An Immigration Flip-Flop from Trump?
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): He called it a softening, then flipped.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I have had people say it's a hardening.</s>KING: Is Donald Trump changing his immigration policy or does he not understand the details? Plus --</s>HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: There are no excuses. I want people to know that the decision to have a single e-mail account was mine.</s>KING: A better answer, but will new e-mails about the Clinton Foundation bring new trust questions?</s>TRUMP: It's Watergate all over again.</s>KING: And the character attacks get sharper.</s>TRUMP: Hillary Clinton is a bigot!</s>CLINTON: He is taking hate groups mainstream.</s>KING: And weeks left and it's a mud bath. INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories, sourced by the best reporters, now.</s>KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing your Sunday morning. Seventy-two days until we pick a new president. Three questions, after a contentious and somewhat confusing week, was Donald Trump confused about immigration policy this past week or did he shift and then quickly retreat because of conservative outrage?</s>TRUMP: There certainly can be a softening because we are not looking to hurt people. There is no path to legalization unless they leave the country and come back.</s>KING: Question two: do you believe it was just an oversight that Hillary Clinton's lawyers didn't turn over to the government e-mails detailing the cozy relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton State Department?</s>CLINTON: I know there is a lot of smoke, and there's no fire. My work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces.</s>KING: And question three, and it's a Sunday morning. But if it's this nasty ten weeks out, what comes next?</s>TRUMP: What is being uncovered now is one of the most shocking scandals in American politic history.</s>CLINTON: From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia.</s>KING: With us to share their reporting and their insights, Julie Pace of "The Associated Press", CNN's Jeff Zeleny, Ed O'Keefe of "The Washington Post", and "The Atlantic's" Molly Ball." Now, immigration was the issue Donald Trump used to begin his charge in the Republican primaries. And on Tuesday this past week, it sure sounded like it was the issue on which he was trying to make what the political pros call a general election pivot to the middle.</s>TRUMP: They'll pay back taxes. They have to pay taxes. There's no amnesty as such. There's no amnesty.</s>SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Right.</s>TRUMP: But we work with them. I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I have 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 the family out, it's so tough.</s>KING: Now, that made a lot of conservatives nervous. Sarah Palin among them, saying she was worried Trump was going all wishy-washy, in her words. It sure sounded like a flip-flop by the candidate who spoke of a deportation force in the primaries and who praised an Eisenhower administration program called, of all thing, Operation Wetback. And on Tuesday, listen here, Trump retreats.</s>TRUMP: There is no path to legalization unless they leave the country and come back.</s>KING: So, you could call it a softening. Now it's a hardening. They can pay back taxes and we'll work with them and people are telling me it's too tough to throw them out of the country. Now, they have to leave. What is Donald Trump's policy on the 11 million undocumented?</s>JULIE PACE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: I don't think we know exactly, but I think that, if you look at his statements over this campaign in totality, you have to say that he is closer to where he was at the start of the campaign than where he was in that Hannity interview, just because that's been sort of his most consistent policy. It's clear that someone got to Trump at some point this week and said, we should explore a softening, we should explore some kind of policy that, as he said, would keep families together who have been here for several years. But Trump clearly did not like the push-back that he got from conservatives when he started moving on that. It's just amazing that we are at this stage of the campaign and one of the major party candidates is still trying to figure out not just a big policy position but his signature policy position.</s>KING: And his running mate, Governor Mike Pence will be with Jake Tapper after this program, on "STATE OF THE UNION". He says Trump is being like a CEO and he's listening to good ideas. There is an election in ten weeks. This was the issue on which a lot of people criticized Trump saying we don't know the details on policies. He gives sort of these headlines and declarations. At least on immigration, we had a better sense probably than on any other issue. And now, is it fair to say he confused things? Was this trial balloon? Did he go on Sean Hannity on Fox News to tell the Republican base, oh, never mind this touch back policy, we're going to let them stay?</s>ED O'KEEFE, THE WASHINGTON POST: Based on my conversations with about -- it was a very bad focus group because it was so small, but about a dozen voters in Florida this week. I think this was a trial balloon, because I think , what they knew going in was, as long as he stays absolutist on the wall, he is allowed to waffle on everything else, because to a person, they all said, as long as he builds the wall, he can do whatever he wants on everything else. And for more than nine months I have had his supporters and not only professional supporters but voters in the field say, he knows that you can't remove 11 million people. I get that. What he's saying is, we have to find a way to deal with these people who are here and committing crimes or committing fraud and get rid of those people. All the other stuff is talk and bluster and is designed to sort of vent our frustration. But he is no different now on this than Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or Scott Walker or any of them.</s>KING: Or President Obama.</s>O'KEEFE: Or President Obama or Hillary Clinton at different times in 2008 who waffled and clearly struggled with this in public and confused what exactly their --</s>KING: He does now say -- the thing about the Hannity thing was pay back taxes, work with them. People come to see and say you can't make them leave. That was a clear indication, if you know the language of the immigration debate, and I'm going to emphasize that, if you know the language of the immigration debate, that was a clear sign you're going to let them say, some path to legal status. But then, listen to him here with Anderson Cooper after this blow- back. Rush Limbaugh came out against this, Sarah Palin came out against this. Other conservatives said what's going on here. And here was the next day.</s>TRUMP: I don't think it's a softening. I think it's --</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: But 11 million people are no longer going to be deported.</s>TRUMP: Look, I've heard people say it's a hardening actually.</s>COOPER: But 11 million who have not committed a crime --</s>TRUMP: No, no, we're then going to see --</s>COOPER: -- there is a path to legalization, is that right?</s>TRUMP: You know it's a process. You can't take 11 at one time and just say, boom, you're gone.</s>KING: You can't take 11 million at one time and say, boom, you're gone. But then listen to him yesterday in Iowa, a state where this issue has played for sometime, has defined especially Republican politics.</s>TRUMP: We are going to get rid of them day one. We start day one. The reign of terror -- and it is that, you go to some places and you will see -- the reign of terror will be over. They know all of them. They know the good ones, the bad ones. They know all of them. We are going to get rid of the criminals, and it's going to happen within one hour after I take office we start.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: So, apparently, we're back to boom there because -- I mean, within one hour of starting. But you can also talk to tom Republicans as I have done this week who aren't being too cynical and saying, he also may be intentionally trying to confuse this issue, because the takeaway from the week, we say he is a disaster on this policy. Not necessarily. He is definitely, you know -- every viewer, every voter is not tuning into every iteration of his hour by hour change in some respects. And he certainly ends the week not looking as harsh in some respects in some people's minds here. But at some point, he has to clarify his position for the right. Sarah Palin has so far only given a newspaper interview to the "Wall Street Journal." When she starts speaking loudly it will be more of an issue. He has canceled his speech again. I think on Wednesday it was supposed to be in Arizona. Not doing it. At some point, he's going to have to be pinned down. If not, it will happen during a debate.</s>O'KEEFE: Or he doesn't have to be. And like you said, they were just continued to be confused, this is about getting his numbers with minority voters up even just a few fractions of a point</s>ZELENY: And suburban --</s>KING: Or getting his numbers among suburbanites who think he's intolerant up a bit.</s>MOLLY BALL, THE ATLANTIC: Well, look, I think though it's a mistake to read too much calculation into what Trump is doing. He's doing what he's always done on every issue, which is to try to take all the sides so everyone can hear what they want. Immigration was a sort of notable exception to that. He at times said everything is negotiable, which ought to have been a red flag to people who want him to be consistent and absolutist. And now, he's demonstrating that indeed everything is negotiable. He has a meeting with Hispanic leaders and feels them out what they want to hear because he's a people pleasure. He likes to make people happy who are in the room with him. He's got different people in his ear. I don't think it's any more complicated than that. I don't think there is a grand strategy. It's literally him feeling out in public, taking a poll of the FOX News audience and trying to tell them what they want to hear in real-time. Sometimes people want mutually irreconcilable things. That's hard to accept. And so, we see this, it's actually sort of remarkably transparent. You always get the general election pivot, the etch-a-sketch moment. But, usually, the presidential nominee pretends that's not what they're doing. In this case, there is no pretense.</s>KING: Well, except for the fact that yesterday, he's trying to say, and again, if you're a Trump supporter, and you think, you know, it's the lame-stream media, here they go again. Go back and look at what he said during the week. Don't trust us. Just go back and look at everything he said during the week and try to say -- is that consistent? Donald Trump says, this is our fault.</s>TRUMP: In recent days, the media, as it usually does, has missed the whole point on immigration. They have missed the point. All the media wants to talk about is the 11 million people or more or less. They have no idea what the number is because we have no control over our country. They have no idea what it is -- that are here illegally.</s>KING: Point taken if in the media, Mr. Trump will concede on this issue, you have to include this guy. I think his name is Rush Limbaugh.</s>RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Who knew! Can you imagine what's it's like to be Jeb Bush today? Who knew that it would be Donald Trump to come out and convert the GOP base to supporting amnesty?</s>KING: He said -- Rush said as part of that, give me a minute to regain my composure. This one -- to your point, a lot of nominees do this. But on this one issue, the base thought this is the one issue on which we know Trump. Let him say what he wants about this and say what he wants about that. On this one -- but I mean, he was like hysterical there.</s>PACE: It is hilarious. Ever since the day after the 2012 election when Mitt Romney lost, Republicans have been talking about the need to get right on immigration. And they've been talking about the need to figure out a plan for the 11 million people. This isn't just a side issue in the immigration debate. This is actually very central to working on this problem. And the idea that you had candidates in this race like Jeb Bush, like Marco Rubio at a certain point, who actually had looked for policy positions that could get Republicans right, and also might be more favorable to a lot of voters on a variety of other issues and potentially could have won this election more easily than it looks like Trump's path will be. And they get sidelined in a primary where Trump pushes everybody to the right again. Frankly, it is hilarious. I can understand why Rush would be cracking up.</s>KING: But what is the impact? I mean, does he risk losing his base if they think he is waffling on this? Or to your point, does it almost not matter? Do voters think as long as he builds the wall, he is going to be tougher than any opponent and Hillary Clinton happens to be his opponent, so I'm find with that? What's the net plus? Does he gain in the middle and not lose on the right?</s>BALL: I think what Trump was saying in that speech was what Ed was saying, right? The focus is the wall. Everything else is aide show. Think about what Trump needs to be doing right now in the election. He needs to be growing his support. The people who are already with Trump, yeah, a lot of them aren't going to budge. A lot of them are going to continue to hear what they want to hear and say he's building the wall, that's all I care about. Is he growing his support? Is he convincing people who don't like him now or on the fence now, or who even want to like him but have been put off by some of his statements? Is he convincing them to come into the fold? I don't --</s>BALL: As Jeff said, maybe there are some who see it as a softening. But when he goes to this public back and forth and there is no clear stance, I don't think he is growing his support.</s>KING: There is an election in ten weeks. There happens to be a debate a month from now. You have -- at some point, you're right, what to do with the undocumented, whether it's 11 million, eight million, 12 million. What to do with them is central to this question. You can get consensus on -- not for a wall, but you can get consensus on a tougher border. More technology, more border patrol agents. But what do you do? That's sort of -- that has been the problem. That's why they haven't been able to solve this and until he speaks with clarity, we're going to keep talking about it. We'll see. Up next, Donald Trump calls Hillary Clinton a bigot. She says a Trump White House would be open to racists and hate mongers. Ouch. First, though, politicians say or do the darndest things. Health has been an issue in this campaign, and there are medical records and then there pickle jars.</s>JIMMY KIMMEL, TV HOST/COMEDIAN: Are you in good health?</s>CLINTON: Well, this has become one of their themes. Here, take my pulse while I am talking to you.</s>KIMMEL: OK.</s>CLINTON: So -- make sure I'm alive.</s>KIMMEL: Oh my God. There is nothing there.</s>CLINTON: There is nothing there.</s>KIMMEL: Can you open this jar of pickles? This has not been tampered with. This is --