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At Least 24 Dead In California Building Fire; Top Aide: Trump Decides What Behavior Is "Presidential"; Trump Considering Jon Huntsman For Secy of State; How Conway And Bannon Got Trump To Stay On Message; Will Trump Use Twitter In The Oval Office?; How Campaigns Responded To Access Hollywood Tape; Trump: Companies Won't Leave U.S. "Without Consequences". Aired 3-4p ET

Aired December 04, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00] JOE JOHNS, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour now, this is "CNN NEWSROOM." I'm Joe Johns in for Fredericka Whitfield. We're going to begin this hour in Oakland, California.

Officials there are expected to give an update later this afternoon on recovery efforts following this weekend's tragic fire, which has been called one of the deadliest in the city's history. Here's what we know right now.

Official say they found 24 people dead so far from the fire, but investigators fear the death toll could go much higher. The fire broke out as an electronic dance party was getting underway in a converted warehouse space.

Some of the victims were transgender and officials are working with the transgender community to identify those victims in a way in which they would want to be identified. So far, the recovery effort has been painstaking. In the past 12 hours, only 20 percent of the building has been searched.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is in Oakland for us now. Stephanie, we did get an update earlier today on the recovery efforts and it just sounds like this is going to be a very difficult process.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is, Joe. When you listen to how they are doing this because there is so much debris that the ceiling collapsed onto the second floor area here and so they want to make sure that they are not missing anyone who maybe buried under that debris, any of this recovery effort that is happening here. So what they are doing is very slow. And if you take a listen to how they describe it, you can see why this recovery may take several more days. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BATTALION CHIEF MELINDA DRAYTON, OAKLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT: Our goal was to work collaboratively with public works to breach the B side would be the left side of the warehouse building, the fire building, in order to gain access for our firefighters and Alameda County Sheriffs to be able to remove debris systematically from the building to the vacant lot next to the building, literally bucket by bucket in a methodical, thoughtful, mindful and compassionate way. We had firefighters with basically coveralls and buckets and shovels taking bits of debris out into the vacant lot to then be loaded into dump trucks and removed to an off offsite location.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: And they are telling us that the number of lives lost will increase. They're just not ready to give us a number yet. Also, what note and that they said that there were some international students inside of this converted warehouse during this party as well.

And also, they said that they're able to identify some of this people, Joe, because some of them did have I.D. on them. Some of them is by fingerprints or by looking at their dental records. And for others of them, they're going to have to do it by DNA, which they say will take weeks. So it's going to be a long process to actually identify the people, some of these people who lost their lives here.

JOHNS: So they do at least have a list of people they suspect are missing and were or could have been in the house, in the building, right?

ELAM: They have a working list that they are going off of. And, you know, trying to work with people, next of kin, people who are friends there or who may have been inside who knew others who were inside as well and that's how they are operating.

But the other thing to keep in mind here, Joe, on just how difficult this is, the sheriff saying that some of the bodies are easy to identify, others are not. And that's a direct quote. That's the way he put it. And if you think about it that way, it's just going to be a lot. It's not as easy as just going and then identifying people that's why they have to move so slowly.

JOHNS: And here in the briefings, have you been able to get any kind of assessment about how long this fire might have been smoldering, because, you know, there are reports to have been incinerated stairs and just a fully engulfed building by the time firefighters arrived.

ELAM: And there is a fire department right around the corner here. This fire seemed to be moving quite quickly, but one of our witnesses who was outside, he said that he saw where the fire started and that it was already moving very fast. But the stairs to get to the second level were basically pallets, they were just wooden and that is why so many people had a hard time getting out of there as well, Joe.

JOHNS: All right, Stephanie Elam, thank you so much. Thanks for staying on top of that and we'll get back to you whenever that briefing comes.

Earlier, I spoke with James McMullen, a former California State Chief Fire Marshal and he gave me some insights, things to think about as you think about this fire. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMES MCMULLEN, FORMER CALIFORNIA STATE CHIEF FIRE MARSHAL: Well, as you search a building that's been burned such as that, you have to move very slowly and very cautiously for several reasons. One is falling debris. One is building collapse. One is the fact that you don't want to disturb evidence that's critical for the fire investigation. You want to ascertain that you don't miss any bodies or any critical matters that are going to be used as evidence.

[15:05:05] And so the key thing as you got to move slowly and you've got to preserve the scene at the same time so that the fire investigators can, in fact, determine the area of origin and subsequently the point of origin and then determine the cause. It's critical to know that before you determine what caused the fire, you have to find out where the fire started.

And so once you do determine generally where the fire started, called the area of origin, you hone that down to the point of origin where the fire precisely started and at that point, then you determine what are the causative factors within that point of origin and, you know, those were process of elimination to determine the cause.

And in addition, they are still searching for bodies. They still have hot spots. And so they have a real task and they are moving cautiously and slowly, which is what they should be doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: Joined now by Josh Howes, whose friend Donna Kellogg was at the warehouse party and is still missing. Josh, when was the last time you saw or heard from Donna?

JOSH HOWES, FRIEND OF DONNA KELLOGG WHO IS STILL MISSING: About a week or 10 days ago. And by the way, Donna is no longer missing. We have confirmed I.D. from her family.

JOHNS: Confirmed I.D. that she was in the building?

HOWES: I just -- I got a message from her step-dad that she's confirmed deceased, so.

JOHNS: I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry to hear about that.

HOWES: Yes, of course.

JOHNS: A horrible situation.

HOWES: Yeah. I understood.

JOHNS: When she was headed there, did you know that she was headed there? Did she give any insights or did she give ...

HOWES: No, no, no, no. That she was on her way to the show?

JOHNS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. HOWES: No, no, no. We were no longer living together, so I had just talked to her on the phone about a week previously and I've seen her maybe a week previously to that. She hadn't been -- she loved house shows, but she was hitting the school books extremely hard because it was the end of her term. So I think she and her roommate decided that they would probably go and blow off a little steam and go to a cool little art show.

JOHNS: I see. Isn't a very popular place? Was it a very popular place for people in the area or --

HOWES: No, no, no. No, no. It's not popular. It's not popular. It's not a rave. It's what you would call strictly D.O., underground open (ph) art space. So unless you were on a first name basis with anybody who lived there or from anybody who knew anybody who lived there, you know, it's not a rave. It's a small house party, you know, little artistic albeit illegal and underground art venue. So Oakland used to be famous for things like this.

JOHNS: All right. And so you're a resident in this area, and I understand that you have some concerns in the past about these types of warehouses. What goes through your mind now?

HOWES: Oh, sure. Well, a lot of the artists' live works have been pushed out. But then you can see that, you know, the way front of artists have been put -- were coming down further due ease away from West Oakland to Emeryville area because that's nothing but high-rises and condos now, but, yeah. I've seen countless fire truck (ph), awesome art shows. And sometimes we would have to sit and look at each other and be like, are we actually ready to do this, or should we call this off, you know.

In order to do a show, an art show in Oakland, you have to break to the municipal rules and you have to create your own set of rules. But if you don't abide by your own rules, things like this happen because I don't -- my heart goes out to them, but I don't see that there's any rules being abided by there.

JOHNS: For sure. Josh Howes, just a tragic sad story and we're so sorry to hear that you all found out that she's actually been confirmed as one of the people who was inside. We will be keeping up with this and just thanks for coming in and talking about a little bit on CNN. We really appreciate it.

HOWES: Sure.

JOHNS: So, if you want to help people affected by this fire, go to our website, cnn.com/impact and check it out. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:13:04] JOHNS: The news on politics now. Can you believe it? We've got seven weeks until Donald Trump takes office and the search for his Secretary of State is broadening. Trump top aides telling CNN, they're going to interview more candidates this week. This comes on the hills of Trump's controversial phone call with the president of Taiwan. And Vice President-elect Mike Pence is revealing some new details about how that call was arranged.

Meanwhile, the president-elect is announcing more proposals which he hopes will save American jobs doubling down on his threat against companies that move operations abroad. In the series of tweets, Trump writes, "Any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the U.S. without retribution or consequence is wrong."

And as Trump continues to tweet announcements like that and defensive criticisms like this, will Trump continue to use his Twitter account after he's sworn in as president? His top aide tells Jake Tapper, its Trump who defines what behavior is presidential. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Is that really presidential behavior?

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: He is the president-elect, so that's presidential behavior, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: So we're going to play more of that in a moment, but first, let's go to CNN's Ryan Nobles. He's got more on that phone call with the president of Taiwan. Ryan, what is Mike Pence saying?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, Vice President- elect Mike Pence really believes that the media is making too much out of this phone call between President-elect Trump and the president of Taiwan.

He said it's a standard practice and this is what foreign leaders do. They come and they call an incoming president to introduce themselves and congratulate them on a big win. But there are questions being raise about, could this be an example of the type of president that Donald Trump will be when it comes to foreign policy? And listen to how the vice president-elect answered that question this morning on NBC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:15:06] MIKE PENCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from the democratically-elected president of Taiwan and it becomes something of a thing in the media. I think most Americans and frankly most leaders around the world know this for what it was, and it's all parts and parcel. I think you're going to see in a president Trump a willingness to engage the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: So the vice president-elect there saying that the president- elect when he becomes president will be active on the world stage, get involved with many of the big issues around the world. Of course, the Chinese government concerned about this phone call. They did lodge a formal complaint with the White House, but in terms of whether or not this a policy, the One-China Policy is going to shift under Trump administration. The vice president-elect said we'll wait to talk about policy after January 20th, which, of course, Joe, is when President Trump will be inaugurated.

JOHNS: So we've got that tantalizing question, the Trump team is still searching for one of its most important cabinet positions, Secretary of State. And there's a new name being floated, somebody who was an ambassador to China.

NOBLES: Yeah, that's right, Joe. Jon Huntsman, the former Governor of Utah, a one-time candidate for president is someone that Donald Trump is now considering for Secretary of State. His top aides still say it's just one of many potential new candidates that will be in the mix.

At one time, Joe, we thought that this was down to four candidates and the announcement could come soon. It now looks like it could take maybe even another two weeks before we know who the next secretary of state will be.

JOHNS: There we go. They are taking their time with that one. Thank you so much, Ryan Nobles.

As the president-elect's cabinet continues to take shape, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's campaign managers sat down together for the first time since the divisive election. Jake Tapper's in exclusive conversation with Kellyanne Conway and Robby Mook, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHNS: News conference getting started in Oakland now after that terrible fire. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFICER JOHNNA WATSON, OAKLAND POLICE SPOKESWOMAN: Captain Melanie Dissinberger is here with us. She would like to share to our communities some valuable information and we also have an update from Sergeant Kelly. We will answer a few questions. We won't go into a lot because we are going to have a 2:00 media availability and press conference. So, we will be brief. We just want to update you with this information.

CAPTIAN MELANIE DISSINBERGER, OAKLAND: Good afternoon. Proactively to eliminate future delays, the Alameda County Sheriff's office and Coroner's Bureau ask -- who like to ask the loves ones of the missing to preserve source of the DNA and that could be hair brushes, combs or toothbrushes. We ask that those items be placed in a secure, clean paper sack. Do not send them to the Coroner's Bureau. We will ask for them as we need them. As of 11:30 this afternoon or this morning, the count of victims has reached 30. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So do you want to talk about with ...

WATSON: Hold on one second, please. Sergeant, come on in and talk about ...

SGT. RAY KELLY, ALAMEDA COUNTRY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: So as you can hear behind us, there's a lot of work going on. Like the captain said, we have confirmed the count of the deceased at 30. That is an astronomical number. We're still not done. As you can hear behind me, they are working and pulling this building apart and dissecting it.

[15:20:05] And so we're really starting to get deeper into the building. As we do that, we continue to find more victims. So we will confirm at this time that we have 30 victims. Once again, the identification process takes place.

As Captain Dissinberger said, we ask those families if they could please preserve any evidence for DNA purposes so that in the future, should we need those pieces of evidence to cross-reference for DNA samples that we have them readily available. It's a terrible thing to have to say that and to have to come out here and do that, but that's what we're left to deal with here.

WATSON: I understand you'll have many questions. We'll all be back at 2:00. We'll have a press conference at 2:00. We will also, one more time, ask if anyone is not on our press list, please provide your information to myself. We'll add you to our press list.

This is important information. We want to get out to our communities. We want to get out to media channels, because not all families are from the bay area or even from the state. Some are from outside the country and we want to make sure that information reaches them. Thank you very much for your patience. We'll see you at 2:00.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: Officials out in Oakland there giving a brief wrap-up and headline coming out now, at least 30 dead in that horrific Oakland, California building fire over this weekend. And the other headline, also sort of a grizzly reminder of just how tough this is, asking friends and loved ones to preserve the DNA. For example, toothbrushes, of people who are believed to be victims so that they can continue in this effort of identifying who was inside the warehouse and who was outside. A very sad story still developing in Oakland, California this evening. We're going to take a break and come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:20] JOHNS: Breaking news here on CNN, authorities in Oakland now confirming that the death toll now stands at 30 in that horrific weekend fire in Oakland, California.

We're going to go out now to CNN's Stephanie Elam. And they let out that news conference that we saw just a moment ago, I guess you would call it a briefing, by making an appeal, Stephanie, to family members and others to preserve the DNA of people who are believed to have been in that fire, really just sort of points to the fact that authorities now don't have much to work with to try to recover bodies. It's very sad.

ELAM: And think about it this way, Joe, they had already said that the Alameda County Sheriff saying, listen, some of the bodies are easily identifiable, others are not. And now with this new appeal, they are asking family members of people who may have bene inside, who may have lost their lives here, to please preserve some of their DNA in a clean paper bag.

And if they're doing this, this means it's not easy to identify who these people are. So they're going to go for hair brushes, toothbrushes, anything where they could get a DNA sample to try to match it to the bodies that have been found inside here. They did tell us that this number was going to go up.

And keep in mind, on top of this, Joe, that they've only gone through 20 percent of this warehouse where the fire ran through the entirety of this unit. So if you think about it that way, the number could continue to go up, even though we are at an astronomically high number of 30 people within this one warehouse.

JOHNS: You know, I was listening to one of the briefings just yesterday and I think they were suggesting that they might be done with the site by today. Now, though, it appears that this is going to take much longer than some people predicted.

ELAM: It definitely sounds that way to me, especially when the fact that they said they've had to slow down their process of getting through here. Keep in mind, the roof fell, it collapsed on top of the second floor and that's where a lot of the victims have been found.

And so they're going through there, looking to these people, but they have to move this debris out of the way. So they're doing it really slowly, shovel by shovel, bucket by bucket working on about a dozen people in there at a time to go through and painstakingly make sure that they are respecting the people who lost their lives there, but also getting all the information they can while also recovering the remains of the people who did die there.

JOHNS: We're expecting another briefing coming up pretty soon. Have they been releasing the names of the people they've been able to confirm inside? We talked to one man whose loved one or family member actually, it turns out, was inside and they told the family, but have they released the name publicly?

ELAM: No. What they've been doing is making sure they let the next of kin know first. That's their priority. They just said that actually that that's their priority making sure they know. Once the family members know, then they're confirming to other people and that's how sometimes we confirm it. But we have not heard officially from the officials out here yet.

However, they did say that we may learn some of those names beginning today. Others, though, they are saying for the people that it's hard to identify, if they're going to have to go through with this DNA testing and matching DNA samples, that's going to take weeks before they are able to identify who these people were. And some of them, we do know that there were some international students as well. And another concern are the transgender people that were in there that loss their lives. They want to make sure that they are sensitive about that and that they're identifying these people in the way that they would have wanted to be identified had they still been living, Joe.

JOHNS: This DNA issue really adding another layer of complexity to this investigation. And we have still haven't even gotten to the cause. Thank you so much for that, Stephanie Elam. We'll be checking back with you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:32: 39] JOHNS: Looking back on the campaign, Donald Trump's campaign was dogged by claims of racism and xenophobia. Thanks in large part to inflammatory statements he made when he entered the race. But thanks to a pair of new advisers, Trump fell relatively in line and on message.

So how did Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon rein him in? Something two other campaign managers before them were not able to do. CNN's Jake Tapper sat down with campaign manager from both sides to dissect what went right and wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: It seemed as though from the outside you and Steve Bannon were able to convinced Donald Trump to be more disciplined in a way that previous campaign managers had not convinced him to do, had not succeeded in getting through to him.

Please stay on message, please stick with the teleprompter, not that he only stuck with this teleprompter, but the kind of -- one might called himself-inflicted wounds, you call them -- your campaign calls them that with the Clinton campaign.

But some of the gaffes, some of the more controversial statements he made, most of them took place just proportionally before you and Steve Bannon took over. And I'm wondering, what did you and Steve Bannon say to him to convince him? We will take over, but you really need to listen to us in terms of staying more on message.

CONWAY: When we came on board, there were couple of things. I said, I don't really devote private conversations, but I feel confident in telling you that I said to Mr. Trump, "You know, you're running against one of the most joyless presidential candidates in history it seemed to me. So why don't we not be that way as a campaign? Why don't we find a way to be the happy warrior?"

Again, he loved doing the rally. He loved connecting with people that ways. So you have to know who your candidate is and there is no substitute for quality compelling candidate, and work with his or her gifts. And I think in the case of Donald Trump, he gets this oxygen from being out there with the people, being with the voters. ROBBY MOOK, CLINTON CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Look, one thing I take issue with -- I think what did happen and we discussed this early on, at the very end of the race, there were probably more undecided than in a lot of races before. And we do think because the director of the FBI sent two letters in -- what was an unprecedented intervention in the election, a total breach of protocol. Yes, I think a lot of those undecided broke against us, but I don't think that was an inherent problem.

[15:35:03] And in fact I would argue, without those letters, we would have won those and that's why we would have won the election.

Here the other thing -- with Kellyanne said it was a joyless campaign, I can test that. You know, we had a lot of fun on this campaign.

CONWAY: You're joyful.

MOOK: I'm a joyful guy. Hillary is really joyful. We had a lot of fun on the campaign.

TAPPER: Did you struggle? Everybody who knows Hillary Clinton says that the person you see on stage is not the person that you see behind the scenes. So behind the scenes she's much warmer person, a much more amusing person. Did you struggle to get that person from behind the scenes out to the crowd?

MOOK: Look, there were a lot of headwinds in this race. You know, we were trying to make history. She's the first woman to be the nominee of a major party, but also the reactions ...

TAPPER: Why is that -- why is her being a woman of headwind?

MOOK: Well, I think, you know, having works for a few women candidates now I think that they sometimes face certain scrutiny that male candidates don't. You know, sometimes people would talked about the way Hillary spoke during a speech. I didn't hear them remark about male candidates that way.

But, look, I think the bigger issue is that the Russian intelligence, our intelligence agencies, I'll confirmed that Russian intelligence stole e-mails from our campaign share from the DNC and selectively leaked them out over months starting at our Democratic convention.

Explicitly that the protest of intervening in the election hurting Hillary Clinton and helping Donald Trump, we faced these headwinds the whole way through. That was tough. And I think it absolutely affected the outcome.

TAPPER: Kellyanne, after you took over Donald Trump recast or recalibrated two of his more controversial proposals, the ban on most -- the total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering this country until we figure out what the hell is going on, I think is the exact quote, and the deportation force to round out the 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants and remove them from the country. Those changed. He never explicitly repudiated them, but they change in the way that he talked about them the way that Governor Pence talked about them, whether you talked about them, was that part of the reset for the general election?

CONWAY: I guess part of explaining what you meant by what said in putting in policy prescription take (ph) of a language and that's what did. So for example, the same day, Jake, that Mr. Trump flew down to Mexico to meet with the Mexican president, he just accepts the invitation, secretary Clinton did not.

He went to the Arizona and gave, again, a 10-point plan on how to reform our immigration system. People may say they don't like it, but at least they can read it, they can examine it. He has one, it's there. He delivered it over -- about 45 to 60 minutes. And then, of course, I'm sure it's on the website somewhere. So in that regard, he explained how he would approach the immigration system if he were to be elected.

TAPPER: President-elect Trump without question offended many minority groups and women who are a majority during this election, whether it is mocking a disabled reporter or seeming to question whether judge carry out to do his job because of his heritage. Did he ever in private express any regret about that, because we heard from him on election night, a desire to bring the country together?

CONWAY: Yes.

TAPPER: But that job will be tougher because of some of the things he said mostly before you came on board.

CONWAY: So I won't divulge private conversations, but I will tell you that shortly after I came on board, Mr. Trump was in North Carolina and gave a speech. And some people in the media refer to it as the regret speech, because towards the middle or the end of it, he talks about -- he expressed regret, that was the word used.

He expressed regret for having offended anyone. He said, "Particularly with my words." And that's a leader. You know, showing humility and inclusiveness and regret to use his word. But I want to say this to you also, if you're talking about just the numbers alone, Donald Trump did better among Hispanics and African-Americans than did Mitt Romney, John McCain, for example, the last two Republican presidential nominees, Jake.

And he did much better among women than almost everybody, certainly everybody publicly predicted. And you've got the first female presidential candidate, she's on the cost of being the first female president. Where are all these women? Where are the marches of women saying we must have the first female? I didn't see them on Fifth Avenue. I didn't see them in Washington, D.C.

MOOK: They were volunteering for the campaign.

CONWAY: Well, they didn't come out and vote for her, though.

TAPPER: Let's go to Declan Harvey (ph) from Harvard who has a question for Kellyanne.

DECLAN HARVEY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: And my question has to do with President-elect Trump's communication strategy, specifically if he's going to continue using his Twitter account. I know its breeds a lot authenticity, but he's also been known to tweet out falsehoods and other liabilities. So is that something that he plans to do after inaugurated?

[15:40:03] CONWAY: So that's going to be up to him, the Secret Service and others who have to help decide those issues. I will tell you that the president-elect looks at his social media accounts, a combined 25 million or probably more at this point, users on Twitter and Facebook as a very good platform to which to convey his messages.

I can tell you firsthand that there are posts that he makes that otherwise would not be heard or seen by these 25 million people, but for him posting it But, you know, he's a unique person who's been following his instincts and his judgment from the beginning.

TAPPER: I think one of the points that I think we'd all be interested in hearing is in the last week he tweeted that there were millions of fraudulent votes. There's no evidence that there were millions of fraudulent votes. I don't doubt that there were some fraudulent votes, there are always are. But the idea that the only reason Hillary Clinton won the popular vote is because of millions of fraudulent votes is not true.

And then when CNN reported on that, he started re-tweeting people criticizing Jeff Zeleny, our reporter, including a 16-year-old boy. And I think the question arises in a room full of people who want President-elect Trump to succeed, who want him to realize a vision where there are more jobs coming into this country where you do achieve so much of what you want to achieve. Is that really presidential behavior?

CONWAY: Well, he's the president-elect so that's presidential behavioral, yes. And I think what you're going ...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: So that's means that Bill Clinton did in the oval office that you criticized that those were presidential?

CONWAY: Are you actually comparing what Bill Clinton did in the Oval Office?

TAPPER: You're saying that if the president does it, it's presidential. I'm saying ...

CONWAY: Shall we review for those who weren't born then what President Clinton did in the Oval Office?

TAPPER: I'm just saying just because the president does something doesn't make it presidential.

CONWAY: Yes. I wasn't saying otherwise. But the fact is this man is now president of United States and he's tackling very big issues, the ones that he campaign on and the ones that you execute through his one -- first 100 day plan. I know him very well. I'm a trusted adviser. He is committed to making good on the promises and on the -- on frankly the plans. And he's going to be focused on that.

We need to move on and support the president and the issues that he's going to make. I didn't like -- I don't like a lot of things that people in leadership do, but they are there and that should be respected. I mean, I was raised to respect the Office of the President and its current occupant no matter who he or she is.

MOOK: Jake, I just hope moving forward from this campaign. You know, Kellyanne is right. The campaign is over. It's time to move on. I just hope the truth doesn't get lost or sacrificed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: This is fascinating stuff. Next hour, we'll have more, including how the campaigns react when they hear about the bombshell. Many thought would sink Donald Trump's campaign that infamous "Access Hollywood" tape.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:46:34] JOHNS: Welcome back. President-elect Donald Trump is announcing more proposals to save American jobs or at least he hopes it well, doubling down on this threat against companies that move operations abroad.

In a series of tweets today, he writes, "Any business that leaves our country for another country fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks he will sell its product back into the U.S. without retribution or consequence is wrong."

OK, so let's talk about this with our political commentators, Alice Stewart, a Republican Strategist and Maria Cardona, a Democratic Strategist. Good to see you both of you on this Sunday.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hey, Joe.

JOHNS: OK. Alice, let's start with you. What's your reaction to this threat from Donald Trump against U.S. businesses if you call it out?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it's not a threat whatsoever. And look, the reason pushing this out there is because he possibly feels though the media doesn't accurately portray his plans. Look, he made it quite clear throughout the campaign what his economic plan was. It's for a pro-growth tax plan. It was for unleashing American energy. It was renegotiating trade deals.

But with regard to the Carrier deal, he made it quite clear. Look, whether you -- we can provide you incentives to stay or we can provide you tariffs if you leave. And the fact this is with the tremendous success story with regard to his economic plan, there are 1,100 people whose jobs are saved because he provided an incentive for the company to stay. And other companies that want to leave and move their businesses overseas, yes, they will face consequences. And if it saves American jobs, then so be it.

JOHNS: So, Maria, there's both the carrot and a stick here, right? You've got the Carrier deal, that's the example of a carrot. That's inducement to stay, financial inducements. And then you got the stick, which is a threat that we're going to hit you hard with tariffs and taxes if you leave. Which do you think is more effective and how do you think generally the business community is going to react?

CARDONA: Well, I think there's one more thing that we haven't really talked about here, and that's reality. You know, this Carrier deal was fantastic marketing. And look, it's wonderful for the jobs of those folks who are now going to be able to stay here. But the reality is, is that Donald Trump with all of his threats has to deal with something called the U.S. Congress who actually are the ones who pass the laws governing trades and tariffs.

So, while all of the stuff that Donald Trump said during the campaign and is now saying on tweets sounds good, he's not going to be able to pull it off by himself. He's not the dictator as much as he would like to be and as much as he is now acting like one. He has to deal with the U.S. Congress on this and there are trade deals and laws that actually govern everything that he's talking about.

And secondly, there's a lot of hypocrisy here, because, you know, what he's actually done is his given away $7 million of our hard-earned taxpayer money to a company because of their threat to take jobs overseas. What is -- what kind of president does that set?

And thirdly, I would say, has he brought over his company that is now -- that apparently is now manufacturing his ties, his suits, a lot of his products overseas? Why did then he start by showing the American people that he's serious about this by his own example?

[15:50:02] JOHNS: Alice, OK, we also have to move on and sort of talk about Jon Huntsman because his name is in the news. It's at least been floated as a possibility for Secretary of State. He's got a lot of experienced dealing with China having served as the ambassador.

In your view, do you think he would make a good Secretary of State and would he appeal to those conservatives who are Donald Trump's base, especially given the fact that Huntsman is widely seen as more moderate?

STEWART: Well, I think he was -- certainly, he brings a lot of qualities to the table that we're not seeing in lot of other candidates for Secretary of State, which is good. His foreign experienced and his -- certainly his willingness and ability to negotiate with foreign leaders that he's shown in the past is good.

The great thing is that Donald Trump is floating out many very qualified and capable candidates for that position, which is a very important role in the administration. Obviously, we also have -- certainly we have Mitt Romney and we have others that are out there, Rudy Giuliani and Petraeus.

But the good thing is there are a lot of good qualified candidates, Huntsman among them and it's good to see that Donald Trump is not just looking at those who have a great history and background and experienced in the military, but also those who are a little more well-rounded with regard to their political background and also their foreign experienced with regard to dealing with foreign leaders in other countries.

JOHNS: Maria, any thoughts on Huntsman?

CARDONA: Actually, I'm a huge fan of Jon Huntsman. I hope that it doesn't sink his chances of getting the job. Clearly, he served under President Obama and he served very well. I think right now somebody who knows and is an expert on China is something that this incoming administration and, especially Donald Trump desperately needs.

We saw how he already put his foot in mouth when it comes to policy and relationship with the China when he took the call from the president of Taiwan. You know, foreign policy and diplomacy are very complicated things, as much as Donald Trump likes to explain them away in 140 characters, it goes much deeper and it is much more complicated and can have long running consequences when you try to do something or explain something away in 140 characters. And so, hopefully, somebody like Jon Huntsman can sit him down and explain to him exactly what is at stake.

JOHNS: Well, sure, it looks like Donald Trump is taking this very seriously. We are told it could be two weeks before they get final names. The names that are already out there are names we know. Mitt Romney, obviously ran for president before Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, Bob Corker, the senator from Tennessee, and Petraeus, of course, General Petraeus. Everybody knows his name very well, former CIA Director. Of those people, which do we think here on this little panel is the best for the job so far? And Alice, let's start with you.

STEWART: Well, look, I think the fact that he's met twice with Mitt Romney goes to show he is pretty high on the list. I think Giuliani has a good shot. He's been with him from the very beginning and a very loyal person on the administration.

I think Petraeus with his experienced and background in foreign policy is strong, as well. There is no doubt, there is going to be many, many questions with regard to his careless disregard for classified information, allowing his former girlfriend, biographer to have access to the information.

And the good thing is today he was out there on the news. He apologized for it. He reiterated the fact that he understands it was a mistake. He has paid severely for his mistakes there. And hopes the people look it as nearly four decades in the military as experienced and qualifications to take the job.

So, right now, if you're asking me, I think based on who's getting a little bit more face time with Trump, I would say it would be -- certainly, the top three would be Giuliani, Romney and Petraeus.

JOHNS: Maria?

CARDONA: I agree with Romney. I do think he is seriously under consideration, though, I read this morning that they're now moving away from that. I think that he would be a good pick. He gives a lot of common sense, Republicans and a lot of moderates, you know, sort of a little bit of comfort in terms of, you know, somebody that is being -- at least being considered that actually does have knowledge in terms of foreign policy.

I think that Petraeus would be very difficult because there would be a lot of hypocrisy their in picking somebody who wasn't just accused of -- and there wasn't a lot of innuendo thrown, just innuendo thrown at him because of his mishandling of classified information that somebody who actually did it and paid for it. And, you know, given everything that they accused Hillary Clinton of, I think it would be tough and he would have a tough time getting through a confirmation hearing.

[15:55:09] So I think Rudy Giuliani would have a tough time in confirmation hearings, too, given his lobbyist ties with a lot of unsavory governments and business around the world that would, I think be very difficult for him to explain the way. So I think right now, Mitt Romney, I hope Jon Huntsman is a serious pick as well. I think those two would do Trump a world of good in this very important slot.

JOHNS: Alice, just real fast, do you think that issue of handling classified information is a real problem for Petraeus?

STEWART: I do. I mean, I don't see how it cannot given the high profile and nature of this position and the kind of information that he'll be dealing with. I don't see how it cannot with regard to, you know, the constant attacks on Hillary Clinton for that.

I think -- I'd like to think those of you taken separately in this confirmation process, because he has his own issues with that. But I do think it will be an issue but also, you cannot, cannot overlook. It's nearly 4 decades of military experienced that's something that puts him in a good spot for that position.

JOHNS: Alice Stewart and Maria Cardona, two of my favorite people in the business. Good to see you all.

CARDONA: Back at you Joe.

STEWART: Thanks Joe.

JOHNS: All right, thanks. Next hour of "NEWSROOM" starts after quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:00:04] JOHNS: Hello. Thanks for joining me. I'm Joe Johns in for Fredricka Whitfield. We'd begin this hour with breaking news. The death toll now stands at 30 in the Oakland warehouse fire.