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Trumps Aims To Finish Top Hires Next Week; Trump Taps "Mad Dog" Mattis For Defense Secretary; Trump: "We Had A Lot Of Fun Fighting Hillary"; Unemployment Rate Hits Lowest Mark In 9 Years; Shouting Match Between Trump Aides, Clinton Aides

Aired December 2, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[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 this is joke, two senators and admiral, a couple of ex-cabinet members and a state attorney general walk into an office building and since the building is Trump Tower exactly seven weeks from inauguration day, one of these people, maybe more, could emerge with a cabinet nomination. I'll keep my day job.

The president-elect is in another day of back-to-back meetings just hours after publicly preempting his own announcement for defense secretary.

CNN's Jessica Schneider is there. And Jessica, I couldn't help but notice that there is a D next to one of those senators, there's a lot of people focusing on this invitation of Trump's to Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right Brianna. Heitkamp hailing from North Dakota, she's up for re-election in 2018. But will be here at Trump Tower today. And when we caught up with her yesterday, she said that she was somewhat in the dark as to exactly what this meeting by entail. But she did say she is open to the possibility of discussing a position in the Trump administration. Possible positions might include interior secretary or energy secretary.

Of course, Heitkamp coming from the very red state of North Dakota, it's a state that Donald Trump won big. Of course, Democratic senators just like Heitkamp that Donald will be looking towards to pass his agenda. But of course, if Heitkamp were to take up a post in a Trump White House it would leave Democrats in the Senate severely disadvantaged. So we'll see what comes out of that meeting today.

Also some notable meetings that are happening inside Trump Tower today, Ambassador John Bolton, also Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi. And just recently added to the list today that we heard in the call earlier this morning, Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates will also be here at Trump Tower. So after a day out on the road yesterday at those rallies, back to business here at Trump Tower today, Brianna.

KEILAR: And what about Trump telling Fox that almost all of his cabinet picks will be revealed next week?

SCHNEIDER: Right. Well, the big one that will be right off the bat on Monday happening with Donald Trump actually spilling the beans about it yesterday. A retired Marine General James Mattis will be nominated by Donald Trump, that announcement coming on Monday. But of course, as we've learned, there is a legal hurdle to his confirmation. There's a legal statute in place that bars uniformed service members from taking up a civilian post within seven years of leaving service. Of course, General James Mattis just retired in 2013. So he would have to get a congressional waiver. What we've learned from Trump spokesman James Miller is that John McCain is right now drafting up legislation that would provide that waiver.

Several Democrats actually have come out in support of that waiver. One notable Democrat who said she will oppose the waiver is Democratic senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand. But they do expect it to go through with James Mattis getting that waiver from Congress, Brianna?

KEILAR: All right, Jessica Schneider at Trump Tower. Thank you.

And I want to turn to my panel now, Ryan Lizza is Washington Correspondent for the New Yorker, he's also a CNN Political Commentator. And Glenn Thrush is Chief Political Correspondent for Politico.

OK, so we're looking at this visitor roster. John Bolton is visiting. What are we thinking about John Bolton and his place in all of this?

RYAN LIZZA, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORKER: I mean to me, it suggests a real departure foreign policy-wise than where Trump has been on a lot of big issues. Remember John Bolton comes out of the so-called Neoconservative wing of the Republican Party. He is extremely interventionist. Favors bombing Iran, he wants to tear up the Iran nuclear deal. He was a huge supporter of the Iraq war which obviously Trump claims was a complete disaster. And just a much more pro ...

KEILAR: Even if he did support it at one time.

LIZZA: He didn't support it before.

KEILAR: Before he said he did not.

LIZZA: But he's turned into a very non interventionist Republican, Trump, much closer to the kind of libertarian Rand Paul wing of the party. And Bolton is the opposite. Frankly, Giuliani, Bolton and Romney, all are more interventionist than Trump. So his choices, I mean, one of the things that it's showing, it's hard for him to find people who are ideologically in the Republican Party the way he is.

KEILAR: For his very important position of secretary of state. And when he doesn't have this out there, this announcement yet, is that hindering him when it comes to national security? We've seen him do a number of calls with foreign leaders. Some have not gone well, there's been so much hyperbole, diplomats are, you know, they're baffled. Does he need to get that done soon?

GLENN THRUSH, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: I think he does. I think actually, though, it's somewhat encouraging that people, when I talk with folks on the hill, that he is taking as much time.

[12:04:58] Let's look at the Bolton thing. I don't know how serious it is. He also has a tendency to pick people who are on T.V. a lot to talk with. I mean he has that esthetic. That's an important part of this. And Bolton is somebody who's sort of a darling of the Fox, right. So I think it's too surprising that he kind of throws him into the mix, particularly when the names that really emerged so far right now in terms of the lead or Mitt Romney and David Petraeus. Bolton is a counter -- counterbalance to that. So this might just be Trump checking a particular box, or it could send a signal as Ryan indicated, a hardening and move to the right.

KEILAR: North Dakota Democrat Heidi Heitkamp, apparently being considered for maybe interior secretary or energy secretary. If she were to leave, because she's in a red state you could see a Republican senator, you would see a Republican senator appointed. And that would obviously help Republicans. So is that part of the calculus here? What do you think?

THRUSH: Oh, yeah.

KEILAR: That's the only thing? I mean is that really the only thing you see going in there? Or they're trying to get some Midwest support? She's obviously a very conservative ...

THRUSH: She's a woman, and they are not -- there's been sort of a paucity or diversity in the names that we've seen so far. But this is classic senate power politics. We saw Obama play around with this a bit. He eventually poached Ray Lahood from the House.

KEILAR: Transportation.

THRUSH: Via his transportation chief. So this is just -- I mean this is just good old fashioned, power politics. I wonder what he's going to offer Joe Manchin of West Virginia?

KEILAR: That's what I was going to say.

LIZZA: Exactly right.

KEILAR: Because to understand Heidi Heitkamp she's aligned with the sort of Joe Manchin small group of senators. But they don't always go along with Democrats, they very much in the middle there.

LIZZA: Look Manchin and Heitkamp are the states that Trump won by a huge margin.

KEILAR: Sure. LIZZA: Heitkamp is up in 2018. The Democrats in the Senate have a very bad map. They're defending a lot of senators from red states. And if you're Heitkamp and you're looking at your options, run for re- election in a state where Trump, you know, won huge, or maybe join the Trump administration, do something new. That's got to be appealing.

KEILAR: You heard Jessica Schneider talking about the waiver for General Mattis. Looking like that's not going to be a problem. Is that basically your understanding at this point?

LIZZA: I mean, I think it's too early to tell. I mean one of the thing is this election has proven, be careful with predictions. Things change.

KEILAR: Predict nothing.

LIZZA: And look, I think it's interesting that Senator Gillibrand came out with a very strong statement saying "No, we have civilian control of the military and I don't want a general as defense secretary."

Now, he has a lot of other important allies including Robert Gates, who is a very staunch defender of civilian control of military and John McCain. But we'll going to have a big debate about what it means to have a military -- a general as defense secretary and you never know where that debate can go.

THRUSH: One thing I'm going to say about Gillibrand, I think she's using it as leverage in order to deal with her signature issue which is sexual harassment in the military.

KEILAR: Right.

THRUSH: I think standing out there in opposition gives her a little muscle on this.

KEILAR: Let's talk about Donald Trump Cincinnati rally. And this is something that he said. Certainly at this point, he's talked about uniting the country. But then he said this yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT-ELECT: Although we did have a lot of fun fighting Hillary. Didn't we? Right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So the first part I actually thought was pretty staid for Donald Trump. But then it was met with a chant of "Lock her up." So you're looking at this interaction. You're looking at how he responds to this. What are your thoughts?

THRUSH: That's the duality of his presidency. And this is the challenge that he's facing. You're seeing it play out with the Cabinet picks. Does he play to this base which represents from polling 36 percent, 38 percent of the public? Remember, for him to get to 46 percent. And let's not forget, she has 48 percent of the vote. And he has 46 percent nationally. To get there, about a third of his voters disapproved of him. It is unprecedented. He not only doesn't have a mandate, he still has a majority of Americans who disapprove of him. So for him to sort of go directly back to his base, make him feel good and clearly he feels really good right there. But does it really serve him in the long term politically?

KEILAR: He needs to stretch. Does he realize that? Because we didn't see him realize that during the campaign, ultimately didn't need it, but in order to have achieve the popular vote win he would have needed that stretch he didn't do.

LIZZA: Is it an unusual position for a president-elect, 54 percent of the country voted for someone else for presidents. And his approval rating is historically low for a president-elect. He need a little bit more of a bump that he's getting.

So I think and he's made some decisions that arguably go against his base. There a lot of billionaires and Wall Street folks coming into the Cabinet that doesn't can quote with the "Drain the swamp" message. He's also, I think to his credit said he's not going to, you know, ask the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to go after -- to look into the Hillary e-mail investigation that was a campaign promise, something that the rallies, it was important at rallies. It was a mature decision that he did that.

[12:10:04] But he's someone that also thrives on those public rallies. And he's got to keep his own base energized if he wants to -- next -- early next year, get his agenda through.

KEILAR: And we'll see as we move forward to this. They care about some of these promises that he's not backing up, and may very well not.

Ryan Lizza, Glenn Thrush, thank you so much to both of you.

And up next, exactly why do they call him "Mad dog"? A closer look at President-elect Trump's choice to lead the nations armed forces. I'll talk to a fellow general who knows him very well, coming up.

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KEILAR: The man that Donald Trump wants to make his secretary of defense was a four-star U.S. Marine Corps General just 3.5 years ago which is unusual by itself. A general officer picked for a position purposely designs to be held by a civilian. We're going to talk more about that in a moment.

James Mattis, "Mad Dog" to people in certain circles. The president- elect calls him impressive and "A true general's general." Trump had some fun making the announcement last night in Cincinnati.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: We are going to appoint Mad Dog Mattis, as our secretary of defense. But we're not announcing it until Monday, so don't tell anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:15:15] KEILAR: Oh, shoot. Well, we heard it. Didn't we? And our military analyst Major General James "Spider" Marks knows General Mattis personally, also with us, CNN Chief National Security Correspondent, Jim Sciutto.

General Marks, just tell us a little about General Mattis and your perspective on this pick.

JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, MAJOR GENERAL (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, Jim Mattis is a magnificent leader. He's always the smartest guy in the room, and the most well-prepared guy in the room. But his behavior would belie that. He's not going to tell you that. But you're going to figure it out in no time.

He's introspective. He's focused. He's the individual, the way I describe Jim Mattis, he's the guy that will take you to the objective, the desired end state and then he's going to walk back from that and to everybody is going to figure out how to linearly try to get there. In other words, intellectually, he's already at the conclusion. And we're going to get on board to try to get there.

KEILAR: I've heard people describe him as someone who is blunt and thoughtful which you don't often hear that description of someone. It often is one, of one or the other. Jim Sciutto, of course. But -- you know, so straight-talking.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.

KEILAR: But very thoughtful and he's not going to mince words, right?

SCIUTTO: The thing about generals today, as Spider Marks in that category. When you go out in the field with him or in the Pentagon, today, generals are the most educated people I know. I'm going to tell you. I mean they've got more masters degrees than anybody I know. I mean, when you go through the military, and I love the folks, and they're certainly not armchair generals, right? Because we have two ongoing wars and all of them have served in combat. So they have this combination of education and combat experience.

And the military has done this on purpose. They want world thinkers. I mean, they thought the way, rethought the way we fight war, right? And you have a whole host of challenges you didn't have before and different kinds of adversaries. And he is certainly is in that category. The guy is extremely well-read. But he's also mad dog, right? I mean, he was the guy in charge during the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War in Fallujah. And it's really -- I mean, in a way almost a perfect combination. And wouldn't you say ...

MARKS: I do, but I think he would be, knowing Jim Mattis, I would say that he's probably -- he's not going to shy away from that. But he wouldn't advertise that the fact that he's got this moniker. And I think that's not what he's about. He is about accomplishing a task. It's more about us, it's never about me. And that's what I love about Jim Mattis.

KEILAR: You served with him during a time of war specifically 2003. So, tell us about that. And if you have any specific memories or examples that you can discuss with us about just his leadership style, it's that, you talked about the example of how he sort of brings people along to an objective. What else do we know about him?

MARKS: Brianna, I became an immediate fan of Jim Mattis when he and I sat down for Thanksgiving dinner in advance of our liberation of Iraq. So in November of 2002, before we went to a war, Jim Mattis and I had a great opportunity, we have dinner together along with a number of his marines. I was invited to his table. This is an erudite thoughtful. And by the way his marines love him. This was not somebody who walked in the room and assumed control or command of the room. He was somebody that would just blend into the room and every marine in his presence truly respected and honored the type of person, a leader and they knew they were in good hands. They knew that they were at risk. They wanted to be there with him during this period of crisis that we were moving into.

KEILAR: It's unusual for the sec. def. to be a military man. Normally it's a civilian or someone who's been out of the military for some time. He's going to require a waiver.

SCIUTTO: That's right.

KEILAR: The expectation is that may not be too much of a problem? But just tell us about how unusual this is.

SCIUTTO: What's so unusual it's only happened once before. It happened in 1950. This rule was instituted in 1947 when you had your first secretary of defense, because before then it was secretary of war and they combined the navy department. Anyway, that's going to be water under the bridge historically. But they only did this once before in 1954.

General Marshall, when he became Secretary of Defense. There's a reason for that. Because historic -- going back to George Washington times, right? I mean, you want to have civilians controlling the military. That's the nature of our democracy. So that seven-year window, they kind of have some separation between the uniformed ranks and the people running the Pentagon. So you need a waiver. He's been out for -- it was three, four -- three years.

MARKS: Three years.

SCIUTTO: So he's short of that. But when you hear from Republicans and Democrats who say they respect him and in this case, this is not going to be -- it's not going to be the fight that they battle.

Adam Schiff said earlier on our air, do you want to ask him some questions? He wanted to ask General Mattis. "OK, how do you rectify that?" You know, this is a concern. And if anybody's going to answer that question, it will be Mattis because he's thought about it. He has written about this very issue.

[12:20:04] KEILAR: Largely positively received though. This is a very interesting pick. All right. Thank you so much General Marks, Jim Sciutto. Appreciate it.

Up next, jobs, jobs, jobs, 178,000 of them to be exact, the November unemployment report is hot off the presses, and is it good enough to finally push the fed to start pushing up interest rates? We'll talk about that.

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KEILAR: Even amid an election shocker, America kept hiring. The New Jobs report shows the unemployment rate at a record low for the Obama administration. It shows that 178,000 jobs were created in November, the unemployment rate dropping to 4.6 percent that is the lowest mark in nine years.

[12:25:07] And just to put this in context, around the time of the 2008 election, President Obama was inheriting an unemployment rate it was around 8 percent. Now, he seems to be leaving behind a more robust economy. One that is witnessing decent momentum across the spectrum, you can check this out, auto sales, home prices, GDP showing signs of growth.

I want to discuss this with Diane Swonk, she is the founder and CEO of D.S. Economics. And she's joining us now. Diane, thanks for being with us. And I know you were looking at these numbers. What was your reaction?

DIANE SWONK, FOUNDER AND CEO, DS ECONOMICS: Well, they were good numbers. It was a solid report and good enough for the Federal Reserve to raise rates as they plan to in December for the second time in a year.

I think the hiccup in the wages that we saw that was not as strong in a report is just that a hiccup. And we'll see a bounce back as we get into December. There is some special factors there. But overall, the economy continues to heal. The question is, is it enough? And of course even though that 4.6 percent was the lowest rate since August of 2007, it doesn't quite mean the same thing as it did in 2007. The other measures of unemployment which include those marginalized since the crisis, they've come down as well to 9.3 percent. But are still about a percent above what they were prior to the crisis.

KEILAR: OK. So tell us about that. Because when you look at the election result and there were a lot of people who felt even if they're looking at these numbers going up, they're not feeling that. And so that number that you just spoke to reflects that.

SWONK: Exactly. So the gap between the unemployment rate and the sort of people who have had to take either part-time jobs are discouraged. It really is a more overall stress measure of unemployment which is still at 9.3 percent down from what it had been but not all the way down to where we were, really reflects that underlying discontent we saw during the election. Also, wages, even though they're up and they have been moving up over the last year, they're not up a lot. And we all know that wage gains have been somewhat stagnant. The biggest wage gains we've actually seen have been in minimum wages in those states, in local economies where they've actually enacted and increase in minimum wages. And they're showing up in places like leisure and hospitality. That doesn't help much if you want to have a much higher paying job and now you're moving down to a minimum wage job that's paying more than it did a year ago but not nearly what it was.

KEILAR: What does this mean for president-elect Donald Trump as he looks to next month and coming into power?

SWONK: Well it means that he is coming in with a better economic situation and one that's likely to continue to get better as the year progresses no matter what he does, policy. I won't see no matter what because he could do some damaging policy things on trade. But even if you were to sort of do nothing, the economy is poised to continue to improve albeit in fits and starts. And of course, what he'd like to see is more even improvement. What the Federal Reserve is now looking at is, if they were to do a lot of fiscal stimulus, they might tip the scales and we might get more inflation and not as -- we have an overheating economy, which would also be uncomfortable.

I would like a little warmer growth. And I think we'll get a little warmer growth. But policy does matter and the composition of policy choices that the next president makes and the next Congress, how he gets congress to adopt those policy changes will really affect our future.

KEILAR: It will matter. And we'll be talking to you as we go through that and that we'll be doing some temperature checks as you talk about the economy being a little warmer.

All right, Diane Swonk. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

SWONK: Thank you.

KEILAR: And turning now to something that might sound familiar. Donald Trump holding a raucous rally as supporters chant "Lock her up".

Meantime, Clinton aides and Trump aides are at each others throats. If you haven't taken the time machine back to October, this is all happening nearly one month after Donald Trump w elected president. Let's discuss now with CNN Political Commentator Mike Shields, President of the Congressional Leadership Fund and the RNCs former chief of staff and also with us, CNN Political Commentator Symone Sanders. She's a Democratic strategist. She served as national press secretary for Bernie Sanders' campaign.

OK. So last night, you had Donald Trump's campaign manager, his final one, Kellyanne Conway and then Jennifer Palmieri, whose Hillary Clinton's communications director talking about the election. And things got really raw. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER PAMIERI, HILLARY CLINTON'S COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am glad to have lost. I would rather lose than win the way guys did.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, DONALD TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANGER: Do you think I ran a campaign where white supremacists had a platform? You're gonna look me in the face tell me that?

PALMEIRI: It did, Kellyanne. It did.

CONWAY: Really? So that's how you lost?

PALMIERI: It did.

CONWAY: Do you think you could have just had a decent message for the white working-class voters?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Wow. I mean you -- this is what people in Washington are talking about. This is the buzz. What was your reaction?

[12:30:01] MIKE SHIELDS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, there has been a lack of accountability on the part of the Democrats and the Clinton campaign. And really up and down up through the party, through the entire election. Hillary Clinton was a historically terrible candidate, unstable where numbers were through the roofs and her party was never able to actually ...