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Trump, Ryan Ignore Past Hostilities, Make Peace; Source: Trump Jr. Interviewed Interior Secretary Candidates; Aleppo Ceasefire Broken; 50k Civilians Trapped; Energy Department Refuses to ID Climate Change Workers. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 14, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:20] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Donald Trump leads his "Thank You" tour to Wisconsin and puts on a big show of unity with the state's native son, the House Speaker Paul Ryan, but the Wisconsin crowd apparently not forgetting Ryan's reluctance to embrace his party's nominee. Listen to the crowd's reaction as the president-elect extends an olive branch.

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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL-ELECT: Speaker Paul Ryan, I have really come to -- oh, no. I have come to appreciate him. Speaker Paul Ryan -- where is the Speaker? Where is he? He has been -- I'll tell you, he has been terrific. And you know honestly, he's like a fine wine. Every day goes by I get to appreciate his genius more and more. Now, if he ever goes against me I'm not going to say that, OK?

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COSTELLO: All right. With more, CNN's Sunlen Serfaty joins me from Washington. Good morning.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you Carol. And the other thing that was really notable from that campaign style rally that Donald Trump held last night with Paul Ryan is the fact that he really used this platform to push for his nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who is causing a lot of uproar on Capitol Hill among many Democrats. And notably, among some prominent Republicans really pushing back on this nominee and we saw Donald Trump last night speaking from the podium, defending his nominee, without specifically mentioning Rex Tillerson's ties to Russia which of course is the main source of a lot of the consternation on Capitol Hill. Here's Donald Trump last night in Wisconsin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Rex will be a fierce advocate for America's interests around the world and has the insights and talents necessary to help reverse years of foreign policy blunders and disasters, very excited about Rex. And you know, Rex is friendly with many of the leaders in the world that we don't get along with, and some people don't like that. They don't want him to be friendly.

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SERFATY: Now, today at Trump Tower the president-elect will be convening an interesting meeting, a tech summit of sorts. Many tech CEOs headed to Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump. We are talking people like Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, among the many who are coming out to Trump Tower today. Notably one name you will not see on the list, you will not see the Twitter or its CEO on the list today. They were not invited to this meeting and will not attend. And notable that many of these CEOs that will be coming to meeting today were very vocal on the campaign against Donald Trump. We know on the agenda for the meeting today will be jobs.

Now, one thing also in the mix is a briefing that Donald Trump has now receiving from his incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn. You may recall, Carol, that it was reported that Trump was only on average receiving one of these PDBS, presidential daily intelligence briefings, per week. Now we know according to transition officials that Michael Flynn is indeed himself getting one of these each day and now he's giving President-elect Donald Trump one, three times a week. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right. Sunlen, I also understand there's news of Donald Trump Jr. And his involvement in naming picks for Trump's cabinet. Can you get into that for us?

SERFATY: Yes Carol. This really speaks to the continued closeness with Donald Trump's kids and his transition. Of course, coming at a time when there's a lot of scrutiny on how the kids' roles will be in the White House, whether official or unofficial, and how that might be tangled with Donald Trump's businesses. Of course, he has said that he will separate the two. He will untangle himself from the businesses, hand those over to his two sons.

So, notable here that Donald Trump Jr., he had a big role and had a big interest in helping choose the Interior Secretary nominee. We know that he played a prominent role in specifically interviewing some of the candidates. We know he is a game hunter is his hobby. He likes hunting and certainly that potentially swayed his, you know his involvement in this sort of pick.

Of course, Donald Trump settling on Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke but certainly, notable given the fact that tomorrow Donald Trump was intending to have a press conference to discuss this sort of conflict of interest, how his kids are handling the business, how he's going to untangle himself, -- what role will they have going forward.

COSTELLO: -- Just to be clear, Donald Trump Jr. interviewed Ryan Zinke who eventually got the appointment of Interior Secretary for the job?

SERFATY: That's right. We know according to sources that he seemed to -- interview a few potential cabinet

[10:05:16] members specifically for Interior. So he's taking a big interest in this but certainly interesting, given we know the closeness of him but he's taking an active role in this transition.

COSTELLO: All right. Sunlen Serfaty, thank you so much. So let's talk about that. With me now, former Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra, he was co-chair of Trump's campaign in Michigan. Welcome, sir.

PETE HOEKSTRA, (R) FORMER MICHIGAN CONGRESSMAN: Good to be with you, Carol. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So, does it surprise you that Donald Trump Jr. interviewed candidates for Trump's cabinet?

HOEKSTRA: No. It doesn't surprise me at all. I can tell you, I have been on the side, you know, you are a candidate. I ran state-wide in Michigan, sometimes that's a pretty lonely effort being out there. And you know, with much of the Republican establishment not initially supporting Mr. Trump, one of the things that you really do rely on in a campaign, and you can't run a campaign successfully unless you have your family's support.

COSTELLO: We are not talking about the campaign anymore. We are talking about Donald Trump Jr. actively interviewing a cabinet member -- a potential cabinet member.

HOEKSTRA: And probably a number of other people interviewed some of these cabinet members as well, and so Donald Trump is going to a number of people that he trusts, gets their input and then Donald Trump goes and makes that decision. That's fine.

COSTELLO: -- But here's the thing. Donald Trump's sons are supposedly running the business to kind of separate the conflicts of interest, right? So how is that separating conflict of interest if Donald Trump Jr. is running Trump's enterprise and interviewing people for his father's cabinet?

HOEKSTRA: And that is exactly the process that the Trump family is going through right now. They are going through it with their lawyers. They are going through it with lawyers in terms of who are experts on government ethics -- and designing the structure.

COSTELLO: -- If they are concerned enough to go through it with lawyers, why is it happening?

HOEKSTRA: Why is what happening?

COSTELLO: Why is Donald Trump Jr. interviewing potential cabinet picks? If they know, -- if they are talking with lawyers about conflict of interest.

HOEKSTRA: Well, because Donald Trump is -- this is the process they have to go through. Donald Trump has been a phenomenally successful businessman on a global basis. The family has been a part of that process and so, now as he moves into the Office of the President, they have to design the process and design the mechanisms to make sure that the American people understand and realize that Donald Trump is there for only one reason. That is to "Make America Great Again." And his family will be running his business. COSTELLO: But Donald Trump has already put off a news conference that he was supposed to hold telling the people of America how he was going to separate his business interests from his running the country. He's pushed that off. And now, you know it kind of pops into your mind maybe there's a reason for that and he wants his family to be involved for as long as possible.

HOEKSTRA: Well, I mean, I don't know exactly what the process, you know that they are going through or exactly when he will you know lay out how he is going to separate potential conflicts of interest. But I would expect that this is a very, very difficult process.

COSTELLO: But Donald Trump Jr. having an active role in appointing these cabinet picks. Once Donald Trump Jr. is removed from the process, let's say, and he is running Trump's many business enterprises, won't whoever, like, Interior Secretary, won't the Interior Secretary be beholding to what Donald Trump Jr. wants because he had a role in choosing him?

HOEKSTRA: You know the bottom line is it is a very close-knit family. Personally they are close-knit in terms of what the -- you know in terms of the campaign that they went through. It probably brought them much closer together. And regardless of whether he has talked to a couple of the candidates or not, it is going to be very difficult to separate the business and somewhere along the line -- in the future. They will be in the same room.

COSTELLO: -- I think it's more than just talking to a couple of candidates. I think that Donald Trump Jr. interviewed Ryan Zinke for Interior Secretary. He had an active role in that. That's more than just talking to him.

HOEKSTRA: I don't know what went on and what went on in the room and I don't know who the other people were that interviewed Ryan Zinke or the other candidates for that process. All I know is that Donald Trump is going through and he's identifying the people that he believes are best suited for the jobs that he has to fill. And he's getting a range of inputs as he puts this team together, and this team will be measured on the results that they deliver for the American people.

COSTELLO: So do you know if Donald Trump himself interviewed Zinke for the Interior Secretary role?

HOEKSTRA: I don't know exactly who Donald Trump has talked to in each of these cases. My understanding is that he's talking to all of these candidates because he recognizes number one, it's important that he has a working relationship with these individuals and the second thing is he's got great

[10:10:16] confidence in his ability to identify talent and identify talent with the jobs that needs to be filled.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Former Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra thanks so much for joining me this morning.

HOEKSTRA: Great. Thank you. COSTELLO: You're welcome. For only the second time in a decade the Federal Reserve expected to raise its key interest rate today. Millions of you from potential home buyers to savings account holders could be impacted. Wall Street, however, does not seem to be shaken. Oh, no. Alison Kosik is watching the numbers at the New York Stock Exchange. Hello.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN MONEY BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. So as you know, Wall Street is not a big fan of surprises. So if rates do rise today, the Fed said, OK, we're going to go ahead and raise rates, as they are expected to, it's not going to be a big shocker to Wall Street because what the Fed has done over the past several months, since the summer, is talk it up, detailing what rates -- that rates would rise and that the U.S. needs to get back on a path towards normalization. Because the thinking by most is that yes, the economy's not booming but it is ready for a rate hike. You look at unemployment, at 4.6 percent, 180,000 new jobs being added each month on average, GDP is up 3.2 percent in the third quarter and prices are rising but still below the Fed's 2 percent target.

So yes, rates could be going up today but interestingly enough, if you look closely, rates have actually already risen ahead of the formal announcement as investors expect an increase. And investors really seem to be OK with it. So yes, you are seeing these borrowing costs go higher and they're going to go higher if the Fed decides to raise rates today, that decision coming at around 2:30 this afternoon or 2:00 this afternoon. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right. We'll check back. Alison Kosik, many thanks. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the ceasefire in Aleppo has been broken. Now, the Assad regime is on the brink of reclaiming that city. And record numbers of civilians are dying.

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[10:15:27] COSTELLO: The slaughter of civilians, women and children goes on in Aleppo, Syria despite calls for a ceasefire. A ceasefire reached at quickly discarded. The Syrian Army upon orders from strongman Bashar al-Assad continues to drop bombs on its own people. Evacuations were supposed to be part of that now defunct ceasefire agreement. Well, that didn't happen. Now, it's estimated 50,000 people are trapped in rebel-held parts of the city while the bombing continues. And the United Nations fears the regime is executing, executing civilians. CNN's senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen is in Beirut. He just returned from reporting in Syria. Tell us more, Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Carol, and you know, one of the things that's happening is the fighting there that's going on in Aleppo, it is extremely intense. And you know, that's what we have found out over the past couple of minutes, over the past couple of hours, is that it doesn't only involve things like mortars, things like artillery, but we have also heard that war planes are in the skies once again dropping bombs there on those districts in -- Eastern Aleppo. Now, the government for its part says, that there's also been mortars lobbed in its direction, that there were three people who were killed on the government side as well. But of course, the fear is the biggest on the side that's still held by the opposition where those some 50,000 people appear to still be trapped and some of them are so scared that they are recording goodbye messages. Let's listen to some of those.

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LINA SHAMY, ACTIVIST: To everyone who can hear me, we are here exposed to a genocide in the besieged city of Aleppo. This may be my last video.

MOHAMMED EDEL, ENGLISH TEACHER IN ALEPPO: I am going to be killed. That's what is going to happen. I'm going to be killed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't want anything else but freedom. I hope you can remember us. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So there you have it. Some very disturbing, some very emotional messages many of them felt that the Syrian military and its allied forces were closing in on them. And you could just feel their fear that they had of not surviving the next couple of hours. Now, Carol, the ceasefire that was supposed to be in place was brokered by Turkey and also by the Russians and both powers say they are working on trying to get it reestablished but of course, with every minute that passes, with every artillery shell that's launched the prospect of trying to get it going again becomes more slim. Carol?

COSTELLO: Frederik Pleitgen reporting live for us this morning.

New progress reported in the ongoing fight against ISIS. Washington's point man on that campaign says two years of U.S.-led airstrikes have inflicted a staggering toll. Some 75 percent of the militant fighters have been killed. CNN's Barbara Starr, live at the Pentagon with more. Good morning.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Let's break some of this down. The campaign against ISIS, the war, has been going on for two years, prosecuted mainly by the United States in airstrikes across Syria and Iraq. Now, the White House envoy to all of this says that ISIS's ranks are depleted down to 12,000 to 15,000 capable fighters. That is a huge drop, that 75 percent from what it was at one point.

And in fact, just a few days ago, the administration said it had already tallied, if you will, that 50,000 ISIS fighters had been killed in the last two years. Most of this is taking place from coalition airstrikes, pilots generally report what they think the total number of people they have killed in an airstrike is. Not extremely precise, but it is a pretty good calculation of where they are. The other reason the numbers are going down inside Syria and Iraq, the last two years you have seen the borders get tightened up, especially the Turkish border, north of Syria, north of that area where the ISIS fighters had been crossing in, in such large numbers for several years. The foreign fighters, if you will.

So a lot of progress right now. And it's raising some interesting prospects. You know, Donald Trump campaigned on he wanted to really get rid of ISIS. He was going to get a new war plan from his generals. Well, by the time Donald Trump takes office, we will see where this war has progressed to and it looks right now like they are making significant progress. We will see what's left for Trump to deal with. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Barbara Starr reporting live for us this morning. Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the Trump team entangled in a new fight, this time with the Energy Department, up next, why the agency says it's not handing over a list of employee names when it comes to climate change.

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[10:23:30] COSTELLO: A climate change fight gets heated. The Trump transition team wants names. Now, the Department of Energy is pushing back. Energy officials now, refusing to comply with a request from the Trump team to name employees who have attended workshops on climate change. CNN's Athena Jones has more for us. She's live at the White House, good morning.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This is a subject that's concerned a lot of folks, not just folks at the Energy Department. Here at the White House, we heard from Press Secretary Josh Earnest saying that this could be seen as an attempt to target civil servants, career federal government employees. We know of course from the Energy Department, spokesperson there said that this memorandum, this questionnaire from the Trump transition team left many in our work force, "unsettled" and we also heard from the union representative for -- those employees just a little while ago. Let's play some of what he had to say about their concerns.

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TONY REARDON, NATIONAL PRESIDENT NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION: They are concerned about their future employment. They are concerned about the release of this information from the perspective of the privacy of their personal information. These really hard-working, outstanding federal employees, they are scientists, they are engineers, they are economists, they do work that is incredibly important for our country and it is important that they are able to pursue that work with independence and with integrity.

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JONES: Pursue that work with independence and with integrity, those are two points that this union representative stressed over and over again. They are concerned not only about keeping their jobs, but about what this could mean for the integrity of the work, pursuing the science in doing so

[10:25:16] in an independent way. And I've got to say just one more development just in the last few minutes, two Democratic members of Congress have sent this letter to Trump's transition team, to Mike Pence, who is leading that team, asking a series of questions about this memorandum. They want to see the memorandum. They want to see the questionnaire. They want to find out what -- if there have been similar questionnaires sent to other agencies. Just so they can get to the bottom of this.

Their chief concern, I will summarize part of their letter, they said, they are concerned about an ideological litmus test targeting career civil servants who may disagree with the incoming administration's views on matters like climate change. And they said any effort to retaliate, undermine, demote or marginalize civil servants on the basis of their scientific analysis would be an abuse of authority. So this is getting a lot of attention. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Athena Jones reporting live from the White House. So let's talk about that and more. With me now is Democratic Senator Ed Markey. Welcome, sir.

SEN. ED MARKEY, (D) MASSACHUSETTS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: What do you make of the Trump transition team demanding, sending out this -- 74-question questionnaire to the Department of Energy?

MARKEY: It's irresponsible. Every single academy of science in the world, every single country has reached the conclusion that climate change is real, the planet is dangerously warming and that human activity is largely responsible for it. Any employee of the Department of Energy that has been working on climate science over the last eight years is actually doing their job. It would be irresponsible not to deal with the issue.

And now, what we're seeing is an inquiry by the Trump transition team that goes right to the heart of the integrity of the science which has been conducted at the Department of Energy, at the EPA, at the other agencies of the federal government over the last several years, dealing with this issue and these --

COSTELLO: -- Do you have proof of that? Do you have proof of that? I mean, is that -- are you sure that's what the Trump transition wants in sending out this questionnaire?

MARKEY: They are specifically asking questions about the activities of employees at the Department of Energy working on climate science. I don't think there's any question that that is meant to send a chilling effect through all of the science of the federal government for the coming era. If you look at it in the conjunction with the appointment of the head of ExxonMobil to be the Secretary of State, the attorney general from Oklahoma who wants to turn the EPA into every polluter's ally, and you look at Rick Perry, who wants to abolish the Department of Energy, you can see a pattern which is very clear, very obvious, that they are going after the science of climate change. It is now a big oil all-star team which is being put together and these questions that are going to the scientists of our federal government are really meant to say just get out of the way, there's a new team in town, it's the big oil all-stars.

COSTELLO: So, is there any plan that Democrats have to try to block these cabinet picks?

MARKEY: That's why, honestly, these confirmation hearings are going to be historically important. We know that climate change is dangerously warming the planet. We know that generationally, it is something that's going to have a fundamental impact on every single citizen of the planet and that the United States has to be the leader. These hearings on each one of these nominees is going to have to go right to the heart of that issue. Do they understand how fundamental this threat is to not only the United States but to the entire planet and are we going to be a leader or are we going to be climate deniers because that seems to be what the pattern is. --

COSTELLO: I will say, Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil who Donald Trump wants to be his Secretary of State, as CEO of ExxonMobil, he has embraced climate change and he has made some moves within Exxon to deal with that. Does that provide any comfort at all to you?

MARKEY: Over the years, ExxonMobil was the leader of the climate deniers. They may have made some movement but understand this. As you're looking at the new nominees for EPA, for Energy, for the Department of State, what you're seeing is oil being put at the center of our energy policy, of our economic policy, of our environmental policy and our foreign policy. And that is a very dangerous concoction for the future. Oil policy is not --