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CNN NEWSROOM

Trump Kicks Off Victory Lap with Indy Job Deal; Trump Carrier Deal; Trump and Pakistan's Prime Ministers Phone Conversation; U.S. and Pakistani Relationship; Jury Deciding Fate of SC Officer. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 1, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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


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[12:00:29] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Brianna Keilar.

And we still don't know many of the details. Some critics say it's a one-off fix at best. Donald Trump and his team say that it's a big victory. But in just a couple of hours, President-elect Donald Trump will return to Indianapolis a bit of a hero, having engineered a partial change of heart from a company that planned to send more than 2,000 jobs to Mexico. You may know candidate Trump made saving the jobs at Indiana's Carrier plant a priority. And, yesterday, he and Carrier announced that 1,000 of about 2,000 jobs will stay behind after all.

And CNN's Suzanne Malveaux joins me from the site of what is sure to be a very upbeat event today.

Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, about 2:00 is when it's going to happen. We're going to see Trump and Pence on the very floor of the Carrier plant where it was just ten months ago that the bosses, the owner of that plant from United Technologies announced that - to all its employees that their jobs were going to Mexico. At that moment, Brianna, a worker pulled out his cell phone. He got all of it, put it on YouTube. It became viral. Donald Trump noted that video and really made it a centerpiece of his campaign to keep manufacturing jobs here at home. A lot of critics this morning saying that this really is not a solution. It's not an economic policy. But a lot of people very happy here that I talked to about the prospect of really saving their jobs.

We heard from Bernie Sanders earlier today in an op-ed in "The Washington Post," very harsh criticism of this, saying that "Trump has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives. Even corporations that weren't thinking of off-shoring jobs will most probably be re-evaluating their stance this morning."

And Carrier putting out a statement earlier saying that, in fact, they are getting some incentives, business incentives, from the state. That could be in the form of tax breaks or business opportunities. We are not exactly sure of the details of that. We may get that later today.

But I did have a chance, Brianna, to talk to a lot of the workers at Carrier to get a sense of whether or not this is a good thing for them. They are very excited. And even talking to some employees of other companies. One, Rexnord, right up the street. They're losing their jobs to Mexico and they want Trump to step in and get involved. Here's what one of them said to me yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: How much credit do you really give him?

JOHN FELINER, REXNORD MACHINIST: I mean, he - what he said is happening. So whether it's the state, everybody collectively coming together to do it really doesn't matter, it's being done, and it's wonderful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: And that is John, and he is a new grandfather. He is also the father of three grown children. Two of them he's trying to put through college. And so he says he wants Trump to step, involved, and help him save their jobs.

But, Brianna, very important to note, not everybody is going to be keeping their job. It is not good news for a lot of folks, the people right up the street, but also the Huntington plant, about 700 employees there that are still going to lose their jobs. It is specifically the Carrier plant here. The good news, a lot of people saying, look, they don't care how the sausage was made, they are simply happy that it happened and they are giving Trump and Pence their due credit.

Brianna.

KEILAR: That's right, can this be a bigger thing? We will see.

Suzanne Malveaux, thank you so much, there for us in Indiana.

My panel has a lot to say about this. We have A.B. Stoddard, the associate editor and columnist for Real Clear Politics, and Eliza Collins is a politics reporter for "USA Today."

All right, so you heard Bernie Sanders today. And while of course people at this plant, I mean to - to keep their jobs, these are really good paying jobs. We're talking $20, $25 an hour. So they're thrilled, understandably. Bernie Sanders is criticizing Donald Trump and basically says that this company is being paid a ransom and it's just going to encourage others - other companies to do the same. What do you think, A.B.?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, REALCLEARPOLITICS: Right. I think that, first of all, it's a campaign promise fulfilled in three weeks, and that is a campaign promise fulfilled in three weeks.

KEILAR: It sure is. STODDARD: And as you said, it's make or break for 1,000 people.

That said, Bernie Sanders is right, that this is not - a, it's not an economic policy. It's not the job of the president. Had President Obama, you know, gone over to - company after company and started negotiating separate deals with them, without the state legislature. Deals that are mysterious. We don't know if these workers are going to take less in benefits now, although they get to keep their job. Is it a tax on everyone in Indiana? We don't know the details. It might have come under criticism from Republicans.

[12:05:04] But this is a - it's a sugar high, but can he work this deal with every single company in America? Will Carrier come back? Forget the other companies and say in a year and a half, we're having some problems again and we need a little more incentives. Will you buy more - it's United Technologies, will you buy more of our jet engines for the federal government, for defense materials. This is a - this is part of it. And so the devil's in the details and the Congress - the challenge to the Congress, of which there are many, is to work with President-elect Trump on a real policy that prevents corporations from doing it in the first place.

KEILAR: And I want to listen to something, Eliza, that Donald Trump said. He blasted corporate incentives as early as this summer. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Our states. And I watched. Remember, they give the low-interest loans. Here's a low-interest loan if you stay in Pennsylvania. Here's a zero-interest loan. You don't have to pay. Here's a this. Here's tax abatement of any kind you want. We'll help your employees. It doesn't work, folks. That's not what they need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We don't know exactly what is in the deal, but we do know that state incentives are part of it. We've heard that from multiple sources at this point. The other issue, as you mentioned, United Technologies, the parent company of Carrier, has billions of dollars in federal contracts. And so on one hand they have an interest in doing what Donald Trump wants them to do, especially if they want to be part of this conversation on tax reform. But what do you think about what Donald Trump is saying there, and then what we're seeing here today, or does it really matter because it is people holding onto their jobs and it's pretty stunning that he picked up the phone and that then you saw something happen?

ELIZA COLLINS, POLITICAL REPORTER, "USA TODAY": Well, I think it's a little bit of both. I mean this is his first campaign victory coming to life. So those thousand people can celebrate. That being said, he - they said that they got government incentives. It's exactly what he said he would not do. We've seen this with a lot of promises. So we're not quite sure, you know, where Donald Trump stands on a lot of things. We don't know the details but - KEILAR: Does it matter if - if there's incentives if it - if it got done? If it's something that perhaps can get done in other cases?

COLLINS: Well, where's the limit? How many times can this get done? Like we saw in Indiana, people down the street are saying, can it happen to us? Donald Trump can't fix every company. It has to be in Congress. It has to be, you know, change of policy.

KEILAR: And we are looking at maps now of all of the plants that are closing in Indiana. You heard Suzanne Malveaux interview someone from Rexnord, just down the street, hundreds of jobs going under there. So you're seeing that this is pretty widespread across not just this state but other states as well.

There's a newspaper in China that ran a commentary today and it was headlined, "China would benefit from Trump's effort to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S." It claims that the stuff made in the U.S. would cost more and that that would make Chinese exports even more attractive. What do you say about that?

STODDARD: This is one of the coming challenges to the Congress because when you speak to members of the Republican conference privately, they tend to believe that he's more pliable than he sounds, particularly on trade. A lot of their constituents can't survive, their small businesses men, the unraveling of NAFTA. They don't want him to oppose - to rip up TPP or whatever he's going to do on the first day, which only emboldened China, which is militarily aggressive right now in the South China Seas. They have a difference of opinion on this. They want to be unified with Trump and they want to all hold hands, but this is actually a real part of economic policy, the restructuring of the tax code, the questions of what disadvantages the United States are going to be front and center, and there will be disagreements.

KEILAR: We're watching now, I should say, live pictures of the president-elect's plane taxiing as he and - we do know that he is going to be campaigning with the Vice President-elect Mike Pence. I say campaigning. It comes, you know, it's just sort of like fall back on it.

STODDARD: It comes naturally.

KEILAR: It's a thank you - it's a bit of a thank you tour and they're also going on this tour at the Carrier plant in Indianapolis, the two of them.

OK, so, to A.B.'s point, because Donald Trump was in this strange position being a Republican candidate of being the one who was more authentically against trade deals, NAFTA. And - but the negative of NAFTA, and certainly we saw this in the votes, so many people throughout the rust belt losing their jobs, feeling that this really just depressed their areas economically. But there are a lot of other Americans who had very cheap goods, who can go to Walmart and buy something for $5 that might have cost them $12 before, right? I mean that's sort of the tradeoff here.

COLLINS: That's the exact tradeoff. They're going to have to figure out a way to play into the base that elected Donald Trump that is unhappy with trade or at least what they think of as trade, while still keeping things that work. And that's going to be a really tricky thing because I think Donald Trump campaigned on a lot of things that traditional Republicans do not feel.

[12:10:06] KEILAR: But he can't really - he can't really - that trade argument and being so staunchly against it, I mean I guess he can negotiate trade deals and he can say that they are better, but he has to have really something to show for it, right? I mean isn't that one of the key parts that his supporters will be looking for?

COLLINS: I think so. That's what we're going - we're going to see that tonight in the rallies, are his supporters, are they angry - I mean, with his cabinet picks, all of these promises that Donald Trump has made, are they going to hold him accountable? His cabinet looks, it's a lot of Goldman Sachs. He's railed on them. I mean we're not sure if they'll hold him accountable. We saw during the campaign people saying, you know, he might - he doesn't say everything he means. Now, policy wise, I'd imagine, but we really don't know.

KEILAR: Yes, we will see as this sort of shakes out.

All right, A.B., Eliza, thank you to both of you.

And next, it seems routine, the president-elect having a phone call with a U.S. ally, the Pakistani prime minister. A pretty complicated relationship, as you know. But what Pakistan says - this is the former leader, I should say. What Pakistan says happened on this call with Trump is anything but routine. The quote that is really raising eyebrows, next.

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[12:15:03] KEILAR: It's a phone call that some critics of President- elect Donald Trump are calling both reckless and bizarre. The exchange happening between Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The prime minister's office put out a statement quoting the president- elect as telling Sharif, quote, "you're doing amazing work which is visible in every way." It goes on to say, I am ready and willing to play any role that you want me to play to address and find solutions to outstanding problems."

Again, that wording coming from the Pakistani prime minister's office. Donald Trump's team will not confirm these comments. Also not denying them. Describing that conversation as, quote, "productive."

Joining us now is CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott.

As we know, words matter, and perhaps nowhere do they matter more when you're talking about diplomacy.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

KEILAR: And every word is parsed. That's why a lot times they're so boring.

LABOTT: That's right.

KEILAR: The readouts of these phone conversations.

LABOTT: Yes, they're very mundane.

KEILAR: What struck you when you saw this?

LABOTT: Well, a couple of things. First of all, it did sound a lot like you heard kind of this hyperbole like rhetoric on the trail by Trump. So it does sound, even though the campaign isn't confirming it, it does sound as if he would say it like that.

Now, a couple of things. I mean he said that Pakistan was a great country, a fantastic country with fantastic people. True. But what he didn't say was that he wants to work with Pakistan, as you might expect some other leaders to say, on combating terrorism, on, you know, the shared threat of Islamic extremism, those kinds of things. It was very, you know, praising. That's one thing. And then also, look, the relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. is very delicate, not only because of terrorism but, why, because of the relationship between Pakistan and India.

KEILAR: Which is not pleased really.

LABOTT: Which is - you know, they kind of took it in a little tongue in cheek. They said, yes, we're looking forward for President-elect Trump to help Pakistan deal with its -

KEILAR: Outstanding issues.

LABOTT: Terror - outstanding terrorism problems.

KEILAR: That's right.

LABOTT: And, you know, President-elect Trump has really tried to court the Indians also. So, you know, when you say these kind of things to one country, India gets its backup. The U.S. has been trying to court India as a counter weight against China. So there's a lot of, you know, a kind of messaging that, you know, goes on when you talk to these countries.

Also it doesn't really fit in what Trump has said about Pakistan in the past. You know, in - a couple of years ago he tweeted, Pakistan is not a friend. Pakistan is not an ally because of their terrorist issue and -

KEILAR: Pakistan - Pakistan has an ungoverned area that is essentially home to many terrorists.

LABOTT: That's right.

KEILAR: And the U.S. is constantly on them -

LABOTT: That's right.

KEILAR: About doing something about it. Pakistan had Osama bin Laden - LABOTT: That's right.

KEILAR: For years living within its borders.

LABOTT: And Trump has said that he would, you know, want to ban Muslims from coming to the U.S.

KEILAR: Predominantly Muslim countries.

LABOTT: Predominantly Muslim countries.

KEILAR: Which he said he's looking forward to going to, right?

LABOTT: That's right. So, I mean, look, you know, these leader calls are, you know, he's doing a lot of them. It's really hard to kind of get on top of what you're supposed to say to each leader. He doesn't seem to have been a lot - prepared for a lot of these calls. Not having a ton of intelligence briefings. Not being briefed by the State Department. So I think as he takes office, he needs to understand that, you know, the message is the message.

KEILAR: All right, Elise Labott, thank you so much. Really appreciate that report.

Let's talk more now with CNN political commentator and Hillary Clinton supporter, Hilary Rosen. Also with us is former campaign adviser for Donald Trump, Steve Cortes.

So, Steve, in recent years, you heard Elise talk about this because Pakistan has come under fire, not doing enough to fight terrorism inside its boarder, especially after the SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan. One of the people criticizing all of this was Donald Trump.

STEVE CORTES, FORMER CAMPAIGN ADVISER FOR DONALD TRUMP: Right.

KEILAR: He said this in 2012. He said, "when will Pakistan apologize to us for providing safe sanctuary to Osama bin Laden for six years? Some ally."

What do you make of this phone call, in light of the things we've heard Donald Trump say about this country?

CORTES: Well, Brianna, you know, first, let me say, as I think you've alluded to, this is an incredibly complicated relationship with Pakistan, which is, you know, certainly, at least officially, an ally of ours, but at times a troublesome ally, and a place that has produced a lot of - a lot of violence, frankly, for us in that part of the world and at times even in this part of the world, in the United States. The Ohio State terrorist, for instance, the other day, who is Somali by origin, came here from, I believe, Pakistan. So it's a very complicated relationship.

But what I think Trump is doing, to get to the meat of your question, there's nothing unusual or nothing awkward going on here. What he's doing is, I don't think he's ever talked to the leader of Pakistan before. So what he did is - you don't start out by insulting someone and necessarily talking tough. Instead, in the - in the - he's channeling Teddy Roosevelt, speak softly but carry a big stick. And I think the world knows that Donald Trump -

KEILAR: Where's the big stick, though, Steve?

CORTES: The big stick is that we're going to be rebuilding our military in a very, very major way and that we are talking about -

KEILAR: But he's not talking about that. He doesn't talk - he doesn't talk about terrorism. He's not - he doesn't even gently say anything that would be considered a sort of expected stock thing about some of these challenges.

[12:20:06] CORTES: OK, but - but, Brianna, anyone who has -

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No one, in fact, has talked -

CORTES: Anyone who has paid attention to him for the last year and a half knows that he has talked about as tough about Islamist terror as any politician possibly could. Certainly far more than any other major politician in America ever had. I think it's one of the reasons that he won this election is that he said political correctness, when we talk about Islamic terror, political correctness isn't just dumb, it is also deadly. So he has been incredibly forceful in his talk about that.

But, look, now he's the president-elect. His very first conversation with another head of state, again, one who is, for the most part, our ally, he doesn't need to begin by pounding the table. He begins by establishing a relationship. And from there, Pakistan will certainly know, the world will know, that the United States has a new sheriff, and one that really means business and will rebuild our military.

KEILAR: Hilary, you're shaking your head there, but what about that point, butter them up first and then come down on them later?

ROSEN: Yes. Well, I don't think - I don't think it's a matter of pounding the table. I - first of all, you know, Trump talks big at rallies in the Midwest, but then when he meets with foreign leaders or talks to them, he seems to sugarcoat everything. We saw that with Mexico. Now we're seeing it with Pakistan. Donald Trump needs to do three things, in my view. First of all, he needs to have a communications team that actually records and submits readouts for themselves of these conversations that he's having with foreign leaders because this is the readout we got from Pakistan. And they need to control this message. This is quite important.

KEILAR: Focused more on what he said is a good point there.

ROSEN: That's exactly right. And so the second thing he needs to do is, he needs to get a secretary of state quickly because we have multiple views from Ray Flynn (ph), from Donald Trump, who has multiple views himself. We need to have a coordinated and thoughtful presence for where U.S. is going with foreign policy and there needs to be a trusted source that somebody can turn to with a consistent view.

And then, finally, the third thing he needs to do is essentially stop with the kind of the seat of the pants conversations he seems to have and actually take these intelligence briefings that we know he keeps rejecting being offered from the national security staffs because if he did, he would be more cautious in these kinds of phone calls.

KEILAR: What do you think, Steve, about what we're hearing from India? There's certainly some concern there.

CORTES: Right.

KEILAR: They sort of - Elise was describing it. It's a little tongue in cheek. Yes, we would like these outstanding issues to be dealt with on terrorism.

CORTES: Right.

KEILAR: But they said something that Donald Trump did not. And the India/U.S. relationship is also very important.

CORTES: No, absolutely. And, by the way, Donald Trump spoke at length during the campaign. We got a lot of support here in the United States from a lot of Hindus. That was a key constituency for us. He's been very effusive of his praise of the prime minister of India, of Modi, I think those two men are going to have a very close working relationship, which is incredibly important. One of the largest democracies in the entire world. And so the U.S./India relationship, look, we're friends with both.

I would say India is a more dependable friend to us. It's less complicated than it is our relationship with Pakistan. So India need not worry at all, I think, in a Trump administration about the friendship of the United States both in security terms and perhaps even more importantly in economic terms, that we're going to have a fair and free trade relationship with them. Indian-Americans certainly shouldn't worry that Donald Trump has anything but their best interest at heart.

So, look, I think this is much ado about nothing. He used some flowery language. He was very complimentary. He made no policy pronouncements. We would never turn our back on India. This is a complicated relationship and I believe he - you know, to Hilary's point, we're going to get an incredible secretary of state. But what the president- elect is doing is he's taking his time and being -

KEILAR: That is another - that's another conversation because I'm wondering when that's going to happen.

CORTES: And being diligent about this.

KEILAR: All right, well, we are still waiting for that, certainly. That is really the big issue here that is outstanding.

Steve Cortes and Hilary Rosen, thanks to both of you. And, next, you may remember a stunning video. It's really difficult to watch. It shows a South Carolina police officer shooting a man in the back as he runs away from the officer. Right now a jury is deciding if that officer is guilty of murder. We're at the courthouse live, next.

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[12:28:52] KEILAR: In Charleston, South Carolina, today, a jury is deliberating the case of Police Officer Michael Slager. He is the officer who shot to death 50-year-old Walter Scott after a traffic stop in 2015. A witness recorded the shooting with a cell phone camera that you can see here. Incredibly graphic video, but also very important to understanding what happened that day. And Slager is now charged with Scott's murder. His defense, that Walter Scott took his Taser and he felt he was in danger. Prosecutors say Slager simply shot an unarmed man in the back as he ran away.

CNN's Boris Sanchez live for us in Charleston. And we have our legal analyst, Laura Coates, here with me in studio.

Boris, any word on if the jury is going to get back with a verdict today?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, no indication yet as to an immediate decision by the jury. They've been deliberating today for roughly two hours. They've deliberated for about an hour last night and they're considering different charges against Michael Slager. One of them murder, which carries up to life in prison. The other, voluntary manslaughter, which is anywhere - a sentence could be between two to 30 years. And, of course, the potential for him to be not guilty, Brianna.

[12:30:03] KEILAR: The jury actually went to the scene. Tell us about that, Boris. And I wonder what the prevailing thought is on the impact that may have on jurors.