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Trump: CIA Memorial Wall Speech Was A "Home Run"; Remembering Mary Tyler Moore; Border Residents On Trump's Plan For A Wall. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired January 26, 2017 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:32:45] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump still talking about crowd sizes and how his speeches are being well- received. In an interview with ABC, the president called coverage of his political speech at the CIA headquarters unfair.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID MUIR, ANCHOR, ABC WORLD NEWS: And you would give the same speech if you went back --
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Absolutely --
MUIR: -- in front of that wall?
TRUMP: -- it was a great -- people loved it. They loved it. They gave me a standing ovation for a long period of time. They never even sat down, most of them, during the speech. There was love in the room. You and other networks covered it very inaccurately. I hate to say this to you, and you probably won't put it on, but turn on FOX and see how it was covered and see how people respond to that speech. That speech was a good speech and you and a couple of other networks tried to downplay that speech and it was very, very unfortunate that you did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: All right. Let's bring in Michael Smerconish, host of CNN's "SMERCONISH." Good morning, Michael.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST, "SMERCONISH": Good morning.
CAMEROTA: So that speech got a lot of criticism because he was standing in front of the memorial wall of fallen CIA officers and he was talking about himself and the crowd size at his inauguration. What did you think of how he just explained it again last night?
SMERCONISH: Well, I thought that the speech last Saturday at the CIA was really unsettling and I'm not thinking so much of the president's comments because, for better or worse, I've come to expect those sort of things from him. But, Alisyn, what's deeply troubled me has been the audience reaction. You know, the idea that bashing the media would be and get such an applause line, I think, is problematic because this was not exactly a Republican fundraiser. This was not a tea party event. This was not the national convention.
So I've wanted to know who were the people in that room who would feel comfortable applauding such partisan remarks. There's differing commentary and reportage as to how much of that audience was comprised of CIA folks -- it was a Saturday -- and how many were there as part of the Trump entourage. So that's what's always stood out to me.
The comments that he made yesterday though, I mean, equating the size of the standing ovation with one that was afforded to Peyton Manning at a Super Bowl victory? I mean, that was just odd to me.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it also shows you where the president's head is in terms of how he wants to be perceived. And I know what you're referring to and the questions about clackers (ph), a new word that got entered into our vocabulary.
[07:35:07] CAMEROTA: A professional clapper?
CUOMO: People who are brought there to applaud. You see it a lot in politics. The question is whether or not the president did that in that case. But, Michael, do you think that we're wasting energy checking the president on these types of style points? Do you think the focus should just be on the facts? And if you look at the ABC interview, the inability to push back on the president about where he is patently wrong, isn't that where our energy should be focused about what are the facts, not in terms of how people feel about him?
SMERCONISH: I really would much rather talk about those substantive issues but as long as he perpetuates this -- as long as, to the extent he was given the bait by David Muir and he took it, then he keeps this in play. And Chris, he shows no sign whatsoever of wanting to end the conversation. You'd think we wouldn't be still litigating the size of the popular vote in the November eight election, but to the extent that he keeps talking about it --
CUOMO: But that's different.
SMERCONISH: -- of course, we then respond.
CUOMO: That's different. How he was received at the CIA, you know, the baiting, irrelevant to the American people. Whether or not three to five million illegals, as he calls it, voted against him in the popular vote and now there's going to be money spent investigating that does matter to the American people. That goes to facts and you should get after it.
SMERCONISH: I'd like to think that it matters to the American people. I'd like to think that we'd be equally or even more concerned about what we seem to absolutely know, which is that there was a Russian attempt to -- I'll say it this way -- influence the outcome of our election. If you want to talk about committing resources to getting to the bottom of that I'm all for it.
And by the way, a lot of this -- because I've been around this track, you've been around this track -- a lot of this has to do with people who are conflating names that appear on the voter rolls -- CUOMO: Right.
SMERCONISH: -- because they've passed or because they've moved and the system hasn't caught up with them yet, and the idea that someone committed fraud --
CUOMO: Right.
SMERCONISH: -- by voting as another individual --
CAMEROTA: Yes --
SMERCONISH: -- and the latter is that which there's no evidence of.
CAMEROTA: Right. And so, in other words, he is not drawing any distinction between voter fraud and voting registration problems. So there are voting registration problems and, in fact, two of his close advisers, Steve Bannon and the possible Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin, are registered to vote in two different states.
CUOMO: Which is not illegal.
CAMEROTA: It's not illegal but if he's cracking down on it he could start there.
SMERCONISH: I had a relative pass in the midst of this conversation, an aunt, and it occurred to me that President Trump could today say that this woman, Mrs. X., my God, she's still registered to vote.
CUOMO: Right.
SMERCONISH: Well, she is still registered to vote because she just died, and when she doesn't show up for two successive years of elections she will then be expunged, and that's the way the system works.
CUOMO: All right. Also, I mean, obviously, that's the silly part of his concern, which is that dead people voted. Obviously, that's --
CAMEROTA: That's what he keeps citing.
CUOMO: That's impossible. It's something to deal with in terms of registration or housekeeping but, again, to the facts. He sits in the interview and he says well, then why did the guy write the study? Obviously, he didn't read the study or whoever talked to him about it didn't read the Pew study because the man lays out very clearly that he was trying to delineate these problems in the process and has a conclusion that he could not see any proof of them accounting for fraud. But he ignored that, dismisses the study, is insistent (ph) on it, and I think that is an area where you need to be going after him more than how he feels about how he was received at the CIA.
SMERCONISH: At a certain point it becomes circular. Yesterday, I said on radio that there's absolutely no proof of the three to five million having voted the way the president says. I had a telephone caller who immediately called me and said well, prove that it didn't happen.
CUOMO: Right.
SMERCONISH: Well, how can I prove that it didn't happen? And so, round it goes. And he said -- here's the point I want to make. He is satisfying a base, the 46 percent who voted for him, when he makes these arguments. Let's not think that there aren't people who aren't receptive to this because there are.
CAMEROTA: All right. Michael Smerconish, always great to talk to you. Thank you very much for all of that. We have a quick programming note. You can join Michael Smerconish tomorrow night for a primetime special, 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
CUOMO: All right. So, T.V. icon, comedienne extraordinaire, television producer Mary Tyler Moore is gone. Coming up, a groundbreaking writer for "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW" shares her stories about this legend.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:43:05] CUOMO: All right. We just lost a great one, a true television icon, Mary Tyler Moore, a beloved actress. We all know her as a comedienne and just someone who evoked such amazing feelings on television. She as 80 years old. She had a career that spanned 50 years.To discuss Moore's life and legacy is one of the writers for "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW," Susan Silver. Susan, thank you for joining us. We're sorry for your loss.
SUSAN SILVER, WRITER, "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW": Thank you very much. For everybody's loss.
CUOMO: Yes, and right, that's the right way to say it because she really became part of the American tapestry of who we were and what we valued. Did you know that when you were writing on the show that it was more than just good T.V.?
SILVER: No. At the time, feminism had just sort of begun and the fact that women couldn't get jobs as writers was a problem. So when they wanted women writers that was a great thing and we were just so happy to be there. But they never asked us to be political and to do issues. They wanted to know what women's lives were like for real and the way we talked, and it hadn't been shown before so it was just part of the process.
CAMEROTA: That's interesting. So it wasn't the mission statement. I mean, you weren't tasked with coming up sort of lightning rod issues for that show but you ended up fastening on them. I mean, you did deal with sexuality and gender equality. So how comfortable was that when you started presenting those scripts?
SILVER: Well, you know, Norman Lear had his group with "MAUDE" and "ALL IN THE FAMILY." They were a little more political, and then Gary Marshall had the fun stuff over there. He was my late, great manager. And we were sort of reality women's lives without knowing that it was going to be so groundbreaking and that it would last today. I have so many women coming up to me today who still feel that she was so influential. But it wasn't really a mission statement, it was just how do women talk and what we do in our lives that are different, maybe, than men.
CUOMO: So that's probably why it worked, right, because if it had come across as an agenda --
[07:45:00] SILVER: That's right.
CUOMO: -- as if you're trying to put it on people that certainly weren't ready. How aware was Mary Tyler Moore of what she wanted to do with the show versus how much of it for her was just the performance aspect?
SILVER: Well, because she and Grant, her husband, ran the company I think she had a lot of influence. She hired a lot of women around her. The costumes became as fabulous as "SCANDAL" costumes are today in dressing America. The casting person was a woman. I think that we just -- being there by our presence and the large number of us changed things and I think she was always so open and welcoming to it.
CAMEROTA: I read that there was a guy -- a writer in Chicago who said -- or maybe you came up with this -- let's get her some sex.
SILVER: No. Oh, my gosh, I'm going to be -- they're going to come after me for that. No, what he said was Mary was undersexed, so I said well, let's get her some then, you know. So --
CAMEROTA: And so how did you do that?
SILVER: Well, I also was sort of naive. I thought that you weren't allowed to make anything up, that you had to write from your own life, so every story I came was from my own life. So I kind of did a story where she was being interviewed by this reporter and she wound up spending the night with him, so I thought that would sort of say it without really saying it. But she does ask Rhoda, "Am I undersexed"?
CAMEROTA: Oh, that's great.
CUOMO: There's so many little cultural cues also that showed an empowerment for her, even her driving that Mustang, you know. The Mustang that she had was a muscle car at the time. As a person, what was it like to work for her? What made her different?
SILVER: Well, you know, prior to her, there were certain kind of female comediennes, if you will. Lucille Ball with a lot of shtick and physical. Rose Marie wisecracking. Marlo was really the first woman to kind of emerge as the real woman with her working. And, in fact, I did a show for her with a partner and we had her engaged, and she said no, I don't think Ann Marie should get married, which was -- she was also the boss of her show.
And then came Mary at the right time, where women were starting to evolve and ask for different things. And she -- because she was so likeable and so kind of not pushy could get away with stuff and was it was interesting to see her character evolve and grow as we were growing.
CAMEROTA: And was there a feeling that she shouldn't be married, that she should be a single woman?
SILVER: Originally, they wanted her to be divorced but the network didn't want it so they had a whole fight about that before I was there. And then, funnily enough, like a year or two after, I pitched a show with Bud Yorkin at the time, Norman Lear's partner, about a divorced woman and the executive said -- and he pulled out a paper from his file -- divorce is not palatable to the American public -- OK. Then "ONE DAY AT A TIME" came on and it did very well.
CUOMO: Right.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
CUOMO: Mary Tyler Moore -- how should people remember her?
SILVER: Oh, Mary was so kind and so sweet, and I like to think of her as Mary Richards because she was always smiling and real. She was a very private person in real life and little reserved, but she was everything that you wanted her to be.
CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Susan Silver, thanks so much for sharing your personal memories.
SILVER: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: It really helps us see the full picture of her. Thank you for being here.
SILVER: Thanks.
CAMEROTA: All right, back to politics now. President Trump says a wall will be going up on the Mexican border soon, but what do people who live there think? We take you live to border, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:52:25] CAMEROTA: It's time for CNN Money Now. The Dow goes above 20,000 for the first time ever. Chief business correspondent Christine Romans is in our money center with more. Is this the Trump effect?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It is and, Alisyn, it looks like more records today when stocks open in an hour and one-half. Twenty thousand is now in the record books. The rally has been impressive from 6,500 at the worst of the financial crisis, reaching 16,000 a year ago, 19,000 after the election, and now above 20K. That is a 10 percent gain since Election Day. That is a stunning 1,800 points.
These are record highs for the Dow, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500. The bull market now nearing its eighth birthday. This last leg they're calling the Trump rally, it's a bet that companies are going to make a lot more money if he rolls back regulations, slashes corporate taxes, and spends money on infrastructure. Stock prices, remember, they reflect not consumer or worker prospects but company profits. This is all a bet that the president's plans are going to enrich American companies.
The president said in his interview last night that he was very honored by the big gains in stocks since his victory and now the trick is to keep them going higher, Chris.
CUOMO: All right, Christine, thank you very much. So, signing an executive order to build a wall is easy. Getting Congress to pay for it, let alone Mexico -- and he will have to do both of those things -- and getting people along the border to accept a wall will be hard. So, for the people who live the border reality, do they think the wall is an answer? CNN's Ed Lavandera is live Nogales, Arizona with more -- Ed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. Well, we are in the middle of our week-long journey across the southern border, traveling from south Texas all the way to San Diego, California. We are live this morning in Nogales, Arizona. Just right here on the border with Nogales and Mexico, and these issues being paid very close attention to this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: On the border's edge from Nogales, Arizona, several dozen migrants gather for breakfast inside a shelter known as the Kino Border Initiative. It's where Jesus Garcia (ph) is trying to figure out how to get into the United States. Over a map he recounts how far he's traveled since he left home the day before Donald Trump was elected president.
So he started here in San Pedro Sula in Honduras, made his way across Guatemala here into this little town, and this is where he crossed into Mexico. (Foreign language spoken).
[07:55:00] JESUS GARCIA: (Foreign language spoken).
LAVANDERA: He says he hasn't been able to cross. He left home November 7th of last year and he's tried three times already to get across but he hasn't been able to. Garcia says it's the first time he's ever tried crossing the border illegally and says it's harder than he imagined.
GARCIA: (Foreign language spoken).
LAVANDERA: He said if I've made it this far, I'm going to keep trying. But on the other side, a legion of border patrol agents, camera, barricades, ground sensors are waiting, even some private citizens working on their own to stop migrants like Jesus Garcia from getting across.
TIM FOLEY, ARIZONA BORDER RECON: This is the scene in "THE MATRIX."
LAVANDERA: In Tim Foley's world the borderlands are a threatening, dangerous place. FOLEY: Well, this is the red bill. This is what the world really looks like.
LAVANDERA: Foley leads a volunteer group called Arizona Border Recon that patrols the border around Sasabe, Arizona, a town on the U.S.- Mexico border with less than 100 people.
FOLEY: I've been called everything in the book. I've been called a domestic extremist.
LAVANDERA: The Southern Poverty Law Center which monitors hate groups in the U.S. says Foley's group is made up of "native extremists." Foley sees a flow of drugs, undocumented migrants, and the wide open spaces of the border as the country's biggest threat.
Along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S. southern border there is already about 700 miles of fencing and barricades already in place. Here in Sasabe, Arizona this steel, see-through fence stretches for several miles, but as you approach the end of town it abruptly comes to an end, like these border fences often do as it stretches out into rugged, remote terrain in the Arizona desert.
FOLEY: I put all my cameras about five minutes from the road.
LAVANDERA: Foley relies on a collection of cameras he hides in the brush to capture the movements of drug smugglers. He often shares that information and the videos with border patrol agents.
FOLEY: You need boots on the ground. That's what's keeping you out there. Woo, good thing we have this up here.
LAVANDERA: Foley voted for Donald Trump and wants to see all documented immigrants in the U.S. deported and additional border patrol agents moved closer to the Mexican border. But he's not convinced Trump or anyone else can change the reality he sees.
FOLEY: When you're reactive to a problem you're always going to be behind the solution.
LAVANDERA: For many, like 18-year-old Marisala Ramirez (ph), they try to come illegally from Mexico. She was caught by border patrol with a group of migrants and quickly deported. She wanted to find work in the U.S. to helpsupport her elderly parents. She trembles as she recalls the experience of being smuggled across the border.
I asked her if she was going to cross again. Her brother is still being detained in the United States. She's waiting for him to get out and she's not really sure what they're going to do next. So she's waiting for him to be sent back here and they'll figure out what they're going to do next. It's the cycle that never ends on the border.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: And Chris, you know, traveling across the border here you really see that divide between humanitarian groups that are trying to help the migrants at least make it through safely and protect them, as well groups like the National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents border patrol agents. We spoke with one of the leaders of that group saying, you know, they very much support the crackdown on immigration controls and really focusing on border security first. So there is a great divide between both sides of this debate along here on the border.
CUOMO: And you are showing us the reality and you're doing it in great fashion. Ed, thank you very much, appreciate it.
LAVANDERA: Thanks, Chris.
CUOMO: All right, a lot of news for you. Let's get right to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The United States of America gets back its borders.
VICENTE FOX, FORMER PRESIDENT OF MEXICO: Mexico will never pay for that f****** wall.
TRUMP: We are going to get the bad ones out.
CUOMO: Is Tuesday's meeting with Mexico's president in jeopardy?
TRUMP: You have people that are registered who are illegals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's not make it harder for people to vote.
SEN. NANCY PELOSI (D), CALIFORNIA, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: I felt sorry for him. I even prayed for him but then I prayed for the United States of America.
SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I'm alarmed by anybody that wants to go back to torture.
TRUMP: As far as I'm concerned, we have to fight fire with fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She certainly was the epitome of star quality.
CAMEROTA: Remembering the iconic Mary Tyler Moore.
("THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW" theme song playing).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
CUOMO: Well, we lost a great one in Mary Tyler Moore and we'll be talking about what made her such a pioneer.
CAMEROTA: I know. I mean, all of us watched that as children and wanted to be Mary Tyler Moore, and so she meant a lot to lots of women and beyond.
CUOMO: True. Good morning to all of you. Welcome to NEW DAY. It's Thursday, January 26th, 8:00 in the East.
And up first, President Trump's plan to build a wall along the Mexican border is rattling relations between both countries and with Congress, who is going to have to find billions to build it. In his first major interview as president, Mr. Trump says he will begin construction on the wall in months and insists, without any details, that Mexico's going to pay for it.
