[Christine Romans, Cnn Anchor:] After more than a year of mocking Mexican immigrants, Donald Trump will meet with Mexico's president just hours ahead of his highly anticipated immigration speech.
[George Howell, Cnn Anchor:] ISIS vowing revenge for the death of one of its most important leaders. How this notorious terrorist was struck down. Good morning and welcome back to EARLY START, I'm George Howell.
[Romans:] Nice to see you today, George. I'm Christine Romans. It's 30 minutes past the hour on the last day of August. Breaking overnight, Donald Trump announcing he will meet today with the president of Mexico. That surprise meeting will happen just hours before Trump delivers that big immigration speech tonight to lay out details of his immigration policy real details. A sit-down between Trump and President Enrique Pena Nieto is surprising, to say the least, given Trump's repeated vows to wall off Mexico to wall off the Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it. Last month, Pena Nieto told CNN there is no chance Mexico will pay.
[Enrique Pena Nieto, President Of Mexico:] There is no way to have Mexico pay the wall but any decisions inside the United States is a decision of its government.
[Unidentified Male:] But under no circumstances would Mexico pay for that wall?
[Nieto:] There is no way that Mexico can pay a wall like that.
[Romans:] Trump has also drawn fierce attacks in Mexico and in the wider Hispanic community for his sometimes heated rhetoric against illegal immigration. CNN's Phil Mattingly is traveling with the Trump campaign. He's got the latest for us.
[Phil Mattingly, Cnn Correspondent:] Good morning, George and Christine. We knew there was going to be an important speech, an important moment in Donald Trump's campaign on Wednesday, we just didn't know it would involve a visit to Mexico. Now, Donald Trump's immigration speech scheduled for Wednesday in Arizona is still on. What was unexpected was his visit to Mexico to meet with Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto. The president's office saying they extended invitations to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and the meeting will be private. Donald Trump also has that speech, as well, where we have all been waiting for the specific details of that immigration policy. In Everett, Washington on Tuesday night he mentioned the stakes for that speech.
[Donald Trump , Presidential Candidate:] There is no better evidence of the fact that Hillary Clinton's immigration policy, which brings in illegal immigrants and well, is that a true statement. It brings in illegal immigrants and refugees to take jobs from our hardworking African-American and Hispanic citizens, and they want those jobs. Instead of providing free health care and jobs to millions of refugees from around the world, that we have no idea even where they come from, we should rebuild our inner cities and provide jobs to struggling Americans that have been struggling for years and years.
[Mattingly:] Now there are still a lot of logistical issues to figure out for Donald Trump's trip, no question about it. The Secret Service being pushed hard to figure this out in such a short period of time. And I'm told inside Trump's team there's concern about this idea. A lot of unknown variables when you're meeting with a world leader but, that said, those supporting this idea, including Donald Trump, making very clear this is the type of moment a big, bold moment a big, bold statement that they believe should help him show that he is ready to operate at the highest points of the world's stage. Certainly an unexpected twist, though guys.
[Howell:] Phil Mattingly, thank you. So let's talk more about Trump's very big day with "CNN POLITICS" digital managing editor Zach Wolf, live for us in Washington this morning. Zach, good morning. So, before Donald Trump makes this very important speech on immigration he will meet with the president of Mexico. They will talk about a topic that gosh, wouldn't you just love to be a fly on the wall when this topic comes up about the wall that Mexico, as Trump says, will pay for. Let's listen to Donald Trump talking to our own Anderson Cooper about that wall.
[Trump:] We are going to build a great wall. The wall is going to be paid for by Mexico. People are not going to be able to tunnel because we're going to have tunnel technology. We're going to have all sorts of things on this but there's going to be a real wall. We're going to have a strong border, we're going to have a tremendous wall. We're going to have a wall that Mexico pays for, which will be very easy because they are making a fortune with us. The wall is peanuts compared to the money that they make.
[Howell:] So that is Trump's political line. Does that line change at all when he is face-to-face with the president of Mexico? And if it were to change how would that affect his base?
[Zachary Wolf, Managing Editor, "cnn Politics Digital":] You think maybe he won't put it quite that way when he's sitting across from the president of Mexico but
[Howell:] Who knows, though?
[Wolf:] It's a private meeting, yes. Who knows what he'll say. It's hard to imagine these two men emerging from this meeting with some sort of agreement. They're not negotiating something. It's hard to imagine the Mexican president emerging and saying oh yes, I will pay for the wall after all. So there is, I think, a lot of risk here for Donald Trump. He can't, you know he can't the one good thing, I think, for him is that he can go down and meet with the president of Mexico and seem, I guess, presidential. Fly to a foreign country, meet with somebody with whom he has disagreements, and sort of give this air of I'm ready for this. Afterwards,I think, you know they don't control what the Mexican government is going to say or do, so it's we'll see what happens. It's not unlike his immigration plan which has seemed to be changing and evolving the campaign strategy here by going down to Mexico so quickly is just so interesting and incredible, really.
[Romans:] For those of you who haven't devoured your "Wall Street Journal" this morning there's a really interesting opinion piece in the Op-Ed section basically saying Trump's immigration shift is a winner and here's why. "Older whites cheering for walls and deportation don't represent most of the GOP, let alone the country." And the ambiguity that Donald Trump has been sowing about his actual policies is really to show other people, the majority, that hey, I'm not really going to do some of those things that I was saying I was going to do. But, Donald Trump, Jr. Donald Trump's son the candidate's son telling Anderson last night that no, his father is not softening on immigration listen.
[Donald Trump, Jr., Evp, The Trump Organization:] He wasn't softening on anything. He didn't change his stance on anything. What he did was, and what he's done all along is, he's speaking with the people. He's not lecturing them like most of the politicians you see today, he's actually having a conversation. He basically surveyed the room and asked hey, what are your thoughts on this? I want to take that because I want to take into account what the people say.
[Romans:] He went on to say, Zach, that he wanted to E-Verify, the want to deport felons, they want to do a whole bunch of stuff that actually is being done right now. There are some groups who've called President Obama the deporter in chief because he's in the most recent year he had a quarter of a million removals and I think 60 percent of those were criminal aliens.
[Wolf:] Yes, this is one of the things where Trump has built his entire campaign around this pledge for a wall and immigration reform, it's bigger than just the border. There are all these people living here, undocumented immigrants
[Romans:] Right.
[Wolf:] 11 million of them. It's not like you can just send them over the border overnight. He acknowledged that and Trump acknowledged that in that same interview with Anderson Cooper. So while he's saying everybody has to go home, the timeline on that gets a little squishy. The details of this are very important and key. And when you build your campaign around such a simple pledge, the details kind of they have a tendency to be harder to figure out.
[Howell:] Donald Trump's message to African-Americans and the quote has been "what the hell do you have to lose with a vote for Trump". Maybe turning that, what does he have to gain when it comes to not only that outreach but, also, what does he have to gain by going to Mexico? Could he, in fact, turn the tide with people who may have question? May have had a hard time considering voting for Trump?
[Wolf:] That's true, and he's giving another speech later in the week in Detroit where's he supposed to court the African-American vote. It was interesting in the clip you played earlier. He said, specifically, the undocumented immigrants who are coming here and taking jobs, he said, from African-Americans. So it's all part of this change in tone, I guess, if not to woo in minority voters, which I find it hard to believe that he will be able to do that, maybe to make more moderate white voters feel a little bit more OK about supporting him.
[Howell:] It is interesting to point out, even in Everett, Washington when you look back there at the crowd that, again
[Romans:] Yes.
[Howell:] he's speaking to a crowd, there are no African-Americans in the audience, from what you can see behind him. And, you know, I worked Seattle. There's not a high population of African-Americans. But Donald Trump is said to meet later with some African-American groups.
[Romans:] That's a really good point, too, because when you look at that crowd and where he was in the venue. Also, those are people who are building airplanes
[Howell:] Yes.
[Romans:] for Asian companies Asian airlines. You know, TPP he's against TPP but they are selling planes, the country is, that would benefit and be able to buy more planes, one would think, because of trade deals. All right, so nice to see you. Thanks, Zach.
[Howell:] Zach, thank you.
[Wolf:] Thank you.
[Romans:] All right, 39 minutes past the hour. Donald Trump says the U.S. is losing to Mexico but the two countries are very close very close trade partners. Mexico is the third largest trading partner for the U.S. Exports to Mexico, $267 billion last year. Imports, $316 billion. Now that means it's a trade deficit but it doesn't mean that the U.S. is the loser. It means the country the U.S. is buying more from Mexico than it's selling to Mexico, though it does factor into GDP. When you have a huge trade deficit it can take a little bit off of GDP but it also creates jobs. The top products going back and forth are machinery, vehicles, oil, gas, plastics, ag products. Mexico is the second largest supplier of ag products to the U.S. The top categories are fresh vegetables and fruit, at more than $4 billion each wine, beer, snack foods. These trade channels were opened up by NAFTA, something Trump has spoken out against, with hundreds of billions of dollars trading hands each year. Trump will likely be speaking about his trade plans, of course, with the Mexican president. And the P.R. offensive from U.S.-Mexico trade associations is at 6 million American jobs today. Six million depend on trade with Mexico.
[Howell:] Wow. We're following a story about a top terrorist who was killed in an airstrike. The significant blow against ISIS and that groups vow to have revenge, next.