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Trump Picks Ambassador to China; Romney Still Finalist for State; Bahrain Govt Picks Trump Hotel for Event; Trump Said He Sold Stocks; Chinese Bombers Fly Close to Taiwan; Calls for a Ceasefire in Aleppo. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 07, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

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[12:00:26] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Brianna Keilar.

In 44 days before he's sworn into office, Donald Trump picks a foreign state governor for a plum diplomatic job and promises to fill the top diplomatic job, secretary of state, next week. Terry Branstad of Iowa, who happens to be the longest serving governor in U.S. history, is packing his bags for Beijing. Assuming Senate confirmation, he'll be the next U.S. ambassador to China.

The president-elect has a new title today as well. And that is "Time" magazine's person of the year. And while we watch the daily ins and outs at Trump Tower, we've also got our eye on Donald Trump's brand new hotel here in Washington, D.C. That is the site of celebrations getting underway this hour for Bahrain's national day.

Joining me now to connect all of these dots are CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott and correspondent Jessica Schneider, who is in New York for us.

Jessica, you first. As we hear about who is likely going to be the next ambassador to China, why Branstad?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Brianna, Governor Branstad earning a lot of praise from the Trump transition team today. They're saying that he has an immense knowledge of China and the Chinese people. And it turns out that Governor Branstad actually has a long-standing friendship with President Xi's of China. In fact, it dates back to the mid-1980s when President Xi was actually studying agriculture as an official in China, he came over to Iowa to study things, and that's when he formed that friendship with Governor Branstad. In fact, the governor had President Xi to Iowa in 2012 for an elaborate dinner in the capital of Des Moines. So it turns out, Governor Terry Branstad will be appearing with Donald Trump when he holds his third thank you rally in Des Moines, Iowa, tomorrow. That's when the official announcement will be made.

Now, in the meantime, the intrigue continues to swirl over secretary of state. Donald Trump was asked this morning if one of the leading contenders for that position still has a chance, Mitt Romney. Here's what Donald Trump said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Yes, he does. I mean, I've spoken to him a lot. We've come a long way together. We had some tremendous difficulty together and now I think we've come a long way. But the answer is, yes, he does.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So this isn't about some case of stringing him along as a -- as revenge being a dish best served cold for the comments he made during the campaign?

TRUMP: No, it's not about revenge. It's about what's good for country. And I'm able to put this stuff behind us and I hit him very hard also.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: Romney and Trump, of course, having a contentious relationship. Romney had called Donald Trump a fake and a fraud back in March, but recently praised him for his electoral win.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Jessica, thank you.

And let's turn to Elise on this other issue of the Donald Trump hotel here in Washington, Elise. You have Bahrain renting this building. And it's already a big example of the conflict that his new property is posing.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Brianna. And to be clear, this is a brand new hotel. There's a lot of excitement about it. Any new hotel in Washington, just steps from the White House. It's this old, historic building. But there are a lot of questions about whether people are booking hotels there to maybe kind of get in with the new administration, make in-roads, curry a little favor.

I've spoken to a lot of diplomats and they say, look, it's an easy way to -- and a friendly gesture to make to the new president to go to the hotel. There's a lot of fascination with it. Diplomats have been, you know, treated to lavish receptions. They're given discounted rates there. And they're praising, you know, the hotel for a lot of good service. So there's a lot of excitement in the hotel, you know, because of the owner, because of Donald Trump, and there are questions from, you know, ethics groups that say, look, these are governments that are trying to get in with the administration. This is not a good idea.

And there's also some other controversy surrounding the hotel. You know, the embassy of Azerbaijan and some Jewish groups are holding a reception there next week. One of those Jewish groups is protesting. They say, look, when you hear what we've heard from Donald Trump on the campaign, you know, messages of intolerance, of disrespect, we shouldn't be having our reception there.

So I think it's a little bit of a mixed bag. There's a lot of interest, but there's also a lot of controversy.

KEILAR: Yes, and it's certainly becoming a question as he heads towards the presidency next month. Elise Labott, Jessica Schneider, thank you to you both.

Time to bring in my panel. Betsy Woodruff is political reporter for "The Daily Beast," Abby Phillip is a reporter for "The Washington Post." She's also a CNN political analyst.

OK, I want to talk to you about something that Donald Trump said today in his "Today" show interview. He talked about selling his stock portfolio over the summer. Listen.

[12:05:05] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT (voice-over): I was never a big stockholder, but I bought a lot of different stocks and I had a lot of stocks before then, too. And what I did is I sold them. I just don't -- I don't think it's appropriate for me to be owning stocks when I'm making deals for this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So he says that, which I think some people would say, good. But then his family's running his business. And also -- or they're going to be -- and also the stock sale can't be verified by (INAUDIBLE) say income tax returns or other documentation, right?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And he also seemed to claim that he had made this disclosure when it happened, which he did not. We learned about this, this week from his campaign after questioned were raised. So we don't know what the state of Donald Trump's finances are and how that could potentially impact his presidency, even with this news. I think we still don't know. In fact, we have even more questions about, you know, about when this happened and what stock he actually had at the time and did he sell all of them or just some of them? We just -- we just don't know the answer to any of those questions.

KEILAR: Why does it matter, Betsy?

BETSY WOODRUFF, POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE DAILY BEAST": It's a symbolic gesture and I think it's important that we not treat it like it's more important than it actually is. Trump prefaced this statement by saying he was never a big stock guy. meaning that his decision to sell these stocks may not have had much of an impact on his personal finances. Remember, we still haven't seen his tax returns. He still will be enriching himself through his company. That means that the decisions his family makes -- we know Ivanka's planning a move to D.C., it looks like, to be part of governing, you know, the decisions that they make, as a family, will have an impact on his finances. So selling the stock is sort of a nice gesture, but as far as significance, it's not very big.

KEILAR: We should hear next week secretary of state, his pick. That's what Donald Trump said. And when he was asked about this, he said that Romney is still in the running. What do you think?

PHILLIP: I think he is. I mean I think we wouldn't be having this conversation if he weren't. I'm not sure Mitt Romney would appreciate being kind of strung out like this if it weren't at least somewhat real.

KEILAR: It would be humiliating if he wasn't picked.

PHILLIP: I would be -- it's already been fairly humiliating for him, I think, being -- this situation being out here. If Romney knew that he wasn't really in the running, I think we would hear that by now. I do think that there is real debate going on in Trump world, in Trump's own mind about what he wants and the kind of person who would be acceptable both to his inner circle and also to the Senate, who has to confirm that person.

KEILAR: What do you -- what do you think as you see what appears to be an expanding list, at least publicly, instead of a contracting list?

WOODRUFF: I think it's really interesting that he's brought up Rex Tillerson. He's the CEO of Exxon Mobil. Tillerson actually has a pretty decent relationship with Vladimir Putin. He ran Exxon's Russian operations in the '90s, got to know Putin then and Putin, in 2013, actually gave him an award called "Order of Friendship," which is one of the highest honor that a non-Russian can get from the Russian government. So if Trump were looking to pick someone who would have a good relationship there, who would have a personal relationship with Putin, Tillerson would be a natural choice. Of course, you know, we're talking about conflicts of interest. There might be one or two if you're the CEO of that company (ph).

KEILAR: Sure.

PHILLIP: And I think that's one of the very things that might actually end up becoming problems in a confirmation hearing. So that relationship with Putin may line up with Trump's foreign policy, but is it too close? I think the Democrats would make that a huge issue in a confirmation hearing.

WOODRUFF: No doubt about it. Yes.

KEILAR: And -- and will some Republicans, too.

All right, the "Time" cover, because Donald Trump is "Times'" person of the year. And it's fascinating because it says, "divided states of America" on it and Donald Trump was asked about this. He told Matt Lauer, "I'm not president yet, so I didn't do anything to divide." He says of the divided states of America, "I didn't divide them," but he talks about wanting to put it back together. What is your read on his awareness of how divisive his campaign was?

WOODRUFF: Pretty low. I don't think he has a particularly good view of the impact that his candidacy had on the -- on the country. I don't think he's even fully accepted the fact that he lost the popular vote by 2.5 million votes. That's a huge deal. And it's really tough, I think, to simultaneously want to celebrate winning this historic victory, but also accept that, yes, things are kind of a mess and there's a lot of really deep anger and frustration. So I think it's -- I think Trump is sort of, you know, has to be careful about courting delusion here.

PHILLIP: One of the things that we're seeing from Trump is a sort of slow process of coming in to this role. You know, last night at his rally in Fayetteville, he was pretty subdued. He stuck to the script. He talked a lot about reconciliation, about unifying the country. He -- he made a point to note, even though he wanted to kind of tout his election results, hey, I don't have to -- I -- I don't need to talk about that. I can't talk about the numbers. I want to unite the country.

So I -- we're seeing him come into it slowly. I mean a week ago he was gloating from the stage. There were a lot of concerns raised about that. And I think we're seeing some of that permeating his persona. He's changing his behavior slowly, and that's actually not unusual for him.

[12:10:06] KEILAR: It's hard to see how he fixes this, though, right? I mean is this something he can turn around, do you think, Betsy, or no?

WOODRUFF: It's tough. I think Trump is Trump. And over the course of his entire candidacy, people kept expecting him to change and the change didn't happen. One thing he said in the interview that was just a classic Trump sentiment, was that he thought the consensus, the basically consensus of the U.S. intelligence community, that the Russian government was connected to the DNC hacks and to WikiLeaks, he said he thought that consensus was incorrect and that it might have been politically informed. That's a conspiracy theory. It is a conspiracy theory to say that the U.S. intel community was trying to hamstring Trump by pushing out false intelligence. The fact that he floated that is (INAUDIBLE).

KEILAR: That was -- as was his explanation for the popular vote count and how he says actually he won when he did not.

All right, that aside, Betsy Woodruff, Abby Phillip, thanks to both of you.

And up next, he hasn't even taken the oath of office, but Donald Trump may already be on a collision course with China. We'll tell you why and also get to know his choice for ambassador to Beijing, coming up.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: By the way, Terry came to my office and he was talking to me about trade. I think there's nobody that knows more about trade than him. He's one of the ones, in dealing with China, well, you would be your -- you would be our prime candidate to take care of China.

(END VIDEO CLIP) [12:15:10] KEILAR: That was Donald Trump talking about Iowa Governor Terry Branstad just two days before he was elected president. Now he's making it official, selecting Branstad to become his ambassador to China.

Branstad has known China's president for decades. The question of really how deep that relationship is. But the decision comes at a time of heightens tensions with China. This after Trump abandoned decades of diplomatic protocol following his call with Taiwan's leader. The president-elect also has been critical of China's currency policies and military buildup.

Let's discusses this now with CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto.

What does this pick signal to China?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting. You heard Donald Trump there saying, if anybody can deal with trade with China, it's Branstad. And the reason that's true is because Iowa, his state has done an enormous amount of trade with China. Just reading off statistics here, it's mostly agriculture. A lot of U.S. agriculture states, they sell food, stuff to China, because China's got a lot of people to feed, right? But in the last year, growth in exports to China, this from Iowa, 257 percent. So it's been going up exponentially.

So an odd person to pick if you're going start a trade war with China, unless, perhaps, this is, as my colleague Dana Bash was saying, a good cop/bad cop kind of thing. We're going to be tough with you here, but, listen, we can also do business because we know we have common interests and so on.

KEILAR: So is it being well-received by Chinese officials? Do they think, oh, this is good? This is the good cop?

SCIUTTO: It's too -- it's too early to say. They haven't said publicly. But here are the two things that Chinese officials care about in a U.S. ambassador. One, is that ambassador close to the president? Do -- when they speak to the ambassador, can they be confident that he's telling them what the president truly believes and that when they tell him stuff, he's going to go right to the president? The ambassadors to China that have worked, have had close relationships to the president. That was true, for instance, under George W. Bush because he picked his college roommate and then they knew when they went into the embassy there, that it was going to go right to President Bush's ear and in both directions.

The other thing is, they don't want a governor who's -- or an ambassador, rather, who's hostile to China. And the reason, previous ambassadors have had trouble there. Huntsman, for instance, had an issue because he showed up at an anti-government protest in Beijing. Once that happened, he was not quite persona non-grata in Beijing, but he was.

KEILAR: But close, right? SCIUTTO: So someone who has a relationship. He has something of a personal relationship with Xi Jinping, from his visits there in the past. That would be received -- at least they'd have an open mind to him as someone they could work with.

KEILAR: And they know him, right?

SCIUTTO: Right.

KEILAR: That's important.

SCIUTTO: Exactly.

KEILAR: OK, so you have some recent reporting that's pretty interesting about Chinese bombers that circumnavigated Taiwan --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: Before Donald Trump made his call to Taiwan's leader. Those were intercepted by Japanese military aircraft.

SCIUTTO: Right.

KEILAR: Tell us more about this.

SCIUTTO: So -- and to be clear, it did happen before President-elect Trump made this call there. But just in the context of this relationship.

So Chinese bombers, they flew -- didn't quite fly over Taiwan, but they flew close enough that people noticed, including the U.S. And certainly the Japanese military did. So they launched planes to intercept them. Nuclear-capable bombers. I mean this kind of thing happens to send a signal. The U.S., for instance, after North Korea tested a nuke, we flew nuclear-capable B-52s and other planes over South Korea, a show of force. You do that for a reason.

So this happened. It was not quite over, but it was closer than usual. So that's a significant message coming from Beijing. You know, historically, we've said this on the air before, China looks at Taiwan as a renegade state. As if sort of Hawaii seceded from the union, right? That's the way -- that's the way they look at it. And, you know, it's a very delicate piece there through the years. So these signals matter in terms of what they're thinking. Does the U.S. military believe China's about to bomb Taiwan or invade Taiwan? No. But they do that to show, listen, you know, we're going to stay tough on this issue.

KEILAR: Yes, and we're the big dog in the region too.

SCIUTTO: Exactly.

KEILAR: All right, Jim Sciutto, thank you so much for that report.

SCIUTTO: Thank you. KEILAR: Coming up, this is what we'll talk about, inside the city where the sound of gunfire and shelling never seems to stop. We'll have a live report from Aleppo, Syria, as calls grow for a cease-fire to get desperate families out.

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[12:23:56] KEILAR: The U.S. and five other western world powers are sending a message to the Syrian regime and Russia. They want an immediate cease-fire in the besieged city of Aleppo and they're accusing Russia of blocking efforts to halt the bloodshed. This comes as Syrian government forces have made their biggest push yet into eastern Aleppo, grabbing control of areas that had been held by rebel righters for the past four years. Meantime, caught in the middle are thousands of civilians who are fleeing, trying to get help.

Joining us on the phone live from Aleppo is CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen.

And, Fred, we're used to seeing horrific scenes out of Syria, but we're talking about a situation that is much worse than even the usual difficulties that people are facing there.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yes, I mean, it's unbelievable what some of these people are facing. You know, we went into the old town of Aleppo after it was just taken back by the Syrian military a couple of hours before and we saw literally thousands of civilians are trying to flee here. And, you know, many of these people, Brianna, I can't even tell you how weak many of them look, how malnourished many of them look, how tired many of them look. And then also, how many elderly and how many children were among those who were trying to get out of those areas. The youngest child that I personally saw being carried out of there was only seven days old, and the parents said he was born right as bombs were raining down on their heads, and jets were in the air. There was fire going on from one side to the next. They said as they fled, they were being fired on as well. They managed to get out with only a few of their belongings. And as many, many other people who have the same fate.

[12:25:36] At the same time, the Syrian military is going through a lot of these districts. They're clearing a lot of these districts. And, of course, they are very bold at this point and very confident they believe they can take away all of the rebel areas within the next couple of weeks, if not within the next couple of days, Brianna.

KEILAR: How likely, Fred, is a cease-fire? And if it were to happen, is it something that can be trusted?

PLEITGEN: I don't think at this point it's likely at all that a ceasefire is going to happen. The Syrian government and yesterday they told me this again, they've said that the only option for the rebels right now is to either lay down their arms and get out of Aleppo, go to some other place that is held by the rebels, or to continue facing the onslaught that is currently going on. Now, the rebels have said they don't want to leave, but anything outside of that, if you just look at what the momentum that the Syrian government has right now, with the backing that they have right now from the Russian air force, from Russian ground forces that, quite frankly, we've been seeing as well, it really doesn't look as though any sort of ceasefire that would be brokered at the U.N. or by the U.S. that's not going to happen.

KEILAR: Do people -- do the people of Aleppo, Fred, have any confidence that the international community can help them?

PLEITGEN: I don't think that many of them do. Look, many of them have been living in this period -- in this civil war for the past five years. There's been so many efforts to try and bring the Syrian civil war to an end. And, quite frankly, most people don't believe that that's going to happen. They think that a decision (ph) here is going to happen on the battlefield. It certainly looks as though that's what the Syrian military and the Russians are trying to do right now is to essentially force a decision, especially here in Aleppo.

And, you know, Aleppo is the last urban stronghold where the rebels have any sort of territory. And if they lose that altogether, be very difficult for them to maintain any sort of momentum in Syrian's civil war. So many people here, they do feel very much abandoned and right now also those who are fleeing those areas that the government is taking back, they're receiving very, very little aid, and so it's very difficult for them to see, get any sort of support that they're getting from the outside world.

KEILAR: All right, Fred Pleitgen on the phone with us from Aleppo, and a time that could be a turning point in the Syrian civil war.

Up next, the 44th president of the United States has exactly 44 day left in office. So how will he be remembered in the days and decades ahead? And how much a blow does Trump's election deal to this legacy? We're putting it in historical perspective, coming up.

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