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Trump to Meet with "New York Times"; Deadly School Bus Crash in Tennessee; White Nationalists Celebrate Trump's Win. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 22, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:14] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello there and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Brianna Keilar.

And we still don't know how the president-elect plans to fill out the rest of his cabinet, and the west wing, and in general the executive branch, but today we have a better idea what Donald Trump plans to do starting 59 days from today, what he's decided to drop as well. Now, topping that list apparently is a new investigation of his former opponent, Hillary Clinton. Maybe not doing it? That's what it sounds like. Here's how his former campaign manager, now senior adviser, put it on morning television.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: I think when the president- elect, who's also the head of your party now, Joe, tells you before he's even inaugurated he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content to the members. And I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don't find her to be honest or trustworthy. But if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that's a good thing. I do - look, I think he's thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign aren't among them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Jessica Schneider is at Trump Tower for us.

And, Jessica, tell us about this source of confusion this morning. Donald Trump has been talking to the media, tried to reset things yesterday, meeting with a number of anchors and executives. Today it was a meeting with "The New York Times," and at one point he was going, then he wasn't going, then he was going. Give us the latest.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, you've got it, Brianna. Despite a tweet storm this morning targeting "The New York Times," Donald Trump finally did announce that he will be having a 12:30 meeting with the publication. He announced it on Twitter this morning despite a lot of back and forth. He said that he will be meeting with reporters and executives at the publication. Even tweeting out that he is looking forward to it.

But it was a much different Donald Trump on Twitter just about six hours ago when he alerted his 15.7 million followers that he was cancelling that much-anticipated meeting with "The New York Times." He said that he was canceling it because of changed terms and conditions at the last minute. No word on exactly what that means. And then he went even farther and he said that - he tweeted that "The New York Times" had given him unfair and biased coverage, covering him in what he called a nasty tone.

So we all thought around 9:30 this morning that it was a no-go, but then at 9:45 Donald Trump's spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, came out and said to the pool of reporters inside Trump Tower, we are going to "The New York Times." Then Donald Trump did take to Twitter again, confirming that 12:30 meeting with "The New York Times." Part of it will be off the record. We're expecting Donald trump to leave Trump Tower at some point in the next few minutes to head that way for that anticipated meeting with "The New York Time."

Brianna.

KEILAR: And, Jessica, tell us about Donald Trump putting out this message today about his first 100 days.

SCHNEIDER: Right. Well, we first - we still haven't seen a press conference from Donald Trump yet, despite being elected two weeks ago. But last night he put out a two and a half minute video on social media talking about many of the points that he planned to focus on in his first 100 days. He framed it as putting America first. He talked about a multitude of topics in a very short time, talking about trade and energy and immigration and national security and ethics reform. Here's a little bit of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back on to American shores.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: So Donald Trump touching on a multitude of topics there, but not touching on some of his big campaign promises, like building that wall on the border of Mexico, or repealing Obamacare, or deporting illegal immigrants. He did touch on immigration, though, saying he would direct the Department of Labor to investigate visas that he said was undercutting the American public.

And also, Brianna, today, we're looking at the possibility of Donald Trump adding and announcing to more of his economic team. We understand that he's narrowing down some of the picks for Treasury secretary, as well as Commerce secretary. Multiple sources telling us that the two names at the forefront for Treasury secretary are Steve Mnuchin, the former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, as well as Jonathan Gray, the head of global real estate over at Blackstone Group. And then also the leading contender, we understand, for Commerce secretary, the billionaire investor Wilbur Ross.

Brianna, back to you.

KEILAR: All right, Jessica Schneider, thank you so much.

I want to bring in my panel now. Eric Bradner is a reporter for CNN Politics, Matt Viser is national political reporter for "The Boston Globe."

[12:05:02] So this is interesting what we're hearing this morning from Kellyanne Conway is that there is going to be no - for all of those chants of "lock her up," there's not going to be an investigation into Hillary Clinton.

MATT VISER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "BOSTON GLOBE": It's striking. I mean that was the mantra of his campaign in the final couple of weeks. Sort of one of the more memorable moments of his convention, you know, that chant, you know, over and over. The debate moment too of him sort of pledging to have a special prosecutor -

KEILAR: You'd be in jail, he said, yes.

VISER: You know, to look at this. So, I mean, his supporters are sort of so attached to him that I don't know what it does to his supporters. But, you know, it is striking, him sort of giving up this main pledge of his campaign.

KEILAR: Maybe they thought it would just be hyperbole. Actually, let's listen to it, because we have it from October. This is Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: She gets a subpoena. She gets a subpoena. And after, not before, that would be bad, but after getting the subpoena to give over your e-mails and lots of other things, she deleted the e-mails. She has to go to jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, he may have had a point up to that point where he said she has to go to jail because the issue here, Eric, whether he's saying she has to go to jail or he's saying there's not going to be an investigation, it's not supposed to be up to the president, right?

ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Right. This is supposed to be a decision for the Justice Department, the FBI director, the attorney general, detached from the White House, detached from political influence. And yet here's Trump saying both before and after the election, or his campaign manager, and now adviser, saying after the election what he would direct his top law enforcement officials to do. So it's sort of remarkably detached from the way things are supposed to work.

On the other hand, winning makes this sort of thing easier, right? It's easier to forget and sort of move on. Trump supporters are overjoyed by his victory and so now Hillary Clinton is just sort of the past, right? There doesn't seem to be any anger boiling up from Trump world, from Trump supporters about his decision to sort of leave that in the campaign and not actually follow through with this promise.

KEILAR: Yes, it seems like it's sort of a more heavy conversation of people looking at checks and balances and having concerns.

Donald Trump is talking about his first 100 days. He put out a video. And what is really stunning is that he's not talking about there being a wall. He's not talking about an Obamacare repeal. No Muslim ban. Maybe that's not too much of a surprise. But what is he talking about and what does this tell us?

VISER: He talks about sort of withdrawing from TPP, the trade deal. You know, some of the - he talks about scaling back some regulations. Some sort of easier things to talk about, you know. But I was also struck sort of in the days after where he started talking about building a fence, you know, in some cases, and not a wall. So you do have a sense of him sort of backing down from some of his main campaign pledges, which, you know, again, could eventually become a problem with his supporters. For now it's sort of bridging the divide, you know, or being seen that way at least.

KEILAR: I want to talk about not hearing from Donald Trump. We have this video. He's obviously been tweeting up a storm. He's taken a few shouted questions, but it's been now two weeks and he hasn't had a press conference. Let's take a look at what normally happens. I feel like sometimes when you're talking about Donald Trump, that maybe isn't the best - you can't always compare him. But just taking a look at a graphic that we have. For President Obama it was three days before there was a press conference. Same with George W. Bush. Clinton going the longest with nine day. But Donald Trump now here with 14 days and all you have is Kellyanne Conway saying it's going to be soon. I mean what do you think about this? And to many people who certainly, I think, are critical of the media, why is this important?

BRADNER: This matters because - well, first of all, because Trump is on Twitter sort of taking shots that reveal where his head is at, at least when he's waking up in the morning, right? He's ranting about the cast of "Hamilton" and "The New York Times." And a lot of people are wondering what is actually on his mind right now, what he's thinking about as he prepares to enter the Oval Office, what his priorities are, what he's going to carry over from the campaign, what he's going to leave behind.

People are also interested in an insight into what his cabinet is going to look like. Right now there are three more people named Mike in this administration than women or people of color. And so there are a lot of unanswered questions at this point. The expectation is that he would do a news conference to sort of address these sorts of things.

As you point out, like, this is Donald Trump. He doesn't do things the normal way. But he does typically address issues, whether at a rally where he sort of goes into a bombastic kind of rant about them or on Twitter or in some forum, and that just isn't happening right now. You've got Kellyanne Conway speaking for him, and that's about it.

[12:10:11] KEILAR: Yes, we want to hear from the president-elect.

Matt, Eric, thank you guys so much.

VISER: Thank you.

KEILAR: We're learning new details surrounding a deadly school bus crash in Tennessee. Chattanooga Police have arrested and charged the bus driver, Johnthony Walker, with several counts of vehicular homicide. At least five children gone in an instant when police say that Walker careened into a tree yesterday afternoon splitting the bus in half.

Our Martin Savidge is live in Chattanooga.

Tell us what you're learning, Martin?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, we're outside the hospital right now where 12 children remain hospitalized, six of them are in intensive care. So, of course, there continues to be an outpouring the concern for them as well, not to mention the heartbreak for the loss of the children you already spoke of.

The authorities have just now released some of the radio transmissions that came out from this tragedy of yesterday afternoon. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DISPATCHER: I have an MBC (ph) with a school bus. The bus is flipped over. It's occupied with children. It's going to be an MBC involving a school bus flipped off the roadway. It is occupied with children. They believe there's ejections.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the back. I can see an arm moving, but I don't know if anybody can get to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: That just gives you an idea of what it was that the authorities rolled up on. You know, they already knew that mass casualty report that's coming in, but when you see a little arm that's sort of waving out of a bus and then someone saying I'm not sure how you're going to get to it, they knew that this was going to be a horrific crash, which it was.

The affidavit which they have now released that - reflects some of the information early on against the driver of the school bus, suggests that the bus was going at a rate of speed that was far greater than the posted speed of 30 miles per hour. And this is a very narrow, very winding kind of roadway. So that would definitely be problematic.

Some of the children onboard the bus say he may have hit a garbage bag or swerved to avoid a garbage bag. The authorities say, though, in that affidavit there, it appears the bus went off the side of the road to the right, may have struck a driveway or an elevated portion of a driveway, and then over corrected left, and that's when it flipped on its side. But, again, moving so quickly, that even racing across the ground on its side, it slams into a tree and is nearly split in half. And the authorities say that the driver's cooperating, but the tragedy is still staggering in this community.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Horrifying. And we know you'll continue to follow this as we look to see how those children are doing in Chattanooga.

Martin, thank you so much.

SAVIDGE: You bet.

KEILAR: Let's move on now to talk more about politics. It's a question that we heard on the trail, is Trump too tangled up in his business to avoid conflicts of interest as president? We are digging into his connections overseas.

Plus, a call of support for Trump, for the president-elect, and then a Nazi salute. Next, the shocking video from a white supremacist rally and how the president's-elect's team is responding.

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[12:17:02] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD SPENCER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL POLICY INSTITUTE: Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: There are growing calls for President-elect Donald Trump to publically and strongly denounce white supremacists. This after the Alt-Right National Policy Institute held a meeting celebrating his election with racist imagery and even that Nazi salute that you saw there. These member identify - they self-identify as alt-right. But let's be clear, this is an ideologically nebulous group with ties to white supremacist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic, homophobic and anti- feminist schools of thought.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPENCER: America was, until this past generation, a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation. It is our inheritance. And it belongs to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Trump's transition team responded through a statement saying, "President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind, and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American. To think otherwise is a complete misrepresentation of the movement that united Americans from all backgrounds." I want to bring in now Oren Segal, he's director of the Anti- Defamation League Center on Extremism, and also Steve Cortes, he is Trump's former campaign adviser, I should say, for Donald Trump. He also led the National Hispanic Advisory Council for the president- elect's campaign.

I want to ask you first, Steve, why is Donald Trump himself directly, on Twitter, attacking the cast of "Hamilton" and yet leaving the criticism of white supremacists to his transition team in a statement that certainly wouldn't be as strong as something that would come from him directly?

STEVE CORTES, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER: Well, Brianna, my answer would be - first of all, I would just like to say, and I'm not speaking on behalf of transition, but as a supporter of Trump, I'd like to say, you know, those views and those actions by that group in that room in Washington, they're reprehensible in every sense. We've been denouncing as a campaign. We denounced those views countless times. The candidate himself did and the president-elect did. So I don't think it's quite fair to say he didn't speak to this because he did in his "60 Minutes" interview when he looked very directly into the camera and said, anyone out there who thinks that thy should be in any way acting in a bigoted manner in my name, he said, quote, "stop it". So that is not part of who we are as a movement.

But, look, I also think any movement that is big enough, and we are clearly a movement of tens of millions of people, unfortunately, you're bound to get a few really disreputable people along the way. That's true on the left. It's true on the right. So we don't in any way endorse this group. Quite the opposite. We condemn them. And I would advocate, by the way, those folks, if they had left that room and walked a few blocks and gone to the World War II Memorial, they would have seen what a dear price America paid to opposed those very people that they are sadly now mimicking.

[12:20:00] So it's just reprehensible. It's not part of who we are. And we made that very clear.

KEILAR: Oren, what do you say to that? There is this feeling from supporters of Donald Trump who say, I should not be lumped in with these people. These are 200 people in a room. What do you say to that?

OREN SEGAL, DIRECTOR OF ADL'S CENTER ON EXTREMISM: I think that's fair. I mean not all Trump supporter, not all people who voted for him are in any way the types of bigots that we saw on display in D.C. We need to be clear about that and we need to remember that.

That being said, I think the American people, no matter who they voted for, know that you need to consistently speak out against the type of hatred that we saw. This is not just something that exists in a vacuum in D.C. This country is experiencing hate incidents that target Jews, that target minorities of all kinds. At the same time, when people are logging online, whether on their phone or on the back of their computer, they're also experiencing the type of hate that is referencing this past president's campaign. So it's not just about one event in D.C. This is about a bigger issue

that we're seeing throughout the country on all platforms. And consistency and specific condemnation of the types of people that are engaged in this is important. Generalities won't do.

CORTES: Right.

KEILAR: And, Steve -

CORTES: No, and, Oren, I think you make a great - I think you make a great point there. Donald Trump is, I believe, right now on his way to "The New York Times" for an interview. One in which I'm sure he's going to be asked about this and I hope he again, in explicit terms, condemns any kind of hate.

And I can just tell you this. A couple of things. One is, I don't think America's ever been more divided, I think you're right, unfortunately, that in my lifetime than it is right now. And we need to work on that division. I think Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants to work on unifying. I think a big part of that, by the way, is economic growth. It's not just culture. It's also the economy.

KEILAR: But how is - how is he doing that, Steve, when you look at one of his top appointment being Steve Bannon, who is someone who provided a platform, proudly, for the alt-right, as they call themselves, on Breitbart? In fact, I want to play something that a former spokesman for Breitbart said about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KURT BARDELLA, FORMER BREITBART NEWS SPOKESMAN: No matter what Donald Trump says about this or any specific incident, the reality is, his own guy is one of the real leaders of this whole alt-right movement.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

BARDELLA: And he designed the platform as a feeding ground for all of these people. So how can anyone take anything Donald Trump says about race and about this platform with any credibility when his chief adviser is the guy who's running the whole thing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I know you want to change the conversation, Steve, to the focus on the economy and so many voters and Americans are concerned about that. But at the same time, this issue has given some fuel in a way -

CORTES: Sure.

KEILAR: When something like this happens and there isn't a direct condemnation. I know you said the "60 Minutes" condemnation, but that was probably the strongest one that we've heard, and he's been mealy- mouthed about other ones and he's appointed Steve Bannon, who some people say, you know, he's not maybe a part of the alt-right, but he's an enabler of it. CORTES: Well, you know, I would push back with that. But, first, let me tell you, from my own personal experience, being a Hispanic who was part of his campaign and deeply involved, I can tell you from the inside that this was the most tolerant group of people I could imagine being around. They didn't care much about your skin color, about your orientation, about your gender. They cared a lot about talent and a lot about moving this country forward.

Regarding Steve Bannon, I think the criticisms are unfair. I really do. He is not the alt-right. He certainly is not racist or anti- Semitic or bigoted. There's no - while there's a lot of accusations, there's no credibility to those accusations. In fact, and speaking specifically to these supposed anti-Jewish bias of him, in fact, if you look at Breitbart from its founder all through today, it's primarily a Jewish-led organization, all of whom worked intensely with Steve Bannon and say the exact opposite is true, that he's a man of tolerance, he's a great friend of Israel and that there's no evidence at all that he is a bigoted person. So I think it's unfair, again, you -

KEILAR: Well, I want to -

CORTES: Go ahead.

KEILAR: OK. I hear you on that. I want to give Oren the final word here just because we're running out of time. Oren, what do you say to that?

SEGAL: Sure. I'll quickly say that if you look at the type of content that Breitbart has peddled over the past several years, including under the stewardship of Bannon, it's anti-Muslim, it's anti- immigrant, it's very click baity (ph). It's intended to be very inflammatory. And when you're attracting the type of people, like the alt-right who identify with that, I will tell you that you're also emboldening extremists of all types, and that includes anti-Semites. One does not have to be an anti-Semite to actually create a platform that makes them feel comfortable. That's not normal and that's not OK.

KEILAR: All right, gentlemen, thank you so much. Really appreciate this discussion. Steve Cortes and Oren, we appreciate you being with us.

[12:24:45] Now just ahead, Donald Trump has been a - or I should say Trump, the name, it's a lucrative brand for decades. So what will the president-elect do with the Trump Organization once he's sworn in? Why some people are worried that his business ties could get tangled up in global politics, next.

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KEILAR: We've been keeping an eye on the comings and goings at Trump Tower, but the cameras have not caught everything. Meetings with international partners are raising questions about what the president- elect will do with his properties once he's sworn in. A CNN review of Trump's most recent financial disclosures shows the president-elect has about 150 companies that have dealings in at least 25 countries outside of the U.S. For his part, the incoming president tweeted out, "prior to the election, it was well-known that I have interest in properties all over the world. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal."

[12:30:04] So is it a big deal? Will it be a big deal? CNN's senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin looks at what could happen to Donald Trump's brand.