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Trump Claims Credit for Firm's Investment in U.S. Trump Slams Cost of Air Force One; A Call for a Ceasefire in Aleppo; Death Penalty Case Against Dylann Roof Begins. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 07, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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


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[09:33:01] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Poppy Harlow, in for Carol Costello today. Thanks for joining me.

Twenty-four hours after picking a fight with Boeing, President-elect Donald Trump is defending a tweet slamming the cost of building the next Air Force One.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Well, I think the planes are too expensive. I spoke to a very good man yesterday, the head of Boeing, a terrific guy, and we're going to work it out. But, you know, that's what I'm here for. I'm going to negotiate prices. And it's -- the planes are too expensive and we're going to get the prices down. And if we don't get the prices down, we're not going to order them. We're going to stay with what we have.

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HARLOW: This is the latest shot fired in Trump's public battle with companies he feels are taking advantage of American taxpayers. We saw it when Trump hammered out a deal with Carrier to keep hundreds of jobs from going to Mexico. Trump is also claiming credit for a $50 billion U.S. investment by Japanese tech giant SoftBank, tweeting yesterday, "Masa of Softbank of Japan has agreed to invest $50 billion in the United States towards businesses and 50,000 new jobs." He went on to say that Masa said he would never have done this had we, Trump, not won the election.

For more on this I'm joined by CNN political commentator and columnist from "The Daily Beast, Sally Kohn, and CNN political commentator and conservative, Ben Ferguson.

All right, guys, something tells me you're not on the same page on this one.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

HARLOW: Good morning, Ben.

Let me begin with you. I mean, come on, you're a Republican, you're a conservative, you guys don't like the idea of the government picking winners and losers. You don't like it at all.

FERGUSON: Right.

HARLOW: And what's interesting is that Keith Hennessey, the director of the National Economic Council under former President George W. Bush is quoted this morning in "The Washington Post" saying, quote, "when a politician rewards his friends and business friends and punishes his business enemies, it is called crony capitalism." Ben, you say?

FERGUSON: Yes. I think it's sour grapes from someone that didn't want Donald Trump to become president and they're doing everything they can to try to, you know, undermine or act as if everything he does is terrible.

[09:35:00] Let's just look at the Boeing deal for one moment. This should be bipartisan. Every American in theory pays taxes, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. Having a president that says, I'm not going to take delivery of a new airplane that I get to use, and specifically made for me, if it costs too much, should be something that we should all be excited about. That's called responsibility. And what he said was, as a businessman, I'm not going to allow your tax dollars to be taken advantage of by price overruns.

We know that the Government Accountable Office has already warned us as of last year that this contract was going to be more than what they'd budgeted for, which was $2.3 billion. They're expecting it to be more than that. And that's before we even have to pay for the plane once it is made. So when he says -- he says it's a bad deal --

HARLOW: That's the project as a whole --

FERGUSON: This is a smart deal for him to say that.

HARLOW: OK. Even Boeing -- I think saving the American taxpayers money any way is a good thing. The thing is, Ben, Boeing just said they don't know the price yet because the Pentagon hasn't told them everything that they need. So we're a ways to get to that.

But, Sally --

FERGUSON: Well, but we know it's the --

HARLOW: But, Sally --

FERGUSON: But we know that the deal has already gone up in price. We already know from the Government Accountability Office that they are saying that what's been approved and what has been budgeted for is going to go over.

HARLOW: Understood.

Sally, let me ask you this, because this actually is not a new way of doing business. This Carrier deal or calling out Boeing or calling out Ford. This is just a president-elect being very vocal about it. I mean if you look back to 2012, you know, right before the election, the Obama administration made a deal with the big oil refinery in Pennsylvania, a swing state, that was going to go out of business. They gave them $25 million in tax breaks and they stayed. And they didn't talk about it. So isn't this just similar tactics, different way of communicating to the public about it?

SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, listen, you're not going to find me defending tax giveaways to big business or, you know, military spending for that matter, although I can't help but find it ironic that I'm suddenly in the position of supposedly doing the latter. Look, you know, the issue here is, I will say, Donald Trump is phenomenally good at optics. He is really good at optics. So the fact that, you know, politics in East Asia are collapsing and being reshaped because of his busy thumbs seems -- is not a big deal. We're not talking about that. We're going to talk about the fact that he shuffled about taxpayer money, which is what he did, shuffled around taxpayer money with the help of current Indiana Governor Mike Pence, his running mate, in order to save, not even all of the Carrier jobs from going overseas. Again, it's a good thing and I've said this before, it's a good thing for the people whose jobs are being saved, absolutely. But we do have to look at the way that he's doing that. He's taking an optical win at a greater cost to the American people. Those taxes giveaway, that depletion of Indiana state funds is pretty significant to the point where, by the way, also Sarah Palin called it crony capitalism and we don't find ourselves agreeing all that often.

FERGUSON: With all due respect here, here's the part where I think we're missing a major point about what Donald Trump has done. Donald Trump has said, look, if there are jobs, and these jobs with Carrier were going to be gone. They had already built the plant to do this in Mexico. And he was able to save them and keep people employed. How is it that that is somehow bad news? How is it somehow bad news? We have a president --

HARLOW: It's not about being bad news, Ben, it's about -- it's a question about strategy.

FERGUSON: No, but it is -- but people are spinning it that way.

HARLOW: Hey, Ben, I'm not. It's a question -- my question is about strategy. Can you pick winners and losers? Should you? And is this something that is actually going to work? I mean one mile down the road, you know Rexnord, another factory, is -- you know, letting go of 300 people. Trump's tweeting about it. How many companies can you do this for? Does it really need to be more of a focus on an overarching strategy, a total, you know, --

FERGUSON: I think when your biggest -- when your biggest asset is Donald Trump, Donald Trump's biggest asset is figuring out how to do business and making these deals. When this is what you're really good at, why not do it in a public way so that you let people know and other business that, look, I'm willing to work you. I'm not going to allow you to take advantage of the American taxpayer, but I'm willing to work with you to keep Americans employed.

KOHN: I -- sorry, but --

FERGUSON: That is something we should be in favor of. It's not picking winners and losers, it's keeping jobs in America. That's just smart business for every American.

KOHN: I'm sorry, Ben, there would be a big difference between, for instance, if Donald Trump said, or any president for that matter, we can try for a second to not be partisan about this, but it would be a big difference if Donald Trump said, look, you have government contracts to say Carrier or some other company who's about to send jobs overseas. You've got government contracts. You do that. We're going to cancel those contracts. So, in other words, your company, you're free to do whatever you are, I believe that's called free market capitalism the last I checked, but (INAUDIBLE) --

FERGUSON: But isn't that picking and -- isn't that picking winners and losers?

KOHN: Ben, I let you talk, but we, the government, are not going to reward your -- you with our business then. That's very different from saying, we're going to incentivize you, Carrier, to not do this thing you were planning to do, to not send this portion, not even all, but portion of your jobs overseas by giving you tax breaks that we don't give to other businesses. So small businesses --

[09:40:12] HARLOW: All right, guys, I've got to jump in.

KOHN: (INAUDIBLE) that aren't moving their employees overseas, they're not getting the same benefit. That's not fair.

HARLOW: I -- I got to -- I've got to leave it there. And the CEO of the parent company of Carrier did go on -- did do an interview this week where he said, look, I was born at night but I wasn't born last night and I'm very well aware that 10 percent of our, you know, profit comes from these government contracts. So there are a lot of legs to this one, certainly.

Sally Kohn, Ben Ferguson, thank you guys very much.

Still to come, why are rebels in Syria, they are pleading for five days of an end to this horrific bombing. A cease-fire so they can get humanitarian aid in. We will bring you a live report from Aleppo, next.

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[09:45:01] HARLOW: The United States and five other western powers calling for an immediate cease-fire in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo. They are condemning Russia and the Assad regime in Syria for the bloodshed and bombings happening right now. And they say Russia is blocking the U.N. from helping put an end to war crimes and atrocities. In the past few days, Syrian government forces have made their biggest push yet into eastern Aleppo, grabbing control of various parts of that city that have been held for years, really four years, by rebels.

Our international -- senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen has just returned from the old city of Aleppo, where neighborhood after neighborhood has fallen. Fred, as you were reporting with us over the past few days, some of the great victims in all of this are the children. Describe what you're seeing, what you're feeling and hearing on the ground.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, that's a really interesting point you make, Poppy, because you're absolutely right, it is very much the children who are suffering the most under what's happen right now. We were -- as you mentioned, in one of these districts, in the old town of Aleppo, what was actually just won backed by Syrian government forces about 20 hours ago. So still a very fresh battlefield. And there were thousands of civilians fleeing that area. And many of them were children, and many of them, quite frankly, were also babies. You know, the youngest one that I personally saw was a child that was only seven days old. It was born right at the height of the fighting. And now its parents were carrying it out of this awful war zone into a shelter, which was very, very cold. And there was very little in the way of aid of support there. So certainly the children really suffering under the current situation. But, generally, the people that we've been speaking, who have been fleeing the old town of Aleppo have been in very bad condition. We saw people who appeared to be malnourished, very weak, very tired. Many of them, of course, now, at least are in safety as they cross the lines. But it really is sad to see and tragic to see some of the scenes that we've been seeing unfold today in the old town of Aleppo as, again, the rebels are really losing territory there. Syrian government forces making very large gains over the past couple of days, Poppy.

HARLOW: Fred, the international community, many of those people I know feel that the international community has failed them. I mean President Obama has talked about the situation in Syria being one of his biggest if not his biggest -- something that haunts him still. Do they feel at this point like the international community has abandoned them?

PLEITGEN: Well, I think they feel pretty much everybody has abandoned and failed them. I mean one of the things that we have to keep in mind is that many of these people have been living under these conditions over the past couple of months. Again, very little in the way of food and water. And one of the things that we also have to keep in mind, Poppy, right now, is that right now, here in Aleppo, it's December. It's very cold. The temperatures reach about the freezing point. And these people, many of them, are living in bombed out ruins. They have no medical attention whatsoever. There's people with medical conditions who can't get out.

So yes, many of them do feel the international community has failed them. Many of them obviously feel their own government has failed them. Many of them feel that the rebels have failed them at all. So, yes, there is a great sense of abandonment. But for many of them who are actually getting out now, there is also somewhat of a sense of relief that perhaps, at least, the bombs raining down on their head, at least that could be over for now, Poppy.

HARLOW: Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much, live for us in Syria. I know you and your entire team risking your life to be there. Thank you for bringing us this reporting every day.

Still to come here, we're going to take you to Charleston, because the trial for the man accused of murdering nine church members in Charleston begins. You're going to have details from inside the courtroom, next.

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[09:53:12] HARLOW: The death penalty case against Charleston church shooting suspect Dylann Roof is underway. Moments ago, the judge beginning the jury striking process. This despite Roof's last minute plea to delay the trial. Roof is accused of shooting nine church goers, these nine church goers, at point-blank range during a prayer meeting last summer. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Our Nick Valencia is live outside of the courtroom.

Good morning, Nick.

The judge now revealing why he denied Roof's request for delay in this trial. What was the judge's reasoning?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was up until last week that Dylann Roof had asked to represent himself. He was there during the voir dire phase raising objections while family members of the victims watched on. It was on Sunday, however, that he had a change of heart. He asked the judge for defense attorneys to represent him during the guilt phase but not the penalty phase. Those attorneys filing a motion yesterday asking the judge to extend the trial based on what happened with the Michael Slager trial. They say that the jurors in this case will be under intense pressure to make up for the apparent failure of the lack of conviction of Michael Slager in his trial, that mistrial that happened on Monday.

Sixty-seven jurors will walk into the courtroom today. I should mention the judge struck down that motion, calling it illogical and far-fetched. Sixty-seven jurors walked in the courtroom today. They will be whittled down to 12 jurors and six alternates. And they will be tasked with deciding whether or not Dylann Roof deserves the death penalty in what he's accused of doing.

The horror of what happened last year lies in the facts themselves. Dylann Roof is alleged to have walked into the historic Emanuel AME Church, prayed with those parishioners for at least an hour, and then taking out his 45 caliber Glock handgun and killing at least nine people. He has pleaded not guilty in this case. The jury selection process, we understand from our procedure in the courtroom, Keith Osha (ph), that jury striking process has already begun this morning.

[09:55:07] Poppy.

HARLOW: Do we know, Nick, obviously just heartbreaking to see those faces and see the nine victims. Obviously some of their family members were in the church and survived when this shooting happened. Do we know who will be in the courtroom through all this? VALENCIA: We expect the family members of at least some of the victims

to be in the courtroom. Much of the attention and at the face, if you will, of these victims was the state senator and reverend of the historic AME church, Reverend Clemente Pinkney. If you remember, his wife and five-year-old child at the time were there at the time of the massacre last June. We don't know if they're expected to show up. We do, though, understand, though, however, that there is an overflow room for the general public, as well as the media. And just judging by the amount of media presence here, it's pretty packed inside.

Poppy.

HARLOW: Nick Valencia live for us in Charleston. Of course we'll continue to follow this. Thank you so much.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins after a quick break.

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