Interview with Trump Counsel Michael Cohen on Trump's Positions.
TRUMP: I hate the concept of it, but on a humanitarian basis with what's happening, you have to. You know, this was started by President Obama when he didn't go in and do the job when he should have, when he drew the line in the sand, which turned out to be a very artificial line. But you know, it's living in hell in Syria. There's no question about it. They're living in hell.</s>CUOMO: He doesn't like the concept of it, but on a humanitarian basis, he has to do it. That's Donald Trump not referring to going back on Fox News, but on dealing with the migrant situation, the crisis that's going on in Europe. Now some see this as a change of heart because of what he has said about the domestic immigration program. So how do you reconcile that? He also made a controversial statement about the Black Lives Matter movement. He's having an event today about Iran and there's new information about him in polls. So let's get somebody to weigh in on all of this who know Mr. Trump very well on his positions. Executive Vice President of the Trump Organization, special counsel to Mr. Trump himself, Michael Cohen. Counsel, good to have you here.</s>MICHAEL COHEN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Good morning.</s>CUOMO: Yes, he's talking about migrants, but let's - we'll get to that. The criticism, one criticism of Donald Trump is, you know, the way you talk about the blacks, the way you talk about the Hispanics and immigrants, you cannot win those votes. You're saying polls show otherwise. Make the case.</s>COHEN: They sure do. There's a new poll that just came out that shows Mr. Trump actually substantially head of any other Republican ever at 25 percent with the African-American vote and 31 percent with the Hispanic vote. And again, we've been saying this going back to the July 17th event where Mr. Trump announced his candidacy. This is not Hispanics, it's not about Latinos, this is about illegal immigration and everybody agrees and it clearly shows that in the polls. Mr. Trump is right.</s>CUOMO: Now, something else that we've seen in polls, while they do say he's ahead, there's a large part, maybe more than 50 percent, of his own party that says Trump is not the guy I want as a candidate. How does he move from where he is into the realm of the moderate Republicans and then the independents, as many of our viewers are.</s>COHEN: Mr. Trump is going to be Mr. Trump. There's no doubt about that. He's going to say what's on his mind and he's going to back it up. And again, the polls show that he's correct. He signed this pledge that, in all fairness, they never should have had anybody sign the pledge. It's the first time, I believe, ever --</s>CUOMO: To not run as a third party.</s>COHEN: That is correct.</s>CUOMO: Why did he do that?</s>COHEN: Because it was right for the party. Because they turned around and they told him that they were going to play fair and he's taking them at their word for it.</s>CUOMO: But what if they don't? What if they get to the convention and it's tight --</s>COHEN: I believe that they will. I believe that Mr. Trump will end up being the Republican nominee. I believe that the support by the American people will force the RNC and others within which to back him. And that's part of the pledge. And supposedly - even though I didn't see it anybody else - I mean, Mr. Trump had a massive press conference. Nobody else knows if anybody else even signed it, though I was told that they did, that they agreed to support whoever the Republican candidate is. And it's going to be Mr. Trump and we're going to expect their support.</s>CUOMO: A pledge is a nonbinding contract. He could break it. Is there a chance?</s>COHEN: He could break it and so could they, but Mr. Trump doesn't break his word.</s>CUOMO: So you're saying there is zero chance he runs as a third party candidate?</s>COHEN: I would say that there's pretty close to a zero chance.</s>CUOMO: You lawyers, Michael Cohen.</s>COHEN: Yeah, you, too.</s>CUOMO: When we need one - I like this. But right now I don't need this. So you're saying close to zero, but you're keeping a little window.</s>COHEN: Well, you have to keep a window -- Nothing is 100 percent certain. But I can turn around and tell you Mr. Trump never breaks his word.</s>CUOMO: All right. So that's that situation. Now let's see how he gets to this point of having to make a decision like that. The Iran deal today, he's having a meeting, Ted Cruz is going to be there, they've been loosely allied in the past, we know that. Why is he having an event where he wants to talk about Iran in a productive way and he's got the "Duck Dynasty" guy there, Sarah Palin there, Glenn Beck there. It seems like he's catering to a very definite perspective. What's he trying to say --</s>COHEN: I don't think he's catering to anybody. I think that they asked to come to the event and he's not going to turn anybody away. Their vote is as important as anybody else's. Their voice is as important as anybody else's. You know, Mr. Trump, he's a deal-maker. Let's be honest. We talk about this in every show. He's --</s>CUOMO: Written books about it.</s>COHEN: "Art of the Deal," right -- The Iran deal, as Mr. Trump has said, is probably the worst deal in the history of this world. And it's one that I believe we're going to regret many years from now.</s>CUOMO: But you know that the global consensus, certainly in Europe and beyond, is that this was better than no deal. Nobody's ever happy when you make a deal with someone who's not your ally. You had Russia, you had China, you had India saying we're not for these sanctions going forward. We want the commercial opportunities here. It's easy to say I could do better, but all the people at the table, including the Iranians, say we had to give things up we didn't want to give, but it's better than no deal.</s>COHEN: What did they give up? They're taking $150 billion from the United States.</s>CUOMO: The sanctions don't get given up right away. There is monitoring. They don't get to refine plutonium the way they wanted to. They have to reduce their stores in a way they didn't want to --</s>CUOMO: But you had nothing in the past. You had nothing in the past.</s>COHEN: I don't think we're going to have anything either right now and I think that's the sad part. When you have the ayatollah turn around and say in 25 years from now, Israel will be wiped off this planet, that they will no longer exist - That's America's ally. You got to be true to your allies. You have to be good to your friends. You can't just turn around and take a foreign country that we really have not had great relations with and put them ahead of those that we have. It just doesn't make sense and that's Mr. Trump's point. He's the greatest deal-maker on the planet. This is a lousy deal. And when he wins the president, you're going to see, he'll change this deal. He will renegotiate this deal.</s>CUOMO: But he talked about the situation with migrants. Here he wants to find all the illegals and get rid of them. People say it's impractical, let alone potentially impossible. But then he says, well, this humanitarian crisis, we've got to do something here. It's terrible. Why doesn't he apply the same logic to so many who come to this country from Central America in the same way?</s>COHEN: One could turn around and say one is an immediate humanitarian need, the other are individuals who are seeking to come to the United States improperly. They're seeking to just walk through a border and call this place home.</s>CUOMO: A window into the fact that this is a little bit more of a complex issue than maybe he laid it out as first, that it's not as easy as saying all or none. You know, that you have to think it through.</s>COHEN: Well, again, I don't think we really know the extent of the problem. And only until Mr. Trump becomes the president and actually gets into the White House where he can look at the deal and understand the deal and then he could revise the deal in order to make it work. That's what he does and that's what he does best.</s>CUOMO: Michael Cohen, thank you for coming on to clarify the positions.</s>CUOMO: All right. So NEW DAY tomorrow 7:00 hour, Donald Trump joins us live. He says he wants to explain how he is going to put proposals into business. And he wants to discuss his issues directly to you. We invited Hillary. We invited Jeb Bush. Donald Trump is the one who said yes. You'll get him tomorrow. Mick.</s>PEREIRA: We look forward to it. So violent crime is rising in New York as police and their use of stop-and-frisk. The mayor says those two facts simply aren't related. We're going to get him to explain live ahead.