FWIW, NBC's program with Chuck Todd is "Meet the Press". ABC's program with George stephanopolis is "This Week."
CHUCK TODD: Mr. Manafort, can you explain why Mr. Trump went so hard after Mr. Khan? PAUL MANAFORT: Look, this is, again, this is the Clinton narrative. Mr. Trump of course feels sorry for what the Khan family has gone through, just frankly as he felt sorry for the victims that spoke before the Republican Convention who lost loved ones from illegal immigrant criminals coming in and being able to travel the country freely. That's not the issue. The issue here is not the Khan family, not the Mendoza family, now the Shaw family. The issue that Mr. Trump is talking about and which, really, frankly, I expect the media should be talking about is protecting the American homeland from national security risks and terrorists.
That's the point here. And Mr. Trump has said very clearly for months now a policy that's been ignored, which is that he believes that we need to have a temporary suspension to stop refugees from coming in from countries where terrorist activities are rampant or in a war. That's the issue, not the Khan family loss which we all regret, not the loss of many other American families which we all regret. The issue is how to protect the homeland. And the second part of the issue which is being ignored is the cause of these losses, because it forced our American military to go back into Iraq, to go into Syria and that cause was the policies that were put together in January of 2009 by President Clinton and Secretary Obama that caused ISIS to rise.
ISIS didn't exist before 2009; they exist today. They are causing the problems that we're facing. Those are the two issues: Protecting the homeland and stopping the war and going after ISIS in a way that ends the terrorism. The losses of the Khan family and the other Americans who have lost--that's a tragedy.
And the only way we're going to stop it is to focus on the real issues and that's what Trump is doing. And frankly, what Secretary Clinton did in her speech on Thursday was totally ignoring it. She sees an America that, "Morning in America," as she said. It's not morning in America. And if it's midnight in America, like she accused Mr. Clinton of, it's the policies of Obama and Clinton that caused it to be midnight. Mr. Trump has neither position.
CHUCK TODD: All right, but I got to ask you, though, it does seem as if the temperament question is coming into play. In the last three days, he's gone after Gold Star parents personally and you've had to backtrack there and you, yourself, just did it. He called a former NATO general, John Allen, a failed general, referred to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a little man. I got to ask you, why all these insults? Does that not raise a temperament issue? I assume you would not be advising him to go about responding in this way.
PAUL MANAFORT: Well, Chuck, you're now repeating the talking points of the Clinton campaign. This is not a temperament issue. The Clinton campaign needs to try to make it into a temperament issue for one reason because they know that over 70 percent of the American people don't believe a thing she says. And so, therefore, her putting up policies that she's going to do have no credibility.
Her talking about the Obama Administration has done a great job and deserves an A on the economy. I mean, please, let's talk to American families and sit around the dinner table at night figuring how to pay their bills. The American economy is not in good shape; productivity is failing.
The day after her convention, the Department of Commerce printed out the latest second quarter growth, 1.2 percent. The country's not working. It's not about temperament. That's the only issue that Clinton can try and get you, the media, to cover in hopes of ignoring what the real issues of this election are.
CHUCK TODD: Well Mr. Manafort--
PAUL MANAFORT: The American people are smarter than that--
CHUCK TODD: We can only cover the campaign in front of us and what the candidate says and I guess my question is, you brought up the GDP, he's bringing up other stuff. And I guess the question is: What is Mr. Trump focused on? And if he gets distracted like this, why shouldn't this be an issue that concerns voters of him in the Oval Office if he can so easily get distracted by personal criticism?
PAUL MANAFORT: He's not distracted. You are covering the wrong things. I mean, look at the DNC hack. I mean, the issue there that you focused on was the election was rigged against Sanders and would Sanders delegates be upset? That wasn't the issue. The issue was lack of moral conviction on the part of the Clinton campaign that worked with the DNC to rig the system.
Did you talk about the moral clarity of that decision? When Mr. Trump talked about, "Isn't it ironic that foreign countries and foreign enemies of ours might have the 33,000 emails that the F.B.I. doesn't have?" Did you focus on that fact, the risk of national security? No. So the issues are in front of you, you're just talking the Clinton narrative and not focusing on the issues that affect the American people.
CHUCK TODD: Does it not also matter if a foreign government wants to take part in our election? Do you condemn that?
PAUL MANAFORT: Of course we condemn that. That's not the issue at all. Mr. Trump was making the point that isn't it ironic that 33,000 emails that our F.B.I. can't have that may go to national security issues are sitting probably in the vaults of foreign countries, friends and enemies alike? That's the issue.
So it's there in front of you. It's just the Clinton narrative is putting out their talking points because they know that anything she says won't have any credibility. And they're getting you to cover it from their standpoint instead of the standpoint of what affects the American people.
CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you this, there was another comment he made about debates. Clarify this: Do you plan on participating in any debates that conflict with the NFL?
PAUL MANAFORT: Look, we're going to sit down with the commission and talk with them. Again, the DNC hack showed you that the Clinton campaign was working to schedule debates against Sanders which has the least possible viewing audience. Mr. Trump saying, "Look, we want the maximum viewing audience. So I'm not sure, you know, what the dates are going to be ultimately. Mr. Trump has made it very clear as recently as Friday, he wants the debates. He wants them to have the largest audience. And we're going to work with the commission to try and identify what those dates are. But we're not going to fall to Hillary Clinton and the ploy that she did against Bernie Sanders of trying to have the lowest-viewing audience. We want the biggest.
CHUCK TODD: And before I let you go, there's been some controversy about something in the Republican Party platform that essentially changed the Republican Party's views when it comes to Ukraine. How much influence did you have in changing that language, sir?
PAUL MANAFORT: I had none. In fact, I didn't even hear of it until after our convention was over.
CHUCK TODD: Where did it comes from then? Because everybody on the platform committee had said it came from the Trump campaign. If not you, who?
PAUL MANAFORT: It absolutely did not come from the Trump campaign. And I don't know who everybody is, but I guarantee you it was nobody that was on the platform committee--
CHUCK TODD: So nobody from the Trump campaign wanted that change in the platform?
PAUL MANAFORT: No one, zero. CHUCK TODD:
Okay, Mr. Manafort, I will leave it there, appreciate you coming on this morning.
PAUL MANAFORT: Thank you, Chuck.
