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Inside Politics

Economy Adds 263,000 Jobs In April; WH: Trump And Putin Spoke For Over An Hour This Morning; Trump: McGahn Won't Testify, "It's Done". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 03, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: -- fascinating update to a story that we will continue to cover. Thank you, guys so much for joining me this week.

INSIDE POLITICS with John King starts right now.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you Kate. And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us.

A powerful jobs report, there's a political gift for President Trump. Two hundred and sixty-three thousand new jobs last month, 103 consecutive months of job gains, the unemployment rate falls to 3.6 percent.

Plus Bernie Sanders takes sharp aim at Joe Biden as polls show the former vice president with a big early lead in the Democratic race. Not as big as Hillary Clinton's early lead a few years ago. But, remember, there were really only two candidates in that race. This one has 22.

And rare public comments from Jared Kushner. Insights on a Middle East peace plan, he promises is almost ready and on the pressure of working for your father-in-law, the President.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: Doing it the old way hasn't really worked. So, you know, our view was this, you know, we are who we are. And we're going to say what we say. We're going do what we think is right. And people will either react positively to it or they will react negatively to it. When the President asked us to take this on, you know, Jason, David, and myself, he says, no, I want you guys to really try to solve this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We begin the hour with a triumphant presidential tweet with characters to spare. Jobs, jobs, jobs, 263,000 to be exact added in April as America's economic boom continues to exceed expectations. How strong is it? Diana Ross and the Supremes were still together in the top of the charts the last time the unemployment rate was 3.6 percent. That was December 1969.

Credence Clearwater revival, Peter, Paul, and Mary also in the top ten, if you need a little context, Richard Nixon was president, Doris Day on the cover of "TV Guide." Yes, 103 months consecutive months of job growth means the boom roots are as Democrats will argue in the Obama presidency. But the politics are still golden for President Trump as he heads into re-election season. A deeper look at the numbers first though from CNN's Christine Romans.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John, boom, the hiring continues another strong month for job creation, 263,000 net new jobs in the month of April that shows that companies are hiring briskly. And the unemployment rate down to 3.6 percent. This matches a low from all the way back to 1969. And when you look at certain job categories, you can see record lows for some of those job categories.

So this has been a continuation of a trend of strong hiring and lower unemployment. Where was the hiring? Business and information services, very strong hiring there and construction as well, 33,000 net new jobs and a rebound in manufacturing. And this is something that we were really closely watching here because manufacturing jobs fell last month and then rebounded here.

This has been a strong spot under the Trump administration, some half a million jobs created there in manufacturing. Look, when you're talking about numbers like this, this is raising some questions about why the Fed is on hold. This is a very strong economy. You've got 3.2 percent GDP growth we learned last week and now 3.6 percent unemployment rate. John, this is a very strong economy right now.

KING: Christine Romans, appreciate that. With me in the studio to share their reporting and their insights Catherine Lucey with the Associated Press, CNN's Manu Raju, Jonathan Martin with the "New York Times" and Ana Swanson also with the "New York Times."

If you look at the numbers, you can't help, whether you're an American, thinking 3.6 percent unemployment rate, that's great, 263,000 new jobs. Everyone keeps waiting especially with global pressures to the U.S. economy to slow. What's the fuel?

ANA SWANSON, TRADE AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes. Well, I think there is plenty of milestones here for President Trump to brag about. And it is the continuation of a very long strong economy that we're seeing here. The unemployment rate dropping to a 50-year low, next month that economic expansion will also tie with a period in the 1990s for the longest economic expansion on record.

There are a few things to quibble with here in terms of the numbers. The unemployment rate actually fell for the wrong reasons as more people stepped out of the labor force. But on the whole, a really strong report and it puts to rest the fears of recession that we saw earlier this year.

KING: And the people who stepped out, non-participation, if you will, blue collar people who are having trouble in the global economy with automation. So there's the small needle Democrats can try to thread in the sense of saying some of you are being left out. But if you're President Trump and you're talking about this from an economic standpoint, I just want to show up on the screen here. Go back to the battleground states of 2016.

Pennsylvania, he turned it from blue to red. The unemployment rate is down from 2016, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Iowa, Ohio. The states you look at on a presidential map and you're saying, OK, how do the Democrats kicked -- evict President Trump in this strong economy from the Oval Office and you look at those states, what's the path on the economy?

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He's got a good story to tell, and that should be his message going into his re-election is the fact that things are turning around and the states that I promised.

[12:05:07] However, this President is not somebody who is known to stay on a single message.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Really, you don't say.

MARTIN: If you had noticed, in my observations the last couple of years in the more daunting fact I think for President Trump is that the famous James Carville maxim from 1992 of "It's the economy, stupid" is increasingly being proven to be not the case anymore that this is a values-driven electorate more than it is a pocketbook driven electorate.

Look, the folks who lost their House seats last year in the mid-terms overwhelmingly came from high-income districts where the economy is doing great. Why did they lose? Because voters are rejecting Trump's behavior and his conduct and if that doesn't change, then I think he's still going to be very vulnerable.

KING: And that's what makes it so fascinating because I think this is the defining question at least at this moment of 2020 election because the President thinks you're wrong in the sense he thinks, sure, that happened last year, in the congressional elections, I wasn't on the ballot. That's how the President views.

MARTIN: Sure.

KING: He thinks he's going to be on the ballot. We don't know who the Democrats are going to nominate, can they push them to some extreme margin. But to your point, Mick Mulvaney for -- as a matter of fact thinks he's trying to get the President to be more disciplined. And he likes that old James Carville saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: They hate to sound like a cliche but are you better off than you were four years ago. It's pretty simple, right? It's the economy, stupid. I think that's easy. People will vote for somebody they don't like if they think it's good for them. And we think that generally speaking the economy has been good for everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: People will vote for somebody they don't like. The President's chief of staff say publically. The President's chief of staff --

RAJU: Remarkable. Yes, right.

KING: -- saying pubically that, you know, there's a lot of people out there who don't like the President. We have to convince him to vote for him and we think the economy is the calling card.

RAJU: It's pretty remarkable. I mean if you look at the poll numbers they show that the one issue which he's doing well on is the economy. It's the only one really that he's over 50 percent. Everything else he's underwater. The President's approval ratings, he's at 43, 44 percent. If this was a President who was more popular, people liked his behavior, there were all these controversies. He would be way over 43, 44 percent in this kind of economy.

Democrats, you know, their challenge is how much they focus on his character? You saw Joe Biden come out very early and focus on his character. Other Democratic candidates have looked at the issues that he does not do as well on such as healthcare, immigration. They believe they can focus on those specific issues rather than talking about the economy as a whole and his character. They think they can be more effective.

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: But one of the issues too is no one things there's huge numbers of undecided independents in the middle of it are going swaying away. It's driving the base voters out but also he's getting Republicans out. He needs to get enthusiasm in those key states. And these kinds of numbers, this kind of thiemic economy and theory should help that push.

KING: And people -- if people in this town, economic professionals have argued from day one about the President's approach. Why do you saber rattle on trade? Why do you threaten the Chinese? Why do you threaten the Europeans? Why do you do this? Why do you threaten the Fed? Why do you threaten the Fed?

And, you know, they argue with the process. It's impossible to argue with the results, the numbers. The question is, is there something over the horizon? We're having this conversation in it the first week of May 2019. How the economy looks the first week of May 2020 will say a lot more about the President's chances.

Listen to him here. We know he is pushing the Fed. He would still like lower interest rates. The Fed so far heard somebody, I think it was somebody on air this morning saying, they have noise-cancelling head phones on. They're not listening to the President as of now. He's also has some trade issues on the table including with China. The President says he's optimistic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are very close to a deal with China. But it's a question of whether or not I want to make it. I mean, we're going to make a real deal or we're not going to make a deal at all. And if we don't make a deal, we're going to tariff China and that will be fine. We'll -- frankly we'll make a lot of money. And if we don't make a deal at all, we'll use tariffs and we'll get back so much money, your head will spin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This is what makes this President fascinating, confounding to some, frustrating to others. But fascinating in the sense that in a -- if he were a normal politician, he would listen to his aides who say cut the best deal you can with China, cut the best deal of anything out there, push to get the U.S., Mexico, Canada agreement passed. Be tradition. Things are great. Don't get on a roller coaster. He's talking about, maybe I'll walk away if I don't like it.

SWANSON: That's right. He keeps threatening to walk away. We could see a deal with China as early as next week. But the President and his advisors are still really holding out this possibility that there could be no deal. And that has really thrown the markets for a loop over the past year.

I do think that this deal is something that would be welcomed by the business community. It's probably arguably better than what past administrations have gotten from China just because the President staked out this very maximalist position. But there are a few things that it leaves on the cutting room floor, including getting China to make some moves on things like subsidies, data rules, cyber theft. And those are things that the Democrats are probably going to pile on criticizing him for after the deal is cut. But it's also a part of the President's --

RAJU: But, John, you make a great point though because the President has heard all these concerns from people saying the sky is going to fall about tariffs. The government shutdown, the longest in history, the economy is going to collapse, and then he sees these numbers and he says I don't need to listen to anybody.

[12:10:10] KING: Right.

RAJU: I'm just going to do everything that I want and everything is going to be just fine. And that what's what concerns some of his allies.

LUCEY: He's also in his negotiating style to always suggest that he could away. He's never going to, you know, sort of put that out there --

KING: Right.

LUCEY: -- that he has to make a deal. And he thinks he needs to be clear of those.

KING: The question is now, we will see the choices he makes weeks and months ahead and we'll circle back one year from this week. We'll see what it looks like in May as we head into the actual months of the presidential election.

Now, this just in the CNN, another big news today. The White House says, the President of the United States spoke on the phone with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin this morning. It's their first known conversation since late last year. CNN's Kaitlan Collins live at the White House with some of the details. What do we know?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And John, first known conversation since the special counsel's report came out, something that Sarah Sanders said, did come up during that call. And she said that during this call that was generally overall positive, Sarah Sanders said they talked about the Mueller report and that both leaders said they were glad that no collusion was found, something she said, they both knew from the start.

But John, what she didn't get into what was in the first section of that report which was Russian interference in the election. Now Sarah Sanders said, the administration is doing more than the Obama administration to make sure that doesn't happen again. But she didn't talk specifically about what the President said to the Russian president about what his country did to interfere in the election.

Now, John, they also talked about several other topics including trade, Ukraine, North Korea as well. And this is what she said was the President's message to the Russian president about North Korea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: They spoke about North Korea for a good bit of time on the call and reiterated both the commitment and the need for denuclearization. And the President said several times on this front as well the need and importance of Russia stepping up and continuing to help and put pressure on North Korea to denuclearize. And that was again the --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Now, the other big topic, of course, John, that came up was Venezuela. And what's happening right now because we know that inside the White House there have been several meetings, not only here but also at the Pentagon between the President's top military officials about what to do next in Venezuela and comes after the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, alleged that Russia was the one who convinced Maduro not to leave Venezuela recently when they said he was prepared to.

Now, when we asked about what the President's message was to Vladimir Putin about that, she just talked about how the President urged the need for a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela but didn't say what Putin's response to that was and if he agreed to back off what Russia has been doing in Venezuela which is, of course, has been a big topic here at the White House because not only they've been putting pressure on Cuba with the President threatening of a full embargo. There are question about Russia's involvement and that what they've doing.

But yes, John, a big call this morning. They spoke for over an hour on a lot of topics. And she said, we would get a more detailed readout to come.

KING: As we await that, before I let you go, just clear this up. I want to make sure I heard you right. Did she say, they did not discuss Russian election interference or she didn't say anything about it?

COLLINS: She didn't answer the question when asked specifically about did they talk about Russian interference. Instead she criticized the Obama administration, talked about what the Trump administration is doing.

But John, we should note we have not pubically been told about any kind of meeting between President Trump and cabinet level officials on election security since last July. Now, we know that other sources inside the administration have told us they are doing their work. They're not sitting around waiting for President Trump to give them some kind of directive to focus on election security.

But we should note, President Trump and his cabinet level officials have not held a meeting on election security since last year.

KING: I will look for that more detailed readout. They'll have some explaining to do if it didn't come up at all. Kaitlan Collins live at the White House, appreciate that on the breaking news.

[12:13:55] Up next for us, the President ready to move on to life after the Russia investigation. Democrats, nope, they are not.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back. The House Judiciary Committee today firing a new warning shot at the Justice Department. The Democratic chairman, Jerry Nadler writing a letter to the attorney general requesting by Monday that Justice surrender the unredacted version of the Mueller report and all of the underlying materials and evidence.

Nadler writes this in that letter, quote, the committee is prepared to make every realistic effort to reach an accommodation with the Department. But if the Department persists in its baseless refusal to comply about a validly issued subpoena, the Committee will move to contempt proceedings and seek further legal recourse.

So we wait for the Monday deadline. But the A.G.'s boss, excuse me, gives us a likely hint here at the answer. House Democrats also want to question the former White House counsel, Don McGahn. The President says, no, and that it's time to wrap things up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I've had him testifying already for 30 hours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So is the answer no --

TRUMP: And it's really. So I don't think I can let him and then tell everybody else you can. I would say it's done. We've been through this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Over.

TRUMP: Nobody has ever done what I've done. I've given total transparency. It's never happened before like this. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: POLITICO's Heather Caygle joins our conversation. The President hasn't given total transparency. But this is what he does in every statement about this, he tries to cement into the public narrative things that aren't true like, you know, they were rebuffed he says about the Russians. That's what you call having a meeting with them at Trump Tower, rebuffing them. You've reported news of this letter last hour. Does the chairman have any expectation he's going to get what he wants?

RAJU: There's very little expectation. We will probably going to see a contempt proceeding play out next week. The committee -- the chairman has made it very clear that if they don't get both the underlying evidence and the unredacted report that they plan to move forward. What's interesting in this letter he does offer some accommodation. And say, they are prepared to discuss limiting and prioritizing the request for the underlying evidence.

[12:20:00] They're trying to show that their being as accommodating as possible to the Department and the Department rejecting their request. So when they eventually do go to court to try to get all the information they're asking they can tell the court, hey, we've done everything possible and the Justice Department is stonewalling us at every turn.

But this is just part of the larger fight with the Justice Department and the Trump administration as a whole which is rejecting the request and all almost every turn and you mentioned McGahn, that being one of then. There's a subpoena for him compelling his appearance but the White House may try to invoke executive privilege.

KING: Subpoena for McGahn. We'll likely see executive privilege there. The President's taxes have come up and many of things. But including the attorney general's testimony, speaker of the House said publically yesterday she thinks the attorney general, top cop, top law enforcement officer of the United States is a criminal, that he lied to Congress.

It's hard to see the environment of cooperation coming out of that. Right now, they seem totally in confrontation.

HEATHER CAYGLE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Sure. We saw Nancy Pelosi yesterday like go as far as she's going to go on this right now. She said Barr committed a crime, right? And that's pretty strong language coming from the speaker of the House. But at the same time, in a closed door meeting just an hour before, she reiterated her stance that Trump is too good for impeachment.

She does not want to go there. Democratic leaders do not want impeachment. But what they do want to do is take every legal step that they can to continue investigating Trump. And for being honest, run out the clock a little bit on these impeaching proceedings because the closer we get to 2020 the less likely other rank and file members are going to want to do it either. KING: But that's where you have the politics come into this. And then you have this internal push by some in the Democratic Party saying, if they're going to keep saying no, they're not going to give us witnesses, they're not give us documents what are we waiting for, let's have proceedings and go forward.

You have the President now who has the strong economic numbers who is going to start making the case the Democrats are only coming after me with these investigations because you have a job. Your wages are going up. I'm doing great for the country and they want to knock me down this way.

The President is tweeting this last night. OK, after two years of hard work and each party trying their best to make the other party look as bad as possible. It's time to get back to business. The Mueller report strongly stated that there was no collusion with Russia, of course, and in fact, they were rebuffed. Again, they weren't rebuffed.

At every turn and attempts to gain access. But now, Democrats and Republicans must come together for the good of the American people and goes on there and talks about issues he would like to get done.

MARTIN: Yes.

KING: Again, I have to do this every time. They weren't rebuffed. They got a meeting at Trump Tower. There are other conversations. Bob Mueller said, he could not prove a criminal conspiracy.

MARTIN: And the problem with that kind of tweet and then you add in also the fact that he met with Pelosi and Democrats about a big jobs bill this week. And he is basically sort of good cop bad cop, you know. He does that. And then he will lash out at union bosses, the media, you name it.

And so, it's sort of disjointed. And I think that there's less of a sort of a lure for Democrats to try to come to the table because they don't think he's going to actually hold to his promise to focus on drug prices or a jobs bill or what have you because they don't know what Trump they're going to get. And also the fact is that Mitch McConnell in the Senate, they don't want to work on those. They don't want to the do a big deficit spend.

They don't want to, you know, cross swords with Pharma to lower drug prices. So, you know, his challenge isn't just Democrats in the House, it's also his own party in the Senate that doesn't want to cut these deals.

LUCEY: It is interesting though that, I mean that as all of this is going on, all these conflicts happening both the White House and Democrats do want to suggest that they are trying to work in a bipartisan way, that they had this meeting. And that both sides --

RAJU: Optics, yes.

LUCEY: There is -- there's this effort to sort of suggest that there's the possibility of working together.

RAJU: And the Democrats in the House, they have to do that for these Democrats who are in those districts that Trump carried. Pelosi has to show that we're not just investigating Trump. We're not like the AOC wing of the party. We're actually trying to do something on a bipartisan basis. And that's their intention too because they do want to investigate all aspects of the Trump presidency but at the same time look like they are trying to work with him as well.

MARTIN: Trump says, you know, $2 trillion and the House Democrats love that idea for a big roads bill. But the problem is that, there's no follow through because his staff doesn't want to have a bill that big sort of Mick Mulvaney doesn't want to and the Senate Republicans don't want to touch it either. So it sort of, you know, you move on to the next thing.

KING: So that's two weeks away. The President met with them earlier this week, they say in three weeks to get back together. So two and a half weeks from now to see if the President comes up with how to raise that money. I think then the Democrats was just going to blame him, walk away and say the President couldn't come up with the money. But we shall see.

[12:24:20] OK. Up next, we move to the Democrats. Are the niceties of 2020 over? Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders taking sharp aim at the guy you would call the front-runner, Joe Biden.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: President Trump isn't worried about a significant Republican primary challenge, at least not yet. So he's very much enjoying meddling across the aisle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Biden seems to have a lead. I'd be very happy if it were Biden.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Happy why?

TRUMP: Sleepy Joe. I think he does -- I think he did a bad job. I'd be running against --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you think he's beatable?

TRUMP: I just don't think he'd be a good candidate. I mean we'll see what happens. I hope, you know, I wish him well. I'd like him to get it. I'd be happy. I'd be happy with Bernie. I personally think it's those two.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now the President went on though -- careful. The President went on to side with Senator Sanders in one new flash point in the Democratic race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: For somebody to be so naive and say that China is not a problem, if Biden actually said that, that's a very dumb statement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:30:06] KING: Now, team Biden says all the former vice president meant was that American economy --

[12:30:00]