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Inside Politics

Biden and Warren Have Tense Moment Over Creating the CFBP; Yang Leads Dem Debate on Automation, Warren Shares Doubts; Pompeo's Former Senior Adviser Meets with Congressional Committees; Biden Campaigns in Ohio the Day After the Debate; Trump Holds Joint News Conference with Italian President. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 16, 2019 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:32:55] JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Welcome back.

I want to remind you, you see it right there, the East Room of the White House. We're waiting for President Trump and the president of Italy to have a press conference. We will take you there live the moment it happens. We do note just a few minutes away. How close? We're not quite sure.

Back in the meantime to last night's 2020 Democratic debate. Near the end, some open tension between the former vice president Joe Biden and his top rival at the moment, the Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. Remember back in the Obama administration, Joe Biden was the vice president, Elizabeth Warren was the first chairwoman of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. He helped -- she led it first. He says he helped get the votes to make it happen. She was a bit skeptical.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D-DE), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I went on the floor and got you votes. I got votes for that bill.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Senator Warren, do you want to respond?

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am deeply grateful to President Obama who fought so hard to make sure that agency was passed into law, and I am deeply grateful to every single person who fought for it and who helped pass it into law.

BIDEN: You did a hell of a job in your job.

WARREN: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It was interesting talking to people about that after. There were a lot of women including Democratic strategists who thought the vice president was a little bit condescending there. And there were some other Democrats who said she was kind of mean to Uncle Joe, a guy who's beloved in the party. How do they -- the one thing I take away from it is, they don't want to directly attack each other in debates. Neither one sees it as -- in their purpose to do so but that was tension.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That was so interesting. I mean, it sounded to me like, oh Hillary, you're likable enough. I mean, that famous line from the 2008 New Hampshire primary when Barack Obama said that to Hillary Clinton and it backfired on him. Of course, this is a different moment at a different time but it was fascinating. She did not want to engage, why should she?

I mean, she is essentially at the head of the pack now or to be charitable joining him at the head of the pack here. But, look, what she has not done is something she said the day that he got in the race in the first place in April.

[12:35:01] She talked about the bankruptcy bill and other things he's done. So that is -- she has -- I mean, this is going to happen at some point, probably in the Iowa debate, maybe the New Hampshire debate. But at some point, those distinctions will be drawn but that was as close as we've gotten to it, and I think how you viewed that moment is depends on how you view her candidacy and his candidacy.

KING: It was always dripping there. I'll leave it at that.

Another interesting moment, Elizabeth Warren is a very polished debater going back to her high school and college days. One of the reasons for her success has been, you know, not only is she building a good campaign around the country but she's had very strong debate performances. There was a moment last night as the first moment I've seen in these debates where she looked just for a minute to be looking around trying to regain her footing. It was during a conversation about the impact of automation on American jobs, robots, and factories. Elizabeth Warren making the case that in her view the biggest factor in American jobs disappearing are bad trade deals, not automation. Watch some of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: The data show that we've had a lot of problems with losing jobs but the principle reason has been a bad trade policy.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Go ahead, Mr. Yang.

ANDREW YANG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But talking to Americans around the country about automation, they see a self-serve kiosk in every McDonald's, every grocery store, every CVS. And my friends in California are piloting self-driving trucks. What is that going to mean for the three and a half million truckers or the seven million Americans who work in truck stops, motels, and diners that rely upon the truckers getting out and having a meal?

Saying this is a rules problem is ignoring the reality that Americans see around us every single day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That hurt. I'm sure she's right about the data she cites. She's very smart and she gets the data right. But Andrew Yang and a couple of others at the moment, they were trying to get -- you need to go to a McDonald's, you need to walk a factory floor, you need to go in an auto plant today as opposed to 10 years ago. It's not just trade deals.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: And this has definitely been one of the pluses or benefits I guess of an Andrew Yang candidacy which is that he has definitely pinpointed other -- his other opponents on the Democratic side on automation. It has been the biggest thing that he's been talking about. And there are those realities which is, that a number of American workers are suffering from having their jobs replaced by machines.

I'm sure that next time Warren, she prepared a lot for this debate, she probably will have a better answer next time around as she continues to be attacked by her rivals.

ZELENY: In fact, she came up to him after the debate and asked him for some of the information. So, you know, ever the professor there, our Dan Merica reported, he spoke with Andrew Yang afterward and he relayed that detail. So that's pretty interesting as well.

KING: She's growing --

SHAWNA THOMAS, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, VICE NEWS: She can soak up his talking points as well.

KING: That's when you grow as a candidate.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes.

OLIVIER KNOX, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SIRIUSXM: She got to plan for automation.

THOMAS: Well, but also you don't -- you want to avoid seeming like that old George H.W. Bush not knowing how cash registers work kind of thing. Like that sort of -- you know, that -- what Andrew Yang was pointing out is I'm going to get on the level with people. This is what they see and we should talk about that and then --

KNOX: Yes, there's a generational here and there's a kind of job here because manufacturing jobs go away in part because of trade deals. And then the next challenge on the horizon is the automation of services, right? That what Obama used to talk about with ATMs. And so they're talking -- they can both be right about with some of the problems are.

KING: OK, that's a good point. They can be both be right. But to the -- that she goes up -- she has grown as a candidate. You grow by learning and you learn from the other candidates sometimes. That's interesting.

Up next for us, congressional committees right now interviewing another key State Department figure, Secretary Pompeo's former senior adviser on the Hill as part of the impeachment inquiry.

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[12:43:20] KING: I want to remind you, we're still standing by for the president's press conference at the White House. But right now, congressional committees meeting with their fifth witness in the impeachment inquiry investigation. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's former senior adviser Michael McKinley, you see him arriving on Capitol Hill right there. He resigned his post suddenly less than a week ago after working within the State Department for 37 years.

We are told he was deeply concerned the department leadership did not defend the former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

CNN's Kylie Atwood and Manu Raju join us now with the latest on this developing story. Kylie, to you first, what are you hearing about what McKinley is prepared to tell lawmakers today?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, McKinley is prepared to tell lawmakers what we have reported over the past week or so which is that he resigned because he was frustrated that there was not support for the career foreign service officers coming from State Department leadership. And Manu has reported this morning that in the first hour of his testimony during his opening remarks --

KING: Kylie, I'm sorry I need to interrupt you. The former vice president Joe Biden speaking to reporters live in Columbus, Ohio. Let's go.

BIDEN: -- with any serious background in foreign policy that we pull all troops out of the Middle East. It's extremely -- and I'm not sure exactly what she meant by. If she meant pulling our fleet out of, you know, the Eastern Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf, I think it would an absolute disaster for American security and American foreign policy. We have already significantly undermined the confidence of our allies and our reliability. We've already made it more difficult for the rest of the world to believe that we are going to stand with them.

And one of the things that I think was done so brilliantly after World War II was our fathers and mothers put together a security apparatus that built everything from NATO to our alliances in the Pacific that were not just designed to keep Russia from -- then the Soviet Union from invading Europe, they were to keep Europe from fighting with one another.

[12:45:24] They were to keep us together so no one nation could abuse power. And I hope she didn't mean in a literal sense because it would be I think a disaster for American security and American foreign policy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Vice President --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir, we are a little over three months away from the Iowa caucuses and your campaign is burning through a lot of cash (INAUDIBLE) more than you and Bernie Sanders has more than three times the amount you had in your bank account. Are you confident that you're going to have the resources if this primary carries all the way to the elections?

BIDEN: I am. I am confident.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And are you changing anything operationally --

BIDEN: No. Remember, we got started later than anybody at all in this campaign, number one. Number two, we did not start off by dropping $10 million from a Senate campaign wherever that money was raised from into a race. Number three, we've been in the process of having about a third of the time that many people had. And we're doing fine.

Our fundraising is building. We've raised a lot of money online and we've raised money offline as well. So we feel confident. We're going to be ready.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Talk about what it's like to have a target on your back as the frontrunner in the race. It felt last night like there was somebody else with that target on their back that was the center of the conversation. Do you still feel like the frontrunner? Is it a good thing to see all the attacks heading in another direction?

BIDEN: Well, it's kind of about time other people get questioned. And, you know, I don't think -- I haven't seen any polling showing that nationally on average that anybody else is a frontrunner. You guys keep talking about that. I think Elizabeth Warren's done very well. She's moved and she's -- but now that she has moved and has been taken more seriously, people are going to ask her about, you know, a little candor here, you know. Tell us how you're going to do what you say you're going to do.

I found -- what I found interesting last night is two things. If you notice, all my colleagues in the past on the stage talked about Biden's naive, you can't work with Republicans, you cannot unify the country. Didn't you hear all those Pelosi statements? I found it amazing. They all had an epiphany that well, guess what, we're going to work with these Republicans. We know how to do that.

You have to. You have to be able to do this and we can do it.

The second thing that I observed was that all of a sudden everybody likes the Biden healthcare plan. It's the same plan. And that's a good thing and there's a focus. And public opinion is changing across the board based on recent polling data and stuff that's come out today. So I'm feeling awfully good about last night's debate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Vice President --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- you said from the beginning on impeachment that the president should be impeached if he does not comply with Congress. But now we're seeing that with Vice President Mike Pence and also Secretary Pompeo. Do you think that they should be removed from office as well?

BIDEN: No, no. Look, let's do one thing at a time. You know, I mean, this is going to be a gigantic undertaking, impeaching the president who deserves to be impeached because he's indicted himself. And this is a difficult thing for a nation to go through.

This is not -- you know, we talked about like well, let's impeach, let's have all these impeachment parties. The fact of the matter is it is a -- I've been through two of them, two presidents being impeached and it's deadly, deadly earnest.

Look, this is a constitutional issue. Focus on the constitution. The irony is the very day the constitution was signed when Benjamin Franklin came out and they said what have you given us, Mr. Franklin. He said a republic you can keep it. And right after that when George Washington was sworn in he talked about the greatest concern a new republic has is influence from foreign powers. And that's a gigantic issue.

Well, it's ironic that we learned about Mr. Trump asking for a foreign power to intervene on the same day that the constitution was signed. This is a constitutional issue. It should be taken in a deadly serious manner, and this should be done at a minimum one at a time.

In the meantime now, other people like Giuliani and others, they may go to jail. They don't have to be impeached. They may end up in jail. At least the two thugs he had with him are, you know, have been indicted. And so -- and they've been totally discredited. So, I think we should just be very -- this is a very serious undertaking.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you convince the progressive-minded primary voters that you're a better choice than Bernie Sanders when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just announced that he is her guy?

[12:50:02] BIDEN: That's how I do it.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks, guys. I apologize --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Biden, when you learned that your son was taking that Ukrainian job through press reports, do you regret not going to him and maybe saying you should not do this to maybe fend off this whole situation being used against you?

BIDEN: My son's comments -- and I'm very proud of my son. My son's comments speak for themselves. Let's keep the focus here. The president of the United States says he wants to talk about corruption. Well, let's talk about corruption.

He is running the most corrupt government in the history of the United States of America, number one. Number two, he also is in a position whereas he talks about corruption, he is engaged in practices that, in fact, everyone around the world is looking and saying how in God's name this man can be doing that while he's president.

And look, Mr. President, you want to talk about corruption. I've released 21 years of my tax returns. I entered as one of the poorest men in Congress, left as one of the poorest men in government, in Congress, and as vice president. I made no money while I was in there other than my salary. Mr. President, even Richard Nixon released his tax returns. Mr. President, release your tax returns or shut up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you wouldn't change anything (INAUDIBLE)? You don't regret any --

BIDEN: No, I don't. And -- because I never discussed with my son anything having to do with what was going on in Ukraine. That's a fact. But here's -- look, guys, let's focus on what the problem is here. The problem is a corrupt president engaging -- the reason why he is running after me is he knows I will beat him like a drum. He understands that.

Have you ever heard of anybody going out and getting these special interests, all of whom I have beaten, the NRA, the gun manufacturers, the healthcare people, across the board, have you ever heard any time that they've spent millions of dollars going into a primary of another party to try to eliminate a candidate from -- try to beat a candidate before they can get a chance to beat them? I mean, come on, this is so obvious. This is so obvious.

And as I said, Rudy Giuliani and the henchmen and Trump's lawyers, how many of these folks are in jail? These are the president's people for God's sake. This is a corrupt, thoroughly corrupt outfit. And the reason why I will -- and if I'm not mistaken and I did not coordinate any of this with my son, I didn't even know he was having these long discussions for some time with ABC. I guess it's ABC. Was it ABC? Yes, with ABC.

But he pointed out the reason why he regrets it is he didn't anticipate that thugs like Giuliani would use it to, in fact, try to embarrass his father. And that's what they are. They're flat thugs. And the reason why I am setting up the idea that I've laid out has nothing to do with Hunter.

In my White House, none of my children or family will have offices in the White House.

KING: From Columbus, Ohio to the East Room of the White House, the president of the United States and the Italian President Sergio Mattarella's press conference. Let's listen.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much.

Today, it is my honor to welcome President Sergio Mattarella of Italy to the White House. We've known each other for a while, we've dealt with each other for a while, and we've had some really great conversations. We've had a very productive discussion throughout the day with our staff and representatives and I look forward to hosting the president and his daughter Laura at a reception for the Italian- Americans this evening. I look forward to that very much.

The United States and Italy are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years to Ancient Rome. Over the centuries, the Italian people have blessed our civilization with magnificent works of art, science, philosophy, architecture, and music. On Monday, we paid tribute to the Italian explorer who led a voyage of discovery to the new world, a gentleman known as Christopher Columbus. And to me, it will always be called Columbus Day. Some people don't like that, I do.

Today the United States and Italy draw strength from our cherished heritage as we work together to safeguard our people and promote prosperity as NATO allies and our countries cooperate closely on a wide range of critical defense issues including the protection of our nations against radical Islamic terrorism.

[12:55:10] The problem is that Italy is only paying 1.1 percent instead of the mandated two percent which by and of itself is a low number. It should be probably four percent, anywhere from four to five percent. Only eight of the 28 NATO countries are paying the two percent. Meaning, 20 of the countries are delinquent in the payment to NATO and they have been for many years. Germany is at 1.3 percent at most depending on calculations. Spain is at less than one percent. Turkey believed it or not is almost current, almost paid up.

And I want to just thank the Secretary-General Stoltenberg because he's going around saying that President Trump was able to raise over $100 billion last year which is true but it's still only a large fraction. It's still a large fraction of the amount of money that's owed by many of the countries that aren't paying their dues. We hope that Italy will boost its defense spending in order to meet NATO's minimum two percent of GDP. I will say they have just purchased -- and we learned about it today, 90 brand new beautiful F-35s. The Strike Fighter Program is doing phenomenally well.

One of our major challenges and the challenge facing NATO today is instability in the Mediterranean, North Africa areas. And much of the volatility in that region stems from the violence in Libya which is very close to Italy's borders. The president and I will be talking about that at great length, a big problem. The ongoing Libyan conflict has led to a migration crisis placing significant and unfair burdens on Italy in particular. I've asked that the European Union get much more involved because they're not involved enough, that's a problem for the European Union. They do very well with us on trade, they had a trade surplus with the United States over the last five or six years of about $150 billion a year. They have to get more involved and help Italy.

The Italian Government has stepped up as a leader to fight this illegal immigration. We urge also our NATO and European partners to fake firm action to halt illegal immigration and uphold sovereign borders. Immigration control is critical to national security and essential to the well-being of our citizens. Nations must be able to vet, screen, and properly manage entry and admission into society. You know, the legislation that we had passed. We have had absolutely no help from the Democrats on our borders, absolutely nothing. The closure of loopholes which would be very easy to do, they refuse to do. They want open borders. And Italy doesn't want open borders and we're not going to have open borders and our numbers are very good.

I want to thank also Mexico and the president of Mexico for the great help they've given us. They've helped us much more than the Democrats. Here in the United States, we're taking dramatic action to secure our borders, shut down smuggling networks, and speed the removal of illegal immigrants. We're moving the MS-13 gang members out literally by the thousands. They're getting out, we're dropping them out of our country and they can't come back.

And what we've done with Guatemala and Honduras and El Salvador is -- they tell me close to a miracle, the agreements that we've signed. They accept them back and they keep them back. It's a much different relationship than we've ever had with those three countries. And I want to thank the leadership of those three countries. We've been working well -- very well together.

Our message is clear. If you enter illegally, you will be promptly returned home. They're all returning home, and because we've had years of people coming and staying and that's the end of that.

President Mattarella also discussed the steps we must take to enhance commerce and economic growth between our two countries. Our nations are already investing nearly $70 billion in each other's economies without the burdens as unfair as they are imposed by the European Union, that we would actually have a much higher number than $70 billion between Italy and the United States. However, we can do more and we can achieve fairness and reciprocity which we don't have right now. America's trade deficit with Italy accounts for about 20 percent of our nearly $150 to $170 billion probably, according to some estimates could even be $178 billion annual trade.

We welcome Italy's support for a mutually beneficial trade agreement --

[13:00:00]