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Clovis Withdraws Name From Running For Agriculture Post; New Video Shows Children Trapped Inside School Bus; Trump: Terror Suspect "Should Get Death Penalty"; Trump; Trump Predicts GOP Tax Plan Passed By Christmas; Trump: Semiconductor Company Moving HQ To U.S. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 02, 2017 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:02] JOHN KING, INSIDE POLITICS HOST: -- foreign policy adviser who admitted he lied to the FBI. Papadopoulos now cooperating with the Special Counsel investigation.

Just in the last 24 hours, President Trump adamant he is not worried about this investigation at all, calling the New York Times, reported Maggie Haberman to say this, "I'm not under investigation as you know. It has nothing to do with us." Unfortunately for the President though the Special Counsel's investigation is come closer and closer to his inner circle. To that point, former top campaign official, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates both indicted by Robert Mueller on Monday will be back in court before a U.S. district judge today.

Former campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page spoke to the House Intelligence Committee this morning. And there's more. The Special Counsel now says he wants to interview long time Trump aide hope hicks after she returns from the president's trip to Asia. So the White House says get this over with as quickly as possible. Clearly this is going on for a while.

Let's start with Sam Clovis. Was an aide in the campaign key to the Iowa infrastructure came into the President's campaign? People saw this as inevitable, but he withdraw his name today essentially saying, Mr. President with all this media attention on this, it's best that I step back. But you also heard within the Trump campaign that they were to push him away.

ABBY PHILLIP, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: right. I mean, obviously they want this to be contained within a smaller group of people but it's getting hard because the list of people who have ties to -- special investigation also keeps expanding day to day. Interestingly about Clovis, he was sort of undone by his ties to Papadopoulos, but he also had some other issues including that he was going for a post that was, you know, supposed to be for a scientist and had no experience in science whatsoever.

You know, I think Clovis is one of the people who the White House is probably wise to put to the side because you don't know exactly how much more is going to be unveiled specially given that there is cooperation happening from people who have been charged or pled in this investigation. The list keeps going on. It used to be that they were saying it was just a small group of people. Carter Page and Papadopoulos who were not paid, who were not -- and deeply involved in the campaign supposedly.

But the number of actual campaign officials who were being paid, who were senior officials who had direct contact with them is a very long list of that.

KING: And the plea agreement with Papadopoulos identifies a campaign official which everyone confirmed is Sam Clovis. And again, the Trump campaign says this didn't happen but the documents filed in court say that the e-mail showed that the campaign officials said go for it. When he proposed essentially, you know, I want to travel to Russia, I want to and set up these meetings, I think they might have some information very helpful to watch. We should try to build this relationship.

Now, Sam Clovis through is attorney said he did not encourage that, but the plea deal said he did.

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: And you can really imagine the Sam Clovis news getting a lot of heartburn to people who used to work on the Trump campaign, people who or might already be in the administration, people who are close to Donald Trump. This is just one of the signs that Republicans increasingly cannot just call this as a witch hunt investigation, cannot write this off as just a hoax with people beginning to be indicted now, people who used to work closely with candidate Trump.

We know that this also means that the circle is probably going to widen as Abby was saying. More people could be implicated. We don't know exactly what timeline and of course the reality is that as more people become get charged or get indicted, these are people that are going to want and have an incentive to talk to investigators and potentially sell out other people. Give information that might be helpful to investigators so that they hopefully get some leniency in whatever, you know, verdict comes out of this investigation.

KING: It's a big of a side issue and no one is talking about but who does the vetting inside the Trump operation? But if you have e-mails from the campaign, e-mails from your own campaign in which Sam Clovis is talking to this guy who you know is part of the investigation and he gets nominated for job to begin with --

PHILLIP: Until recently the answer was really no one. They weren't doing this kind of vetting. And this is a clear example.

JONATHAN MARTIN, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, and for those of us who covered the campaign, this was the end result of having a MacGyver style operation. You kind of belt off the airplane as it takes off. And the fact is that Sam Clovis was a western Iowa for talk radio personality. He had academic credentials.

But, John, as you know, from, you know, covering campaigns, most conventional campaigns at a high level would have never hired somebody to do the kind of work he was doing. Because they would have had traditional foreign policy hands from Washington either they are lined up. That wasn't this campaign. He was someone who truly was in a lot of ways making it up as he goes and what a true political outsider. And so you hire people, you don't quite know about, you don't quite vet folks that come on the campaign. And then when you suddenly win in a surprise, you staff an administration with folks that once again who's talking unvetted (ph).

KING: And what do we make? I actually view this as smart politics. I'm not sure what the staff and the lawyers so think about it. But the President is seeing all this reporting this evening, that he's watching the television seeing the news and this indictment that he is screaming at the TV and he calls Maggie Haberman, just no, I'm not angry at all. I'm fine.

[12:35:11] That would be Maggie Haberman of what the President calls the failing New York Times. And, you know, he doesn't like the mainstream media except he likes to call them --

MARTIN: (INAUDIBLE) Haberman office hours.

KING: But -- I mean, in an odd way smart politically, right, to try to get the impression out there, I'm fine. Everything is good decision about me. But sometimes why would he want to do that.

MARY KATHARINE HAM, SENIOR WRITER, THE FEDERALIST: I mean, look, I also -- I find some of those sort of inside the White House kind of bond (ph) of those moments when he was stirring up not entirely like little skeptical, of how insane it was in there. And also I believe that his mood could shift drastically until the next day and he calls Megan (ph) and say everything is a-OK.

Like he wants to project that image, but the question is who would change the image he wants to project today when he speaks. You know, he might not look as calm. As far as Clovis and Papadopoulos go, I think with Clovis as Abby reference, it's a two-front issue. Where he was not particularly qualified for this position and he had the Russia stuff going on. So I think it's right to sort of cut ties, cut your losses on that.

Papadopoulos issue or their issue with Papadopoulos is that he may have been reporting things that he was talking about for the last three months with Trump associates which is the fruition of my thought that the bigger threat to the Trump administration is not that there was this giant global collusion thing, which I more and more unconvinced of as we go through this process. But that the people who talked to the FBI about it will not be careful or disciplined because the people in the Trump orbit are not known for being careful or disciplined. And that's I think what's coming home to roost right now.

And then the other question is how close really was he? Probably not that close. But, again, because of the folks in the Trump orbit are not careful or disciplined, they may have spilled stuff to a guy who wasn't particularly close.

PHILLIP: I mean, in normal campaign, you don't have low level people e-mailing the campaign manager directly. It doesn't happen that way for a number of reasons in addition because most campaign managers are supposed to be really busy. But also because it protects those people from people who are lower down and unvetted. And someone like Papadopoulos was clearly unvetted.

KING: Discipline, structure, that's what you're talking about, order. OK, we'll continue to check this one.

Coming up, the President will hear from him any moment. He is at the White House at a jobs event. We expect him probably comment on the new Republican tax plan as well. We had to stay before we hear from the President in person. Plus, President Trump says that New York terror suspect should be put to death. Many legal experts say the President could have just made it harder for prosecutors to do their jobs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:38] KING: Welcome back. In just a moment we will have press video from the White House. The President has an event at the White House announcing a Singapore technology company. This can bring jobs back to the United States. The state of Pennsylvania, he also comments on the Republican Party tax bill. We'll bring in that video when we get just few moments.

Now the New York terror attack, we have some new video showing the chaos of that attack that left eight people dead. We need to warn you, this can be difficult to watch. It shows children trapped inside a school bus Tuesday after being hit by the suspect.

Sayfullo Saipov allegedly rented a truck and drove down that busy bike path, mowing down pedestrians. At one point, you can actually see the suspect's truck in the distance as police arrive on the scene. On Wednesday he appeared in court to face terrorism charges. The law enforcement official tell CNN the suspect renter a similar truck in the weeks before the attack to practice. And then he wanted to continue unto the Brooklyn Bridge.

Sources say investigators are also questioning this man to see if he has any information about the attack and whether he's a possible associate of the attacker. Now it's early in the investigation, of course, President Trump has already reached a verdict and settled on a sentence, "We'd love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the federal system. There's also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. Death penalty."

That from the President of the United States. So which, number one, you can understand anybody's emotional reaction to this. Number two, he is from New York. Maybe this hits on, a, it's a terrorist event on his watch as President, but a lot of people and let's listen here Steve Vladeck, he's CNN legal contributor says, Mr. President, I understand your emotions, but you are the President of the United States. Some things you can't say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) STEVE VLADECK, LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: This is a case where we want to make sure that all of our ducks are in a row, that the I's are dotted, the T's crossed, but the President to come out and say that I think it's going to be a field day for a defense lawyer who's going to try to use this to argue that his client can't get a fair trial, certainly can't get a proper jury at least when it comes to the sentence. Given that this is the same President who just yesterday said the criminal justice system was weak and a laughing stock and this is a real problem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Is it a real problem? And to be fair to President Trump and not in this kind of language but former President George W. Bush, former President Obama have said thing things about cases early in the process before, this was pretty quick.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons for a little bit of reservation when it comes to presidents making statements like this is because you don't want to be seen as doing anything to make the prosecutor's job harder. Your job is to push for justice to be served and let it be that. But with Trump -- I mean, I think we're just used to it at this point. It comes into the brain and goes out on Twitter.

And, you know, he's just not encountered a situation like this before. And clearly a day after -- and what's interesting to me about this tweet series is that he started last night and then came back the next day and essentially repeated it. So you have to think that he is seeing some of the feedback about what he said and he'd decided that it doesn't matter to him. That some people think it's inappropriate.

KING: And we saw in the case of the campaign rhetoric and campaign tweets about the quote unquote Muslim ban. That did come back to hurt him in court cases in the travel ban. We'll just come back to hear and here is the question.

This is the conversation to know. The President has decided even though he said he would be OK with it to try the suspect in the federal court system in the Eastern district of New York to which Lindsey Graham who wanted this suspect designated enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo Bay. We have much fewer rights. "I appreciate President Trump taking the gloves off when it comes to unleashing our military on ISIL. However, I'm dumbfounded as to why the Trump administration still follows the Obama playbook when it comes to dealing with terror suspects." Ouch.

[12:45:18] LEE: This was really in a lot of ways President Trump doing the text book Trump thing that he does when he is responding to a crisis, when he's responding to a sort of breaking news. You know, he wants to cast this off as the tough guy. You know, he is prone to as you were saying, Abby, blurting out a conclusion even in the face of a situation that is very complicated. That is very multifaceted.

He likes to criticize the system or things that have been, you know, the way that things have been done prior to him coming to Washington. I think the fact that he has already publicly concluded that this person should get the death penalty is obviously a big deal. It sort of change --

KING: I'll going to hold fire for one second and we go back. The President of the United States speaking at the White House, listen in.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We just had a big meeting on DACA with some of the senators, and we have great things to say about that. You'll be hearing about that very soon. And the big thing, of course, is tax cuts and jobs. And that's happening very rapidly, and it's been met with, really, a great response. But I want to thank everybody for this great day, and it's a great day for the American worker in particular.

Over the past 10 months, we've witnessed something remarkable happening to our country. Have you all noticed? There's a lot of change. A lot of difference. Right, Kevin? Would you say?

We're just hitting another record right now on the stock market. We've hit, I guess, closed to 60 records on the stock market since November the 8th, that very big day.

The stock market is at an all-time high. Unemployment is at its lowest level in almost 17 years. We now have had two straight quarters of 3 percent or more economic growth. For those of you that don't understand that, this is a tremendous increase over where it was, and we're going higher. Jobs have been offshored to so many countries that were now coming back, and now those jobs and those companies are coming back to our great American home.

I want to thank the Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, for joining us this afternoon. He has been so terrific in so many ways. And I will tell you, he's working very hard on tax cuts. In fact, so hard that I'm surprised to see you here. This must be truly a great company -- which it is, and you'll be hearing in two seconds. You're going to be here because you've been pretty busy today.

KEVIN MACCARTHY, MAJORITY LEADER: I just left the press conference.

TRUMP: You did. And that was a good press conference too.

We're thrilled to welcome Broadcom Limited and its CEO, Hock Tan, to the White House to announce that Broadcom Limited is moving its headquarters from Singapore back to the United States. So I want to thank you very much. That's really something great. I appreciate it.

Broadcom Limited is a 100 -- Fortune 100 company, one of the really great, great companies. They manufacture technology and parts. They employ over 7,500 American workers in many states across our country. We're looking forward to seeing that number grow very substantially, which it's now anticipated to do. Their move back to the United States and to the United States is something very, very special and very important. And you've been seeing this happen with numerous companies and, at a minimum, expansions and sometimes plants.

With this commitment, more than $20 billion in annual revenue will come back to our cities, towns, and the American workers.

Today, we're joined by some of the incredible men and women from their manufacturing plant in the great state of Pennsylvania. That's a state I like very much, you know that. Right? I love Pennsylvania. I went to school in Pennsylvania.

You're skilled at your craft, you take pride in your job, and because of you, our nation's trademark, Made in the USA, is respected all over the world once again. And we're telling people Made in the USA, it's a big deal now -- we're bringing it back. When I was growing up, when I was a young boy, you'd say, Made in the USA, that mean something. Well, it means something again.

My administration is working every day to make the United States the most attractive place in the world to do business so that more and more companies like Broadcom come back to our shores, grow their businesses, and create more and more American jobs. And you see it happening on a daily basis.

That's why I've already slashed more unnecessary job-killing regulations than any President in history. That includes their entire term, and I've only been here for about 10 months. And we're not finished yet, believe me. We're not even close.

[12:50:13] And that's why we're working to give the American people a giant tax cut for Christmas. We are giving them a big beautiful Christmas present in the form of a tremendous tax cut. It will be the biggest cut in the history of our country. It will also be tax reform, and it will create jobs.

Today, the House Ways and Means Committee unveiled a historic tax reform bill that will create tremendous prosperity for our nation. We will provide a massive tax cut for American families. We will make the tax code simpler and fair. It's called simplification.

We will restore our competitive edge by reducing business taxes for the first time in more than 30 years, and we will bring back trillions and trillions of dollars that's now parked overseas so that money can be put to work rebuilding the United States of America, as opposed to rebuilding other parts of the world.

Again, I want to thank Broadcom CEO Hock Tan for joining us today. He's a highly, highly respected man, a great, great executive. The job he's done is an incredible job. But what he's doing is committing to massive amounts of American jobs.

When Hock told me about this move, he said, Mr. President, we want to be an American company. We're hearing that all of these days. We're hearing it more and more. We're hearing it -- frankly, I'm hearing it every single day. People are coming in at levels that you will be seeing over the next short period of time. You're seeing it in so many ways. You're seeing it when you just look at what's happening with the stock market. And you look at the enthusiasm indexes, which are the highest they've ever been. The business enthusiasm in this country is at record levels. And we're hearing it from -- everything from tax reform, which is really spearheading it. And yet I think it's really a feeling for our country that people haven't had in a long time. They see what's going on with regulation. They see the tax move -- and that's going to happen. And I really believe we'll have it done before Christmas. I consider that to be one of the great Christmas presents. And not just the reform, and not just the tax cuts, but we will be creating jobs like you have rarely seen in this country.

So we never get tired of that pledge because we never tire of returning wealth to our country, jobs to our citizens, and honor to our great American workers.

I honor our workers. These are incredible people. They've worked hard. You go back 20 years, and essentially they haven't had that salary increase that they should have had. But now you see it, wages are starting to rise. So we're very proud of our country.

And, Hock, I'd like to have you say a few words. And again, on behalf of not only the folks from Pennsylvania behind me, but all of the United States, I want to thank you very much for choosing us. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Hock.

HOCK TAN, CEO, BROADCOM LIMITED: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for having us here. It's truly and honor -- a rare honor. And before I launch into something else, let me say, my mother could never have imagined that one day her son will be here in the Oval Office, in the White House, standing beside the President of the United States. Thank you.

TRUMP: And my mother too.

TAN: You see, back in 1971, I was just an 18-year-old skinny kid, growing up in Malaysia, OK, but who had just gotten --who had just received an opportunity to enroll in the best engineering school in America -- in fact, in the world, MIT. And my parents could not have afforded to send me to college, much less MIT. So it's rather amazing -- it's really amazing to me, even today, that this great American educational institution took a chance on me, sight unseen, and gave me a scholarship to pursue the American Dream.

So my appearance here today, in large part, has been inspired by my desire to give back to this country which I have received so much from.

[12:55:15] I run Broadcom today, and Broadcom is the embodiment of the legacy of innovation of three great American technology leaders, Bell Labs, Hewlett Packard, and more recently, Broadcom Corporation. But in eras past, when the conditions in this country made it harder for companies to compete in global markets, the intellectual property of these leading companies globalized and moved offshore.

But I am American, as are nearly all my direct managers, my board members, and over 90 percent of my shareholders. So today, we are announcing that we are making America home again. Thank you. Thank you. Our commitment to re-domicile into the United States is a huge reaffirmation to our shareholders, to the 7,500 employees we have across 24 states in America today, that America is once again the best place to lead a business with a global footprint.

Thanks to you, Mr. President, business conditions have steadily improved. The proposed tax reform package will level the global playing field and allow us to compete effectively in worldwide markets. Our move to domicile into the U.S. will bring in $20 billion of annual revenues into this country, OK.

From this space here in the United States, each year we will invest over $3 billion a year in research and engineering, and another $6 billion a year in manufacturing, creating high-paying tech jobs similar to the ones held today by my coworkers behind me who have made the trip down from Pennsylvania to be with us here today.

So again, thank you, Mr. President. I look forward to working to achieve the American Dream for everyone. Thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you sign the Republican tax bill as it is written now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is it a great bill?

TRUMP: It's a great bill. It's going to be very special, you'll see. We'll be talking about it a little bit later, and I'll see you in a little bit to announce the new head of the Federal Reserve.

See you in a little bit. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Important day over at the White House. The President welcoming the new tax cut plans unveiled by Republicans in the House of Representatives, saying it's going to be a Christmas present for all Americans, that assumes, of course, it passes the House, passes the Senate.

There are no changes in the legislation. The President signs it into law very ambitious agenda for Republicans in the House and Senate. It looks like very few Democrats if any are going to go along with the current version of this tax plan. The President also warmly welcoming the semiconductor company Broadcom to the United States with billions of dollars of new investments, and you just heard all of the talk of the new jobs that are going to be created as a result of this company moving its headquarters to Connecticut -- to Pennsylvania, I should point out.

You know, Gloria Borger is with us. This is an important day and there are other issues of course hanging over the President, but the Republicans seem pretty hopeful they can get these tax cuts, the tax reform through. It's going to be a tough struggle. GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, it's going to be a tough struggle. It costs a lot of money. There are some Republicans who are concerned about the implications for the deficit. There's also a lot of concern about the corporate --