Major Shake-Up In Trump Campaign; Sources: Roger Ailes Helping Trump Prepare For Debates
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: We just saw a huge shift in the Trump campaign, not just in personnel but in what this is going to mean for strategy and tone going forward. How will this play out in this first debate that we have a few weeks away? Let's discuss. David Chalian, CNN political director and Brian Stelter, CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES". It's good to have you both. David Chalian, this is not just about personnel. Roger Stone, Roger Ailes, and now Steve Bannon. Having them all involved in Trump's head is basically, in Italian, what we do, this (Italian hand gesture) to the party, (Italian hand gesture) to the big insiders. That's what just happened.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: I speak that language. That means I don't care what you think.</s>CUOMO: That's right. (Foreign language), they're saying.</s>DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: But they're brawlers, right, and Donald Trump is a brawler and so this going to play into his most basic instincts about how to engage in day-to-day combat with Hillary Clinton to be a brawler more. And so, I think it's interesting to see. It's not going to give comfort to the Republican establishment that has been desperate to sort of get him to a place where he can start really building his coalition in terms of who the people are, Chris. But I do think if, indeed, this means that he takes a fight every single day to Hillary Clinton, I think that will give some comfort to reluctant Republicans who have been concerned about his candidacy.</s>CAMEROTA: Brian, your reporting is that Roger Ailes, former head of "FOX NEWS" who left amid allegations of sexual harassment, is talking to Donald Trump about debate prep. What does this mean for the first debate in September?</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT, HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Yes, Ailes helping Trump, even in this informal way. There's no sort of formal campaign role here nor would there be. Ailes doesn't need the money from the campaign and the campaign doesn't need the trouble from Ailes given the cloud he's under with this sexual harassment scandal. However, Ailes can be of great assistance to Donald Trump. Even when I joined CNN, Ailes gave me some of the best advice about T.V. I received from anybody. Ailes is a T.V. mastermind, say whatever else you want to say about him, so he can certainly help Trump and he is helping Trump. And I see it almost as a proxy war between Ailes and Clinton. Ailes, in some ways, has been anti-Clinton for decades. This can be kind of a final battle on the debate stage in the fall.</s>CUOMO: But it's just that, you know -- look, at the end of the day it all comes down to Trump, right?</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>CUOMO: You can put as many different people around you but Trump makes the decisions as to what comes out of his mouth that has caused his problems. But it's about what encouragement he's getting. What we saw here --</s>STELTER: Exactly.</s>CUOMO: We keep saying prompter. That's really code. It doesn't matter if he's on a Teleprompter or if he's off the cuff. It's what is your message? How much of it is Clinton is --</s>CHALIAN: Exactly.</s>CUOMO: -- and then listing 10 horrible personal attributes or here's what I'm going to do for you. It sounds like from this, especially with a Brietbart guy -- Brietbart is scorched earth, win at all costs, and by cost we mean the worst things they can do. Now that's who's in his ear? What can that mean for building a coalition?</s>CHALIAN: Well, but again, if it is Clinton is X, Y, Z, that could be beneficial to Donald Trump. That's a lot better than taking on a Gold Star family or going after Judge Curiel or responding to some personal insult that has gotten Donald Trump upset. If, indeed, it is -- it is a daily fight geared towards Hillary Clinton -- if that's what's in his ear that could prove to --</s>CUOMO: This is an outlet that says CNN is Hitler. You think that kind of stuff coming out of Donald Trump's mouth is going to help him?</s>STELTER: I mean, some of these men are masters of the dark arts -- of political dark arts and that's what people should understand, for example, about Steve Bannon. When I saw this news overnight my first thought was OK, nothing is off limits now. Nothing in this campaign is off limits now. We're going to see the most fringy ideas, the most -- the most right-wing ideas bubble up to the surface in a way we haven't even seen before in this election.</s>CAMEROTA: And so --</s>CHALIAN: Like we saw what he was doing with Hillary Clinton's health recently, bringing that back into the fray.</s>STELTER: That's the kind of conspiracy theory that starts in what we call the fever swamps of the right wing. It bubbles up on Twitter and Facebook and on sites like Brietbart, eventually reaches Sean Hannity, and then reaches Donald Trump, and we're going to see more of those. I mean, it's only August. I can't imagine what they'll be saying by October.</s>CAMEROTA: I'm confused about the math here, David, about how that brings in more voters because traditionally -- so he won a huge amount of voters in the primaries, 13.3 million, and it sounds like Donald Trump wants to return to that strategy of what got him to the party in the first place. But does that brass knuckles, massively right-wing conspiracy theory bring in other voters?</s>CHALIAN: Well, no, I think we have different components here. Conspiracy theories are not going to bring in many new voters, there's no doubt about that. But we don't know yet if Donald Trump -- we know that this is who is going to be around him now but, again, as Chris said, this is about the candidate. So he's going to have these voices but he's also going to have the voice of Kellyanne Conway, who is going to be presenting the numbers to him on a daily basis, as she's been doing, and how you --</s>CAMEROTA: Established political hand with a good track record, yes.</s>STELTER: And she's been so effective on television.</s>CHALIAN: Exactly, so I don't think it's just one thing. Here's what I believe in terms of adding voters. The first place he has to add, still, is still within his own party. That is a problem that where this late in the game for him and he is still not having the level of support among Republicans.</s>CAMEROTA: Moderates within his own party? Establishment in his own party?</s>CHALIAN: Moderates and Independents, as well. He needs to bring them in. He need to try to bring them in. But right now his support, just among base core Republicans -- self I.D.'d Republicans -- is not at the level it needs to be so that's where he has to start. I'm not saying -- that's not sufficient in and of itself. He's still going to try to add voters beyond that but he still doesn't have a locked in base of Republican support at the level it needs to be.</s>STELTER: I mean, I thought five words he said in his last interview with a local station yesterday are the key five words between now and November -- I am who I am. I don't want to change, I don't want to pivot, I am who I am. It's a version of what Corey Lewandowski used to say, let Trump be Trump. That's what Trump is saying. Let me be me, I am who I am. Let's think past November for a moment. If Trump's strategy here if he's thinking past November -- if he's thinking he might lose the election -- what he might want to do is launch a new television channel or launch a new giant website and do subscription service. He might be thinking about a media enterprise and if he is, Roger Ailes and Steve Bannon are the men you want in your corner. So perhaps when thinking about Bannon, we should already look for signs that Trump is thinking beyond November having a plan B in case he doesn't win.</s>CUOMO: Boy of boy, this is the moment. There have been lots of moments in this election, there are many more to come, but this will be looked back on in terms of where it went in terms of Donald Trump's fate. This is a very, very key moment.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>CHALIAN: Without a doubt.</s>CUOMO: Who cares what I think, what do you think? Tweet us @NewDay or post your comment on facebook.com/NewDay.</s>CAMEROTA: Russia is launching airstrikes from Iran to fight ISIS. What does this mean? Should the U.S. be concerned about those two countries teaming up? We're going to talk to the secretary of the U.S. Air Force, next, about this.