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New Day

Wrong Envelope Leads to Best Picture Fiasco; Trump Budget Proposal to Focus on Spending Cuts. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired February 27, 2017 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARREN BEATTY, ACTOR: Academy Award for Best Picture.

FAYE DUNAWAY, ACTRESS: "La La Land."

[05:58:45] JORDAN HOROWITZ, PRODUCER, "LA LA LAND": There's a mistake. "Moonlight," you guys won Best Picture.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was speechless. I've never seen that happen before.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think you're going to see something very, very special.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Going to be a surge in defense spending and cuts pretty much across the board.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The future ain't what it used to be at the EPA.

TRUMP: As most of you know, Obamacare has had tremendous problems.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), OHIO: Are Democrats work with Republicans?

TRUMP: We are fighting the fake news. It's fake, phony. Fake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to need to use the special prosecutors.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The FBI has already said this story is B.S.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: Let's have the investigation and find out the truth.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Monday, February 27, 6 a.m. here in New York.

And we do begin with breaking news. A wrong envelope brings the Academy Awards to a halt. The presenters in the category of Best Picture mistakenly announced the wrong winner. The right one? "Moonlight" takes home the top prize after this dramatic ending. We have details on how it happened.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Awkward. Hollywood's biggest night also had its share of political moments, celebrities taking on President Trump's travel ban with their own message of inclusion. This as the president heads to Capitol Hill tomorrow to make his first address to a joint session of Congress.

A lot of news to get to, so let's begin with CNN's Stephanie Elam. She is live in Los Angeles. What a night, Stephanie.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What a night. We're -- you know, we haven't slept here. It's like it just happened. It's what everyone is talking about, Alisyn. The big snafu that happened at the end of what was a pretty good show for the Oscars, but when you saw what was happening here, people were tripping over themselves to take a look at the scree, because they couldn't believe it. In case you missed it, here's what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DUNAWAY: "La La Land."

ELAM (voice-over): The Academy Awards are billed as Hollywood's biggest night, but this year's ceremony ended with what could be one of the biggest screw-ups in its history.

HOROWITZ: I'm sorry. No, there's a mistake. "Moonlight," you guys won Best Picture.

This is not a joke.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not a joke. I'm afraid they read the wrong thing.

HOROWITZ: This is not a joke. "Moonlight" has won Best Picture. "Moonlight." Best Picture.

ELAM: It was a "La La Land" producer who announced the gaffe.

HOROWITZ: I'm in a little bit in a daze. They just handed us an envelope and the awards, and we just kind of started accepting and everybody came up. And then there were some people with headsets that started kind of coming out on the stage, and it was suddenly clear that something wasn't right.

ELAM: The reactions backstage were equally confusing.

EMMA STONE, BEST ACTRESS, "LA LA LAND": Is that the craziest Oscar moment of all time? Cool. Guys, we made history tonight.

BARRY JENKINS, BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, "MOONLIGHT": I noticed the commotion that was happening, and I thought something strange had occurred. And then I'm sure everybody saw my face, but I was speechless.

ELAM: After the mistake, when the biggest prize was corrected, "Moonlight" ended the night with three wins: Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay and Actor in a Supporting Role for Mahershala Ali.

MAHERSHALA ALI, BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: It's not about you. It's about these characters. You are serving -- you're in service to these stories and these characters. And I'm so blessed to have had an opportunity.

ELAM: A new record was set for the most black Oscar winners in a single year, with five taking home awards in four different categories.

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, THE ACADEMY AWARDS: It's important that we take a second to appreciate what is happening here. We're at the Oscars, the Academy Awards. You're nominated. You got to come. Your families are nominated. Some of you will get to come up here on the stage tonight and give a speech that the president of the United States will tweet about in all caps during his 5 a.m. bowel movement tomorrow.

ELAM: While Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel took jabs at President Trump throughout the telecast, it was the Best Foreign Language Film win by the Iranian director Ashgar Farhadi, where politics took center stage, Farhadi boycotting the awards show in protest of President Trump's travel ban on seven majority Muslim countries.

Iranian-American astronaut Anousheh Ansari accepted on his behalf.

ANOUSHEH ANSARI, ASTRONAUT/IRANIAN-AMERICAN BUSINESSWOMEN: Dividing the world into the "us and our enemies" categories creates fears. A deceitful justification for aggression and war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which have themselves been victims of aggression.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ELAM: And obviously, so much happened, but it's all being overshadowed by what happened at the end with the Best Picture award. PricewaterHouseCooper coming out with a statement saying that they apologize and that it was an error made with the envelopes that were handed out that it was not an error by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Obviously, there will be a lot of people that are trying to figure out, making sure that this never happens again, Alisyn and Chris.

CUOMO: Sometimes sorry ain't enough. Thank you very much.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," Brian Stelter; and CNN media analyst Bill Carter.

So Carter, how big a deal? How sure are you why it happened? And what should be done?

BILL CARTER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: I -- I can't be sure why it happened. I think it's a big deal, because it's the biggest award they give, and they messed it up. I think they have to have an explanation. The explanation I've heard so far, that there was two envelopes for the Best Actress. Still, it says "Best Actress" on that. What do you -- how do you read that wrong? It doesn't say "Best Picture." You know, that doesn't seem that complicated. But I think they have to come out with a little bit more thorough investigation of how that -- the biggest award they have is messed up. It's really embarrassing for them.

CAMEROTA: So Brian, here's what we know, right? So there are these two people who stand with these briefcases that have all of the envelopes in them. It's like the nuclear football. That's what it looks like. And they hand the actors, the presenters the envelope as it's going out. And we now know that the front of the envelope said "Best Actress."

[06:05:03] But -- but it's never happened before, so I don't blame Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, because they didn't know they had the wrong actress [SIC]. But that was why he had that pregnant pause, where he was trying to, like, process what was happening, that it said "Emma Stone."

So whose fault is this? Who's going to take the fall for this?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I don't think we can blame the actors for reading their lines, reading their scripts. It said "Emma Stone," and then it said "La La Land." So you see Warren Beatty, not sure what to do. He hands it over to Faye Dunaway. She goes ahead and reads it. So she's reading her lines.

Ultimately, this is about PricewaterHouseCoopers, which has a pretty great track record, 83 years of doing this, keeping tabs of the Oscars.

CUOMO: But they are like the place kicker of the Oscars. They only count when they screw it up. And right now after 83 years, they're known best for the blunder, and of course, whether they continue doing it will be called into question. Let's replay the moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEATTY: And the Academy Award for Best Picture...

DUNAWAY: "La La Land."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Bill Carter, first of all, did Warren Beatty throw -- throw her under the bus there when he had confusion about the envelope? And he showed it to her? A producer wound up making it good from "La La Land." He is the one who kind of wound up connecting the dots and saying, "Look, something's going on here." What was your take on how it played out?

CARTER: Well, I think the "La La Land" producer deserves a ton of credit. I mean, he's in the middle of this moment where he's handed an Oscar in his hand, and then he has to say, "Wait a minute. We didn't win" and he has to announce it to the crowd. And the crowd doesn't believe him, and it sort of plays like a comedy bit maybe or something. So I give him a lot of credit. I think he did a good job. But I'm completely baffled by how this happened. So they just didn't

think it -- it just -- how do you not make this clear to somebody? It's so simple.

CUOMO: Gave them the wrong envelope.

CARTER: Put a dent or -- but they also managed to put a live person's picture in the in memoriam event.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my God.

CARTER: They did not do a flawless show.

CAMEROTA: That's -- that's funny.

CARTER: If the person is still alive, it's funny, yes.

CAMEROTA: Right.

STELTER: It's almost like "La La Land," almost shared the award, though, because they were both giving speeches. "La La Land" did win six awards, so it didn't go home empty-handed last night. But "Moonlight" did deserve the big prize.

CAMEROTA: That's embarrassing that they went up on stage and they had that whole moment, but there was also politics that people were watching. So we'll figure out who was to blame, and that will come out, But in terms of the politics there were interesting moments. The director for the winner for -- sorry...

CUOMO: Best Foreign Language.

CAMEROTA: Best Foreign Language boycotted because of President Trump's travel ban.

STELTER: Right. Initially, Sachar Farhadi, he wasn't sure if he would be able to come to America for the Oscars because of the travel ban. Well, once the travel ban was rescinded, or at least put on hold, he could have potentially come to the Oscars, but he decided to boycott.

So we had -- we saw the woman reading the statement on his behalf instead talking about the travel ban being inhumane, in his words, and saying empathy, films provide empathy; and that's what he was trying to do with this film.

CUOMO: What did you see in terms of politics?

CARTER: Well, I thought they handled it less. I mean, it wasn't sledge hammer approach. I thought that there would be a lot more of it in a way. I thought most of it was done pretty tastefully. I didn't think it was over the top. I mean, Kimmel had some very good jokes pointed at Trump. And I think this was an interesting protest.

And then you have the idea that the cinematographer for the documentary short subject couldn't get in the country because something was going on with his visa. So there were points made about the travel ban. There were points made about how uncomfortable Hollywood obviously is with his policies. I didn't think it was over the top. I expected it might have been a little bit more, you know, vicious than it was.

STELTER: Yes, the advertisers actually went all in, some of them. You know, that Cadillac ad, some other advertisers taking advantage of the moment.

CAMEROTA: Let's play that. Let's play the Cadillac ad that's getting a lot of attention this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are a nation divided. That's what they tell us, right? This chasm between us.

But what they don't tell you, what doesn't make the news is this. We carry each other forward. No matter who we are or what we believe, or where we come from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Brian, that's an interesting ad, because, look, I think that what they're saying is that you have a choice of what prism at the moment you want to see the country through. And you can either see it as divided and toxic, or you can see it as strong and united. And I mean, they're sort of giving you that alternative view.

STELTER: They are.

CAMEROTA: Of that we're still a strong united country.

STELTER: There's many politicians who are presenting that toxic view, that dark view. It's interesting to me that corporate America is actually better right now at inspiring us to have our common values than most of our politicians are.

[06:10:11] CUOMO: But you know, look, it is a commercial, though, Bill, right? And reality is complex. This isn't a binary choice. You know, is everything bad or is everything good? But what do you think the net plus/minus is for Cadillac?

CARTER: I think it was -- I thought Cadillac ad came off very well. I mean, I did think so. I think it's a very high, inspiring sort of ad. I do think it's interesting to see how dominant the -- this political discussion has become. It's all-encompassing; it's everywhere now. You can't get away from it. And it's sort of like we wake up with it; we go to bed with it. We -- the next morning we talk about it. It's really dominant, and it dominates not just the Oscars but even the commercials in the Oscars.

CUOMO: Because it's not just politics.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: It's become the narrative of what's going on in this country. Who we are, what we're about and what will happen.

CAMEROTA: But we should also mention that the most black actors ever won this year and the first Muslim actor.

STELTER: One year after the "#OscarsSoWhite" hashtag. One year after so much deserved criticism of the academy for its lack of diversity. And these are not problems that go away because of one diverse outcome at the Oscars, but it was inspiring to see the first Muslim actor winning for best supporting actor. There were some moments that showed the diversity of the country at a time when many people feel that's in trouble.

CAMEROTA: Brian, Bill, thank you very much.

So the Trump administration expected to reveal its budget proposal today, ahead of the president's primetime address to a joint session of Congress tomorrow night. The plan is expected to increase military spending and make drastic cuts to several federal agencies.

All of this as a leading Republican joins the call for an independent investigation into those alleged ties of Trump's team to Russia.

We are now in day 38 of the Trump presidency. Let's bring in CNN's senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns. He's live at the White House with more. What's the latest, Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Call it an early peak at the budget blueprint the White House is putting together and another promise, apparently, to avoid cutting some of the key entitlements that certain other government departments are much less likely to escape the budget axe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): President Trump expected a call for a substantial increase in military spending and massive cuts to several federal agencies in the first draft of his administration's budget proposal. The plan targeting agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency while aiming to protect Social Security and Medicare.

Last night, ahead of a meeting with the National Governors' Association this morning.

TRUMP: I think you're going to see something very, very special.

JOHNS: Trump repeating criticisms and vowing to scrap Obamacare, despite a lack of Republican unity around any plan.

TRUMP: It doesn't work, but we're going to have it fixed. And we're going to repeal and replace.

JOHNS: Ahead of his first address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, Trump trying to project an image of success.

TRUMP: It's been a lot of fun, but we've accomplished almost everything we've started out to accomplish.

JOHNS: This amid growing calls for an independent investigation into alleged Russians known to U.S. intelligence. Leaders on both sides of the aisle suggesting a Justice Department, led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions can be impartial.

SEN. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: You cannot have a friend of mine, Jeff Sessions, who was on the campaign and who was an appointee. You're going to need to use the special prosecutor's statute.

PELOSI: The attorney general must recuse himself.

TOM PEREZ, DNC CHAIRMAN: The American people need to understand whether the Russians, in cahoots with the Trump folks and others, rigged the election.

JOHNS: President Trump attempting to quash the headlines, tweeting, "Russia talk s fake news put out by the Dems and played up in the media in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks."

The White House taking unprecedented measures to clamp down on leaks. Press Secretary Sean Spicer checking the work and personal phones of aides last week to make sure they weren't using encrypted texting apps or corresponding privately with reporters. Specifically asking his staff not to leak information about the meeting or the crackdown effort.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Today the president will meet up once again with members of the National Governors' Association this afternoon with top Republican members of Congress in advance of his big speech on Capitol Hill tomorrow, Chris.

CUOMO: Joe, appreciate it.

Another headline: President Trump's nominee for secretary of the Navy withdrawing his name his name from consideration. The man's name is Philip Bilden. He's citing complications with his business interests.

This isn't the first time we've heard about this, one of the nominees concluding that they couldn't satisfy ethics rules without, in this case, disrupting his family's private financial interests. Last week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Bilden was 100 percent committed to being the Navy secretary, as reports began to surface that he may withdraw.

[06:15:10] CAMEROTA: All right. Well, the president is expected to reveal his budget proposal today. What does it mean for you? Our panel takes that on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: All right. We got a little bit of a preview of President Trump's budget proposal. He is expected to call for a big boost in military spending, as well as some major cuts to several federal agencies. We are expecting to get a more specific preview of the president's plan in just the next few hours.

So let's bring in CNN political analyst and senior congressional correspondent for "The Washington Examiner," David Drucker; national reporter for Bloomberg Politics Jen Jacobs; and CNN political analyst and "Washington Post" reporter, Abby Phillip. Great to see all of you on this Monday.

David Drucker, help us with the math here. So the president...

CUOMO: Which we don't know yet. This is going to be good.

CAMEROTA: We know a little bit. We know a little bit, but get out your calculator, because the president is expected to call for a big increase in military spending. He's said that he wants tax cuts for the wealthy and no -- no change to Social Security, for Medicare.

So how does that math work?

[06:20:14] DAVID DRUCKER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I feel like I should make an Oscars joke here.

Look, the president campaigned on increasing military spending to rebuild a military that actually really does need a lot of rebuilding. And so I think the question is here, when he adds in military spending and a big tax reform proposal that eventually will probably be sworn (ph) dynamically as generating a lot of economic growth. Can that all balance to satisfy conservative Republicans who say that they want everything paid for.

And at the end of the day these things usually don't balance in the immediate. Usually, you don't come up with numbers that make them balance. But I think that Trump can get them to spend the money anyway. So I think that's the real question here. Not so much is it going to balance? I mean, that's an important policy question. But the political question is will Republicans on the Hill go along with the president when he wants to spend money.

And by the way if you do not cut, if you do not reform Medicare and Social Security, the biggest drivers of federal spending we have -- they go automatically every year by law without touching a thing -- you really don't -- you can't swear that circle over a ten-year period. But they're going to do it anyway, I think, because I think their voters want them to follow Trump. And I think that they're not going to be able to resist that.

CUOMO: Well, but Jen, let's talk about this from the business perspective. I mean, this is the strong suit of the Tea Party. Right? I mean, they are deficit hawks. They are debt reduction people. This will be their first face-off with the president. And we've got to give him the benefit of his own numbers. We'll see what they did.

But a tax cut, as we know, is in addition by subtraction to the bottom line. So how do we see this first face-off between the Tea Party and Trump? JEN JACOBS, NATIONAL REPORTER, BLOOMBERG POLITICS: Well, keep in mind

the numbers that are in Trump's mind right now, probably, and that's his job approval numbers, which are in the low to mid-40s. So you know he's going to be wanting to work on this.

This -- this budget outline that we understand is coming out today is Trump's first bid. His first sketch, his first outline, it lets people know it telegraphs what he's interested in, where he wants to cut. But you know, he's trying to get it all out there and send an alert to people that this is what he's interested in, get those poll numbers out. It doesn't mean Congress has to adopt it and, you know, it might not.

But he wants to get those plans out there and work on, you know, explaining to people that he's going to follow through on those campaign promises, which we're going to hear a lot of on Tuesday night, as well.

CAMEROTA: So Abby, who in Congress might fight this today?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There will be a lot of, I think, at least, questions raised by some of the deficit hawks in Congress, particularly because there is no way, as David alluded, to do all of the things that Trump wants to do without doing some really big things.

And I think probably the biggest one of all is going to be tax reform. I think most of these other -- most of these other priorities really can't get off the ground unless Congress is able to agree on tax reform; unless Congress and the White House are able to agree on tax reform and at the moment there's big disagreements on this idea of a mortar tax and whether or not Trump supports that idea.

But these are big pillars of the Republican agenda that have to kind of be in place in order to find the money to -- to raise, military spending, to do infrastructure spending, partly because making cuts to the EPA, for example, or cuts to foreign aid is not going to come up with sufficient funds to counterbalance any increases in spending.

So there will be deficit hawks at least raising the question. I don't think they want to go into a real blow-by-blow fight with the White House on this. But, you know, politics is policy here, and it will be, I think, a bad headline for Republicans if they suddenly start seeing the front pages of major newspapers that they are going on a spending spree and not paying for it.

CUOMO: One of those deficit hawks is making his mark on a very different issue. Darrell Issa, we tried to get him on the show today. Didn't happen. He says he needed a special prosecutor to look at these Russia questions with the White House. I mean, those are bold words from Darrell Issa.

What's your take? I guess this is what? Is this some kind of nod to him being in California and barely winning that district, because it's so Democrat? Or is this something more than of conscious? DRUCKER: Well, no, I think a lot of this is local politics for Mr.

Issa. His race was the closest in the country. It was the last race called in the country from the 2016 elections. There have been a lot of changes at his district in California. A lot of voters don't like the president. And so I think he's watching his back ahead of a midterm cycle when, with a Republican in the White House anyway, he's anticipating a tough fight to keep his job.

But I do think it means, regardless of all of that, that this issue of Russia and the investigations into the president's connections to Russia is not going away. And so then what we want to look for over time is are there Republicans who aren't in districts or states as difficult as Mr. Issa that also begin to say the same things that he is saying?

[06:25:18] CAMEROTA: Jen, you've heard many in Congress say, "We have committees for this sort of thing. We have, you know, the Intelligence Committee that, in the House and the Senate, that can look into this. We're fully equipped to be able to look into this ourselves today.

People are wondering about that, because the heads, the chairman of both the Senate and the House Intel Committee seem to be somehow compromised, because they, at the behest of the White House, were talking to reporters already, saying that, basically, they don't think there's any "there" there about the Russia ties. Well, they haven't done the investigation yet. And of course, the question persists whether or not Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been compromised in that way, because he was part of the Trump team before Mr. Trump got to the White House. So h ow can those people be tasked with doing independent investigation?

JACOBS: Exactly. And you know, it was interesting. CNN on Sunday, Chris Christie, who's a Trump ally and a former Justice Department official, said, "Look, we can trust the Justice Department to do this."

But then Chris Christie turned around and schooled the Trump administration a little bit and said, "I have complete confidence in Reince Priebus, the chief of staff and his integrity, but listen, these guys, you know, need to, you know, understand what they're doing here. You shouldn't be communicating with the FBI.

So Chris Christie even opened the door a little bit, you know, saying, "We still have some questions, and these guys need to be doing things appropriately in keeping a wall."

CUOMO: It's hard. It's going to be hard for these leaders in Congress to keep their integrity up when it's now open knowledge that the White House came to them and said, "Tamp down these stories," and they went along with it.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you very much.

CUOMO: So the father of a U.S. Navy SEAL killed in Yemen slams President Trump. What he is demanding from the president, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)