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Trump Blames Mnuchin; Mnuchin Pressured Amid Stock Woes; Indonesia Death Toll Jumps; Shutdown Could Last into New Year; Wildfire Survivors on Hope. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired December 24, 2018 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know. And now -- now you have a Dow last week that was the worst week since the financial crisis. December on track for the worst month since the Great Depression. And these are comparisons that must gall this president. And he wants the Fed chief to -- or the Treasury secretary to do something.

At the same time he's bashing his Fed chief. He blames the Treasury secretary for the Fed chief pick because he was -- I mean, look, no matter who is the Fed chief, you're going to see interest rates rising. There's no question about that. This president is just very angry about it.

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: But, I mean, look, it doesn't take an economist to understand that if the president of the United States attacks his Fed chair and then it's leaked over the weekend that he's been talking about firing him, that that will be a prime driver of the market down. That's got to rattle the confidence of markets.

ROMANS: It does not inspire confidence.

What also does not inspire confidence is when the Treasury secretary, under pressure from the president -- our White House team is reporting -- sends out this press release after these phone calls. He's on vacation in Cabo St. Lucas. He sends out this press release about the calls with the big bank CEOs. How populist is this, right? You know --

AVLON: It's very populist to go Christmas in Cabo is mainstream America.

ROMANS: You know, ship to shore, you know, to the --

HILL: Right.

ROMANS: To the most powerful bankers in the world. And he says there is ample liquidity in the system. The CEOs of these banks have assured us there's ample liquidity in the system.

And the money -- the money reporters and the money folks and the financial experts are like, well, the Treasury secretary just issued a statement saying there's ample liquidity. Of course there's ample liquidity in the system. Nobody thought there wasn't.

So it's injecting this doubt into the whole thing. There was a Democratic senator who said it's like being the head of the health department and issuing a press release saying, the water is safe to drink.

AVLON: There's --

ROMANS: Well, wait a minute, the water couldn't be safe to drink? It's like a spouse saying to the other spouse, don't worry, honey, I'm not cheating on you. Wait, there could be a possibility you're cheating on me? I mean that's what the kind of doubt that it injected into the conversation. And it just was a very clumsy message if indeed this is the Treasury secretary under pressure from the president to fix the declines in the stock market.

AVLON: The clumsiest message. You couldn't design something more to undermine confidence than say, everyone's got enough liquidity, folks, nothing to worry about here, remain calm.

HILL: And shouldn't the Treasury secretary know that putting out a statement like that and injecting that into the discussion --

AVLON: Yes.

ROMANS: Or what is the infrastructure around it?

So I called the Treasury press affairs number about a half an hour ago. I was like, look, I'm just going to -- I'm just going to beg somebody over there to come on the record and tell me, are you guys going to, you know, try to clean up this message? It goes to an operations operator number because the press office, they're all -- you know, they're on furlough. So it sort of shows you the merger of, you know, a market that -- look, this could be a garden variety correction in the market.

AVLON: Could be.

ROMANS: These things happen. It could be that there's high frequency trading and algorithm trading that kind of is exacerbating the volatility. That's one thing. But it sounds as though they're trying to message away from, you know, the president's attacks on the Fed chief, the president's shutdown, or the Pelosi shutdown, or whoever you want to blame for it. The fact that the economy -- you know, a year after tax cuts --

AVLON: Yes.

ROMANS: You know, maybe they weren't as much juice as they thought.

AVLON: Is there any precedent for a president going after his Fed chair to this extent?

ROMANS: I think so. I know -- well, publicly, I don't think so.

AVLON: Publically.

ROMANS: But, look, every president has not liked rising interest rates. There's no question about that. And they've grumbled about it. But this is -- you know, I've never reported on a president privately asking his aides, can I fire -- can I fire my Fed chief, and having to be told, no, you can't fire your Fed chief. And even if you had the authority to fire the Fed chief, the message that would send around the world would be very devastating.

AVLON: Tough stuff. Thank you.

ROMANS: It's just -- it's so much for a government shutdown, right? It's just -- it's just there's so much happening. Open up the door and there's something else there.

HILL: There's something else there. It's like an Advent calendar. And, look, it's Christmas Eve.

AVLON: It's an Advent calendar of disaster. Yes.

ROMANS: But will it be over tomorrow?

HILL: No. There are going to be a lot of presents under that tree tomorrow.

AVLON: Yes.

HILL: Not the kind you want.

Christine, thank you.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

HILL: We do also have some more breaking news.

We're learning that the death toll from the tsunami in Indonesia has now risen. Now 373. Earlier this morning it sat at 281. More than 1,400 others hurt and that desperate search for survivors continues at this hour.

I do want to warn you, some of what you are about to see, the video, is disturbing.

As we're showing you some of these pictures, we can tell you, four people connected to this band that was performing, as you watch this video you'll see this wall of water come through, four people connected to that band were killed as this wave washed ashore between Java and Sumatra.

CNN's Ivan Watson joins us now with more on the latest coming out of Indonesia.

Ivan.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica.

Yes, there's been a surge in the death toll, in the number of people missing. And it just illustrates how complicated this search and recovery and rescue effort is after this terrible tsunami that impacted on Saturday night during what was a holiday Christmas weekend where the resorts along the beaches were quite full. And, as you saw there, people were going to pop music concerts when the wall of water hit.

Now, there have been additional complications. The authorities are urging people to stay away from the beaches where they're supposed to be cleaning up debris and looking for potential survivors and people who did not fare so well. So that makes the recovery effort even harder.

[08:35:15] They believe that this tsunami was cause by a volcanic eruption. This island in the middle of the Sunda Strait, which erupted on Saturday. And the scientists in Indonesia say that it dumped more than 150 acres of mountainside into the ocean, and that's what created this deadly natural disaster.

Now, you showed that pop music concert. It's an Indonesian band named 17 that was playing Saturday night. The lead singer gave this tearful message on Instagram in the hours after the wave and said that a lot of his band members were missing, and his wife. Well, he has since announced that his entire band was killed Saturday night and his wife is still missing.

Erica. John.

HILL: Oh, my goodness. All right, Ivan, thank you.

AVLON: That's just terrible.

All right, what could have been a bipartisan deal has turned into a partial government shutdown with no end in sight. So, how did we get here? We'll get to "The Bottom Line," next.

HILL: But first, the new CNN film "Love, Gilda" takes a look at the incredible life of the comedy legend Gilda Radner. It airs New Year's Day at 9:00 p.m. right here on CNN. But here's a sneak peek.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GILDA RADNER, COMEDIAN: Hi, I'm Gilda Radner, and -- OK, now.

People want to know, what made you funny? From the time I was a kid, I loved to pretend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was the very first performer chosen for the cast of "Saturday Night Live."

RADNER: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They just loved her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I basically stole all of my characters from Gilda.

RADNER: I can do almost anything if people are laughing.

Boom, ba, ba, boom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gilda was just not quite herself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One morning she just said, I don't know what's wrong with me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The comedian gets the most unfunny thing in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She felt that she could be of help, and that's exactly what she did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How often do we get to know exactly how brave we are?

RADNER: I always felt that my comedy was just to make things be all right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Love, Gilda," New Year's Day, at 9:00 p.m.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:41:14] HILL: Day three of a partial government shutdown that, frankly, didn't have to be at all. President Trump again rejecting a bipartisan deal to fund the government, all of this over the president's demand for billions more for his border wall.

Let's get "The Bottom Line" with CNN political analyst and national political correspondent for "The New York Times," Jonathan Martin, and CNN political analyst and national correspondent for "Bloomberg Businessweek," Joshua Green.

Gentlemen, always good to see both of you in the morning.

Jonathan, as we look at this, I mean the bottom line here really is that this shutdown didn't have to happen. Now it's day three. The president said he would own it. He doesn't want to own it.

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

HILL: And here we sit, waiting for the new Congress.

MARTIN: Yes, I mean, I don't see any scenario where Democrats would give in at this point, seeing as how they're going to have control of one chamber of Congress here in a matter of days. So I -- it's hard to see how this gets resolved.

It's an odd shutdown for those of us who have covered politics for a long time. Usually a measure of urgency about these issues because the two parties don't want to be blamed. You just don't see that this time, guys. There's almost a kind of resignation. I think that's in part because of the sort of change in power in the House that's coming. I also, frankly, think it's in part because the Republicans can't

really prosecute the case against the Democrats because of what the president has said. You know, you don't see Mitch McConnell, for example, out there, you know, lashing Democrats left and right. You see him offering a kind of like 101 level civics class about how to fund the government, telling the president, not very subtly --

AVLON: Yes.

MARTIN: That he needs to get Democratic votes and that he then needs to sign the bill.

It's very fascinating to watch his comments. You know, they're totally targeted at the president and not Democrats. But -- so this is a very different kind of shutdown here, there's no question about it.

AVLON: J-Mart would you -- are you suggesting that we actually just elevate McConnell to do a "School House Rock" and that's -- that's the Christmas gift to the country?

MARTIN: I'd love to see it. He's already halfway there, John.

AVLON: OK, I'm just checking on that.

Now, Joshua, here's my question, because normally a Christmas shutdown would be bad political news. This is self-inflicted. Republicans have unified control. And it comes, of course, the same time that Republicans have begun to really speak up and speak out against the resignation of James Mattis.

My question to you is, do you see us beginning to see fissures in the Republican coalition that aren't just quiet expressions of discomfort but real concerns by Republicans in Congress with this president?

JOSHUA GREEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I do. And I think there are a couple of things happening here. What you're beginning to hear publicly are the same complaints a lot of reporters have been hearing privately going all the way back to the beginning of the Trump administration. They've gotten louder over the summer.

But I think the twin blows of Mattis resigning, essentially in disgust, the fact that one of the few remaining adults has gone has really put fear into a lot of Republicans who are beginning to understand in a very real and visceral way that things could go very badly from here on out.

I think the other factor here is, you know, we at "Bloomberg" reported on Friday night that Trump was suddenly obsessed with the possibility of firing Fed Chairman Jay Powell over interest rate hikes, over Fed quantitative tightening. That is something that sent a scare through the market. I got calls all day on Saturday. I got a call from a congressman on Saturday worried because they understand in a way that perhaps Trump does not the kind of immediate and severe economic fallout that would occur were Trump to take that step.

I think the unprecedented press release that we saw from the Treasury where the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is calling around to banks, essentially checking in to say, hey, is everything OK, is a reflection of the fact that people inside the government, if not Trump himself, understand how serious a threat that is. I think that's woken up a lot of people who might not have been quite as public in their criticism before. Now they are willing to speak up and say, hey, this is not something that we -- we can live with.

[08:45:27] HILL: Which will be fascinating to see how much of that we see and hear from them because, Jonathan, there's also reporting from both "The New York Times," from "The Washington Post" about how this president is increasingly isolated, tweeting 23 times since the shutdown, holed up in the White House, watching a lot of TV. And we know he has said multiple times, even as recently as less than a month ago, he goes with his gut because his gut oftentimes knows more than a lot of other people.

MARTIN: Yes. And, I'll tell you, I was in the Capitol on Friday, guys, talking to members of Congress and I can't recall a time where, in the first two years of this presidency, where you had so many Republican lawmakers who were expressing their concerns openly and on the record. To Josh's point, you know, we've heard this privately for a couple of years now. Lots of eye rolling, lots of snickering, lots of sort of WTF, but we have not sort of seen this on the record like we did last Friday.

And, by the way, not just from Bob Corker, who, of course, I think kind of relishes now poking President Trump and Trump nails -- swipes back. They've kind of had this on again, off again feud. But from, you know, rank and file senators like Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, Pat Roberts from Kansas, who were not typically outspoken critics of this president, who do not like what they have seen. I think Josh is right, I think the Mattis resignation over the abrupt Syria decision was something of a tipping point. The question is, what does that add up to besides sort of rhetorical condemnations? It's not clear to me yet. But we are at a point now where you do see more open critiques from his own party than we have probably the previous two years.

AVLON: All right, it's a chaotic Christmas ahead.

J-Mart, Joshua, thank you very much for joining us on NEW DAY.

MARTIN: Thank you.

AVLON: All right. Well, they've lost their home but not their hope on this holiday. We check in with a mother and son who survived a deadly California wildfire, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:57] HILL: Northern California's Camp Fire will go down as the deadliest and most destructive in state history, killing 86 people, torching more than 150,000 acres. You may remember Eli Kingery. He was then eight years old. He spoke with Scott McLean last month after he and his family were forced to flee the raging flames.

Here's a little bit of what Eli had to say then, including what he missed the most.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELI KINGERY, FAMILY LOST HOME IN PARADISE, CALIFORNIA, WILDFIRE: Just being in a bed.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You just miss your bed? It's warm.

KINGERY: Being under a ceiling and actually having a real bathroom. It's just hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Just hard.

Joining us now, Eli Kingery and his mother, Haley.

Eli, though, we should have to update this because you're nine now. You had a birthday just after Thanksgiving. So happy belated birthday.

And you have a bed again. You have a roof. Tell me, Eli, how are you doing?

ELI KINGERY, FAMILY LOST HOME IN WILDFIRE: I'm doing very well.

HILL: That's good to hear. And you're even -- you're back at school with some of your friends, right, your classmates?

E. KINGERY: Yes.

HILL: How important was it for you to be -- not only to have a home again but to be at school, to be with your friends, to have that bit of normalcy, too?

E. KINGERY: It was very -- I don't know.

HILL: Do you guys talk about it at school?

E. KINGERY: Yes.

HILL: Yes.

HALEY KINGERY, FAMILY LOST HOME IN WILDFIRE: It's been really good for Eli to get back into some things we used to do. It's definitely still a lot different here in this part of the state. And, you know, the situation is different but we're hopeful that it's moving forward. We were donated a travel trailer and his school opened up in a different town. And it's really been moving along.

HILL: Moving along. You guys aren't back, as we should point out, in Paradise and I know you haven't -- you haven't actually ventured back in yet.

H. KINGERY: No.

HILL: You -- not quite ready to, huh? H. KINGERY: No.

E. KINGERY: No.

H. KINGERY: No, we're -- we're waiting until after the holidays.

E. KINGERY: We're waiting.

H. KINGERY: We thought it would be best to --

E. KINGERY: Get a little normal.

H. KINGERY: Yes. To, you know, have the holidays with our family and enjoy Christmas and, you know, we definitely want to go back and have to go back and survey our house and things like that.

HILL: Yes.

H. KINGERY: But for right now it's -- we think that it's best that we just kind of have a nice Christmas and move on a little bit.

HILL: Yes, one step at a time.

Eli, tomorrow is Christmas. What are you most excited about? What's on your wish list?

E. KINGERY: Well, all I really want is a nice Christmas with my family.

HILL: Yes. Sounds like, from what your mom had to say, you guys are going to get that, because family's really the best gift there is, isn't it?

E. KINGERY: Uh-huh.

HILL: Yes.

H. KINGERY: Right.

HILL: And so important to be around people who you love and who love you and know what it's like.

Haley, as all this is going on, you work at the Hope Center locally.

H. KINGERY: Uh-huh.

HILL: Just talk to us a little bit about sort of how the work that you guys are doing there has even changed a little bit since the fire.

H. KINGERY: Well, it's changed a lot. So we were always -- we were always a center for homeless, low income, really just, you know, anybody that needed clothes and food and survival supplies. And so now, with the current situation of our county, you know, we've stepped it up quite a bit. And we've had to. We were always an emergency response center. And ever since the fire, we've gotten just tremendous amounts of donations coming in. We've had to set up new warehouses, new distribution centers just to make sure that everyone who was displaced by the fire and affected by the fire can get the things that they need. And it's been a huge job, but it's also really rewarding to be able to help people that are our old neighbors and the people we used to go to stores with. You know, we're all -- we're all in the same boat, so to speak.

[08:55:33] HILL: And it's great to see the way people reach out in these moments to help one another.

H. KINGERY: Oh, definitely.

HILL: Haley and Eli, we appreciate you taking the time and getting up extra early to check in with us on this Christmas Eve. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to hearing your next update soon.

Thank you, guy.

E. KINGERY: Merry Christmas.

H. KINGERY: Thank you so much. Merry Christmas.

HILL: Merry Christmas.

AVLON: CNN "NEWSROOM" is next.

But first, our NEW DAY family would like to wish you and your family a very happy holiday on this Christmas Eve.

HILL: Merry Christmas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)