Press Corps Joins Clinton on Campaign Plane; Big-Name Surrogates on Trail for Clinton; Trump Softens Rhetoric on Immigration; U.S., Russia Hit Impasse on Syria War; Pilgrims Leave Holy Land with Tattoo.
LT. GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN, U.S. ARMY RETIRED & SENIOR MILITARY ADVISOR, TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: They have this caliphate they've established in Syria and parts of Iraq and they have launched attacks throughout the West. I think the latest count was somewhere between 22 and 25 countries that they have launched attacks, and in the last probably two to three months. That's resulted in somewhere between 7,000 to 10,000 casualties around the world. Just a stunning display of capability by ISIS. What is your response to ISIS? What do you believe we should be doing?</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: First of all, it wouldn't have started if we had proper leadership because what happened --</s>TRUMP: We shouldn't have been in Iraq but we shouldn't have gotten out of Iraq the way we did. Literally announcing we are going to leave by a certain date? The enemy couldn't believe it. Actually, a lot of people thought it was a little bit of deception because they wouldn't believe anybody would say it. Turned out to be true. We should have left a small force relatively small force as much as I didn't want to be there, we should have left a small force and really ISIS just evolved out of all of the turmoil, all of the weakness, all of the stupidity of decisions from Hillary Clinton, from Barack Obama. And ISIS started off in a small area. Now I read the other day they are in 28 different states or nations. 28. Think of it. So they're spreading rapidly. A report came out where they were told within the government that they want to try and minimize ISIS and minimize. But the fact is they know it's actually gotten very much out of control. We have to do something about -- we can't allow the chopping off of heads, the drowning of people in steel cages, the viciousness, the violence. We have to knock out ISIS, we have to knock them out good. We have to get countries that are affected by ISIS. A lot of people say, as an example, Russia, Hillary likes to play tough with Russia. Putin looks at her and he laughs. He laughs.</s>TRUMP: Putin looks at Hillary Clinton and he smiles. Boy, would he like to see her. That would be easy. Just look at her decisions. Look how bad her decisions have been. Virtually every decision she's made has been a loser. But wouldn't it be nice honestly? Because Russia -- Russia doesn't like ISIS any better than we do. Wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with Russia and you could knock them out together? Wouldn't that be a good thing as opposed to tough talk?</s>TRUMP: She tries to do the tough talk. Then she leaves. I watched it yesterday on the airplane, talking tough about Russia. Then she turned around and sat down which wasn't even played on the national media. Wasn't even played on the national media. We have to get along with people. We have to get along with certain nations. Very importantly. Because it would be awfully good to have Russia and others with us on major attacks on ISIS.</s>FLYNN: And to stay on ISIS a little bit, because I think this is an important topic and it is certainly one of the national security threats that our country faces today. You have described at times different components of a strategy, military, cyber, financial and ideological. Can you just expand on those four a little bit?</s>TRUMP: Well, that's it. Cyber is becoming so big today. It is becoming something that a number of years ago, short number of years ago wasn't even a word. Now the cyber is so big. You look at what they're doing with the Internet, how they're taking recruiting people through the Internet. And part of it is the psychology because so many people think they're winning. There's a whole big thing. Even today's psychology -- CNN came out with a big poll today that Trump is winning. That's good psychology. Good psychology.</s>TRUMP: I know that for a fact because people that didn't call me yesterday are calling me today. That's the why life works. But we're doing well. I thank the state of Virginia. So many places have been really incredible. So I thank you so much.</s>TRUMP: But cyber has been very, very important and it's becoming more and more important as you look. A lot of it does have to do with ideology and psychology and lots of other things. We're in a different world today than we were in 20 years ago and 30 years ago. One of the biggest problems, one of the reasons we have to knock them out is because the weaponry is so powerful today. In the old days you could have said, they have rifles, we have rifles. We shoot. They have uniforms, we have uniforms. This is a whole different war. The weaponry is so powerful and we have to beat them over there. We're allowing people to come over here. Think of it. You're military people. We are allowing people to come over here. I used to watch the migration and I'd see people with cell phones. I say where do they get cell phones? Some of those people had very horrible things on their cell phones, including the ISIS flag. You say, what are we doing? What are we doing? We're allowing people to come here and we don't know, do they turn on us? Are a small percentage of them bad? Because if a small percentage of them is bad, that's not acceptable. That's not acceptable. We can't take the risk. Just a small percentage can do such damage. So we can't take the risk.</s>FLYNN: Good. So staying in the same region of the world because there's so much going on and it is just unraveling in front of our eyes. This really has to do with Syria. There's been a bunch of different discussion about what to do with Assad. Do you support regime change in Syria?</s>TRUMP: Look, we have a problem. It's called ISIS. ISIS is fighting Syria. Now we've built up Iran to be a big power. Iran is on the side of Assad, Syria. Russia is on the side of Assad, Syria. So we build these people up. We created this strong power in Iran, which, seriously, folks, you know better than anybody, four years ago, they were dying, they were gasping for air. All we had to do is let them sit for a little longer, in fact, double up your sanctions. You could have really negotiated a deal. How Kerry never left that deal was incredible. Everybody knew it was bad. They're dancing on the streets all over Iran and literally they're all celebrating, shouting "death to America," "the dumb Americans." What they're saying is incredible. They're saying "death to Israel." This is the in middle of a negotiation. If I had a negotiation like that, I would say let's check this negotiation. Something is not going well. We kept going right through. He never left the table once. If he would have left that table and said, I'm sorry, you guys, first of all, we should have gotten our hostages back before we started the negotiation.</s>TRUMP: 100 percent. We should have said very nicely, with respect, sorry, folks, until you do it, and then you leave the room -- because they're going to say, no. We're not giving you hostages back. Say, don't worry about it. You get up, you leave. You get back to your plane, you double up the sanctions. They will call you before you arrive back in Washington or wherever you're going, turn the plane around in mid-air, your hostages are coming back. Not $400 million in cash that we have to give. Believe me.</s>TRUMP: And it's 100 percent. It's not like 99 percent. It's 100 percent. You leave, you say very nicely, I always tell my -- the story of my father, who was a very good negotiator. He taught me so much. And he'd say -- are you listening to this, Ivanka? But he'd say, son -- he thought I was too tough with things. Right? He'd say, son, take the lumps out. You ever hear this story? Take the lumps out. Just nice and easy, nice and easy. Just relax, take the lumps out. In the old days, I would have said, we're not giving you anything. I would have made the room very angry. Now I just say, sorry, we owe $20 trillion. We don't have the money. We can't do it. We can't do it. We don't.</s>TRUMP: By the way, how do we pay them? We keep the $150 billion. But with the hostages, you say we have to have it back. Look, our people want the hostages. Your people don't care. The people probably didn't even know what they did because they played up the hostages because that's a sign of the big brave Iran. So what happens is you say, we have to have the hostages back. They will say no. You leave the room and you double up the sanctions. Within 48 hours, you'll have your hostages back. Believe me. But they didn't do that. Kerry never walked. Only time he walked is when he entered a bicycle race. Can you believe this guy? 73 years old. True.</s>TRUMP: He fell off his bicycle and he broke his leg and he was out of the negotiation for three or four weeks. And they probably did better in the negotiation when he wasn't there. That's the only time that he left. He should have left the negotiation and doubled up the sanctions and get what he wanted. That deal is a disaster for us. It is a shorter road to nuclear weapons and it is an incompetently negotiated deal. So these are the things that we're stuck with, folks. But we will fix them.</s>FLYNN: Great. And staying in the sort of wider trans region, this is another important aspect because it is a place where members of ISIS now come in to Europe, they come in to the United States, and this really has to do with Libya. So since 2011, with the removal of Gadhafi, Libya has turned into a safe haven for ISIS, also a shipment point for some of these refugees leaving and coming in to Europe and the United States. What would you do in Libya to defeat ISIS? And just talk a little bit about your commander-in-chief philosophy for how you would deal with this?</s>TRUMP: It's more of the same. Just another place they've taken over. This was a Hillary Clinton deal. We could have done a minor attack. He was begging. He wanted to make a deal. He wanted to do whatever. And this was just Gadhafi was so strong on wanting to -- because he knew what was going to happen. But she was unyielding. And, frankly, it's a total disaster, Libya, right now. You know they have among the finest quality oils anywhere in the world? Their oil is so valuable, so good. You know who's got a lot of that oil right now? ISIS. ISIS has it. So we knock them out and ISIS now is all over Libya and they've taken over the oil. Remember, I've been saying this for years, folks. Keep the oil. Shouldn't have been there. If you get out, keep the oil.</s>TRUMP: And we should have kept the oil. And we didn't. We didn't keep the oil anywhere. We got out. We spent -- I've been saying $2 trillion for years. I know one thing, it's now, I'm hearing, $4 trillion. You look at what we've spent, $4 trillion to $5 trillion in the Middle East, and we have less than what we had 15 years ago. It's a disaster. It is a total disaster. On top of which you have the migration which is destroying Europe. Look at what happened to Merkel the other day in the election. I knew that was going to happen. She's supposed to be popular? Germany is a disaster now. France is a disaster. I have friends, they love the City of Lights. Right? I said to one of my friends the other day, so, how was Paris this summer? He always goes -- he says, I don't go there anymore. He said it is not the same place. It is a totally -- that's not Paris anymore. We're destroying our planet. We're destroying what's going on. We're destroying ourselves. And --</s>BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to pull away from this here. We've been listening to Donald Trump in a setting, veterans there, Virginia Beach, Virginia, a strong city for our U.S. military, there being asked questions with regard to national security. You've heard him -- actually we're going to go straight to Hillary Clinton now. Let's listen. She's speaking.</s>HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- expectations and standards that don't really make sense. I want to make it clean and clear and I particularly want young people with an idea for a small business to feel that they can do it. So I have proposed a moratorium for three years on student debt so you can actually get a business off the ground, get it started, make your future.</s>CLINTON: I also believe we should raise the national minimum wage. Anybody working full time should not be living in poverty.</s>CLINTON: And finally, let's guarantee equal pay for women's work which will raise family incomes.</s>CLINTON: Anyone who's willing to work hard should have enough money to raise a family. Did any of you watch any of the Democratic convention?</s>CLINTON: I don't know if you saw these two young people, 17 years old from Kansas. Young man, young woman, went to the same high school, about to be seniors. Get a summer job, working in a pizza restaurant in their hometown. They are pretty excited. I remember when I had what I thought of as my first real job. Not baby-sitting. Not -- just kind of knocking around -- but a real job where I had to actually show up someplace and get a paycheck. That was pretty exciting. So the young man, young woman, were at our convention. Here's the story they told. They were talking together one day after work. They had known each other. And the young woman said, you know, I'm excited because I think I'm actually going to be able to save some money for college making $8 an hour. And her friend, the young man, looked at her and he goes, I'm making $8.15 an hour. And the young woman said, well, you didn't have any experience before this job doing this, did you? He said, no, you know I didn't. She said, well, what do you think happened? Oh, must be a mistake. So they together -- I give the young man a lot of credit -- good guy. Right? They go to tell the manager that there's been a mistake. They're doing exactly the same job, he's making 15 cents more an hour. What happened? The manager fired them both. And you know what? That's legal. If you find out about somebody else's salary, even if you're doing exactly the same job, you can be retaliated against, including being fired in most places. So when I say let's have equal pay, and some people I see looking quizzical at me, they say well, of course, you got to have equal pay. Well, yeah, if you're in the military and the pay scale is set. Or you're in the government and it is set. Or you are under a union contract and it is set. But if you're in the vast majority of jobs in America, you have no idea whether you're fairly. So we cannot let that continue. That's wrong in America. If you're doing the job, you deserve to get the pay.</s>CLINTON: And so how are we going to fund this? I'll tell you, we are going where the money is. We're going to the people who have made the money in the last 15 years, to the top 1 percent, 10 percent, the millionaires, the billionaires. They're going to have to start paying for support being our military, supporting our education system, supporting our health care system.</s>CLINTON: There could not be a bigger contrast between what I've proposed when it comes to taxes, and what Donald Trump has proposed. He actually has proposed giving trillions -- and I mean that with a "T" -- trillions in tax cuts to big corporations, millionaires, billionaires, and Wall Street money managers. That would not only explode our national debt. It would lead to massive cuts in education and health care. And many of his proposals would really benefit his own family, but do nothing for the remaining 99 percent-plus of Americans. And in fact, independent analysts have said this -- they've looked at our plans -- he doesn't have much in the way of plans but they have looked at what he has said -- and they concluded if we did what Trump is recommending, we would lose 3.5 million jobs in four years. If we do what I'm recommending, we stand to gain over 10 million jobs in the next four years.</s>CLINTON: And among the things that I want to do is make sure we have an education system from early childhood through adulthood. And that means I want universal pre-K. I want to help more kids get a better start so when they get to kindergarten, first grade, they're ready to learn. I want to work with our teachers and educators. I respect teachers and educators. And I want to give them the support they need to do the job we ask. And I want to support universities like this one. Here's one of the reasons why, 50,000 students, 40 percent on Pell Grants. A lot of people would never have gotten an education if it weren't for the Federal Pell Grant program. Right?</s>CLINTON: But here's what's most impressive. Lot of schools have a lot of Pell Grants. This university graduates all categories of students at the same rate. If you're a Pell Grant student, a non-Pell Grant student, if you're white, African-American, Latina, Latino, Asian, everybody graduates at the same rate. And why that happens is because this university makes a particular commitment to every student and moves as quickly as possible to help kids who maybe are first- generation college students. Right?</s>CLINTON: I got to tell you. When I got to college -- now my father went to college on a football scholarship. I knew I wasn't going to college on a football scholarship. My mother had a really difficult childhood. He never got to go to college. So my dad couldn't really tell me much about going to college because he basically played football for four years and loved it. My mom couldn't tell me. So when I got to college, I felt so out of place. I was so nervous. There used to be something way back in the dark ages called collect phone calls. Where you would call collect, which meant that your parents had to pay for it, and you just waited to see whether they'd accept it. So I called home and I said, I can't -- I can't do this! It's too hard. Everybody here is smarter than I am. They're better prepared than I am. I want to come home! And my father, who didn't want me to go so far away to school anyway, he said, good, come home! My mother said, no, you have to stick it out. And if you feel the same way at the end of the year, then you can make a different decision. Of course, my mother was right. I loved it within a month or two. But I know what it feels like to show up and --</s>BALDWIN: The two candidates in key states today. We've been listening here in Hillary Clinton in Tampa, Florida. Before you can see in the screen Donald Trump being asked questions by big fan of his, general -- retired Army General Michael Flynn. Let's begin there on that whole discussion we were listening in to initially on national security. They talked ISIS, Russia, Syria, talked about Crooked Hillary. Let me bring in CNN national security commentator, Mike Rogers, is with us, former House Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and the congressman is a volunteer advisor to the Trump transition team. Also with us, Clinton supporter and Democratic strategist, Brad Woodhouse, chairman of Correct the Record. Gentlemen, nice to see you.</s>BALDWIN: Congressman, let me begin with you here, in listening to Donald Trump. Also just the setting is fascinating. He is surrounded by veterans. Knowing that General Flynn is the one asking these questions of him makes me think of the news today on these 99 former military leaders who have written this letter backing Donald Trump, which is a huge, huge deal. Then you juxtapose that with just last month and the 50 Republican top national security experts who feel exactly the opposite. I'm channeling the voters watching and thinking who to believe when it comes to national security. Why do you think there is such a divide?</s>MIKE ROGERS, (R), CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Well, it is unfortunate, candidly. I talk to a lot generals, some on the 50 list, some on the 88 list. Some are for Hillary Clinton. This notion of Republican generals and Democrat generals makes people very nervous, makes me nervous. The military is the last institution that Americans respect and believe in. Boy, I think this rattled that thought that this was a bipartisan effort or non-partisan effort for military leadership. I think people just feel very passionately in this election. I think the 88 was in response to the thought that they didn't -- those national security officials, military officers, didn't want the public to get the idea that that whole sector of the voting population, retired military officers, was believed the same thing that they did, that Donald Trump wasn't their candidate. I think that's why it came out. I think it was probably a pretty good boost for Donald Trump. I think this setting is pretty good for Donald Trump that he has a military general asking him national security questions, which is I think better than just Donald Trump talking. I think this is well played on their behalf.</s>BALDWIN: Brad, also this is in anticipation of Tim Kaine speaking next hour on national security. Listening to him pivot, he was pivoting back and forth between Russia, Libya, talking about Gadhafi, back to Syria and ISIS, how did he sound to you?</s>BRAD WOODHOUSE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST & CHAIRMAN, CORRECT THE RECORD: Well, look. First of all, let's remember who's asking the questions. This is, as you said, a former Army General Michael Flynn, who's been on the payroll of the Kremlin, out with Vladimir Putin, and who has steered Donald Trump in the direction of favoring Russia's priorities over Americans' traditional priorities, as it relates to NATO, the Crimea, Ukraine. So I think people should be justifiably alarmed at the direction that the Donald Trump campaign and Donald Trump have gone with respect to Russia and Vladimir Putin. I agree that the setting is probably good for Donald Trump. But I think if you listen to the content of the answers, it is just over and over again. This is a disaster that is a disaster. What it is devoid of are any solutions to these problems. He says he will deal with ISIS more forcefully but he doesn't say how. He says he would deal with Iran more forcibly but doesn't say how. He just declares everything that's preceded this campaign or preceded his interest in any of this as a disaster without any solutions that ever come behind it.</s>BALDWIN: To counter all of this -- and Congressman, I want you to respond -- we'll get the counter perspective from Hillary Clinton's running mate, from Tim Kaine next hour, speaking on national security. We have excerpts. And examples, he's going to point to in his speech about the conservative radio host, Hugh Hewitt, who had a conversation with Donald Trump into the to long on the radio and how, as Tim Kaine will point out, Donald Trump didn't quite understand the difference between Quds and Kurds, didn't quite -- couldn't tell the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas. He'll remind everyone how Trump said -- the quote was Hillary Clinton's has grabbed onto -- that he knows more than the generals know. This notion, Congressman, from the Democrats and critics of Donald Trump saying, great, he's evolved on things. That's one thing as a businessman, but when you have your finger on the nuclear codes, that's frightening.</s>ROGERS: Well, it's all about who you put around you. Any national security team is very influential on those decisions. They're the mechanism to try to push out that is U.S. national security abroad. Some notion that the Hillary Clinton foreign policy has been pretty rough on the United States, I think most people can turn on TV and see that that's the case. I don't think Donald Trump needs to make the case that what they were doing and they were going on about it with the Iran deal, in Veterans Affairs issues. He was talking about today, Veterans Affairs know that they've got huge problems. The waiting lists got bad and worse, the fact that the Iran deal is spreading trouble across the Middle East and has empowered the leading state sponsor of terror. Now they are firing missiles in violation of other U.N. sanctions -- or resolutions. All of that, people can see. So there is a track record there. I don't think Donald Trump has to come out and sound like General Patton or General Eisenhower for that matter. What he needs to do is community with national security professionals in a way that allows him to implement good policy to keep America safe and identify his principals on how we do it. I think he did that a little bit with the Iran deal when he was talking about how he might have handled the hostage deal. I think he's trying to do that. I think he's correcting on national security and I think this a good start to that, at least from that little bit that I heard today.</s>BALDWIN: Also on who is more honest and trustworthy, not necessarily related to the specifics on national security, but overall, it was a question CNN posed. In the new poll numbers that came out today, it is Trump at 50 percent over Clinton's 35 percent. Brad, that brings me to you. We saw Hillary Clinton today on her plane talking to our traveling press. She quickly mentioned the e- mails which if you have any candidate worth a drip, drip, drip of facts, it's her. She said the e-mails resolved all of this, answered all of this. But to me, when I look at those poll numbers, is everything answered? People are having, again, these trust issues, questions about her judgment. What do you think?</s>WOODHOUSE: Well, first of all, I don't think that this one measure is going to determine the outcome of the election. I think a previous panelist mentioned that, that the question -- everybody focused on this one result. Let's take a look at the aggregate policy across the country, on "Huff Post" on RealClearPolitics, she has a strong and durable lead in this race, she has a strong and durable lead in the battleground states. So I think we keep obsessing about this one issue. Now you want me to say why I think we're dealing with this issue. Look, we just had a year-and-a-half of Benghazi investigation that threw out all types of charges against her, none of which were ever proved, but those things are now taken by some as fact. She's faced critical stories that are later debunked, headlines revised, paragraphs changed, on the foundation, but no one ever realizes the corrections that are made or the debunking of those stories. So she has -- you know, and Donald Trump has not faced the same scrutiny, say for example on the Trump Foundation. His contributions to an attorney general in Florida who then dropped an investigation --</s>BALDWIN: We're talking about that next hour. Trust me.</s>WOODHOUSE: Good! Thank you. Appreciate that.</s>BALDWIN: You got it. Let me leave it here, gentlemen. Congressman Rogers, Brad Woodhouse, I appreciate both of you. We are continuing our coverage here on these dueling rallies, both in two separate states, that are very important come nine weeks from now. Back in 60 seconds.