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The Situation Room
Trump Back on the Attack; Democrats Targeted?; Aired 5-6p ET
Aired July 29, 2016 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm standing here like this and I'm going, ladies and gentlemen of Colorado, welcome, welcome.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. We're continuing to carry Donald Trump's responses, first response to Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic convention. Let's listen in.
TRUMP: And she had a speech this morning and she's reading teleprompters. You know, if she has a group of 12 people, she's got teleprompters in front. And then she doesn't do news conferences. She hasn't done one in, like, what is it, 237 days? Something like that. She hasn't done a news conference in something like 237 days. And -- and honestly, the reason is, you couldn't do a news conferences because they'll ask her about all the different things that she's done. They'll ask her about the FBI saying she's a liar. They'll ask her about all of the e-mails that she deleted or erased or got rid of. 33,000 e-mails.
You know the ones that were done -- the ones that were done for her yoga class, right. Yoga. Yoga. The ones that were done for the wedding. 33,000. I've done a lot of weddings. I haven't sent -- oh, 33,000. I mean, how stupid is everybody? How stupid are we to hear this? 33,000 e-mails for the yoga. Yoga, and a wedding, and they were personal.
I'll bet you in this room we have people that probably -- I'm not a big e-mail person. You know why? I'm intelligent. I know about e- mail. I'm not -- I don't like e-mail. You know what I like? I like the old days. I like the -- because today they just announced somebody else was hacked and another group was hacked. Everybody's being hacked. OK They have no idea who's doing it. They have no idea who's doing it.
These things are amazing. You know, the kids growing up, I have a young boy, Baron. He's very smart but he's using the computer so much we put it on lock, right. No way he can find out. I mean, I don't know what happened. So we go back about an hour later, and he's playing with the computer. We had it on lock. And we said, wait a minute, we had it on lock. You needed a sequential number. And we said, Baron, how did you do that? I'm not telling you, dad.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: No, this kid's a genius. And it's getting worse and worse because they live with it. You know, I grew up and it was a certain age they start, now they live with it. It's like -- it's like their right arm. They can do it so well. And I like the old days, especially for the military and things like that, right. You want to attack. Or you want to do something. It's called courier. It's called let's put it in a thing, put it in an envelope and let's hand it to the general.
Let's not send it over the wires so everybody's probably reading it, right?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And no matter how good -- no matter how good they say it is, it's not -- I mean, people can hack it, I guess. It's just terrible, and you know, if you talk about military, if you talk about all these secrets, and you even talk about politics or you talk about all of this stuff, it's very confidential stuff. And then you find out the hacking is all over the place.
I hear China is brutal. They say Russia is excellent. And you have guys sitting in their home that are very good. You have people, men and women, sitting in their homes that are better than the people that are the inventors. And I don't know. There's something about -- you know, General Douglas McArthur, right? They've had a guy come, he says, sir, here it is. That's it. The risk is from there to there.
General George Patton. I guarantee you, General George Patton, who was rough as hell, he wouldn't be doing e-mails when he's going to be ready to attack. If he were around, he'd say, I don't like that system at all. So -- thank you, darling. I love you. I --
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I love you. I love you and I think it's a guy. I mean, I don't know. Who the hell cares. Thank you. No, it's not. Beautiful. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Now I see you. I like that much better. I appreciate that. So -- thank you, honey. I don't know. Hey, the thousands of people on the other side that the fire marshals aren't being very nice to, they don't love me so much right now. OK. But that's OK. And we're going to come over and see them when this is finished. Should I do that or should I stay with you longer? Let's go over, right?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We'll come over. We're going to come over. We're going to come over. So a lot of things happened. I found last night, interesting, because we're going to get a lot of Bernie supporters, I think. And -- and Bernie made a big mistake. The mistake he made, and this is the beauty of doing speeches like this because it was late in the night and I saw it.
[17:05:01] And she was thanking Bernie and talking about Bernie. And he's sitting there like glum. Did you notice that? No smile. His wife pats him on the back. And she pulled her hand away. Whoa. Whoa. Did you see that? A pat on the back. Darling, I love you. And pulls it back. And she was a little bit concerned there. But he was angry. And then a second time they showed him, he was angry.
And you know what, honestly, he made a big mistake because we have the best movement of all. We have far more people than anybody. We have the most important -- I tell people, Bill O'Reilly said the greatest thing, the phenomenon he's ever seen in politics. This, us, all of us.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: All of us. You, you, you, you, you. All the people outside. Man. There are people lined up in the driveway all the way up. But this is one of the great movements in the history of our country. Our movement is much better than Bernie. But I'll tell you what, Bernie blew it. He told his soul to the devil. He did. He had a great thing.
I was so surprised because he seemed like a tough guy. He was like tough, tough, tough, tough. And then in the end, he folded. And I said yesterday -- and it's true. He wanted to go home. He wanted to go to sleep. OK, that's what it was.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: But you know, had he not folded and his people haven't folded because his people were angry. Now just to show you how unfair it is, if that would have happened in the Republican convention, they would have said, catastrophic evening, people are screaming. Did you see when they had the moment of silence for the police? And by the way, the only reason the police were up on that stage on the fourth night was because I was complaining they don't have any police up there, right?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: They put the police up because they were getting a lot of heat. But they don't mean it. The difference is I mean it, OK. We're going to be law and order, and I mean it. We're going to be great. We're going to be great.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: But did you see what happened when they had the moment of silence for the police? Tough situation. Tough situation. Not good. Not good. And then you had Bernie and he makes the deal. And then they pick a vice president that's exactly the opposite of Bernie. OK. He believes in TPP, which is a disaster, by the way. We'll never approve it. They'll approve it. How about where Terry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia, comes out and said, don't worry, Hillary will approve it after the election.
See, that's the way it is. And it will take your jobs away almost as bad as NAFTA, which was approve by Bill Clinton. Right? NAFTA, a disaster. NAFTA has cleaned out so many states in this country. I -- look, New York state, you look at New York state, you look at New England, you look at Pennsylvania, what NAFTA has done to Pennsylvania where these companies moved to Mexico. A friend of mine is a builder. He builds plants. Plants. If you
told him to build a department, he wouldn't know where to begin. He builds plants. Big, big plants. One of the biggest. And he -- maybe I'll use him to build the wall. What a great idea.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I got a lot of smart people. Somebody shouts out, let him build a wall.
CROWD: Build that wall. Build that wall.
TRUMP: We will.
CROWD: Build that wall. Build that wall. Build that wall. Build that wall. Build that wall. Build that wall.
TRUMP: We have smart people. But this guy builds big, big plants. You know, automobile plants and computer, technology plants. And this is what he builds. He builds plants. One of the biggest, maybe the biggest. One of the biggest. And he started off building in the United States years ago. And he'd build plants in the United States. So I see him the other day and I say, how's it going? Good. How's business? Unbelievable.
I said, great. I thought that was good for the United States. Right? I said, how many plants you building? Many. He said, you've got to see what's happening in Mexico. Now, by the way, this guy's better than a consultant. If I hire a consultant, I'll hire some guy that, you know, that's terrible, to tell me what's happening. Right? They'll charge a million bucks. He'll give you a report in seven months from now. They have to take a long time, otherwise they can't charge as much.
This guy tells me in two minutes. In one minute I learned better about what's happening from him, talking to him about how's his business, than I can learn from some phony consultant because if he was any good, he would have been the one building the plants, right, you know. So --
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: So an amazing thing. An amazing thing. So I said, so what's going on? He goes, you got to see Mexico. It's the eighth wonder of the world. He said, we are building the biggest, the most sophisticated, the most incredible plants all over Mexico.
[17:10:07] I said, what about the United States? Not so good. Like, who cares. And actually, he'd much rather build in the United States but not so good. He said not so good. And I said, what does that mean? He said, well, we're doing a little work but not much. But, Donald, you have to see Mexico. I said, no thanks. But he goes, he goes, he goes, what we're doing there is incredible.
How stupid are we, folks? How stupid are we? Our companies are moving to Mexico and other places while crooked Hillary Clinton, who's crooked as a $3 bill, while crooked Hillary Clinton sits there and makes up stories. Donald Trump didn't do well in his campaign. I said, I just beat 18 people or 17 people, whatever. Donald Trump -- no, no, it was all written by -- all written by -- it's what Politico. I can't believe I'm talking about Politico. Because Politico is terrible to me.
But Politico wrote all cliches, not good, OK. But somebody wrote it, she probably didn't notice it. But I'm being recognized for having done one of the most legendary campaigns in the history of politics in this country. And --
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And she puts in her thing right after the tweet, if somebody tweets, he gets upset. I get upset? I don't get upset. I didn't get upset. Somebody wrote that. You know, it was a nice little sound bite. Right? They just announced I have over 22 million between Twitter and Facebook. 22 million people. Like, I don't get upset. If somebody tweets, I do what I do. Who cares?
I think -- I'll tell you, I think I have the best temperament or certainly one of the best temperaments of anybody that's ever run for the office of president. Ever. Because I have a winning temperament. I know how to win because my whole life I've been winning. My whole life I've been winning. And I think I have one of the best temperaments because we have to start winning, folks. We don't win anymore. We can't beat ISIS. We can't beat China in trade. And then they go and build this massive fort in the middle of the South China Sea, which they're not supposed to be doing. They only do it because they don't respect us.
So they take our money, they take our jobs, they take everything. They sell us the products. No tax, come on in. Our manufacturers want to sell to China. They can't get in. And if they ever do get in, they have to pay a tax. It's so high. Or they have to build their plants over there. And they don't even want them to do that. Honestly, friend of mine, great, he said, he said, well, we don't want your product. And then they gave a tax -- which I won't even say because it's so high nobody's going to believe it.
But then they said build your plant over here but we don't even want you to. We don't even want -- they don't even want us there, OK. They don't want us to build. Now, Boeing, they ordered 300 jets, and they made Boeing build massive plants. And watch what happens in Seattle and watch what happens in a number of years when those plants are built. Watch what happens in South Carolina, where I love those people in South Carolina. They gave me the biggest victory. Remember I was supposed to lose?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I was supposed to lose. Highly evangelical, but the evangelicals love me. Highly evangelical, I won with the evangelicals, highly military. South Carolina, big military. Colorado, big military.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Big military. Big. And I went in and you watch what they do. South Carolina built big Boeing plants. They have a big, big plant. Beautiful. I love seeing it. I love seeing this stuff. They actually move part of their operation from Seattle. Seattle, big plants. So they think it's good. New plants, everything good. Great people, great labor force. But China is forcing them to build plants in China.
Now when China devalues its currency and when Boeing, in a number of years -- just remember I said it. Oh, don't worry, if I'm president, it won't happen. It won't happen. President.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: If I'm president, Boeing will be very happy, believe me, because it won't -- they may be unhappy that they built the plant in China, but they're not going to have to worry about South Carolina and Seattle. But remember I said it. Just in case we don't make it because you people get lazy and don't vote, OK. Colorado is very important. Very important. So just remember I said it. When that plant's finished, when they start operating, and when China does a massive devaluation of its currency, and when you go and order your brand new jetliners for all of the different airlines and when they find out that the planes are going to be made in China, not in South Carolina and not in Seattle, not in this country, because we have people that are incompetent running our country.
[17:15:16] When you see that, and I hope you don't see that because if you see that, that means that I didn't win and that won't be good. That won't be good. So here's the story, folks. When you see that, if you see that, it'll be a sad day. And I told the Boeing folks, I said to Boeing, I said, you know, you have a big investment. What happens if the plant that they're being forced to build in China becomes much more active and you start making all of your planes there. Oh, well, I don't think that will ever happen.
Watch. Watch. We're dealing with grand masters of currency manipulation. One of the reasons among many that I'm against Transpacific Partnership is they don't cover currency manipulation. And in fact, one of my opponents in politics fought very, very hard that no currency manipulation be mentioned in the documents.
This is a U.S. politician. I won't mention the name. I won't -- I should but I won't.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: The people -- you know what, call Washington. They'll tell you. They didn't want currency manipulation mentioned. Currency manipulation is the single biggest tool that foreign governments use to beat us. And to destroy our companies and to destroy our trade. And to get rich and to rebuild their countries as we suffer. We're like a third-world country. We have rotten airports. We have airports -- you go over to Dubai, you go over to places in China, you go over to other places in the Middle East, you'll see airports the likes of which you've never seen.
I went to Dubai a number of years ago, and they were treating me great. I mean, it was great. Great visit, unbelievable what's happened there. But they have an airport that's so unbelievable. So the head of the airline is showing me around. And it's really good. And I'm looking at the terminal. I say, this is one of the most -- and I'm good, I'm -- you know, I'm a really good builder. I build under budget and ahead of schedule.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: By the way, I had a meeting with your great newspaper, and I really like the editorial board of that newspaper, OK. You know who I'm talking about. These are great people. And they were telling there's a veteran's administration hospital that had a $1.2 billion cost overrun in this area. No, no, think of that. Think of this. I'm building a hotel in Washington, and I'm under budget and ahead of schedule by one year. Think of it. And it's peanuts compared to $1.2 billion.
What is this? That's just a cost overrun. And this is happening all over the country. When you build a road, when you build an airport. Some of the richest people in this country are people that can't even read or write. They're called friends of mine, contractors.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: They might not read or write, but they're a lot smarter than the guys coming out of Harvard. I want to tell you. They can take them -- they can take them and wrap them around their finger. No, I did an editorial board meeting a little while ago. I really like that group. Of course, if they write badly about me, I'll take it back. OK. We'll be back here again many times. You'll get so sick of me.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And I'll tell you, and I'll tell you then, I dislike that group very much. No, I liked them. And smart people. But they're telling me about a hospital built in the area. You know -- you all know what I'm talking about. $1.2 billion. I said, wow. I thought I didn't hear the original, the cost over. I said, wow, that's a lot of money for a hospital. How big is it? They said, no, no, no, that's not the cost of that. That's just the cost overrun.
Think of what we could do if we had real people running our government, OK. There's what --
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: There $1.2 billion -- and I have friends. We know how to build ahead of schedule. We build. We build buildings. They come in under budget. They come -- I have friends that can do this. If one of the people that I know, some New York killer builder or somebody, built that building, it would have been up two years ago. It would have been finished like a year after it started. It's not even a tall building. That's easy. Because it takes longer
to build a tall. Height means length, remember that. OK. But -- but one of my friends, (INAUDIBLE), the thing would have been thrown up so fast, and it would have been better, better than it is now.
[17:20:00] I'll tell you a little quick story. I got called before the United Nations. I heard they were building an extension to the United Nations in New York. Number of years ago. And Jeff Sessions is such an amazing man. And he's great. He was the first senator to endorse Donald Trump. First really major political guy. Very smart guy. But they have -- I built a building across the street like for $320 million. And it's a very tall building. Like around 90 stories tall. That's tall. Much taller than the United Nations. And then it was -- and I built it for I think it was $325 million. All right. Condominiums. It's called Trump World Tower. Great building. Beautiful. Really beautiful. All glass. It's beautiful.
Herbert Muschamp for "The New York Times," the architecture critic, prior to passing away, they gave it a great review. So we built this building, and it's announced. And I get a call from -- I think it was the Swedish ambassador. But one of the ambassadors, very good man. And he said, Mr. Trump, I'm with the United Nations. I'm the ambassador. Again, I think it was Sweden. It was a while ago. Said, I don't understand something. We're talking about doing an expansion of the United Nations. Not a big deal. And it's going to cost $1.5 billion.
I read that your building, which is three times taller or more, costs $325 million. Is that possible or is that a mistake? I said totally possible, Mr. Ambassador. They said, why -- he said to me, he was good. He was a good man.
BLITZER: All right. We're going to continue to monitor Donald Trump and get back to him once he gets into some more substance.
Coming up in our next hour, by the way, I'll speak live with Donald Trump's national spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson. She'll be joining us. But right now, I want to speak with Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. She's the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a Hillary Clinton supporter.
Senator, thank you so much for joining us.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: You're welcome, Wolf.
BLITZER: All right. So this was just Donald Trump's first television, on-camera response to Secretary Clinton's acceptance speech. He said it was, what a sad situation, he'd said, about her speech. He said it was so average.
I want to give you a chance to respond to that. I'm also curious what you thought about the larger criticisms he received from Secretary Clinton, at least so far he hasn't addressed those.
FEINSTEIN: Well, I'm not going to do what he does. I sat here and listened to him. I listened to him attack, demean, and belittle. Everything except himself. And this man wants to be president of the United States. The world is filled with serious problems. Only he can solve them. This just isn't -- just simply isn't true.
And I sit here appalled, particularly after three days of seeing a great part of America come together, not divide but unify, show a patriotism, and I think a sense of community, of family, and see a candidate who not only broke the glass ceiling but set forward a program of exactly what she was going to do.
I listened to Donald Trump and all I heard was how bad, how terrible everybody was. Anybody that that says anything about him, he's going to one way or another crucify. And that's what's happened. That's what happened with his Republican opponents. That's what's going to happen with world leaders if he is president.
And I really fear for the nation, Wolf. I mean, I've been in Washington for a while. I know you can't get things done just by yourself. I know a president has to have a relationship with both political parties. I know you can't call people names and then expect them to come around and do what you would like them to do.
So it's very, for me -- and it is such a blemish on everything that happened last night. To hear the president of the United States say that Hillary is the most qualified person for president in history, including himself, and then see Donald Trump rip her apart. It just makes me so angry.
BLITZER: Well, that strategy worked, as you know, with the other 16 Republican candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. He beat them, some prominent governors, some senators. He's continuing that strategy.
Let me get you to respond to a couple of the points he just made. Then I want to get to some national security issues. He said, once again, he's been saying this now for a while, he's willing to have news conferences all the time, but right now he says it's been about 237 days since Hillary Clinton had a full-scale, formal news conference with reporters.
[17:25:03] She does one-on-one interviews, but a full-scale new conference she doesn't do. Does he have a point there, that she's afraid to have a news conference?
FEINSTEIN: No, I don't think she's afraid to have a news conference. I think there is no woman on earth that gets more press than Hillary Clinton does. And I've watched her day after day at event after event. I can't answer why there aren't more news conferences except the questions that come up are always the same questions. It's e- mails and it's Benghazi.
Look, when I was chairman of the Intelligence Committee, both sides on our committee did a year and a half investigative study into Benghazi. We published a classified and an unclassified report. And there was no culpability found. And yet, it goes on and on and on. And I think that's part of the problem. And this is a woman -- and I think you saw it last night. You saw it in what Bill Clinton said. She's devoted her life to public service. And she will be a terrific
president if we can get her there and give her an opportunity before the opposition goes out to claw her apart which is what he tries to do.
BLITZER: All right. Let's go through some national security issues.
FEINSTEIN: Yes, please.
BLITZER: You're the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The political arm of House Democrats, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, they said today they, too, their computers, their e-mails were also hacked. They believe by the Russians. As you know, the DNC e-mails were hacked. The DNC believes by the Russians. This would be the second suspected Russian hack on Democrats.
Do you believe -- and I know you've been briefed on this -- that the Russians are deliberately doing this in an attempt to impact, to affect the U.S. election?
FEINSTEIN: I don't know what their -- what their motive is. Do I believe they've done it, both the GRU and the FSB, that's certainly the way it looks. As Clapper said last night, all the evidence isn't in yet, but it's certainly the way it looks. Is it a problem? Yes. Both Adam Schiff, who's ranking on the Intelligence Committee in the House and I on the Senate, have sent a letter to the administration urging transparency in what we find.
I think it's time to put this kind of thing before the American people and I think it's time to prevent it from happening. But it's difficult. And this is where we've got to work on encryption. This is where we have a lot of work to do to see that these systems are safe from hacking.
BLITZER: Do you believe, based on everything you've seen, there will be more leaks, more damaging information released in the coming days and weeks by these hacks?
FEINSTEIN: Oh, I have no idea. I can't really answer that question. I think it's an indication that people are trying. For what reason, I don't know. And that's why I think what is found should be made public so they can be part of the public debate, and everyone can look at it carefully.
BLITZER: As you know, right after these two conventions, both of the nominees start receiving classified daily intelligence briefings from the CIA. Hillary Clinton will receive a classified daily briefing. Donald Trump will receive a classified daily briefing. You receive these briefings very often, although they'll get different information. Are you OK with that?
FEINSTEIN: Well, we do not get the President Daily Brief, called the PDB. The intelligence committees get everything else but that. So consequently, most of us spend a lot of our time reading classified material. And it's very frustrating because it takes a lot of time and of course you can't talk about it. But you do get a comprehensive view, at least according to intelligence, of threat, of problems, and that kind of thing.
BLITZER: We're also getting some breaking news right now, Senator, that the FBI and the Justice Department are now investigating a possible computer hack of the Hillary Clinton campaign in addition to the DNC, the DCCC. Now there's an investigation that perhaps the Clinton campaign was hacked as well. What can you tell us about this?
FEINSTEIN: I haven't heard about that yet. I'm in San Francisco. It wouldn't surprise me. I think it should be pretty clear that both campaigns should be aware that there's a problem out there, and I think until the technical people can come up with some solutions, which are more ironclad, and I don't know whether that can be done or not, everybody should be cautious.
[17:30:07] And what I worry about are the big systems that control the major operations of our country, whether it'd be military operations or civil aviation or anything else. We have to see that these systems are free from hacking.
Now even the Defense Department has been hacked and hacked and hacked, and Defense has moved to try to remedy a lot of this. But the hackers are smart. They know the technology and they use it. So we have to take a good look at that, and we also have to make some decisions about what the penalties for hacking into these systems are.
We haven't tackled that yet. I never thought that the day would come when that would be necessary. But perhaps we should look at that.
BLITZER: Our justice correspondent Evan Perez and our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto, they're saying that this latest intrusion of the Clinton campaign was discovered by private investigators hired by the campaign. This according to law enforcement officials.
So, I guess, the bottom line question is, do you believe the Russians are trying to tilt this election in favor of Donald Trump?
FEINSTEIN: Well, I wouldn't be so bold as to say that right now. I don't know. I think the FSB and the GRU, the military as well as CIA- type intelligence in Russia, is trying to put material together. Now, for what purpose, at whose request, I have no idea. But one can take some guesses.
BLITZER: You want to take a guess?
FEINSTEIN: No, not right now.
BLITZER: And just to clarify, are you OK that Donald Trump is receiving top-secret national security intelligence briefings?
FEINSTEIN: Well, it will be interesting if he can keep a secret. There's nothing I can do about that. He is the designated nominee of a political party. We'll see. BLITZER: Let me wrap it up on a historic point that we all observed
last night. You've served in the U.S. Senate now for more than 20 years. You've seen women come a long way in politics over this time. There are now some 20 women serving in the United States Senate, 104 overall in Congress. But this is the first woman, Hillary Clinton, to accept a major party's presidential nomination here in the United States.
On this -- at this time, I want to get your reaction to that, that it's taken this long for a woman to be a presidential nominee.
FEINSTEIN: Well, my reaction is this. It took us a long time to get to vote. 1920, the suffragettes. Women have had to work for everything they've gotten in society. Previously, it was very much a male-dominated society. Now that women are CEOs of big companies, they're chairman of Board of Directors, they're surgeons, they're doctors, they're in the military.
We still fight. We fire for equal pay. We're not there yet. And we have fought to break this glass ceiling, and we have. And that's a big accomplishment. And fortunately, it's a most qualified woman. It's a woman experienced. And a former secretary of state, as everybody knows.
I think one last thing, I think after last night, I've talked to friends who say, I never really knew that Hillary Rodham Clinton did all those things, that it began so early, that she's had such a long- standing dedication to public service. And I think it's changed some views. And I think people saw her in a much more human way.
This arena is hard. You get a lot of brick bats. It's very hard very often to change misperceptions about one's self. And you also get hurt. And she's been able to sustain all of this over a substantial period of time and come back. And she has drive, staying power, and motivation like no one I've ever seen. That's going to stand her in good stead as president of the United States.
BLITZER: Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, thank you so much for joining us.
FEINSTEIN: Thank you, Wolf.
BLITZER: We're going to have much more on the breaking news coming into THE SITUATION ROOM right now. Sources telling CNN the FBI is now investigating the possible hack of the Hillary Clinton campaign. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:39:17] BLITZER: We're following multiple breaking stories here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Donald Trump is holding his first campaign appearance since Hillary Clinton's convention speech. And sources now telling CNN the FBI is investigating the possible hack of the Clinton campaign.
Joining us here in THE SITUATION ROOM, our correspondent Sunlen Serfaty, our political director David Chalian, our senior political correspondent Manu Raju, and our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta.
David, this is serious stuff. The DNC was hacked, they believe by the Russians. Now the DCCC, the Democratic Congressional Committee, the arm of House Democrats, and now we're getting word from Evan Perez and Jim Sciutto that the FBI and the Justice Department are investigating the possible hacking of the Clinton campaign's computers and e-mail system.
[17:40:07] This is all very disturbing information.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, there's no doubt it's disturbing. And you'll remember last Sunday Robby Mook, the Clinton campaign manager, the campaign manager there, went on "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake and asserted it was the Russians without a ton of facts at that point. And other reporting has come out throughout the week that does sort of point that way, but perhaps Robbie was so confident last Saturday because they may have already been looking into this issue in their own campaign headquarters.
So it now seems that sort of the Democratic establishment across the board from the presidential campaign to the party headquarters to the congressional arm, they're under attack. I mean, that's what this is. They're under attack. And so this now, I would imagine, we're going to see congressional hearings. And we are going -- this story is going to be with us for awhile to find out who's doing it and what the motivation is behind it.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And if these leaks come out, I mean, who knows what's actually in those e-mails. Donna Brazile, the interim chair, said that there could be a lot more of those DNC e-mails coming out.
This is not -- from what we know, I mean, they can do it to Hillary Clinton's private e-mails but it keeps that issue in the news. Remember, James Comey said that hostile actors overseas could potentially access her e-mails through that private e-mail server. So it keeps that issue alive, something they definitely don't want to talk about.
BLITZER: Evan Perez and Jim Sciutto quoting law enforcement officials as saying this hack -- apparent hack of the Clinton campaign was discovered by private investigators hired by the campaign. They believe it was similar to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, similar techniques were used.
If, in fact, these three, the DNC, the DCCC and the Clinton campaign were hacked, that's obviously going to cause a lot of problems if a lot of these e-mails especially are released publicly in the middle of this campaign.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. I think you almost want to step back and observe the magnitude of what we're witnessing right now. This is a cyber Watergate that is occurring during the course of this political campaign, the likes of which we've never seen before. And it has the potential to alter this campaign. It's already altered it somewhat in that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to leave the DNC as a result of the leak of these e-mails over at the DNC.
Lord knows what's in the rest of these e-mails over at the Clinton campaign. And it's also a test for Donald Trump. Remember a couple of days ago there were people on both sides of the aisle questioning whether Donald Trump was fit to be president in the way he responded to this by saying, well, the Russians should tell us what they have in terms of Hillary Clinton's missing e-mails. And so I think that we have not really seen how all of this is going to unfold and what the impact is going to be on this campaign. But no question about it, this is really a big moment.
BLITZER: We're waiting for a statement from the Clinton campaign responding to these reports. We'll obviously have that as soon as it comes in.
Sunlen, this was Donald Trump's first opportunity to respond in a very formal way. We took the speech live here on CNN to respond to the Hillary Clinton speech that she gave last night. He said it was -- what a sad situation, referring to her speech. He said he watched it last night, so average.
He had an opportunity to go through point by point the accusations that were leveled against him. He really didn't.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, he didn't at all. And he just kind of leveled charges right back at Hillary Clinton, not really giving any -- it seems any sort of substance in response to her counterpoints.
And it was interesting. Some of our reporters there at that event noticed that there were these chants that have been since the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in the audience saying lock her up, lock her up. Then Donald Trump got a lot of praise for being more presidential and kind of responding, saying, no, don't lock -- don't say that. Basically just go out and vote. We got to beat her in November.
Well, today he kind of started to join in on those chants. So it seems like he's trying to bring a bigger argument against Hillary Clinton, kind of get down in the scrum. And he made the point to that earlier. He said, I'm about to bring it against Hillary Clinton.
BLITZER: The whole -- you know, at the Republican convention, we heard chanting lock her up, lock her up. And he at one point, you're absolutely right, he said, you know, we're going to do some other stuff, we're going to win the election, we don't necessarily have to go ahead and lock her up.
He did say just now, David, we're going to get a lot of Bernie supporters. We did see at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia there were some Bernie or bust, they were -- heckling a bit Hillary Clinton in her speech, General Allen when he was speaking, Leon Panetta, the former Defense secretary. Is Donald Trump right, that he's going to get a lot of Bernie
supporters in November?
CHALIAN: Define a lot. I doubt that he's able to bring over a majority of Bernie supporters. I don't even think he'd probably can get a third of Bernie supporters, would be my guess, over to his side because we see in our polling that many of them are already moving towards Hillary Clinton. But that doesn't mean he's not going to continue to try.
This is a main avenue for the Trump campaign. They do believe that part of what fueled them and their rise throughout the primary season fueled Bernie Sanders' rise, and they want to make sure that they open their arms to welcome anybody willing to come into their fold because obviously that could have a big electoral impact, even if he did win 30 percent of Bernie supporters, which would be huge.
[17:45:13] BLITZER: We're going to have much more coming up on the breaking news we're following. I want everyone to stand by. We'll take a quick break. We'll right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: We're back with our political experts as we cover the breaking news. And only moments ago, at Donald Trump's rally in Colorado, the crowd started chanting, lock her up, lock her up, referring to Hillary Clinton.
I want to play that for you. Pay attention to his reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD: Lock her up, lock her up, lock her up.
[17:50:13] TRUMP: You know what? I've been saying -- I've been saying, let's just beat her on November 8th. But you know what? No, no. You know what? I'm starting to agree with you. I'll tell you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Jim Acosta, that's a -- that is a shift from what he said as he himself said last week.
ACOSTA: A huge shift. On Wednesday I asked him at the press conference, you know, he did not join in when they were chanting, lock her up, at the Republican convention. And he said, you know, I didn't get enough credit for that. I said no, let's just beat her in November. And he repeated that just yesterday. So for him to say what he just said a few moments ago indicates I think what we're going to see over the next several weeks which is this is going to be a brawl.
And if your stomach was churning before, you better get out the Rolaids because I think between now and the debates, this is just going to be down and dirt. And I think Donald Trump has decided after these conventions the race is reset and all bets are off. The gloves are coming off.
(CROSSTALK)
CHALIAN: I'm sorry, go ahead.
RAJU: One of the interesting things that he also at this rally was talking about temperament. I mean, this was a whole Democratic convention was about that she has the temperament. Maybe you don't trust her but she's the one you can trust in the Oval Office because she's even-keeled and is battle tested. And he said I think I have the best temperament or one of the best temperament of anyone who has ever run for president. He said I have a winning temperament. So clearly he recognizes some of these attacks may have worked. And this is one way that he's chosen to respond.
CHALIAN: What I find amazing about that moment, though, is that when he says -- we just saw there, he said, you know, I said last week that we'll just beat her. He starts getting applause for that. The crowd actually started applauding the posture he took last week. And then he says, no, no, I'm now starting to agree with you. He actually like stepped on his own. So they -- his supporters were trying to give him credit for that moment.
BLITZER: Right.
CHALIAN: And he --
ACOSTA: And keep in mind, just today, Mike Pence was quoted on the "Hugh Hewitt Show" saying that we shouldn't have name calling in politics.
BLITZER: Mike Pence said that.
ACOSTA: Mike Pence said that. So he is trying to dial this campaign back as well to no avail, as you can see from what Donald Trump has had to say a few moments ago.
RAJU: And it's the difference between the scripted -- scripted Trump and a Trump who's not reading from a teleprompter. You never know what he's going to say.
BLITZER: Because you've covered him -- you've covered him a lot during this election cycle. And you know when he -- he can be a very disciplined speaker when he's got a script, when he's reading that teleprompter. But today he's on the campaign trail. He's speaking to a huge crowd. Got a lot of supporters out there. This is the same Donald Trump that we've seen over the past year on the campaign trail. And if you speak to his aides and his advisers as all of us do, it worked in the campaign and they believe you know what, it might work just now against Hillary Clinton.
SERFATY: And I think it was very notable that he came out today, his first campaign rally after Hillary Clinton's big speech, and he settled at the podium. He said, isn't it great that there's not teleprompters there? It's almost like he enjoyed shifting back into that more authentic Donald Trump, the one that we all remember from the primary. Of course the big question is, how will that work for him now as we move into the general election. That's the big question.
And it's interesting to go back to Mike Pence. It's interesting how he's kind of shifted the role of a traditional vice presidential candidate. Normally they are on the attack dog role. Right now Mike Pence is playing clean up for Donald Trump. It will be interesting to see if he keeps that up going forward.
BLITZER: Yes. And he's responding to the criticism in the way he likes to respond. For example, Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, who was very tough. He's independent. He came out at the Democratic convention and he was very tough on Donald Trump. Donald Trump responded by saying, I was going to hit one guy in particular, a very little guy. He was going to hit this guy so hard his head would spin, he wouldn't know what the hell happened. He came out of nowhere, and then he's been tweeting about Michael Bloomberg. I assume that earlier reference was to Michael Bloomberg.
CHALIAN: I have no doubt. He said today, though, he was making quite clear, when he used the word hit, he just meant hit verbally. Not in some physical way that he was going to try to hit Michael Bloomberg physically. But, listen, it was very clear when we were all watching Michael Bloomberg's speech, we all knew, wow, that's going to get under Donald Trump's skin faster than anything else. You know, questioning his business acumen is one of the fastest ways to get him on Twitter and hitting --
RAJU: He questioned his mental sanity, too.
CHALIAN: He did.
RAJU: I thought it was notable, too, Jake Tapper interviewed Tim Kaine this afternoon, and asked him if he agreed with Michael Bloomberg's criticism, he wouldn't go there. Tim Kaine would not go there, said, well, Michael Bloomberg knows Donald Trump better than I do.
BLITZER: All right. You're going to be out there on the campaign trail with him. You've got a lot of work ahead of you.
ACOSTA: That's right. And as Donald Trump showed this week, I mean, he was not going to lay low during the traditional thing that candidates do when their -- the opposing convention on, and all indications are he is going to keep up this very frenetic busy pace. He wants to get the narrative back on his side as we saw at that sometimes messy press conference on Wednesday. I think we're going to see more of that next week.
[17:55:02] BLITZER: All right. We're going to stay on top of the breaking news right now, guys. Everyone, stand by. We're getting new information about the suspected cyber attack on the Hillary Clinton campaign. The computers, the e-mails. Is Russia behind it? We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: Happening now, breaking news. Democrats targeted. Tonight we're learning of a computer hack of the Hillary Clinton campaign after at least two other cyber attacks at Democratic Party organizations. Sources say Russia is to blame. Is Vladmir Putin trying to influence the U.S. election?
On the road. Hillary Clinton launches a battleground state tour, aimed at building --
