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Trump: Great People Coming in Today; Pence Denies Flynn's Son Involved with Transition; Increased Security Due to "Specific and Imminent" Threat; Obama to Make Final Counterterrorism Speech; Ryan Vows Repeal won't Leave People "Worse Off". Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 6, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:16]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. 10:00 a.m. Eastern, I'm Poppy Harlow in for Carol Costello. So glad you're with us. We begin with politics and President-elect Donald Trump making a surprise appearance this morning, moments ago, walking out of those golden elevators to Trump Tower speaking with reporters. The latest headline, he digs in and goes after Boeing, a major American company. Why? Because of the cost, the price tag, on the next Air Force One.

All of this happening as Trump gears up for a busy day of transition meetings. He says he has some "great people coming in today." Among them, we know he will meet with ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger fresh off his trip to China, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, all on the schedule to meet the president-elect. Let's go to Jessica Schneider. She's outside of Trump Tower. This is big because you know he doesn't usually talk to the media going in and out.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, Poppy, a lot of twists and turns from the president-elect. What we thought was going to be a quiet day, at least in the beginning of meetings, right here at Trump Tower, turned into an appearance from the president-elect himself, Donald Trump, spouting off this morning, about Air Force One and what he's calling the bloated costs.

Now, let me give you a rundown as to how this all developed throughout the morning. Around 8:52 a.m. this morning, just about an hour ago, Donald Trump took to his favorite medium, Twitter. And he put out this. He said, "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion." then continuing with his exclamation, "Cancel order!"

Of course, the new Air Force One will be a 747-8. The old Air Force One's, 747-200s. Well, Donald Trump didn't stop there. He greeted the pool cameras just right inside the Trump Tower lobby and had this to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL-ELECT: Well, the plane is totally out of control. It's going to be over $4 billion. It's for Air Force One program. And I think it's ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: Now, interestingly, it was Donald Trump earlier this year that actually went off on the Air Force One, calling it a very old airplane, saying it had old engines and it was spewing stuff, but potentially, now in changing his tune, talking about that cost overrun. Now, this would not be completely -- unprecedented. It was back in 2009, when President Obama first took office that he actually canceled a Marine One contract order that was running in the range of $11 billion. That order canceled. Could President-elect Trump do the same thing? We shall see.

But perhaps, now it is back to business. At Trump Tower, Donald Trump has a number of meetings this morning, many intriguing meetings actually. One, with Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, and he's actually being added to what continues to be a growing list for Secretary of State. Some sources saying that Tillerson definitely not a leading candidate, sort of in the outskirts, however, Donald Trump is intrigued by his world view. Also, today inside will be former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, as well as the mayor of Washington, D.C.

But after all of that, getting down to business today, Donald Trump will hit the road for the second stop in his "Thank You" tour. He'll be heading down to Fayetteville, North Carolina, for a 7:00 p.m. rally. It's the first of three rallies this week. Of course, we saw one in Cincinnati -- last week. And later on this week, on Thursday, Donald Trump will be in Des Moines, Iowa. On Friday, going to Grand Rapids, Michigan, despite the fact that a recount is actually happening in that state when he -- won by less than 10,000 votes.

So, we never really know what to expect here at Trump Tower. Just a little while ago, seeing Donald Trump in the lobby here, but we do expect a full day of meetings complete with that rally tonight. Poppy?

HARLOW: Jessica Schneider, thank you so much. It's a good thing you're there around the clock because you never know when he's going to come out and address reporters. Let's talk about all of this. With me now, CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik, Betsy Woodruff is with us, she's a politics reporter for "The Daily Beast," and Patricia Murphy, columnist for "The Daily Beast" and "Roll Call." Thank you all for being with us.

And let me begin, first, obviously with the news that Jessica went through, and that is, this Boeing news. Alison, just walk us through this, because a really fascinating twist is the fact that the former CEO Jim McNerney of Boeing up until, you know, just about a year ago, is actually on a team set to advise the president-elect after inauguration on jobs and the economy.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that is an interesting twist. So, what's happened here is that, Boeing reportedly got the contract to start preliminary work on a new fleet of Air Force One aircraft. This is on two jets. This contract for this preliminary work started in January. And "Reuters" says that, it was initially -- the contract was initially for $25.8 million. But the Air Force actually planned to spend a lot more, estimating at $1.6 million.

So that was a huge dichotomy in the number there. Obviously, not up to the $4 billion. But this is also an interesting story because you see the power of a tweet. Let's go ahead and bring up that tweet one more time. And I want to tell you what happened to the stock price once he tweeted that.

He said, "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents,

[10:05:16] but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!" Then you saw, minutes after, you saw Boeing stock slide 1 percent. It was you know quickly retweeted. It was liked. You saw -- so you saw Boeing stock take a hit. It's now recovered. But it was interesting to see it dropped that quickly based on what Donald Trump said.

Walking out into the lobby, he also said this. He said, "Well, the plane is totally out of control. It's going to be $4 billion for the Air Force One program. And I think it's ridiculous. And I think that Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make money but not that kind of money. Thank you."

HARLOW: Obviously, making a lot of headlines there. We'll see what transpired from this. Ladies, I'd like your take, obviously, on the other big headlines. And obviously, General Flynn is under a lot of pressure. But frankly, he's a done deal. He's likely going to be the next national security advisor because he doesn't need to be confirmed by the Senate.

Betsy, your take on the fact that not only does he still have this tweet about a conspiracy theory, totally fake news story that he tweeted in November about Hillary Clinton. Still up on his Twitter account, this one, his son also on Sunday night, after an armed man went into a D.C. pizza shop and fired shot because of another fake news story, Flynn's son and his chief of staff said, "Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many coincidences tied to it." Betsy, what responsibility is there for General Flynn or for the president-elect to start disavowing these completely false stories that have now led to violence?

BETSY WOODRUFF, POLITICS REPORTER "THE DAILY BEAST": Well, you would think that there would be a massive level of responsibility incumbent on these folks not to propagate nonsense that's resulted in people engaging in dangerous activity. I mean, we know that conspiracy theories can sometimes be tied to violence. Obviously, that doesn't mean that people -- that all people who believe conspiracy, there is a violence.

Of course not, however, a study that was published in 2014 by professors of the University of Miami, found that there's a strong correlation between people who have a very high propensity to believe conspiracy theories and people without propensity to believe that it's okay to use violence when you disagree with what the government is doing. It's just a fact that when you push stories like this that are false and that are incredibly incendiary, particularly in the case of "pizza gate," where there are baseless allegations of child molestation, it's just a fact that that is likely that will result into something dangerous happening. -- Of course, it's great nobody got hurt but it's possible it may have.

HARLOW: Well, it just, you know, begs the question of is it going to take it, you know, for someone to get hurt for this nonsense to stop. Let's listen, guys, to Joe Scarborough on MSNBC this morning, asking the Vice President-elect Mike Pence about General Flynn and about specifically about his son who we just talked about with that fake news tweet, who is his chief of staff. Let's listen to what Pence said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MIKE PENCE, (R-IN) VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: Well, General Flynn's son has no involvement in the transition whatsoever --

MIKE BARNICLE, MSNBC HOST "MORNING JOE": He has a transition e-mail.

PENCE: Well, general -- he has no involvement in the transition whatsoever.

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST "MORNING JOE": None at all? --

(CROSSTALK)

PENCE: General Flynn is --

SCARBOROUGH: Let me ask you that again. Just want to underline that. So, you're running the transition, right?

PENCE: I am chairing --

SCARBOROUGH: You were saying, as the head of the transition, that Flynn's son is not involved at all in the transition.

PENCE: No, he's not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: OK. So Patricia, here's the thing, as Joe Scarborough rightly pointed out and as "The New York Times" is reporting today, his son has a dot-gov transition e-mail address. Now, Pence is saying, he's no longer involved. What do you make of all of it?

PATRICIA MURPHY, COLUMNIST "THE DAILY BEAST" AND "ROLL CALL": Well, I think, it's Mike Pence, again being a loyal soldier and being loyal to Donald Trump. I do think we're starting to see a relatively troubling trend of Mike Pence and other members of the administration saying what they need to say. It damages their credibility enormously if we start to find out that General Flynn's son does have a role in the transition. We don't know how he got his e-mail address. It may have just been a request that was fulfilled and kind of a very busy time for the transition team. But for General Flynn to be not coming out and denouncing these stories and for his son to not be coming out and denouncing these stories, it damages the credibility of a man who must have full confidence, not just of the president but of the general public as national security advisor. The advice that he is giving Donald Trump internally and externally is going to carry an enormous amount of weight. If there's questions about his veracity, about his honesty and about his stability, even before the transition really gets under way, before he's sworn in as president. That's going to be a really big problem for the administration and for General Flynn on the hill externally and a lot of other places. So, I think this is a much bigger story than maybe they understand it is.

HARLOW: That's an interesting point, not just, you know, does he serve in that role but does he have the confidence of the American people as he does that. Betsy, thank you, Patricia and Allison, thank you guys very much.

[10:10:16] Quick note, Vice President-elect Mike Pence will be on "The Lead" on CNN today, 4:00 p.m. Eastern with our very own, Jake Tapper. Don't want to miss that.

Meantime, let me take you to Los Angeles this morning. Los Angeles is on high alert after a terror threat to the L.A. subway system. The FBI confirming it has received an overseas tip about a possible bombing at the Universal City stop that is near Universal Studios. Officials, calling the threat specific and imminent, law enforcement ramping up security as they search for any possible explosives, at the same time, the mayor of Los Angeles, saying he will ride that line. The red line today, obviously, to show that he will use it. It is safe.

Our Kyung Lah is with us now from Los Angeles. What can you tell us about the threat? I know they say it is credible and imminent. What do we know about it and where it came from?

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And they also say it's very specific and that's the reason why the L.A. authorities decided to move forward with a news conference and inform the public about what this is, what they believe that they have in front of them, Poppy. From what we understand, from the FBI, as well as local authorities, is that this threat was a phoned-in threat from overseas. It was picked up by an international partner and then the information was handed over to L.A. authorities.

Now, these sorts of threats do come in. The authorities in that presser last night did explain this is something that they do receive on a regular basis. So what makes this different? The reason that they decided to move forward is that it specifically talked about a particular rail line, the Metro rail line. There are 145,000 people who run -- who do use this rail line. Especially during the heavy morning commute hours which is right now during -- here in Los Angeles.

And they are also concerned that it also talked about a specific stop, the Universal City stop. There is a large amusement park, a theater there as well. And so they wanted people to know about this as well as this is the holiday season, Poppy. But something to keep in mind, the L.A. Sheriff said, look, we don't know if this is real or if this is a hoax. Poppy?

HARLOW: Important point. Kyung Lah, live for us in Los Angeles, thank you very much.

Coming up, that catastrophic fire inside of an Oakland warehouse, 36 people killed and countless questions remain. We will hear from investigators.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:32] HARLOW: Just moments ago, in Oakland, California, officials updated their investigation of the horrific warehouse fire there. We know that 36 people are confirmed dead and crews now say they do not necessarily expect the death toll to climb. But as memorials build outside of the gutted rooms, a criminal investigation is moving forward. The man who has held the lease on that illegal residence speaks out. Our Paul Vercammen is at the scene with the latest. And Paul, I know that they still have not searched the entire building but they've gotten through most of it, still though, one of those victims unidentified.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy. But they made progress. And just about 15 percent of the building left to scour. Let's listen to the Oakland police spokeswoman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFICER JOHNNA WATSON, OAKLAND POLICE SPOKESWOMAN: The most important message we want to send, because we know families are watching. We know 36 families are watching. We know other families are watching as well. And also to our community, we're not going to put an end time. We're going to continue the search. We're going to continue the investigation. We're going to continue the process. Until absolutely every piece of debris is removed from this building, every area has been searched.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And here's why firefighters are confident that they may not find any more bodies. I was able to speak with the battalion chief off camera. And he relay to me that in that remaining 15 percent, it's sort of a back wall and a large part a corner. He said that it is unlikely that people were hanging out in that area and they can see into the debris field. And so they've got a good glimpse on that. So Poppy, they are optimistic that they won't -- they're crossing their fingers and they're praying, won't find any more bodies.

HARLOW: It's been an absolute tragedy throughout. Paul, thank you very much. We appreciate the reporting from Oakland.

Still to come, GOP leaders vowing a swift repeal of Obamacare. But do they have a plan after that. Some 20 million Americans of course depend on it right now and they want to know.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:23:05] HARLOW: House Speaker Paul Ryan, speaking on Capitol Hill, just moments ago talking about that controversial phone call between the president-elect and the President of Taiwan. Let's listen to what speaker Ryan said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), HOUSE SPEAKER: It's prudent for him to take congratulatory calls. Absolutely, I spoke with the President of Taiwan when she was transferring planes in Miami a couple months ago. It is prudent for the president-elect to take congratulatory calls. I think there is a lot of much ado about nothing about this. And I think for him to not take a congratulatory call would in and of itself be considered a snub. So I think everything is fine.

(INAUDIBLE)

RYAN: I'm not going to get in the tweets. Do you think I'm going to sit here and comment on the daily tweets? I'm just not going to be doing that. Thanks everybody. I appreciate it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right, so the House Speaker not commenting on the daily tweets but saying he thinks everything is fine regarding that phone call.

All right, President Obama is making what is expected to be his final speech on fighting terror groups abroad. It could be his last chance to help encourage the incoming Trump administration to keep some of his policies in place. Our Athena Jones is following all of it from the White House and joins me now. The place where he's going to make this speech is an Air Force Base that he's visited before. Any idea why this location for this final speech on counterterrorism?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Poppy. Well, the location is significant. We're talking about the home of Central Command, the home of Special Operations Command. These are the folks who have been responsible for waging the war against groups like ISIS. Of course, Special Operations Forces were responsible for carrying out some of the most important missions of the Obama presidency, like killing Osama Bin Laden. There are also, of course, involved in training and assisting Opposition Forces who are taking the fight to ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

And the president's Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said that President Obama feels a very personal connection to the Special Operations Forces community and he wanted to go there and thank them. So he'll be meeting with those troops before delivering the speech later this afternoon.

As for the speech itself, as you mentioned, the last major national speech on national security.

[10:25:16] He'll use it to sum up his administration's record on fighting counterterrorism and make the case for a continuation of the same approach. So, we expect to hear him talk, for instance, about why he believes it's still important to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That's an election campaign promise he was never able to fulfill. He'll also talk about why he believes the ban on torture should be maintained. He'll make the case for targeted approach to fighting terrorism. So using Special Operation Forces, for instance, rather than carrying out the kind of large -- ground war we've seen in previous campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And we expect he'll dip in the Iran nuclear deal. Several of these are areas where President-elect Trump has indicated he could go in a different direction. He of course, railed against the Iran nuclear deal during the campaign. He's talked about bringing back water boarding which is considered torture. And he said he wants to fill up the prison at Guantanamo Bay with some more bad dudes.

So it will be interesting to compare the Obama approach to the potential approach of a President Trump. The White House says, this is a speech that was a well underway, well being worked on before Donald Trump was elected. So it wasn't written or rewritten to respond to him but it is certainly going to be seen as a message of some sort to the incoming president. Poppy?

HARLOW: Athena Jones, live for us at the White House. Thank you so much. Also, Fareed Zakaria, sitting down one on one with President Obama, speaking about the triumphs and struggles during his time in the White House. You will not want to miss the CNN "Special Report, The Legacy of Barack Obama." It airs tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m., right here.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow in for Carol Costello today. Thanks for joining me. Repeal Obamacare, you've heard that over and over again. One of the -- loudest and largest rallying cries of the Republican Party and with House Speaker Paul Ryan vowing an early vote, what happens to the millions of Americans who have signed up for it and rely on it right now? In an interview this week, in his home state of Wisconsin, he said, "Clearly there will be a transition and a bridge so that no one is left out in the cold, so that no one is worse off."

The question this morning is what does that bridge look like? With me now to debate, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, he is the president of the conservative American Action Forum and Rana Foroohar, CNN global economic analyst and author of the new book, "Makers and Takers." So Douglas, let me begin with you and let's all listen to what the Vice President Joe Biden said about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you noticed, they decided they're going to immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act. Then, all of a sudden, they figured out, 20 million people now have insurance. All of a sudden, they found out. They can't go back to charging women more for insurance than men. All of a sudden they figured out, my Lord, previous conditions, I guess, do matter. Now, what are they talking about? We'll repeal immediately. We'll go into effect after the next election. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: In all seriousness, Douglas, there is an urgency, right, for many people who rely on it to know what's going to be next. There's also urgency among Republicans to repeal it fast. Paul Ryan says, you know, there will be a bridge. To you, what will that bridge look like? What, frankly, could it look like?

DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, PRESIDENT AMERICAN ACTION FORUM: Well, I think there really is urgency on the Republican Party. This is an enormously unpopular law and has been for quite some time. So there's a political urgency to move to something else. So I have a full expectation that they will pass a bill that repeals it. And at that point, they will set out to craft a replacement plan and in the interim they will leave in place some of the components of the Affordable Care Act, the subsidies, some of the insurance regulations which they are unlikely to repeal in the special procedures they call reconciliation. And so, there's going to be no abrupt change. There's no going back to 2007. -- There's no scare tactics.

HARLOW: Wait. Douglas, how can you say there will be no abrupt change if they repeal it and don't leave, you know, most of it intact because if you ask the architects of Obamacare --

HOLTZ-EAKIN: -- you can easily.

HARLOW: Let me just finish. If you ask the architects of Obamacare, they say you know one part is often reliant on the other. So how can people be sure that they will be covered in the interim before something else is passed?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: So you pass a bill in 2017 that says effective January 1st, 2020, the following provisions are no longer law. So there is literally no abrupt change. It's been the expectation from the beginning and they will be able to do that with very little problem. Then the question becomes coalescing around the replacement plan. Republicans have that obligation. They understand that. And they're beginning that work right now. And in doing that replacement plan, it will say, effective January 1, 2020 or something like that, the following conditions will prevail. And they will be coalescing the 10 million people in the exchanges.