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Trump Tangles with GM over Closing of Ohio Plant; ISIS Fighters Captured Linked to Suicide Bombing that Killed Four Americans in Syria; New Zealand PM Vows to Never Say Massacre Suspect's Name. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 19, 2019 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:14]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump is demanding General Motors reopen the Ohio auto plant shut down earlier this month. The president promising auto workers there he would save their jobs. And now, he's calling on GM to close a plant in China or in Mexico instead. Vanessa Yurkevich has the very latest for us from Lordstown. Vanessa, good morning.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Erica. Yes, this plant here in Lordstown, Ohio closed about two weeks ago but it's very much still at the top of mind for the 1400 laid off workers and for the president who spent much of the weekend into Monday tweeting about GM, calling on the company to reopen this plant or to sell it. That then prompted a response from GM who clarified that it was up to the United Auto Workers Union and to GM to come up with some sort of agreement about how they may reopen this plant.

The president also tweeted about the local union president here, David Green. He said that he needed to get his act together and to produce. But we caught up with David Green last night who said he was surprised to hear from the president on Twitter but said that he was happy that the president was calling attention to the uncertainty of workers here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID GREEN, GM UNION LEADER ATTACKED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: The GOP tax cut gave corporations like General Motors an incentive to build products outside the state.

We just wanted to make sure he understood that a, that the regulations on the book aren't really helping working people, it's not helping companies that actually employ people. A lot of people hear about reform. You know he came here and told folks don't sell your house, those jobs are coming back, and we've seen job losses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YURKEVICH: The people who have lost their jobs here are living in a state of limbo, Erica. They don't know whether to sell their homes and to relocate to a new GM plant or maybe wait it out in the hopes that GM and UAW will come to some sort of agreement before their contract expires later this year. Erica?

HILL: Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke also making a surprise stop at that GM plant yesterday. I know you were able to catch up with him. What did he have to say?

YURKEVICH: Yes, that's right. Beto O'Rourke stopped here in town specifically looking to speak with David Green who we just heard from. He wanted to see how he could help. And he came to talk to David Green and said that if he became president, he promised that he would bring jobs back to this area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Democrats have no hope of winning nor should they if they don't show up first and listen to people in their communities, hear things from their perspective. We used to succeed and win in rural as well as urban America. When we stop showing up, we stop winning in those communities. So I'm showing up everywhere for everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YURKEVICH: And it's important to note, John, that this is one of four GM plants that are slated to stop production this year. So, it won't be a surprise, John, if we hear from the president more on this issue. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, expect we will. Vanessa Yurkevich for us in Lordstown. Vanessa, thank you very much.

Joining me now, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. He has spoken with the president twice. Last year about the General Motors plant in Lordstown. Senator, thank you so much for being with us today.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: Of course.

BERMAN: You read everything the president had to say over the weekend. You know the president is going to Ohio in the coming days and will no doubt address this. What do I think the impact is of the president's at least attention to this issue?

BROWN: Well, I wish he had come earlier this plan began. There were almost 5,000 people working at Lordstown when President Trump was elected. Third shift was laid off soon after second shift was laid off last summer, the same day GM announced it was building and expanding a plant to make the Chevy Blazer in Mexico. The third shift - the first shift, now the plant is basically empty was laid off just last week.

So I've been talking to the president about this. He finally woke up and acts like he wants to do something but start with this. This is the most by GM's own measurements, this is the most efficient GM assembly plant in all of North America. It's been there 52 years. They've done retooling. We've been asking them for months to do retooling. David Green is right. The press in the local say that they can retool, saying that they can go back to work. And David Green said something else. That the president has to cancel his tax cut that he gave to these companies. Essentially, if you shut down production in Lordstown, you pay a 21 percent tax rate there. You move to Mexico, you pay a 10.5 percent tax rate.

The president gave these companies a 50 percent off coupon on their taxes. That's why you should pass the American cars, American jobs, which would restore the equilibrium and these companies would assemble these cars and these SUVs in the United States in large numbers.

[07:35:11] BERMAN: The president you mentioned, you know, you mentioned local 1112 president David Green, the president attacked David Green over the weekend.

BROWN: Well, you know the president -- he attacks everybody. I mean it's - you know when the plant closed initially when the second shift lay off last summer, the president attacked Democrats for that. Even though, it's a Republican president or Republican Congress or Republican governor. That's what he does because it's never his fault. But we just finally woke up.

I mean, I've been talking to him about this plant for over a year. He -- I assume gets briefings about a major auto layoff in a major state. He should know that. He had this tax bill he pushed through that encourages more companies to go overseas. So we're going to see more of it until we sort of the tax - that tax provision with 50 percent off coupon. I've asked him to do that He said, that's a good idea senator to get rid of that.

The next day, he changes his mind. So we've got to keep the pressure on him because these workers are again, they're the most productive workers in North America. And GM ought to want to go in and there we continue to talk to Mary Barra. We know the president lied about what Mary Barra said when the president said Mary Barra blamed her on the Union Workers. These are -- that the workers are efficient. It's a management issue and it's a tax policy issue brought to us by the president of the United States who has betrayed workers throughout the industrial Midwest.

BERMAN: Do you trust the president on this issue?

BROWN: Not especially. I don't think the president follows it much. I don't know that - I mean he's just his judgment has been so bad. He's only now getting engaged when he thinks he has to. So it's not a question of trust me. It's a question of getting him to focus, getting him to do the right things. He should going to Congress and say, pass the American cars, American Jobs Act. And briefly, it works this way. You buy a car listed of a hundred vehicles made mostly in the United States.

You buy one of those, you get a $3500 off rebate at the dealership. And that's paid for by eliminating this Trump tax benefit with the 50 percent American made in the United States, you buy one of those, you get a $3500 off rebate at the dealership. That's paid for by eliminating this Trump tax benefit with a 50 percent off coupon. So we will close that loophole, encouraging companies to stay here. Well, encourage on the other end people to buy cars made by American workers.

That's what David Green talked about yesterday or the day before and of when he said in the first interview where he said pass the American cars, American jobs act, that would fix a lot of this. But I don't - you know whether the president wants to do that, he says he does, when he does, he doesn't. He's got to push Mitch McConnell, because the Mitch McConnell, it's always about special interest groups, and unfortunately, auto workers aren't part of the special interest group for this crowd in Washington.

BERMAN: I had a chance to talk to you about this bill back in November. You said you had spoken to the president. The president said he supported it and really nothing since then. Another person you have spoken to about this issue in the last 24 hours is former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke, who was in Ohio and had a chance speak with you. And this is what the former Congressman said. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'ROURKE: I had a chance to talk to your extraordinary Senator Sherrod Brown earlier today.

He was talking about how we get to work, how we ensure that we incentivize businesses to stay in the United States. We don't reward them with a tax code for taking jobs to Mexico or to China or to anywhere else. We will make sure that we invest in the dignity work, a phrase that he coined that he own and that represents and reflects the genius of this community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, is that the kind of language you want to hear, Senator, in addition to the praise from you, for you, from a presidential candidate.

BROWN: Sure. Yes, I've talked to pretty much if not at all most of the presidential candidates. Beto called me yesterday. I was heading to Columbus in the car and he called me. And we talked about the American jobs, Car American Jobs Act. We talked about the dignity of work. I had done a four-state dignity of work tour, my wife, Connie and I and he had listened. It was a listening tour really. Listen to workers. You know it's about income. It's about wages. It's about childcare. It's about work schedules. It's about the local 226, workers in Nevada likes to say, it's one job should be enough. You shouldn't have to cobble together two or three low wage income jobs.

But yes, the more workers talk, the more that candidates talk about the dignity of work and mean it. I mean, to me, it's who I am and what I fight for. But we don't just use that as a slogan, we use it as the way we should govern through the eyes of workers. And I hope to have those conversations with every candidate and continue to talk about the dignity of work because it really does - it does contrast with this president in this Republican majority who betrays workers. I mean, the White House looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives, and contrast that with working everyday thinking about workers.

[07:40:01] BERMAN: Let me just ask you though because in a new CNN poll out yesterday, asked Americans -- all Americans, you know a broad swath how they thought the economy was. And 71 percent - 71 percent said that the current economic conditions are good. That's very high. Doesn't that have to include some of the workers you're talking about?

BROWN: Of course, it does. I think workers with decent jobs have been in what they read in the paper, they hear out president taking full credit for the growing economy. They see job growth. They see the number of jobs that they were increasing last month was disappointing, but they've seen good months and that's all sort of gets mixed up on your mind. But what we're not seeing is -- we're seeing profits go up, we're seeing executive salaries explode upward, we're seeing productivity of workers go up but workers' wages are flat. There are far too many workers that simply aren't getting a raise as the cost of living keeps going up.

So, saying the economy is good for one thing, saying your personal life and personal finances look to be good in the future or another. And I just hear too many workers saying how hard they're working and not able to get ahead. And that's why we need this focus on the dignity of work and this focus on unionization.

BERMAN: I got to let you go here. But yes or no, when you talked to former Congressman O'Rourke yesterday, did he impress you?

BROWN: Yes. We had a good conversation. He listened and I give him credit for that. Yes, I liked him.

BERMAN: All right. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, thank you so much for coming on. You're always welcome on NEW DAY. Appreciate it.

BROWN: Thanks.

BERMAN: Erica?

HILL: How the Civil War at its myths are making a dangerous comeback. The Reality Check is next.

[07:45:17] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: As Americans, at the end of the day, no matter how much folks may disagree, the country is sort of supposed to be on the same side, right, John Avalon? Maybe? Maybe not, bursting our bubble on today's Reality Check?

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: I got some bad news for you although I'm ultimately an optimist. We're seeing a slide back to some really ugly talk from the past. We got to stop it.

The guy Congressman Steve King just added another track to his greatest hits collection. It's an image of red states and blue states engaging in a fistfight. Caption reads "Folk keep talking about another Civil War. One side has about 18 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use." King shared it with a comment, wonder who would win with a smirk.

Now, there are many things wrong with this. Not at least of which is that King's own state of Iowa is on the losing side of the fight in this image. While former Bush counsel Richard Painter called the King's post treason. For a lot of folks, it was just another manic Monday in the Trump era. Right wing congressman posts crazy meme about a brewing Civil War. You know, that thing that killed more than 700,000 Americans, the war about slavery that we're still dealing with today and debates about taking down monuments, fights over the confederate flag and conversations about reparations like in last night's town hall with Elizabeth Warren.

And did I mention more than 700,000 Americans died? Civil War rhetoric starting to get normalized. The GOP nominated a candidate for Virginia governor in 2018 with neo confederate sympathies. A year before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville featured confederate flags and its poster. Trump strategist Steve Bannon predicts that 2019 will be the most vitriolic year in American politics since before the Civil War.

A decade ago when I was writing a book called "Wing Nuts," this kind of rhetoric, it's really fringe stuff. But I'll never forget one Alabama militia member who said, "All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for Civil War."

Now, we've got a member of Congress teasing it on social media. It's obnoxious notion that's getting tossed around more and more. With titles like these, "Why Democrats Would Lose The Second Civil War Too," "The Nuclear Option: The 'Coming Civil War' Already Here" and "It's Time for the United States to Divorce Before Things Get Dangerous." These are just a few.

We're playing with fire here. Don't believe me? A recent study found that more than 40 percent of people in both parties believe the opposition isn't just wrong, they're quote, "down right evil." Goes on to find that 20 percent of both parties think the country would be better off if a large number of the opposing party, quote, "just died."

Tone comes from the top. In a recent interview, our president dropped this bit of knowledge, quote, "I have the support of the police, the support of the military, support of the bikers for Trump. I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."

Michael Cohen said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Look, Democratic norms are being tested every day but our country is stronger and better than this talk. To even flirt with the concept of a second Civil War is callous and clueless. Which reminds me of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not had been worked out?

AVLON: People actually ask that all the time. And the idea is to learn from our past, not repeat it. And that's your Reality Check.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BERMAN: All right. We have some breaking news just in to us. So U.S. backed forces in Syria have captured ISIS fighters that they believe are linked to this suicide bombing in January that killed four Americans. The bombing killed Green Beret Jonathan Farmer, former Navy SEAL, Scott Wirtz and two language specialists, Shannon Kent and interpreter Ghadir Taher. CNN's Barbara Starr is live at the Pentagon with the breaking details on this. Barbara, what have you learned?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Such important news for these families of the Americans and for the U.S. military. A U.S. Defense official tells CNN this morning that in February now the SDF, the Syrian Democratic forces, backed by the U.S. and Syria did capture up to five ISIS militants that they believe were involved in the planning and execution of that suicide attack in January in Manbij, northern Syria that killed four Americans and several Syrians when a suicide bomber detonated a huge bomb near a restaurant there.

This information was first reported by "Reuters." We want to acknowledge them. But we also now know that the U.S. has been able to interrogate these ISIS fighters since they were captured in February.

[07:50:07] And they continued to be held in the Manbij area by the SDF fighters. So a lot to unpack here because one of the key questions now is whether the Syrian fighters will continue to hold them or if evidence can be developed that could lead to a prosecution here in the United States. Could these people potentially be transferred back to the United States as terrorist having the pass to stand trial for the killing of Americans and stand trial in this country. We don't know the answer to that yet at this early hour. But again, what we do know now is up to five ISIS militants said to be involved in the planning and execution of a suicide bomb attack in northern Syria in January that killed four Americans, those people now captured by U.S.-backed fighters in Syria. John, Erica?

BERMAN: Such an important development, Barbara. And of course with these people in custody right now. In captivity, there are intelligence assets that can be mined to find out more about the condition of ISIS there. Barbara, thank you very much for that.

STARR: Sure.

HILL: Some anti-vaxxers were accused of crossing the line. You will hear from some of their targets. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:55:24] HILL: New Zealand's Prime Minister returning to Christchurch today where 50 people of course were killed. Shootings at two different mosques. The Primer Minister is vowing to never utter the massacre attacker's name. CNN's Ivan Watson is live in New Zealand with more for us. Ivan?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica. The Prime Minister spoke in parliament for the first time since last Friday's deadly attacks. And she denounced the man accused of carrying out the deadliest terror attack in modern New Zealand's history calling him a terrorist, a criminal and an extremist.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACINDA ARDERN, PRIME MINISTER OF NEW ZEALDN: Speaks the names of those who were lost, rather than the name of the man who took them. He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing, not even his name.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: Prime Minister Ardern says she's going to be unveiling new gun control laws in a matter of days. She's also urging social media sites to do more to restrict the kind of violent content that the gunman live streamed on the Internet. She was backed by the three biggest New Zealand broadband deliverers. They wrote an open letter to the heads of Google, of Facebook, of Twitter saying that these websites, these social media sites have to do more to protect people from this kind of content.

Facebook, for its part, says that it cleared, removed some 1.5 million copies of the video in the first 24 hours after the attack. Meanwhile, the authorities here are still struggling to identify all of the 50 dead from last Friday's attacks which have not only traumatized the tiny Muslim minority in this country, 1 percent of the population, but ordinary New Zealanders as well. I see them in tears every day as they lay flowers here in Christchurch. Erica? John?

BERMAN: Ivan, they are us, as the Prime Minister said so eloquently. Ivan, thanks for being there for us.

We have an important CNN investigation that found that so-called anti- vaxxers have been harassing, intimidating and threatening doctors and patients who speak out in favor of vaccinations. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you all say the science is settled, vaccines don't cause autism you are bearing false witness.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Extra security was on hand at these recent Centers for Disease Control meeting because anti- vaccine advocates have come to give a piece of their minds. There is a reason the CDC was worried. When doctors state the truth that vaccines save lives some anti-vaxxers have threatened to kill them. Anti- vaxxers told Dr. Paul Offit, he should be put in front of a firing squad. Dr. Peter Hotez, another vaccine expert needs a security escort.

On Facebook, anti-vaxxers called for Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and California state senator, to be shot and wrote, I hope they stone you to death. It is not just doctors who have been attacked by anti- vaxxers. One of their targets -- mothers whose children have died. Jill Promoli lost her 2-year-old son Jude McGee to the flu. He received a flu shot but it didn't work. When she posted online about her son's death anti-vaxxers attacked. Telling her she caused her son's death because she gave him a flu shot. Some anti-vaxxers even went so far as to say she had intentionally killed her son.

JILL PROMOLI, VICTIM OF ANTI-VACCINE HARASSMENT: I got a lot of people accusing me of actually murdering Jude and using the flu as an excuse to cover up my crime.

COHEN (on camera): You were called a murderer of your own child.

PROMOLI: The first time it made me feel really sick. The idea that somebody could even suggest that I would do something that would hurt any of them.

COHEN (voice-over): Often these attacks are not random.

COHEN (on camera): So you infiltrate anti-vaccination groups?

ERIN COSTELLO, ONLINE PRO-VACCINE SPY: Yes.

COHEN (voice-over): Erin Costello was stay at home mom. Uses a fake Facebook account to spy on dozens of anti-vaccination groups accounts. When a child dies --

COSTELLO: The other group members who - let's go hit them with our truth, with our information. Go educate them. You know, that's basically let's go harass them.

COHEN: Then she warns the parents. Larry Cook, a leader of the anti- vaccine movement says his Facebook group generates half a million comments per month. Any discussions about parents who lose their children after those children are vaccinated would be minor in number, he wrote. He added that anti-vaxxers get harassed by pro-vaxxers.

Jill Promoli says she won't let the anti-vaxxers stop her. She's launched a campaign in Jude's name to encourage people to get flu shots.

PROMOLI: I don't want anyone to upper lose their child again.

COHEN (on camera): So, you're not giving up?

PROMOLI: Absolutely not.