or the party. That's a concern with Trump.</s>KEILAR: Do you think that, maybe I already know the answer to this, but as we talk about Donald Trump trying to bring the party together, he has some new advisors. Yes, new advisors. Some that are newer, newish, who seem to be level headed. But is he listening to them, do you think?</s>ZELENY: Well, we'll find out. I think he's listening to them more than he was, because he is doing some key hiring and they are doing more in terms of voter outreach and the things that we don't necessarily see, but the things that are kind of below the campaign, you know, like identifying voters who may be open to supporting him. So, a lot of the people he's hired like Mike Biondo again in New Hampshire, a very smart strategist. We'll see if he listens to them or not. If past is prologue, he hasn't always, but he knows this is a different moment as well here. So, I think we'll see if he listens to them or not. When the teleprompter is not, he seems to and there is a Mexican plane in the sky.</s>KEILAR: Yes.</s>ZELENY: That's not going to necessarily cost him the election. I mean, we can talk about it, but --</s>BORGER: The question is whether he should continue railing against people who have decided they're not going to support him. You know, I understand to a certain degree that talking about maybe Rubio and Kasich and Cruz can help him rally his base, but he's already got his base, and, you know, my question is to his advisers, is -- you know, at a certain point you have to move on because you're looking for new people to vote for you and to keep living in the past and railing against the people you've already defeated. You know, what's the point in that? You know, he's already got the Trump supporters. They're not going anywhere and they don't like Kasich and Rubio anyway. So why --</s>KEILAR: Yes, he has to stretch. He has to do that. All right. Gloria, Sunlen, Jeff, David, thank you so much to all of you. And just ahead, Bill Clinton hops aboard the attorney general's plane for a private chat. But with his wife in the middle of a federal investigation, was that really the right move?