Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Roller Coaster Week on Wall Street; Carlos Santana Talks about Woodstock; Earnhardt Junior Plane Crash; Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired August 16, 2019 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:33:36] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the market is open. The Dow is up almost 200 points right now. Largely this is because of news out of China overnight. Hong Kong announced a stimulus package worth nearly almost $2.5 billion. Also China says it will seek to boost consumer spending, try to stabilize employment.
Let's talk about this and all we have seen this week with the economy, with the market, with Phil Levy. He was the senior economist for trade in the administration of President George W. Bush, on his Council of Economic Advisers.
Good morning, sir. Thanks for being with me.
PHIL LEVY, FORMER SENIOR TRADE ECONOMIST, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH'S COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Good morning. Good to be with you.
HARLOW: So you saw the inverse yield curve this week. The president called it crazy. You saw the Dow drop 800 points. Now it's up today. It's all over the place. A little bit of whiplash.
And this is very different from what you guys experienced in 2008, obviously, and what we all went through. But I wonder what you're seeing and any lessons from then that give you pause today.
LEVY: I think the thing that really gives me pause is, at that time you had had some long-standing problems and they had a challenge in how to fix them. Here we're seeing policy-induced problems. We're seeing attacks on the trading system and those attacks are starting to take a toll in a somewhat predictable way.
HARLOW: So the president keeps saying time and time again that China pays the tariffs. We know they don't. We know the American consumer does. And he seemed to admit that yesterday. Listen to this.
[09:35:00] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The tariffs, we've taken in close to $60 billion in tariff money. And the consumer has not paid for them. Now, at some point, they may have to pay something, but they understand that.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: They may have to pay something and they understand that. That's really differently than what he had said consistently until now.
And you -- you called this -- you were quoted this week saying this is like a retreat from the administration. Tell me more.
LEVY: Yes, I think the thing that was notable was that the president struck out, as he has want to do, when he didn't get satisfaction in the most recent round of China talks, he promised a very large increase, a broad increase in tariffs. And then what we saw was this pulling back. And I think you're absolutely right, it acknowledged that this was hitting at a time which is absolutely critical for international trade, critical for stocking store shelves for the holiday season and this was going to have a really negative impact. And if he hadn't seen it at first, markets were very helpful in pointing out what that was going to do.
HARLOW: Right. Look, the president keeps blaming the Fed, but you're -- one of the points you make, Phil, that I think is a salient and important one to talk about, is this isn't just about Fed policy, this isn't just about interest rates, this is about the condition of global economies, right? Look at what's happening in Germany. Look at China and the negative indicators out of China over the last week on retail sales, on industrial production.
The longer the trade war goes on, the president says, quote, the weaker China gets, the stronger we get. "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board yesterday argued the opposite, that you don't want China's economy falling into a recession. That is not a net benefit for the United States.
Which camp are you in, the president's or the -- or the editorial board at "The Journal"?
LEVY: I think the editorial board of "The Journal" is sort of in a much -- better populated camp. And I'll go with that one, that the U.S. is actually part of a globally economy, that the linkages are really important and they're absolutely right in that if we see Europe slowing down, if we see China slowing down, this does not bode well for the U.S. economy. And that should not be our goal.
HARLOW: So what would you do, 15 seconds, if you were in this White House, not the Bush White House, what would you tell the president?
LEVY: That it was time to finish up with these tariff games and start working cooperatively with our trading partners to bolster the global trading system.
HARLOW: Phil Levy, it's nice to have you. Come back soon. Thanks very much.
LEVY: Thanks. (INAUDIBLE). Thanks.
HARLOW: All right, 50 years ago -- 50 years ago half a million people packed an upstate New York farm for what many say was the greatest music festival in history. Of course that was Woodstock. Up next, guess who I get to sit next to, Carlos Santana, one of the musicians who rocked that stage and really made a name for himself there. He's here next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:42:04] HARLOW: Fifty years ago, it was the summer of 1969, some of the world's greatest musicians came together on a dairy farm in upstate New York for a festival called Woodstock, of course. It quickly became known as arguably the most iconic pop culture event in history.
(VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Awe, the man you see right there, the one and only, Carlos Santana, was just one of many now music legends to rock that stage along with the likes of Jimmy Hendricks, The Grateful Dead, Credence Clearwater Revival, Janice Joplin, and guess who is with me now, the one and only, ten time Grammy winner, Carlos Santana, one of the greatest guitarists of all time. He also does a lot of work as a social activist and humanitarian.
You don't age, you know that.
CARLOS SANTANA, LEGENDARY MUSICIAN: A reflection of your light (ph).
HARLOW: A reflection of your light (ph).
So you're actually here, you're on your way upstate.
SANTANA: Yes, tomorrow.
HARLOW: And you're going to play in Woodstock again, 50 years. A different one than the one that was canceled. But let's go back to 1969.
You're 22 years old. You make the line-up. You only get paid $750 to play. And that is the beginning of the rest of your life.
SANTANA: Yes. Thank you. God has always put great archangels that I call, like Bill Graham and Clyde Davis to help me walk through this ginormous door. You know, Woodstock was a door that I walked in and all these people were there, same as Supernatural (ph).
You know, I just feel really grateful because I got to witness, with these eyes, that humans can coexist with unity and harmony, with no fights and share granola and a blanket and that's what we're still talking about with Woodstock because there's something about a real testimony, a living proof that humans are capable to, like the year 2000 when we celebrate, you know, from (INAUDIBLE) to Honolulu when Mandela was free and the Berlin Wall came down, you know? That's what Woodstock is to me, it keeps going.
HARLOW: It keeps going.
SANTANA: Yes. HARLOW: You wrote a piece for "Rolling Stone" on the 20th anniversary of Woodstock. So 30 years ago now. And you talked about, at that moment in time in 1969, struggling to keep yourself grounded. Tell me about that and that day.
SANTANA: Well, it's kind of like, you know, for those who have taken that journey, because it is a journey -- some people go on a journey to Peru or certain places in the jungles to meet a shauman (ph) to take (INAUDIBLE). It's kind of like birthing yourself because humans are infected sometimes with so many artificial superficial personalities that you're not the person anymore, you become a personality, you know?
[09:45:06] So, anyway, for me, in front of everybody, 550,000 people, it seems like I was giving birth to myself, and stripping myself -- stripping myself from this other personalities and then you're naked in front of everybody and after -- and you've got to play the guitar and coordinate balance, intonation and being true to the sound.
HARLOW: You talked about taking psychedelic drugs that morning and thinking you were going to go on at 11:00 p.m.
SANTANA: Or 12:00 in the morning.
HARLOW: And then they call you early at 2:00 p.m.
SANTANA: Yes.
HARLOW: And what happens?
SANTANA: I learned to pray in a really, really powerful way. I believe that God really, really helped me to not have fail -- total failure. In front of everybody, I just composed myself. But I give a lot of credit to my mother because my mother taught me the power of faith, the power of -- to believing that you can get through this and you can become elegant and victorious on the other side.
HARLOW: Let's talk about now --
SANTANA: OK.
HARLOW: Because you are a musician very much still bought you're also increasingly a social activist. You've spoken out a lot on immigration. You were born in Mexico. You were an immigrant to this country as a child. And I'd like your take on immigration policy in this country right now. And as Congress debates it and little gets done, what is your advice to the Congress, to the president on immigration in this country?
SANTANA: Rewind your mind to the Berlin wall coming down. When the Berlin Wall came down, we realized that fear doesn't work. Any time there's a wall being erected it's because of people have fear collectively. Any time it comes down, people invest more in love, in joy than fear.
And so this wall will come down. This immigration thing eventually, people will finally realize that being patriotic is prehistoric. We'll finally realize that we really are one family. When you go up there, let's say you and I go up there in a satellite and you look at the world, there's no borders and flats over there or patriotism, you know, it's just one beautiful womb which is the world and we're the family.
HARLOW: But do you -- do you believe that there should be immigration policy in this country? I'm assuming you're not supportive of just open borders, but what would you -- what would you do?
SANTANA: I would say the heart is the passport and love is the currency. So, in my world, none of this stuff exists. This is an illusion that will pass. Eventually we will arrive at humans on this planet to get rid of all this B.S. illusion about, you know, that there's not enough water or not enough this for everybody. All that stuff is bullshit fear, you know? To me, I live in a world that is genuine and solid with believing that there will come a time when we will not need flags or borders or immigration or anything like that because we are one family.
HARLOW: But -- but how is that realistic for the world we live in today? I mean you're calling for -- you're calling for a borderless world?
SANTANA: Yes. Absolutely. That's realistic. This is the illusion. That's how twisted and crooked people's minds are. They believe that this is -- this is the only reality? I don't think so. This is a bad movie made by people who have a self -- that the -- they have a love for power, not the power of love.
We will arrive, and hopefully you and I will see it with this physical eyes, that we will live in a world, we will -- and when we -- and when we're talking about people's impeccable integrity changes everything. And if you don't have integrity, you justify saying that these people are superior or inferior or this. We're all the same body, same people.
HARLOW: We are all human. And we all have hearts and we all bleed.
SANTANA: It is spiritual.
HARLOW: Carlos Santana, I appreciate you being here.
SANTANA: Thank you, Poppy.
HARLOW: Enjoy this weekend.
SANTANA: You too.
HARLOW: You have a new album, "Africa Speaks."
SANTANA: "Africa Speaks."
HARLOW: Thank you very much for being here.
SANTANA: Stay precious. HARLOW: Thank you.
Carlos Santana, take care.
All right, and CNN has a special documentary report. It is fantastic. Of course it's called "Woodstock at 50." It airs tomorrow night, 9:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.
A quick break. I'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:53:58] HARLOW: All right, so this morning NTSB investigators have arrived at the small airport in eastern Tennessee where the plane carrying Dale Earnhardt Junior and his family crashed yesterday. The Nascar legend, his wife, their one-year-old daughter crawled out of their private jet after it slid off the runway, crashed through a fence and burst into flames.
Our Dianne Gallagher is there with more this morning.
Those images are startling, they are terrifying, and it is amazing that they got out OK.
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Poppy, amazing might be an understatement when you see what the wreckage looks like right now. I want you to kind of take -- I'm going to get Stu to push in here. Right now investigators are inside this plane, pulling things out. They pulled a little child's seat out for his one-year-old daughter Isla.
And just look at this charred. The fact that all five of the people on board, and their dog Gus, made it out OK and virtually unharmed is astonishing. Authorities are saying they cannot believe it. The plane was on fire. As they came out, smoke filled the air.
[09:55:00] I want you to focus in on that lattice metal part there. That is not part of the plane. That is a fence that has basically welded itself because it rolled around the plane. As authorities tell me, this is kind of the way this happened. You see it went through that plane. It went on -- came on the runway, skipped. You can maybe see the skid marks a little bit. Came through there. Landed here on the roadway.
Poppy, I can tell you right now that Dale Junior, not going to be calling the race this weekend, like he was supposed to be for NBC. He is back home in North Carolina with his wife and daughter, kind of recoping (ph), recovering and just sort of probably, at this point, thanking his lucky stars. This family has said they're so grateful for all the well wishes.
HARLOW: Counting those blessings for sure. We are all so glad that he, his wife, their beautiful one-year-old, dog, pilot, everyone's OK.
Dianne, thank you so much.
GALLAGHER: Yes.
HARLOW: All right, ahead, Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib decided this morning she will not visit Israel after fighting to be allowed to visit her grandmother in the West Bank.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
