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President Obama to Deliver Address on National Security; Trump Making More Deals?; Obamacare Repeal. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 06, 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]

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(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour rolling into 3:00 Eastern time. Thanks for being here. I'm Ana Cabrera, in for Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

Moments ago, president-elect Trump made a huge promise, bringing 50,000 jobs to the U.S. He made this announcement in the lobby of Trump Tower alongside the businessman Trump says who is going to make it all happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Masa of SoftBank from Japan. And he's just agreed to invest $50 billion in the United States and 50,000 jobs. And he's one of the great men of industry, so I just want to thank you very much.

MASAYOSHI SON, CEO, SOFTBANK: Thank you. Thank you. I just came to celebrate his new job. And we were talking about it.

And then I said I would like to celebrate his presidential job and commit, because he will do a lot of deregulation. I said, this is great. United States, U.S., will become great again.

QUESTION: What exactly are you committing to, sir?

SON: Invest in new companies, start-up companies in the United States.

QUESTION: How many jobs do you believe--

SON: Fifty-thousand new jobs. We will invest $50 billion and 50,000 new jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: All right, let's talk more about this with CNN political director David Chalian and CNN aviation correspondent and host of "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" on CNN international, Richard Quest. He's also CNN Money's editor at large.

Gentlemen, thanks for being here.

There's never a dull moment when it comes to Donald Trump. He is the ultimate showman, so he brings this guy out, and he says we're going to bring 50,000 this jobs to the U.S.

David, first your reaction to how this has unfolded?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: We have seen Donald Trump twice today go down to the cameras in Trump Tower, make use of the collective press there in the base building of his building on the base floor and he's made two points.

One, he's trying to show the American people that bloated spending on the Air Force One program, he's going to try to get ahead of that.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: And we will talk more about that in a second.

CHALIAN: And, two, that he's now bringing 50,000 jobs.

If you read Donald Trump's "Art of the Deal" and you look at what he campaigned on, he is now trying to deliver on all these things he was he was telling the American people he was going to make deals on their behalf. Now he's coming down out of that elevator, as he said, with this great man of industry that he called, the head of SoftBank, and said, I'm delivering on this.

Now, he did it with Carrier. He's going to keep doing this to create this momentum ahead of him taking office that he's already on the job.

CABRERA: Your reaction, Richard, 50,000 new jobs? RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anybody can say, frankly, I'm going to invest $50 billion and create 50,000 new jobs. Let's wait and see, first of all, where that money is going to come from, where it is going to be invested, what sectors it is going to be invested in, and where those new jobs are going to be created.

Let's remember that we're talking about Son, who of course owns Sprint or a large stake in Sprint and has had controversial investments in the past.

I am not being a naysayer. I'm not being a doomsayer. I'm not saying it's all dreadful. What I am saying is that governing is not necessarily deal-making. Governing is much -- I will give you a good example of this. Let's take the Carrier, just Carrier.

Effectively, you're picking winners and losers. Yes, I'm very pleased for the thousand people whose jobs were saved.

CHALIAN: Or 800 or so.

QUEST: Or 800, yes.

But I question what happens on the next Carrier.

CABRERA: Well, when you talk about winners and losers, Carrier a winner, but now maybe Boeing is the loser?

QUEST: There's a reason why historically, with industrial policies, governments don't pick individual winners and losers. They pick sectors, the white heat of technology in Britain, Jimmy Carter with the national energy policy. You pick large swathes of the economy and say -- and Bill Clinton with the Internet.

CABRERA: What's the reasoning?

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: Because those are structurally and systematically important for the U.S. economy.

[15:05:00]

What you don't do is say, that company, yes, that company, no. You did it with the banks. I can already hear viewers screaming, you did it with the banks in 2008. Yes, because the economy was about to collapse.

CABRERA: Right.

CHALIAN: But I would argue, Richard, that I think Donald Trump does see governing and deal-making as the same thing. I know it hasn't been that way, but I think that's exactly how he sees it.

QUEST: So it leaves us in the conundrum of, do we have to see it differently, or actually are there reasons why the conventional wisdom works? I don't have an answer to that. CHALIAN: Right. That's a question mark.

CABRERA: And I want to fold in just one more element to this, because you mentioned Boeing. You talked about winners and losers. Let's play the sound with Donald Trump talking about stopping a new Air Force One, getting rid of Boeing's contract.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The plane is totally out of control. It's going to be over $4 billion, this Air Force One program. And I think it's ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: You looked in distress while you're listening to that, Richard.

QUEST: I am, because there's no contract yet. There's an -- I have got the details here. They put out an order. There's no specific agreement for any planes. The number being talked about is $2.9 billion.

So far, Boeing has only received a contract of $170 million.

CABRERA: And $2.9 billion is what's budgeted by the Air Force for it.

QUEST: Yes. Yes, $170 million has been allocated for exploration and research.

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: So you have got -- I'm not saying it's fake news, but what he has very cleverly done is put this figure of $4 billion, nice round number, and he's put it front and foremost in people's minds, and suddenly everybody sees these planes are $2 billion each, boondoggle, gold-plated lavatories, whatever you want to call it.

And as far as I'm aware, there's no contract yet to build any such plane. So I'm not sure -- and, anyway, Boeing may lose money on these planes, they're so complicated to build.

CABRERA: OK.

Well, unfortunately we have to stop this conversation, but there's much more to be said and a lot more questions to be answered by Donald Trump as the days unfold.

Richard Quest, David Chalian, thanks to both of you.

Turning to Capitol Hill, Democrats getting a little nervous right now and president-elect Trump possibly taking some of their senators for his Cabinet.

Let me turn to senior political reporter, Manu Raju. Manu, we are going to talk about that in just a moment, but now we

have breaking news on Obamacare as well?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right.

In fact, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, announcing just moments ago the first action in the new Congress next year when they reconvene on January 3 will be an effort to repeal Obamacare.

Now, this of course is the top of president-elect Donald Trump's agenda moving forward. They can certainly move forward with a repeal through the budget process. And by doing that, Ana, they can avoid a Senate Democratic filibuster. But replacing the plan will be a lot longer. It could take years to be completed and it will require Democratic support, something that Senate Democrats are warning they would not give if the repeal happens.

So a lot needs -- this fight is just going to intensify as soon as the new Congress convenes in early January, Ana.

CABRERA: There are a lot of conservatives who are cheering that, but there's also a lot of people, millions, who are under Obamacare right now. What happens to them?

RAJU: Well, that is an open question. What the Republicans are talking about doing is creating a transition period of maybe two, three years' time in which the repeal would take effect, giving them time to enact a replacement.

But I can tell you that some are warning, health policy experts are warning that the moment that the repeal takes effect that the whole system could become unraveled and essentially force them to enact a replacement right away. And that would require support from not just within the Republican Party, Democrats cutting a deal, finding a replacement to such a massive system, not an easy task, a very, very difficult undertaking in the new Congress.

CABRERA: Manu Raju, thanks to you.

Let's bring in now, continue our conversation former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

Ari, a lot of Republicans are now against Trump's threat to tax companies that move jobs overseas. While it seems like there's some movement on Obamacare, this is one area where we're seeing kind of people digging in their heels, this rip. Is this the first crack we're seeing in this honeymoon phase of the Donald Trump election?

ARI FLEISCHER, FORMER GEORGE W. BUSH WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I'm not sure that man is ever going to get a honeymoon.

But this is going to be something I think you will see repeated, particularly on trade-related issues. You have to keep in mind, Donald Trump is not an ideological Republican. Donald Trump is in many ways an independent president with a strong populist streak. And you saw that throughout the primaries. Donald Trump didn't run a classic conservative Republican race.

So, when he comes out with a position like a 35 percent tariff, which I think to him is a moving the goalposts negotiating position, you're going to see many Republicans in Congress who are conservative orthodoxy -- from conservative orthodoxy -- say, no, not for us.

[15:10:06]

Get used to issues like this.

CABRERA: Would you support a 35 percent tariff?

FLEISCHER: Well, I would like to let this thing play out. I would like to see Donald Trump see what he can accomplish by moving the goalposts, by negotiating differently with foreign allies, foreign nations, and see where we end up.

I would like to see a lot better trade deals, if possible. I have always been a free trader. But I don't mind bringing some change to the way things are being done.

CABRERA: All right, let's talk about Air Force One.

You say Trump's move to cancel the order is -- quote -- "refreshing." Explain.

FLEISCHER: Well, here's what I think is going on there.

For all the years I was in Washington, which are 21 years, you just get used to a certain way. It's always been done that way, cost overruns always happen, things are more expensive than you think, it takes longer.

And here comes a businessman outsider who just shocks the system by saying we're not doing it that way. Now, what's unclear to me are these exact costs. Boeing is disputing it. NBC News has reported that it is indeed $4 billion, contrary to what Mr. Quest just reported for CNN.

So you have to learn what the exact facts are, but if the NBC report is right, $4 billion for two aircraft is a lot of money.

CABRERA: Do you think the reaction to how Trump is handling things, some of the criticism that we're seeing about him pretending -- not pretending, but making the White House and his job that is upcoming inside the White House similar to how he will handle his businesses, so handling the country's business in the same fashion, and the reaction that is like, oh, that's not the way things are normally done, is he in over his head, do you think that some of that criticism is fair?

Or are we just having and the American people who are criticizing it having a reaction to just a sense of change that feels uncomfortable?

FLEISCHER: I think it's the latter. I think we're so used to perfect politicians who know how to pucker their lips, who know how to say everything the way it's always been said.

And then we decry the results because things don't work. So here you have somebody who basically doesn't care, who's going to come in and break a lot of china, do things entirely different, which will naturally make people say, how can you do that? It's not done this way.

But none us know the results are yet. And ultimately Donald Trump is going to be judged not on his style, but on whether or not the economy comes back strong, whether or not wages rise, whether unemployment is low.

His success or failure is going to be determined by the strength or weakness of the economy and wages. That's where you have to give him a few years to see what the results are. You just know along the way to getting there, it's not going to be what any of us are used to.

CABRERA: Trump's pick for secretary of housing and urban development, Ben Carson, another selection getting a lot pushback due to his lack of experience. What's your take?

FLEISCHER: My initial reaction, as a Washington insider, was, how can you put somebody at HUD who's never been in that field? He's a doctor. What policy knowledge does he have?

But I think on the other hand if he has a really strong deputy who knows how to manage HUD, I like the symbolism, the message that a man like Ben Carson has, who rose out of poverty, was able to find success, who understands the pull and the tug of government dependency, the need for government dependency when you have nowhere else to go, but the trap that government dependency can also create if you make it a lifelong habit.

And I think that's something he is going to bring to an agency whose one of its biggest charges is help people to escape from poverty. It's new thinking, it's different thinking. We will just have to see how it plays out.

CABRERA: All right, Ari Fleischer, thanks for joining us.

FLEISCHER: Thank you.

CABRERA: Very soon, President Obama giving his final speech on national security set to happen near the top of the hour. And he will probably be giving Trump some very public advice, including on the subject of torture. We will have new details about what to expect next.

And for the first time, the manager of that deadly warehouse fire in Oakland speaks out, lashing out over questions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I'm not going to answer these questions on this level.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would rather get on the floor and be trampled by the parents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:18:05]

CABRERA: So, some are asking, foreign diplomats, are they trying to cozy up to president-elect Trump by giving him a little bit of business?

Listen to this. Since the election, a lot of leaders from other countries have booked their trips at Trump's D.C. hotel. Some Americans, on the other hand, including NBA players, aren't so eager to stay.

I want to talk to this about Elise Labott, our CNN global affairs correspondent, and Sid Rosenberg, host of "The Bernie and Sid Show" on WABC and sports contributor on "Imus in the Morning."

Elise, to you first.

Let's talk about foreign dignitaries. Are they trying to curry favor or maybe access to president-elect Trump by staying at the Trump hotel?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, let's be honest. The Trump International Hotel is one of the new hottest hotels in town right now. And why is that? Because there's a lot of interest in the hotel and also there are diplomats and other groups in Washington that, yes, think it's a really cheap and easy way to kind of get some good favor with the president.

Tomorrow, the Bahraini Embassy is holding their national day at Trump International Hotel. Next week, the embassy of Azerbaijan, along with a conference of presidents of American Jewish organizations, is holding a Hanukkah party there.

I spoke to the chairman of the presidents organization, the Jewish American group. And he said, listen, this is a very new hotel offering a lot of amenities. They're going to have a kosher reception for us. And this hotel is providing a new service to diplomats and other groups in Washington that's close to the White House and this was done for purely practical reasons.

But I have spoken to other diplomats that say, listen, this is a relatively cheap and easy way to gain some maybe not access, but, you know, curry some favor with the new president. It would be great to be able to go President Trump and say, oh, I stayed at your hotel. It's really nice.

I'm not necessarily sure it will cause any change in international policy, but certainly a lot of ethics groups are worried about it. [15:20:03]

CABRERA: As you're describing the hotel, I'm thinking who wouldn't want to stay there? But the conflict of interest question continues to hang over president-elect Trump with his business and the ties in the White House and how is he going to sever those ties?

We're more on December 15, obviously.

But, Sid, I want to bring you into this conversation, because on the flip side, LeBron James, the Cavs, they said they're making a point not to stay at Trump properties. What do you think of this form of protest?

SID ROSENBERG, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I think it's lousy.

Look, I voted for Hillary Clinton, too. I'm not happy with the results. But the fact is, I have come to the rationalization, I have two kids, Trump is the president, I have got to move on.

LeBron James, host of other athletes, they have to do the same thing. I know LeBron is very upset, doesn't like Donald Trump, but truth is, he's the president, LeBron has no choice, go stay at the hotel.

CABRERA: Yes, but LeBron does have a choice, right? Isn't it their right to respond in this way as well?

ROSENBERG: I think there's a big enough divide in this country right now and LeBron is such a big voice that if in fact he came over and said, look, I don't like this choice, but he is what he is, he's the president, I'm going to do this just because of the country and my respect for the country, I think more people would listen to him.

I think right now he's running the risk of turning people off, including advertisers and endorsers and fans like me.

CABRERA: Oh, wow. That is saying a lot.

ROSENBERG: Yes. Yes.

CABRERA: This really means a lot to you?

ROSENBERG: I think that the divide is so big right now, we all have to work together to kind of stop that and LeBron James is doing something going in the other direction. That's not helping anybody.

CABRERA: Is there something he should do to show his protest instead?

ROSENBERG: Sure. He can go out and on shows like this and talk about how he's not happy with Donald Trump and things Donald Trump needs to do to make him happy, but to stay away from a hotel because Trump's name is on it to me is a bit sophomoric.

CABRERA: All right, and, Elise, I will give you the last word.

Obviously, the hotel is courting diplomats from overseas. Is there a conflict of interest?

LABOTT: And also about a week after the election, the hotel held a very lavish reception for diplomats to tell them the services of the hotel.

I have to say that Trump International Hotels is known for its very good service. These diplomats were very impressed with the venue. But when you look at the reception that is going to be held next week, for instance, with Jewish American groups and the Azeri Embassy, some of the groups are upset about it.

They have complained, listen, some of the comments that maybe not Trump himself, but some of his supporters have said, you know, comments that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic or racist, they shouldn't be sending Trump their business at this point.

But as we have been saying, Trump is the president. There are questions about the interplay between the hotel and his business. Whether that presents a conflict of interest, I don't necessarily know that whether a group stay there is, whether a country stay there is, that will help them in terms of dealing with the next president. But certainly people are free to stay where they want and also to choose to opt in or opt out.

I don't really think this is going to be a big issue in international relations, and I don't necessarily know if American fans will stop seeing LeBron James basketball games if he chooses not to stay there.

ROSENBERG: I'm telling you, I'm telling you, we're getting angry.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: He's wagging the finger at you with there that comment.

Elise Labott and Sid Rosenberg, thank you both for joining me.

Coming up soon, President Obama is set to deliver a major national security speech. Our cameras are set. We're awaiting him, the last one of his administration, in fact, at this time.

What he plans to focus on and what free advice might he offer president-elect Trump? We will discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:02]

CABRERA: Hillary Clinton may have won the popular vote, but she didn't win over every voter who supported President Obama.

Van Jones sat down with the family of longtime Democrats to better understand why they voted for president-elect Donald Trump this time. It's all part of our new CNN special tonight, "The Messy Truth."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR (voice-over): Hey.

SCOTT SEITZ, TRUMP VOTER: Come on in.

JONES (on camera): Hey.

SEITZ: Lord, thank you for this food and thank you for bringing everybody together.

JONES (voice-over): Scott Seitz is a lifelong Democrat who voted for Obama twice.

SEITZ: Thank you so much. Amen.

JONES: Cameron, his only son, who is old enough to vote in the last election, also supported Obama. This year, all four Seitz men voted for Trump.

(on camera): You can't imagine two guys more different, and yet you supported one and then you supported the other. What did you like about Obama, and then what did you like about Trump?

SEITZ: I think Obama represents a lot of love. And I think that he's a good man and he did all he could. And we supported him for two elections.

JONES: Yes.

SEITZ: And then when those changes really didn't come about and Obamacare actually affected me personally with my own mother, I think we needed a change once again. Trump seemed to come through here and he's speaking change again. So I think we still voted for change.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Joining me now is CNN political commentator Van Jones himself.

Van, I know that this assignment was important to you.

JONES: Yes.

CABRERA: You felt personally connected and passionate about this in finding the answers to your questions. What surprised you most?

JONES: Yes.

Well, I grew up in a red state. I grew up in Tennessee, Jackson, Tennessee, and public schools and church every other Sunday.

And so I know that small-town red state America is very different than the coasts. But it's amazing how different and how things that were so offensive to people who are more on the cosmopolitan edges of the country were really -- they say, well, look, that's distasteful, I didn't like him saying that stuff, I don't agree with that stuff, but you know what? I'm more concerned about my own job, and my factory is closing. END