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Steve Bannon's Future at the White House Remains Unclear; United Passenger's Family and Attorney Speak Out; Trump Stuns with Economic Policy Reversals; Cubs Get Championship Rings; Aired 10:30- 11a ET

Aired April 13, 2017 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:34:06] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Did gracing the cover of "TIME" magazine cost Steve Bannon a whole lot of clout, if not his job? For the man once dubbed by "TIME" as the great manipulator and the second most powerful man in the world, well, now sources telling us that just hours ago -- telling us just hours ago that Steve Bannon's future in the White House is growing more and more unclear.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Apparently, some of his friends say he should leave, but other sources are saying that Bannon is steadfast, he's like a soldier. He wants to stay until the very end.

CNN political director David Chalian joins us right now.

All right. David, 10:34 in the East. The Steve Bannon arrow, was it pointing up or down?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, I think it's certainly pointing down, but I don't know that that necessarily means that it's pointing to being over. You know, I think that what you see here -- and let's be clear, this isn't just about staff members, who's up, who's down. Look at the impact. Look at what you were just discussing with all the moves Donald Trump has made on policy.

HARLOW: Yes.

[10:35:02] CHALIAN: It is quite clear that Steve Bannon's world view is not the one that President Trump is implementing right now. He is --

BERMAN: Today.

HARLOW: Right now.

CHALIAN: Yes -- no, I said right now. But that is not what is the current policy implementation from President Trump. So clearly there are other voices that are ascending and winning out this argument in the White House, and Steve Bannon got wrapped up in what I think is a classic sort of flaw for a staffer in Washington. When you become the cover boy, when you become the story, you're not staffing the principal all that well. HARLOW: But what I think is interesting, though, this isn't a guy

who's like, hey, I want to do an interview with you. Like he barely gives any interviews, David Chalian, you know. He wasn't, like, begging for "TIME" magazine to put him on the cover. He doesn't give a lot of access, so there's that. And then there's also what the president has to be thinking through, and that is, do you want Steve Bannon as your enemy? Do you want him to go back to running Breitbart and potentially turn the alt-right media against you?

CHALIAN: There is no doubt that that is part of the calculus going on inside the mind of President Trump about weighing sort of whether -- he's better off with Bannon inside or outside. Bannon is obviously very representative and in very close touch with that vein of enthusiasm and excitement that was driving so much of the core base of Trump's support, the nationalist view of things, the anti, you know, immigrant kind of philosophy that was so much part of the kindling for everything Trump went through last year to achieve the presidency. So there is risk of sort of turning those folks against.

That being said, you know, Donald Trump's supporters didn't vote for Steve Bannon. They voted for Donald Trump. And I do think we get a little lost here in thinking that, somehow, Trump is not in charge of this White House himself. I just think that that would run counter to everything we understand about Donald Trump from his organization, through his campaign, and now into the presidency.

BERMAN: As Donald Trump likes to say when talking about Steve Bannon, I'm my own chief strategist. And to an extent, that's true.

While we're on the subject of palace intrigue, you know, Politico and "The Playbook" this morning, David, reported that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump's daughter, are skiing in Whistler right now. And this would be their second ski trip in the first, you know, 80-plus days. And this to me gets to the notion of you can't fight the family. If you're Steve Bannon and you have problems with Jared Kushner, you can't fight the family.

The family gets to go to a couple of vacations in the first weeks of the presidency, whereas, you know, I can't imagine other staffers --

HARLOW: Reince?

BERMAN: You know, Reince. Do you think Reince has taken, you know, two ski weekends with his family during this first bit of the presidency?

CHALIAN: Yes, they did take that one spring break ski trip. I want to be a little careful here because they are off observing the religious holiday of Passover, so I'm not sure it's another entire spring break vacation, but you are right to the overall point, which is I don't think if you're choosing who to sort of square off against inside the White House that choosing the president's daughter and his son-in-law are the right people that you want to make enemies of.

HARLOW: Berman no longer gets to go on vacation with his kids for that comment. BERMAN: Yes, it's true. We do not get to go on vacation, not to

Whistler.

David Chalian, great to have you here. Thanks so much.

HARLOW: Thank you.

All right. So coming up, he was dragged out of his seat. Now brace for a potential lawsuit. We're going to hear in moments from that United passenger, Dr. Dao, who was dragged off the plane. His legal team and his family speaking live right here. Stay with us.

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[10:42:56] BERMAN: All right, this morning, United Airlines bracing for a possible legal battle. This follows the incident where a passenger was dragged off one of United's flights. At any moment, we're going to hear from the victim's family and his attorneys.

HARLOW: So what are they going to say? Are they filing a lawsuit? Here's what we do know that his lawyers have filed a court request to obtain the airline surveillance video, cockpit voice recordings, and any other information of those officers who were involved who dragged Dr. Dao off the plane.

Our Ryan Young is in the room where that press conference is about to begin. He is following the developments. I mean, do we know anything about what they're going to say?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, we don't know just yet. We know we're waiting to see what this family might say.

Look, there is such growing anticipation about this. The last time I joined you, guys, which was about 40 minutes ago, I can tell you about another 20 cameras have been added to this room and everybody's trying to figure out exactly what's going to happen. We do know his daughter will be here. She'll be talking for the first time. That will be part of this in terms of us trying to find out some more information about this case.

We believe Dr. Dao is still in the hospital at this point. And look, there's been a lot of conversation, even about the Department of Aviation officers who were involved in this, the fact that all three of them now have been put on paid suspension at this point. So even trying to get their backgrounds and trying to figure out exactly how that escalated to that moment, when you watch all the angles of this and see how the conversation was happening, how did that lead to him being dragged down?

But when you look at this room and you see the international anticipation for this conversation about that's going to happen in the next 40 minutes, you understand that there is a lot of interest in this. People had a visceral reaction to that video of the man being dragged down the middle of that aisle.

BERMAN: All right, Ryan Young for us. We are waiting for that press conference. What will the family do.

HARLOW: Yes.

BERMAN: What will the passenger do? Those lawyers speak any minute. Thanks so much, Ryan.

Here's another question, what's Donald Trump's economic agenda? It depends when you ask the president because it's changed over the last 24 hours. Has it changed yet again today? That's next.

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[10:48:45] HARLOW: Stunning, breathtaking, whatever you want to call them, they are reversals from President Trump on some really core issues that he ran on, including three flip-flops in the last 24 hours on big economic policy.

BERMAN: Yes. Number one, he now says China's not manipulating currency. He just a few weeks ago he called China world champions of currency manipulation. On Fed chair Janet Yellen, he's suddenly opening to keeping her around. He's also now embracing the Export- Import Bank, this is something that he mocked last year.

Joining us now, CNN Money correspondent Cristina Alesci.

Is there a reason why he might be shifting on a few of these things?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. One of the reasons, as Chris Cillizza just wrote, is we're witnessing the education of Donald Trump. He realizes that these policy issues are perhaps a little bit more complicated than he originally appreciated. Also, he's doing what's politically and economically expedient for him to do at the time. For example, on this flip-flop with Janet Yellen, he realizes, if Janet Yellen goes, he will have to replace her, perhaps with someone a little bit more to the right, someone that Stephen Moore likes, and that would mean perhaps a little bit more aggressive interest rate hikes, which would mean a dampening of economic growth, right? So these are very convenient positions for him to be taking.

[10:50:05] On China, he doesn't want to label it a currency manipulator because his Wall Street advisers have told him a trade war would be detrimental to the U.S. economy.

HARLOW: Or they're not manipulating their currency.

ALESCI: Right.

BERMAN: Yes. Or the fact that that might be wrong. The fact about it not being true, but that didn't matter before.

ALESCI: Well, they can manipulate it up or down. Right? I mean, it's so --

HARLOW: Right. ALESCI: That's a debate for another day. But at the end of the day,

currency traders did not like to see these flip-flops. I spoke to some both rate and currency traders, and they said, look, the dollar's decline, which I think we have a chart of yesterday, signals that there is less confidence in the U.S. economy, but these smart investors also said that this is actually a good thing, and they think that Trump is actually moving in the right direction with his reversals, and a cheaper dollar at the end of the day makes our goods less expensive to export.

HARLOW: Yes, it helps close that widening trade gap. But just explain how remarkable it is to hear a U.S. president directly talk about the value of the dollar.

ALESCI: It's highly unusual. Presidents do not like to do it because you have reactions like that. And generally speaking, presidents don't like to have the market react to their comments like that. And the markets, you know, they are learning with this new president. The investors are learning with this new president. But definitely a step in the right direction.

And as we talked about earlier this week, CEOs have incredible access to the president, and what they walked away with from that meeting earlier this week is that professionals, quote-unquote, are in the room with Donald Trump, and that he's listening to the, quote-unquote, professionals. On trade, for example, Wilbur Ross will be leading negotiations. So there seems to be some confidence that he's listening not just to the latest person that was in the room, but perhaps smarter people in the room.

BERMAN: And Wall Street loves that Wall Street's Gary Cohn is sitting in that room.

HARLOW: And might get a whole lot more power.

BERMAN: Exactly. Cristina Alesci, great to have you with us. Thank you very, very much.

HARLOW: Thank you.

Still to come, the Chicago Cubs getting their championship rings last night after 108 years of waiting, complete with diamonds, sapphires, and a goat? More next.

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[10:56:34] BERMAN: All right, this just in, the Chicago Cubs' new championship rings not only have 108 diamonds, they have also got a goat engraved inside.

HARLOW: Really?

BERMAN: That's what I'm told.

HARLOW: Coy Wire joins us now with the "Bleacher Report." Educate us, my friend. COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: I got you, Poppy. Good morning

to you, and John as well. There are a lot of reasons why people thought the Cubs hadn't won a World Series in 108 years, one of them the curse of the Billy Goat. Well, they poked some fun at that goat because the curse is no more.

The champs got their rings last night, they're about as big as a baseball. They have so much stuff on there, like their motto, "We never quit."

Players, one cool thing, received their rings from fans who were chosen in a contest. And Cubs fans won't soon forget the exact date and time when the Cubs won Game Seven, so that's engraved there, too. November 23rd, 2016 at 12:47 a.m. Look at this, Cubs logo, rubies, sapphires, diamonds. That's on top of the 108 diamonds that are representing each year of their championship drought.

Everyone in the organization, get this, guys, gets a ring. We're talking the scoreboard operator, people taking tickets, the grounds crew, even those who cut and trim the ivy.

Scary moment in the Yankees-Rays game. Yankees' Brett Gardner sprinting to first base and the throw puts Rickie Weeks Jr. in the line of Gardner as he's running down that path, full speed. A violent collision. Both of these men, they were on the ground for a while but the good news is they walked off under their own power. Tough dudes here. Gardner with a bruised jaw and strained neck and Weeks had a sore neck and shoulder as well but they will be OK.

All right. A little fun to end for you. Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton sporting King Tut underwear before his team's game against the Braves last night. Why, you asked Well, he's the highest paid player in the league. He hasn't hit a homerun all season. This is last year's homerun derby champ. Well, he was hoping to change his luck. And it must have worked. He hit two homeruns in one game. Check out the fan going all in, jumping up in the pool to get Stanton's second homerun ball.

The Marlins lost the game but Stanton, he may want to hang on to those underwear for a little while longer because they might be his good luck charm, guys.

BERMAN: That's the problem with trying something like that. As you know well, Coy, if you do it once, you've got to keep doing it because, you know, if he stops wearing them, he doesn't get any more homeruns.

HARLOW: Don't tell them your secret, you -- you know.

BERMAN: All right. Coy, thanks so much.

WIRE: You're welcome.

BERMAN: That's all for us. I'm John Berman.

HARLOW: I'm Poppy Harlow. "AT THIS HOUR WITH KATE BOLDUAN" begins right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Any minute now, we will hear for the first time from the family of the man dragged off that United Airlines flight Sunday. The video that went viral on social media and sparked outrage far and wide.

And also ahead, some very real fallout, calls for a boycott of the airline. The CEO forced to apologize. Refunds for everyone on the flight. A congressional investigation. And will they be adding a lawsuit to that list? We'll hear more any minute now.

Let's get to CNN's Ryan Young. He's in Chicago where this news conference is about to begin any minute.

Ryan, what are you hearing? What do you know?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you talk about the idea that so many people are upset about this. Everywhere we stepped yesterday inside the airport people were talking about this video. They wanted to know when something would be done. When is apology enough? And of course, a lot of people reacting to United CEO's apology, thinking that the third time was a charm, but some people say they believe that Dr. Dao deserves something for what he experienced. We've all seen the video of that man being dragged down in the middle of the aisle. We've now found out that two more Department of Aviation --