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Trump: Flag Burning Should Have "Consequences"; Trump Team Pushes Forward with Administration Picks; Interview with Jill Stein. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 29, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:12] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

President-elect Trump names Congressman Tom Price, a man adamantly opposed to Obamacare, to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary.

It's an extremely important position, yet President-elect Trump is busy tweeting about flag burning. Yes, flag burning. Just about an hour ago he tweeted, quote, "Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag. If they do, there must be consequences, perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail." Although the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court Justice Trump reveres, would adamantly would disagree.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONIN SCALIA, FORMER ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Burning the flag is a form of expression. Speech doesn't just mean written words or oral words. Burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. Now to the important stuff. Tom Price, a Congressman and surgeon, is Trump's pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Price despises Obamacare.

CNN's Sara Murray is tracking all of these. She joins me now live from Washington. Hi, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. Well, so much to chew on this morning.

And I just want to go back to that flag tweet for one second because it is worth noting that other politicians in the past have proposed banning flag burning. In fact, Hillary Clinton, when she was in the Senate, actually did back a law that would have done this. But these efforts, for the most part, don't really go anywhere, in part because the Constitution, under the First Amendment, does protect people's right to burn the flag. That is what the Supreme Court decided, even if people disagree with that notion.

And we've even seen members of Congress coming out this morning and saying the Supreme Court's probably right on that one, even if you personally find the notion of burning a flag abhorrent.

And like you pointed out, this is the kind of thing that Donald Trump does that overshadows the news that he and his team were really hoping to drive this morning, and that's Donald Trump continuing to build out his cabinet and continuing to add additional staffers. As you pointed out, he's decided on Georgia Congressman Tom Price to be the head of Health and Human Services.

This is a pick that is sure to make conservatives on the Hill very happy. He has been a fervent critic of Obamacare, and he's going to be the person who's really shepherding what was a big policy promise for Donald Trump on the campaign trail, the notion that you are going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something. He's going to be the guy that they're working with to determine what they would replace it with and what sort of provisions of Obamacare you might try to keep and build around going forward.

Now, the second announcement we got this morning is also in that sort of health care vein, that Seema Verma -- she's the CEO of a national health care policy company -- she is Donald Trump's pick to be the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The interesting thing about Seema, she's a close policy adviser to Mike Pence already, and she also, at one point, oversaw sort of an alternative Medicaid program, its expansion in Indiana. So that could give you kind of a hint at options that Donald Trump is looking for under his administration going forward.

But, again, Carol, these are the sort of people, the sort of policy initiatives, that tend to get overshadowed when Donald Trump decides to take to Twitter on whatever whim strikes him in the morning.

COSTELLO: All right. Sara Murray reporting live from Washington. Thank you.

With me now to talk about all of these, Patricia Murphy, columnist for "The Daily Beast" and "Roll Call." Kevin Sheridan is a former senior adviser for Mitt Romney for President and a former RNC spokesman. And Alice Steward is CNN political commentator and a Republican strategist. Welcome to all of you.

PATRICIA MURPHY, COLUMNIST, THE DAILY BEAST: Good morning.

KEVIN SHERIDAN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, MITT ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT: Thank you.

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So, Alice, I will begin with you because when Donald Trump sends out a tweet like that on flag burning, which seems to come out of nowhere, the media does go, squirrel. Should we --

STEWART: Exactly. You took the words right out of my mouth. Clearly, he threw a nut out there and the media is chasing it, but the key is not to follow that trap. The huge news this morning clearly is what we just talked about, is these appointments to key health care positions that clearly demonstrate he plans to execute his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.

I can't think of anyone better to shepherd the effort than Tom Price who has been clearly outspoken on Obamacare care and the problems associated with that, and Seema, with her work with Mike Pence and commitment to reforming Medicare and Medicaid. Clearly, Donald Trump is making it quite clear with these appointments that he is committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare. And I think shame on anyone who puts too much focus on a simple tweet when we have huge news about key appointments in his administration.

COSTELLO: OK. So let's talk a little bit more about Congressman Price because, Kevin, Alice is right. I mean, Kevin Price has his own replacement plan for Obamacare -- I'm sorry, I'm just getting some message -- oh, I'm sorry, Tom Price. Did I say something else?

SHERIDAN: Yes.

[09:05:09] COSTELLO: I apologize for that. Congressman Tom Price, he's had his own replacement plan for Obamacare since 2009, since Obamacare was passed. That plan includes tax credits for people to be able to buy insurance. Is that a replacement plan though, Kevin?

SHERIDAN: Well, yes. The House has had for several years, actually, plans on the table to both repeal and replace. And they've voted on it many times, to repeal it certainly and to replace it. We don't know yet exactly what it's going to look like, you know, once they start getting to work with Donald Trump when he gets to be President, and Paul Ryan works with him closely. And I think this is a really good sign for the House Republican agenda, Paul Ryan's better way agenda.

And, you know, we know the outlines of what that looks like. Now, we have to fill in the details. But there couldn't be a better pick than this. He's very close to Paul Ryan. Obviously, he knows the subject matter better than anyone. He's a surgeon. And I think he's an excellent pick.

And I think Donald Trump's entire cabinet now is starting to shape up, and it's looking like a very strong cabinet. I think, you know, despite all the other distractions, the Cabinet's looking really good.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Patricia, Tom Price is also opposed to insurers covering birth control because right now, there's an Obama administration rule that insurers must pick up the cost for birth control for women, right? Even if you're employed by someone, they have to have insurance that provides birth control. Will that go away?

MURPHY: I would fully expect that to go away if Tom Price were rewriting the replacement of Obamacare, and we can expect that he probably will rewrite the replacement because this is a bill that he's written over and over and over again.

There's always been a criticism against Republicans that, well, you want to repeal it but replace it with what? Price has had the what for a really long time. It's something that conservatives have signed on to.

I also think because he is an orthopedic surgeon, really quite a real policy monk, I think he will be able to probably sell his replacement to a broader swath of people than another pick for HHS maybe could have. So, yes, I think we should expect quite a conservative replacement to Obamacare when it's time to really start talking about it.

A lot of the pieces will be something the Democrats don't like at all, but this is something that Price has been working on for a really long time. We don't know what it's going to look like, but if it looks anything like the Price replacement so far, well, we have a pretty good idea of what it's going to be. It will be market based. It won't have a big government play in it. And certainly, that piece of covering birth control is most likely to go away, I would expect.

COSTELLO: But other things, Donald Trump has said he wants to keep, right? Like if you have a pre-existing condition, he wants insurers to still be forced to ensure people. So, Alice, how does all of that fit into this Congressman's plan when he really -- I mean, I listened to a speech he gave on the floor of the House in 2009 shortly after Obamacare was passed, and he does not like Obamacare, anything about it at all.

STEWART: Well, clearly, I think this is part of Donald Trump's art of the deal making. And what he's doing, he is showing, look, I've got someone who has been so far on the other side of Obamacare that is going to be in charge of revamping this health care system, and now he is going to work with both sides and come to some happy medium. Look, after his meeting with the President --

COSTELLO: Wait a minute. When you say work with both sides, what other side, like establishment Republicans or Democrats?

STEWART: Well, I mean, he has to work with both sides in the Congress to get this passed. And --

COSTELLO: Actually, he doesn't have to work with both sides to get it done.

STEWART: Well, and we also know after his meeting with the President, he made it clear that, as you say, certain aspects of Obamacare, the pre-existing conditions and other aspects like kids staying on their parents' plan until they're 26, those are things that he is willing to take a look at. So I think having someone like Tom Price in there who is staunchly firm anti-Obamacare will give him a little bit of room to negotiate and wiggle room with other members of Congress to come up with a health care plan that will pass the muster in Congress.

COSTELLO: And I think it's important to put Obamacare into perspective, Kevin, because only a tiny portion of Americans are enrolled in Obamacare. Most people still get their health insurance through their employers, right? So --

STEWART: Yes, but -- COSTELLO: And there are 20 million people, though, who are enrolled on Obamacare. So I'm just wondering, it affects a small number of Americans. A lot of Republicans really despise the plan, yet these 20 million people are on it. So will anything move very quickly?

SHERIDAN: Well, take away all the campaign rhetoric and the fact that we've campaigned on this issue many times but this time we're actually in place where we can do something about it, premiums have skyrocketed. That's not in dispute.

COSTELLO: For some people.

SHERIDAN: For many people. Anybody who's a small business owner, anybody who, you know, has to go get their own insurance, this has happened. And coverage has -- you know, I mean, deductibles have skyrocketed, too. So it's not like this is actually affordable --

[09:10:01] COSTELLO: For some people.

SHERIDAN: For many people and for millions of people. And so it's not exactly like this is affordable health care. This is affecting people in a very negative way. It's dampening down small business growth. And House Republicans are going to get in there. Senate Republicans are going to get in there. They're going to work with Price and they're going to work with Donald Trump and they're going to find a better replacement for it.

And so we're planning the position --

COSTELLO: But the only thing that I think is important to point out -- and I understand there are many problems with Obamacare. I'm not dismissing concerns about Obamacare. But if you get rid of it, it will affect everyone's health care costs across the board and will probably drive prices up. Isn't that right, Patricia?

MURPHY: Well, I think -- let me take one quick step back in terms of whether or not Donald Trump's going to have to work with the Democrats on this piece. There are pieces of Obamacare that can be repealed with a 51-vote majority in the Senate, but he's going to need a 60- vote majority in the Senate to replace all of Obamacare and that is just not going to happen. So we have to look to Chuck Schumer, who is the new leader for the Democrats in the Senate, and he has said, make my day, Republicans. Come and try and repeal Obamacare.

Obamacare is such a gigantic bill. If you take away one piece, you can't leave the other pieces. It's sort of like a Jenga game. If you pull out one piece of the game, the whole thing falls down. So in order for Donald Trump to keep the pieces he likes, he's going to have to give something back to Democrats.

So I think we know what Tom Price wants to do but we don't know what Democrats are going to be willing to do. So I think it's definitely to be determined what will happen to prices and what's going to happen to the bill overall. But we've got a very conservative voice leading the charge for Donald Trump, probably more conservative than even Donald Trump is on Obamacare. COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Patricia Murphy,

Kevin Sheridan, and Alice Stewart, thanks to all of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Michigan declares Donald Trump the winner as Jill Stein fights for a recount. Jill Stein will join me live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:06] COSTELLO: Michigan makes it official, giving that state's 16 electoral votes to Donald Trump, a move the president-elect celebrated online. He said, "The great state of Michigan was just certified as a Trump win, giving all of our make America great again supporters another victory -- 306."

But hold on. Michigan is about to get noticed from Jill Stein and the Green Party. She wants it recount and will soon make that official in Michigan, too.

I'm joined now live, Jill Stein is with me live.

Welcome. Welcome, Dr. Stein.

DR. JILL STEIN, FORMER GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE: Good to see you.

COSTELLO: Nice to see you, too.

Tough question to start. Trump says you have abused the system in ordering a recount, but he also claimed millions voted illegally. So, aren't you both guilty of undermining American's faith in democracy?

STEIN: Unfortunately, American's faith in our political institutions, in Congress, in the judiciary, in the executive is at a rock bottom low right now. Polls show that across that board, especially in this election where something like 82 percent according to a "New York Times" poll found that they were basically disgusted by the process of this election.

So, I think it's actually a really positive thing that everyday people have surged into this grassroots movement to ensure that we deserve and we very much need to have confidence in our vote, and that's exactly what we're calling for is a recount.

COSTELLO: Well, I think people are disgusted by the process, but the process has been running smoothly for all of these years, right? The Electoral College is how you win presidential elections, and I think people were more -- were more disgusted by the candidates that they had to vote for.

STEIN: You know, I think there was a -- there were unhappy feelings across the board when Donald Trump himself said that it was a rigged election. There was enormous resonance with that. When Bernie Sanders says that it's a rigged economy, there was enormous resonance with that.

I don't think it gets swept under the rug, especially in such a contentious election, given the split between the Electoral College and the popular vote.

COSTELLO: Well, do you think --

STEIN: There are many things that need to be fixed here.

COSTELLO: But you yourself -- you yourself have said that there is no voter fraud but we should take a look to make sure. So, do you have faith in our system or not?

STEIN: What I said -- so you cannot see voter fraud unless you actually check the votes. There's absolutely no way to know, so we should have checks and balances built into the process. There should be an automatic audit and we should not be using these voting machines that have been proven to be so incredibly unreliable, that are uncapable of actually reading what the marking is on a piece of paper.

COSTELLO: How has that been proved?

STEIN: It's been shown over and over again. And in fact, the academic institutions that study our voting machines have shown, in fact, in Wisconsin, the machines that are being used are extremely vulnerable to human error, to machine error, to tampering. So, in fact, the state of California --

COSTELLO: That's not what the secretary of state of Wisconsin would say.

STEIN: Well, the state of California which did a head to toe review of this made those machines illegal and the states of Maryland and Virginia are actually in the process of doing that.

So, we think voters across America are really entitled to having confidence in our vote and from there, we can begin to address the other problems in the voting system. When Donald Trump says the problem is --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Don't you think -- don't you think that these efforts undermine American's confidence in the American electoral system when study after study has shown there's very little voter fraud in this country?

[09:20:02] STEIN: I agree with you about the voter fraud. Absolutely. Study after study have shown that, and Donald Trump has yet to give us the evidence for his assertion yesterday that there were millions of people voting illegally. There's no absolutely no evidence of that.

On the other hand, there's lots of evidence that millions of people are stripped from the voting roles. We know that the system of interstate crosscheck takes lots of people off the voter rolls who should --

COSTELLO: That's not what you're checking into.

(CROSSTALK)

STEIN: What's that?

COSTELLO: That's not what you're checking into.

STEIN: Exactly.

COSTELLO: You're checking into the electronic voting machines.

STEIN: That's right.

COSTELLO: Isn't it the same thing, you're saying that there's no evidence of fraud here but we're going to look anyway? Isn't that the same thing Donald Trump is saying?

STEIN: Well, but there's never been any evidence of what he was saying and there have been many studies that have disproven it. On the other hand, there's lots of evidence that our machines make errors, that the are subject to human tampering, they're subject to hacking.

There's lots of evidence and we have secretaries of state who have eliminated the use of those specific machines. So there's plenty of evidence here, but everybody needs to take a look at it and those machines should not be used widespread in such a way that it has undermined our confidence.

And we can't just sweep this under the rug. There are over something like 140,000 people who have made small donations to this effort and this is a grassroots movement.

You know, we didn't whip this up. All I did was put out a press release and establish a web page where people can contribute, that is Jill2016.com/recount.

COSTELLO: Right.

STEIN: The money is specifically funneled and can only be used for that recount. It's coming in in $45 donations because we can't sweep that under this rug.

COSTELLO: But don't you think part of the reason people are donating the money is because they're dissatisfied with the Donald Trump presidency and you're giving them hope that things may change?

STEIN: You know, we have not said that we want to change this. We don't want to instill, you know, the misconception that this is going to flip the vote. What we're saying is we deserve to have confidence in our vote. We're not here to help one candidate or hurt the other.

We have declared the recount in Michigan before it had a declared winner. I've always said when I was asked throughout the campaign, would I stand up and call for a recount if there were doubts about the reliability of the vote? I always said yes. I have never taken sides in this election between the two establishment candidates.

COSTELLO: OK.

STEIN: So we do not have skin in the game. We're here to stand up for everyday voters who need a better way forward.

COSTELLO: All right. Dr. Jill Stein, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I do appreciate it.

STEIN: Thank you. Good to be with you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, they have who. Now, they want the why. Police hunt for a motive in the terrible Ohio State University rampage.

But, first, we are moments away opening bell. The Dow set for a record -- for a rebound after record breaking Cyber Monday sales.

CNN Money chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here to tell us more.

Hi, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN MONEY CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Carol.

And this brand-new economic news in from the Commerce Department, the economy growing at the strongest pace in two years. Let me repeat that -- U.S. economic growth strongest in two years coming at 3.2 percent.

A little government statistics 101, what is this report? This GDP report, it records everything -- imports, exports, what we buy, what we make, what we grow, what we sell and it shows some strength here in the third quarter.

Consumer spending was strong at the end of the summer. Also exports, believe it or not, picking up and that helps this number overall.

Counter to the narrative you're hearing on the campaign trail that the economy is weak. This is a tail wind for the incoming Trump administration.

Checking the futures markets right now because the markets are going to open in about seven minutes, you have the Dow Jones Industrial Average, futures, Dow futures just up slightly here.

Things are mixed around the world. We're watching that big drop in oil there, trying to gauge just how much and how quickly the Fed will start raising interest rates, with strong economic news like this GDP report. It gives the Fed runway to raise rates next week or the week after, Carol?

ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Christine.

Download the CNN Money Stream app, it's business news personalized. The only place you can follow the companies, business leaders and topics that matter to you most. It's available now on your iPhone or Android device.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:28:52] COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Students are returning to class after that terrifying rampage that wounded 11 people at Ohio State University. Police are trying to pin down motive as disturbing details emerge about the attacker. The focus, his Facebook page.

Authorities say Abdul Razak Ali Artan appears to have posted a message on social media shortly before ramming his car into a group of people on campus and charging at others with a knife. He said on his Facebook page, quote, "My brothers and sisters, I am sick and tired of seeing my fellow brothers and sisters being killed and tortured everywhere."

We now know the name of the hero cop who shot and killed the attacker. He's a former Ohio State student, Police Officer Alan Horujko. The 28-year-old is getting praise for acting fast and saving lives.

Let's go right back to CNN's Rosa Flores. She's live in Columbus.

Good morning.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Take a look behind me. You'll see students walking, cycling to classes. Classes resumed here this morning. University is trying to bring some normalcy to this campus but, of course, some of these students still trying to digest what happened here yesterday.

I talked to one witness who says -- they're asking themselves why, and could I have done something differently?