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Anti-Trump Protests Held for Fifth Day; Trump: "Stop" Harassment of Minorities; Trump Hedges on Key Campaign Promises; Concerns Rise Over Trump's New Right-Hand Man. Aired 9-9:30 ET
Aired November 14, 2016 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:18] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, that did make me smile. That's hard to do on a Monday. Thanks to you both. Have a great day. NEWSROOM starts now.
And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Angry protests boil up in American cities six whole days after Donald Trump wins the White House.
Thousands pour into the streets to disown the next American President in a polarizing election that has fueled racial tension and reports of minorities being harassed. Trump downplaying these demonstrations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think, in some cases, you have professional protesters. And we had it, if you look at WikiLeaks, we --
LESLEY STAHL, CBS NEWS HOST: You think those people down there are --
TRUMP: Well, Lesley, yes, I think --
STAHL: -- are professionals?
TRUMP: Oh, I think some of them will be professional.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Today, Trump has only fueled racial concerns with the hiring of his campaign CEO. Steve Bannon has close ties to the alt- right fringe including White nationalists. His rise to being the right-hand man to the President is stirring deep concerns in Washington and beyond.
We have a lot to cover this morning. Let's begin, though, in Washington with CNN's Phil Mattingly. Hi, Phil.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you look at the Trump campaign, one thing was very clear. Over the course of the last couple of months, there were an extremely close, extremely tight knit, and extremely small group of advisers that kind of ran the show, a group of advisers that Donald Trump trusted almost wholeheartedly. And as you talked to them, it became very clear those advisers were likely to land in the White House. Well, now, we know that's the case with at least two.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus making his way there, assuaging a lot of the concerns from establishment Republicans about what a Trump administration might look like. But it's the other adviser, Steve Bannon, that's raising major alarm bells.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY (voice-over): President-elect Donald Trump's administration starting to take shape. Trump naming RNC Chairman Reince Priebus as his Chief of Staff and campaign CEO Steve Bannon as his Chief Strategist and senior counselor, creating two dueling power centers and a potential rivalry between his two top aides.
Priebus the ultimate Washington insider with deep connections to GOP leaders. Bannon the polar opposite, a man who has operated on the Republican fringe as executive chairman of Breitbart.com, one with a known talent for riling up the grassroots while maintaining close ties to the alt-right movement within which anti-Semitism and racist tropes are pervasive.
Bannon's appointment drawing sharp condemnation. The spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid saying in a statement, quote, "It is easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion when Trump appoints one of the foremost peddlers of White supremacist themes and rhetoric as his top aide."
The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League calling it a, quote, "sad day."
And the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says the appointment of Bannon sends the disturbing message that the anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and White nationalist ideology will be welcome in the White House.
As thousands across the country protest against Trump for the fifth straight day --
CROWD: No Trump! No KKK!
MATTINGLY (voice-over): -- Trump addressing his supporters who have harassed minorities in his first T.V. interview post-election.
TRUMP: I say stop it. If it helps, I will say this and I'll say it right to the cameras. Stop it.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Trump also appearing to tweak a central tenet of his immigration proposal.
STAHL: They're talking about a fence in the Republican Congress. Would you accept a fence?
TRUMP: For certain areas, I would. But certain areas, a wall is more appropriate. I'm very good at this. It's called construction. So a fence would be --
STAHL: So part wall, part fence. TRUMP: Yes, it could be some fencing.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): And discussing his Supreme Court appointees calling same-sex marriage a settled issue and taking a hard stance against National Abortion Rights.
TRUMP: Having to do with abortion, if it ever were overturned, it would go back to the states. So it would go back to the states.
STAHL: But then some women won't be able to get an abortion.
TRUMP: No, it will go back to the states.
STAHL: By state?
TRUMP: Yes.
STAHL: Now, some --
TRUMP: Well, perhaps they'll have to go to --
STAHL: But do you want --
TRUMP: They'll have to go to another state.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: And, Carol, in talking to Republicans around Capitol Hill and just in Washington in general, the phrase you hear over and over again is personnel is policy. And perhaps none more so than in Donald Trump's administration, an administration where, policy-wise, nobody's really sure where he's going to end up. Now, what we have seen over the course of the last couple of days, is some flexibility on policy. We've also seen some definite answers on personnel.
[09:05:03] But one big question everybody still had is, what of Donald Trump's primary campaign promises? What happens to Hillary Clinton? Donald Trump saying repeatedly, over the course of the last couple weeks of the campaign, he will have his Attorney General appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton. Last night in that "60 Minutes" interview, appearing to pull off that a little bit. But still, no firm answer yet. Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Phil Mattingly reporting live from Washington. Thank you. And by the way, President Barack Obama will address the nation later today, and he will take questions from reporters. And I wonder what those questions will be about. Don't you? I think you have an idea, and so do I.
Let's talk about that and more. David Swerdlick is with me. He's CNN political commentator and assistant editor for "The Washington Post." Rebecca Berg is a national political reporter for Real Clear Politics. Alice Stewart is Republican strategist and former communications director for Ted Cruz, and Hilary Rosen is a Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator. Brian Stelter also joins us. He's CNN's senior media correspondent. Welcome to all of you.
DAVID SWERDLICK, ASSISTANT EDITOR, THE WASHINGTON POST: Good morning.
COSTELLO: Good morning. So, Brian, I want to start with you. And I want to get into who Steve Bannon is, and why so many minority rights organizations have a problem with him.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Because he is a bomb thrower, a provocateur, a man that is a symbol of the alt-right movement. And the alt-right movement means many things. One of the things it means is White identity politics, White nationalism. That's why we've heard some people say this is White supremacy in a disguise.
Now, Steve Bannon rejects that entirely. He says he has nothing to do with that. He told me months ago, this is all about populism sweeping the globe. But the bottom line, Carol, is that Reince Priebus, on the morning shows today, said Donald Trump will be a President for all of Americans. That's not who Steve Bannon is. That's not what Breitbart is. Breitbart is not a website for all Americans. It's a website for the alt-right. So we're getting two messages, clearly mixed messages, from the Trump administration.
COSTELLO: So, Alice, can you help us understand and calm the fears of these minority groups across the nation?
ALICE STEWART, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Look, if you go to their website and you listen to what Steve Bannon has said in the past, his focus is not on the distractions that have been focused on the last 24 hours about the alt-right. His focus is and always has been about reforming Washington, draining the Washington swarm, reigning in the size and scope of government. And that's what he focused on throughout the campaign with Donald Trump, and that's what he plans to do in the future.
As we heard from the statement from Donald Trump yesterday, the key component with this duo which is unique is that he worked very well with Reince Priebus during the campaign. And they will work well together moving forward, and their priority is to reform Washington. And no one in that campaign has made any secret of the fact they are outsiders coming in to make big changes. And that's priority number one for Steve Bannon and the campaign moving forward.
COSTELLO: Well, I do think being an outsider is one thing. Promoting White nationalist policies is quite another. If you go to the Breitbart headlines of the past, Steve Bannon was editor, right, of Breitbart, and I'm just going to read one.
SWERDLICK: And the CEO, yes.
COSTELLO: He said -- its head line there not too long ago, "Dear straight people, I'm officially giving you permission to say gay f-a- g-g-o-t and queer." I mean, look at these headlines in Breitbart. Hilary, is there a difference between an outsider and a White nationalist provocateur?
STEWART: Look, I think so many people are taking issue in the fact that --
HILARY ROSEN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, there's a huge difference and that, I think, is --
COSTELLO: Hilary.
ROSEN: There's a huge difference and, you know, as Brian said, this Breitbart News has fomented division and anger and fear in people. And, you know, I hate to say, frankly, what power they could have when they have the full resources and secrets of the federal government to attack people with. And the idea that Steve Bannon will be conspiring with, you know, right-wing media to send messages out is just kind of appalling to me.
But this is really about two Donald Trumps, and Donald Trump not having an ideology. People are used to our President actually caring about something. And what we have here is, you know, Steve Bannon's appointment being focused on fomenting the kind of outsider, White nationalist movement and Reince Priebus making sure that, you know, the banks get their lobbying deals and that, you know, climate change is repealed and that, you know, essentially, the government is handed back to big corporations and fat cats.
And so you have kind of the combination of these two things and the little guy that Donald Trump says he got elected for, in my view, ends up getting screwed because those people are not going to protect them.
COSTELLO: Well, here's the thing. I think that there is a line of thought that, you know, we've become too politically correct in this country. Minorities have too much power. It's time to right the ship. You need someone like Steve Bannon in there to do just that, right?
[09:10:06] And also, Trump supporters say, when Mr. Trump says things, he doesn't mean them literally. He just needs to sort of even things out. And one good example of that may be the wall, right? Because on his website, even this morning, it still says he wants to build an impenetrable physical wall that Mexico will pay for. But last night at "60 Minutes," he said something different. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: -- the fence could be --
STAHL: Part wall, part fence?
TRUMP: Yes, it could be -- yes, it could be some fencing.
STAHL: What about the pledge to deport millions and millions of undocumented immigrants?
TRUMP: What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers. We have a lot of these people, probably 2 million. It could even be 3 million. We're getting them out of our country, or we're going to incarcerate. But we're getting them out of our country. They're here illegally. (END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: OK. So, David, maybe Donald Trump, when he says he's going to build this impenetrable wall and have Mexico pay for it, he doesn't quite mean that literally. But he is going to get something done and won't that be enough his supporters?
SWERDLICK: Well, I think that remains to be seen, Carol. I mean, that is what we've already looked at in the last couple of days with some of the statements that President-elect Trump has made. In that interview clip that you just played, he was slightly backing off this idea that he was going to build this big physical structure of a wall across the entire border with no fencing, just a big, as he said, big, beautiful wall and make Mexico pay for it. He sounded more measured on that.
He has made signals, in the last couple of days, that he is rethinking some of the specifics on the Affordable Care Act saying he wants to keep in place letting people keep their kids on their insurance plans until they're 26, making insurers cover people who have pre-existing conditions.
You know, if you're a fan of someone being moderate and judicious in the way they approach their job as President, I guess you could say those are good things. The difficulty is that, one, those aren't the promises that he made on the campaign trail. And then number two is, is that if you're not supposed to take Trump literally at his word on what he said on the campaign, how are you supposed to evaluate now what he says going forward when he's making some, what I would say, are significant changes to his approach, at least rhetorically, in just the first few days of his transition?
COSTELLO: Something he seems to be like toeing the line on very carefully is this idea of locking Hillary Clinton up, right? Because those were big campaign chants during his rallies, "Lock her up. Lock her up." He said yesterday, he said over the weekend, that he was thinking about maybe firing the FBI Director. He didn't really know. But as you know, the President can appoint an FBI Director. And then he said he wouldn't totally take off the table the notion that, somehow, Hillary Clinton will be prosecuted. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STAHL: You called her "crooked Hillary," said you wanted to get her to get in jail. Your people and your audiences kept saying, "Lock them up."
TRUMP: Yes. She did --
STAHL: So do you want to put her --
TRUMP: She did some bad things. I mean, she did some bad things.
STAHL: I know, but a special prosecutor? Do you think you might --
TRUMP: I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to hurt them. They're good people. I don't want to hurt them. And I will give you a very, very good and definitive answer the next time we do "60 Minutes" together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: So, Rebecca, thoughts?
REBECCA BERG, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, REALCLEARPOLITICS.COM: Well, it does look like he is beginning to back away, Carol, from his campaign promise to appoint a special prosecutor. His assessment, apparently, being that now that the campaign is over, it's less important to settle those scores with a former political rival.
And if that is the case, and again his statement is really hard to dissect at this point and really know what he truly means or wants, but that should encourage a lot of people on the Democratic side, I would imagine, who were very, very worried when we were hearing these chants at his rallies, when he was talking about a special prosecutor. Especially because this begins to sound like sort of a third world country sort of thing, that you are threatening to jail your former political opponents once you win.
So I think this should be encouraging for a lot of people. And certainly, it's going to be very difficult for Donald Trump to unite the country as he says he wants to if he's actively pursuing a case against Hillary Clinton, his former political rival.
COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Brian Stelter, David Swerdlick, Rebecca Berg, Alice Stewart, Hilary Rosen, thanks to all of you.
BERG: Thank you.
COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it's not just protests. A new report shows hateful harassment is up post-election. And will having a man with White nationalist ties so close to the Oval Office just fan the flames more?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It has been six days since America elected a new president and we're still a nation divided. Protests planned again today in Tucson and in Los Angeles. The LAPD already dealing with several days of protests. Eight thousand people marched through downtown Saturday. Across the country there were also large protests in places like New York, Portland, and Philadelphia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This election has set us back, and has definitely shown the world that we are not as advanced as we claim we are. RICK COONCE, PROTESTER: I have been aghast at the -- the behavior of Donald Trump. I think his racist and xenophobic rhetoric has been very disruptive.
MANUEL CORONA, PROTESTER: I am a single father. I pay my taxes. I'm scared. I really am scared of being deported to a country that I am not familiar with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: The fear for many of those protesters, because of incidents like this, graffiti reading Trump nation, whites only, that was discovered on Sunday morning, sprayed on a wall at an episcopal church in a heavily Latino neighborhood just outside of Washington, D.C. The Southern Poverty Law Center says this is not an isolated incident.
[09:20:06]It has counted more than 300 cases of election related harassment and intimidation across the country. So let's talk about that. CNN's correspondent, Rachel Crane, has been looking into it. Good morning.
RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. One of the most disturbing things about these incidents is that the Southern Poverty Law Center is saying that the most commonly reported location of these incidents of hate crime, of these incidents of the, you know, racist graffiti are happening in schools.
We are talking children K through 12 engaging in this type of horrific behavior. They say that more than 40 incidents have been reported at schools.
Now in Michigan, at a middle school, we saw in a cafeteria children chanting build the wall, build the wall. There's a video of that. It's been viewed millions of times on social media. Incredibly disturbing to see them engaging in that type of behavior.
Also in Minnesota at a high school we saw racist graffiti, $ pro-Trump graffiti in a bathroom reading, White America, also reading go back to Africa. Trump let's make America great again.
Also, in a high school in California, we saw a student giving out fake deportation letters to minority students. You know, this isn't just happening in high schools and middle schools, also in colleges.
We saw a student at San Diego State University being accosted by two people. She was wearing a hijab, they were spewing racial slurs. They actually stole her purse, keys, and her car.
We're also seeing graffiti not just in schools but across the country in Philadelphia, swastikas in North Carolina graffiti reading black lives don't matter. Your vote doesn't matter. Carol, just incredibly disturbing that there's such an uptick in --
COSTELLO: But there are some would say because you mentioned a number, 40 high schools and middle schools across the country. We live in a country of 330 million people, right? So some people might say, you know, a tiny number of idiots across the country are doing these things, but it's not a widespread problem. So how would you characterize it?
CRANE: Well, you know, the Southern Poverty Law Center coming out and saying just this morning on CNN, there have been more than 300 incidents of this occurring since Donald Trump was elected president.
And they're calling on Donald Trump to take more responsibility for these instances. You know, just last night on "60 Minutes" Donald Trump did acknowledge that a handful of these incidences were occurring calling on the people committing these crimes to stop it.
But, you know, the president of The Southern Poverty Law Center saying that there are actually hundreds of these crimes happening not just a handful -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Rachel Crane reporting, thanks so much. So here we are. There is real fear, I hear it in New York. They're surprised at this. I hear it from my family in Ohio. So how do we as a nation process this? Here's Dave Chappelle on SNL.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVE CHAPPELLE, COMEDIAN: A few weeks ago, I went to the White House for a party. It was the first time I had been there many years, and -- and it was very exciting. And BET had sponsored the party so everyone there was black and it was beautiful.
I walked through the gates. You know, I'm from Washington, so I saw the bus stop, the corner where the bus stop used to be where I used to catch the bus to school and dream about nights like tonight. It was a really, really beautiful tonight.
At the end of the night everyone went into the west wing of the White House and there was a huge party and everybody in there was black except for Bradley Cooper for some reason.
And on the walls were pictures of all the presidents of the past. Now, I'm not sure if this is true, but to my knowledge, the first black person that was officially invited to the White House was Frederick Douglas.
They stopped him at the gates. Abraham Lincoln had to walk out himself and escort Frederick Douglas into the White House. And it didn't happen again, as far as I know, until Roosevelt was president.
When Roosevelt was president he had a black guy over and got so much flak from the media that he literally said, "I will never have a nigger in this house again."
I thought about that and I looked at that room and I saw all those black faces and Bradley and I saw -- and I saw how happy everybody was.
These people who had been historically disenfranchised and it made me feel hopeful and it made me feel proud to be an American and it made me very happy about the prospects of our country.
So, in that spirit, I'm wishing Donald Trump luck and I'm going to give him a chance and we, the historically disenfranchised demand that he give us one, too.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[09:25:05]COSTELLO: All right, so that's one point of view. But this is why many minority groups worry, Donald Trump appointed that man name Steve Bannon. A man white nationalists embrace and for good reason.
Bannon's Breitbart launched headlines like these, Bill Kristol a renegade Jew, why Islam is the single greatest threat to civilization, the ten things Milo hates about Islam, and this, six reasons Pamela Gellar's Mohammad cartoon contest is no different from Selma.
So let's talk about the divide in our country with the executive director of CAIRE, the Council on American Islamic Relations, Nihad Awad. Welcome, sir. Can you say hello to me again because I didn't hear you.
NIHAD AWAD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN ISLAMIC RELATIONS: Sure, yes. Good morning.
COSTELLO: Good. I was worried there was something wrong with your audio, but I'm glad there isn't anything. There are -- there are many people in this country that say the left wing is just in a state of hysteria right now and they should give this man a chance, so why aren't they?
AWAD: Well, people have legitimate concerns, and when you -- when you see that the president-elect appoints someone who holds anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant theories, you wonder, are we going to move this country forward? Are we going to heal this country in the next few years?
And I think the message that we see by appointing an alt-right wing theorist, we see it the very own message that our nation needs now. Ou nation is divided. Our nation has been wounded.
With the rest of them that we have seen in the past few months and if we would like to move forward we have to appoint chief strategist who believe in the plurality, diversity and core principles of the United States --
COSTELLO: Let me -- let me -- let me put it this way. Steve Bannon has long been a part of Donald Trump's campaign. So, people went out and voted and that includes 29 percent of Hispanics for Donald Trump, and 8 percent of African-Americans for Donald Trump. Those are larger percentages than voted for Mitt Romney. So he does have some support in the minority community.
AWAD: Yes, true. And even a small number among American-Muslims voted for him. We're not talking about now Donald Trump himself. We're talking about appointing people who do not believe in the plurality and diversity and the core principles of this country.
And we hold the president in the highest standard in defending the rights of all Americans and those who reside in the United States. By appointing Steve Bannon, President-elect Trump is continuing to advance division and, unfortunately, dispute within Americans and --
COSTELLO: But what, what, what is your fear about Steve Bannon? What, what policies might he push forward that concern you?
AWAD: Conspiracy theories against Muslims, Jews, people of color, anti-women sentiment, so, you know, I can't imagine how the president of the United States will bring a bigot, and oppose that will divide America further to be a chief strategist for him in the White House.
One of the most important positions in the White House, in the people's house, should have people who believe in the plurality and diversity of this country to unite Americans and to heal the wounds that we have seen over the past --
COSTELLO: So how will -- how will your organization help heal the wounds? What will your organization do going forward, now that you know that Steve Bannon is Trump's chief strategic guy?
AWAD: By speaking truth to power, by speaking to the president, by advising him, by telling him that the appointment of a bigot in the White House does not serve America, does not unite America, it will further deepen our wounds, and President-elect Trump has said on "60 Minutes" that he would like to bring Americans together. By appointing Steve Bannon, that is not the way to unite Americans and that's not the way --
COSTELLO: Do you still have hope that Mr. Trump is serious when he says he wants to unite America?
AWAD: Well, I --
COSTELLO: Are you going to give him a chance?
AWAD: America needs to be united and the president-elect now in a position to make serious and important, you know, statements by bringing people to advise him, and we believe that he has the wrong people to advise him especially in this key position.
Mr. Bannon has bigoted views and will bring bigoted policies and that will not help the agenda of advancing unity among Americans and making this country move forward.
COSTELLO: All right, I have to leave it there.
