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Trump Taps WWE Mogul for Small Business Administrator; Interview with George Takei; NFL's Steve Smith in Yoda Onesie; Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired December 08, 2016 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:32:36] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump assembling what is believed to be the wealthiest Cabinet in presidential history. Trump has picked several fellow billionaires to serve in his White House and his choice to head the Small Business Administration is raising eyebrows for her wealth as well.

Linda McMahon is married to the billionaire founder of the World Wrestling Entertainment, you know, that big company, the WWE. She served as CEO of that company. She spent as much as $100 million of her own money on two bids for the Senate and is a big-time Republican donor. So is she the best person to advocate for the little guy?

Our guests are small business owners on opposite ends of this election. Frank Costabilo voted for Donald Trump and Carla Bristol voted for Hillary Clinton.

Welcome to both of you.

FRANK COSTABILO, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER: Thank you.

CARLA BRISTOL, OWNER, GALLERIE 909: Thank you. And thanks for the opportunity.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So, Frank, should we worry that Donald Trump is appointing so many wealthy people to serve in his Cabinet and in his administration?

COSTABILO: Well, I think my take on this, Carol, is I think there's two schools of thought on this issue. School of thought number one is the last thing we need is a billionaire running the small business administration. The counter argument to that, though, I think is much more for curious and the fact of the matter is, so Linda McMahon helped oversee an organization that grew from a very small business to a very large one, and that may make her uniquely qualified to run this organization.

COSTELLO: And Carla, it is true, Linda McMahon has built the company up. I mean, she in the past has filed for bankruptcy. That was early in her career. She and her husband briefly lived on food stamps. So maybe they can relate.

BRISTOL: I think we can't negate the fact that she did come from humble beginnings, but I think the bigger issue is, what qualifies as small business in America? And in America, you have to have 500 employees or less and be below the $7.5 million mark and in Europe and in Australia, it's more like 50 employees or 15 employees in Australia. So I think that's what we really need to take a look at is what we are qualifying as a small business. Therefore, having someone who is a billionaire running what we are calling small business in America is potentially not the best fit.

COSTELLO: So, Frank, does Carla have a point?

COSTABILO: Well, again, it really depends upon which school of thought you subscribe to.

[10:35:06] COSTELLO: Well, your school of thought.

COSTABILO: Well, I think at the end of the day I would want someone in that position that had significant experience taking a small business and turning it into a much larger one. I would be suspicious of someone who had a small business, ran a small business, and although they experienced some small modest amount of success, never really went anywhere. That's my take.

COSTELLO: Got you. So, Carla, what's the one thing that would help you make -- that would help make your business more profitable?

BRISTOL: So I also am a member of Local Shops 1 here locally that has over 400 small businesses. And if you talk to small businesses here in Tampa Bay, what you're going to hear is that access to capital is probably the number one leading issue for local small businesses and it's not just access to capital, but it's how the capital is being issued to the businesses. So adding a new bill for me, a new monthly bill that I need to pay, is not necessarily the best way to partner with me to grow, but perhaps taking stake in we -- us growing together like a percentage of my profits so that as I am successful, you're successful as a lender, would be a better approach.

COSTELLO: Frank, same question to you.

COSTABILO: Yes. I was going to say, I think from my business and for most small businesses, what we've suffered through over the last -- well, probably go beyond eight years, but at least the last 20 or 30 years are successive administrations that believe that the way you build an economy is from the top down. I don't subscribe to that belief at all. I believe that you build an economy from the bottom up. But when you are building that economy from the bottom up, you need to have an administration and a person in a position of power that has experience, significant experience, taking a small organization and making it larger.

COSTELLO: So, Carla, I did want to ask you about health care and Obamacare. Would the repeal of Obamacare help small business people?

BRISTOL: No. And so what you find with a lot of small business owners is many of small business owners in America actually keep a full-time job just to have health care. So being able to address that is important. And I think because of the criteria being such that it's 500 employees and $7.5 million, I think the smaller section of the small businesses is overlooked constantly. And this would just I think lend weight to that. And with someone that's also I think --

COSTELLO: Well, I guess what I'm asking -- what I'm asking, Carla, Obamacare, some employees work for small businesses are enrolled in Obamacare which eases the cost to the small business owner. If Obamacare were repealed, would that hurt your business?

BRISTOL: Yes. That would definitely be detrimental and I think the way this is shaping up so far is -- it looks more like a corporate takeover of government and policies.

COSTELLO: So, frank, the same question to you.

COSTABILO: Well, to be honest with you, I think rather than worrying about Obamacare being overturned, I think that's certainly a possibility, I believe it's a much greater possibility that this program will crumble under its own bureaucratic weight. Evidence of that is as follows. I will mention this very quickly. In my home state of Minnesota, the average health care premium increase year to year was a shocking 60 percent. In the state of Arizona, by comparison, that same year-to-year increase was 116 percent.

To be honest with you, if I were a Democrat, and I'm not, but if I was, I would be much more concerned about watching this Obamacare program crumble rather than worrying about the Republicans picking it apart.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Frank Costabilio, Carla Bristol, thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the -- still to come in the NEWSROOM he's an icon. George Takei joins me live. Why he's so worried about what Trump has been saying about Muslim Americans, that's next.

And voting is under way for the 2016 CNN Hero of the Year. The all- star tribute airs this weekend. So be sure to vote.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Donald Trump's stance on allowing Muslim immigrants into the United States seems ever-evolving.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:45:01] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That was last winter. But a few months later, Trump said his proposed ban would only involve certain countries. More recently, Trump says he supports the idea of creating an immigrant data base. What's unclear is where exactly he stands today.

Since his win, Mr. Trump has not discussed his plans in detail and that leaves a lot of questions out there. Not only for Muslim Americans but for other immigrants and immigration advocates, too. Cue George Takei. Worried history could repeat itself, the Japanese American and "Star Trek" icon is speaking out about his experience during World War II. As a 5-year-old child he was forced from his home at gun point and sent to an internment camp in the United States along with the rest of his family.

With me now is George Takei. Welcome.

GEORGE TAKEI, ACTOR, "STAR TREK": Good to be here. Thank you very much.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for being here. I want to focus a little bit on the election before we get into -- to the immigration issue because more than one Republican says that Democrats are in a state of hysteria after Donald Trump's win and in light of what Jill Stein is doing with the recounts, right?

TAKEI: Well, that's not true.

COSTELLO: I mean, is it far off? TAKEI: Well, I was shell-shocked the day after the election. I just

couldn't believe because all the polls indicated otherwise and so for a good number of days, I could not see things with an even balance and then it's getting to be even more worrisome. The kinds of people he's appointing to major Cabinet positions, Jeff Sessions, to head the Department of Justice when he has a history of racism and he was denied a judgeship because of that history.

COSTELLO: Well, a lot of people said that was many, many years ago and, you know, give Mr. Trump and his Cabinet picks a chance.

TAKEI: Well, I hope he's learned, but then now he's got a person who is -- has been fighting environmental law -- what we know today as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. I mean, it's absolutely shocking and irrational, unbelievable.

COSTELLO: So what would you say to somebody who voted for Mr. Trump? Just simmer down, the election is over, he won, you're just going to have to deal with it?

TAKEI: Well, the popular vote went with Hillary. More than two -- 2.5 million votes. So --

COSTELLO: That's true. But Donald Trump still won the presidency.

TAKEI: And we are now reconsidering the electoral process. I think, you know, the electoral process was good 200 years ago when information, news, got to people in the hinterlands very slowly, by pony express. We live in this world today when we have, you know, the Internet, cameras, immediate information. There is no reason for that kind of system anymore.

COSTELLO: Do you think it will change, though?

TAKEI: Rural people - I beg your pardon?

COSTELLO: You think it will really change, the electoral college system?

TAKEI: Well, I never thought Trump would be elected so yes.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: I went --

TAKEI: We deal with the realities of today.

COSTELLO: I went to your Twitter feed and you think "TIME" magazine is trolling Trump with its Person of the Year cover. I just want to show people a picture of your tweet. You say, "Devil's horn, monster shadow, unretouched bald spot, dilapidated chair, literally resting on laurels." Are you just seeing what you want to see in that picture?

TAKEI: Well, we see what we see, don't we? And we get the news as we get them from Trump Tower and we are very concerned.

COSTELLO: So you believe that Mr. Trump is evil?

TAKEI: I think Mr. Trump is uninformed. The kind of things that he's been saying even through -- I mean, we were doing a musical on the internment of Japanese Americans. Innocent Americans born here, my mother was born in Sacramento. My father was from a San Franciscan. They met and married in Los Angeles. We were born there. Yes, my grandparents came from Japan but they were hard-working immigrants who wanted to be American citizens but there was a law denying immigrants from Asia to get American citizenship.

And yet after Pearl Harbor, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, they saw us as the enemy. We were all initially categorized as enemy aliens. They had a registry and they got all the Japanese American names. American citizens of Japanese ancestry. And they developed a registry. And one of his surrogates even used the word precedent of our incarceration as a precedent for a Muslim registry.

[10:50:03] COSTELLO: For an internment camp. So you're afraid that it's possible that that sort of thing might happen again only with Muslim Americans?

TAKEI: They are talking about Muslim registries, aren't they? And he himself talked about banning Muslims from entering this country, with no basis in fact. Yes, there are some Muslims that are terrorists. But to have that sweeping statement in the same way that we were characterized as the enemy simply because we happen to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. We are three generations here in this country, and yet overnight we became the enemy. Enemy aliens, they called us.

We were born here. I mean, the whole phrase didn't make sense. We were not the enemy and were not aliens, and yet they categorized us as enemy aliens.

COSTELLO: So Donald Trump's views on Muslim Americans seems to be evolving and he's often said, you know, don't really listen literally to the things I said during the campaign, because things may change.

TAKEI: Yes.

COSTELLO: So why not give him the benefit of the doubt?

TAKEI: And some have changed for the worse. We will see what he does with the appointments and he has already had a surrogate try a trial balloon, Muslim registry. We -- there was Japanese American registry. And then after that registry, they came down with the curfew. We were confined to our homes from 7:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. in the morning, imprisoned in our homes at night. And then they froze our bank accounts. We were economically paralyzed. And then the soldiers came. And I remember that morning.

I remember the two soldiers walking up our driveway, marching up our driveway, shiny bayonettes on the rifle, stop at the front porch and with their fists started banging on the front door and that sound resonated throughout the house.

COSTELLO: And how long was your family in the internment camp in Arkansas?

TAKEI: Four years. The duration of the war.

COSTELLO: The duration of World War II.

TAKEI: Four years of infamy. I'm using Roosevelt's words.

COSTELLO: So people might say, you know, it's so different, the time during World War II than what it is now.

TAKEI: It is an echo of what we heard during World War II coming from Trump himself. That sweeping statement characterizing all Muslims. There are more than a billion Muslims in this world. And to infer that they are all terrorists with that kind of sweeping statement is outrageous. In the same way that they characterized all Japanese Americans as enemy aliens. It didn't make sense.

COSTELLO: So what are you doing to make sure that doesn't happen again?

TAKEI: We did a musical based on the internment of the Japanese Americans on Broadway played to a very enthusiastic audience. And we wanted the story to continue. We didn't want it to end with the closure on Broadway. So we filmed it and we've combined film making with -- it isn't a filmed stage show. We had one performance that we filmed with a full house. Whoops.

COSTELLO: That's OK. Take your time.

TAKEI: With a full house. And when we had another performance with the theater completely empty but with more cameras and one of them on a crane so we used film making techniques. We came in for close-ups, pull-backs. Close-ups --

COSTELLO: You tell the story of your family? And then that will be filmed?

TAKEI: Exactly. And we invited Donald Trump after he made that sweeping statement about banning Muslims. I made it very publicly on the Internet as well as talk shows. On TV.

COSTELLO: Any word back from Donald Trump?

TAKEI: We had a sign there that we put up on that day, this seat saved for Mr. Donald Trump. And we had a countdown on the number of performances he missed throughout the run. 79 performances. And that film is going to be screened on December 13th, next Tuesday night, in over 600 theaters in the United States and Canada because the same thing happened to Japanese Canadians.

COSTELLO: Right.

TAKEI: They were imprisoned in Canadian internment camps. And so we want the story to be known and seen by people all across the country. And so all you have to do is go online, AllegianceMusical.com, and you will find the theater that's nearest you on December 13th, next Tuesday, 7:30.

COSTELLO: All right. George Takei, thank you so much for stopping by.

TAKEI: Thank you very much.

COSTELLO: I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:58:59] COSTELLO: Steve Smith, a Yoda onesie, and Andy Scholes. Hi, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Never thought you'd put all those together, did you, Carol?

COSTELLO: Never.

SCHOLES: Ravens are playing at the Patriots on Monday Night Football. Should be a good one. In the meantime, Steve Smith in the holiday mood. In the "Star Wars" mood as well. He was rocking the full-on Yoda onesie earlier this week when buying Christmas presents for some underprivileged kids. And he also thought it would be a good idea to wear it that Yoda onesie when meeting with the media yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE SMITH SR., BALTIMORE RAVENS WIDE RECEIVER: There's been a few decades since I have worn a onesie so we were -- I tried it on and so I bought it and I thought I got to use it. It was raining yesterday. Kind of doom and gloom. So, you know, try not to waste money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Carol, we'll see if the force is with Steve Smith come Monday night when he takes on the Patriots.

COSTELLO: I'm sure it will be somehow. Somehow something good has to come from wearing that thing.

Andy Scholes, thank you so much.

SCHOLES: All right.

COSTELLO: And thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello. "AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND BOLDUAN" starts now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm John Berman.

(END)