Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Trump's Approval Rating; Trump on Jobs; Trump and Promises; Tax Reform by August; Conway Addresses TV Appearances; White House Mixed Messages; Differing Views on Transgender Politics; Angry Town Halls. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 23, 2017 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A complicated one that, no, this is an issue that I am going to have trouble --

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And, Mary, I am so sorry. We just lost Mary there for her window going down. We thank her for being with us.

And thank you for joining us this hour.

"Inside Politics" with John King starts right now.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Brianna.

And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing your day with us.

Welcome to the Trump polling paradox. The president's early job approval numbers are dismal and getting worse, but Americans are feeling better, much better, about the economy. The president wants some credit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm delivering on everything that we've said. In fact, people are saying they've never seen so much happen in 30 days of a presidency. We've delivered on a lot. And I think Mark can explain, and Mark can probably say some of the things we're doing for the auto industry. We're going to be doing that for many of the industries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It's an important day for an already frustrated secretary of state. Rex Tillerson getting an earful in Mexico, which is angry at new White House immigration moves that also have Democrats up in arms.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TERRY MCAULIFFE (D), VIRGINIA: We are not going to deport ourselves out of this problem. We are not going to deport 11.4 million people. Just stop that talk. You're scaring people.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: And the Trump adviser who gave us the term "alternative facts" re-emerges after a media time-out. Kellyanne Conway just one of a long list of White House officials speaking at a big annual conservative meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: By tomorrow this will be TPAC (ph) when he's here, no doubt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: No doubt.

With us to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Sara Murray, Matt Viser of "The Boston Globe," Olivier Knox of Yahoo News, and Mary Katharine Ham of "The Federalist."

A busy hour ahead. We'll be taking you live in just a few minutes to Mexico City, where Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is trying to calm Mexico's anger at President Trump's new deportation push. Secretary Tillerson and Mexico's foreign minister are set to speak to reporters after their morning meeting. That's just a few minutes away. We'll take you there live.

We're also keeping a watchful eye on that annual Conservative Political Action Conference. The education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is on the agenda this hour. While we don't expect her to talk about it publically, CNN is told she opposed the new White House decision to roll back Obama administration protections for transgender students.

Let's begin, though, with some rough early ratings of the new president and his effort to improve them. Only 38 percent of Americans -- look there, only 38 percent of Americans approve of the president's job performance, 55 percent disapprove. That Quinnipiac University poll also found that as Americans watch the first month unfold, their take on the president's qualifications for the job deteriorated. Take a look. The percentage of Americans who view the president as honest and level-headed, that held steady. But those numbers were already horrible. You see them right there.

And note the drop in areas that are considered Trump strengths. Only 42 percent now view him as a good leader. That's down from 49. And the percentage of Americans who call the president intelligent dropped seven points in his first month.

Now, the economy is usually the driving force of presidential ratings, but look again, not for this president. At least not yet. Americans have a dim view of his performance, but a new CBS poll today finds 61 percent of Americans believe the economy is in good shape. That's the highest number in ten years. No coincidence then the president's morning included another meet with business leaders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: My administration's policies and regulatory reform, tax reform, trade policies, will return significant manufacturing jobs to our country. Everything is going to be based on bringing our jobs back. The good jobs. The real jobs. They've left and they're coming back. They have to come back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This is not an unfamiliar scene. The president has done this a couple times a week, bringing business leaders -- these are manufacturing leaders. He's had other business leaders in, small business leaders, to try to give the impression right out of the box that he focused on the economy, which is always job one for a president. But what about the paradox. His poll numbers -- his job performance numbers are going down, even as people do feel better about the economy.

OLIVIER KNOX, YAHOO NEWS: Well, right after he was elected you saw a swing actually. Very early on people saying, OK, now the economy's on the right track. And so that was -- some of this is built into some of the partisan politics of the president and the economy.

KING: But that's almost always the wind behind a president's sail. And he's getting -- he's not getting -- he's not getting any personal credit for it, at least not yet.

MATT VISER, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Part of this, too, is the benefits from Obama. I mean the -- the unemployment rate was at its lowest point in nine years in December.

KING: Right.

VISER: GDP was up. You know, median income was up. So I mean I think Trump is benefitting a lot from that. He's a master at branding and taking credit whether he deserves it or not. So he's smart to hold these events every day just about with business leaders to try and showcase his jobs agenda. But you're right, he's not getting the credit from people and the job approvals because the high-profile things like the immigration ban and things like that are the things that are getting a lot more attention than the jobs.

[12:05:03] KING: Is that it? Is it that the immigration issues, maybe staff turmoil, the travel ban, other things out of the gate are getting attention and they are -- the disapproval of those policies tends to be a majority or above, or I guess my question is, are we locked into the election because we had such a polarizing election, because people were so locked into their views and because Democrats are so opposed to this president, will they not budge even if the economy improves?

MARY KATHARINE HAM, "THE FEDERALIST": Well, I think they may be locked in in a different way and we need to ask the question, if the economy is doing well, it might behoove him, even if his numbers are so bad. Because I was among those who said he probably can't win the primary or the general election with these bad numbers and yet he did. And part of that, I think, is built into the fact that many voters openly said in some of the exit polling, no, I don't think he's going to be great at any of these things. Some things he will be OK at. But I'm still going to vote for him because I don't like the alternative.

So I think some of that is built in. And the fundamentals of the economy may work in his favor even when his numbers don't look great.

Further, I think some of these events and these one-off deal with Carrier, even though as a free market conservative I'm not a huge fan of some of them because they smack of the Obama choosing winners and losers idea. I think those have more impact with regular voters than perhaps many here give them credit for.

KING: Right, at least they -- they --

HAM: Does it make a difference?

KING: They see a president who's making phone calls that they believe will benefit them.

HAM: Yes.

KING: And they don't see -- they haven't seen that in Washington. That's why Donald Trump is here --

HAM: Right.

KING: Because they viewed Hillary Clinton as a career politician. One of the people who is going to worry about the elites and not worry about them. So you're dead right about that.

I guess the question is, though, if you look at the stock market, for example, it's another -- it's at another record today. Closed at a record yesterday. It's up 1,000 points from Election Day to now. And yet there's a risk for the president in that. If it looks like people with investments, you see it up 32 points there. It's a, you know, modest day right now at noontime, but 20,808. It was just over 19,800, I believe, on Election Day. That's great if you have a 401(k). But I guess if you're the little guy who's waiting outside a factory that's closed for a job in the middle of Pennsylvania, in the middle of Ohio, you're not worried about Wall Street.

SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that's right. And I think that if you are in the White House right now and you're not President Trump, who we know is very interested in his own favorability numbers, you're sort of looking at those numbers on the economy as a preview, thinking, OK, the president's favorability numbers will come up because the more people feel good about the economy, the more that will eventually reflect positively on the president. We just have to give it time.

But the problem is that action has to follow that. And we really, despite them saying that they had been very active and very productive, we haven't seen a whole lot from this White House. We have not seen a tax plan. We have not seen their strategy on Obamacare. We have not seen, other than a few of these sort of picking winners and losers, any kind of broad-based policy that is going to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., like the president has promised. And I think that that is the real challenge. You can't just hold roundtables and have people expect to give you credit for that. You need to actually put forth some policies and fight for those. And we've not seen the White House do that.

KING: It's a great point. One of the reasons the business community, the people coming into these meetings are happy is because they can roll back some regulations. They can do that with executive actions. But the bigger part of it is the hope that you'll have a Republican Congress and a Republican president and they will get something they've been waiting for, for 25 years, a big change to the tax code. A comprehensive tax reform that comes down. Listen to your point about action and how fast you can get it done. This is Washington after all. Even with a new president.

Listen to the Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin here, saying we're going to have a big tax reform bill. It's going to generate gobs of economic growth. And he says we're going to have it quickly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: Our economic agenda, the number one issue is growth and the first, most important thing that will impact growth is a tax plan. So we are committed to pass tax reform. So that's really our focus. We want to get this done by the August recess.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Raise your hand -- raise your hand and, God bless them. Again, whether you support them or not, God bless them for being ambitious. We don't want them to say --

MURRAY: Bless their heart.

KING: We know this is complicated. You know, maybe we'll get it done by the end of the year. So they have every right and reason to try to push the Congress to get this done as soon as possible. Is there anyone at this table that thinks that Congress, meaning the House has to pass something, then you have to figure out the Senate. You're probably going to need Democratic votes in the Senate. Anyone here think they can get tax reform done by -- something they haven't been able to get done in 20-plus years, done by August?

HAM: I think there's a -- there is a strategy here where Trump's sort of splashy deals that he makes could give you some, you know, PR cover while the building blocks of this are being done. I don't see that strategy shaping up right now to --

MURRAY: Also how --

VISER: If you look at Obamacare, I mean that took, you know, a year and a half to do, you know what I mean, and that was a similarly large piece of legislation with lots of conflicts and lots of interest groups involved. So I mean to think that they can get the tax deal done by -- in that short of period is --

KING: Right, I think because you have Republican on Republican violence in that debate right now --

VISER: Yes.

KING: The Club for Growth is now -- which is a conservative anti-tax group, is now testing ads against Kristi Noem out in South Dakota. She's on the tax writing Ways and Means Committee. It's a modest investment, but they're attacking her, saying don't support this border adjustment tax, which is central to the House plan because it raises a boat load of money, that then allows you to cut taxes on other people.

[12:10:02] MURRAY: Well, the president said yesterday the tax plan is essentially done. But we have to do health care first. So that begs the question, OK, so you're going to repeal and replace health care and pass this major tax legislation and you're going to do it all by the August recess?

When I heard the August deadline this morning, I did laugh out loud to myself. I do think it's, you know, bless their hearts for being ambitious. We will see. Maybe they will all come together to do this. But I think what we've seen from town halls on health care and what we've seen from Republican on Republican violence on taxes makes it seems like this is probably going to be a longer time frame than August.

KING: We'll get deeper into that later in the program, but it's a great point, when you see what's happening out there -- and, look, a lot of this is Democrats showing up to -- you know, we'll show you a Tom Cotton town hall in Arkansas later. Tom Cotton won a race that was supposed to be a toss-up with 56 percent of the vote. I don't think he's sweating his support back home in Arkansas. But it is -- it is still -- you still learn a lesson when people come and get in your face, that there's some unrest out there. But where we started, 38 percent approval rating. If the president doesn't budge that number, does he get his way on tax reform? Does he get his way on health care? Or do Republicans -- let's forget Democrats for a minute. Republicans run the congress. Do Republicans say, sir, you're going to take our bill. We're not going to take yours.

KNOX: What we need in that number is the percentage of his voters who still side with him and the percentage of his voters in important districts who still side with him. We don't have that number broken out.

We also don't have the still going to shake up Washington number in there, right? We have good leader. We have all these other things. But those are the two most important things. I talked to a Republican a couple of weeks ago who said, look, we want Donald Trump at 60 or at 10.

KING: Right.

KNOX: It's the middle terrain for that that's complicated because you don't know whether you want to line up with him or you want to break with him.

KING: Thirty-five days in, I would say he wants to look at that 38 percent number and make it go that way if he wants to get things done.

We'll be right back in a minute. But we should remind you, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Mexico City. We will take you live to that event when it happens. A meeting with Mexican officials. The foreign minister, now the president later today trying to sell Trump administration immigration policies that have Mexico furious to say the least.

And up next, Kellyanne Conway's TV time-out is over, but the back and forth over why she was silent adds a new wrinkle to the president's senior staff soap opera.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:16:08] KING: Welcome back.

To remind you, we're still waiting for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He's in Mexico City. We'll bring you there -- go there live when he comes out to speak with Mexico's foreign minister.

But back here in Washington, more palace intrigue today from the Trump West Wing, which has packed a year's worth of drama into just its first month. The national security adviser, you might recall, was forced to quit. The vice president often kept out of the loop. There's more, including the recent TV time-out for presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway, the creator of that now infamous spin known as "alternative facts."

CNN's Dylan Byers reports it was a deliberate decision to keep Conway from the cameras after several TV interviewers that were deemed to have done the president more harm than good. Well, she's back and she has, shall we say, an alternative view.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONWAY: I think somebody's trying to stir up trouble. But, look, I -- about 5 percent of what I'm being asked to do in this White House counsel role is TV. And I think that's about right because we -- he's the president now and he's his own best messenger. There are some people, I think, trying to get in my way. I've also gobbled up a lot of other people's TV opportunities. So there's (INAUDIBLE) outside -- on the outside, I believe and folks just trying to use me as click bait in a headline.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We were -- Dylan was reporting facts, not trying to use click bait in the headlines. But to her point there, let's take her at her word. She thinks somebody is trying to get in her way. So I assume that somebody works a couple offices away or across the hall. This is more evidence that -- because this story came from the White House that she was sidelined because the White House view was she had said some things that were not helpful, so let's just take a break here. What does that tell us about 35 days in how they're doing?

HAM: Well, I think if you look back at Trump's career, he often sort of runs things with various fiefdoms than set about fighting each other. And I think this is no different. Whether that actually works for government in the same way that it has worked with him in times in business is a real open question. And you're seeing more of it here.

And, of course, she said that TV's only the small part of her job, which I have no doubt of. It's also a hugely important thing to President Trump.

KING: Right.

HAM: So that part of it, when you're taken out of that mix, is particularly important to him and I think signals something.

KNOX: The line, he's his own best spokesman, I think tells an -- that h's doing a lot of work in there, because that's been a problem across the administration. It's hard to know who actually speaks with any authority for President Trump, other than President Trump. And Sean Spicer said from the podium, you know, well, every one of us who speaks, speaks on behalf of the president. Well, that's a problem because you don't all agree. You sometimes have directly contradicting accounts of what the president wants to do, hopes to do, is thinking.

KING: Right, and they often -- they often tell you that the -- those very same people sometimes on the record, sometimes on background, tell you that, don't pay attention to what the president says, pay attention to what we're doing.

KNOX: I think a lot --

KING: The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, with a smile back home in Kentucky the other day said, I don't like to focus on what he tweets or says, I focus on what they're doing. It's -- it's -- it's crazy.

VISER: Part of what this tells us too is that in past administrations you sort of fight for facetime inside the Oval Office. You know, you want to be there to take to the president, to influence him that way. With Trump, so much of the influence comes through TV. And so Kellyanne Conway is fight with others to get on TV as another way to influence the president because he's watching, you know. So there's that element, too, that people are fighting over TV hits.

KNOX: In fairness, though, in the early Obama administration, you've got the president signing an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay and, you know, within minutes, senior White House officials are calling up to The Hill -- to Democrats on The Hill saying no, no, no. So it's not unprecedented to see this level of public/private clashing.

KING: No question, especially early in a new administration when people are trying to stake out their turf and sharpen their elbows. All right, this is my fifth transition of power here. And, you're right, you find them in every single administration.

I think that the volume of them seems to be -- and maybe it's just the social media age. Maybe there aren't more of them, but we just hear more about them. Or these people aren't quite as loyal I think as some to each other as some past administration.

It's not just White House palace intrigue and staff turmoil. Part of this is, to your point, about what kind of administration, how does he want to manage the government and the agencies? We learned in the last 24 they have reversed Obama administration executive actions designed to protect transgender students, essentially saying if you go to a public school, a transgender students should be able to go to the bathroom that he or she chooses, not as some states have tried to say, the bathroom of your sex at birth.

[12:20:18] The Trump administration has reversed that and said, no, this is a states' rights issue. And what we were told is that Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, wanted to reverse this. Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, opposed it. Is that a normal policy fight between two cabinet members in an administration or is it proof that Jeff Sessions, who's been with the president longest, that if you don't get into a cabinet duel with him because he's going to win.

MURRAY: I think what we've seen time and time again is the West Wing overriding what these cabinet secretaries have come to the president to try to do, which is interesting because when he was going through this hiring process, part of the reason they brought in so many candidates and had him talk to so many people was the notion that they didn't want the president to have to micromanage everything that was going on in these agencies. They wanted him to feel like he put cabinet secretaries in that he could trust and he could say, here's the end results I want. I'm going to trust you to figure out how to get us there and to deal with sort of the day-to-day minutia, the policy, the staffing, hiring.

That's not what we've seen in practice. In practice what we have seen is the president overruling deputies, political appointees because they've been critical of him in the past or because he doesn't like them. We saw, obviously, Betsy DeVos got overruled in this scenario. She got a part of what she wanted because she got that added caveat that this is not going to allow discrimination. This does not mean that we are going to stand by for bullying. But they reversed these directives against the will of the cabinet secretary. I have to think that given the quality of the people that they put into some of these positions, the fact that a lot of these people were executives who were used to building their own teams and making their own calls, this isn't necessarily something that's going to sit well with a lot of these cabinet secretaries for very long.

KING: And is it -- is it also overruling a position, or at least clarifying, if you listen to candidate Trump during the campaign, we can play the sound here, when this issue came up in the context of Caitlyn Jenner, listen to what he said during the campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So if Caitlyn Jenner were to walk into Trump Tower and want to use the bathroom, you would be fine with her using any bathroom she chooses?

TRUMP: That is correct. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, a lot of conservatives didn't like when they heard that during the campaign. You know it better than anybody at this table, a lot of conservatives had a lot of doubts about Donald Trump during the campaign. Is he really one of us? He's going to be the Republican nominee.

This is a step into the culture wars, if you will, as it's often called in Washington with this new policy.

HAM: Right.

KING: Is this -- as you have CPAC in town and these conservatives in town, is this an affirmation to them, especially those who supported Trump, maybe with some reservations, that we made the right choice?

HAM: Right, I don't see him as a culture warrior naturally, but this is clear that somebody -- you know, that many who have influence are interested in fighting these fights. In this case, I think, you know, some of this from the conservative side, the Obama administration putting forth this guidance from a federal level, for instance, would be seen as an escalation of the cultural war --

KING: Right.

HAM: And this would then be a de-escalation. And the feeling that like this is more complex and more complex than people are sort of giving it credit for on a national level and localities need to be able to deal with that. So that's the other side of this.

But, yes, clearly there are folks in the administration, Neil Gorsuch is a great example of the nomination there, that feel better about his backing.

KING: And they like -- they, for the most -- for the most part is a conservative cabinet, even if they have some reservations about the president.

HAM: Right.

KING: All right, have to stop this part of the conversation there.

As I said, we're waiting for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. A very important diplomatic meeting in Mexico City. President Trump's immigration policies front and center there. We'll take you there when Rex Tillerson comes out with the Mexican foreign minister.

Up next, professional protesters, angry Americans, a mix of both? Whatever your take, there's no disputing this, Republican members of Congress back home this week are getting an earful.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:27:56] KING: Welcome back. We're still watch, waiting in Mexico City, an early, important moment

for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, on the global stage. He's meeting right now with the Mexican foreign minister and meeting with Mexico's president a bit later today. Mexico up in arms over Trump administration immigration policies they say are trying to force Mexico with a unilateral policy from the White House to accept millions potentially more of people deported from the United States. We're waiting to hear from Rex Tillerson, see if he's been able to calm those waters. We'll take you there live when the two leaders come out.

Now, back here, though, if you've turned on the TV this week to watch the news, you've likely seen a fair amount of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSS TALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Answer the question.

CROWD: Yes or no? Yes or no? Yes or no?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now -- now --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) everybody here, 2020, you're gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's what they said to Senator Cassidy there in Louisiana.

Or maybe this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm Mary Story (ph) from Fayetteville and I am not a paid protester.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R), ARKANSAS: Yes, I don't really care if anybody here is paid or not, you all are (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's Senator Tom Cotton there responded to a frustrated constituent at a town hall yesterday. Lawmakers like Cotton have shown up home to find the welcome mats, well, missing and even would-be photo ops turned into trying questions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOBY, CONSTITUENT OF ARKANSAS SEN. TOM COTTON: Donald Trump makes Mexicans not important to people who are in Arkansas who like Mexicans, like me, my grandma and all my people. And he's deleting all the parts in PBS Kids just to make a wall. He can't (ph) do that.

COTTON: Toby, how old are you?

TOBY: I'm almost eight, but I'm seven.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I know how that almost eight part goes. He's almost eight, but he's seven.

[12:29:53] Again, I said this yesterday, I'll say it again today, not taking partisan sides. Good for those who go out there and take it. A lot of people are canceling their town halls. Good for the ones who go out there and take it. And I'll also say, Democrats did this back in the Tea Party years, canceled their town halls. So as they glee now in this sort of in your face moment for the Republicans, we should remember a little history, Democrats have a little (chicken noise) in them back a couple cycles ago. What do we make of this?