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July Jobs Report; Job Growth under Obama; Republican Retirements Highlight GOP Problem; Two House Republican Women Retire; Dems Pressed to Answer More Questions. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 02, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us.

The American jobs machine is humming. And 164,000 new jobs last month and a jobless rate of just 3.7 percent. But the markets are worried, and there is an election year risk of a slowdown, especially as the president slaps new tariffs on China.

Plus, does majority rule in the Democratic Party? The count of House Democrats calling for impeachment is raising a big question for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

And the next phase for the 2020 Democrats, those at the bottom of the pack struggling to meet the tougher criteria for the next debate. And as they try, some also trying to clean up past statements that could prove an obstacle to winning more support.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, "AC 360": Clinically depressed people are not depressed just because the world is depressing, they have a chemical imbalance.

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But -- but -- but, excuse me, where -- but -- but you are the one making some blanket statements here that there is no particular scientific evidence to prove. You are talking about clinical depression as though there is a blood test.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We begin the hour with strong jobs numbers and what they mean for you and for the presidential election just ahead. And 164,000 new jobs added to the economy in July. The unemployment rate holding steady at 3.7 percent. Both strong numbers in an economic report and in a re-election campaign ad. The president keeps pushing the Fed to cut interest rates because he thinks that would make them even stronger, yet his new threat of more China tariffs could stall the boom times. More on the politics in a moment.

Christine Romans first with the numbers.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John, really a fascinating little piece of economic data given where we are right now with tariffs and the Fed cutting interest rates this week. And 164,000 net new jobs. That is exactly what our forecast from economists predicted. But look at May and June, those were revised slightly lower. And when you kind of broaden it out and look at the year, this is a year that is running slower jobs growth than we saw last year.

So the economy's still growing, companies are still hiring, but not as briskly as last year and in prior years. And 3.7 percent is the unemployment rate, exactly where it has been stuck right there. About 370,000 people entered the workforce. You want to see that. You want to see that because that means people out there who had -- who had left and weren't even looking for work, hadn't been working in some years, are trying to come back in and get a job. So we like to see that.

What about sectors? Again, fascinating for all of the political reasons. A lot of the job growth, almost all the job growth you've see this year have been in service jobs, not in making stuff. Not in manufacturing, but in service jobs. Business information services, about a third of this jobs growth has been in computer systems designers, health care always a strong grower.

Manufacturing, 16,000. You know, the government going out of its way to point out in this report today that essentially manufacturing is little changed in July and for the year. And job gains in this industry last year averaged more like 20,000, 25,000. So a stall in manufacturing.

Overall here I think you're seeing a really fascinating moment because you had the Fed cut interest rates this week to protect the economy against the possibility that Trump's tariffs and trade war would hurt the economy. And then the president announces more tariffs. And we're seeing job growth stall already this summer. It's going to be a really interesting fall, John.

KING: Really interesting to say the least.

Christine Romans, thanks.

Especially with a presidential race in full swing. That makes it even more interesting.

This from the incumbent just last night in Ohio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ohio is doing better today than it's ever, ever, ever done before. It's the best it's ever done. So what's going to do, a guy like sleepy Joe Biden is going to come in and say, but I can do better. I can do better. He wants to go back to sleep.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With me to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Dana Bash, Carl Hulse with "The New York Times," Ana Swanson also with "The New York Times," and Eliana Johnson with "Politico."

Let's just pop up, if we can, and look at the markets. You get a great jobs report and then you see the markets down. That is 219. It was down by more than 300 not all that long ago, so that's a -- it's a better number even though it's a bad number, if you will.

That is, you get a great jobs report. The American economy is humming along. But -- that's the but, right, the tariffs?

ANA SWANSON, TRADE AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS REPORTER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": That's right. I think so. Yes, so overall it was a really solid report, plenty for the president to brag about with the unemployment rate near a 50-year low. But there still are some worrying signs. There's a but.

Manufacturing, construction and mining jobs so far this year are less than half of what they were last year, so there is some evidence that the trade war is having its effect. I don't think this report is going to change anyone's mind about where they thought the economy was last week. Overall it might be kind of the least interesting thing that happened this week at a pretty wild week of economic news where the Fed cut rates for the first time since 2008 and you had these massive new China tariffs. That's a $30 billion new tax that the president has announced.

[12:05:06] KING: And so, again, the base numbers, the numbers most people process quickly, the unemployment rate, jobs growth. If you're the president running for re-election, that is candy. I mean you are very happy with any president running for re-election. You're thrilled with that.

But to the warning signs. This from the Alliance for American Manufacturing president. July's unemployment report -- employment report shows that factory jobs continue to underperform in 2019 compared to last year. The slowing economy has contributed to this underperformance, but the administration has also committed some serious unforced errors. We want to see a surge in restoring new manufacturing job, but the administration's policies have fallen short of getting us there.

This is a -- this is a question, you talk especially about the tariffs, where political advisers who say, Mr. President, back off.

ELIANA JOHNSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, yes.

KING: Save this for a second term. If you win a second term, back off. You've got this golden economy right now, why mess with it? And yet, just yesterday, he says, I'm going to do it.

JOHNSON: Well, I think there are dueling impulses for the president. The first is to keep the economy strong. And, obviously, that's what he's heard a lot of from his advisers. But he's got another set of advisers who are China hawks. And the president, along with campaigning on improving the economy, campaigned on resetting our relationship with China. And that's something he hasn't achieved yet. He's got the economic achievements, but I think he does risk going into the 2020 campaign without having success really resetting this relationship with China. And I think he did want to show that he does mean what he says when it comes to China and to show President Xi, who didn't come through on the agreements that he had said he had agreed to buy an enormous number of American manufacturing goods and didn't come through on his promise, that he's going to retaliate if the Chinese don't meet their end of the bargain.

KING: And if that -- tell me if I'm wrong, you're a lot smarter on these issues than me. If that happens -- if that happens -- you know we go through this, and the president believes it's the thing to do. He has said the American economy is strong enough to take the hit. But in an election year, who would be taking that hit? That's the consumer going to Walmart or any big box store, right, and buying things? Is that the American farm or is that more manufacturing hits?

SWANSON: I think it's all of the above. So the newest round of tariffs that the president put on does hit everyday consumer items, it hits your phones, toys, baby goods. So it's only a 10 percent tariff, but those costs are going to be filtering through to the American economy. At the same time, farmers are clearly hurting. That's why President Trump was pressing China so hard to get those agricultural purchases. However, the Chinese say that they never actually agreed in Osaka to make those purchases. So it seems like maybe that was a bit of a bluff by the president to try to get them to follow through and they're just not so far bending to what he wants them to do.

KING: It's a fascinating question, and you got a flavor of this moderating the debate the other night. How do the Democrats deal with this in the sense that if there is a turndown, we're in a different environment. If. And let's hope, as an American, just hope there's not a downturn. But if you -- if you have one, then you're in a different political environment.

If you don't, 3.7 percent unemployment, 164,000 new jobs. That's hard to beat.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.

KING: Whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican, whether he's Donald Trump or anybody, that is hard to beat an incumbent president if you're humming along like that.

Here's one of the Democratic arguments, and you had a little bit of this in the debate. Democrats say, well, this all started under Obama. And they are right. It started under Obama. Let's show you the last 30 months of President Obama and the first 30 months of President Trump. It's 6.6 million jobs created in the last 30 months of the Obama administration, 5.7 million created in the first -- so the president would have you believe the economy was dead the day he took office and he's created all these jobs. He inherited a humming economy from the Obama administration.

BASH: He sure did.

KING: The tax cuts, at least temporarily, juiced up the jobs growth. But can the Democrats win that argument, it was just as good under Obama, therefore it's not you?

BASH: No. No, they can't. That's just not the way politics work. It's not the way voters' psyche and their voting habits tend to work if you look at history. Obviously the president blew up history, so who knows.

But, you know, people -- it takes a lot to want to fire a president for the second term. And it's even harder when a president is presiding over -- you know we can argue about who's -- who's responsible for it, but presiding over a very good economy. So what you heard from Democrats, and you're going to continue to hear it even louder, is a very similar argument that we heard from the president when the economy was doing very, very well at the end of the Obama years, which is, are you feeling it? Are you feeling it? Are you feeling it? No, you're not. Your wages aren't great. You're not a part of the middle class, like you should be. That's what you obviously hear from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but you're also hearing it from other Democratic candidates who aren't as progressive, to say, you're hearing about all this great news, but how is it going to affect you? I can help that.

KING: Right. And some of you are working two or three jobs --

BASH: Exactly.

KING: Or you can't afford college for your kids or you run up a lot of debt in this economy. That's an argument you can make.

Let's listen a little bit because as the Democrats try to make this case, difficult if these numbers stay so strong for the president, they have their own debates about trade, about tariffs and the like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Vice President Biden, would you rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which, of course, the -- President Trump withdrew from? Please respond.

[12:10:07] JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'd renegotiate it.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to negotiate our deals with unions at the table, with small businesses at the table, with small farmers at the table, with environmentalists at the table, with human rights activists at the table.

REP. TIM RYAN (D-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think we need some targeted response against China. But you know how you beat China? You outcompete them. And that's why I put a chief manufacturing officer in place to make sure that we rebuild the manufacturing base.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Some of the Democrats are just as skeptical, whether it's the old NAFTA or the new USMCA the president's trying to pass, they have their own issues on these economic issues. CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NYT: Yes, they've

always been resistant to these trade deals though, and that's what's so interesting about the president, right, he's turned the party's philosophy on this on its head.

I think to her point earlier, too, there are great jobs -- there's a lot of jobs out there but they're not all great jobs and the manufacturing jobs, so that's where you're getting, do you feel it? I think the economy for Trump, it's always huge for presidents, I think it's even bigger for Trump because when people say they're uncomfortable with the president and the way he acts, they say, well, I'm going to put up with that for the economy. If the economy does something different, then they say, well, you know what, it's not worth the trade-off for me.

KING: Without a doubt. If you look at his approval rating -- his approval rating on the economy runs way ahead of his approval rating overall. That is the raft, if you will, holding him up. We'll see if it plays out. A big day today.

Up next for us, a House Republican retiring at age 41. What does Will Hurd's decision not to run say about the party's diversity problem?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:16:09] KING: Will Hurd, the only black Republican in the House, says he won't run again next November. Hurd never won his district by more than 3,000 votes and a 2020 win would have been tough, but add him to the list, the eighth House Republican now to announce retirement plans. And in Hurd's case, it adds to a growing House GOP diversity crisis.

Also on that list are two of the only 13 House Republican women. As "Politico" observed this morning, quote, there are more men named Jim in the House than Republican women running for re-election. Ouch.

Just two weeks ago on CNN, Hurd had a very blunt warning for his party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. WILL HURD (R-TX): I'm the only black Republican in the House of Representatives. I go into communities that most Republicans don't show up in order to take a conservative message. And when you have this being the debate, that activity becomes even harder. And the only way we're going to -- you know, I'm from Texas and I always say, if the Republican Party in Texas doesn't start looking like Texas, there won't be a Republican Party in Texas. And I think that goes for the rest of the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Tarini Parti with "The Wall Street Journal" joins our conversation.

In the middle there when Will Hurd said this stuff going on right now, he means the president's tweets attack Democratic congress men and women of color, and that he's a Republican trying to go into communities to make the case vote Republican in a community of color and essentially getting laughed at.

TARINI PARTI, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": That's right, Will Hurd was one of the four Republican members of Congress who condemned the president's tweets. But I think it's interesting to what this means for the future of the Republican Party, what this means for their recruitment efforts this cycle and beyond. Are they going to be able to get more women, more people of color? He was the only black Republican in Congress. With his retirement, what happens to those recruitment efforts.

And then also what happens to other members in those swing districts? What happens to the other three Republican -- other two Republicans, one of them has already also said she's retiring, who also condemned the president's tweets. So I think we might see more Republicans announcing that they're also going to decide to retire.

KING: I talked to somebody this morning who was very plugged into this environment, who predicted by the end of the year it will be 20, maybe even higher than that.

Now, what does that tell you? It tells you, number one, they don't think they're going to win the majority back next year. They've tasted the majority. The majority's great. The minority, to quote a lot of them, sucks and they don't like it, number one. But it's more than that. They -- it's more than that. A lot of them -- a lot of them are small government conservatives who believe in things that they're not going to get any action on, one with Speaker Pelosi, but, two with President Trump. He doesn't believe what they believe. He doesn't push an agenda that's anything like what they believe.

So let's look and go through the eight retirements so far.

And if you look at the margins here, you know, Rob Woodall in Georgia, that was a very close election. So you could say, oh, he just, you know, it's a close election, he doesn't want to run again. Will Hurd, obviously a very close election.

But some of these are very big pro-Republican seats. Probably safe. A Republican will probably win them again if you look at those margins, or at least can win them again. But they're leaving, why? Because it's no fun. Because they're tired of defending the president. A lot of them complained about their own leader, Kevin McCarthy, saying he doesn't have an agenda, doesn't stand up to the president. What is it?

HULSE: I mean the minority is a terrible place to be in the House. And you just have no power. Tom Cole has talked about this with me in the past and said, you don't control anything.

I think the devastating retirement for them too was Susan Brooks from Indiana. She was the head of the recruit effort for woman.

BASH: That's right. HULSE: So the woman recruiter left. They've had a primary where they tried -- there's these groups -- women's groups came and tried to push a woman through a primary down in North Carolina. The Freedom Caucus leaders opposed her and backed the man who won. I think they've got real trouble here.

To hear a congressman from Texas say there might not be a Republican Party in Texas, hard to imagine. But I think that this is going to make it much easier for the Democrats to hold the House. These open seats are the best place to go. So, you know, you can almost look down the road right now and say Dems hold.

KING: And to your point, I just want to show this other graphic of women in the House of Representatives, all right. You see it right here. There are 89 Democratic women. There are 13 Republicans.

[12:20:04] BASH: That's right.

KING: And two of them are retiring.

BASH: That's right.

KING: One of them could run for Senate. We don't know if Liz Cheney made her decision yet or not there. But 13 -- 13.

BASH: Yes.

KING: So you have a party. You know -- and you're going through a 2020 election cycle where President Trump struggles with women. President Trump struggles even more with African-American voters. Struggles greatly with Latino voters. Struggles with any voters. His -- 88 percent of his vote last time was white.

BASH: Yes.

KING: What does this do? The party is headed off a demographic cliff.

BASH: It absolutely is. And the thing about the 13 women right now is that it's not as if Republicans didn't run women. There were a lot of female Republican retirements in the last cycle. A lot of them. But there were also a lot of Republican female candidates and they didn't win. Sometimes they didn't win their primaries. I think in most cases they didn't win their primaries --

HULSE: Primaries tough (ph).

KING: Yes.

HULSE: Right.

BASH: Because running -- for a Republican woman in a lot of these ruby red districts, the game is running -- the game is winning the primary. And they had a lot of trouble, for whatever reason, whether it's because of their gender or not, the party itself, the party apparatus itself is not doing a good enough job recruiting these women and making sure that they win. And that is not coming from me, that is coming from Republican women in Congress.

KING: Right. Right. That's the women themselves saying it.

BASH: Yes.

KING: That's why they were furious about that North Carolina race, saying, can you at least back off in one race, we need to make some gains here.

JOHNSON: Exactly. Yes, right. That's right. A Republican woman running in a primary has a far lower chance of succeeding than a Democratic woman. And that's -- I think there's frustration that across the Republican Party the leaders, and this means the elected leaders but also in outside groups, have not come together to say, we're all onboard with trying to recruit more women and clear the lanes in some of these primaries to get them in Congress and then to support them once they're there.

KING: Just a coincidence, the leaders of most of those groups and organizations are white men, right? Just going to connect -- can you connect those dots? Hmm.

OK, coming up, the race for the next debate is on for Democrats, but a few candidates still struggling with issues and statements from their past.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:26:48] KING: Welcome back.

For the 2020 Democrats, the big question now is one night or two, meaning how many of the 20 plus candidates will qualify for the next debate. Senator Amy Klobuchar announcing today that she's met the Democratic National Committee requirements for round three. She is the eighth candidate to make it so far. Twenty, you recall, one person at the table better than others, 20, you recall, made this week's CNN debates, but the polling and donor bars are higher for the third round. The deadline to make it, August 28th. There are a handful of major Democratic campaign events between now and then, including a major public service union forum in Nevada, the Iowa State Fair and the Democratic Iowa Wing Ding Dinner. If you've never been to one, you want to be to one. A few chances there for the lower tier contenders to perhaps move the polling numbers.

This is a -- this is crunch time for these. You had 20 over two nights. It's possible we'll get to ten or fewer. With eight leads you to believe we'll probably get slightly over ten, but you've gotten, 10, 15 candidates if you count the candidates who didn't make this debate thinking, OK, how do -- what do I have to do to get 130,000 donors and get up to 2 percent in four polls.

JOHNSON: You could really see that in this debate because those candidates who were struggling to make the next round were really eager to make their mark in this round. And, in some cases, did some damage to the top tier contenders who are already qualified for the next round of debates. In particular, Tulsi Gabbard with her jab at Kamala Harris over the number of people imprisoned in California during her tenure as attorney general there I think really stood out, which -- and then Tulsi Gabbard coming around after the debate making a push to qualify for the next debate partly on the grounds of that jab that she -- that she made at Kamala.

KING: Right. And to that point, she tweeted this morning, Congresswoman Gabbard, she's above 128,000 donors. So she's closing in on 130. Then you have to be at 2 percent in the polls. They're going on television to try to make their case.

They're also sometimes changing their tone when they realize something I've said in the past could be an obstacle to me either getting the money to come in or getting a little higher in the polls. Here's Tulsi Gabbard, debate night, with us on Anderson Cooper after talking about Bashar al Assad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, "AC 360": If voters are wondering what is your take on Bashar al Assad, what do you say?

REP. TULSI GABBARD (D-HI), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My take is one of a soldier, where I've seen the cost of war firsthand.

COOPER: Do you consider him a torturer and a murderer?

GABBARD: That's not what this is about. I don't defend or apologize or have anything to do with what he has done to his own people.

COOPER: But if you're president of the United -- just on a factual basis, Bashar al Assad is a murderer and a torturer. Do you not agree with that? Do you --

GABBARD: I don't dispute that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Don't dispute that. It took several questions to get to that. Last night, with CNN's Chris Cuomo, notice the different tone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TULSI GABBARD (D-HI), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's a brutal dictator, just like Saddam Hussein, just like Gadhafi in Libya.

I will never apologize to anyone for doing all that I can to prevent more of my brothers and sisters in uniform to being sent to harm's way to fight in these wasteful counterproductive regime change wars, even if it means meeting with a brutal dictator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: She flipped it. She flipped it on the idea of saying, it's OK to meet with Assad as long as you say he's a brutal dictator and a murderer. Why did it take so long to get there?

[12:30:04] PARTI: So Gabbard currently has only qualified and made the qualifications for the DNC debate in one poll.