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Trump Announces Air Traffic Control Plan; Trump Escalates Twitter Attacks; Aides Downplay Tweets; Trump Wants Travel Ban. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 05, 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] MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Replace our crumbling infrastructure with new roads, bridges and tunnels and airports. The action the president announces today will encourage investment, commerce, and most importantly, President Trump's action today will enhance the safety and precision of our air travel in the United States. And as I can attest from firsthand experience, having more precise landings in America is a good thing.

(APPLAUSE)

PENCE: So with gratitude for his leadership and vision, and with admiration for his unwavering determination to rebuild America and restore a nation of opportunity and prosperity, it is now my high honor and distinct privilege to introduce to you the President of the United States of America, President Donald Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mike. I really appreciate everything, and I appreciate you being here.

But I especially want to thank Secretary Elaine Chao, Leader Kevin McCarthy. Thank you, Kevin. Chairman Bill Shuster. Thank you very much, Bill. And all the members of Congress, we have many of them here today, for joining us as we prepare to enter a great new era in American aviation.

(APPLAUSE)

It's about time too, I can tell you. But before discussing our plans to modernize air travel, I want to provide an update on our efforts to fix and modernize vital services for our veterans, our great, great veterans who we all love. For decades, the federal government has struggled to accomplish something that should be very, very simple: seamlessly transferring a veteran's medical records from the Defense Department to the veterans groups and to the V.A. In recent years, it has taken not just days or weeks, but many months for the records to follow the veteran. This has caused massive problems for our veterans.

I'm very proud to say that we are finally taking steps to solve the situation once and for all. Secretary Shulkin announced this morning that the V.A. will announce (ph) and modernize its medical records to use the same system as the Department of Defense. No more complications. The records will now be able to follow the veteran when they leave service, meaning faster, better and far better quality care.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. This is one of the biggest wins for our veterans in decades and I congratulate Secretary Shulkin for making this very, very important decision. Thank you, Secretary. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. He's done a great job.

(APPLAUSE)

Stand up, Secretary. Where's Secretary Shulkin? What a great job, thank you.

Of course, there is still much work to do, but today's action shows the determined leadership and what it can accomplish. Great, great reform. So again, to David Shulkin, thank you to all of our veterans who have served this nation, a very, very special thank you. This is truly wonderful, really monumental reform. So important for our veterans, but it's just the beginning.

TRUMP: We're here today to discuss another issue that has gone unsolved for far too long. For too many years, our country has tolerated unacceptable delays at the airport, long wait times on the tarmac and a slowing of commerce and travel that costs us billions and billions of dollars in lost hours and lost dollars themselves.

[12:05:12] Today, we're proposing to take American air travel into the future finally. Finally.

(APPLAUSE)

It's been a long time.

We're proposing reduced wait times, increased route efficiency, and far fewer delays. Our plan will get you where you need to go more quickly, more reliably, more affordably, and yes, for the first time in a long time, on time. We will launch this air travel revolution by modernizing the outdated system of air traffic control. It's about time.

(APPLAUSE)

Since the early days of commercial air service, the federal government has owned and operated the United States air traffic control system. Yet more than half a century later, the government is still using much of the exact same outdated technology. At a time when every passenger has GPS technology in their pockets, our air traffic control system still runs on radar and ground-based radio systems that they don't even make any more, they can't even fix any more.

And many controllers must use slips of paper to track our thousands and thousands of planes that are up in the air. Our air traffic control system was designed when roughly 100,000 people flew at our airports each year. We are now approaching nearly 1 billion passengers annually. The current system cannot keep up, hasn't been able to keep up for many years.

It causes flight delays and crippling inefficiencies, costing our economy as much as $25 billion a year in economic out (ph). We live in a modern age yet our air traffic control system is stuck painfully in the past.

The FAA has been trying to upgrade our nation's air traffic control system for a long period of years. But after billions and billions of tax dollars spent and the many years of delays, we're still stuck with an ancient, broken, antiquated, horrible system that doesn't work. Other than that, it's quite good.

(LAUGHTER)

The previous administration spent over $7 billion trying to upgrade the system, and totally failed. Honestly, they didn't know what the hell they were doing. A total waste of money, $7 billion plus plus. It's time to join the future. That is why I'm proposing new principles to Congress for air traffic control reform, making flights quicker, safer and more reliable.

Crucially these reforms are supported by air traffic controllers themselves. They're the ones that know the systems that they want. They know it better than anybody and we have people that don't even call them. In the past. But now we call them.

I'm also proud to be joined today by passenger advocates, pilot unions, and leaders of airlines and cargo companies who strongly support our new framework and our bidding process. And we're bidding ideally to one great company -- there'll be many bids -- but one great company that can piece it all together, not many companies all over the United States like in the past. When it came time to piece it together, it didn't work; there were all different systems. We threw away billions and billions of dollars.

TRUMP: I am very grateful that every former FAA chief and chief operating officers, and three former transportation secretaries, Jim Burnley, Elizabeth Dole, and Mary Peters, stand with us today.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

This is an incredible coalition for change all over the room. It's a coalition for change.

[12:10:02] The leaders of the industry.

At its core, our new plan will dramatically improve America's air traffic control system by turning it over to a self-financing non- profit organization. This new entity will not need taxpayer money, which is very shocking when people hear that. They don't hear that too often. Under this new plan, the Federal Aviation Administration will focus firmly on what it does best, safety. A separate non-profit entity would be charged with ensuring route efficiency, timely service, and a long-awaited reduction in delays.

Our plan will also maintain support for rural communities and small airports, including air fields used by our Air National Guard units. Great people.

And very importantly, air traffic controllers will high -- and this will be highly valued. These are highly valued people. These are amazing people that know the system so well.

And under our plan, they will have more financial security, professional opportunity, and far superior equipment, the best equipment anywhere in the world. There'll never be anything like what we're doing.

And other systems are very good. I won't tell you the names of the country, but we have studied numerous countries.

One in particular, they have a very, very good system. Ours is going to top it by a lot.

Our incredible air traffic controllers keep us safe everyday even though they are forced to use this badly outdated system. That is why we want to give them access to capital markets and investors so they can obtain the best, newest, and safest technology available. And by the way, the technology -- and I've seen it -- is incredible. If we adopt these changes, Americans can look forward to cheaper, faster, and safer travel, future where 20 percent of a ticket price doesn't go to the government, and where you don't have to sit on a tarmac or circle for hours and hours over an airport, which is very dangerous also, before you land.

Dozens of countries have already made similar changes with terrific results. And we're going to top them actually by a longshot.

Canada is an example. Modernized their air traffic control through a non-government organization about 20 years ago, and they have cut costs significantly. Adopted cutting-edge technology, and handled 50 percent more traffic, and actually far more than that on a relative basis compared to us.

A modern air traffic control system will make like better for all Americans who travel, ship, or fly. It will reduce cost and increase convenience for every American consumer. And these new efficiencies will produce a huge economic boost for the country, and for the one in 14 American jobs that aviation supports.

Today, we are taking the first important step to clearing the runway for more jobs, lower prices, and much, much, much better transportation. America's the nation that pioneered air travel. And with these reforms we can once again lead the way far into the future.

Our nation will move faster, fly higher, and soar proudly toward the next great chapter of American aviation.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much. Thank you.

[12:15:24] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in the east room of the White House, signing directives after a speech announcing his administration will send to Congress legislation pushing to have the air traffic control privatized. The president talking about pushing the United States into a new era of air safety and air security. You see the president there in the East Room. This, part of his infrastructure agenda here.

Let's talk about it in the room. Our Sara Murray is in the East Room. We'll get to her in a moment. But here with us to share their reporting and insights on INSIDE POLITICS, "The Atlantic's" Molly Ball, Dan Balz of "The Washington Post," Manu Raju with CNN, and Shannon Pettypiece of "Bloomberg Politics."

This, part of the president's infrastructure agenda, but it's a tad odd I guess to see the president in the East Room asking Congress to do something. This is - they need legislative approval to do this. You're - it's something - we were talking before the show about - this actually is something the president cares passionately about. During the campaign he even talked about his own pilot on his Trump organization plane talking about how outdated the system is. From a presidential perspective, why is this important?

SHANNON PETTYPIECE, "BLOOMBERG NEWS": Well, one, it's important to try and get this domestic agenda back on track. Health care is stalled in Congress. Tax reform they can't come to an agreement on. So they don't have anything to talk about there. Infrastructure, which, you know, is behind those other two because to do anything substantial on infrastructure, as you said, you have to get Congress' approval on this and you need their money. But it's some attempt to put a show that we're trying to do something, we're trying to get some points on the board. And to the public, you know, now, you know, they don't necessarily realize that this is going to take congressional approval and it's down the road. It shows that they're doing something domestically.

KING: And on the idea of selling to the public, the idea that we can make your - your flights will be on time, you will sit on tarmacs less. You'll sit in airports less. That's certainly, at least on the surface, something that would have broad appeal out in the country. The question is, you also lose 30,000 federal jobs under this - the proposal that this is modeled on, legislation - Republican legislation in Congress. And now that you have a Republican president and a Republican Congress, the president is hoping he can get this through. But the Republicans had this stall on them before when they tried.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes, and they need Democratic support. This is one of the things, infrastructure, largely, at the beginning of this administration, they thought they could get Democratic support. But this is - so far you're seeing a fair amount of resistance from Democrats. Chuck Schumer, the top Democratic leader, has been criticizing this proposal today because it does not do what the Democrats want, which is to spend a lot more money on infrastructure programs, a lot like the stimulus from 2009. This talks about public/private partnerships, things that are not built around federal spending and that may make it harder to get it approved through Congress.

KING: And the president's going to go on the road this week as well. He's going to go to the Cincinnati area to, again, talk infrastructure. He's going to talk about, you know, where rivers come together at key points in the United States, decaying roads, decaying bridges, decaying ports. The parent making the case, as he did there, about FAA, he said $25 billion cost to the economy, the outdated air traffic control system. He'll make the same case on the road.

But we're also told the actual details of the bigger multi-billion dollar infrastructure plan are weeks if not months away. So what is the president doing here?

MOLLY BALL, "THE ATLANTIC": Well, and that's the thing, it's a stretch to even call this an infrastructure plan. It's more correct to my eyes to call it a privatization plan because when the president spoke about infrastructure on the campaign trail, he did talk about the crumbling roads and bridges and airports. And this doesn't build those things.

Now, it may be of net benefit for travelers. It may be an improvement to the air traffic infrastructure. But it's not building things. You had the vice president introduce the president as a builder. You're not building roads and bridges with this. You're not creating those blue collar jobs that make an infrastructure plan appealing and popular to a lot of people. And I think the reason is that you've got to get this plan through Congress. Republicans in Congress are more likely to be on board with something that essentially constitutes deregulation, has been sought by a major industry, in this case the airline, rather than a big building project.

KING: But if you're the president of the United States, you're talking about something that you think would benefit the economy, something that is personal to you as opposed to other things that we're going to talk about later in the program that many around the president think they would prefer the president to stop talking about those things and actually get out in the country and get - even events in Washington and talk about things that would contribute to the economy, that would at least spark debates about policy, not Russia. Not Twitter.

DAN BALZ, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, we know he's always cared about infrastructure issues. I mean he - it's one of the few things he, you know, volunteered. I mean I believe, as I recall, I'm - even on election night he mentioned infrastructure projects. So it's been kind of a core principle of Donald Trump that - to want to be a builder, which he is.

This is something that is - has been going on for some time. I mean they're - it's not as though this is a brand new idea. The government has been trying to modernize the system. It's been very slow and very cumbersome. And it may be, in Donald Trump's mind, the best way to jump start this or to get it finally finished is to take it out of the hand of the government and put it in the private sector.

[12:20:11] KING: A quick break here.

You just saw the president in the East Room.

When we come back, before he came out in public today, the president in private back on, yes, Twitter, including again attacking the mayor of London has his city tries to recover from a deadly terrorist attack.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back.

Just moments ago, you saw the president in the East Room reading from the teleprompter. A carefully scripted event as the president promoted his plan to privatize air traffic control in the United States.

But earlier today, before he was out in public, an angry and frustrated president ignoring facts or context to launch new attacks against the Democrats, the courts, his own Justice Department and the mayor of London, even as the mayor deals with the aftermath of the weekend deadly terror attack in his city.

[12:25:10] Again, these are the words of the president of the United States. You'll be able to find them some day at a Trump presidential library. They are archived. Official government records. Yet his staff thinks we, and you, are silly to pay attention to them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, WHITE HOUSE CONSELOR: This obsession with covering everything he says on Twitter and very little of what he does as president -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well - well, but that's his - that's his preferred method of communication with the American people.

CONWAY: That's not true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Well, it happens to be true.

But let's start the discussion with the president's Twitter attacks on the London mayor, Sadiq Khan. This was Sunday's broadside. At least seven dead and 48 wound and the major of London says there is no reason to be alarmed. Remember those words. Today the president doubled down, "pathetic excuse by London Mayer Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his 'no reason to be alarmed' statement. MSM," that would be mainstream media, "is working hard to sell it."

But here's what the mayor actually said. And, again, listen closely for the context of no reason to be alarmed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SADIQ KHAN, LONDON MAYOR: Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. No reason to be alarmed. One of the things that police, all of us need to do, is make sure we're as safe as we possibly can be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The mayor was not saying there's no reason to be alarmed that there has been a terrorist attack. He was telling the people, when you see more machine guns, when you see more alarmed police in your streets, don't be alarmed, they're out to be in response to the terrorist attack. There's no question the president took him out of context, but the president's not going to concede that point.

BALL: Probably not. And he doesn't intend to back down from these kinds of statements.

And it's really - you know, this is a grieving city. This is a mayor who's trying - who's been dealing with multiple terror attacks. This is a tough time for the people of London. And to start a feud with the man who's trying to manage that situation is an unusual thing to do to say the least.

PETTYPIECE: Yes, but not necessarily unusual for Donald Trump.

BALL: Fair enough.

PETTYPIECE: Because yesterday I was going back through some of his past tweets and he does have a history and a pattern of using death and tragedy, whether a Chicago shooting or a terror attack, to push his own agenda and to say, I'm right, I told you so, and to use the controversy to elevate his message despite how tone deaf or, you know, insensitive is might seem.

RAJU: And, John, it - to go back to what Kellyanne Conway said, that we should not take his tweets seriously, that is shocking for her to say that. The president not only has boosted about how he tweets and that's how he can communicate directly with the American public, these are his words. On top of that, he doesn't answer questions anymore. He doesn't do press availabilities. He doesn't do press conferences. They limit what they say at the daily press briefings. When the president tweets something, that is his statement.

KING: Right, and it's an official - OK, and it's a different and new way of communication, opposed to, you know, if we went back to the Reagan administration or the George H.W. Bush administration, Dan, if you've been in town long enough, but it is an official president record, an official government record when the president says that. It's the president of the United States. His staff, because they can't control him, and sometimes they can't explain what he means, is telling us to pay no attention to the president of the United States. That's not the way it works.

BALZ: What they're really saying is, pay no attention to the tweets that concern us, as opposed to the tweets that actually deliver the messages that they want delivered. But the tweets are that the - the true and unscripted Donald Trump, when we saw the president in the - in the White House today speaking, as you said, he was tightly scripted. He was on a teleprompter. Those words had all been prepared in advance and he stuck to them. That doesn't mean that isn't what he really thinks about it, but what we see in those tweets is the - kind of the visceral reaction of Donald Trump to events as they are unfolding. They are real time. And as he said when he was asked right up through the election whether he was going to give up Twitter, he said it is a modern form of communication. I mean he prizes that.

KING: And he picks a fight with the London mayor there. And, again, you raise the class argument, in addition to the fact and context argument where the president's just wrong on the facts and the context of what the mayor said, there's also a class question Even if he was wrong about something, is that when you raised that. Is that when you get in a public fight with a mayor who's dealing with in a grieving city and dealing with emergency police response. That's on issue.

Also the president undermining his own case here at home. He's asked the Supreme Court to expedite its review of his so-called travel ban. Now administration officials don't call it that. They don't call it that. But the president tweeting this morning, "people, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a travel ban." That's the president. All capitals there. Exclamation point there. That's the president of the United States saying I'll call it what I want to call it. Here's his homeland security secretary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KELLY, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: This is not, I repeat, not a ban on Muslims. The homeland security mission is to safeguard the American people, our homeland, our values and religious liberty is one of our most fundamental and treasured values.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:30:02] KING: Despite what Kellyanne Conway says, at the Supreme Court, the justices are going to put more weight on what the president says as opposed to what anybody who works for the president says, including Secretary Kelly.