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Trump Orders Grounding of Boeing 737 MAX Planes; Trump Speaks to Reporters after Grounding of Boeing 737 MAX Planes; New York Files Charges Against Manafort Minutes after 2nd Sentencing. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 13, 2019 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A very detailed group of people working on the 737-8 and the 737-9, new airplanes. We're going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 MAX 8 and the 737 MAX 9 and planes associated with that line. I've spoken to Elaine Chao, secretary of Transportation, Dan Elwell, acting administrator of the FAA, and to Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of Boeing, and they'll be available shortly after our conference today. And they are all in agreement with the action. Any plane currently in the air will go to its destination and, thereafter, be grounded until further notice. So planes that are in the air will be grounded, if they're the 737 MAX, will be grounded upon landing at the destination. Pilots have been notified, airlines have been all notified. Airlines are agreeing with this. The safety of the American people and all people is our paramount concern.

Our hearts go out to all of those who lost loved ones, to their friends, to their families, in both the Ethiopian and the Lion Airline crashes that involved the 737 MAX aircraft. It's a terrible, terrible thing.

Boeing is an incredible company. They are working very, very hard right now and, hopefully, they'll very quickly come up with the answer. But until they do, the planes are grounded. And you'll be hearing from the FAA directly in a little while, I would say probably 45 minutes from now. So you'll be prepared to hear. They're going to go into great detail as to what they found and where we're going and what we're doing. But all of those planes are grounded effective immediately. OK?

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, so the breaking news right now, the president saying an emergency order has been issued to ground this specific type of aircraft here in the U.S., the Boeing 737 MAX 8. The U.S. was the lone holdout, up until this moment.

Justin, first, your reaction?

JUSTIN GREEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I think it's the right call. I was going to say that, at least until they've read out the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder and we have a good sense of what happened, to err on the side of safety is the best option.

CABRERA: But to err on the side of safety is what people have been calling for, for days now!

GREEN: What's interesting is we're not leading here.

CABRERA: Yes.

GREEN: The United States is not leading. Other countries are leading on this issue. We're the nation that manufactures this airline. Our FAA, our NTSB are the best regulatory and safety investigative agencies in the world and we should have been more out front. I think some politics came into play here. Where you have a sense of not getting in the way of Boeing, keeping these airlines flying, and then you had two crashes, one in Indonesia where no Americans were killed, and another one in Ethiopia where only, you know, eight or so Americans were killed. If this had happened in Kansas, I think we would have acted a lot faster than we did.

CABRERA: Les, up until this moment, we know pilots' unions were behind continuing to fly these aircraft. We know the FAA, we know Boeing, a number of airlines had issued their statements as to why they believe the aircraft were still safe and they were planning to make no adjustments. What's your reaction? What do you think was what tipped the scale?

LES ABEND, RETIRED PILOT: Well, first of all, you know, I agree with -- I can't disagree with any of Justin's statements. I'm very curious as to what the catalyst was for the FAA to finally reach to this point. As a pilot, all I can do is say, listen, we're driven to make the mission happen and make the mission happen safely. If I'm going to be flying that aircraft, I want to I prepare myself to fly that aircraft. If I know that there's some potential problems with it, I'm going to review my manual, discuss it with the crew. Boeing had a remedy for this potential glitch with reference to angle of tac indicators. I would review that procedure, which entails cutting out the trim switches. I would be very cautious for every aspect of the flight, but I would complete that mission. And here's the important thing to tell people at this point. Boeing is going to fix the problem. They always fix the problem. It's a terrible tragedy that so many people lost their lives over this particular problem. But it will be fixed.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: You keep saying, there's a problem. But Boeing hasn't come out and said there's a problem, that we know of. We do know that they are working on a software upgrade, update of some sort. But yet, the planes have been flying all along. They've been working on this software upgrade for months.

ABEND: Well, my --

(CROSSTALK)

[14:35:09] CABRERA: Do you think that's going to be a liability? Is that going to create legal trouble for them?

ABEND: My concern is, what is this software update supposed to fix? We don't know what it really is supposed to fix at this point in time. And my concern is that, will it fix what might have happened with Lion Air? Will it fix what happened with Ethiopian? And remember, the investigation still has to run its course. And now the pressure is off for it to run its course so we can actually find out what happened, specifically to these airlines.

CABRERA: Justin, any thoughts on how long this investigation is going to take to run its course?

GREEN: I mean, I think it's short order. You're going to have the readouts from the black boxes. We're going to know what happened. I would say that's in a matter of weeks. And the question, one of the issues is, where are they going to send the black boxes. They probably won't read them in Ethiopia. I don't think they have the facilities there. They may send them to France.

CABRERA: Our understanding is they're sending them to Europe.

GREEN: Right.

CABRERA: And, in fact, did not want to send them to the U.S. for this investigation. And why is that?

GREEN: There's a history of nations with companies -- you know, with Egypt Air, for example, after there was a crash of an Egypt Air aircraft, there have been concerns whether the investigators in Egypt are really going to do a fair and full investigation. Here, I think people are looking at America and say, you've got an American airline, America kind of slow walking the response to this emergency, we don't want this to be read over there and find out that it's the pilot's fault and not Boeing's fault. I think that that's a little overblown, because I think more of our FAA, I think more of Boeing, for example. I do agree, I think I would want -- I do agree with Les. One thing I would say is facts matter in this investigation. We need to learn these facts. I think grounding the aircraft until we have a good sense was the right move. And I wish America had led on this rather than kind of responding to Canada and many other countries.

CABRERA: Do you believe that Boeing has been transparent enough in the process so far?

GREEN: It's hard -- you know, honestly, I don't want to throw stones. I represent families in airplane crashes. We may actually be in litigation against Boeing out of this crisis, so I don't want to throw stones at Boeing until we know more.

CABRERA: Let me turn to Tom Foreman who's joining us.

Gentlemen, please stay with me, as well.

Tom, did the president have any choice here? The bottom line is this country was the last to ground these planes.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, pretty close to it. He was certainly running out of options. The pressure was mounting ever since the weekend. We started hearing more voices from the U.S. Senate saying, you've got to do something about this. Some of them were a little timid to begin with, but they were growing louder. Aviation analysts were growing louder. And when Canada tipped over the edge here and said it was grounding the planes, you started saying, where were these planes going to go. If our nearest, biggest partner is no longer in the game, let's go ahead and do something.

He did say that there was enough information about the crash in Africa that led to this immediate grounding of the aircraft. We don't know what that information is. There's been a lot of anticipation about what we will get out of voice recorder and the data recorder from that plane. We don't know what that is yet. And we don't know what this is about. Remember, Canada, when they stopped this earlier today, they said they were using new analysis of satellite tracking of airplanes and that contributed to their decision. We don't know if that information was shared with the administration and that's what made this happen.

We do know that the president has been a very strong supporter of Boeing and Boeing has been a strong supporter of him. In fact, the acting head of the DOD is a former Boeing person out there. Nikki Haley, who just left as the ambassador to the U.N., has been just appointed to the Boeing board. There's a lot of cross-pollination here between Boeing and this administration. Many people were saying, that's why he wouldn't do anything. Obviously, that's not the case, or at least not the case now, that he has taken this action.

But to your basic question, did he have a choice? Yes, he did have a choice, but that choice was getting narrower and narrower. And now it seems like it would have been a bit of a quixotic thing to say, oh, we're going to keep standing up against this when the whole world is saying, let's get some answers first.

Especially, and don't forget, we're only talking about a few dozen planes of this variety in the United States. If you park them all, it has very, very little impact on the tens of thousands that fly every day. It's not like the air transportation system cannot withstand parking these planes. Again, all the more reason that critics said, why not just park them and sort it out. Why take any sort of risk -- Ana?

CABRERA: That is such an important point. It seems like a no- brainer.

And, Les, I keep coming back to this question, what would have happened if this plane crashed in the U.S.? Wouldn't actions have been different up until this point?

[14:40:05] ABEND: I can't get into the minds of the FAA or the politics involved in it but, yes, I'm certain it would be. Logic would dictate that. Absolutely.

CABRERA: And you heard what Tom Foreman just said about the potential impact to travelers in terms of how many flights are going to be impacted now being on the ground. Does that jive with what you know in terms of how these airlines operate, Les? ABEND: Well, it does. But let's remember, I mean, not that safety

isn't paramount in the operation of this kind of situation, but discounting safety, it's not only -- granted there are fewer of those airplanes in this country -- I believe it's 24 with American and 34 with Southwest -- it's still going to have a domino effect. In other words, not only are passengers going to misconnect, but also, you know, the crews are going to be able to -- are going to misconnect with their flights and other connections to other types of 737s, for the crew. So it will create kind of a domino effect. It's not -- it's not a horrific situation, but it still will sort of multiply.

CABRERA: OK, everyone, stand by.

As we heard the president mention, we are expecting an announcement from the FAA soon, possibly Boeing, as well. We'll bring that to you as soon as it happens. Stay with us.

We're also following other breaking news today. Prosecutors in New York filing new charges against Paul Manafort just minutes after his sentencing in D.C. The sentencing was just one of Mueller's key moves this week. Are we closer to a final report?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:45:50] TRUMP: They want it solved quickly. They don't know the problem yet. They have to find the problem. But they don't know the problem. It could be a lot of different things. So they have to find it. And they will find it. The United States has the greatest record in the world of aviation, and we want to keep it that way. So I didn't want to take any chances. We didn't have to make this decision today. We could have delayed it. We maybe didn't have to make it at all. But I felt -- I felt it was important both psychologically and in a lot of other ways. And again, working with Canada, working with other countries, we just felt it was the right thing to do.

And also, in speaking to Boeing, and speaking to airlines. I spoke with American Airlines. I spoke with a number of airlines. And speaking to the airlines, I think that we all agree that this was the right decision to make. Didn't have to be made, but we thought it was the right decision to make, OK?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, are you confident the FAA acted quickly enough?

TRUMP: Oh, yes, they acted very quickly. And we acted also very fact-based and very much working with other countries and with the airlines. OK?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, will you pardon Paul Manafort? TRUMP: I have not even given it a thought as of this moment. It's

not something that's right now on my mind. I do feel badly for Paul Manafort, that I can tell you.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What about the second set of charges?

TRUMP: I don't know about that. They're going after him for state taxes?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: No, they're going after him in New York State. He faced federal charges and he's been sentenced on federal charges. Right after the sentencing took place here in Washington, D.C., the Manhattan district attorney filed state charges against him, which would seem to be a way to get around the effect of any pardon --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I don't know anything about it. I haven't heard that. I'll take a look at it.

Yes, sir?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) -- in Congress are working on another bill on the national emergency declaration that would curb future presidents from being able to declare an emergency. Are you supportive of that?

TRUMP: I'll have to take a look at what they're going to present. They are coming over in a little while just to present something, but we're in very good shape in terms of the money and in terms of the national emergency. Ultimately, we're in very good shape.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

TRUMP: And we've had great support from the House, from House Republicans. And we have great support from most, as you know, from most of the Senate, from most of the Republican Senate. Because this is really a bill on border safety, border security, and it's a bill on, I would say, maybe more than anything else, we're here talking about drug trafficking. And you people know the subject better than anybody. We're talking about drugs, we're talking about human trafficking. This is a bill on human trafficking, on drugs, on all of the things that we're all gathered in this room -- we brought up the problem with the Boeing and the jet liners. It's a big problem, but we were really here for another reason, and I thought we should bring this up because you're going to be having a meeting in about a half an hour with the FAA. But this is really a vote not on constitutionality, because it's constitutional. It's not a vote on precedent, because you take a look at what President Obama did with DACA and with so many other things that was unprecedented. This is a vote on border security and it's a vote on drugs and trafficking and all of that. And I think most Republican Senators fully understand that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Senator Rand Paul said that there were a number of Republican Senators who were beaten up and pretty bloody because the White House has been going after them to not vote in favor of this bill. How much effort have you been putting into keeping Republicans with you?

TRUMP: Yes, nobody's beaten up. I said, use your own discretion, but I think it's a bad vote if they go against. I think anybody going against border security, drug trafficking, human trafficking, that's a bad vote. The Democrats are for open borders, they're for crime. I mean, frankly, they're for crime. These people can tell you that better than anyone. When you have open borders, when you don't have walls, Mike, you know it very well, all of you folks know it very well -- we deal with it all the time. I guess they think it's good politically. I think it happens to be bad politically. I think it's an 80 percent issue and maybe more than that. But the Democrats, in order to make things difficult, they offer open borders and they're for crime. And the Republicans aren't. But I told Republican Senators, vote any way you want. Vote how you feel good. But I think it's bad for a Republican Senator, I also think it's bad for a Democrat Senator to vote against border security and to vote against the wall. I think if they vote that way, it's a very bad thing for them, long into the future.

Steve?

[14:50:29] UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The China trade deal, does it have to include intellectual property?

TRUMP: Yes, it does. It has to include everything.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But this could all fall apart.

TRUMP: Anything can, but I think we're doing very well. I would say -- I tell you, I'm very open about it, because I'm very happy with the way we are right now. We're collecting billions and billions of tariffs. The money we have pouring in now, we've never had money like that pouring in from China. We are collecting billions and billions of dollars, mostly paid for by China. If you look at the 25 percent, a report was done where four points out of the 25 percent are paid for by us and 21 points are paid for by China. So we're in a very good position. One way or the other. I think the deal is going to be made. I think there's a very good chance a deal is going to be made. And officially, we're doing very well on the deal. But we'll see what happens.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

TRUMP: I think you always have to be 50/50. And 50/50 is very good. But I think even if you felt you were better than 50/50, you should never say it. I think 50/50 is good.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What gives you optimism?

TRUMP: They want to make a deal. China wants very much to make a deal. China has not been doing well. We have been doing unbelievably well. Our economy is the best it's ever been, just about ever. You look at our unemployment numbers, if it's African-American, if it's Asian, if it's Hispanic, they're the best historic numbers, in history. In the history of our country, they're the best numbers we've ever had. And overall employment, the best in 61 years. And that's going to soon be a record if we keep going the way we're going, that's going to soon be a record, but it's the best in 61 years. Our country is doing great. China would like to make a deal and we would like to make a deal. We'll see. We have a good relationship. I have a very good relationship with President Xi. We're going to see what happens.

But it's an exciting time in terms of trade. We just made a deal with Mexico/Canada. We just made a deal with South Korea. We have other deals that we have cooking. And frankly, our country was being taken advantage of by everybody. We were getting -- what was happening to our country on trade was a horrible thing, that this wasn't done years ago. And I'm not talking about the Obama administration. I'm talking about that and plenty of other administrations before it. That they could have allowed this to happen. We lost, over the last number of years, almost $800 billion a year on trade. What kind of deal -- who's making these deals? So we're making great deals or we're not going to make them at all. We're going to do tariffs.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Are you in favor of nailing down a deal before -- (INAUDIBLE)

TRUMP: It doesn't matter to me. I'll go either way. I think President Xi saw that I'm somebody that believes in walking when a deal is not done. And there's always a chance that could happen and he probably wouldn't want that. That could be a reason. But we can do it either way. We can have the deal completed and come and sign or we can get the deal almost completed and negotiate some of the final points. I would prefer that, but it doesn't matter that much.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTON)

TRUMP: He's doing a great job. Shanahan is doing a fantastic job as secretary -- as the acting secretary.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Would you nominate him?

TRUMP: I'm just telling you, he's done a great job. Look what we've done with respect to the caliphate in Syria. I was told by our previous person that it was going to take two years to knock it out. And I did it in three weeks once we started. Did it really in less. And now -- I have a great group of people. We are -- we are surrounded by some tremendous talent in this building. We have great secretaries and a lot of great people. I don't think they get the credit for the job they're doing. You take a look at the economy, you take a look at regulations, take a look at tax cuts, take a look at all of the things that we have done, we have great people in this government.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Any update on North Korea?

TRUMP: No update, no. No.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Seem to have a very good relationship. We'll let you know about it.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Any idea when the Mueller report is coming down?

TRUMP: I have no. Have no idea. I can only tell you one thing, again, that was proven today, no collusion. There's no collusion. There's no collusion and there hasn't been collusion. And it was all a big hoax. And you know it. It was done and stated by the Democrats, because they lost an election that they should have won, because the Electoral College, it's a big advantage for Democrats, not for Republicans. And they should have. And I ran the clock out. We ran the whole thing. We ran up the east coast, from North Carolina to Pennsylvania. Then we go up to Wisconsin and Michigan, states that hadn't been won for many, many years. We won those states. And they said, how do we solve this horrible problem. We lost an election that, in theory, some people -- I didn't, but some people thought they were going to win, right? And they said, I have an idea, let's blame Russia. It was a hoax. It was all a big hoax. And now you're seeing it. Today, again, no collusion. The other day, no collusion. There was no collusion. When I had to go to Wisconsin, I went to Wisconsin. When I had to go to Michigan and Pennsylvania and South Carolina and North Carolina, that's where I would go. When I had to go to Florida, which we won easily, I went to Florida. You don't call Russia when you go to Florida. Russia won't help you much.

[14:55:43] Have a good time, everybody. Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: OK, the president there taking number of questions from reporters following his announcement that they are issuing an emergency order to ground all Boeing 737 MAX 8s and MAX 9s after the two crashes involving that same kind of aircraft.

The president also asked about Manafort, and despite the obvious falsehood that the Democrats are for crime and the falsehood that no collusion was proven today, the president also saying that he hasn't given thought to pardoning Manafort. The man who led President Trump's presidential campaign was sentenced today to additional time in federal prison. That brings Manafort's total sentence in two separate cases to seven and a half years behind bars.

And minutes after this news dropped, new legal trouble. The prosecutor with the Manhattan's district attorney office announced state fraud charges against Manafort.

Jessica Schneider is a CNN justice correspondent and joins us now.

Jessica, to repeat, it's just not true that no collusion was proven today in the Manafort case.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. We were waiting for the president to comment on this. He did it after the Virginia sentencing on Twitter. Today, doing it in person. Insisting falsely that this proves that there was no collusion. I want to take you back to a week ago, the Virginia judge during Paul

Manafort's sentencing, he referenced collusion saying this case was not about collusion. And today, in the D.C. court, Amy Berman Jackson, Ana, she did it a lot more clearly in saying, forcefully, that this case was not about collusion. And this is exactly what she said earlier today. She said, "Any conspiracy, collusion was not presented in this case, therefore, it was not resolved in this case."

So the president's insistence that collusion was ruled out last week in Virginia and ruled out again today in D.C., that's just not accurate.

As for Paul Manafort himself, the president not commenting again on whether or not a pardon might be in the future for Paul Manafort, but the president saying it's a sad situation, he feels badly for it. And also not commenting on those additional charges have been filed by the New York district attorney in Manhattan for a mortgage fraud scheme. So the president talking a bit about Paul Manafort, refusing to rule out a pardon once again, as he's refused to rule out again in the past, and wrongly saying that collusion was ruled out in these two sentences last week and today in D.C. -- Ana?

CABRERA: Thank you very much, Jessica Schneider.

I want to restate, if you're just joining us, President Trump just issued an emergency order to ground all Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets and also the larger MAX 9, effective immediately.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 MAX 8 and the 737 MAX 9 and planes associated with that line. Any plane currently in the air will go to its destination and, thereafter, be grounded until further notice. So planes that are in the air will be grounded. If they're the 737 MAX, will be grounded upon landing at the destination. Pilots have been noted, airlines have been all notified. Airlines are agreeing with this. The safety of the American people and all people are our paramount concern.

Our hearts go out to all of those who lost loved ones, to their friends, to their families in both the Ethiopian and the Lion Airline crashes that involved the 737 MAX aircraft. It's a terrible, terrible thing.

Boeing is an incredible company. They are working very, very hard right now and, hopefully, they'll very quickly come up with the answer, but until they do, the planes are grounded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Pressure had been mounting, of course, for the FAA to ground the jets, which were involved in two deadly plane crashes in just the past five months. And the U.S. was the final nation to make this call. Possibly adding to the pressure, reports of at least five pilots in

the U.S. who had anonymously filed these safety complaints about the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets.