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Trump to Give Major Economic Speech Today; Clinton to Promote Jobs Plan in Florida Today; Delta Power Outage Caused Global System Shutdown. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 08, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: "All those he came into contact with as we try and mend our home with him no longer with us, we are comforted knowing he believed in his savior Jesus and they are forever together now. We will see him another day. Your continued prayers are welcomed and appreciated."

The next hour of NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, sharper attacks.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: She is a totally unhinged person. She's unbalanced. She took a little short-circuit in the brain.

COSTELLO: And today a chance to sharpen his message. Donald Trump laying out his plan to fix the economy. While Hillary Clinton pushes a fix of her own, making her own jobs pitch to Florida voters.

Plus, it is taller than Niagara Falls and drops riders at speed of 65 miles per hour. Now a 10-year-old boy is dead and the world's tallest water slide shut down. What happened?

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

Donald Trump gets back to business trying to get his sagging campaign back on message and playing to a perceived strength. In just a couple of hours, the billionaire businessman will deliver a major speech on the economy and his plans to rejuvenate it. And it comes at a time when Trump needs to find some traction. The latest nationwide poll show Clinton surging.

Today she also focused on the economy, talking jobs in Florida. She will unveil her own economic plan in just a few days. Thursday to be specific.

We're covering all angles as the election now looms 92 days away. Jason Carroll live in Detroit to preview Trump's speech. Joe Johns is following the Clinton and CNN's Alison Kosik will break down some of the specifics of the Trump plan.

But let's begin with you, Jason Carroll, good morning.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Carol. You know, this should be the sweet spot for Donald Trump, and the reason why I say that is because as you've said, economics is a subject matter that Donald Trump knows well. It plays to his strength so when he gives his economic policy speech a little later on this afternoon, folks will be looking for some specifics in terms of what is in his plan.

We've gotten an advance copy of his speech. So just to briefly go over some of the points he's going to hit in terms of tax reform, lowering taxes for everyone, removing the income tax or reducing the income tax, allowing the tax credit for those who are paying child care payments, and also getting rid of the death tax.

Just some of the things he's trying to do. Refocus his campaign, trying to get back on track after that disastrous week he had last week. Polls show him trailing Hillary Clinton not just in some key battleground states but national polls as well. The CNN polls of polls, we can tell you, now shows Hillary Clinton at 49 percent, Donald Trump at 39 percent.

And so basically there are two schools of thoughts here and one of the schools of thought is, well, look, there's plenty of time between now and the election and things really don't get going until after Labor Day. Plenty of time for Donald Trump to make up his ground.

But I also spoke to one GOP insider who told me after Labor Day if Donald Trump is still down by five points behind Hillary Clinton, it's going to be very difficult for him to make up that ground, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jason Carroll reporting live from Detroit.

And as I said, Hillary Clinton heads to Florida today where she is also talking about creating jobs.

Senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns has more on Clinton's plans. Good morning.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. She's expected to be in the St. Petersburg area and then on to Kissimmee today, continuing her laser focus on the state of Florida, which is expected to be critical in November.

The campaign continues to focus on jobs and the economy. While taking the opportunity to slam Donald Trump's business record. She is expected to visit Three Daughters Brewery, which is one of the fastest growing craft beer makers in the state.

Hillary Clinton's campaign is also putting a lot of effort into rebutting Donald Trump's expected address today to the Detroit Economic Club even before Trump steps to the microphone. The Clinton campaign has already put out a memo laying out seven reasons they say a Trump presidency would endanger the U.S. economy, including tax breaks for higher income Americans and corporations, revising Wall Street reforms that are already in place, and what they say is a lack of a plan to create new jobs.

The Clinton campaign has been hammering away at this theme because of Trump's ability to handle the economy has been seen as one of his strong points, as Jason mentioned.

Polling suggests Mrs. Clinton is leading Donald Trump in Florida. And a lot of that lead appears to be linked to strong support from Latino voters. The campaign showed how much emphasis they're putting on Florida by choosing Miami for the first appearance of Mrs. Clinton and her running mate Tim Kaine who speaks directly to the demographic in fluent Spanish.

[10:05:08] So tomorrow Mrs. Clinton is expected to go back to Miami once again -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Joe Johns, reporting live for us this morning, thank you.

So Mrs. Clinton will unveil her economic plan on Thursday. Mr. Trump will unload his plan later today. So we're going to focus on Trump's plan today and then we'll talk about Clinton's plan on Thursday, so let's talk.

CNN's Alison Kosik is with me, along with personal finance expert Jordan Goodman and Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute.

So, Alison, you got a preview of Mr. Trump's speech. What sticks out to you?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Got a couple of bullet points from sort of five points of his economic plan. What sticks out to me is the tax portion of it. Some of which we've already seen. A portion of which we have not.

Let me go over what we've already seen. He's proposing to cut the number of income tax rates to three brackets. So it would be 10 percent, 20 percent and the highest earners would be taxed 25 percent. Keep in mind, right now the highest earners are taxed 39.6 percent. So there are a lot of questions how is this actually going to work because you're going to miss out on all of that revenue.

He's also saying all businesses would be taxed at 15 percent. That includes small businesses which are right now taxed anywhere from 35 percent to 39 percent. Again, there you're missing a huge source of revenue but it's a huge tax cut for small businesses, which is kind of a plus for small businesses.

One other portion of his -- part of his plan that sticks out to me, child care costs. He's saying that child care is the single greatest expense for American families and Donald Trump is proposing that families can exclude child care costs from their income. So what that means is let's say you make $100,000 a year and your child care costs are $25,000, apparently from the bullet points that we got that means you can slice that $25,000 right off the top, you would only have to be taxed on $75,000 of your income. That's huge because right now you're only given a credit of $3,000 per child per year.

COSTELLO: Interesting, OK.

KOSIK: And so clearly it's a bone -- it's thrown to women. He's been told that, you know, he's not kind to women so clearly this is like a working woman's dream.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: That would be a working woman's dream.

So, Lawrence, I talked with one of Trump's economic advisers earlier this morning and he gave an overview of Trump's economic doctrine. Here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER NAVARRO, TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER: The goal of the Trump doctrine really is to double our historic growth rate which has been off for 15 years ever since China got into the World Trade Organization and started draining our factories and jobs to Asia. If we double our growth rate back to 3.5 percent to 4 percent what we do there is we create enormous wealth for the American people, we restore our manufacturing base, we generate trillions of dollars in tax revenues so we can finance Social Security, pay for new infrastructure, provide for our national defense. That's the big picture.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right, so that is the big picture, Lawrence. Boosting economic growth and creating wealth for Americans. It all sounds great, right? But is it realistic to say that his plans will double the U.S. growth rate? Is that possible?

LAWRENCE MISHEL, PRESIDENT, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE: Well, I'm not sure why you all give Donald Trump any credibility at all on economics when you talk to him. His economic policies can shift in the course of one particular interview. And I would agree with him that we really have to improve particularly wage growth for everybody, but his policies are all about lowering taxes.

This is the tried and failed policies of the last 15 years including what George W. Bush did in 2001 and 2003. If cutting tax rates were going to give us an economic nirvana and high growth, we would have seen it by now, wouldn't we? And why is it that economic growth in and of itself is expected to raise the wages of most people? That hasn't happened in four decades. So I don't really find his policies creditable.

What I do find is that they're very appealing to the mainstream Republicans, to the big donors that he's now trying to recruit, and to his economic advisers, who are a bunch of rich hedge fund and real estate guys.

COSTELLO: So, Jordan, is that fair? Because, you know, if you're a middle class person, wouldn't tax cuts help you in the pocketbook?

JORDAN GOODMAN, PERSONAL FINANCIAL EXPERT: Yes, they would. I mean, he's -- understanding the growth that happens, when Bush cut taxes in 2003, the economy did take off. When Reagan cut taxes in the '80s, growth took off. When Kennedy cut taxes in '62, the economy grew.

I don't think it could grow enough to offset the tax loss that you talked about but I think the economy would clearly grow more than where it is right now, at 1.2 percent is the latest rate.

COSTELLO: OK.

GOODMAN: We have to get growth up. That does create more jobs and more wages. But having high taxes means companies and individuals want to do things elsewhere so lowering taxes does create more economic growth.

COSTELLO: And since Peter Navarro, Trump's economic adviser, told me that Trump's economic plan was Reagan-esque, we always have to keep in mind that Reagan raised taxes.

[10:010:08] But Donald Trump doesn't plan to raise anyone's taxes.

KOSIK: Right. This is obviously appealing to, you know, middle class America, to blue-collar America. It's appealing to the popular base that he's going after. I mean, who doesn't want to have their child care cost sliced off of their salary? I mean, that sounds like a dream. To me, I would love that. You know, I spend upwards of $25,000 a year, I'll take it. You know, it sounds great. But then you have to dig deeper into the details. Is there -- would there be a cap on how much of that slice that you can take off of your income, so what --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: What's to stop me from saying I pay $100,000 on child care?

KOSIK: Exactly.

COSTELLO: So I can take $100,000 off my taxes?

KOSIK: And then where is that money coming from, you're losing that revenue that's going into the country.

GOODMAN: Well, it comes from is higher growth.

MISHEL: Why are we focusing so much on these bones he's throwing to the middle class when you actually announced what his policies were, they are huge cuts for corporations, huge cuts for the rich? This is just a little icing on the cake for the middle class. This is mostly about continuing to cut corporate tax rates and taxes for the rich.

GOODMAN: But, Lawrence, companies hire people, OK. If you have companies doing better, they hire people. If they see --

(CROSSTALK) MISHEL: There's no evidence that all the tax cutting we've seen for four decades has given us any superlative growth. Growth in the last --

GOODMAN: In 2006, we had enormous growth.

MISHEL: -- actually worse than what it was in the '50s and '60s. There's no evidence for that.

GOODMAN: We have had growth. Whenever there's been tax cuts, there has been growth. That's just a fact.

MISHEL: Yes. You can assert that but you're not really --

GOODMAN: You may not like it but it's true.

MISHEL: You can't -- there's no real evidence for that and if there was, why would people be so unhappy now, given all the big tax cuts of the Bush era? They should be really, really happy. But they're not. It's because tax cut really don't lead to wage growth for everybody.

COSTELLO: So I think one of the biggest concerns many economist have, though, Alison, is that, you know, you can cut taxes across the board but you still have to pay for things like Social Security and Medicare.

KOSIK: And infrastructure.

COSTELLO: You have to pay for the government working, you have to pay, you know, to repair infrastructure and maintain it.

KOSIK: Yes.

COSTELLO: So most economists say Donald Trump's plans would actually add trillions of dollars to the deficit.

KOSIK: Well, what's interesting is, over the weekend, a campaign adviser walked back from a pledge that Donald Trump made in April saying that he could get rid of $19 trillion of debt in eight years. But this campaign official adviser acknowledged, you know what, it's actually not doable. So there are a lot of lofty claims being made, I think. I think we really need to look at the details of where this money is coming from. OK. So if you're lowering taxes this much, there's going to be a deficit of that revenue. Where is that revenue coming from? There's only so much that corporations in that gap.

GOODMAN: Let's get an example. OK. 1997 under President Clinton, they cut tax rates, capital gains rates down to 15 percent. That kind of fueled the Internet boom and we had a positive surplus at that time by the time Clinton ended. That's a recent example of cutting the tax rates --

KOSIK: But the Internet boom is -- the Internet boom is kind of over, what is next? What is the next step?

GOODMAN: Well, maybe bio technology, maybe Tesla, I don't know, what new, but you have to have encouragement.

KOSIK: But that's going to (INAUDIBLE).

GOODMAN: It is, but I'm saying that's an example for cutting taxes creating more revenue for government.

MISHEL: But George Bush cut capital gains tax rates in half. George Bush cut them in half. Cut tax rates on dividends in half. We have not seen a boom in the last 15 years. That's exactly what the Trump people are telling about, economic growth over the last 15 years. So this is really a tried and failed policies of the past and it's really just a slap to the rich, to his Republican donors, to his advisers. And maybe ingratiate himself to the Republican Party who seemed so annoyed by his bigotry.

COSTELLO: All right. So -- I have to leave it there but maybe we'll find out more information from Trump's speech, noon Eastern Time in Detroit. Of course CNN will be carrying that live.

Alison Kosik, George Goodman, Lawrence Mishel, thank you. Thanks to all of you.

MISHEL: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Thank you.

Delta Airlines working to get thousands of passengers back in the air and on time. A computer glitch caused a system-wide shutdown earlier this morning, delaying all of Delta flights around the world for several hours. The airline now warning passengers to expect large- scale cancellations all day today.

CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh live at Reagan National to tell us more. Hi, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Yes, large-scale cancellations today, as well as delays and, you know what, to be honest this -- you could really stretch into the days that follow as well, as the airline tries to catch up with that backlog of passengers that they have to get on those flights.

Now the airline is blaming a power outage that happened around 2:30 this morning in Atlanta. Of course, Atlanta is the hub for Delta Airlines. At the height of all of this, we saw airports like JFK, LaGuardia, they were saying that they were unable to check-in their passengers. Even the flight boards at airports, not just nationwide but worldwide, they were showing information that was just inconsistent. It may have said that a flight was on time or scheduled to leave but that was actually not the case.

[10:15:05] The good news at this hour is that ground stop on all of those Delta flights has been lifted. Here at Reagan National, we are seeing some Delta flights take off, but don't get too excited, folks, we expect that those delays will last for a few days, again, as the airline tries to catch up and get all of those passengers rebooked on new flights -- Carol. COSTELLO: All right. Rene Marsh reporting live from Reagan National.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the political season gets even uglier, unhinged, unstable and suggestions of being unfit for the White House. Our guests will discuss the latest Clinton/Trump brawl. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Hillary Clinton has called Donald Trump a loose cannon. Now Donald Trump launches a new attack on Hillary Clinton, this time swinging for the fences and suggesting the Democratic nominee is mentally unfit for the presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: In front of some friendly reporters, they asked her a very easy question. And she short circuited. She used the term short circuited.

[10:20:01] She took a little short circuit in the brain. She's really pretty close to unhinged. She's like an unbalanced person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Joining me now to talk about this and more, Patti Solis Doyle, a former Clinton campaign manager, and Scottie Nell Hughes, a CNN political commentator and Trump supporter. Welcome to both of you.

PATTI SOLIS DOYLE, HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTER: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So, Scottie, Mr. Trump says Hillary Clinton is unhinged. What does that mean?

SCOTTIE NELL HUGHES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it means that she's nothing that you can sit there and put things apart. It's not like she's traditional, it's not like she's following any set pattern. It's someone that can easily just fly off and -- sort of like he is, a lot of accuse. Then you can just sit there -- you can sit there and poke her enough and eventually she's just going to get real upset, real angry like we've seen her lash out at reporters and people around her when she gets challenged on a question and they don't like her, and they keep pushing her so I think that's --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: So when she said -- when she said she short circuited, was she lashing out at reporters? Is that what you're saying?

HUGHES: I can't -- well, first of all I can't believe she actually used that term. That would not have been my choice of term that I would use for any candidate. And I don't think this conversation is good for either party to be having. But let's point this out that this is something they've been accusing Mr. Trump from. And you pointed out Hillary Clinton. There's been a lot of Hillary Clinton supporters who've been out there questioning -- (CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: So it's tit-for-tat?

HUGHES: Exactly, but I don't think it's healthy at all for either candidate or for our overall political system because guess what, in the end one of these folks is going to be in the Oval Office and it's not good for 50 percent of America to have this sort of stigma that they're crazy. So I think that we need to kind of push away and let's -- if we're going to sit there and go after each other let's go after each other's policies and not necessarily each other's --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I don't -- I don't mean to be laughing, I just can't believe we're having this conversation.

HUGHES: Exactly.

COSTELLO: OK, so, Patty, Hillary Clinton did say she was short circuited. She was asked about -- questions about her answers about her e-mail controversy. And that is a strange term to use. What does that mean, short circuited?

DOYLE: Well, look, I think the bottom line on the e-mail issue is that she made a mistake. She admitted she made a mistake, she apologized for it. She's an incredibly brilliant woman. This one learns from her mistakes. And she's never going to do it again.

Short circuited, clearly not the best word but she has made -- she said she made a mistake and I think everybody needs to just move on -- to move on, excuse me.

COSTELLO: OK, well, let's move on now and talk about these polls that came out.

Scottie, a new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll shows Clinton leading Trump on immigration, the economy and trade. Why has Mr. Trump lost ground on his core issues?

HUGHES: Well, it's because he's gotten off focus. He's gotten off message, Carol. We've talked about it all last week. But the one thing we've learned about these polls is they're extremely temperamental. News headlines can change public opinion in these polls very quickly. And with 90 days still to go, I mean, these polls are going to continue to go back and forth, back and forth. Hence, why this week is so important to both candidates. Why Donald Trump is doing a speech today that will focus on the economy and a large part on trade.

Why Hillary Clinton is just mimicking him once again and going to do the same thing in the same city on Thursday to try to counterpoint. I just hope both candidates this time stick to the issues and not necessarily use these speeches to direct fire at the other candidate.

COSTELLO: Patti, is that what Mrs. Clinton is doing? DOYLE: No.

COSTELLO: Because she was for the trade deal before she was against it. Is she copying Mr. Trump?

DOYLE: I think -- I'm sorry, Carol, I think Hillary Clinton has laid out her plans over the last year and a half almost, and it has taken Donald Trump almost 15 months to come up with some actual policy where he's going to talk about --

HUGHES: Not true.

DOYLE: -- plans, numbers, statistics. And -- so no, she's not following him. I think he's following her, obviously. But as to the polls, I think what happened here is Hillary had a very successful convention. Basically, she had speaker after speaker lay out why Hillary Clinton can be trusted to fight for the American people and then have speaker after speaker lay out why Donald Trump is reckless and a risky move to vote for him. And then that was followed by a week of Donald Trump displaying very reckless behavior. He kicked a baby out of rally --

HUGHES: That's a lie. Carol, correct that, that's a lie. We have proven --

(CROSSTALK)

DOYLE: Let's show the footage of it.

HUGHES: CNN has fact checked that and said --

DOYLE: OK.

HUGHES: CNN has fact checked it and said the baby was already gone, it was a joke --

DOYLE: OK, let's take the baby out of it. How about the video that didn't exist, how about not endorsing, you know, Republican leadership --

HUGHES: Which he did.

DOYLE: I mean, in a week after a lot of, you know, complaints by his party, he did.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Scottie, because you somewhat agreed with Patti, except about the baby, I got that, so do you think -- you know, we keep saying that Donald Trump is going to act presidential and we'll see him in this -- in a possible presidential role, but it never seems to happen. Will it now?

HUGHES: Well, and the one thing I do want to disagree with, I don't know if Hillary Clinton -- she had a nice convention. I don't think she would have seen the bump out of that convention unless the Khan controversy had not erupted and followed after the week. [10:25:08] I don't necessarily if we would have seen this bump except

for one a very tumultuous week with Donald Trump. That being said, that means that our candidate, when he stays on message, stays on task, resonates better with the American people than Hillary Clinton can. And --

COSTELLO: Well, is it possible -- I guess what I'm asking, Scottie, is it possible that Mr. Trump can stay on message?

HUGHES: Absolutely. And his economic plan actually came out before Hillary Clinton back in September and he's just continued to clarify it like he's done with his veterans' plans, like he's done with his health care plan, his trade plans. He introduced a lot of these plans prior to any other candidate, including Hillary Clinton, hence why he was able to survive a primary of 17 folks. And he would not be at the level of success, he would not be at the top of his game as a businessman if he would have been this sort unpredictable character we've seen this past year.

Listen, politics makes people go crazy. It's obvious with the two candidates that we have right now that -- I kind of doubt both of their mental stability to be honest with you because to go through what they've gone through this past year, it's somebody -- it's something that takes strong toll on a strong person to be able to handle and I think both of them deserve credit for actually.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Patti, last words. Some Democrats say, yes, you look at the polls, Hillary Clinton has got this 10-point lead, that's great, but she's in danger of becoming complacent. And if Donald Trump really does stay on message, perhaps that could hurt her if she doesn't -- if she isn't constantly vigilant.

DOYLE: You know, this is a woman who lost a race to Barack Obama in 2008. I guarantee you she is not going to be complacent about this race. She is working for every vote. And her team is working in every state with an incredible field organization, an incredible GOTV effort. They are taking this race very seriously. And no matter what, how reckless Donald Trump is, it's still going to be a close race because this country is divided, so they're going to work for it, trust me.

COSTELLO: All right, I have to leave it there. Patti Solis Doyle and Scottie Nell Hughes, thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, from Russia with love, well, at least when it comes to the Russian media and Donald Trump. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)