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CNN Poll: Nation Split on Trump Presidency; Trump Outlines Policy Plan for First 100 Days; Driver Charged in Deadly School Bus Crash. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 22, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will cancel job killing restrictions on the production of American energy.

[05:58:28] KELLYANNE CONWAY, DONALD TRUMP SENIOR ADVISOR: Donald Trump said he understood America.

NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I'm fine with whoever the president-elect picks.

TRUMP: Truly great and talented men and women will soon be a part of our government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His senior adviser is a Nazi.

RICHARD SPENCER, NATIONAL POLICY INSTITUTE: Hail Trump. Hail our people. Hail victory.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump repeatedly denounced racism and repeatedly called for unity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Multiple children lost their lives today in this tragic incident.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A Chattanooga bus driver arrested and charged overnight.

CHIEF FRED FLETCHER, CHATTANOOGA POLICE DEPARTMENT: His speed is being investigated very, very strongly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He wasn't OK (inaudible).

SUPERINTENDENT KIRK KELLY, HAMILTON COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: This has been one of the worst days we've had in Hamilton County.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, November 22, 6 a.m. in the East. Up first, President-elect Trump using -- taking to YouTube to outline a series of executive actions he plans to take on his first day in office. This as speculation continues about who will fill the remaining cabinet positions.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Now, there is no cause to speculate about how the country is feeling after this election. A new CNN/ORC poll confirms we are divided.

There is good news. A narrow majority of Americans are hopeful. Fifty-three percent believe Trump will do a good job as commander in chief. Forty-four percent disagree.

CAMEROTA: Americans are also split on Donald Trump's handling of the presidential transition. So far, 46 percent say they approve; 45 percent disapprove. About a third of Americans have a lot of confidence in Donald Trump's picks for his top appointments, which thus far have been lacking some diversity.

CUOMO: Only 33 percent of Americans have a lot of confidence in the president-elect's ability to provide leadership. This is a historically low, compared with other modern-day presidents before they took office. It's also not a surprise.

We have all of the goings on within the transition covered. Let's begin with CNN's Jason Carroll. He's live outside the annex, Trump Tower, in New York.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Chris.

What, it's been about two weeks and still no press conference from Donald Trump. But as you say, he did release that video outlining what he plans to do in his first 100 days in office, including the executive actions he plans to take.

All this while speculation continues to swirl over who's going to help him do it and who he's going to appoint to his cabinet.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): President-elect Donald Trump outlining what he intends to accomplish during his first 100 days in office, including a pledge to create jobs.

TRUMP: On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Transpacific Partnership. I will cancel job killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and creating many millions of high-paying jobs.

CARROLL: And end corruption in Washington.

TRUMP: As part of our plan to drain the swamp, we will oppose a five- year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration. And a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.

CARROLL: But in the 2 1/2-minute video, Trump steering clear of some of his most controversial and biggest campaign promises, like building a wall on the Mexico border, repealing Obamacare, placing a ban on Muslims entering the United States, and no mention of deportations. TRUMP: On immigration, I will direct the Department of Labor to

investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker.

CARROLL: This as Trump continues to parade cabinet and senior staff hopefuls past cameras again. Tulsi Gabbard slipping past cameras to meet with Trump. She's the second Democrat Trump has spoken with since the election. Gabbard is now under consideration for top jobs at the Defense Department, State Department and the United Nations, according to a source.

Trump also taking time to meet with executives and anchors from five television networks, including CNN, to address concerns about access.

CONWAY: It was an off-the-record meeting. It was very cordial, very productive, genial, but it was also very candid and very honest.

CARROLL: Meanwhile, Trump's team on the defensive. Civil rights groups urging the president-elect to denounce the alt-right after white nationals were captured on video, cheering the president-elect in Washington.

SPENCER: Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!

CARROLL: And capitalizing on Trump's "make America great again" slogan.

SPENCER: For us as Europeans, it is only normal again when we are great again.

CARROLL: Racism and anti-Semitism on full display, audience members giving a Nazi salute.

Without denouncing the alt-right by name, Trump's transition team said in a statement, President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind, and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And that statement still not satisfying Trump's critics, who are very concerned about the appointment of Steve Bannon as his chief strategist. Bannon, as you know, former head of Breitbart. And Bannon made it very clear that Breitbart was a platform for the alt- right. Bannon still on track to be his chief strategist -- Chris, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Jason, you've given us a lot to talk about. Thank you. So let's discuss Donald Trump's first 100-day plan and his latest cabinet news.

We want to bring in CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich; and senior congressional correspondent for "The Washington Examiner" and host of the podcast "Examining Politics," David Drucker. Great to see both of you. Let's just pull up the 100-day plan, since he's put it out there. He

plans to, on trade, withdraw from TPP. We knew that. That was a promise. Negotiate bilateral trade deals. On energy, slash restrictions on domestic energy production. On regulation -- this is new -- cut two old regulations for every new one created. On national security, have a plan to protect the infrastructure from cyber- attacks. Who wouldn't welcome that? Immigration, investigate abuses of visa programs. Ethics reform, five-year ban on lobbying for top officials after they leave the administration, lifetime ban for top officials lobbying on behalf of foreign governments.

What do you see here, Jackie?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good thing Manafort left.

But I'm actually not seeing anything new. This is a lot of the things he said before he -- before he won, and there's not a whole lot of specifics. What regulations he's going to cut, what the plans are. I know he doesn't like to reveal his plans, but there still is just a lack of things to fill it out.

And maybe that's what the cabinet officials will do. Maybe the guys -- he's waiting for them. But again, it doesn't seem like there are -- there's meat on these bones yet.

CUOMO: Right. Now look, I think this is most notable for what you don't see, David, right? Where is the wall? Where is repeal and replace at the top of the agenda? His signature issues are not there. Why?

DAVID DRUCKER, SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Well, I think they're still working them out. I mean, what's interesting here is most of this is Republican boilerplate. And the rest of it, which is not typical Republican policy necessarily, is a continuation from the type of things that President Obama proposed when he ran.

He famously ran and said, "We're going to get the influence of lobbyists out of Washington." Nobody ever gets the influence of lobbyists out of Washington, because as long as Washington spends money, there are going to be people that are advocating on behalf of it. And lobbyists, as Trump even said in the "60 Minutes" interview, are the people in town that know the most about running a government. And so they're going to have a hard time doing that.

But other than that, I think that, as you see the transition unfold, you'll see more specifics. He's giving some of the work to the Republican Congress to come up with some of this legislation. I have no doubt that, by the time that he takes office, he'll start working on the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. He'll start doing more when it comes to immigration.

I think the issue here is the things that are going to surprise us and how is President Trump going to react to the things that he cannot predict that impact every presidency. KUCINICH: I think you're right, but isn't the answer to the question,

those things are hard. The wall, repealing Obamacare. These are very complicated things. And these aren't things that you can knock out in the first hundred days, especially repealing Obamacare.

DRUCKER: Well, no. Look, that's probably going to take a year. Because it's not the repeal. It's the replacement. And the Republicans...

CUOMO: Well, you have to have a year of advance, because the service contract. You sign a service contract for a year, David. You can't take it away from me before that year.

DRUCKER: Right. But the issue is they're going to reform the entire healthcare system all over again. That's what Obamacare did. It didn't just make some tweaks.

And so what Republicans have to do is figure out how to reform the health care system from what it is now. That's why it's going to take a long time to do.

I think -- look, I think what voters want to see is, at least the voters that supported him, is some incremental progress. I think voters that are skeptical of him or don't like him, probably many of them want to have hope that this presidency will be rather normal. And so when he rolls out in drips and drabs some of these cabinet hirings and some of these goals in terms of what he's going to do, it's designed to keep the American people up to speed.

And, you know, ultimately, if they think their lives are better, they'll be happy. And if they think their lives are not better, they'll be upset. And it really doesn't matter what the specifics are.

CAMEROTA: Right. It's that pretty simple calculus. So we have some polls that are just out a couple minutes ago about how Americans are feeling about President-elect Trump right now.

So "President Trump will do a good job," 53 percent agree with that; 44 percent think he will do a poor job.

A lot of confidence in the president-elect's ability to provide leadership. Let's look at these numbers and compare them with previous presidents. At this point, people felt that President Obama, 49 percent felt that he would -- they had a lot of confidence in his ability to do a -- provide leadership. Thirty-six percent for Bush, 34 percent for Reagan. Thirty-three percent for Donald Trump. Isn't that interesting?

CUOMO: Better than Clinton.

CAMEROTA: Yes, better than Clinton, but isn't that interesting?

DRUCKER: Which Trump no doubt takes pleasure in.

CUOMO: "I beat Clinton again." CAMEROTA: He's done nothing but show leadership at this point, because he's the president-elect. He hasn't had any, you know, roadblocks yet. And still, people aren't that confident.

KUCINICH: Well, I mean, his only roadblocks are himself. And this also was a very divided election. But, you know, other than this YouTube video, he hasn't really addressed the American people, and his one-off "I'm going to heal the wounds."

CUOMO: He hasn't done a single press conference.

KUCINICH: he hasn't done a single press conference.

CUOMO: He did that "60 Minutes," which was largely a vanity exercise, right, a kind of introduction to the president-elect. But he has not been taking a big firing line. He's been sending out his surrogates to bash the media instead.

KUCINICH: Well, right, and so what do they really have to go on other than a couple of tweets and one interview at this point. So...

DRUCKER: Donald Trump is a divisive figure. He is still acting like a divisive figure. And so it's not a surprise that these numbers would come in as they are. He has an opportunity to improve them. I think, as we get further away from the election, more Americans will feel somewhat better about him, because you don't have his opponents bashing him every single day. And he's not as front and center, saying the kind of things he was saying every day.

Although, the tweets kind of keep him in character and I think could inhibit his ability to expand his appeal. But it doesn't matter, because he's the president. He doesn't need to expand his appeal. All he needs to do is produce. And if he produces, things -- people will look at him differently.

CUOMO: I think what will be interesting is to see the reaction of these. Because these are all incremental things. And he did not campaign on being an incrementalist. That would be the one -- that would be the only one point of pushback I have in your analysis, that he didn't come in by saying, "I'll make things a little bit better." He was going to blow stuff up.

DRUCKER: His supporters didn't vote for him because they thought he was going to blow stuff up. They voted for him, because they thought -- for his supporters, here's somebody who's finally on our side. And for people that don't support him, they're not going to support him anyway, and he keeps kind of, you know, sticking his finger in their eye, because he doesn't care.

CUOMO: But being on their side meant something real to people. It meant that he's going to keep out these immigrants, that he's going to return the vitality of jobs that come to people like me. That's not in here. That's all I'm saying.

DRUCKER: No. Look, it's a good point. And there may come a time when people say you need to give us more; you need to deliver more. I'm just saying that his supporters and a lot of voters aren't going to expect him to uphold every promise. For them, it's about the tone, and that's what is most important to them.

CAMEROTA: Also, very quickly, we hear that there's going to be some economic team news today. What are we expecting?

KUCINICH: We could have the treasury secretary, perhaps Steve Mnuchin. He's another Trump loyalist. He's donated to both Democrats and Republicans, but he's someone who was a finance chair. And this will be another person that was already in the Trump orbit, who was brought in. Jonathan Gray, who has donated to Hillary Clinton, would be -- who's a billionaire. He might -- he would be a little bit more of an offshoot from what we've seen before.

CAMEROTA: OK. We will see what happens in the next couple of hours. Panel, stick around.

CUOMO: All right. We're also following breaking news out of Tennessee. Why? A school bus driver was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide because of a crash on Monday that killed six elementary school children. The families of those students and that community are just trying to come to grips with what has been lost.

We have CNN's Martin Savidge live in Chattanooga, breaking details from there. Martin, what do we know?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Morning, Chris.

The bus driver overnight was taken into custody, 24-year-old Johnthony Walker. He obviously survived the crash. And authorities say he has been cooperative. But the real question is, how and why did this happen?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Flipping onto its side, careening into a tree so fast its frame crumbling on impact. This is the image of a horrific school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing at least six students and injuring 23.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He wasn't paying attention. He was going real fast.

SAVIDGE: The bus driver, 24-year-old Johnthony Walker, arrested late Monday and charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment, and reckless driving.

FLETCHER: Certainly speed is being investigated very, very strongly as a factor in this class.

SAVIDGE: A witness living near the crash said she heard a big boom just before 3:30 p.m. And that the impact was so strong it knocked her power out.

KELLY: This has been a great tragedy for us. We have suffered a great loss. SAVIDGE: Emergency officials raced to the scene. So did frantic

parents, the fire department working for hours to remove the 35 elementary school students on board, trapped inside. But for some, it was too late. Five children died on the bus and another died at the hospital.

Meanwhile, hundreds of residents from the community lining up to donate blood at a local blood bank to help the injured. Their parents hoping they can take their child home soon.

FLETCHER: We are working diligently to ensure that all of the other children who have received care at the hospitals or may have been transported to other locations are reunited successfully with their families.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: We're outside the elementary school where the school bus departed from yesterday. School officials in a short while are expected to have a news conference. The NTSB is also sending a go team, and they'll begin investigating how it all happened -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: What a sad story, Martin. Thank you very much.

So white supremacists from the alt-right are celebrating Donald Trump's victory with Nazi-like salutes and chants in this just- released video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPENCER: Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So the Trump team is responding. We'll tell you what their response is. That's next.

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[06:18:03] CUOMO: President-elect Donald Trump praised this weekend during a gathering of more than 200 members of the alt-right movement. Members raising their arms in the Nazi salute amid declarations of "hail Trump."

Listen to what Richard Spencer, a white supremacist group's leader, said in a speech that was filled with anti-Semitism and Nazi propaganda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPENCER: America was, until this past generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation. It is our inheritance. And it belongs to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: And that is, of course, completely anathema to what America is about. But this is about how will Trump deal with this type of support of his candidacy?

The transition team released a statement saying that Trump denounces any form of racism, but he did not rebuke them, even in this statement, by name. Why not?

Let's discuss with Jackie Kucinich and David Drucker. The guy doesn't like what happens at "Hamilton." He doesn't like what happens on "SNL," and he will go off for hours about it in detail. But Nazis stand up and talk about him, David Drucker, and he's anonymous about it. They're mild about it in their pushback, and they always have been. Why?

DRUCKER: It's never really made sense to me. You know, Trump has an opportunity here, and he has throughout the campaign to deliver a speech very similar to what Barack Obama did with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In that campaign, the way President Obama dealt with Wright, was to give a very pointed speech in which he not only disavowed Wright by name; he disavowed the things that Wright had said, the things that Wright stood for and was very specific about it.

And then Barack Obama never had to talk about it again.

And if Trump would deliver a similar speech, he would never have to talk about it ever again. It wouldn't cost him an ounce of political capita. His supporters really don't care what he does.

But the way Trump looks at it is that he doesn't do what a typical politician should do, and he looks at his victory as something that didn't happen in spite of himself; it happened because of himself. It reaffirms every way in which he conducted his campaign.

And so I think this is why they don't like to speak to it. But I actually think it would enhance his image and his presidency and make him look really good.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, his team says that Mr. Trump continues to denounce racism. When has he denounced it?

KUCINICH: Does he?

CAMEROTA: It's a quote.

KUCINICH: David is absolutely right. He needs -- because it's not just about his people at this point. He's the president of the United States, all of it, all of the states, all of the people who even didn't vote for him. And just allowing this to continue to fester and to -- for these people to think that he represents them isn't good for anyone.

CAMEROTA: Saying "stop it" on "60 Minutes" is not denouncing racism.

KUCINICH: No, he needs to take a strong stand about this.

CUOMO: Well, here's the problem. It is denouncing racism.

CAMEROTA: No, it isn't. That was very vague.

CUOMO: Leslie Stahl asked him a question about what do you say to these people who are doing these things in your name? And I think it's terrible.

No, no, no, no. She was contextualizing it about this stuff. But I'm saying don't lower the bar too much, is what I'm saying here. Because he can say, "Well, I did say stop it. Camerota is wrong."

The campaign can come out and say, "Well, we did denounce this. Kucinich is wrong." Here's the point. The point is this.

This man has never gone so little in denouncing something as he has consistently with this element that attached itself to his campaign. That's the part that is a troubling question mark. Because on the most trivial things, the lowest hanging fruit, he goes nuts about them in many different manifestations. But not this. And I don't think it's because he thinks he won because of these people. I don't know why.

DRUCKER: No, it's not that he thinks he won because of them, but he think that he won because of how he conduct himself and his strategy. So by not listening to the mainstream media, which everybody hates on the right and the left for reasons...

CUOMO: These are Nazis. They're raising their hands in the Nazi salute.

DRUCKER: And by not listening to what we say he should do, it worked. That's how he looks at it.

KUCINICH: Shouldn't he want to -- shouldn't he want to denounce something like this? This is just so repulsive and so -- the lowest instincts.

DRUCKER: Look, it's something -- look, it's something that I think I would want to do. And I think it's something, again, that would enhance his image that would actually enhance his stature. But Trump doesn't care about what people think he should do when it comes to conventional thinking.

And I also think that Trump -- and we saw this with Vladimir Putin. When people like Trump, I don't think he really looks at who the people are. He just likes to be liked. And so he doesn't find it useful to denounce people that like him.

CAMEROTA: So yesterday there was this meeting between the top network news executives and some anchors. They went over to Trump Tower. They were going to figure out the way forward. Because as we know, Donald Trump has been denying access to the media for long-standing traditions of a press pool. He's been dodging the media. And so the executives and the anchors were going to talk about what was the expectation. And it was an off-the-record meeting, but we have some sources inside

who said that it was at times contentious, and he did criticize the media, CNN as well as other networks, saying he didn't like some of the photos that people had shown of him. He thought that the media reporting was unfair. He doesn't like unflattering -- any unflattering sort of reports about him.

DRUCKER: No. He's been in New York for -- he just doesn't like it.

CUOMO: It goes to my point about why what he's choosing to ignore doesn't make any sense. He got up this morning. He looked at "The New York Times." He didn't like their coverage, he tweets. Put it up on the screen.

CAMEROTA: "I..."

CUOMO: No, go ahead.

CAMEROTA: "I canceled today's meeting with the failing 'New York Times' when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice."

CUOMO: Now, this is my point. It doesn't take a lot to trigger his disgust, OK?

But you said something that I hadn't thought of before. Maybe if someone is for him, that's good enough. You ever meet those people where you're like, "This person is the worst guy I ever met. He's nice to me, though." Maybe that's enough for Trump, that these Nazi- saluting, you know, terrible peopled, you know, espousing things that couldn't be less what America's about, like him, so he's not going to go after them too much. But if you don't like him, then he'll go after you, even if you're Mother Teresa. Is that really what it is?

KUCINICH: Or the pope.

CUOMO: Because the pope he went after in an interview with me.

DRUCKER: But I think that's how he has functioned as a presidential candidate and so far as the president-elect. And, you know, I can't get inside his head and shrink the guy, but that's been a part of how he has existed as, you know, both a politician and before he was a politician.

CAMEROTA: So why would we think it would be any different as president?

[06:25:09] DRUCKER: You shouldn't. People govern the way they campaign. And especially right after they win, they think that they won because of everything they did. They don't think, "Oh, God, I got lucky". Wow, I won, despite" -- no, they think, "Hey, that worked."

CUOMO: Is part of it the "they"? Is it not just Trump? Is it what Bannon's telling him? Bannon can put as many labels on himself as he wants. Breitbart echoes a lot of these different agendas.

But I think he's saying, "You don't need to. They like you. Just leave it at that."

DRUCKER: I'm sure Bannon is telling him, "It's working. Just keep it up and everything is going to be fine," because this is what Bannon believes. And he trusts Bannon. And Reince Priebus is very effective, and he's an implementer. Bannon is the adviser.

CUOMO: He said he wants a chance. He deserves a chance. You've got a constitutional mandate of a chance. It's what he's doing with that chance that's drawing criticism.

CAMEROTA: You know, a million and a half of the popular vote didn't agree with it.

CUOMO: But he won. He got over 300 electoral votes. It doesn't matter.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: He got his 300-plus electoral votes. He's going to be president of the United States. It's what is he doing with that? This is low fruit. Denounce the ugliness that is as anti-American as anything in our culture.

CAMEROTA: Guys, thank you very much for being here.

So there's been an arrest we have to tell you about in the target, shooting death of a veteran San Antonio police officer. What we know about the alleged gunman and his motive next.

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