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Obama, Trump Pledge to Work Together; Trump Returns to Twitter, Hits Media, Calls Protests "Unfair". Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired November 11, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUM, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mr. President, it was a great honor being with you.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We want to do everything we can to help you succeed.

PROTESTERS: We reject the president-elect.

OBAMA: Because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.

TRUMP: We will do some spectacular things for the American people.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We are not turning this Trump has sold.

(CHANTING)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We can get this country turned around and make America great.

TRUMP: You can't get started fast enough.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, November 11th, 5:00 in the East on this Veterans Day.

We begin with the second night of anti-Trump protests in cities across the country. The demonstrations taking a violent turn in downtown Portland, Oregon. The police there saying the protest became a riot. Trump weighing in on Twitter once again, calling the protests unfair and blaming the media as president-elect.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama and President-elect Trump coming face-to-face in the historic meeting at the White House. The two pledging to work together until Mr. Trump's swearing in 70 days from now. But there are already signs of campaign Trump coming back.

So, we have it all covered for you. Let's go first to CNN's Jason Carroll. He is live at Trump Tower here in New York City. What's the latest, Jason?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Alisyn. Anger out on the streets, but in Washington, D.C., it was all smiles at least on the surface, as the president and president-elect had their first official meeting.

[05:00:06] Trump even taking time to refer to the president as a, quote, "good man".

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): President-elect Trump calling protests against his victory "unfair", tweeting overnight that they are professional protesters incited by the media.

This as largely peaceful protesters across the country take to the streets for the second night in a row. The anger boiling over in Portland, police classifying it as a riot -- a stark contrast at the pageantry at the White House earlier in the day.

Trump speaking with President Obama for an hour and a half inside the Oval Office.

OBAMA: We talked about foreign policy, we talked about domestic policy and as I said last night, my number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful.

CARROLL: The pair striking a conciliatory tone.

TRUMP: We discussed a lot of different situations. Some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel. Mr. President, it was a great honor being with you and I look forward being with you many, many more times in the future. Thank you, sir.

CARROLL: Kind words shared after years of vitriol. Trump perpetuating the birther conspiracy throughout Obama's presidency and vowing to rip apart Obama's legacy while out on the campaign trail.

TRUMP: Immediately repealing and replacing Obamacare.

CARROLL: Obama in turn rebuking Trump's run.

OBAMA: He is temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief.

CARROLL: But Thursday, it was all about respect. First Lady Michelle Obama meeting over tea with Melania Trump in private.

The president-elect ending his whirlwind tour, meeting with two when he was once at odds with, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the Capitol.

PAUL: We have a fantastic productive meeting about getting to work, rolling our sleeves and going to work for the American people. Donald Trump has one of the most impressive victories we have ever seen.

TRUMP: I think we're going to do some absolutely spectacular things for the American people. We look forward to starting, in fact, truthfully, we can't get started fast enough. We're going to lower taxes, as you know. And we're going to fix health care and make it more affordable and better. It will be a real job for the public. And that's what we want to do and that's why we're excited.

CARROLL: Pausing to take the view from where he will be sworn in 70 days from now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: So going forward, a source telling CNN that Trump will be meeting privately with the people involved in his transition planning, specifically trying to go over those 800 or so positions that require security clearance. In terms of the protests, those seem to be showing no signs of letting up with more protests planned over the weekend -- Chris, Alisyn.

CUOMO: All right, Jason.

Let's discuss how they're planning to fill the most important job of all, president-elect. Who is Trump going to be?

We are getting two very different pictures. Let's bring in politics editor for theroot.com and political science and communications professor at Morgan State University, Jason Johnson, and CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast", Jackie Kucinich.

So, there are two theories here, right? The first one is Maya Angelou. When someone shows you who they are, believe them, OK?

The second one is, Trump was saying what he needed to say to win the campaign. He is actually a far more gracious and sensitive person, which is why he was that way as president-elect.

Then comes the tweet. Put it up on the screen. What was it, maybe 48, 72 hours? The protests are going on. They are not that big a deal. They have gotten a little bit more harsh. They are mostly in Clinton country. And yet, Donald Trump takes back to Twitter.

"Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now, professional protesters incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair."

No proof, no even allegation that the media has anything to do with this. I've been out in those protests. They are organic groups of like young kids. You don't see anonymous masks, I don't see the BLM people in there. But he says it.

How about the Romney tweet? Just for context. In 2012, Trump didn't like the outcome of the Romney race, right? So, he tweeted this, "We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided." Same to be said about today.

Professor, context and concern?

JASON JOHNSON, THEROOT.COM: This is horrifying, and it is a shot across the bow. It is a subtle threat to everyone who is an activist, to every NGO in the country, and to the press.

This is the man that Trump is.

[05:05:01] This is who he ran to be. And this is what we are talking about yesterday, because when we're talking about a peaceful transition, OK, part of a successful transition isn't just shaking hands with President Obama.

It is speaking to people who did not vote for you and people who did vote for you, and say, not just it's time to come together for us, but I am a law and order president. So that means, look, if you don't like me, protest legally and peacefully. But also, those of you who support me like the Klan, like the harassment that we've been seeing throughout the country, I will prosecute you as well. You are not part of Trump's America.

He is not pushing us towards a peaceful transition. He is pushing towards more violence and more danger. And this is unprecedented.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, you can't frame it any better than that. This is him reverting to campaign Trump. And so, maybe it is time for everybody to recognize that campaign Trump is real Trump.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I never thought Trump was anything but campaign Trump. His supporters who he is still speaking to, love it.

Yesterday, when he was at the White House and in front of the cameras, of course, and he was very tame, I guess, for lack of a better word. But he didn't have a protective press pool when he got there. And it's -- protective press pools aren't for the media.

CUOMO: What does that mean?

CAMEROTA: Explain --

KUCINICH: So, what happens is you have a group of people, small group of people that follow the president's every move. And we get pool reports that say, you know, what he ate for breakfast, who he met with, really kind of -- it's like the mundane details most of the time of the president's life. Now --

CAMEROTA: Why do we have that?

KUCINICH: So, we know where he is.

CAMEROTA: So the American public knows at all times?

KUCINICH: It is not for nefarious reasons. It is for chronicling history. It's for the health and well being of the president. CUOMO: And transparency. You're supposed to be --

(CROSSTALK)

KUCINICH: Should be concerned for all Americans, the entire country.

CAMEROTA: And he cut off that press pool?

KUCINICH: Yes, which is breaking decades and decades of precedent.

Let me give you an example. When President Obama was president-elect, and he was flying to Washington. He had reporters with him. That's how we know that someone watched the weight of the presidency settle on his shoulders.

And that moment is forever preserved in time. We don't know what Donald Trump was like on the plane over because no one was with him, no one was there to observe it. And not -- it is not just -- it's not because, you know, we're the media and we want to keep an eye on him. It has everything to do with history.

And I say that because I posted this on Twitter yesterday. I had a bunch of people come back with me, saying, you know, you -- media deserves this. You deserve to be cut off. It's not about us. It's about them.

CAMEROTA: And Constitution and transparency.

JOHNSON: The Constitution, transparency and safety.

I say it with all candor, you got John King writing about this in the "Daily News", you got tumblers 24 hours after Trump. Donald Trump, with Nigel Farage from the U.K., were saying this is going to be American Brexit.

We saw what happened after Brexit. We saw the increase in violence. We saw the harassment against black and brown and tan people and people of color and people who are considered others.

We have documentation of this already. We have the black baby doll with a noose found in a dugout. We have the spray paint on the store front in North Carolina that says black lives don't matter and neither do your votes.

This is what's happening. It is his responsibility as president of the United States. Maybe some of those people are his supporters, maybe some of them aren't. But if you are president-elect of the United States, you speak to that immediately. You don't start attacking the press and you don't start attacking protesters.

CUOMO: You know, his -- the people around him, the team that's emerging, they have a very definite sense that he deserves a shot. I would suggest objectively, of course, he deserves a shot. He just won the election. He has the mandate as president-elect.

It's up to him to set the tone. He did well out of the box. He did well going into the meeting tomorrow. He was very gracious with Obama. People were covering what should have been a non-event as may not be because it involved Trump. But then this tweet.

Now, his followers are saying you are making too much of it. Everything this guy says you take it like it was the most important thing in the world.

KUCINICH: He is the president. It is time to stop lowering expectations and being like he did good for Donald Trump. He is the president-elect.

CUOMO: And they will say he is right. These protesters are a bunch of punks. This is part of the problem with this country. And you guys love it, cover it to death and therefore incite the problem.

JOHNSON: I got to add to that, though, you know, part of your job as president is creating a sense of calm, creating a sense of togetherness. When I'm getting text messages from former students saying, should me and my girlfriend get married now? Because we might lose that right?

When I got people -- I have friends with adoptive children, nine, 10 years old, who went to school crying because they think they are going to be sent back to China. They think they're going to be sent back to Somalia.

The president of the United States has to be sensitive to those things. Even if he doesn't think it's his responsibility, he's got to get on the stage and say, just like George Bush after 9/11, just like Barack Obama when people were concerned.

[05:10:01] People thought they were going to lose their guns, Obama got on stage and said, I'm not taking your guns.

KUCINCH: No, no, actually, I disagree with you. I don't think he -- he did say that the other night. It's actions. It is actions at this point.

CAMEROTA: What could he do?

KUCINICH: It's not tweeting.

CUOMO: It's not tweeting. Full stop.

JOHNSON: Right.

CUOMO: Twitter is a terrible place. It is all negativity. It just does it, because of its brevity, it encourages emotional responses.

CAMEROTA: And it's anonymity.

CUOMO: No, he is not anonymous. He is the most known person in the world now.

But I just can't believe they will let him do something that he struggles with and that is so potentially dangerous as president- elect. I can't believe it.

CAMEROTA: What actions are you looking for, Jackie

KUCINICH: Maybe it's non-action to Chris' point. Maybe it's just not tweeting. To Jason's point, he's saying, you don't -- you want to create a sense of calm. That doesn't create a sense of calm. And he did -- the other night in his acceptance, he said, you know, now is the time for everyone to come together. OK. Don't do that. That's what I mean by actions. At least do not things.

CAMEROTA: But yet, President Obama seemed to come out of the meeting encouraged.

JOHNSON: Right.

CAMEROTA: It is hard to know with political speak what happened behind the scenes. When President Obama came out and we'll play this moment now, he seemed to be assuaging people's fears. He said they had had an excellent meeting. So, listen to watch this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I had an excellent conversation with President-elect Trump. It was wide-ranging. We talked about some of the --

(INAUDIBLE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. That looked as conciliatory as it could look. What are you seeing? Are you reading between the lines?

JOHNSON: Yes, and it seems clear to me one of the people is prepared to leave and one of these people is still figuring it out. I have no reason to believe that Trump is seeking advice from President Barack Obama. That's not usually how you do that job.

But more importantly, it doesn't really matter what conversation they had. If Donald Trump goes out and acts the same way. You can have this conversation to no end.

And what concerns me is this for the safety and well being of our country, this is before he has the full apparatus of the Department of Justice and FBI and everyone else working for and with him. If he cannot establish a rhetorical tone now for how he'll do this presidency, how does he think people are going to feel when he actually takes the oath of office? And that's something we should all be concerned with.

CAMEROTA: Jason, Jackie, thank you very much. Stick around please.

CUOMO: Donald Trump is preparing for briefing from his transition team today. What will his White House agenda look like? Remember, the talking part is over. This is about how you govern, jobs to be filled, agenda to be set, plans to be made. Where are they? What will come first? Answers ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:16:59] CAMEROTA: President-elect Trump's transition team briefing him today after the meeting on Capitol Hill with House Speaker Paul Ryan Thursday and laying out Trump's agenda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have a lot of priorities, a lot of really great priorities. People will be very, very happy.

REPORTER: What was the top three?

TRUMP: We have a lot. We're going to look very strongly at immigration. We're going to look at the border, very important. We're going to look very strongly at health care. And we're looking at jobs, big league jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: How will Mr. Trump's agenda impact President Obama's legacy?

Let's bring back our panel. We have Jason Johnson and Jackie Kucinich.

You heard him -- if you could hear the audio there, it wasn't great. He talked about jobs. Yesterday, when Rudy Giuliani was here and talked to Chris, he said that taxes -- lowering taxes, cutting taxes would be the first thing on the agenda. I guess we just have to wait and see.

What are the signs you're seeing?

JOHNSON: Well, you know, I look at what Donald Trump said he would do in the first 100 days. He's going to lower taxes. He once declared China a currency manipulator. I mean, he's got a really aggressive first 100 days. It will be interesting to see what he does.

From a policy perspective, my greatest concern is actually the Affordable Care Act. He is elected president. The Republicans control the House. So, they have every right to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, they have a mandate. My concern is, they've had six years and haven't come up with replacement. And so, if they decide to end that on day one, I wonder what the plan will be. I don't think we know.

CAMEROTA: For the 20 million people who are already covered. What happens to them?

JOHNSON: Yes, yes.

CUOMO: Well, the contract holders. This is a very sophisticated piece of legislation that did not get the benefit, Jackie, of massaging, bipartisan massaging because this was an end run. You know, this was a play to strength by Obama, using his majority to get it through. So, you have one year contracts that people, that contracts like the other one. So, you need a year of lead time before you could change what those people are on anyway.

Politically, does it make sense to go after something that you cannot immediately fix?

KUCINICH: They wanted to repeal Obamacare from the get-go. That said, you are right, there does need to be a plan with something else there rather than leaving a bunch of people uninsured and, you know, holding the bag.

So, we'll have to see what they do. You know, there have been some proposals that they have been kicking around Congress. But this is going to be a very real and very big job that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell first are going to have to usher through.

CAMEROTA: But, you know, they have said I mean I think publicly they do want to continue to protect people with pre-existing conditions. I think they said they want to keep people up until 26 years old still being able to be on parents' plans.

And so, it is not a wholesale dismantling. It's like piecemeal.

JOHNSON: We would hope so. We would hope so. Just for the purposes of allowing people to ease into. But, again, you know, that's what we were talking about before. We don't know what Donald Trump were getting. We don't know if it's going to be a Donald Trump who says, Alisyn, well, I'm just going to do this and it's Congress' job to fix it or if he's really going to be slow and negotiate.

And again, if this is something the Republican base has been begging for and pleading for for years, I can't imagine this president dragging his feet on ending the Affordable Care Act.

CUOMO: So, the transition team. Again, as part of the give the man a chance, it takes time to build a team. What are you hearing about who may fill in some of the slots and what's your response?

KUCINICH: I mean, you are hearing a lot. You're hearing Newt Gingrich put up for several positions. You are hearing Senator Jeff Sessions perhaps being secretary of defense. We're hearing everyone -- we're hearing a bunch of names for treasury.

But no one knows yet. So, it's really just -- our favorite parlor game is speculation after any new administration.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Which way on the political team? Bannon or Priebus?

CAMEROTA: Chief of staff, and those two are stark contrasts.

JOHNSON: They're stark contrast. What I am hoping and this is some of the word what came out of the D.C., you know, yesterday, after some of these original meetings. The Obama team will follow what George Bush. Bush was very magnanimous. He helped us out a lot. What I was hearing out of D.C. is they said a lot of the Trump people

because they have not worked in government, was almost overwhelmed by the information, by what this transition is going to be like. I hope many Republicans who are part of the establishment see it as their patriotic duty to help usher in this transition. You cannot start a new government with people who have no experience.

KUCINICH: You are hearing that. Initially, we heard a lot of the Trump people, because they haven't worked foreign policy experts and national security experts who wanted nothing to do with the Trump administration. And I think there is -- it is settling in now that they need help. Like any new administration coming in, from the people who know this stuff best.

CAMEROTA: So, are the national security people changing their tune?

KUCINICH: It has gone from never Trump to okay, maybe Donald Trump. Because they are seeing just how much needs to be done. The chief of staff, the key word, that is someone who makes the trains run on time, they really -- it's staff, right? The manager.

That's why you hear some of the more -- some of the people who are closer to Trump that are pushing Reince Priebus.

CAMEROTA: We heard his kids are pushing for Priebus, but that he is incline towards Steve Bannon. If Steve Bannon, who was, you know, the head of Breitbart, the inflammatory web site. If he were chief of staff, what would that look like?

JOHNSON: I think it would be incendiary to the organizations out protesting now. It's also, if you hear a word from how Steve Bannon ran Breitbart, it brings some real questions at how he would manage the White House, some of the hostility, some of the language he was known, supposed to use when dealing with people, I don't know if that's the precedent you want to set in D.C.

One of the things that they've got to realize is, you're dealing with career bureaucrats. There are people in Washington who are going to go up to Donald Trump and say, I have been here before you got here and I will be here when you're gone. You're going to have to respect me. And if he comes in with someone like Bannon, who will be hostile to those kinds of people, I think they're going to have trouble get some things done. It will be much better to take Reince.

KUCINICH: Not to mention how hostile he is to Speaker Paul Ryan.

JOHNSON: Yes, exactly.

KUCINICH: Who Donald Trump needs.

JOHNSON: To get anything done.

KUCINICH: Yes.

CUOMO: So, how important are these, not the cabinet positions so much, but the political people he puts around him? How much of a reflection will be that if who he is to the people who'd be working with every day there on the congressional side?

KUCINICH: That's who they see every day. They don't see Donald Trump every day. But the liaisons and the people, the key --

CUOMO: They are his face.

KUCINICH: They are his face. They are his representatives. So, it's critical that he strikes the right tone and picks good -- he says he has the best people. He needs to do it. He needs to hire the best people.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, Jason, thanks so much for all of your perspective on this.

Stick around because coming up in our 7:00 hour, we will hear from billionaire Warren Buffett about the election results. He sat down with our own Poppy Harlow. She will join us live with what he had to say.

CUOMO: All right. So there was another night of anti-Trump demonstrations across the nation. The protests taking a violent turn in Portland, Oregon. We have the latest on the post-election unrest, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:28:29] CAMEROTA: We do have some breaking news for you out of Oregon. Police in Portland deploying flash bangs and tear gas and pepper spray after a peaceful anti-Trump protest turned ugly overnight. Several hundred people described by authorities as anarchists started lighting fires, vandalizing store fronts and throwing rocks at police. Police arrested at least 29 people.

CUOMO: A senior ISIS commander killed in the battle for Mosul. Sheikh Faris taken out in a coalition air strike. ISIS confirming the death in a video tribute. Iraqi military sources tell CNN the ISIS leader was once a high ranking officer in Saddam Hussein's intelligence network.

CAMEROTA: Former Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock indicted on 24 counts, including wire fraud and threat. The once rising Republican start accused of scheming to profit from his government job. Schock resigned in 2015 as questions of spending intensified, including a Downton Abbey-like remodeling of his Capitol Hill office. In a statement, Schock said he never intentionally did anything wrong and his eager to defend his name and reputation.

CUOMO: Singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen has died. Here's a sample of his tunes.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

CUOMO: Leonard Cohen had some extensive body of work. But that song "Halleluiah" was one of the most influential and admired. He was a figure of pop music and beyond, and a career spanning more than four decades.