Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Former President Donald Trump Posts Nearly $92 Million Bond in the E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case; President Biden Hits the Campaign Trail in Battleground States Following His State of the Union Address; The U.S. Sees Stronger-Than-Expected Job Growth, with 275,000 New Jobs Added in February. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 08, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: President Biden riding high after a fiery State of the Union address. He's now using that momentum, hitting reset on his re-election campaign and taking his message on the road to voters in battleground states.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Plus, as the president touts his record, the new February jobs report beating expectations, we break down the numbers and what they mean for you. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

SANCHEZ: This hour, President Biden will arrive in the critical 2024 battleground of Pennsylvania. This is part of a new campaign push to amplify the message we first heard in a confrontation and somewhat unconventional State of the Union address last night. At times, it sounded more like a stump speech. To be fair, he was contending with some heckling Republicans. No surprise, things were politically charged because of that looming election rematch with former President Donald Trump. Let's get you now out to the campaign trail with CNN senior White House correspondent MJ Lee, who's in Pennsylvania for us. MJ, what do we know about this new push by Biden and his campaign?

MJ LEE, CNN, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, as is typical after the State of the Union address, President Biden is hitting the road. And his first campaign stop after his remarks last night is here in the suburbs of Philadelphia. And then after that, it's going to be pretty much back-to-back travel. We see him traveling to Atlanta, Georgia tomorrow. On Monday, it's New Hampshire. And then next week, Wednesday and Thursday, he is traveling to Wisconsin and Michigan, of course, among two of the most important and critical battleground states.

And the campaign is saying that between the president and Vice President Kamala Harris, the plan is for the two of them to basically travel to every single battleground state in the coming weeks. And that's not including, of course, other travel by cabinet members and campaign surrogates as well. And what we're also seeing is the campaign bulking up their physical presence and also just their personnel as well. The campaign told reporters this morning that they plan to open up just in the month of March 100 new offices and make some 350 new hires for the campaign, and that there's going to be a really strong focus on training up volunteers as we officially really head into the general election season.

Now, all of this, of course, is with an eye towards amplifying the message and the vision that we heard President Biden last night trying to paint. This is going to be largely highlighting the strength of the economy. That was one of the major themes, of course, that we heard the president talking about last night. As this is such an important issue for so many voters across the country, here's a reminder of how the president tried to sell that economic message in his State of the Union remarks last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I came to office determined to get us through one of the toughest periods in the nation's history. We have. It doesn't make news, but in a thousand cities, in towns, the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Now, in addition to all of the travel that we just talked about, the campaign says that it is also launching a new ad campaign. This is to the tune of we're told $30 million over the course of some six weeks, both digital ads and TV ads. And these ads, as you might expect, are going to be largely focused on some of the policies that, again, we heard the president talking about last night and drawing that contrast between President Biden and former President Donald Trump. Of course, that was such a major theme that we saw woven in throughout the course of his remarks last night. Boris.

SANCHEZ: MJ Lee live for us in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. Thanks so much MJ. Brianna.

KEILAR: When President Biden is out on the campaign trail here in a few hours, he'll be able to tout another stronger than expected jobs report. The Labor Department saying U. S. Companies created 275,000 new jobs last month, a healthy sign for the economy. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich joining us now to break down the report and Vanessa when it comes to wage growth some interesting numbers here.

[14:05:09]

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN, BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, we have to take it all together. So we have a really strong jobs number, 275,000 jobs added in February. That is hot, but not too hot. And this also pushed up the unemployment rate to 3.9 percent. But that is because you had more people who were unemployed looking for jobs. But we've still seen a sub-4 percent unemployment rate for many, many months now, a streak really that we haven't seen in decades.

Also, the sectors that have added jobs in February are the sectors that have been adding jobs for the past year or so now. You have health care, 67,000 jobs added, government, 52,000 jobs added. And food and drinking establishments adding 42,000 jobs. But as you mentioned, Brianna, it's always important to dig a little bit deeper in this report and look at wages. Wages on an annual basis in February cooled to about 4.3 percent. And if you're an American, you're saying, well, wait a minute, I don't want my wages to go down. But here's the flip side. When wages outpace inflation by a lot, that is actually bad for inflation.

The more money we have to spend, the more that pushes up prices. So that is what the Federal Reserve ultimately wants to see. They want to see inflation--wages cooling and inflation cooling, but they want to see that wage rate close to 3.5 percent. Remember, we're sitting at an inflation rate of about 3 percent. They want it just a little bit higher to make sure Americans can still cover all the bills but not be too hot. So they spend and inflation goes up again, Brianna.

KEILAR: And the government is also revising the blockbuster jobs report from last month, which now shows many, fewer jobs were actually added in January. Tell us about that.

YURKEVICH: Yeah, when we got those numbers in January, our eyes popped out of our sockets because 353,000 jobs added in January. That was hot. That was very hot. But the revision that we just got in these jobs report signals that we actually only added 229,000 jobs in January, less than what we just got in this report for February. So that is still robust job growth, but not as strong as we initially expected.

We also got revisions downward in December as well. So we're actually seeing a really good sort of place with the jobs market right now, where it's not too hot, not too cold. As they say, the Goldilocks, just right.

KEILAR: Just right. Vanessa Yurkevich, you are just right. Thank you so much. Let's discuss now with CNN economics and political commentator Catherine Rampell and CNN senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein. All right, Catherine. Yes. 25 consecutive months with the jobless rate below 4 percent. It's the longest stretch in more than 50 years. Yes. Wages are outpacing inflation. Presidents would kill for those numbers, right? So how do you explain the disconnect on the ground as we see some of the purchasing power of individuals being pretty challenging?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It has been a puzzle for a really long time about why the U.S. economy looks so good on paper. And yet consumers have been relatively grouchy about it for a while. I mean, consumer sentiment has been as low recently as it was in the deepest, darkest depths of the Great Recession, right, when we were coming out of the financial crisis and unemployment was around 9 percent.

I will say that in recent months, consumer sentiment, consumer confidence, other views of economic optimism, those have been improving. They're still not great, but consumers are getting a little bit rosier in their outlook, not actually and objectively a rosy outlook, outlook, so to speak. SANCHEZ: Ron, that grouchiness that Catherine referred to, I mean, that's a real potential liability for the White House. And Republicans are trying to describe President Biden as out of touch on the economy. That was a large part of Katie Britt, the senator from Alabama's message last night. How much do you think Republicans have a chance to connect with voters using that message?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, I think it is a real risk for Biden and maybe the most calculated risk we saw in the State of the Union. I don't think it's that complicated to understand why voters remain mostly negative on the economy, though, as Catherine has pointed out, the consumer confidence numbers have increased substantially in the last few months. Prices for the necessities of life are still significantly higher than when Joe Biden took office. Eventually, we kind of adjust to those higher prices, but that is not the reality we are living in right now. And for many voters, you know, what, what, pollsters will tell me what they hear in focus groups is that they say they had more money in their pocket at the end of the week under Donald Trump than under Joe Biden. And that's pretty much it.

[14:10:09]

I mean, there isn't, you know, whatever the stock market is or the unemployment rate is doesn't really outweigh that. Now, the reason why this is a calculated risk for Biden is that there are a lot of Democrats who have felt that he needed to acknowledge the strains that voters are feeling in their daily lives, you know, making ends meet. He went to the opposite poll in that State of the Union last night. Our economy is the envy of the world, the great American comeback, and, you know, that line of argument does leave him open to this Republican claim that he is out of touch with what people are actually feeling, and there are a fair amount of Democrats who are worried that he is really pushing the dial too much in the direction of accentuating the positive.

SANCHEZ: So, Catherine --

BROWNSTEIN: Despite all the good news that we have, but yeah (ph).

SANCHEZ: Sure. The response from the White House that we got from President Biden last night, or I guess what you could say is (technical difficulty) a pre-rebuttal, I'm not sure how to describe it exactly, but essentially what we got from the White House was --

RAMPELL: A butthole of some kind, yes.

SANCHEZ: A butthole of some kind was economic populism. The idea that corporations are to blame for some of those high prices that Ron alluded to, that the corporate tax rate should be higher. How does that message carry with voters when you have Republicans arguing that higher taxes for corporations means ultimately higher prices for consumers?

RAMPELL: Well, it's an excellent question. I think a lot of the stuff in Biden's economic messaging is a little bit silly. The anti- shrinkflation bill that he endorsed, for example. Shrinkflation is maybe more salient today, but it's actually not more common today than it was a few years ago. Things like that. These are sort of populist talking points that he is hoping will demonstrate to the American public that the Biden administration is fighting for their pocketbooks.

That said, I think where actually Biden and Democrats have a lot more material to work with is by talking about the Trump economic agenda, because Trump, as much as people remember his economy as being much better, and in many respects it was, whether due to him or not, Trump would implement a lot of policy proposals that would make inflation worse, right? He wants to have global tariffs of 10 percent. Those tariffs, we know, have been passed along to consumers.

In the past, the same thing would happen under a Trump administration. That means higher prices for regular people. Beyond that, he wants to shut down immigration, not just illegal immigration, by the way, legal immigration, too. If you look at his actual policy agenda, he would, for example, dismantle the visa program that allows seasonal agricultural workers to come to the United States. What do you think that will do to produce prices?

So if Biden really wants to make a strong argument about why he, you know, is better for the economy, beyond talking about these sort of silly, frivolous policies that maybe won't do very much but sound nice that he is proposing, he could draw attention to the things that would be actually damaging to the metrics, inflation, paycheck growth, et cetera, that Americans say that they care about.

KEILAR: Ron, I wonder what you heard in the State of the Union address that was tailored economically for young people, because this is a group that Biden really does have to bring back into the fold. They helped him win the last election. He's having some issues with them. They're not happy with him, especially over the Israel-Gaza war. And they're feeling the pinch. I mean, when you look at people just getting started sort of building their families, child care is up significantly for toddlers and infants.

You know, they can't buy homes because they're feeling priced out of that market, and yet rents are high as well. Did you hear something? That that audience might have said, yeah, he's working for me on this?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, great question. And I think it really goes to the heart of how the economic debate is going to unfold. Is it going to be based on policy or experience? I mean, I think Biden did begin to frame what has been a traditional Democratic argument that has had success in the past. I will raise taxes on the richest of the rich and corporations and use them to fund initiatives that will help you afford your life better.

Children's tax credit, universal pre-K, childcare subsidies, help in caring for seniors, and Medicare is going to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, while Trump is going to protect the rich. And that's an argument Democrats have, you know, they can roll out of bed and make that argument at two in the morning. They've been doing it for generations. The problem is that at the moment, vastly more people think that Trump's economic policies help them than think that Biden's economic policies that help them.

[14:15:09]

And the risk, I think, the challenge for Democrats is that even many voters who, even if voters agree that Trump's policies mostly benefit the rich, they may not mind that much if they think that they were also better off under them than they have been under Biden. And so I kind of go back to where I started, crossing that threshold of saying to voters that he understands the strains that inflation has created in their lives may be kind of the prerequisite to getting heard on what he would do going forward.

He's choosing something else. He has a lot of positive trends in the economy. He's choosing to highlight them. But that is the risk, I think, he takes with the road he's going down.

SANCHEZ: Ron Brownstein, Catherine Rampell, appreciate the insight. Thanks so much.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: So Donald Trump has paid out nearly $92 million in bond as he appeals the E. Jean Carroll defamation case in New York. Will he have enough cash left to pay that $454 million judgment in the New York civil fraud case? We'll dig into the numbers.

KEILAR: And killed while trying to get help. Another aid mission in Gaza reportedly turning deadly. We'll have the latest on the crisis there ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:20:09]

KEILAR: Former President Donald Trump is making his appeal in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case official today by posting a nearly $92 million bond. It comes as Trump also faces a March 25th deadline to put up another $400 million bond in the U.S. Senate's. Kara Scannell is following all of the developments for us. Kara, what's the latest here?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, just a few hours before Donald Trump's deadline was about to hit, he did post this bond in court this morning for $91.6million dollars. So, he could appeal the jury award to E. Jean Carroll of $83.3 million dollars. The difference in the price there is due to interest that Trump would have to put up because he's posting this bond. There's question of where Donald Trump would get the money from for the bond, and now we have learned that the bond is being secured by a global insurance company, a very well-known company called Chubb (ph).

So, they have secured this bond, and we also can see on the bond that Donald Trump signed it on Tuesday of this week. That was as he was still asking the judge in this case to give him more time to post the bond. So, now that this is kind of settled, the judge has asked E. Jean Carroll's attorneys to weigh in and see if they object to the bond or any of the terms. And if they do, then everyone will be back in court Monday afternoon. Brianna.

KEILAR: And when is Trump's bond due in the New York civil fraud case? And is he expected to have the cash for that, Kara?

SCANNELL: I mean, that's another big question. That bond is due in just about two weeks, on March 25th. Now, Trump had offered to post a $100 million bond, but an appeals court judge rejected that. Trump has now been making arguments before a panel of judges at the New York appeals court to try to get them to allow him not to post the bond until his appeal of the entire judgment is completed. And we expect that the appeals court panel will issue their decision by the end of the month. But again, you can see these deadlines all kind of coming together here because it will be toward the end of the month.

March 25th is when he is expected to post this amount of money. And will he be able to get someone to underwrite a bond of that magnitude for an individual? And people close to Trump say, you know, he has the money. He owns all of these properties. But he still has to be able to put it together in a package. And he has said, worst case scenario, he might have to sell some of his properties in a fire sale. Brianna.

KEILAR: Wow. Kara Scannell in New York, thank you for that. Haiti is now extending its state of emergency as gangs ravage the capital city. What we're hearing from the U.S. State Department is officials try to wrestle back control. Plus, expelled congressman and accused fraudster George Santos is running for office again. Where and why? He's throwing his hat back in the ring.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:25:19]

SANCHEZ: The chaos in Haiti appears to be getting worse, and the rampant gang violence there is worsening as well. The U.N. says that thousands of people are displaced, women are facing sexual violence, and gangs now control about 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince. A state of emergency has been extended into next month. That's after intruders broke into a major port terminal. These new satellite images show that, for the first time, the U.S. has been able to show what was left after looters ransacked shipping containers.

Today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Haiti's Prime Minister, who's essentially shut out of the country over the deteriorating situation there. CNN's Patrick Oppmann is monitoring it all from Havana, Cuba. Patrick, what was the conversation like between the two leaders?

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, U.S. officials are describing what they call an intensive conversation, where, again, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on Thursday, pressed Ariel Henry to announce the formation of a transition government with the ultimate goal of holding elections, something that Henry has resisted, saying that the deteriorating security situation in Haiti over the last months and years simply has not permitted elections, which should have already been held. But, you know, Henry depends on U.S. support.

He's facing increased calls from within Haiti and now from outside Haiti to form a more inclusive government to see if that placates these gangs that are simply rampaging against the state, or preventing him from returning to his own country. We've spoken to residents inside of Haiti, and they describe a situation where they cannot leave their houses. They are essentially being prevented by these gangs from going and looking for more food, from fleeing, from getting on a plane if they're able to. And so, for many of these people, supplies are running low if they have not already run out.

SANCHEZ: Patrick, you mentioned earlier you mentioned some of what it's like for folks on the ground there --