Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

July Jobs Numbers Released; Candidates Talk Economy; Which Candidate Would Be Better on Security Issues?; Examining Swing State of Colorado; Libertarian Candidate Gaining Support; El Chapo Fights Extradition to US. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 05, 2016 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:31:49] ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wall Street likes the new jobs report so much it sent the Dow index up more than a 150 points, currently at 174. Now the market rallied on word of the U.S. economy added 255,000 jobs in July. Unemployment remaining the same, 4.9 percent, wages grew 2.6 percent. The news reverberating from Wall Street to the campaign trail. Here's what Hillary Clinton said just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Now, I believe that President Obama does not get the credit he deserves for leading us out of the great recession. And I like to remind people he had nothing to do with creating it in the first place. He came into office in this worst of all financial crises since the great depression was handed to him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: In a statement, the Trump campaign responding, calling the current employment picture the worst since the great depression. So which is it? I want to bring in Diane Swonk, she is a well regarded economic expert and the founder and CEO of D.S. Economics.

So Diane, thank you for being here. What should be our take away from the layman from these latest job numbers in terms of the big picture?

DIANE SWONK, FOUNDER AND CEO, D.S. ECONOMICS: Well the big picture is, it certainly reassuring to see a nice snap back in jobs and upward revisions until the last couple months. The gains were not only good in quantity but good in quality with a lot of professional hires. That means newly minted college grads finally getting those jobs, which is very important.

We also saw the uptick in wages hold and that's important. Entry- level wages had picked up and increases at the state and local level of many wages have picked up some of the low-wage jobs out there in leisure and hospitality and the retail environment. On the flip side of it, the unemployment rate stayed at 4.9 percent. Of course we'd like to see it go lower but it stayed at 4.9 percent for the right reasons, because participation in the labor force picked up. We actually saw more people throw their hat into the ring. And now this gets into the details of the election and some of the dirt is in the details. And that is almost all of the improvement in labor force participation over the last year which has been small but at least moving up a bit has occurred among women in their later 20s and early 30s. It really is not been broad-based. And those older workers who felt left behind by the great recession obviously are still feeling left behind. And they think that gets to the crux of the issues, though we're generating jobs and the gains are getting more broad- based, they still are not all inclusive.

CABRERA: Well, the Trump campaign threw out a bunch of numbers in their response. And they say, "We are in the middle of the single- worst recovery since the great depression." And here are some of the numbers. They say economic growth, 1.2 percent, workers today earning less than they did in 1970 according to the Trump campaign. Fact check for us, if you will. What do the numbers tell us?

SWONK: You know, there's ways to play with this data. And we are in a very subdued recovery and we all know that real median family incomes peaked in 2000 and they've been coming down since then. They have rebounded since the drop of the great recession and are beginning to regain some ground. And I believe when they come out for 2016, we'll have regained even more ground because we're finally seeing wage gains again across the board.

[15:35:08] We've also seen that back door boost to real median wages and that is through the drop in prices at the pump. Of course there's a double-edged sword there because it hits out mining industry. But the bottom-line is, no the environment is not great. It's also not as bad as of course the extremes would like to point it out. And I think the critical issue here is that the jobs situation for many Americans that feel left behind has been decades in the making.

White men in particular have had to compete with women, had to compete with more minorities, have to compete with a lot more people in the labor force than they once did, particularly in the 1960s. Decline in manufacturing is real. It's been happening for four decades. This is nothing new. But we've clearly hit a tipping point once we hit the great recession and we have unearthed an anger that's real.

The question is, how do we deal with it, what are the solutions to it. And certainly, you know, solutions on a campaign trail usually don't really get us there.

CABRERA: It sounds like I'm hearing you say that the truth of the matter is in the eye of the beholder. It's all relative. Diane Swonk, thank you.

SWONK: It is in the eye of the beholder although there's -- we need to behold it very carefully.

CABRERA: As best we can. Thank you so much Diane Swonk for joining us.

Up next, the former head of the CIA breaks a long tradition of staying non-partisan, now calling Donald Trump dangerous for America and suggesting the Republican candidate is being played by Vladimir Putin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:40:55] CABRERA: From the CNN Newsroom, a former director of the CIA says Donald Trump would actually pose a threat to national security, and that he would be a, "Dangerous commander-in-chief." Today, Mike Morrell wrote a "New York Times" op-ed also saying the nation would be much safer with Hillary Clinton as president.

Now, Trump's campaign responded blaming Clinton and President Obama for destabilizing the Middle East and calling Morrell a pawn.

Joining me now, Nicholas Burns who once served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO and was the undersecretary of states for political affairs. He also supports Clinton.

Ambassador, thanks for being here. Let me or we do a bit more of this piece from Mike Morrell. He also called Trump an unwitting agent of the Russian federation. Going on to write, "President Vladimir Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated." Do you agree?

NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Well, I think Mike Morrell is one of the most respected people in Washington. He's been resolutely non-partisan of course, throughout his career. And this is a very consequential op-ed that he's written. Mike is essentially saying -- and I very much agree with this -- that Donald Trump is unfit for the Oval Office.

Look what he's said about Russia. He said that he could consider recognizing the illegal Russian occupation of Crimea, a flagrant violation of international law. This is trump. Trump has failed to stand up for our NATO allies and he's questioned whether we'd even protect our NATO allies poll in the Baltic States against Russian aggression.

We've never had a presidential candidate in the last 70 years who was disagreed with this major American strategy that the United States has to leave NATO. And that we obviously have to contain the worst aspects of Russian influence. So I think Mike Morrell's piece is well-taken. It's the right thing to say, it's a very courageous piece and I agree with it.

CABRERA: And do you agree that Putin has played him, that he is an unwitting agent of Putin's as he put it in the piece?

BURNS: I would put it this way. You see constant statements now from the Russian government and figures in Moscow from think tanks praising Donald Trump. You have this curious situation where Donald Trump for the last three or four months has been castigating our European allies in NATO and praising the Russian government. It's the most unusual situation that I can remember. We've never had anyone run for office with this kind of ideological construct. And it's very much against the American interest to think that somehow we can coddle and appease the behavior of the Russian government. We learned a lot from the 1930s, from the appeasement of the '30s. We learned a lot from the strength of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the '40s.

Republicans and Democrats do agree, and have for decades, that we have to be a strong leader and protect our friends. And Donald Trump is breaking with that tradition. That's why I think -- and for reasons of temperament and judgment and the lack of wisdom in his comments, his continuous comments been, he's not fit to serve this country as president of the United States. He has no experience for the job. And so I think Mike's piece and other pieces that you've seen, Republicans coming out to both denounce Donald Trump or support Secretary Clinton, as I do. I think you will see more of this in the next couple of days and weeks.

CABRERA: We'll see. We'll watch and see. Ambassador Burns, thanks for joining us.

BURNS: Thank you.

CABRERA: Up next, third-party candidates gaining some steam. Voters looking for an alternative to Trump and Clinton. What a ratings win for CNN's Libertarian town hall could mean in the general election.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:48:50] CABRERA: November's election could boil down to a few key swing states, one of them, Colorado, where I'm from. A place where more than one-third of voters consider themselves independent. And as Kyung Lah shows us, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are using very different strategies to engage people there on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the battleground state of Colorado, the ground war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm getting people registered to vote.

LAH: Taking aim with real and augmented retail politics. Clinton campaign workers playing Pokemon Go to register potential voters.

And using other attention-getting draws. A cello? For real?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A cello. You just have to be unique especially in a battleground state like Colorado where stakes are so high.

LAH: Battleground Colorado, twice elected Republican George W. Bush, then gave Barack Obama back-to-back victories. This year, the state is showing signs of leaning Democratic. Some recent polls give Hillary Clinton a double-digit lead. Another potential advantage, since 2012 Democrats have registered more voters than Republicans.

(INAUDIBLE REMARK)

LAH: And the range of Latino voters continues to grow up to 15.3 percent higher than the national average. 14 Clinton campaign offices are up and running in the state.

[15:50:08] Hundreds of workers are on the payroll, the operation expected to triple by early October.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we're not going to take anything for granted. For us our ground game is critical.

LAH: Democrats has spent $5.6 million on Colorado T.V. ads while Trump's supporter has spent $230,000. The Clinton camp now polling T.V. ads, saying Trump isn't on the airwaves or frankly on the pavement.

Are you seeing the Trump's operation out there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No I haven't.

LAH: The Trump plan is Colorado is far different. Yes, there are some worker knocking on doors but only a handful are on the payroll, most are volunteers. The Trump campaign has just five offices relying instead on an extensive Republican national state and local network in places 2013. The campaign not worried about being out gone in that traditional ground game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our game plan is the same old tire worn up paradigm, we've seen for years and years and years. Trump is a brand new different level of energy.

Colorado will be decided in large by a group of people in Middle America.

LAH: In Colorado, more than one-third of voters are registered independent like Mark Saban. He supports Trump.

MARK SABAN, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I will do it as an independence. So I will contribute directly to Donald Trump. I do not contribute to the GOP.

LAH: Loyalty to Trump, not party, an X factor not lost on both sides.

And with both candidates having high unfavorability numbers, it's leaving some independent voters uncertain of which way they'll go in November.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not sure either of them as President but ...

LAH: So, how are going decide then?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. I guess the lesser of two evils.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Now a growing number of people who are undecided are taking a second look at a third-party candidate. A sign that this week's Libertarian Town Hall in CNN was the number one rated program in all of cable news on Wednesday nights.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARY JOHNSON, LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Perhaps we do encompass the best of what Republicans are supposed to be smaller government and they don't do a very good job at that. And perhaps we're really good at civil liberties, something that Democrats haven't stood up for a mandatory sense.

BILL WELD, LIBERTARIAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To me the real reason might be that were descent people, we are both inclusive to the tips of our toes. Great big open loving, if you will, society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Let's talk more about this. CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter is here with me in New York. All right Brian we saw a huge jump in the ratings of this latest town hall compared to the previous one. What's the significance?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, there's something happening there and underneath the surface. And, I wonder what it means for the polls. They didn't have this town hall with Libertarians back in June, the numbers were OK, a little bit less than million viewers, 3,000 to 20,000 in the key demographic. But this week, you can see a big spike, more than 1.6 million viewers on Wednesday night for the second town hall, more than double in the demo. The 25 to 34 demo. That's the young audience that all candidates want to reach.

It was the number one program on cable news for the night. Which suggest to me, there's a lot of people that are still very interested in a third-party candidates. You know the media underestimates ...

CABRERA: A lot of dissatisfaction with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

STELTER: Yeah. And in the media, we underestimate third-party interest at our own peril. So this is the second Libertarian Town hall. The CNN is giving a green party town hall ...

CABRERA: Right.

STELTER: ... for August 17th. And all of this is happening with about seven weeks before the first debate. If Gary Johnson can manage to get 15 percent in some national polls, he can get on that debates stage. Right now he's closer to 10 percent. And Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate is closer to 5 percent.

But there's something happening underneath the surface of American politics, and we've got to pay attention to it, because we're going -- we're out of touch, you know, in the journalism world if we don't pay attention.

CABRERA: Well, and this is a chance for voters to get educated on who their choices are. So, we do hope they'll turn in.

STELTER: And to know there's more than two choices.

CABRERA: That's right. All right. Brian Stelter, thank you for being here.

Don't miss our next third-party event, a live town hall with the Green Party's Jill Stein, Wednesday, August 17th, the 10:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

And we are minutes away now from Donald Trump taking the stage in Iowa. We will take you there live as were leaked. Trump is expected to endorse Speaker Paul Ryan tonight. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:58:34] CABRERA: Right now, the notorious Mexican drug lord El Chapo is fighting his extradition to the U.S. The crime boss first the captured the world's attention when he escaped from a Mexican prison a little more than a year ago if you'll recall. Well this Sunday, CNN's Chris Cuomo takes you inside El Chapo's hideouts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Around midnight on February 17, 2014, El Chapo Guzman wants a snack and sends a guard out to get it. The Mexican marines get lucky.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: HE was grabbed, he was arrested, and he cooperated.

CUOMO: This is the house where the guard says El Chapo is hiding.

But when the got to front door, they got unlucky. Not only is this a steel door, but its several inches thick of reinforced steel. So they had to try to bash it in. And they were using a battering ram.

Now ordinarily, what happens is, as you batter the door, the metal heats up, it softens and you can gain entry. Not this door. Each one of these compartments is stilled with water. This door did not heat up. And it took them almost 10 minutes to get inside.

That's all the time the king of tunnels need. It looks like a bathtub, right? Check this out. A signature El Chapo tunnel.

And down he goes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[16:00:07] CABRERA: And don't forget, "Got Shorty" Sunday night, 8:00 p.m. "The Lead with Jake Tapper" starts right now. Happy Friday.