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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump: We Have a Great Cabinet; Trump: When America Is Unified Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach; Trump: We're Going to Defend the American Worker; Trump: We're Going to Put America First; Trump: People Are "Pouring In" From the Middle East; Trump: We're Going to Bring Back the American Dream; Trump Picks Gen. Mattis For Defense Secy.; Trump: We Will Have a Great Wall at the Border; Trump: Political Gridlock Will Stop; Trump: We Will Finally End Illegal Immigration; Trump: I Want To Take the Rust Out Of the Rust Belt; Trump Touts Carrier Deal; Trump on Carrier Deal: We'll Do That All over the Country
Aired December 01, 2016 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:03] JACK KINGSTON, FORMER GEORGIA CONGRESSMAN: And the treasury and commerce folks have been talking about it, too.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I just want to give a heads up to our viewers. It's the top of the hour. I want to -- appreciate you just joining us.
In a year of unprecedented presidential campaign, another first. The president-elect just wrapped up a first stop in what is being billed as a "Thank You Tour", back on stage at a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio. Take a look at some of the key moments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF UNITED STATES: I'm going to discuss our action plan to make America great again. We're going to discuss.
Although we did have a lot of fun fighting Hillary, didn't we? Right?
We have so many problems to fix in our country, but I know that if we set aside our differences, and we do have differences. We're very divided nation, but we're not going to be divided for long. I've always brought people together. I know you find that hard to believe. Although this group probably doesn't find it hard to believe.
We pledge allegiance to one flag and that flag is the American flag.
From now on, it's going to be America first, OK? America first. We're going to put ourselves first. We seek peace and harmony with the nations of the world. But that means recognizing the right of every country, including our own, to look after its citizens. We would put other countries first. We had people running our country that truly didn't know what the hell they were doing.
They didn't want to call it. We're leading by so much it is impossible I lost every other vote and they refused to call. Then at 3:00, I'll never forget, I watched a particular person. And we won Wisconsin. And we won Michigan. We won Pennsylvania. Right?
And that person is doing the map. And that person was saying for months that there's no way that Donald Trump can break the blue wall, right? We didn't break it. We shattered that sucker.
We condemn bigotry and prejudice in all of its forms. We denounce all of the hatred and we forcefully reject the language of exclusion and separation. We're going to come together. We have no choice. We have to, and it's better. It's better. And today, you're older and you're working harder. And in many cases, you have two jobs. Some of that's because of Obamacare. And by the way, we are repealing and replacing Obama.
The job of the president is to keep America safe. And that will always be my highest priority.
We will do everything in our power to keep this scourge of terrorism out of our country. We're going to keep it out of our country. Just so you understand, people are pouring in from regions of the Middle East. We have no idea who they are, where they come from, what they are thinking, and we're going to stop that, dead cold, flat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Our CNN Senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta is there. He joins us now.
Was this the unscripted Trump we know on the campaign trail tonight, do you think, or a more -- I mean, I can't tell what percentage of this was scripted and unscripted. Certainly, it seemed to kind of go back and forth?
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, Anderson, it was pretty much like the campaign. The teleprompters are up, but Trump is going to trump. And that's we saw tonight here at this rally in Cincinnati. It was billed as a thank you tour by his transition team, but it sounded more like something else. You tour when you listen to some of Donald Trump's comments here tonight.
He went after the news media, railed against the news media as the extremely dishonest news media mocked some of the predictions that he was going to loss heading into the election. And then he declared during these remarks here which the crowd just ate up, moment by moment, that there will be a wall on the Mexican border, that he will seek the end of Obamacare, that he will ask Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, and on and on.
And I think the big news of the night was when he announced that retired Marine General James Mattis is going to be the next Defense Secretary. But keep in mind, Anderson, that is something that his own spokesman, Jason Miller, denied on Twitter was actually taking place.
[21:05:07] So Jason Miller said just a couple of hours ago, that no final decision had been made. So Donald Trump not only does he like to stir up the crowds at these rallies, he proved tonight that he also wants to make the news on his own and not even allow his own transition officials to that.
There was also a moment where he defended tapping Wilbur Ross as his next Commerce Secretary. I thought that was interesting, because, you know, one of the knocks on Donald Trump during this transition process is that he's not had a news conference to take some of these questions. And so he essentially answered one of those questions at this rally tonight.
One of the questions being, how can you be talking about draining the swamp when you're naming billionaires to your cabinet? And Donald Trump said at one point, well, Wilbur Ross knows how to make a lot of money, described him as a killer, and he said that he's going to be having other killers on his cabinet. And so, Anderson, you know, Donald Trump has talked a lot about it and he did this on election night about uniting the country. But really tonight this was a speech that was just about uniting his base and he certainly did that.
COOPER: How unusual is this idea that a president-elect would be doing a thank you tour, particularly in the states that were so critical for him to win?
ACOSTA: It's not that unusual. Barack Obama did this back in 2008. I think what is dramatically different is to hear Donald Trump and some of the language they used as President-elect tonight. We just not had a President-elect go after the news media in the way he did tonight, just openly mocking the news media.
Openly sort of doing a touchdown dance, saying it was fun fighting with Hillary Clinton. And then saying to a couple of protesters who were let out of this audience early this evening, well, maybe somebody should remind them that Hillary Clinton lost a couple of weeks ago.
This was not a president-elect who is seeking to heal the divisions of this country tonight, Anderson. This was a president-elect who is very comfortable enflaming those divisions, and he did it time and again. And there's really just no way to sugarcoat that or to tiptoe through the tulips. Donald Trump wanted to do a touchdown dance, and he spiked the football here in Cincinnati.
COOPER: All right, Jim Acosta, thanks very much.
Before we go to our panel, I want to play one of the moments that Jim talked about that the announcement about Donald Trump's pick to be the Secretary of Defense, not only using the general's name, but also his kind of amazing nickname.
Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We are going to appoint "Mad Dog" Mattis as our Secretary of Defense.
But we're not announcing it until Monday, so don't tell anybody. "Mad Dog". He is great. He is great. I asked one of the generals, I love the generals, and I won't use his name, but he probably would come forward. But I said to him, you're a good general? Yes, sir, I am. I said, so, how do you compare to General Mattis? How do you compare to "Mad Dog"? Sir, he's better than I am! I loved it. I said, I love you just saying that. They love him.
So we're going to be announcing him on Monday of next week. Keep it inside the room. But that's what we have. And he's our best. They say he's the closest thing to General George Patten that we have and it's about time. It's about time!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Dana you were saying who that General was, that said that about General Mattis.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Apparently it was Michael Flynn, who is going to be his National Security adviser. Maybe not that surprising, because I'm not sure how many Generals he regularly talks to, but maybe at this point he probably talks to a lot of them. But I think he's quite telling that he had that private moment with Flynn and that that was part of his impromptu announcement, talking about.
COOPER: When I listened to that announcement I had to Jeffrey Lord a moment I was thinking back to Ronald Reagan, how, you know, there was a Soviet Union who were afraid of Ronald Reagan thinking he's crazy, he's going to have his hand on his button, I'm wondering what the reaction among, in some quarters like in the Diplomatic, Communist, or Czar, hearing that the new Secretary of Defense his name is "Mad Dog"?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I reserve the other worst.
JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The retire wall of any number of them.
COOPER: Right, and they're like, it's of those Google "Mad Dog" and then translate mad dog exactly. So, but -- yeah Van.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, it's one thing that he mentioned. I'm trying to figure out where there might be some common ground. I think it's going to be mostly a lot of obstruction from Democrats. If nothing else, just to show they can't be ruled.
But, you know, he did mention this drug problem and this drug epidemic. And in the rust belt, the opioid epidemic is unbelievable. You have little bitty small towns that have two or three deaths a day. More people are dying from opioids now than from car crashes. I mean, it's a huge thing,
[21:10:15] And you have had, you know, problems in other communities as well. It might be that there could be something there. Also, poverty, the urban poor -- he always points out have been let down by Democrats, but the rural poor have been let down by Republicans. And nobody as I think about poverty for a long time, so there could be some places by guarantee on the front-end, you're going to be actually -- the Democrats are going to help and puff a lot to try to show that they're not ...
COOPER: But it's interesting, even I mean Glass-Steagall which is something Donald Trump talked about reinstating on the campaign trail, I think it's even in the Republican Party platform, although we don't hear about it much these days, that's something Elizabeth Warren has also supported, whether or not that will be actually some sort of ...
KINGSTON: You know, I think there will be, a lot of battles on that, but you know, when he talked about -- we spent $6 trillion in the Middle East and all we had is instability and we should be for stability. I think that's going to bring in a few Democrats.
Some -- maybe some of the more liberal ones are going to say, you know what, whatever we're doing, wherever you stand, it's not working, we've got to do it differently. So, I think that's something, the opioid thing, I agree with you 100 percent, Hal Rogers, the chairman of Appropriation Committee, big, big champion of that and it's a very big ...
COOPER: But on the campaign trail on the opioid and which he did talk to a lot about in New Hampshire, in Ohio and lot of states because he would interact with people. A lot of -- and again maybe, there's more detail in online in his playing, but on the campaign trail, what he was talking about, what he would reference "build a wall ...
JONES: And immigration.
COOPER: ... we'll stop the drugs from coming in. Not a lot about sort of more detail ...
LORD: I was speaking to somebody today, who has a family member who is been become a heroin addict, a college-educated man, and they're stricken by this. And this is one of the reasons why there are please about his talk about Mexico. Because they think these things are pouring through the border, ruining families ...
COOPER: But what's interesting, obviously, we know about the opioid epidemic, it's so much of this description drugs initially and then because ...
BASH: Right.
COOPER: ... expensive, people turn to heroin, because it's more accessible and cheaper, I mean it's cheaper ...
BASH: Can I just say something, as somebody who has tougher Congress for a long time and has seen what happens when the party out of power immediately digs heels in and says, it's no, no, no, to quote the Megan Trainor song. I mean that -- it's really terrible that when that happens. And I think if the voters said anything, it's that they want to blow up Washington. And if the Democrats don't at least have some understanding that they can't do exactly what they blamed Republicans for doing to Donald Trump ...
COOPER: But let me ask you, Dana. But -- if there is cooperation and bipartisanship ...
BASH: I'm not saying it has to all be come beyond.
COOPER: No, it benefits obviously the only country, but it benefits the president who's in office ...
BASH: It does, it does.
COOPER: ... and a lot of Democrats are not going to want to give that to the president. I'm not saying that right, I'm just saying that's a political reality.
BASH: And that's a hundred percent and that's Van's whole point, is that we have progressives are trying to make the decision about whether or not to be obstructionist or not. And I think that ...
JONES: The lesson that we learned though, I've just add to ...
BASH: Yeah.
JONES: But the lesson that we learned was the country was in a massive recession, two wars.
BASH: That's true.
JONES: We reached out to Republicans; they act like Obama never try to pick up Republicans. He really worked hard to Republican ...
KINGSTON: I really have to disagree ...
JONES: You'll get your turn. You'll get your turn.
KINGSTON: 300 billion into his stimulus that attack this republican's one.
JONES: You'll get your turn, let me just tell my little story.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: So, I was stepping in the White House, I remember him reaching out quite a bit. Here's what happened. When we looked at it, they obstructed, obstructed, and then rewarded in the 2010 midterm election.
BASH: I know, but does that make it right? Not to sound Pollyanna.
JONES: I'm not saying -- I'm saying ...
BASH: It's good.
JONES: ... but if you're asking consider you are asking, you're a good person and you're asking us to do something that the actual lesson that we just saw is, if you do the opposite of that, you get rewarded.
COOPER: I just want to play what Donald Trump said tonight about gridlock and then and the gridlock conversation (ph).
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I've spoken to Democrats and I said to them, look, we can't go on with this gridlock. It's gone on for so many years. It's gone on for so many years, they can't get together. We're going to get together and I believe they want to get together. You know why? Because it's time and the people are angry. They're angry.
Ahey're going to get together. We're going to make joint decisions, we are -- and the nice part? Our victory was so great, we have the House, we have the Senate, and we have the presidency.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:14:57] KINGSTON: In my opinion, Van, having served in the first term of the first Clinton, the only Clinton, I guess, we can say now, and the -- and with Obama and with Bush, I can tell you, Clinton actually really did reach out. I think Obama did superficially, so he could say that he did, but health care, great example. I'm going to have everybody in the room; I'm going to have the meetings open to the public, absolutely not. He did not look at any of our proposals, and we could not even put amendments on the floor.
And I think it's a huge mistake, I really would say to Donald Trump, you know what, you need to pick of a few Democrats. Not to conquer and divide, but you need to get some onboard, because you want bipartisanship.
BEGALA: OK, excuse me. I was in the Clinton White House, when you were in the Congress and you all impeached him! That's not ...
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: ... I'm sorry! You say what Republicans did as our president had not even spent his first night in the White House, President Obama. The Republicans are retired of fancy D.C. restaurant and planned a strategy of massive resistance. History now shows the ...
KINGSTON: Actually is not ...
BEGALA: ... it's the most successful political strategy of modern times. Excuse me.
They won back the House, they won the Senate, now they've won the White House. They have more state legislature chambers in anytime since 1920. They have the highest number House seats since 1928. They have obstructed everything. The president -- and I didn't work for Barack Obama, but his health care plan came from Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. His cap and trade plan came from John McCain. His immigration plan came from George W. Bush. And if you if you think of ...
COOPER: OK let's go for history today, I mean David Gergen, what would you say to Democrats who are trying to figure out, is it resistance, is it common ground? DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think they have to figure out two or three issues on which they're willing to cooperate, infrastructures the most obvious. They don't have a plan of their own yet. They desperately need to come up with a plan of their own. But I think the wisest Democrats are saying, we've got to move beyond this question of whether we resist or we compromise. Rather, the question is, how do we become the party of the future?
How do we bring new solutions to the table? Because Hillary Clinton ran on a set of ideas that seem rather stale to most voters and Donald Trump has left it wide open on technology and globalization and these other big forces that are changing the world. The Trump plan does not speak to the future, it speaks to a lot of current problems today, and you need to come up with a plan that really deals with the big forces that are moving.
COOPER: Kirsten, I mean all the talk of all, are we -- is it out, or, you know, for Democrat saying we're going to be a resistance party? We're going to have common ground. Republicans saying, what is our strategy? I mean there's folks out there who are listening who are just sick of this kind of talk. And Donald Trump kind of spoke to that tonight, the question is can -- will it be any different?
KIRSTEN POWERS, USA TODAY COLUMNIST: Well, that's the problem, I mean it is true that this was proven to be a very successful political strategy. So, if you're Democrats, so you're looking at, you want to be successful of your think, I don't want help him be a successful president by being -- bipartisan. The problem is, where does it end?
COOPER: Right.
POWERS: And it well just -- so then it's the Democrats do this and they get back in power and the Republicans are like, oh we saw how that be, we just do this forever? At some point, the cycle has to be ...
BEGALA: The fall too (inaudible) and our stars that lies in selves, as long as the American people reward obstructionism, which they have from the State House to the White House. Politicians only respond to stimulus. And voters have rewarded obstruction by giving the entire keys of the kingdom to the Republicans.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILIP BUMB, WASHINGTON POST REPORTER: I would just say, that was Republican voter from helping insanity more skeptical about what role government could play. Anyway, it's not clear that Democrats are respond in the same way. I do think though that it's important to note that a lot of Democrats, particularly progress Democrats at this point see Donald Trump as a unique threat. Right, there are a lot of people who think, this is a guy who could actually undercut American democracy. There are a lot of reasons why people think that. There a lot of reasons why that, you know, that stem from some of the rhetoric they used on the campaign trail. But I think that's something, too, with the progressives right now are wrestling but there's not a lot of Democrats, who want to get out at the head, you know, maybe hide ... COOPER: Well that's what they were saying just last night. I mean she says, you know, it's a candidate of bigotry; there's no way I can stand with that if that's what the Trump White House.
BUMB: Right. And it's hard to get past that and that's again part of the reason why Donald Trump ...
LORD: The way you deal with this, the way Ronald Reagan dealt with this is, you pick up the phone and you call these Democratic members of Congress and they are aware, that your political strength is such that they are hearing from their own constituents that they better hack too, or they could be defeated in the next election.
KINGSTON: You know the dynamic, though, that's so different than under Ronald Reagan, it really is the kicking in of voter identification, of Voter's Rights Act, super reinforcement, that everybody is walking around with a Republican plus ten, a Democrat plus ten, 10 percent advantage or 15, in some cases, 30 and 40 percent. All the House races are basically settled; maybe 20 of them are actually in play. But the Senate, it's a different animal. And 23 Democrat senators are up for re-election.
So, to me, that's where the battleground is I frankly, if I was advising the president, I would say, don't worry about a Democrat from California, because he or she can't afford politically to get on your team. But a swing state Democrat senator, totally different ball game.
[21:19:57] BASH: And the one thing I will add is that, you're right. The voters have rewarded Republicans. But Donald Trump is also not, for the most part, one of those Republicans. He's not a typical republican, he is a populous you say it yourself that he completely opposes Paul Ryan for example -- for example and most of the Republican establishment figures in Washington on trade.
And so, there are -- and that's so place where a lot of your Democratic colleagues can get behind him. So that -- I know the devil's in the details, but there are areas, because he isn't a typical politician, separating out what you said, he's not going to be easy.
GERGEN: I agree with that. I don't think the election should be read as a triumph of obstructionism. I don't -- I think Trump was not one of the candidates who ran on that. He ran it for change, to bust the whole thing out. And that was more important, it was a change election that really got him.
COOPER: We're going to take a quick break, we're going to continue the conversation next about the Trump's statement about millions of people pouring in from the Middle East.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: President-elect spoken since Cincinnati tonight, hitting many of the same themes and same targets from his campaign rallies. Listen to a claim he made tonight about pouring into the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The job of the president is to keep America safe, and that will always be my highest priority. We will do everything in our power to keep the scourge of terrorism out of our country. We're going to keep it out of our country.
Just so you understand, people are pouring in from regions of the Middle East. We have no idea who they are, where they come from, what they're thinking, and we're going to stop that dead cold flat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:25:01] COOPER: Back with the panel. I mean, that's a line for line, almost from the campaign as president-elect. And as president, does he need to, you know, either explain exactly who he is talking about, where he's getting these numbers, or right does he not need to do anything to change?
GERGEN: I ...
COOPER: I mean, because Pakistan, I mean the other side note to this is, Pakistan, I think was just yesterday, released, basically word- for-word. It seemed, the conversation between president-elect Trump, I think it was the prime minister of Pakistan, in which Donald Trump was incredibly effusive about Pakistan. Pakistan is clearly one of the countries that he would be talking about, and yet there was sort of no mention of that in the call.
GERGEN: I don't think it's factually true that there are lots and lots of people pouring into the country right now. I just don't think that there's any evidence to support that. And I think one of the issues is that we're going to continue to have his presidency is the same one we had in the campaign, what do you do with a post-factual world? You know, and that is a -- it's very troublesome that we're dealing with this. But let me say, is a new research universities in this country are worried about just the opposite effect. And that is if we have an anti-science present. And there's almost, you know, right at the tail end, there was little mention of science and technology who writes the tail-end.
But their deep fear that if you're really going to go down that track, that there are a lot of people around the world who used to come here to get graduate degrees and then stay on and become the backbone of so many of -- so much of our research in Silicon Valley and beyond, that they're not going to want to come. You know, once you step back from the leadership role and China becomes a leader, there's a lot of reason and maybe ...
COOPER: Well, it's interesting seems I think back to one of the interviews that a candidate Trump did with Bannon on -- Bannon is I think it was a radio show, and that was an issue they talked about. Donald Trump seemed supportive of the idea of keeping people who had come here on those kind of visas ...
GERGEN: Right.
COOPER: ... keeping them in the United States. Clearly that was not something that in when he was interviewing Donald Trump seemed to like the idea of at all.
POWERS: Yeah, but I think that the post-fact thing is really the big issue. And Corey Lewandowski was at an event at Harvard and basically said that the problem with the media was that, you know, we took him too literally and we were too hung up on the facts and that, you know, that the sort of the real people understood sort of the bigger point ...
COOPER: Right he said that at Harvard I think to.
POWERS: Yeah, right. But the one is it's not that like the real people are understanding the bigger truths, because the bigger truth is actually not true.
So it's not -- so it's a little hard as a journalist to try to understand how you're supposed to cover it.
JONES: I think, for the Muslim community in particular, the optics are still really bad. And I think where the post-true thing really hurts is that, honestly, if a Muslim family moved next door to you, you would be the happiest person in the world. First of all, the chances of your kids getting in trouble just went way down. OK, went way down. Because the Muslim community has the lowest crime rate, the highest entrepreneurship, the highest educational attainment for women in the country, they are the model American community.
And so when you have people who now afraid to come here and that's starting to happen, you have geniuses who are from Pakistan, who are from Indonesia, who now that, I don't know if I'm safe here, that becomes an economic problem for America long-term. So that we're starting to do stuff here that doesn't make good sense for what has made us great so far. And the optics are still very bad.
BUMP: And that's why Pat McCrory lost in North Carolina.
LORD: There is a difference between what Van is talking about and looking at what just happened in Ohio. Somebody who came in here and was not vetted seriously well. I mean if he's got, if he had post ...
COOPER: Well, he's 18 years old and came in 2014, so he was ...
LORD: Well, but Anderson, what I'm saying is, we had, what, two of the 9/11 hijackers who were floating around with their visas expired. We had San Bernardino. These things are happening and people are winding up dead. Clearly, this is the system ...
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: We've had three refugees do something bad.
COOPER: Right.
JONES: Now of -- well million ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: He's saying thousands pouring in, we have no idea who they are or ...
KINGSTON: No, there's a term that the border patrol uses is OTM, Other Than Mexicans coming in. So that --there's truth to the fact that there are lots of people coming in, thousands, probably, I don't know the exact number, because we don't have a control on it. But I wanted to say just one of the things that is in his immigration plan that is very rarely talked about is a committee, a study on radicalization.
How do you stop the lone wolf who is embedded, maybe I'm an American citizen, maybe not. Maybe he's lived here for 10 years. What makes him turn radical? We don't know ...
BEGALA: And that's another ground ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Trump kind of helps take people radical but (inaudible).
KINGSTON: Not advent.
COOPER: But I mean, there are tons of studies by the way of, you know, I mean, Billy Burgin just wrote a book of basically analyzing every case of Jihadist in America and kind of looking at what commonalities or lack of commonalities there are. So there are studies on these. It's not like we're completely flying blind.
[21:30:05] BEGALA: We need to know how people become self- radicalized, which is apparently what happened to this murderer at Ohio State, this terrorist in Ohio state. But the stereotyping and scapegoating, Mr. Trump didn't say anything like this when a right- wing of white kid went into Mother Emanuel Baptist Church in South Carolina, Charleston and slaughtered people because they were black in their Bible study.
Now, it was not an attack on Christians or white people or conservatives, we didn't scapegoat and stereotype them because there's more of us. But that's what's so upsetting about Mr. Trump scapegoating Muslims or immigrants or refugees when we have homegrown terrorists who are not Muslims as well, and like this animal in South who is alleged, I guess, he hasn't been tried yet, but this young man and ...
KINGSTON: And now we'd say that he didn't make the public statement because at the time he wasn't a public figure running for office to the degree that the way he wasn't running for office back then. But I think he absolutely would denounce that and probably has denounced that and no question about it and ...
BEGALA: My point is that the scapegoating and the stereotyping that Trump engages in is really damaging. COOPER: You're saying he's very reluctant to make public statements (inaudible).
KINGSTON: Let me say this about the Muslim community. There's an assumption on the left that, well, Donald Trump has offended them, they're not with him. Who was it that absolutely, positively blew the Arab spring? It was Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. They embraced the Arab spring, which led to as much instability in the Middle East as anything else.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: The other question though is, you know, what should they have just stopped with Mubarak and crush the dead that it pro-democracy demonstrators? I mean, that was ...
KINGSTON: I just think they should have known that they were embracing the Muslim brotherhood and they were embracing instability. And look at the results of the Arab spring it. It hasn't been a positive thing.
GERGEN: Why after all of this, I understand putting money into finding out how people become radicalized, but why is there no effort to figure out, how do we get become a more inclusive society, how do we make sure that the Muslims feel safe here, so that they're on our side? I don't understand why that kind of ...
(CROSSTALK)
KINGSTON: Well, David, I would suggest that -- I mean first of all, stop dividing everybody into groups.
(CROSSTALK)
LORD: Come on, you can't have it both ways.
KINGSTON: Well, we were all called racist, sexist, and homophobic, I mean they ...
(CROSSTALK)
GERGEN: But you guys ...
KINGSTON: ... I felt very divided into a group as a Trump supporter and it would just ...
GERGEN: You've just been attacking these people who come in here, who are Muslims, and they get self-radicalized. If you're going to have it that way, what about looking at it the other way. I don't understand that.
KINGSTON: Not attacking people, saying that there are people who they are.
(CROSSTALK) LORD: You're coming into this country to be an American. He talked about that tonight. We're here to be Americans. We're not here to be black, white, Muslim ...
COOPER: But someone who maintains their Muslim identity, who maintains their religion, they're still American.
LORD: Perfectly fine, perfectly fine. That's what freedom is. That's great. But what I'm saying is, you cannot keep perpetually dividing people, running around ...
COOPER: But as a candidate, he said, stop all Muslims from coming in. So isn't that dividing?
LORD: Because Trump from a particular areas of the world ...
COOPER: But he didn't initially say that.
(CROSSTALK)
KINGSTON: But he brought it back, he did, and he said from an area that's known to be anti-American. And I don't know why the left would have problems with that.
(CROSSTALK)
LORD: There's a perfect answer to this. He said when he was a U.S. attorney and he went after the Mafia, he went after Italians and nobody accused him of being anti-Italian because he is Italian. I mean, you go where the situation is, right? And I might add, I mean this is a long tradition in American history, when those civil right workers in Mississippi were killed in 1964, nobody said, let's investigate the Irish community in Boston. They were after white members of the Klan ...
COOPER: But it's OK for polster the march in the St. Patrick's day parade and, you know, and in the German parade and whatever, but for Muslims to -- it's Muslims who seem to be the ones who are supposedly not taking part in the American (inaudible).
LORD: It's fine, but let's face it. In this country, the point is you come here to be an American.
BEGALA: Of course, yes.
COOPER: OK. I'm all for that. I totally agree. Yup?
POWERS: Well, I don't know, it was so long ago. It's not even what you're talking about now, but the problem of what Trump does, is that he takes anecdotes and he takes one bad incident and then he extrapolates it on to an entire group of people. And that's the scapegoating and it's very dangerous. And so he takes, you know, somebody who's tragically killed by an illegal immigrant and turns it into every illegal immigrant is out to get you and is going to kill your daughter. And that's a very dangerous thing to be doing ... COOPER: Especially as president. I man, I think back to George W. Bush after 9/11, you know, making a point, of single up where this is not a war against ...
POWERS: Right.
COOPER: ... Islam. That was in the, you know, horrific days immediately after 9/11. A difficult statement in those days and that ...
POWERS: And saying Islam is a religion of peace. And, you know, you really trying to make sure that we don't demonize Muslims. And I -- Trump, I feel, is doing the opposite, actually but ...
KINGSTON: Well, would you agree that Hillary Clinton being afraid to say "radical Jihadist" was a little bit silly, a politically correct gag rule? I mean why does it left ...
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: She actually did say it.
KINGSTON: She probably said it. And remember she was forced to say it, the way she flipped on TPP. I mean ...
(CROSSTALK)
[21:35:02] BEGALA: Trump said it tonight. And so I think by morning, ISIS will disband. Because that's all you have to do, use the magic word.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: All right, all right, all right.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: You mentioned the breach of protocol. And it really was a breach, that the Pakistan is made when they put out ...
COOPER: Totally.
BASH: ... but legendarily was ...
COOPER: It seemed like in current detailed.
BASH: ... it was a very detailed and it's not like the Trump talk.
COOPER: Right of course, yeah.
BASH: Talking about how great the prime minister was and how great Pakistan is ...
COOPER: Amazing.
BASH: ... which flies in the face of, first of all, of just, you know, reality, that Pakistan has not been all that helpful.
COOPER: Right and by the way, that prime minister is not the biggest power in Pakistan.
BASH: He's not, no. But having said all of that, what was -- that said to me was that despite what he says tonight and even especially on the campaign trail, behind the scenes, when he thinks of himself as a president and as a diplomat, he thinks he can fix things by charming even the most evil people. Now, I'm not saying that that is going to work. That could be a big problem with Putin and so forth. But I think it really gave us a window into maybe what he's really willing to do at opposed to what he said on the trail.
COOPER: Interesting. Let's play, he talked about talking of foreign leaders tonight.
BASH: Yeah.
COOPER: Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Over the last two weeks, since our victory, I've spoken to many foreign leaders, and I will tell you, they have such respect for us. They all tell me how this was amazing. They all tell me how they sat in their magnificent rooms in different countries throughout the world, these are the leaders, the prime ministers, the presidents, all of them, how they sat in their magnificent rooms, watching in wonderment and hearing how people came to vote that didn't vote in 20 years. People came to vote that haven't voted before. And they had Trump shirts on and they had make America great hats on, and they had buttons pouring off. And they thought it was amazing.
And honestly, one of them told my, I truly respect the United States again because of what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It was interesting in that Pakistan read out, there was no comment about what the Pakistan prime minister allegedly said. It was all allegedly what Donald Trump had said that back event.
BASH: Yeah.
KINGSTON: You know, I'll say this about Pakistan, there is such ...
COOPER: I'm happy to be done.
(CROSSTALK)
KINGSTON: I think he has meeting with Pakistani leaders as a very important. They are an American ally, they've always been an ally ...
COOPER: But Donald Trump's tweeted in 2012 that they're not an ally, I believed. In fact, here's the tweet. "Get straight, Pakistan is not our friend. We've given them billions and billions of dollars and what?"
KINGSTON: But they, you know, that tweet may have said that. But they have been an ally. That doesn't mean they're not an ally. They're nuclear power and they've always been very responsive to America. And if you look at what is going on in Pakistan, I've been there many times. It's a very difficult country, because what's happening in Afghanistan has poured over to toward the border ...
COOPER: I mean, you can make an argument their intelligence service has not necessary in responsive to America, they've actually done things which have against America ...
(CROSSTALK)
KINGSTON: And it's not a real structured government the why we think of it type of government and they write but ...
COOPER: I mean, they -- but their intelligence services have had a hand in the Taliban. I mean ...
BASH: Not to mention turning a blind eye to ...
(CROSSTALK)
LORD: So why are we going to tell them when we're coming after Osama, right?
COOPER: Yes the why is moved ...
(CROSSTALK)
LORD: Listen, when the president is coming to office, I think it is perfectly normal to look around and give people a blank slate. And we're starting fresh, right? And then the minute you get in trouble, go sideways with Donald Trump, with the president Trump, that's when you would begin to have problems.
BUMP But the problem is there's this tenant in politics that there's no permanent allies, there's only permanent interests, right?
JONES: Right.
BUMP: Donald Trump works in the opposite direction. He's permanent allies and he doesn't seem to have permanent interests. He didn't really articulate strong foreign policy positions over the course of the campaign. And so what he does is he thinks he can make deals with everyone in non going basis. Right.
So gets on the phone with leaders in Pakistan and has a casual conversation with them and talks to them, you know, tell them some things that they want to hear. You know, when he had this conversation with Steve Bannon that you're referred to it earlier Steve Bannon. So the thing is sort of changed his mind, which again speaks to the fact that people can sort of turn his head if they're the last ones to speak to him. And this is different.
BASH: Exactly.
BUMP: This is potentially problematic, but it is very much different for ...
COOPER: Let's hold up. I just want point out there's a reason why Donald Trump spoke in Ohio tonight. It's one of several rust belt states that helped push him across the finish line and win the presidency. He made that very clear to the crowd tonight. He certainly returned the love.
Randi Kaye talked to some of them this afternoon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN MCNEAL, TRUMP SUPPORTER: We're going to be on the first on of the victory tour. So that's why I'm here.
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For most of the people of this so- called "Thank You Tour", it so far, so good.
[21:39:59] What has impressed you so far?
MCNEAL: Impressed me? His perseverance, his attitude (inaudible) get to get his head. The fact that he says, you know, he works tirelessly, is certainly a credit I think to what he's going to be able do going forward.
KAYE: How would you say the transition is going so far?
CHRIS WOODARD, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I think he's doing great. I mean, he is like -- he just like a workaholic.
KAYE: What has impressed you so far about Donald Trump so far since he was elected?
JOHN DRURY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Just his composure, I mean, he's acting very presidential like.
KAYE: Everyone we spoke with here is in awe of how quickly Donald Trump is pulling together his cabinet.
TAMMY VENTURA, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I'm glad to see that he has a couple of women on there. His cabinet is likely going to be one of the wealthiest cabinets in modern history.
KAYE: Can you relate to that?
VENTURA: Personally, no.
KAYE: Is that OK with you?
VENTURA: But I'm trusting he -- I really do believe he is picking the A++ people that he says. The people that are the most educated in the field and that will do the job that he wants to done.
DRURY: Yeah, they're billionaires, but they're smart with their money. We're going to smart with America's money. It only makes sense to me.
KAYE: While Trump appears to be considering naming Mitt Romney as Secretary of State, these supporters are a lot less forgiving.
Should Donald Trump pick Mitt Romney as Secretary of State?
ELI FUENTES, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I don't know. The thing he said about him, I don't know. He has to be really forgiving to be able to pick him, but I don't think so.
KAYE: Who would you like then?
FUENTES: Giuliani.
DRURY: I like him. That's a big no on Mitt Romney. I supported Mitt four years ago, you know, and but the way he was bad mount in Trump, no, no way.
KAYE: Trump supporters like what they see in the president-elect, especially his get-it-done attitude. But they haven't forgotten that more than half of those who voted did not choose their candidate.
CHERYL SWANSON, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Everybody has a choice. We were all given that and some people make bad choices and some people make good choices. And I think I made an excellent choice and I'm proud of it.
DRURY: They are going to be impressed. They're going to be Trump supporters because he's going to prove that he's going to get the economy going again. He is going to build the wall. It's going to happen.
KAYE: Everyone here believes Trump will deliver on his promises, especially the one he made to help people like them.
What will he do for someone like you?
VENTURA: Well I have a small business -- I have a small business and when he said he was going to cut that down to half, 15 percent that is going ...
KAYE: The tax?
VENTURA: It's going to help -- tremendously it's going to help me.
KAYE: What do you want to say to the voters who didn't vote for Donald Trump today?
SWANSON: Give the man a chance because he's going to be one of the greatest we've ever had.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Randi joins us from Cincinnati. Seems like a lot -- pretty much everyone you talked had said, you know, give him a chance to those who did not vote for him? KAYE: Absolutely, Anderson. I mean, they all think that he's going to surprise everyone and that's mainly because he's an outsider, he's not a politician, he's different. They believe that he's going to deliver on all of his promises. They believe he's going to unite the country. I went through that crowd and over and over again, I asked every single person I talked to here today, what do you want to say to those voters who did not vote Trump? And every single person said to me, give him a chance, even their friends and family, who many told me have stopped talking to them because they voted for Donald Trump. They're now pleading with them to give Donald Trump a chance. They believe that he's going to deliver, and as I said, will surprise everyone.
COOPER: Well, surprise a lot of people just by winning. So we'll see. Randi, thanks very much.
Just ahead, the other big news from the president-Elect today, the deal he made to keep more than a thousand jobs in the Indiana factory from leaving the country. He visited the factory today, talk to worker. We'll have details on the deal, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:46:52] COOPER: Just remember, there's really two big stories tonight. The rally in Cincinnati, president-elect's -- the president- elect's second speech today, but earlier, and that's the other big story, he visited a Carrier factory in Indianapolis and spoke about the deal he cut to keep the company from shipping more than a thousand jobs to Mexico. Now Carrier is going to receive a millions in financial incentives, and Trump can now say he has made good on a campaign promise. It's obviously good news for great news for the workers who are going to get to keep their job.
Martin Savidge joins me now with new details on the deal. So I mean certainly very welcome news in Indiana. What's the latest on it?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely welcome news. In fact, most of the people, even those whose jobs were saved said they still can't believe that their jobs have been saved. I mean, it is unprecedented in the minds of folks here. But essentially, Donald Trump, president-elect shows up and he's with Mike Pence, the VP- elect, who's also the Governor of Indiana and they arrive and go out to the Carrier plant. Of course, they're treated to what is essentially a hero's welcome there. They're led around the plant by a hand-picked group of employees. But it was still all smiles. It was still picture-taking and essentially, it was a deal that now apparently $7 million is going to be coming from the State of Indiana, spread over 10 years.
Donald Trump says that Carrier is investing $16 million. Remember, they were going to shut the whole place down. And then there are the jobs saved. But the most remarkable thing was that Donald Trump seemed to implying his speech that even he didn't think he could save the plant. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: They played my statement and I said, Carrier will never leave, but that was a euphemism. I was talking about Carrier, like all other companies from here on in, because they made the decision a year and a half ago. But he believed that that was -- and I could understand it. I actually said, I didn't make it -- when they played that, I said, I did make it, but I didn't mean it quite that way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAVIDGE: In other words, you know, he was sort of saying, well, Carrier is an example. He didn't know that people were going to take him literally, but then they did and he decided to act on it and, well, here we are to the results.
COOPER: What more you're learning about the deal itself?
SAVIDGE: Well, we still don't know a lot about this deal, as far as the details. And I sort of alluded to what the financial incentives were in the State of Indiana and also what Carrier is giving in return. Numerically, there are some issues here. Donald Trump during his speech said that there were about a lot of 100 jobs saved. It turns out it's probably more like 800 jobs that were saved. 300 that he was referring to were actually never going to move in the first place.
But 800 jobs, these were jobs that were going to vaporize. He managed through some deal that we still don't know to keep 800 jobs. And you cannot downplay how significant that is, especially here. Especially when you know that there are families behind every one of those jobs. So the consequences are thousands of people who are going to have a very happy holiday that not that long ago, they thought it was the end of their jobs as they knew it.
COOPER: Yeah.
SAVIDGE: Remarkable, really.
COOPER: Not only their family members but obviously the carry an affect in the community keeping their families in place. Martin Savidge, thanks very much.
Back with the panel, I mean, a victory for Donald Trump and for Vice President-elect.
[21:50:04] BASH: No question. Look, this was a very good day for Donald Trump. I think even his biggest opponents would say that, political opponents would say that because he was able to do in an incredibly unorthodox way. People are going to criticize him for the way he handled it because it was unpresidential, as he even said. But he was able to get something done. Can it be replicated? Unclear? Because this company has defense contracts, you know, contracts with the government that they were clearly worried that they were going to lose, whether not he explicitly said that to them, we don't know. But, you know, so it's unclear how much he can replicate it. But he ...
COOPER: Because he called the parent company ...
BASH: United Technologies.
COOPER: ... of that Carrier -- right. Does he have ...
BASH: And they have billions of dollars in revenue that comes from the federal government. So put that aside, this is symbolic, it is real, it is real people's lives and it is something that, you know, that he should be applauded for, period.
COOPER: It also cure some place into the narrative which is the narrative that Donald Trump talked about on the campaign trail, which is I'm a deal maker, I want to relook at deals and rethink deals.
POWERS: Yeah and I think, you know, a lot of the criticism about this also from the left just been this corporate welfare. And so, you know, it's reported, I think, you know, it's about $7 million in tax breaks but when you break that down over 10 years and then the number of people, we're actually not talking about that much money and that, it is the kind of welfare I think that a lot of liberals maybe right but think about supporting because if we're going to talk about saving peoples jobs.
So you're not giving them a handout, they are actually going to keep their jobs, they're going to keep their dignity, they're going to have a purpose and it's going to cost us actually relatively little money if you break it down into the per person over 10 years.
GERGEN: Listen, Bernie Sanders had a piece in "The Washington Post" today that's been quoted all day. I don't recall him writing such a piece when President Obama intervened and saved the automobile industry. You know, there's a lot of hypocrisy on this issue. But I'd be going back to that ...
COOPER: Hypocrisy you were saying from Democrats?
GERGEN: Yes, from Democrats on this. And I think President Obama deserved credit for helping save the automobile industry. It's one of his big accomplishments. But let's go on to how important this was. I think it's not that the number of jobs per se, it is rather the powerful messages he sends to working people in this country.
BUMP: Exactly.
GERGEN: That the very important message is "I'm on your side. I'm on your side." And that's a message that goes beyond his base, that's the kind of thing that saves me as part politically. To build up a following. But that's depend on this rally.
COOPER: It's also not only, "I'm on your side" but there's a possibility of hope and there is a possibility.
GERGEN: Yes, that's right. But when in the depression Franklin Roosevelt could not get us out of the depression but what he did do is build the bridge of hope across the valley. And that was very, very important to a political leader. COOPER: That's only you've identified that as one of the important things, one of the important things.
LORD: Right, right. I mean, you're sending a message to this constituency that voted for you and by do by and that I can do things, I can take action. And that, to me, I mean one of the things that FDR was heralded for was his first 100 days where it was action, action, action, the bank holiday and all of these other things.
This is what Donald Trump is all about. As I've said many times here, you can't possibly build the kind of business he has built without taking action. You just don't sit there and think about things. You do things. That's his M.O. here and he just showed it.
BEGALA: Democrats need to learn from this, not, not poo-poo it. Part of leadership is showmanship. Not all of it, this guy is a master showman. But part of leadership is commitment. My father was a salesman. He used to say facts tell but stories sell.
So President Obama takes office and unemployment in Indiana is 10.7 percent. He drops it to 4.4 percent and loses Indiana in re-election. He takes of his unemployment in Michigan's 15 percent. He drops off that down to 4.7 percent and Hillary, his successor, loses Michigan.
Why? Because Democrats often think in terms of statistics and broad policy and the people but not people. And I'm telling you, I am Trump's most partner in criminal. And Democrats need to learn from this. This is very effective sales in ship.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You said earlier about the Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail that you the stand in I think in a -- was it you who were saying this thing on a ...
KINGSTON: She was standing an Amway terminal ...
COOPER: Right they're not talking about -- right what was happening in that state, in that ...
KINGSTON: Yeah, and Marcy Kaptur is a Democrat who voted against NAFTA, and I voted against NAFTA and I think there was a great thematic here and that these jobs weren't just disappearing, they were going to Mexico. And that's the anti-NAFTA battle cry that really every worker in America, any time of factory close, that's what they say. But on 200 counties in America that Barack Obama won, Hillary Clinton lost and Donald Trump won. And that goes right to what you're talking about, Paul.
COOPER: Van?
JONES: I was in a couple of those counties in Ohio that had gone Obama twice and then voted for Trump and one of the things that was present for union families who saw themselves as Democrats who voted for Trump was that in their counties, these closings were happening. [21:55:08] These factories being closed and not just closed but knocked to the ground and nothing there but grass when for their whole lives these monstrous structures have been there and there was a hurt there that was not spoken to.
COOPER: Right, I mean it dead in communities, it dead in, you know, we've all been in towns where you, you know, the downtown was just dead. You know, it's ...
BASH: And I was struck by listening to Paul talk about the fact that Democrats don't know how to talk and I'm thinking by your candidate, Bill Clinton.
BEGALA: Bill Clinton knew how.
BASH: Knew how.
COOPER: Let's take a quick break on this. We'll have a lot more with our panel ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Before the break, Van Jones referenced he's been traveled around Ohio for the past few days. Talking to people who voted for Trump, it's for a piece that's going to air next week on "360". Let's take a look at that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: You couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We put Democrats in office and she turned around and forgot completely about us. We are what makes this world go around.
We built the tanks and bombs that won this country's wars and for you to come through here and completely neglect us, we would have rather vote for anybody instead of her and all the other stuff that Donald said, didn't seem to make a hill of beans. She heard us and that's what it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And Van, those images, not of this world but those images that's exactly what you were just picking?
JONES: I -- those families, the heartbreak and the pain and the frustration of having been abandoned Tuesday night you're going to hear from the families directly and you're going to be surprised, the stereotype about Trump voters, there are some that you might be mad at but not those Trump voters.
COOPER: I want to thank everybody for watching tonight. "CNN Tonight" with Don Lemon starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: This is the moment. This is our chance, this is our window for action. This is the hour when the ...
