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Trump's Economic Team Takes Shape; Trump Vows to Break Ties with his Business; Carrier: Trump Deal will Keep 1,000 Jobs in U.S.; Soon: Charlotte D.A. Announces Decision on Charges. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 30, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:16] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello in Washington. Thank you so much for joining me. President- elect Trump's economic team is taking shape. Former Goldman Sachs Executive Steve Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Wilbur Ross have been named as Trump picks. The Trump team nominates Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary. Ross was tapped for Commerce Secretary. And Todd Ricketts is Trump's pick for Deputy Secretary of Commerce.

Also, Trump is making this huge promise this morning. He says he will break ties with his businesses so he can focus on running the country. Trump making that announcement in a series of early morning tweets. He says he will unveil the exact details during a December 15th news conference with his children by his side. All of this after Mitt Romney, who is under consideration for Secretary of State, puts his differences aside and breaks bread with Mr. Trump at a posh New York City restaurant, inside Trump International Hotel.

We have a lot to talk about this morning. Let's begin though with CNN's Sara Murray. Good morning.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. Well, Donald Trump and his transition team are making some of these top level positions official this morning. They put out a release, making it that they are choosing Steve Mnuchin to be Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary.

Now, -- Mnuchin has been very loyal to Donald Trump. He is one of the top economic advisers with his campaign finance chairman. Now, he could face some sticky questions in a confirmation hearing, though. He's former Goldman Sachs banker. He made plenty of money as a mortgage banker at a time when lots of people's homes were being foreclosed on. And Democratic senators are already, I think, raring to bring that up during his hearing. But he's going to be working alongside other folks who are going to be working to implement Donald Trump's economic agenda.

Wilbur Ross, for instance, is going to be Donald Trump's pick for Commerce Secretary. He is a billionaire investor and has really been the leading candidate for this role for the last few days, maybe even few weeks, so not exactly a surprise there. What is a surprise is them sort of rolling all of this out together in addition to a Deputy Commerce Secretary which is Todd Ricketts. He's a co-owner for the Cubs. And his family has been critical of Donald Trump in the past. He had another example of letting bygones be bygones.

So, all these folks are going to be working hand in hand trying to implement Donald Trump's economic agenda. And earlier today, Mnuchin gave reporters a taste of exactly what they think their priorities are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN MNUCHIN, TRUMP'S PICK FOR TREASURY SECRETARY: Well, I mean, our first priority is going to be the tax plan. And the tax plan has both the corporate aspects to it, lowering corporate taxes to make U.S. companies most competitive in the world, making sure we repatriate trillions of dollars back to the United States, and the personal income taxes where we're going to have the most significant middle income tax cut since Reagan. We're going to incorporate a Child Care Program. So this is going to be a tremendous boon to the economy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, even though Donald Trump is making progress on some of these economic appointments, there is still the thorny issue of the Secretary of State position. Donald Trump, of course, dined with Mitt Romney last night. And while they were expected to be joined by their wives, instead they were joined by Reince Priebus, who's Donald Trump's chief of staff, heading into the White House.

Now, Trump did not tip his hand about which way he's leaning. We know there are other candidates in the mix. For instance, Senator Corker, Rudy Giuliani, potentially even David Petraeus. So he didn't really say one way or another where he's leaning but Mitt Romney certainly had much more favorable things to say about Donald Trump after that dinner than he did on the campaign trail, Carol.

COSTELLO: Interesting. -- Sara Murray, I was taking a drink of water. Sara Murray, many thanks to you. I appreciate it. So let's talk some more about Trump's economic picks with CNN's Christine Romans because I'm looking at Steve Mnuchin's to do list and it's extensive, Christine. In fact, he wants to slash taxes across the board and regulations for corporations, some regulations?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. He's proposing here the biggest tax reform since Ronald Reagan and pledging to work with Congress to get it done. He's promising 3 to 4 percent growth. You know, we just showed you that economic number last week that had economic growth at you know 3.2 percent in the third quarter. So, he says that he can do that on a sustainable basis.

On that tax reform, he wants to cut the corporate tax. He was talking about 15 percent, was the number tossed around this morning when he was on a television interview. And that would allow you to repatriate trillions of dollars of money sitting in overseas bank accounts and come back to the United States. But for real people, not for companies, but for regular Joes, he says he really wants to give the middle class the big tax cut.

When asked about the tax cut for the rich, because a lot of tax scorers have looked at Donald Trump's plan as it stands down, and said, hey, rich people are going to get the biggest tax -- cut of all, Mnuchin says no, he's going to offset some of their deductions maybe on how much mortgage interest they can deduct and some other things so that they won't have a big tax cut the way some of the tax scorers have said.

But again, all that has to go through Congress. But coming out on day one, saying the biggest thing here for them is tax reform. Carol?

COSTELLO: Interesting. OK. So Donald Trump and Mike Pence made -- headlines last night because they've convinced the Carrier Corporation to

[10:05:16] maintain their operations in the state of Indiana and to keep some of those jobs there in the United States instead of moving them to Mexico.

ROMANS: That's right, Carol. You recall in February, there was a viral video of a plant manager explaining to hundreds of factory workers for Carrier air conditioning plant that their jobs are going to Mexico. It was a business decision, nothing personal. That became really a rallying cry on the campaign trail. Donald Trump said I'm going to keep those -- I'm going to keep the workers here. I'm not going to let companies do that.

So, we don't know what was promised to Carrier. You know, Mike Pence is the governor of Indiana. Were their tax breaks that were promised for them to stay and some sort of incentive to stay there, or did they promise to stay there so there wouldn't be other potential penalties for its parent company, United Technologies, which by the way gets almost -- a big majority of its revenue from government contracts, right? So, what exactly went on here? We don't know. We haven't seen the details and the union is saying they don't know exactly. They were not consulted in this deal either.

So, Donald Trump and Carrier both saying there will be an announcement on those jobs staying here. I will say, Carol, the tweet from Carrier said a thousand jobs. In February, Carrier said 2100 jobs will be moving to Mexico, at two different Carrier and Carrier-related facilities. So, we don't know exactly which workers are staying here and we don't know any of the details. I want to be really clear about that.

COSTELLO: All right. Christine Romans, many thanks to you. So, of course, the one welcomes this news about Carrier, more than the 1,000 people who will now get to keep their jobs and that could include Robin Maynard, who has worked for Carrier for 24 years. He now joins me from Indianapolis. Hi, Robin.

ROBIN MAYNARD, HAS WORKED FOR CARRIER FOR 24 YEARS: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Have you been assured that you will keep your job?

MAYNARD: Other than hearing the late-breaking news last night, that's all I have heard, that there's 1,000 jobs which are going to be retained here in Indiana for us. So outside of where the seniority falls, I'm assuming that my job will be one of them kept because of the -- my seniority ranking.

COSTELLO: So you still have a little bit of unsettled feeling in your stomach because you're not 100 percent sure.

MAYNARD: Well, with my seniority of 24 years, I was like 150 from the top of the seniority list, so I'm banking my job kept. I'm just not sure where they're going to draw the line at as far as other people in the factory, how far back they'll go and what their plans are -- go ahead.

COSTELLO: So does it much matter to you how this was accomplished, just that it was accomplished by the president-elect and Governor Pence?

MAYNARD: I'm glad it got done and became a quick deal. As far as how it got done, I'm not totally sure. I'm kind of like you guys, would like to know what was actually drawn up in the process and where they're heading with like our pay, you know, if that got cut or whatever. So, hopefully come tomorrow afternoon when President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence come into town and speak with us, they will maybe draw up the lines of what's going to come out in -- the process.

COSTELLO: So that's one of your worries, that this deal may involve maybe a pay cut or cut in benefits for you and your fellow workers?

MAYNARD: It is a worry. I mean, I hope that they didn't cut it big- time, you know. Like I'm on the scale of the $20 an hour range and you know, if they cut it down to $12, $13, $14, $15 -- yes, that would be a concern. But from some of the things I'm hearing on the news and stuff with the government contracts and stuff, I'm just wondering if that was the big holding procedure for Donald Trump against the company and maybe we didn't get a cut in pay, you know. I'm hoping maybe everything stays as is and that's what he used as leverage.

COSTELLO: Are you surprised that the president-elect picked up the phone in the middle of naming his transition team to reach out to Carrier to try to save some jobs for Indiana?

MAYNARD: Not so much surprised. I'm just kind of surprised that he's done it before he got into office, you know, taking his Thanksgiving holiday, times that we spend with our family and friends, to be thankful for. And he's working on jobs to keep the jobs here for us.

And so I'm thankful that he went out of his way on Thanksgiving to work for us and then you know, they didn't waste any time in doing that. They got right into the office on Monday and started working with Carrier on the deal.

I assume that the deal might not have broken -- and been finalized for two, three weeks out. And you know, a couple days into it, they have already come to an agreement

[10:10:16] to keep -- COSTELLO: I know. We will find out more -- and just a final question for you, Robin, because a lot of people are wondering because Donald Trump is naming a lot of billionaires and Wall Street guys to his cabinet and to his staff. And some people worry that the little guy will again be overlooked because there are so many billionaires working for Trump. Do you have that concern?

MAYNARD: Not really. Because I feel like right now, he's actually looking out for the blue collar workers and wants to retain those jobs here in America and not send them either you know, to China or to Mexico or you know, somewhere like that. So I feel like he's looking out for the -- us little guys down here and wants to protect the jobs and keep them here in America and not outsource them to other countries.

COSTELLO: All right. Robin Maynard, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I do appreciate it.

MAYNARD: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Coming up in the "Newsroom," an economic team with major promises. Donald Trump says he's out of the family business but who will his Secretary of State be? Well, that's still anyone's guess. We will talk about all of that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:23] COSTELLO: A busy day for Donald Trump unveiling his economic team and saying he will leave his business to focus on being president. So let's talk about that and more. Abby Phillip is a national political reporter for the "Washington Post," Jason Johnson is politics editor for "The Root.com," "Sirius XM" contributor and Morgan State University professor, and CNN politics editor Mark Preston joins me as well. Welcome to all of you.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Good morning.

JASON JOHNSON, POLITICS EDITOR "THE ROOT.COM","SIRIUS XM" CONTRIBUTOR AND MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So Mark, Trump ran on this promise to drain the swamp of insiders and elites but a billionaire and former Goldman Sachs partner is his pick to lead Treasury and the Commerce department? Is that draining the swamp?

PRESTON: You know, we shouldn't be surprised by it, Carol. First of all, his Treasury Secretary was his campaign finance chairman, the one who is in charge of raising all of the money from outside sources. He also has a long history on Wall Street and understands the economy and what have you. He does have some baggage, though, that Democrats will surely going to try to exploit. And also, Wilbur Ross is a Democrat. Interestingly enough, he gave to Hillary Clinton or donated to Hillary Clinton and to Barack Obama. You know somebody that some conservatives are actually not that happy that Wilbur Ross has gotten picked.

But again, somebody who understands the world economy and really, these are big jobs for these gentlemen. We saw Steve Mnuchin talk just last hour about what his plans are to move forward and implement Donald Trump's policies. And also, Wilbur Ross is going to be in charge of dealing with China, as well as dealing with all these trade deals that Donald Trump talked about on the campaign trail.

COSTELLO: Well, back to Steve Mnuchin for just a second, Trump's pick for Treasury Secretary. -- Senator Elizabeth Warren came out and called him the Forrest Gump of the financial crisis because he made a lot of money off subprime mortgage -- that whole subprime mortgage debacle. He made a lot of money off of that, right? So Jason should Americans worry about that or can he be a Treasury Secretary for the common man?

JOHNSON: You know, Carol, on the scale of things that are worrisome about this incoming administration, Mnuchin is actually near the bottom. You have a lot of people in Washington, D.C. who benefited from the financial morass of the great recession. And I don't think Trump is radically different in some of the people he's picking from previous administrations.

We should actually be more concerned about the fact that he doesn't seem to be picking anyone with any previous cabinet experience, people who have no previous government experience, people who have not been connected to the regular economy in decades and decades and decades on end. The indicator that he will actually be sensitive to the needs of your average main street American is next to nil. And that is something I think everybody should be concerned about.

COSTELLO: Yes, but wait a minute, Abby. I just interviewed a Carrier worker who says he's quite comfortable with Donald Trump's picks. Donald Trump after all picked up the phone, called the CEO of Carrier and convinced that company to maintain its business in the state of Indiana and not Mexico. He's perfectly comfortable with Donald Trump's billionaire picks.

ABBY PHILLIP, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER "WASHINGTON POST": I think that's a really great point. I mean, so many Americans who voted for Donald Trump are looking at this week and they're seeing exactly what they voted for, which is someone who is going out of the normal sort of channels of government, picking up the phone, calling a CEO, bringing the jobs back that he promised to bring back. And they are much less concerned about the normal debates about who is going to be at the Treasury Department and who's going to be at the Commerce Department.

In fact, Donald Trump ran as a businessman and I think that many of his supporters will not be surprised that he's putting other people from his world into government. And for people in Washington, folks like Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross are going to create fireworks in confirmation hearings, and so on and so forth. But for the most, they do not really go too far outside of the bounds of what Republicans might want from people in the Treasury Department and people at Commerce, and from what Democrats might expect from a Republican administration. --

COSTELLO: Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Abby. Because if you look at Trump's picks, and I will pose this question to you Mark. Mnuchin on his to do list, lowering corporate taxes, making U.S. companies the most competitive in the world, scaling back regulations, so that we can make sure banks are lending. Trump's pick for Health and Human Services Secretary, he wants to revamp Medicare, which is what Paul Ryan wants to do, right? He also wants to abolish Obamacare. So, actually, this just sounds like a big old Christmas Party for the Republican Party, doesn't it?

PRESTON: In many ways, it is. I mean, what we have now is Republicans in control of Washington, at least for the next two years, perhaps the next four years, and a lot of what Donald Trump wants to do is what Republicans have been trying to do. But they've been unsuccessful. Now, having said that, the Republicans at the end, very likely will only have 52 votes in the

[10:20:16] Senate. Pretty good number of votes that will get through all the nominations but there's still going to be very big legislative fights. And let us not or at least take stock in the fact that if Donald Trump doesn't do what he said he was going to do about trying to bring jobs back here, the American people are going to come back at him. This is what elections are all about. So, Donald Trump has a couple years to try to get something done. If he doesn't get something done, the bottom line is that who will end up having to pay the price.

COSTELLO: OK. So let's talk about Donald Trump possibly cutting all business ties with his many, many companies throughout the world, Jason. Do you think that he will totally divest ownership of those companies or will he simply turn over control of those companies to his children?

JOHNSON: Yes. I don't think it's possible, Carol. I mean, you know, whatever kind of legal separation that Donald Trump may actually ask for is not going to change the fact that because he's President of the United States, because he has a very well-known brand around the world, it's still going to have an effect on how much people want to engage in his businesses.

Now, whether or not he's going to make a personal phone call, if Jared Kushner makes a phone call, if Ivanka Trump makes a phone call, if anyone in his family or inner circle makes a phone call it's going to actually improve his businesses. I don't think that that is inherently a problem. Just because you are rich doesn't mean you can't be President of the United States. But it is a concern because since he never gave over his tax returns, the American people still don't know how many tentacles he has and what kind of businesses everywhere.

So, we can't even know the depths of conflict of interest. Being rich isn't the problem. The connections, they might be regardless of what he does going forward.

COSTELLO: So, Abby, do you have any confidence that Mr. Trump will actually offer proof that he's totally divested of any interest in his companies throughout the world?

PHILLIP: -- It's very unclear what Donald Trump is going to present. I mean, he's talking about a press conference in which he's basically going to codify the handing over of his businesses to his children, which is something we already knew he wanted to do. And it is still insufficient because it doesn't actually address the real conflicts, which is that all signs point to Jared Kushner being a key adviser to the president-elect and his daughter, Ivanka being also, a close adviser to her father.

That's not sufficient to deal with some of these conflicts. We still have a case where foreign leaders all over the world are looking at Trump hotels and Trump properties. And their trying to decide, hey, I wonder what we can do to make this relationship go more smoothly. Donald Trump needs to both do something materially to address those concerns. And also, to demonstrate to the American people that he understands that those concerns about the ethics of that situation are real and they need to be rectified in some way, or shape or form.

COSTELLO: And also, like for example, I always like to use this example because it's simple, Mark. So, he has a loan from a Chinese bank. It's like a $900 million loan or something like that. So, let's say he divests himself of all business ownership, couldn't China still use that as a sledge hammer, right, because wouldn't you hear about it anyway?

PRESTON: Yes, no doubt. -- I would even make it an even simpler example, Carol, is that Donald Trump could be sitting around the dinner table with his kids saying, hey, how are the businesses going and then offering advice about what to do. And to your point, you talk about China, using it as a sledge hammer, what about a world leader deciding to put a Trump Hotel in you know, downtown city wherever they are, or anything along those lines.

It's very hard. I don't know if there is a way out of it, to be quite honest with you. And there are no laws on the book. There is a law, you know, there is something in the Constitution that would prevent the president from getting a gift basically, but the bottom line is that's very, very vague. This is very, very difficult and you know it's obviously something we're going to be watching. But again, I go back to what I said about the American people. The American people in the end are going to make the decision about whether Donald Trump makes himself, makes the right decisions or not.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to end it there. Abby Phillip, Jason Johnson, Mark Preston, thanks to all of you.

Coming up next in the "Newsroom," -- we are live in Charlotte, North Carolina, where officials will soon announce if charges will be filed in the police shooting death of Keith Lamont Hill -- that's South Carolina. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:52] COSTELLO: Soon the district attorney in Charlotte, North Carolina will announce whether or not he will seek charges against the police officer who shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott. Scott was killed back in September after police say he stepped out of his vehicle with a gun. His death sparking two nights of violent riots in the Charlotte area, CNN's Brian Todd is there now. He joins us now with more. Good morning.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. A very highly anticipated announcement coming in just a few minutes from Mecklenburg County D.A., Andrew Murray, will he file charges against the officer who shot Keith Lamont Scott back on September 20th, that officer's name, Brentley Vinson. Some other information we are anticipating maybe getting answers to in the next few minutes.

You know, police say that Officer Vinson fired because he was under a threat from Keith Scott. The family, of course, of Keith Scott denies that. We want to find out exactly what the threat was that Officer Vinson felt at that moment and did Keith Scott, indeed have a gun as police have said. Keith Scott's family has said he did not have a gun. So some key questions hopefully will be answered in the next few minutes when Andrew Murray speaks here. This was -- this is the culmination of a more than two-month investigation into the shooting, requested by Keith Scott's family. We're told that the D.A., Andrew Murray just met with Keith Scott's family in the last hour. That he may be on his way over here right now. Carol?