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Push for a Stimulus Deal; Beirut's Aftermath from the Explosion; Trump Jr. Opposes Alaska Mine; Trump Slams NBA Players. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired August 06, 2020 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00] `

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Were in jeopardy of Congress doing too little and repeating past mistakes.

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BUSINESS SCHOOL: Yes. Look, it's already happened. There is one difference between now and the last crisis --

HARLOW: Yes.

GOOLSBEE: Which is this isn't really stimulus. We're not even yet to the spot where stimulus can work in the sense of government spending to try to get the economy moving again. This is literally just rescue and relief while the furnace is out. I mean we've got to get control of the spread of the virus, otherwise, we're just going to be shoveling money to stay warm.

HARLOW: Well, and you said that back in April, by the way.

GOOLSBEE: Yes. I mean before that. I mean --

HARLOW: I mean you've been sounding that alarm for a long time.

But -- OK, but it -- if Republicans in Congress are balking at anything really over a trillion dollars (INAUDIBLE), and I get it, we're way overspent as a country. But if you're saying that this isn't even stimulus, Austan, what are we looking at long term here to stimulate us eventually out of this? How many trillions?

GOOLSBEE: Well, many trillions. I mean if you can't get control of the virus, it's an unlimited trillions. I mean let's address the public health problems so we can at least get people back to work. But the thing I will say is, in a way this is like the -- this is like those old wagon trains to Oregon, you know, with that -- that end badly. And the Republicans are kind of like in the spot where there -- they're like, well, I love my piano, I don't know if I want to leave the piano, you know? Within weeks it's going to be obvious that millions of Americans are desperate for money and we're going to have hundreds of thousands more businesses go under.

HARLOW: So -- GOOLSBEE: And the Republicans are going to suddenly find religion I think and they're going to say, oh, we should have done this weeks ago.

HARLOW: Well, all right, so, but the counterargument to that actually comes from the university where you're an economics professor. And I know you've seen the -- you have Chicago data. Larry Kudlow, you know, brought it up with Jake just a few days ago. It does show that 68 percent of those unemployed have been getting more than they made at their jobs with the extra $600 a week cash assistance. And it's an argument that Kevin Hassett, who had your job at CEA after you made to me just a few days ago. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN HASSETT, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: If you pay people a lot more to stay home than to go to work, then the idea that there are going to be more people going to work, it just doesn't add up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What do you say to that?

GOOLSBEE: Look, I say he's confused. I am a personal friend with the author of that study. The author of that study does not think that they are interpreting his study correctly.

If you look at the jobs numbers, this is not a normal recession. They have in their mind that this is a normal time and I guess that the reason the unemployment rate is high is because people are wanting to take a vacation and be paid.

HARLOW: Well --

GOOLSBEE: It doesn't understand how the unemployment insurance system works. You -- if you are offered a job, you're not allowed to say, no, I don't want to take it. And the second is, we just added more than 5 million jobs and almost three quarters of those people are people whose unemployment payment would be higher than getting a job. The problem is not that people don't want to work. The problem is that -- and we got numbers this morning showing millions of people are losing their jobs every week.

HARLOW: Yes.

GOOLSBEE: There are not jobs for them to take.

HARLOW: OK. To be fair, Kevin Hassett is not saying people want to take a vacation, but he's arguing it is a disincentive to going back to work. And -- and -- and you've seen the National Federation of Independent Business research showed in May that small businesses have seen one in five people they've been offering a job to come back to work have declined saying that they're making more.

I hear both of your points. I want to get to an argument you made to my colleagues at CNN Business that was startling and really important, and that is you -- you are predicting that whoever -- then if President Trump wins a second term or if -- or if Joe Biden becomes the president, may face a greater financial crisis than we saw during the Obama administration.

Explain why you think this sort of brought on economic crisis because we had to shut things down could result in a real sort of banking led financial crisis? Why could that happen?

GOOLSBEE: Well, look, to be clear, that's not my prediction. I don't think that's going to happen.

HARLOW: OK.

GOOLSBEE: The qualifier was, if we do not get control of the spread of the virus, then -- then very well that could happen for whoever is the next president in January because we start from the better spot than we were in 2007-2008. The banks have more capital. They -- we haven't had a popping bubble of that form.

But if we have millions of businesses go under, declare bankruptcy or just shut the doors and cannot pay back their loans, the banks and financial institutions will be right back in the situation they were in, in 2008 where suddenly their capital is totally inadequate and the loans that they were counting on people paying back, they're not paying back.

[09:35:09]

And we will be in the situation which is not unlike the one where we had to come up with money for the TARP, except that everyone will already be so sour because we will have spent trillions of dollars on relief and rescue fighting over unemployment payments and then if they say, well, actually now we need $500 billion, $1 trillion to bail out banks, is it going to be there?

HARLOW: Yes.

GOOLSBEE: I mean, I think that there would be major bailout fatigue.

HARLOW: Let us all pray we don't get to that point.

Hey, by the way, Sciutto tells me that you guys go way back and that you debated each other in high school. And I know who wins these debates every day between, you know, Jim and me. So who won with you guys?

GOOLSBEE: I would say -- I would say I schooled Mr. Sciutto. But -- but he was younger. It was under my expert tutelage --

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: How --

GOOLSBEE: It was under my expert tutelage that -- that Jim got where he is.

SCIUTTO: I'll check the record on that. I will fact check you, Mr. Goolsbee and I'll share with the world so that they can do that.

By the way, I liked your comparison to the stimulus talks to the Donner party. I think the first time I've heard that and, you know, well done.

GOOLSBEE: Right, I just don't want us eating ourselves. Yes.

HARLOW: All right, control room is going to kill us. We've got to get to a break.

Thank you, Austan.

SCIUTTO: Thanks.

GOOLSBEE: Thank you.

HARLOW: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:47]

HARLOW: A two week state of emergency has been declared in Beirut after that tragic massive explosion this week. This happens as crews continue to search for the missing. Now Lebanon's health minister is warning that coronavirus cases may rise there over the next 10 days in the aftermath of this disaster.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Hospitals just overwhelmed. As of right now, 137 people have died. Officials, however, expect that figure to rise. An alarming 5,000 people injured.

CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon, she is in Beirut.

Tell us what the scene is like there and, I mean, I've never seen anything like it.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Neither has anyone who actually lived through it, keeping in mind that this is a population that knows what war looks like. They went through the civil war. They've gone through, you know, multiple explosions in Beirut. They've gone through Israeli air strikes. No one is equipped to handle this right now.

You have dozens of people who are still missing. You know, one young woman, whose father worked at the port, was telling CNN that the Lebanese authorities weren't even really searching because they claimed that they didn't have the necessary equipment. And she says that if she hadn't been the one to take to social media, to, you know, send the word out that her dad was missing, no one would actually know or even try to do something about it.

And it's not just her story. So many families are going through something similar. And we hear an extraordinary amount of complaints and anger being levelled towards the Lebanese government because whether it's at a local level or at a national level, people feel as if they're being left to fend for themselves. They're not turning towards the government for assistance, they're turning towards each other. And that is really where you see the beauty of the Lebanese spirit.

It is teams of volunteers that have flocked in from all parts of the country who are the ones who are trying to clean up the streets, who are helping people clean out their homes, their apartments, trying to find shelter. Friends are opening up their homes to one another. Strangers are opening up their homes to one another. People are distributing food. They're setting up small medical aid stations for basic first aid to try to ease some of the pressure off of the hospitals because, remember, prior to this explosion taking place, Lebanon was about to go into another five-day lockdown related to a spike in coronavirus cases. Those cases have also gone up over the last two days.

The pressure on hospitals is enormous. They're even having to turn patients away. So for the population here, I mean, they really feel as if they're getting hit in all directions.

HARLOW: Arwa, thank you very, very much for that reporting. And you say it so well about the Lebanese people coming together in this tragic moment.

Thank you very much.

Donald Trump Jr. breaking with his father's administration. He wants to block the development of a controversial proposed mine in Alaska. More on that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:48:12]

SCIUTTO: The president's son is now calling on his father's administration to block a controversial gold and copper mine in Alaska. The Trump administration had said the mine would damage -- actually, the Obama administration had said the mine would damage one of the world's largest salmon runs.

HARLOW: The Trump administration planned to push forward regardless. Now, though, as we said, the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., is tweeting his opposition to the mine.

Our Drew Griffin has more on the controversy that he's been following for nearly four years.

Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: It's the most pristine water shed in all of the United States and the largest spawning grounds for wild sockeye salmon in the world.

THOMAS QUINN, PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF AQUATIC AND FISHERY SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: This is the jewel in the crown of America's fisheries sources in salmon. If you don't think this is worth saving, what is?

GRIFFIN: And it's on the land that drains into these waters, the Pebble Limited Partnership is trying to get a federal permit to dig a massive gold and copper mine, a mine that environmentalists and the fishing industry have been fighting for some two decades.

Its CEO, Tom Collier, has worked non-stop lobbying the Trump administration to overturn Obama era's strict environmental rules by claiming his mine won't pollute anything.

GRIFFIN (on camera): Are you telling me you're going to be able to put a clean mine up there that's going to have no effect on anybody's habitat?

TOM COLLIER, CEO, PEBBLE PARTNERSHIP: Absolutely. Exactly.

GRIFFIN (voice over): The mining company has been winning. Trump's EPA reversed the environmental protections in the area after President Trump met with Alaska's governor.

GOV. MIKE DUNLEAVY (R), ALASKA: Just got off of Air Force One.

GRIFFIN: And just last week the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the mine would not have long-term impacts on salmon, and then came these two bombshell tweets.

Nick Ayers, Vice President Pence's former chief of staff, writing, like millions of conservationists and sportsmen, I am hoping real Donald Trump will direct the EPA to block the Pebble mine in Bristol Bay.

[09:50:11]

Donald Trump, Jr., retweeted Ayers comments, adding, as a sportsmen who has spent plenty of time in the area, I agree 100 percent, the headwaters of Bristol Bay and the surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances with Pebble Mine.

A surprising tweet from the president's son, whose social media posts usually mirror the administration's agenda. Mine opponents are thrilled.

TOM BRISTOL, SALMON STATE: He weighed in at probably the most perfect time imaginable. So very welcome, great news, very big deal for us.

GRIFFIN: Pebble's spokesperson says, not so fast, sending CNN this statement that reads both Donald Trump, Jr., and Nick Ayers are wrong, reiterating that the environmental impact study concludes that Pebble Mine will not harm the Bristol Bay salmon fishery and goes on to say, we do not believe that the president will interfere with this statutory process.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But I would certainly listen to both sides. My son has some very strong opinions. GRIFFIN: When asked about his son's tweet, the president was non-

committal but raised some doubt about a mine that seemed like all but a done deal only days ago.

TRUMP: We've done a lot for Alaska. It's a special place. And I'll take a look at that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: Jim and Poppy, according to CNN's Kate Bennett at the White House, Don Jr. hasn't spoken about this with his father since before the inauguration. But, according to her source, the president of the United States is certainly aware of his son's position. To think this could all come down, after all this, to a presidential son's preference on fishing is mind-blowing to the people in Alaska.

Jim. Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Drew Griffin, thanks a lot.

Well, the president certainly follows his son on Twitter.

LeBron James is firing back after the president once again criticized athletes for kneeling during the national anthem. LeBron told the president in response, if you don't watch, you won't be missed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:22]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

President Trump says that he will not watch NBA games if players kneel during the national anthem. And the biggest name in the sport says he's just fine with that.

HARLOW: Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report."

So what does the king have to say?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim and Poppy, you know, LeBron even kind of hesitated when he was asked about this after the Lakers game last night saying he didn't want to get into any kind of back and forth. But, you know, he was asked about President Trump's comments to Fox News where he said that he thought that NBA players kneeling was disgraceful, not acceptable, and he just turns the game off when he sees it.

Well, LeBron said, you know what, I think it's -- that no one in the basketball community is sad about losing President Trump's viewership. And LeBron then encouraged everyone who is fighting for change to vote this November.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEBRON JAMES, LOS ANGELES LAKERS FORWARD: I hope everyone, you know, no matter the race, no matter the color, no matter the size, what it -- see what leadership that we have in our -- at the top in our country and understand that November is right around the corner and it's a -- and it's a big moment for us as Americans. If we continue to about what we want, you know, better, we want change, we have an opportunity to do that. So what the game is -- the game will go on without -- without his eyes on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right, Major League Baseball, meanwhile, sending out a new memo obtained by CNN outlining several strict changes to its health and safety protocols. Among the changes, players and staff being told to wear face coverings at all times, including in the dugout and clubhouse. The only exception is the players out there on the field. Clubs are now required to reduce the size of their traveling parties to those only who are absolutely essential to playing games and players and staffed are strictly prohibited from gathering in any public areas without permission from the team's compliance officer. Repeated or flagrant violations of these new protocols could lead to a suspension for the remainder of the season.

All right, more than 1,000 Big Ten college football players are expressing their concerns over the conference's return-to-play plan amid the pandemic. They published a letter on "The Players' Tribune" yesterday saying the Big Ten's proposal falls short in certain areas and asks for the NCAA and conference for more safety protocols. Among the requests are mandated in-season testing of three days per week, scholarship protection and coverage for all out-of-pocket medical expenses. Well, NCAA President Mark Emmert was on the "Today" show this morning and he was asked if it's worth having a college football season.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK EMMERT, PRESIDENT, NCAA: Well, it certainly isn't if schools can't maintain the appropriate safety and protocol policies in place and do everything in their power. And that's why we wanted to make sure that students have complete flexibility about opting out or deciding not to play. They need to have the assurance that this pandemic is not going to be held against them in any fashion. They're, obviously, not responsible for what's happening in the country. And we need to make sure that fairness exists on all of our campuses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: It still seems like there is a lot to work out before teams hit the field for their first games. And, Jim and Poppy, many teams hit the field for that first game less than a month from now.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: I don't know what's going to happen with this one. We'll watch very, very closely.

Andy, thanks so much.

SCIUTTO: A very good Thursday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

HARLOW: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

This morning, blunt, tough talk from the nation's top infectious disease doctor, that is, of course, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

[10:00:01]