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Trump's Economic Team Takes Shape; Carrier: Trump Deal Will Keep 1,000 Jobs in U.S.; Trump Nominates Mnuchin For Treasury Secretary; Now: House Democrats Hold Leadership Vote Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 30, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:09] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I, too, am obsessed with the Gilmore Girls.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Are you?

COSTELLO: Thank you guys.

CUOMO: So all the young kids are into it these days. All the good looking, young people.

COSTELLO: Exactly. Oh, I love that. You guys have a --

CUOMO: There is its.

COSTELLO: Yes. You guys have a great day. NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello in Washington. Thanks so much for joining me this morning.

President-elect Trump's economic team takes shape. Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Wilbur Ross. Mnuchin confirms he's Trump's pick for Treasury Secretary and Ross is tapped for Commerce Secretary.

Also, Trump makes a huge promise. He will break ties with his many businesses so he can focus on running the country. Trump made that announcement in a series of early morning tweets. One of those tweets says he will unveil the details of all of this during a December 15th news conference. All of this after Mitt Romney, who's under consideration for Secretary of State, breaks bread with Trump at a posh New York City restaurant inside Trump International Hotel.

All right. So we're covering all of these angles with our team of reporters. Let's begin, though, with CNN's Sara Murray. Good morning.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. Well, lots of news this morning. And today, Trump's transition team has just made it official that they have chosen Steve Mnuchin as the next Treasury Secretary. This is really a loyalty pick for Donald Trump. This is a guy who was his campaign finance chairman, who's been a close economic adviser. Now, he's the pick for Treasury.

But, of course, he's going to face some scrutiny. He also was a Goldman Sachs banker. He made some money off the mortgage industry at a time when plenty of people were going through foreclosures, so you can expect that to come up in his Senate confirmation hearing.

Now, on the Commerce side, we have Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor. That is Donald Trump's pick, the transition team announces. And they're also rolling out a Deputy Commerce Secretary. This is going to be Todd Ricketts as we expected. This is also someone who was critical or whose family, at a minimum, was critical of Donald Trump at certain points but eventually came around.

Now, some of these folks were on television this morning. And I want you to listen to Mnuchin describing what the economic team's top priority is going to be.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: To get there, our number priority is tax reform. This will be the largest tax change since Reagan. We've talked about this during the campaign. Wilbur and I have worked very closely together on the campaign. We're going to cut corporate taxes, which will bring huge amounts of jobs back to the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: So that gives you a sense of how this team is going to immediately start working together and try to push forward some of the priorities Trump talked about on the campaign trail.

But when it comes to the position that has drawn so much palace intrigue, Secretary of State, we still do not have an answer this morning after that dinner last night of how things went between Donald Trump and Mitt Romney. After the dinner, Trump was not tipping his hand, but Romney had awfully nice things to say about a man he once criticized.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), FORMER GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS: I had a wonderful evening with President-elect Trump. We had another discussion about the affairs throughout the world. And these discussions I've had with him have been enlightening and interesting and engaging. I've enjoyed them very, very much. The last few weeks, he's been carrying out a transition effort. And I have to tell you, I've been impressed by what I've seen in the transition effort. The people he selected as members of his Cabinet are solid, effective, capable people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, the other thing Mitt Romney said after that dinner was Donald Trump was able to do something I was not, which was win the general election. And that may be the closest thing we hear from Mitt Romney walking up to an apology. We'll see if it's enough, if that dinner persuaded Trump or if he decides to go a different direction when it comes to Secretary of State, Carol.

COSTELLO: So the wives were there, too, in that dinner, Sara?

MURRAY: So the wives were supposed to be there, but then they weren't. That's the interesting part. As you know, we were kind of expecting Anne Romney to show up, Melania Trump to show up, but instead it was just three gentlemen. It was Donald Trump, it was Mitt Romney, and it was former RNC Chairman, now Donald Trump's incoming Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus.

And that was actually the Romney folks felt like a good sign. They feel like Reince Priebus has been pretty favorable to the notion of Mitt Romney as Secretary of State. And certainly, maybe a more comfortable dinner setting for the three of them, especially after we've seen some of Donald Trump's top advisers, like Kellyanne Conway, and other top allies out there publicly bashing Mitt Romney in recent days.

COSTELLO: All right. Sara Murray reporting live from Washington. Thanks so much.

Now, a Trump policy win. As promised, President-elect Trump has convinced Carrier International to stay in Indiana instead of moving its operations to Mexico, saving at least 1,000 jobs. Workers, as you might expect, were psyched.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[09:05:07] LARRY LINVILLE, CARRIER EMPLOYEE FOR 51 YEARS: I say it's a relief, not just for me but for many of the younger people. I'm glad for them. So it just depends on what happens, whether I stay or go.

LAKEISHA AUSTIN, CARRIER EMPLOYEE: I will say just thank you for doing what you said you were going to do. Because when it comes to presidential candidates, you know, sometimes, if not all the time, a lot of times, they don't do what they promise they're going to do. So if he does do it, I will tell him thank you, personally, for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So the big question this morning, though, what did Mr. Trump promise Carrier to keep most of their operations in the United States? Christine Romans is here to tell us what we know. Good morning.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Carol. There's a lot we don't know actually. What did Donald Trump promise this company or maybe the state of Indiana? Perhaps it was tax breaks. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the parent company of Carrier, United Technologies, gets an awful lot of revenue from government contracts. We just don't know exactly what the promises were made, but we do know than an announcement will be made.

Carrier said this, "We're pleased to have reached a deal with President-elect Trump and V.P.-elect Pence to keep close to 1,000 in Indy. More details soon." The union telling us they don't have any details on this either. You'll remember, Carol, back in February, that video, now seen 4

million times, of a Carrier vice president or plant manager informing hundreds of workers that their jobs will be shipped to Mexico. It was just a business decision. That was viewed over and over again and that became a central rallying cry of Donald Trump's campaign, that he would keep jobs in the U.S. 2,100 was the number of jobs they were going to move to Mexico. Carrier and Trump saying they're going to keep about 1,000 in Indy now.

We don't know why though.

COSTELLO: I know. It's like, did he somehow threaten Carrier, or did he reward Carrier in some way for staying in the United States?

ROMANS: It could be tax breaks. Those would be state tax breaks most likely and those would be borne by taxpayers. So we'll have to see what exactly was the package or incentive to keep the company there, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Christine Romans, stay right there because I want to talk about this and more. I'm also joined by Errol Louis, a CNN political commentator and political anchor for Spectrum News, and Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau chief of "The Chicago Sun-Times." Welcome to both of you. And if Christine could also join us, that would be great, because I'm intrigued by what happened in Indiana.

So, Errol, Indiana Governor Mike Pence goes to Indiana along with President-elect Trump and somehow convinces Carrier to keep most of its operations in the United States. So why couldn't Governor Pence do that when he was Governor of Indiana?

ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL ANCHOR, SPECTRUM NEWS NY1: That's a very good question, Carol, and the devil is going to be in the details. Christine is exactly right that this may all be a matter of using existing state programs. It may be the taxpayers of Indiana, in fact, who saved these jobs rather than the federal government. We're not sure exactly what happened. And until we see those details, we won't really know.

It's also important to keep in mind that the union that represents many of the workers there, when asked by reporters, said that he was absolutely in the dark, that they were not a part of this conversation at all. And that has implications for their benefits, for their retirement, for whether or not those jobs are going to be back-filled. There are a lot of questions about this, I think, before we can start throwing confetti.

COSTELLO: OK. So a pause right there because I have a transition of power alert to share with my viewers right now. Steve Mnuchin is officially now Trump's choice for Treasury Secretary, and Wilbur Ross has been selected officially to be Commerce Secretary. Also, Todd Ricketts is the pick to be Deputy Commerce Secretary.

OK. Let's return to my panel, Errol Louis, Lynn Sweet, and Christine Romans. Lynn, back to this Carrier thing, because Donald Trump's businesses do a lot of business overseas. He has many of his goods for his companies made in China, so technically, could he force his own companies to do more business in the United States?

LYNN SWEET, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Well, what he could do right now, Carol, is force his businesses to buy American, a point that was made, you know, during the campaign. He has a big bully pulpit, and we'll see with Carrier what the details are. But, you know, companies won't just bend to a request without often some sweeteners, and there's a big debate over what city, county, states, and federal government do to keep businesses.

Also, you have to look out and see, are some companies doing, you know, head fakes? And the other issue is something called a corporate inversion where they just do bookkeeping sleight of hand to try and avoid U.S. taxes by, you know, sending their paperwork outside the U.S. So Trump, in his own business, can set examples, and I think an easy first start would be to buy American.

[09:09:58] COSTELLO: OK. So, Christine, Trump has said in the past that he might impose a 35 percent tariff on companies that move their operations to Mexico. So was it sort of a carrot and stick thing with Carrier, do you think?

ROMANS: It might be. You know, it also might be, Carol, that if Donald Trump can get a few wins here like this where he can use this important bully pulpit to make companies keep a thousand jobs here, a thousand jobs there, it takes some of the heat off of that really sharp rhetoric about imposing tariffs. And so he has the narrative win in his hand. Workers can say, look, he's doing something for us, but he doesn't really change the overall landscape of trade.

I will say this, there are a lot of companies right now, even in the neighborhood of that Carrier plant, that are still planning on sending jobs to Mexico. It is the way the globalization system is, you know. I mean, what is he going to do to protect all of those workers in Indiana, or is this just an optical play right here with Carrier? He had promised to do these and he's keeping these 1,000 jobs here.

Also, I'm looking at the original Carrier announcement here. It was 2,100 jobs from two different Carrier-affiliated plants that were going to be going to Mexico, to the same location in Mexico. We're now hearing they're going to keep 1,000. So when you see those sound bites from people saying they're so glad they're going to still have their jobs, I'm not sure which jobs are staying. And I think that's why the union's being so cautious here.

COSTELLO: And we're asking all these questions because Mr. Trump is sending mixed messages, Errol, because, you know, he goes to Carrier and tries to keep jobs in the United States for the little guy, right? But then he appoints a Goldman Sachs billionaire for Treasury Secretary, who wants to slash taxes for wealthy Americans and also for businesses and companies across America.

LOUIS: Not just a Goldman Sachs former partner, but one who worked for George Soros and who made a considerable chunk of his fortune in Hollywood. So this is not necessarily one of these outsiders that the Trump campaign promised. On the other hand, he is loyal. And as we are discovering over and over again, that is a highly prized quality within this transition. So we know that he's going to be a link to Wall Street and possibly to Hollywood.

We also know, though, that I think this question is going to come up repeatedly, where is his international experience, and how will he fit into the team in that respect? Because some key parts of the Trump plan, not just the trade policy but also his issue of whether or not we're going to find a way to repatriate trillions of dollars in overseas profits back to the United States, all of that is going to fall on the economic team. We don't know where Mnuchin falls in all of that, what his experience is, or what he'll be able to accomplish.

COSTELLO: Well, I think one of Mnuchin's first goals is to redo the tax system in the United States.

ROMANS: Yes. He said that --

SWEET: Well --

ROMANS: He said that today. And he said in terms of, you know, cutting taxes for the very rich, he says he's going to cap their deductions, so they will not get a big tax break. He was very clear about that this morning in saying that he's not out there to give a tax break for the rich, but he wants a big tax break for the middle class.

In terms of his experience, Carol, I will tell you, in his years at Goldman Sachs, the beginning of his career at Goldman Sachs, he did mortgage debt trading. He did government bond trading. So he understands how the U.S. borrows and finances its daily operations. He does have a great deal of experience in that department.

COSTELLO: So, Lynn, what do you make of it?

SWEET: Well, I have two quick observations that, once again, you know, top fund raisers get plumb spots. Nothing changed. You know, the swamp is still here. On the deputy --

COSTELLO: Yes, because Mnuchin was Trump's top fund raiser during the campaign.

SWEET: He was his finance chair.

COSTELLO: Finance chair.

SWEET: And in the Deputy Secretary spot that came out today, Todd Ricketts, he is the co-board member -- he's a co-owner of the World Series-winning Chicago Cubs. It will be interesting to see if he has to divest from that board. He also comes from a billionaire family that's one of the biggest donors to the Republican National Committee. So --

COSTELLO: So many questions to ask and answer, right? All right.

SWEET: Yes. There is a money trail.

COSTELLO: OK. I have to leave it there. Christine Romans, Errol Louis, Lynn Sweet, thanks to all of you. SWEET: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come to the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump says he' leaving his businesses behind so he can focus on being President of the United States. A former White House ethics lawyer weighs in on whether that will solve Trump's conflict of interest issues, though.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:10] COSTELLO: As Democrats regroup after a bruising election, one key question lingers. Who will lead the party?

Today, lawmakers will attempt to answer that question. Right now, House Democrats are in the midst of a marathon vote on Capitol Hill.

Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader, is expected to keep her job. But she is facing a challenge from colleagues, including Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan who says fresh faces are needed to get the party back on track.

Our senior political reporter Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill.

You spoke to Tim Ryan earlier. What did he say?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, he said that the votes for change are in this room. He's very confident that he's going to unseat and defeat Nancy Pelosi today, which will be a monumental upset. I can tell you --

COSTELLO: Manu, this is Mnuchin. This is the new pick for treasury secretary. Let's listen.

STEVE MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY NOMINEE: And our number one priority is going to be the economy, get back to 3 percent to 4 percent growth. We believe that's very sustainable and focus on things for the American worker. That's absolutely our priority.

REPORTER: Talking about bringing the money back. Explain how that works, how you get corporations like Apple that have billions of dollars (INAUDIBLE)

MNUCHIN: Well, our first priority is going to be the tax plan and the tax plan has both the corporate aspects to it, lowering corporate taxes so we make U.S. companies the most competitive in the world. Making sure we repatriate trillions of dollars back to the United States, and the personal income tax, where we're going to have the most significant middle income tax cuts since Reagan. We're going to incorporate the child care program.

So, this is going to be a tremendous boon to the economy.

REPORTER: Explain how your experience both in Hollywood and on Wall Street will help you.

[09:20:00] Many people say we don't have that government experience that's necessary. MNUCHIN: Well, let me first say, what I've really been focused on is

being a regional banker for the last eight years. I know what it takes to make sure that we can make loans to small and mid-market companies. That's going to be our big focus. Making sure we scale back regulation so that we make sure the banks are lending.

REPORTER: Lastly, you talk about infrastructure. You're also being charged in terms of building roads, building bridge. How do you go about doing that? A lot of Republicans aren't ready to spend the kind of money that Mr. Trump wants to spend.

MNUCHIN: Well, it's a big priority of this administration. We need to make sure that our infrastructure is built for the 21st century, that we have roads, and bridges, and power grids, and infrastructure that support this and that going to be a big focus. We'll be working with Congress, and working with the different departments in the administration to make sure we figure out how to fund it in the most effective way.

I think we're going to look at a lot of different things. Some public/private partnerships. Different type of things we'll look at. But it's all going to be a big priority. Thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

MNUCHIN: Carrier deal, look, l I think it's terrific. The president- elect and the vice president picked up the phone and called the CEO of United Technologies and told them he wanted to keep jobs here. I can't remember the last time a president did that.

And, you know, this is a terrific opportunity both myself, Wilbur Ross, who's in commerce, working with the president making sure we do the right thing for the American workers.

Thank you very much, everybody.

COSTELLO: All right. We just heard from Steve Mnuchin, who is Trump's pick for the secretary of the treasury. And yes you heard he has a lot of big plans coming up for middle-class workers, and for also, those who run corporations.

Let's head back to Capitol Hill and check back in Manu Raju.

I want to go down this list of what Mnuchin said he has plans for. He wants to lower the corporate taxes. He wants to slash taxes for all American Americans. He wants to institute Ivanka Trump's child care plans.

So, he has all of these new ideas that sound pretty good to middle class workers right now and there are Democrats on Capitol Hill trying to get those very same people back in their corner.

RAJU: Yes. It's a very ambitious agenda, one that would require some bipartisan support. I can tell you in a lot of tax issues, though, they can actually pass a lot of those tax cuts through a budget process that avoids a filibuster in the Senate. That means they could pass the party line vote.

And Republicans are going to have to make a decision on prioritizing whether or not to move forward on a tax bill next year or try to do something like on Medicare reform and overhaul of Medicare. One of the big decisions they're going to have to make in order to use that very process that can avoid a filibuster.

But things that he mentioned about a child care proposal that Ivanka Trump was talking about on the campaign trail, that would require some bipartisan support, but that could also divide Republicans, particularly if you spend a lot of money, things that Republicans are frankly, worried about, driving up the price tag. How do you pay for a lot of these social welfare programs?

So, it will be interesting to see the extent to which they can carry it out. But I can tell you that the chance of Mnuchin getting confirmed which will be the first challenge for him, the chances are very high even though Democrats are raising concerns about his time in Wall Street. People like Elizabeth Warren raising concerns about him.

But they really don't have -- Democrats don't have much power to stop him because they changed filibuster rules and allowed this in 2013, making -- ensuring that any sort of executive level nominee for Donald Trump --

COSTELLO: OK, having said that Manu, having said that here's the argument with the critics of the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi will probably turn to being minority leader, even though younger Democrats are vying for that spot. So, Democrats have no power at all right now. Why won't they push through with some change in leadership?

RAJU: That's the argument that Tim Ryan is making, Nancy Pelosi's challenger. He said to me on his way into the room right behind me right now where this House Democratic leadership vote is happening the votes for change are in this room.

Now, that could be wishful thinking. A lot of people think it is wishful thinking because Nancy Pelosi is someone who has a lot of support within this room, within the room behind me. Carol. So, we expect her to win.

But if Ryan were to pull off an upset, it's probably the biggest upset of the year so far, maybe bigger than Donald Trump's victory.

COSTELLO: All right, Manu Raju. Thank you so much.

So let's talk about this some more. Symone Sanders is here. She's a CNN political commentator and former national press secretary for the Bernie Sanders. Patti Solis Doyle is also with me. She's a CNN political commentator and manager of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

All right. So, Patti, why -- why would the Democrats be open to a change in leadership? Fresh blood?

[09:25:00] I mean, obviously, something's not working. And I know Nancy Pelosi raises lots and lots of money for Democrats, but let's face it -- there aren't many Democrats in office right at the moment. And didn't this past election prove that raising a lot of money doesn't necessarily mean your candidate wins?

PATTI SOLIS DOYLE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, let me say this -- first of all, Nancy Pelosi is the first woman ever to be speaker of the House which makes her historic figure. But more importantly, Nancy Pelosi runs a very, very disciplined caucus. I mean, she's probably the greatest vote counter there is on the Hill --

COSTELLO: But, Patti, Democrats have no power right now.

DOYLE: No. Having said though, Carol, totally having said that, though, this past election, the 2016 election, was a brutal wake-up call for all Democrats at all levels. At the DCCC, at the DNC, at the DGA, we have to really sort of look at what happened and look at ways to fix it and reach out to all voters.

I don't think that Nancy Pelosi is going to lose her job. But I do think that a challenge, if it helps sort of awaken them, and look at how they're going to lead moving forward, and look for new leadership in terms of the vice chair, I think it's a good thing. I think a challenge is always a good thing, and I think Nancy Pelosi is going to take it seriously and really sort of look into how she can make some changes.

COSTELLO: Well, I don't know if it's a challenge but we still win if you look at it seriously. But I'll take you at your word, Patti.

Symone, a question for you. So, Donald Trump and Mike Pence go to Indiana. They talk to Carrier. They convince that company to stay, to keep some jobs in the United States, instead of moving them to Mexico.

Why weren't the Democrats doing those sorts of things? Because isn't that something that the Democrats might consider?

SYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it's also important to note, Carol, that they also promised Carrier huge corporate tax breaks, and Carrier still move a number of their jobs --

COSTELLO: Well, we don't know that yet.

SANDERS: They've said that that's what they want to do. We just heard the new secretary of the treasury, potential secretary of the treasury talk about reforming taxes. Taxes, and tax breaks for corporations.

So, I definitely think that, yes, Democrats need to be focused on jobs. They need to be focused on jobs for hard-working class people, people of all back grounds. I think little unconventional for the president of the United States or the president-elect to pick up the phone and call these companies.

But this is as Patti said, this is a wake-up call for everybody. I'm hesitant go ahead and praise the president-elect because again, we don't know the details off the deal. We have to take what the president-elect has told us with a grain of salt, but this is something that we need to be focused on, absolutely. Jobs, jobs for working class communities and making sure that when those manufacturing jobs do leave, because a lot of them are not coming back, that there are replacements for those jobs, in these communities so folks can learn new skills and continue to work.

COSTELLO: Right. So, Patti, will we see this as a move away from identity politics on the part of the Democrats? Because that's very much the campaign that Hillary Clinton ran.

DOYLE: Uh-huh. Look, I think Democrats need to have an even bigger tent than they already had. Leaving white working class voters on the table was disastrous, as we all know now. But that doesn't mean we stop talking to all our other folks.

I mean, we just have to talk to everybody. And that's how we need to campaign. That's we really need to focus on our down ballot races. We need to focus on the governor's races.

We can't just save ourselves for every four years at the presidential level. So, again, like I said it's a huge, brutal wake-up call and we're taking steps to fix it.

COSTELLO: Maybe, Simone, the answer is to have more Democrats move to the middle part of the country, because they all seem to live on the two coasts, right?

SANDERS: Well, I'm from Nebraska. So I'm from that middle part of the country everybody keeps talking about my momma still lives there. I think the answer really is to connect the fight of the people in McDowell County, West Virginia, for example with the plight of people in Chicago, Illinois.

I think the rhetoric of this general election campaign has made us feel like the people in those areas have two separate issues but we really have more in common than that divides us. So it's really about, I mean and there's an article in "Slate" by Jamelle Bouie that talks about this, about taking a page out of Jesse Jackson's book, and noting and connecting that we are all part of this quilt, and black worker, the white worker, the person that cares about immigration rights. The person that's fighting for, you know, clean water in their community, whether it's in cannon ball, or flint, is connected. We need all patches of that quilt to move our agenda forward.

That is where the party goes from here not tossing out, quote/unquote, "identity politics" altogether.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there.

Symone Sanders, Patti Solis Doyle, thanks so much.

Coming up in the NEWSROOM --

DOYLE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Donald Trump says he's out vowing to pass the business over to his children. But will that take care of his many, many conflicts of interest?

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