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Interview with Independent Senator Angus King of Maine. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 06, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Boy, would we like to know how you think about it all the time right now, and I'm sure the candidates would as well. Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, thanks for being with us.

REP. JIM CLYBURN, (D) SOUTH CAROLINA: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: Much more on the State of the Union right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(APPLAUSE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: An economic miracle is taking place, and the only thing that can stop it, ridiculous partisan investigations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is bridling under the democratic majority. We're not going to turn and look the other way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The shutdown was a stunt engineered by the president of the United States.

TRUMP: Where walls go up, illegal crossings go way, way down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw this as a psychotically incoherent speech. He tries to put together these warm, kind things about him at the same time he is demonizing people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You saw a president that landed his speech, one of the most historic speeches I can remember.

TRUMP: I will get it built.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were a lot of signals to the base.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question is, what is his definition of compromise?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota on John Berman.

BERMAN: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, February 6th, 8:00 here in Washington, D.C., the morning after the State of the Union address. Alisyn is off, Poppy Harlow is here with me.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

BERMAN: And a whole new table all of a sudden majestically appears here around us.

HARLOW: Exactly.

BERMAN: President Trump, he started and ended his State of the Union address with a message of unity, but in between, lots of times when he struck a different tone. Of course, this was his first address in a divided Congress with Nancy Pelosi, the new House speaker, literally staring over his shoulder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: An economic miracle is taking place in the United States, and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn't work that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The loaded slow move into Adam Schiff. President Trump renewed his call for a border wall but did not issue any new threats as Congressional negotiators meet about border security, trying to avert another government shutdown.

HARLOW: In the Democratic response, Stacey Abrams denounced the president's policies on key issues -- of course, immigration, gun safety, health care -- but caught the attention of many with this closing statement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STACEY ABRAMS, (D) FORMER GEORGIA GOVERNOR CANDIDATE: So even as I am very disappointed by the president's approach to our problems, I still don't want him to fail. But we need him to tell the truth, and to respect his duties, and respect the extraordinary diversity that defines America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Joining us now, former Ohio Governor John Kasich, former senior adviser to former President Obama David Axelrod, CNN senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, and our CNN Political Analyst David Gregory. Good morning one and all. And governor, to you first. Welcome to CNN. This is your first time being on with me. We are glad to have you here. I was watching you last night, and you talked about this ahead of the address as a test for the president. Test for the president, can he bend, can he reach out? What did you see?

JOHN KASICH, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He touched his base, which he needed to do with a number of things that he said, including the wall, abortions, the economy, cutting regulations. But then I think he tried to reach out. And, look, he scored a pretty good score from the American people last night.

But what's interesting, even though the numbers were pretty good for the speech, it doesn't seem like anybody became more optimistic about the future here. They're not saying, well, I think this will be a pattern, they're going to be able to work together. I'm not hearing that. And you know why, it's been a raucous, an understatement, a raucous two years. And so one speech doesn't change that. So his actions are going to have to belie his words. The most interesting test is going to be how they resolve immigration.

BERMAN: The governor talked about the instant poll after the speech over at CNN, 59 percent said they approved of the president's message, which was the highest he has received for one of these addresses to a joint session. What was so notable about that was this was the most partisan audience he has ever had for a speech like this. Two to one Republican. And it gets to the question Maggie Haberman asked this last hour, is there anyone whose mind who can even be changed at this point? David Axelrod, I think the most interesting framing of this address last night and perhaps the Democratic response is as a curtain-raiser to 2020.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Without question. And I think that's how one should view the speech. We often underestimate Donald Trump, and it was easy to do it with that speech last night, which I believe was poorly written and leadenly delivered.

[08:05:02] But within all of that were the outlines of an argument for reelection. And it's what you are going to hear. The economy, tough on trade, tough on immigration, getting America out of these wars, forcing the Europeans to pay their debt, and a portrayal of the Democrats, once you set aside all of the embroidery about bipartisanship, as socialists, as radical on abortion, as for open borders, that is the outline of the campaign Donald Trump is going to run in 2020.

HARLOW: How do you think, Nia, Democrats responded? I don't just mean Stacey Abrams, we'll get to that in a moment. I mean responses without words, moments of sitting on hands, moments of not applauding. How would you rate the Democrats?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: There were moments of that. In some ways you could see Nancy Pelosi back there being the conductor of folks who were sitting there, particularly all the women in white. At some point they wanted to boo the president. She didn't want that to happen because she said before she thinks the president should be treated with respect, the office should be respected even if he doesn't respect the office, in her words. She said that.

I think the Stacey Abrams response, she's in a red state. And so you could see her in some ways trying to come off as a moderator. Republicans have obviously tried to paint her as an extremist on any number of issues, guns, for instance, and immigration. But I think she struck a really nice tone, particularly in trying to reach out to working class folks, white working class voters is a segment of the population that Democrats didn't do well with in 2016.

An so, yes, I think they are trying to obviously set up a contrast not only in terms of policy and values, but even in terms of who represents the party. Before they had white men doing the response to the State of the Union. At least some Democrats feel like the energy is in people like Stacey Abrams.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: What's really important about what you are saying is this question of who speaks for us as Americans. One of the reasons I believe that President Obama was elected is that Americans got uncomfortable with the notion of President Bush at that time speaking for Americans on the world stage. I think there was discomfort with that. So the contrast is really important.

But I do agree with Ax in this regard. The president has got a strong economy. Thankfully the country is at peace. He's at his best when he's uniting Republicans, whether it's about hardline views on abortion or speaking out against socialism. He's very effective and he has been effective at uniting Republicans.

And the specter of the Mueller investigation this year, I think we always have to allow for the possibility that the line, the idea of a ridiculous investigation, will be vindicated in a lot of people's minds, depending on what the outcome is. He could be strengthened by all of this, not necessarily weakened by it.

And I think a lot of people watching that speech last night who don't hear him in that level of depth on a big stage like that where he's not engaging in erratic behavior and tweet-storming and all the rest. And I think for people who are not parsing this the way we are, there was a lot there.

HARLOW: I think you're right. I got text messages from friends, family in Minnesota saying it's not a great look for the Democrats. The president sounds pretty measured here and some of them are sitting on their hands.

HENDERSON: When the socialism came up.

HARLOW: They don't do this every day.

AXELROD: What's interesting is that when he reads from a teleprompter, it's the one time his staff can discipline him is when he has to stand in public and read off of a teleprompter. But even last night when he ad-libbed, he got into deep water. He said, for example, at one point that he was for more legal immigration than ever when his policy is actually to cut legal immigration in half. So I'm sure that gave some heartburn to his staff.

But the question is how much of what I call the embroidery, the appeals to bipartisanship and so on, appeal to people. And I think that there is some heavy skepticism about that, just as there probably was some skepticism when Abrams said, I don't want him to fail. I'm not sure how many people believe that. We should feel that way, but I don't know how many Democrats actually feel that way at this point.

KASICH: Two years ago, I remember when the president made a State of the Union. I was with some friends. And when he delivered it two years ago people had a sigh of relief. Oh, my goodness, he's not calling names. He stood up, he's acted like a president. Last year it didn't go over as well. I don't know why that is. This year he tried to stick to the script. And I actually think people in this country want politicians to work together and solve problems. They do. And the question is where does this go? Just one speech, one day, one night. Now what? What happens now? I don't think he's had any tweets this morning or anything, but if he's going back to attacking people again, then he's going to double down on the base.

[08:10:00] AXELROD: To your point, two days ago he accused Pelosi of being responsible for deaths all over the country because of her position on immigration. He is not by nature -- he's not about multiplication. He's about division. And division is what delivered the presidency to him. I don't think he's going to change.

GREGORY: I'm sorry, but the State of the Union doesn't matter. It doesn't matter anymore. And he's not going off selling the State of the Union messages. He's going to go back to doing what he does, and where there can be cooperation that's mutually beneficial, they'll do it. But let's not forget, the president, just like after the midterms, got up and said, I'll work with you, unless you continue with these investigations, in which case I won't. So that's really what he believes.

HENDERSON: But I do think we should look for places that there might be progress. Is there some sort of policy place, whether it's paid family leave, is it infrastructure reform, like with criminal justice reform.

AXELROD: Drug prices.

HENDERSON: Drug prices. This is something he touts all the time as a bipartisan accomplishment.

AXELROD: He should test Democrats on these issues. That would be a smart political move for him.

BERMAN: They should test him on it as well.

AXELROD: Yes, absolutely.

BERMAN: We had Chuck Schumer on last hour. He said infrastructure and he said drug pricing. Will you do something? And the Senate minority leader didn't have a policy there. He said if the president is serious, he should come to us. And so they're just staring at each other right now.

KASICH: I'll tell you one thing, though, on infrastructure, it's very easy. Just pass out public dollars. And we have a $21 trillion debt. And there are increasing numbers of Americans who are becoming concerned about the debt. I'm telling you, David, I have seen it reflected in some polls lately. Just pass this bill. That's the easy one. I don't know what they'll do and what the outcry will be over the debt, but the hard one would be the drug pricing. And if, in fact, they can bring transparency, the can begin to do some things to moderate drug prices, that's really hard on everybody's part, and it would be really good.

HENDERSON: I think paid family leave is maybe where there can be some bipartisanship. You think about Ivanka Trump as the face of that, Kushner being the face of criminal justice reform. She sort of may want a win in the way that Kushner was able to push through criminal justice reform with a lot of allies obviously. So we'll see. It is all about how you pay for it.

HARLOW: I was going to say it's how you pay for it.

AXELROD: If the predicate is no investigations, there's not going to be any bipartisan.

BERMAN: Can I just say one of the things that struck me, and again, some of this is looking backwards, not forwards, given the way the president leaned on the economy last night, and given how I do think this was a curtain-raiser on 2020, his message there, it provided a window for me as to why he was so unsettled in December when the stock market was falling like it was, and the Fed.

HARLOW: And who did he have dinner with this week?

BERMAN: He had dinner with the Fed chairman, because if he does not have the economy, if he doesn't have that to lean on, he's in serious trouble.

GREGORY: Serious trouble. And it's why a strong economy is really hard for Democrats to unseat him, when you have an incumbent who has a good economy. And he got spooked in this government shutdown by the LaGuardia thing, when the planes weren't flying, and when his guy, Kevin Hassett, came out said we've got zero economic growth.

HARLOW: To me he didn't want to admit it, but when I pressed Hassett on that, he said, yes, we could get there. And it was a few days later that we saw the president concede here. Go ahead.

AXELROD: One caveat on this economic issue is that we do have uneven prosperity, uneven growth, and regionally uneven. So there are places in the country that haven't shared in this to the degree that others have. And so you have to be a little bit measured about how you claim progress. And he's not good at that.

HARLOW: I think to that point, March 1st is going to tell us a lot, because the impact of not reaching a trade deal with China could be enormous when it comes to the fallout for middle America in terms of manufacturing jobs, in terms of prices going up from a tariff 10 percent to 25 percent. Look at the Ohio GM plant. KASICH: They will end up with something. I don't think it will be the major trade deal, the structural changes he talks about, but I think they'll figure something there.

You know what I want to keep my eyes on are these independents. Where do the independents go here. If you take a look at the midterm election we just had, a lot of women, young people, independents moved against the Republicans. The question is, has he softened them up at all? He hasn't with one speech, but what does he do over time? Because if he loses all of them and he's stuck with this narrow base, then it's a campaign he has to run where he's tearing somebody else down, and that is not going to be good for the country.

HENDERSON: I think that's where some of his policies that he talked about last night -- the HIV, childhood cancer, even paid family leave, those are the kinds of policies that can get independents interested in him, certainly attract women as well. So I think we should watch for all those policies and see what he does with them.

BERMAN: Thank you very, very much. A great discussion.

HARLOW: Great discussion.

President Trump defended his decision to withdraw troops from Syria. You heard that. Something a top general says, the commander of CentCom, he was not even told about it.

[08:15:04] We'll talk to the senator who pressed him on that question just yesterday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is time to give our brave warriors in Syria a warm welcome home. I have also accelerated our negotiations to reach, if possible, a political settlement in Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: The president last night in the State of the Union defending his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan.

With me this morning, independent Senator Angus King of Maine. He serves in the Intelligence and the Armed Services Committee. He caucuses with the Democrats.

It's nice to have you. And let's begin on that --

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: Sure.

HARLOW: -- on Syria. The president chose not to repeat his false claim that ISIS had been defeated in Syria. But, he did say, look, our soldiers deserve to come home. Essentially, this has gone on long enough. Does it encourage you that he didn't repeat the false statement, that

he's listening to his generals? Or are you concerned at the overarching message.

KING: Well, he didn't repeat it which is a good thing. On the other hand, the problem is, as we heard testimony just yesterday in the Armed Services Committee, there are between 20,000 and 30,000 members of ISIS. About 15,000 in Syria and Iraq. So, clearly, there is a threat there.

But what really worried me, there are two things that worried me about his decision on Syria.

[08:20:02] One was the process. As we learned yesterday in the Armed Services Committee, he didn't even consult the general on the ground.

HARLOW: So, for anyone who missed it, let's play that. This is the exchange between you and General Votel, who leads CentCom.

KING: Right.

HARLOW: Let's roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: General, were you aware of the president's intention to order the withdrawal of our troops from Syria before that was publicly announced?

GEN. JOSEPH VOTEL, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND: I was not aware of the specific announcement. Certainly, we are aware that he had expressed a desire and intent in the past to depart Iraq and depart Syria.

KING: So, you weren't consulted before that decision was announced?

VOTEL: We are not -- I was not consulted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Two questions on that -- first, yes, it's shocking. Does it concern you that given his statement, it is clear the president is conducting foreign policy through a political prism there and not through the advice or counsel of his top generals?

KING: There is an old saying that a good process doesn't guarantee good results, but a bad process almost guarantees bad results. And this was no process apparently. The president, as near as we can tell, didn't consult with anyone in the national security apparatus. It came as a surprise to everyone.

The second problem, Poppy, is the Kurds. They have been literally taking bullets for us for five years. They have been our most steadfast ally. The Turks can't wait to go after them.

HARLOW: Right. KING: And if we abandon the Turks and let them be run over -- I'm

sorry, abandon the Kurds and let them be run over by the Turks, it will be, number one, a stain on this country's honor. Secondly, who's going to -- who's gong to help us next time?

HARLOW: Well, that is the reason. The abandoning of the Kurds was the final straw for General Mattis resigning.

KING: Yes.

HARLOW: The second question to what we just heard from the general there is now what? After you heard that, where does it leave us? Yes, a Senate resolution you voted for yesterday that was proposed by Mitch McConnell.

KING: Of all people.

HARLOW: Of all people, to keep troops there. But now what?

KING: Well, you could tell from the other questions of the general that the military is doing what they do which is follow orders and do the best they can. They are working out a plan for withdrawal and trying to do it in a thoughtful way. But they're sort of back-filling on a pronouncement that had no policy undergirding at the time.

And, by the way, everybody wants to bring our troops home. The question is, how do we do it and do we do it in such a way that doesn't get us in a worse condition. For example, ISIS comes back. ISIS reconstitutes and we have to go back in. It was just a precipitous decision that didn't have the support of anybody.

HARLOW: What -- we did hear the president do is out loud condemn Russia, condemn the actions of Russia by saying Russia violated the INF.

KING: Right.

HARLOW: Therefore, we are pulling out. Significant to you?

KING: Well, it was significant that he made the statement very clearly, that he justified pulling out of the INF because of that. There was a disturbing little one sentence there that really bothered me though. He said something about -- to the effect, if other people are building missiles and bombs, we are going to outspend them and build more.

HARLOW: An arms race.

KING: It sounded -- in my notes I said, arms race.

HARLOW: Let's talk about 2020. Yes, you are an independent, but as I mentioned, you caucus with Democrats. It is a crowded field already.

KING: Crowded?

HARLOW: And we know that Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is going to make a decision this Sunday on 2020. Some see her as more centrist than a lot of those who have jumped in so far. Which direction do you believe the Democratic Party needs to go in if it wants to defeat President Trump? Is it the far left?

(CROSSTALK)

KING: You're asking the wrong --

HARLOW: I'm asking the independent.

KING: Come on. That's their business, come on.

HARLOW: How to attract -- I mean, look, independents. Howard Schultz may run as a centrist independent.

KING: Well, it's -- you know, that's about 40 percent of the country. About -- the parties are roughly 30/30, and then a majority are un- enrolled, particularly young people.

HARLOW: There is a reason, right, that an independent has never won. Ross Perot came the closest with a little over 19 percent. Those are the numbers Schultz points to, 40 percent of independents.

KING: Right.

HARLOW: But do you believe those who identify as independent will abandon their party when push comes to shove and vote for an independent? Are you glad to see if Howard Schultz gets in the race?

KING: Well, I don't want to comment on that. I think it's too early.

But the question -- it's funny, the independents aren't a party. By definition, they are leaning right, leaning left. They align sometimes with some parties and sometimes with others.

There is an interesting fact about the 2016 election. Sixty-three million people voted for Hillary Clinton. About 60 million voted for Donald Trump, 100 million didn't vote.

That's an amazing number, and if you think about it --

HARLOW: It's a sad statement about the country.

[08:25:01] KING: Well, it's a statement about our civic engagement. But it is also a statement about, there are a lot of votes there to be gotten if somebody can reach out.

HARLOW: Why don't you want to comment on Howard Schultz if he runs as a centrist independent? You said, look at the Democrats who jumped in already. Many of them to the far left which is why he's left the Democratic Party and said, I can't run in this party.

KING: Well, I think having more voices in the campaign and somebody in the center is probably a good thing. The mechanics of it are difficult. The way our electoral system works is except for Maine or Nebraska, every state is winner take all. If you get one more vote in Pennsylvania, you get all the Pennsylvania electoral votes.

The question is, what would the role of an independent be in that election?

Now, Perot, interestingly, the polls afterwards said Perot grew -- the conventional wisdom is he beat George Bush. Thirty-six percent would have voted for Bush, 36 percent would have voted for Clinton, 24 percent wouldn't have voted.

So the idea that an independent will draw from one or the other of the parties I don't think is really there.

HARLOW: Yes. And when you dig into the polling and you take him out, Perot out, it was 42-43 Bush to Clinton. So, it's pretty even there.

It's interesting. We'll watch. We appreciate you being here this morning.

KING: Absolutely.

HARLOW: Thank you very much, Senator Angus King.

KING: Yes.

HARLOW: John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Senator Elizabeth Warren dogged again by new revelations about her heritage just days before formally jumping in the 2020 race. Why is she apologizing again? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)