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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Trump Speaks Live. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 15, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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


[12:00:01] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We're a nation that tamed the West, dug out the Panama Canal, and won two world wars, and put a man on the moon. It's time to start thinking big once again. That's why I believe it's time to establish a national goal of reaching four percent economic growth.

(APPLAUSE)

And my great economists don't want know say this, but I think we can do better than that.

(LAUGHTER)

Now, they're upset. They'll be very upset. But I think we can do and maybe substantially better than that. In working with my economic team, we've put together a plan that puts us on track to achieve that goal.

Over the next 10 years, our economic team estimates that under our plan, the economy will average 3.5 percent growth and create a total of 25 million new jobs. You can visit our web site, just look at the math. It works.

(APPLAUSE)

This growth means that our jobs and plans, including our child care reforms that Ivanka Trump, my daughter, is so involved in. We'll be complete -- I like her, too.

(LAUGHTER)

Will be completely paid for in combination with proposed budget savings. It will be deficit neutral. If we reach four percent growth, it will reduce the deficit, it will be accomplished through a complete overhaul of our tax regulatory, energy and trade policies.

(APPLAUSE)

Right now, under the Obama/Clinton policies, the economy grew only 1.1 percent last quarter, a number that was shocking to people that do this professionally and for life. It translates into millions of lost jobs and certainly millions of lost good jobs, because we don't good jobs anymore.

Those jobs are gone and going. This is the weakest so-called recovery since the Great Depression. Over the last seven years, the economy grew only 2.1 percent. The slowest period in 70 -- 7-0, 70 years. Had that economy grown under Obama at the same rate as Reagan, it would have meant 10 million more jobs.

Perhaps, most shockingly, one in six men aged 18 to 34 are either in jail or out of work. Meanwhile, another 2 million Hispanic Americans have been added to the ranks of those in poverty. On top of it all, the Obama/Clinton policies have doubled the national debt.

It took more than 230 years for the United States to accumulate its first $10 trillion in debt. It took president Obama less than eight years to add another $10 trillion. Now, it would be one thing if that money had been used to completely rebuild our nation, our military, our infrastructure but that didn't happen.

Instead, the opposite happened. We doubled our debt and in return we have dilapidated infrastructure, failing schools, a badly depleted military, greatest people on earth and they have a badly depleted military its equipment, old and tired and another 14 million people who have left the work force.

Never has so much money been spent so poorly and so unwisely. But we're going to turn that all around, and here's how. It begins with bold, new tax reform.

(APPLAUSE)

Don't worry, they're going down, not up. They're going down.

(APPLAUSE)

I think you were concerned they're going up. As outlined in Detroit, our tax plan will greatly simplify the code and reduce the number of brackets from seven to three. The new brackets 12, 25 and the 33 percent.

TRUMP: But low-income Americans will pay no income tax at all.

[12:05:01] In fact, our plan will remove millions and millions of workers from the income tax roll entirely so that all of that work that we do in Washington can be discontinued. They'll pay tax -- they'll pay tax, but they'll pay tax when they start making a certain amount of income.

By lowering rates, streamlining deductions, and simplifying the process, we will add millions and millions of new jobs. In addition, because we have strongly capped deductions for the wealthy, and closed special interest loopholes, the tax relief will be concentrated on the working and middle class taxpayer. They will receive the biggest benefit and it won't even be close.

They have been forgotten. We are not going to forget them. They have built our country. We will not forget.

This is a work... (APPLAUSE)

... thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

This is a working and middle-class tax relief proposal. The tax relief for these workers will be expanded by my childcare proposals that I have worked on with my daughter Ivanka. These proposals are central and are very, very powerful central element of our comprehensive tax reform and economic growth plan.

Families will be able to fully deduct the average cost of childcare from their taxes, including stay-at-home parents. Because this deduction is capped, it will be disproportionately, and it will benefit working and middle class families. We've got take care of our middle class families.

The less you make, the larger a share of your income you can exclude from taxation. Parents will also be able to enroll a tax-free dependent-care savings account for their children or elderly relatives. Low-income households will benefit from both an expanded earned income tax credit in the form of childcare rebates, and a matching $500 contribution for their savings account.

A married couple earning $50,000 per year, with two children and $8,000 in childcare expenses will save 35 percent from their current tax bill. That's a tremendous saving. (APPLAUSE)

And they'll have a better life. A married couple earning $75,000 per year, with two children, and $10,000 in childcare expenses will receive a 30 percent reduction in their tax bill from what they're paying right now.

By contrast, someone earning $5 million, like the people in this room, will receive virtually no change in their tax bill at all. One of our greatest job-creation measures is going to be our 15 percent business tax rate, down from the current 35 percent rate, a reduction of more than 50 percent.

(APPLAUSE)

I know that's what you people have been waiting for.

(LAUGHTER)

An explosion of new businesses and new jobs will be created. It will be amazing to watch. You watch, and it will happen. We will also allow United States-based manufacturers to full expense the cost of new plants and equipment -- a big, big deal.

(APPLAUSE)

On top of that, we will bring back trillions in business wealth, and this is wealth that's parked overseas. Nobody know how much it is. They say it's $2.5 trillion. I have people that think it's $5 trillion. We'll bring them back and it will be taxed only at the rate of 10 percent instead of 35 percent.

And who would bring it back at 35 percent? Obviously, nobody, because nobody's doing it. I think it's going to be something that will be so phenomenal, far beyond what people even think. By taxing it at 10 percent instead of 35 percent, all of this money will come roaring back into our country and lots of good things will start to happen.

We will turn America into a new magnet for new jobs, and that means jobs in our poorest communities. So important. And right now, we have companies leaving the country because taxes are too high, but we actually have companies leaving the country to get their money.

[12:10:02] And that's a first. Nobody's ever heard of that one before, but believe me, that's happened.

TRUMP: Next comes regulations. One of the keys to unlocking growth is scaling back years of disastrous regulations unilaterally imposed by out-of-control bureaucrats. Regulations have grown into a massive job-killing industry and the regulation industry is one business I will absolutely put to an end day one.

(APPLAUSE)

In 2015 alone, federal agencies issued over 3,300 final rules and regulations, up from 2,400 the prior year. Every year overregulation costs our economy $2 trillion a year and reduces household wealth by almost $15,000.

I proposed a moratorium on new federal regulations that are not compelled by Congress or public safety and I will eliminate all needless and job-killing regulations now on the books, and there are plenty of them.

(APPLAUSE)

This includes eliminating some of our most intrusive regulations, like the waters of the U.S. rule. It also means scrapping the EPA's so-called clean power plan which the government itself estimates will cost $7.2 billion a year.

This Obama/Clinton directive will shut down most, if not all, coal powered electricity plants. I mean, all over the country they're shutting down. Remember what Hillary Clinton say (ph). She wants to shut down the miners just like she wants to shut down the steel mills and shut down the steel workers and we're not going to let it happen.

(APPLAUSE)

We're going to put our great miners and our steel workers back to work. Energy reform is central to our plan, as well. According to Heritage Foundation, by 2030, President Obama's energy restrictions will eliminate another half a million manufacturing jobs, reduce economic output by $2.5 trillion and reduce incomes by $7,000 per person.

And today you have workers, and I see them all the time and I meet them all the time and they're part of this massive group of people that have just come onto this movement, but you have workers making less money today than they made 18 years ago in real wages. They're working much harder, oftentimes because of the disastrous Obamacare that we're going to repeal and replace. Oftentimes they're working two jobs.

(APPLAUSE)

So they're working harder, they're older and they're making less. Like me, I'm working harder than I've ever worked also. But these are miners -- nobody cares about that. That's -- who cares about that?

Hillary Clinton wants to go even further and her plan could cost the economy $5 trillion. A Trump administration will lift restrictions on all sources of American energy production. According to the Institute for American Energy Resources, this will increase the GDP by more than $100 billion annually. Add over 500,000 new jobs annually. Increase annual wages by more than $30 billion over the next seven years. Increase federal, state, local tax revenues by almost $6 trillion over four decades. Increase total economic activity by more than $20 trillion over a 40-year period.

In addition, we will streamline the permitting process for all energy infrastructure projects, which are desperately needed. Including the billions of dollars in projects held up by President Obama, currently being held up. They just won't approve anything. Creating countless more jobs in the process.

Finally comes trade. The foundation for everything. America's annual trade deficit with the world is now almost $800 billion a year. Who are negotiating these deals? Anybody in this room negotiating these wonderful deals? Think of it. We have a trade deficit of almost $800 billion a year.

[12:15:01] That's going to change so fast.

Between World War I and the year 2000, the United States averaged a 3.5 percent growth rate. But after China joined the World Trade Organization, our average growth rate has been reduced to only two percent. Predatory trade practices, product dumping, currency manipulation, which is a big one, and intellectual property theft, have taken millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in wealth right out of our country. Right out of our country. So sad we allowed this to happen.

Our incompetent politicians were not watching. And the ones that were watching were taken care of in some form, because this should have never allowed -- been allowed to have happened.

It is no great secret that many of the special interests funding my opponent's campaign are the same people profiting from these terrible trade deals. They are terrible. They're terrible for everybody. The same so-called experts advising Hillary Clinton are the same people who gave us NAFTA, China's entry into the World Trade Organization, the job-killing trade deal with South Korea, another disaster, and now the Trans-Pacific Partnership that they're pushing so strongly.

The verdict is in. All of the special interests that the media race (ph) and they just race to comment and race to get comment from, have been proven wrong over such a long period of time. Every single deal they've promoted, every lie, and every prediction has crashed, has just crashed. They've been so absolutely wrong, and they've been so bad for our country.

Our manufacturing base has crumbled. Communities have been hollowed out. Wages have declined, and households are making less today than they were in the year 2000. I've proposed a detailed plan to reform our trade policies and bring vast new jobs and wealth to America. We need our wealth back. We don't have wealth. We are a debtor nation.

This includes the following steps. I'm going to direct the Secretary of Commerce to identify every violation of trade agreement that a foreign country is using to harm our country and our workers. That's what's happening. They're being harmed, and our country is being harmed.

I will use every tool under American and international law to end these abuses, and I will use our greatest business leaders and finest negotiators, and I will tell you, some of them are in this room right now. Not all of them, but some. And I know who you are, and honestly, we're going to be calling on you, because we have people negotiating the biggest deals in the world, far bigger than your company deals. Your company deals are like little deals by comparison.

It's true. You take some of these big companies and you look at some of these trade deals, hate to say it, but your companies are peanuts.

But we're going to use our best. Right now, we have political hacks negotiating the biggest, most important deals in the world. We're going to start with NAFTA which is causing so much damage to our country. We will entirely renegotiate NAFTA into a deal that will either be a good one for us as a country and for our workers, or we will terminate it until a brand new and productive deal can be signed.

(APPLAUSE)

We'll also -- and we have to -- we're going to keep America out of Trans-Pacific Partnership unless we can do something that's phenomenal, and I'm not seeing it right now. I can tell you that. I'm not seeing it.

Next, I'm going to instruct my Treasury Secretary to label China -- and I like China. They're my tenant. They buy condos all the time. They're just fine. But you know what? They are a currency manipulator, and we're going to apply tariffs to any country that devalues its currency to gain an unfair advantage over the United States. They are a manipulator, grand master level. We can't allow it to happen.

TRUMP: And our people and our representatives and our politicians don't have even a little clue as to how to play the game.

[12:20:08] We have a trade deficit this year with China of approximately $500 billion. What kind of a deal is that?

And this has been going on for years, $200 billion, $300 billion, $400 billion for years. I'm going to instruct the United States trade representative to bring trade cases against China. China's unfair subsidy behavior is prohibited by the terms of its entrance into the WTO and I intend to enforce the rules.

And I'm sure we'll make a deal somewhere along the way. But they're not playing fairly and our politicians don't understand how to play the game.

(APPLAUSE)

If China does not stop its illegal activities, including its theft of American trade secrets and intellectual properties, I will apply countervailing duties until China ceases and desists. You know what that means. Just a single action of enforcing intellectual property rules alone, just alone, would add millions of new American jobs.

According to the United States International Trade Commission, improved protection of America's -- just think of this. Improved protection of America's intellectual property in China would add 2 million jobs a year within the United States every single year and we do nothing. We allow them to get away with it.

Who can blame them and I don't blame them at all. If you can get away with it, they'll get away with it. We're going to stop the outflow of jobs from our country and open a new highway of jobs back into our country. Here's how the plan adds up.

We're proposing a $4.4 trillion tax cut that will score as a $2.6 trillion under dynamic growth models. Which is how taxes should be scored.

(APPLAUSE)

This includes the child care plan that we announced the other day. Our economic team has further modeled that the growth-induced savings from trade energy and regulation reform will shave at least another $1.8 trillion off of the remaining debt. That leaves around $800 billion. This money can all be saved through simple, common sense reforms. If we just save one penny of each federal dollar spent on nondefense and non-entitlement programs, we can save almost $1 trillion over the next decade. One penny, we can all do that.

(APPLAUSE)

Save over a trillion. Again, this is spending that does not touch defense because we have to build up our military which is so terribly depleted and that does not touch entitlements. If our plan exceeds the 3.5 percent 10 year growth average, then our jobs propose will actually reduce and start really strongly reducing the deficit.

Savings will be compounded by the fact that people who are currently receiving unemployment or welfare will finally be able to find jobs. This is the most pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-family plan put forth perhaps in the history of our country. This is what our new future will look like.

I am going to lower your taxes very, very substantially. I'm going to get rid of massive amounts of unnecessary regulation. All of these regulations, on your business and in your life. I'm going to unleash American energy. I'm going to repeal and replace Obamacare. I'm going to appoint justices of the Supreme Court who will follow the Constitution.

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I'm going to rebuild our depleted military and take care of our vets who are treated so badly.

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In many cases, our vets are treated not nearly as well as people who come into our country illegally. We can't have that.

[12:25:00] I'm going to save your Second Amendment, which is under siege. I'm going to stop illegal immigration and drugs from pouring into this country and totally poisoning our youth and others.

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TRUMP: It's a tremendous problem.

And yes, we will build the wall -- the wall will be built. And just in case you're worried about who's going to pay for it, Mexico will pay for it -- being totally serious about that.

(APPLAUSE)

Mexico will pay for it. And you understand, Mexico, by the way, we look at the trade deficit we have with Mexico. It's massive. The wall is peanuts compared to what we're talking about. Mexico will pay for the wall.

And I'm going to renegotiate our disastrous trade deals, especially NAFTA, and we will only make great trade deals that put the American worker first and put the American worker back to work.

(APPLAUSE)

That includes our miners and our steelworkers. They're going back to work. We will rebuild our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our highways, our airports, schools, hospitals. We'll rebuild everything. American cars will travel the roads. American planes will soar the skies. And American ships will patrol the seas.

American steel will send new skyscrapers into the clouds. American hands will rebuild this nation. And American energy harvested from American sources will power this nation. American workers will be hired to do the job. We will put new American metal and new American steel into the spine of this country.

Jobs will return. Incomes will rise. New factories will come rushing back to our shores. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. And we will make America great again.

Thank you very much. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

[12:27:26] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Speech here in Manhattan at the Economic Club of New York promising to create 25 million jobs over the next ten years, set economic growth at 3.5 percent or 4 percent.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: At least (INAUDIBLE).

BERMAN: He couldn't seem to decide whether it was 3.5 or 4 percent, and cut taxes $4.4 trillion, all without raising the deficit.

BOLDUAN: A lot to discuss.

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: A lot to go through right now.

Rana Foroohar is here. She's CNN global economic analyst and assistant managing editor of "Time" magazine.

Rana, let's talk about the growth issue first.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BOLDUAN: 3.5 and then he said 4 and he actually said, I think it could go substantially beyond that. Is it realistic?

FOROOHAR: It's not. I mean this entire plan, it's predicated on the idea that tax cuts create growth, right? That's this sort of dynamic model that we're talking about here.

If we look at the last 20 years, the evidence simply doesn't show that. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 did not substantially jump start growth. George W. Bush's tax cuts did not. Obama's tax cuts did not. So that whole premise that you can just cut taxes and reform regulation and that's going to somehow jump start the economy is faulty.

BERMAN: And he's doing all of this, Christine Romans, without any entitlement reform at all.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN MONEY CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right. When you look at where he's talking about budget cuts, he's focusing on the part of the budget that is the smallest part that can handle it the least, right? I mean he's not talking about Medicare. He's not talking about Social Security. He's not talking about those big entitlement programs. And when you look at 4 percent growth, that's a very optimistic target. We haven't seen 4 percent growth, you know, consistently since the late 1990s under the Clinton administration.

BERMAN: He's talking about an average - a ten-year average.

ROMANS: Right.

BOLDUAN: He said average.

BERMAN: We haven't seen one year of it since 2005.

ROMANS: Right. Last year, for perspective, you know, 2.6 percent was the growth in the American economy last year. Earlier this spring, it was a little weaker than that. More like 1 to 2 percent growth. So what he's talking about is totally jump-starting the economy and keeping it that way for - for a very long time.

And part of the premise seems to be that just rejecting the status quo and doing some corporate tax reform to bring money back from overseas where that money will then start plants and factories and hiring here, that would somehow unleash the animal spirits in the economy and you'd have - you know, just gangbusters President Trump economy.

BOLDUAN: David Chalian, let's bring you in. What did - from a political perspective, Donald Trump giving - laying out some of - we knew a lot of these details that he laid out. Not - we're look - we're talking kind of around the table of how much new we're actually hearing in terms of maybe the 4 percent, that goal seems to be - seems to be new at least. From a political perspective, what did you hear here? I thought it was fascinating he opened up his remarks in front of the economic club touting his poll numbers.

[12:30:08] DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, that was vintage Trump, of course, when the polls are in his direction. He does like to tout that.