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[21:00:10] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for joining us for a second hour of "360."
Last night around this time ago, where the President-elect Trump and Carrier, the air conditioning and heating manufacture who reached a deal to keep about a thousand jobs in the U.S., it was a promise that Trump made early in his campaign. Today, Carrier confirmed that he's going to continue to make gas furnaces in Indianapolis, a move it says will save more than a thousand jobs that would have been lost to Mexico.
Carrier released a statement saying and I quote, "Today's announcement is possible because of the incoming Trump-Pence administration has emphasized to us its commitment to support the business community and create an improve, more competitive U.S. business climate. The incentives offered by the state were an important consideration. Statement went on to say this agreement in no way diminishes our belief in the benefits of free trade and that the forces of globalization will continue to require solutions for the long-term competitiveness of the U.S. and American workers moving forward."
Now the details the deal are not yet known but for Carrier employees, there's no a question at Christmas has come early. Martin Savidge tonight reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Employee reaction to the Trump- Carrier deal ranges from celebration.
ROBERT PRICE, CARRIER WORKER: I'm ecstatic. You know, this is -- it just I double a smile on my face.
SAVIDGE: To surprise.
DENISE GIBBS, CARRIER WORKER: I was surprised, definitely a surprised.
SAVIDGE: To disbelief.
PATRICK LEATH, CARRIER WORKER: A part of me is happy. But a part of me is still saying, you know, is this really true, because we are business back in February that the company is leaving. I mean, they've made that known.
SAVIDGE: That they did. Here's Carrier last spring, breaking the news to its 1,400 employees saying it had reached a decision.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is to move production from our facility in Indianapolis to Monterey, Mexico.
SAVIDGE: Employees never saw it coming.
GIBBS: Yeah, definitely devastated, unexpected at my age, I was just wondering, what can I do?
SAVIDGE: Now nine months later, another bolt from the blue tweeted by Carrier. "We are pleased to have reached a deal with President-elect Trump and VP-elect Pence to keep close to 1,000 jobs in Indy." That was followed quickly by Trump saying, "We will keep our companies and jobs in the U.S. Thanks, Carrier.
They're not celebrating, they're not cheering, they're not ...
GIBBS: No because there's they're just not sure.
SAVIDGE: That's because other than saying there is a deal, hardly any information has being revealed about what is the deal. So what is that you still want to hear?
BRIAN TAYOR, CARRIER WORKER: Will we keep the same pay, one, two, how long will it stay?
SAVIDGE: The arrangement keeps close to a thousand jobs. But Carrier employs over 1400 in Indianapolis, begging the question, just whose job is saved and whose isn't?
So what have people have work on the assembly line saying?
GIBBS: I mean, some, some are confident. Some are, you know, some are really happy. Some are like me, kind of skeptical and unsure really, how it's going to really play out.
SAVIDGE: And that's not all. Just about a mile from the Carrier facility sits Rexnord another manufacturing plant. Last month, it announced it, too, was moving to Mexico, taking more than 300 jobs with it. The Carrier rescue brings mixed feelings.
The people of Rexnord they have got to be happy for their friends at Carrier but then they also say, what about my job?
CHUCK JONES, REXNORD UNION LEADER: Yeah, that's what they are saying. So, you know, there's some optimism there. You know, I mean, I don't think anybody is really overly excited but, you know, what Trump doing at he did at Carrier, maybe there's something can be done there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Martin joins us now. I mean Carrier and their statement, did give some indications about incentives from the state, but do we have any real indication about how the president-elect and vice president- elect were able to get Carrier to keep the jobs in the U.S.?
SAVIDGE: No, we really don't. And getting to those incentives coming from the state, remember back in February when Carrier announced it was leaving, Mike Pence who was the governor and not yet running then mate to Donald Trump tried very hard to keep Carrier in the state and would have offered very heavy state incentives. So what was different this time around, some say, no, it's got to be more than that. Maybe there were promises made by the Trump administration to reduce some federal regulations or maybe there is this talk of general overhaul of the corporate tax code that would benefit more than just Carrier.
The employees, their favorite rendition of this is that, remember, that there's a parent company to Carrier and that parent company United Technologies does a lot of defense contract work, billions of dollars worth of it every year. They believe that maybe the Trump administration insinuated that work could go away if Carrier went to Mexico. Anderson?
COOPER: But that's just what workers are telling you. There's no -- we don't know on that.
SAVIDGE: Correct. No. That is just their favorite speculation and maybe tomorrow, when the governor and when president-elect will be here, we may finally here.
[21:05:02] COOPER: All right.
SAVIDGE: Really motivated this deal.
COOPER: Martin Savidge thanks. A lot to talk about, back now with the panel.
Karine, do you give Donald Trump and Mike Pence credit?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, CLINTON SUPPORTER: Yeah, look, if I would love to hear more of how this came to be but this it -- yeah absolutely, saving thousand job especially this time of year when holidays can be really tough for families, I think that's great.
I do believe that this is just to -- he can't just do this one company at a time. He has to really -- if he wants to be serious about it, he has to figure out how to do this more broadly. A lot of that is, you know, trying to figure out how do you stop out sourcing, how do you save workers' jobs. And I know there's a bill that Sanders is proposing it's called, I think Outsourcing Prevention Act. That would be a great thing to see Donald Trump say, hey, I support something like that.
So I think it's just a temporary answer and I think he needs to really work on it more broadly.
KIRSTEN POWERS, USA TODAY COLUMNIST: Yeah I think -- and so I've already give him credit for this, I think this was great. But the reality is, most of the manufacturing jobs are not being lost in and because of trade. They're being lost because of automation about 85 percent of them are actually lost because of automation. So he needs to really have a plan to deal with that because that's the big problem. And instead, trade has kind of become the boogieman and everybody is trying to blame it on that. But that's not really what the problem is unlike Karine is saying, he can't do this company by company. This would -- this was this wouldn't work.
COOPER: I think, Peter, you know, what Trump supporters are saying and, you know, the Carrier kind of intimated it is tax incentives, not just, you know, incentives in the state but a general climb in the U.S. that's more pro business.
PETER BEINART, CONTRIBUTOR THE ATLANTIC: Right. But let's be clear, this is I mean this is also what was called corporate welfare, right. I mean, you're basically paying these companies essentially to keep the jobs here out of taxpayer money. And it creates a kind of a moral hazard, right. Why -- what's to stop the next U.S. company from staying, you know, great, I'm going to threaten to go to Mexico and get the same sweetheart deal that Carrier did. I think that's the danger here.
ALICE STEWART, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Yeah, and what I think Anderson -- I think having worked in a governor's office before, there's a great deal governors can do in states and economic developments in each states can do to help attract business and to keep businesses there. Clearly, this was a case where they were able to keep things in Indiana and it needed help from an outside negotiator which in this case ended up being Donald Trump. And I think maybe there needs to be a partnership between state and federal to make this happen.
But to avoid what Peter's referring to, I think tomorrow they're roll out the details of this. This could be a consistent policy across the board so there's no inferences of picking winners and losers here and making sure that they show that, whether it's a stick with going overseas and giving them a horse taxes to bring that goods back or it's a carrot by providing that send of to keep them here. I think that's the key and it's a great success and it's good to be able to show that his policies are working and this is a clear example for that.
ALEX BURNS, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, and this is I mean what Alice is alluding to right, is that we've seen competition between states forever to give these kinds of handouts to companies. So, you know, please locate your plant here in Tennessee as opposed to and, you know, across the border in Ohio because of our labor laws or a minimum wage laws.
Traditionally, the view and, you know, the last -- I mean, has for presidency as far back as we can recalls, look, as a country, we just can't compete with, you know, Mexico or Vietnam for labor conditions and a lax regulation on the private sector. And if Trump now is everybody is been saying here right to Trump really does want to make it his chief priority to keep jobs in the U.S. and avoid them going overseas because of trade not even -- and before even if address the issue of automation. You do need some kind of blanket policy. And we've not really heard that from him yet and as with basically everything that he talked about during the campaign, he has set an exceptionally high bar for himself in terms of what his voters are going to expect him to be doing.
COOPER: And if results in higher prices for consumers, then how will, you know, consumers react to that?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, and I think he does have a blanket policy. Namely, that Martin pointed out the fact that they were offered incentives before. They still pledged to move these jobs to Mexico. Well what's different now, what's different now is you have a president who says I'm going to lower what is the highest corporate tax rate really in the free world, I'm going to make the maximum tax rate a business pays 15 percent. That provide a lot of encouragement for this companies to keep jobs here because they see they'll be keeping more of their revenue in their buckets. That is a broad policy.
And I also think the carrot and sticks point, there are going to be some sticks. There might be some taxes on import, you might see if you build a car in Mexico, you're going to pay a heavy price for, that's the mixed of this ...
STEWART: Right.
MCENANY: ... but there -- to say there's no broad policy.
BURNS: If this was, purely a function or broad policy related to taxes in regulation, why aren't we seeing dozens of companies suddenly ask ...
MCENANY: I think he will. Look his 50 days from being ...
BURNS: I guess we'll find out.
MCENANY: ... his 50 days from being president of the United States and they've really good start that he's already creating a thousand new jobs here and ...
BURNS: No, and I mean saving jobs and that's not -- I'm not taking anything away from him. But the point is this is a sort of gubernatorial-level policy that he's executing here with Carrier and to do that on a national level it's extraordinary difficult.
[21:10:01] COOPER: Do you think the, I mean, the issues of, you know, some of the folks from the financial sector who he has been appointing -- I mean, from those who voted for him, do you think that matters for those, you know who wanted training this swamp ...
POWERS: No -- I've, yeah, well I think first of all he has a lot good well from the people who voted for him.
COOPER: Sure.
POWERS: But I think he's -- yeah, it's a little bit of leeway and it's true that people don't like Wall Street but tough distinguish between -- there was an article in the Harvard Business review about it was called what people don't get about the working class and they are really talking about the white working class. And if the fact of they really they admire the rich, especially the superrich in a very successful, like Donald Trump. And who they really resent our professionals, so lawyers, doctors, journalists, you know, teachers, people who they feel are sort of looking down on them. And so I do think when they look at some of these people they see highly successful people like Donald Trump who have made it.
And so the question is, how does that balance out with the fact that they don't like Wall Street and I think that remains to be seen.
COOPER: Did you -- do you -- I mean, do you think it matters?
BEINART: Look, I don't think the issue is not just whether some working Wall Street. Is Elizabeth Warren thing to what are the policies? So the tax policy, for instance, right the independent analyst, not just liberals but our center-right as well have said that, that you're going to get at 1 percent reduction in taxes for middle class people and a 10 or 15 percent reduction for rich people.
So think more ordinary Americans are not going to see on a benefit from that. Doesn't so much matter that if the person is doing it from Wall Street of that department. They're simply not going to benefit from those kind of tax policies.
COOPER: It's so fascinated that tomorrow that we're going to see Alex, you know, the president-elect and the vice president-elect going out on basically a victory tour. They're calling it a victory tour. I mean, I don't think we've ever seen that before.
BURNS: They're calling it thank you tour.
(CROSSTALK)
BURNS: No, I mean this is part of, you know, you heard almost immediately after the election, even before the election for folks in the Trump camp tour optimistic, this sense that he likes getting out there, he's going to want to keep doing this, you're going to have to let him do it. There are people talking about doing it that week. They've obviously waited a ways. But, you know, look its pretty normal, actually, for a president, once he takes office, to get out and around the country and make policy announcements, do your sort of factory tour level stuff. This part is unusual to sit -- have somebody out there even before the take off. There's easy a little deference to the sitting president to say, you know, I'm not in the job yet.
COOPER: But I mean, it does say a lot about Donald Trump and what he whether its what he needs or what he likes that getting out there, mixing it up whether it's on Twitter or in person. I mean I think going out on the campaign trail, I think he saw how much he liked that experience.
STEWART: I think really in us to thank you to. I think it's a great gesture to show appreciation for his supporters and those who really worked hard to -- and voted for him. But also there have been some in his campaign that have said, yes, he does like the rallies, he does likes interaction with people, he does like to get the feedback from them. So this is, you know, maybe it's a reward for him for all this hard work.
MCENANY: But it's also...
STEWART: I think it's a well gesture.
MCENANY: Yeah, exactly and he's taking this message directly to the American people. And he's always been about getting his message out there without filters and he does that via Twitter and via rallies and I think that's a really good thing.
COOPER: All right, a lot more to discuss over the rest to of the hour. Donald Trump is now vowing to cut ties with his business empire, I should say the business operations to avoid the perception of conflicts to the interest. One of the potential problems is new Washington, D.C., hotel, when e's obviously very proud of. Well some critics are now raising questions about the hotel coming up.
Also tonight, a "360" exclusive, Senator Elizabeth Warren blasting the Trump transition, plus, her take on the election results and more.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:17:06] COOPER: Today, president-elect Trump vowed to cut his ties with his business empire with the orbit -- the running of it on Twitter he wrote, quote "I will be holding a major news conference in New York City with my children on December 15th to discuss the fact that I'll be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to make America great again. While I'm not mandated to do this under law, I feel it's visually important as president, to a no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses. Hence, legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations. The presidency is a far more important task."
Where on to stay still, many are asking -- oh that's actually that within the tweets. But many though are still asking about, exactly how Donald Trump will go about this with his newest business venture and for instance, just down the street from the White House. Randi Kaye, tonight reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Trump International Hotel in the heart of Washington, D.C., luxury at its best, so its no surprise that the kingdom of Bahrain chose the hotel to celebrate its king in the launching next month. Trouble is the hotel is owned by president- elect Donald Trump. And the United States constitution banned officials from accepting payments from foreign powers without congressional approval.
RICHARD PAINTER, CHIEF ETHICS LAWYER FOR PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: The government of Bahrain is going to be paying for this event at the Trump Hotel. This particular transaction could very well be in violation.
KAYE: It's all spelled out in Article I, Section XI, known is the Foreign Emoluments Clause. The clause is designed to prevent the U.S. government official from profiting from his officer employment. It bars the president and others from accepting anything from any king, prince or foreign state.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF UNITED STATES: This is the most coveted piece of real estate in Washington, D.C., the best location.
KAYE: Now Trump's D.C. hotel house in the historic post office pavilion is ratcheting up the conversation about Trump's business affairs and whether they will present a conflict of interest once, he's sworn in.
PAINTER: He needs to sell the assets, get the cash, a lot of couple billion dollars, which is a nice start in life for him and his kids and then he can become president of the United States.
KAYE: Another potential problem with this hotel is that Donald Trump is leasing the property from the federal government. So when he becomes president, he could end up being both landlord and tenant. That's tricky because federal contracting laws actually prohibit awarding a government contract to a federal employee.
The government services administration or GSA leased the federal property to the Trump organization for 60 years for $180 million. That lease also states that no elected official of the government of the United States shall be admitted to any share or part of this lease or to any benefit that may arise there from.
TRUMP: This was a GSA and that was one of the most heavily bid projects ever in the history of GSA.
KAYE: The GSA may have to breach the contract making it liable for tends of million in monetary damages to the president. President Trump or his family could also end up sewing the GSA, which the president oversees if lease is violated.
[21:20:08] PAINTER: He already has another place on Pennsylvania have to they ought to be all looking after for the next four years and that hotel ought to belong to someone else.
KAYE: A Trump spokeswoman told us that a top priority is the immediate transfer of management of the Trump Organization and its portfolio of businesses to Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump, without offering specifics, the spokesman said Trump will comply with all applicable rules and regulations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: And the former White House ethics lawyer that I spoke with today for that story Anderson had a couple of scenarios that he suggested. He said that Donald needs to get rid of his businesses. Don't sell it to his children, don't give it to his children, get it out of the family.
He also suggested that Congress has some type of resolution and directly at Donald Trump insisting that he suggest (ph), that he get rid of his business and if he refuses to do so, that he has to provide proof that he's not violating any of the clauses in that constitution. So certainly a lot to be worked out Anderson before an operation, back to you.
COOPER: Randi, thanks very much.
A lot to discuss. Joining me is CNN chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, and back with us our political analyst, Alex Burns, and national political reporter for "The New York Times", and Kirsten Powers, the "USA Today" columnist.
Gloria, Bahrain hosting the event at Trump's Hotel, I mean regardless of whether or not they have any ulterior motive here, this is the kind of thing that certainly could raise questions going forward.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure, because it looks like a country, not just a person but a country is actually trying to curry favor with the president-elect to the United States and, as Randi Kaye points out in her piece, this is actually a constitutional issue once he becomes president. It's illegal to do that. And one other thing I ought to point out here, is that it wasn't that long ago when Donald Trump was complaining that Hillary Clinton was mixing personal gain with policy over at the State Department and the Clinton Foundation. So he understands very well that this could be a big problem for him. He made it into a big problem for Hillary Clinton it became one of his major talking points.
COOPER: Alex, I mean President-elect Trump saying look he's going to take himself out of business operations, he's going to have a press conference with more details on this later but that's not ownership and ownership is important.
BURNS: Ownership is really the whole ball game if Hillary Clinton wasn't involved in the operations of the Clinton Foundation when she was Secretary of State, but the web of financial connections raised some really serious questions that were major campaign issues. If you have a president of the United States, then I don't think anybody expects Donald Trump as president to be, you know, involved in little ribbon cuttings at new hotels around the world or imagine the operations of the Trump Hotel in Washington.
But when you have day to day a president making policy that involves countries, other spending money in his businesses that is a much, much more complicated preposition.
COOPER: And then of course, the others it was his children, if they're running the company, are they also advising him?
BURNS: Right? And he is then pretty open that his children are going to have a role, flexibles, sort of undefined role. And his administration that we've seen, Ivanka Trump seat on meeting with world leaders and a potential administration of point is already.
COOPER: But, you know, just a point Alex -- Kristen, in the sense, this was already baked in to the election. I mean, Donald Trump talked about this before he won the election. Voters had a chance to assess whether or not they cared enough to not allow him to be the president. He said, you know, that he was going to figure out something to do. He didn't talk about, you know, selling all of his businesses. Voters made their choice.
POWERS: Well, I mean -- I don't know about that. I mean, I think that there was maybe it's an expectation that he would possibly put things into a blind trust or try to figure out some way to distance himself, and I don't think having the children run the business is really distancing himself considering how close he is to his children. And how, you know, it's not like they talk every now and then they talk all the time and there in official positions on transition team.
And so let's just imagine Chelsea Clinton, is on Hillary's transition team let's just stop right there because there would be hysteria, right. I mean, if Chelsea Clinton was working on the transitions team. And then out of the ...
COOPER: Sitting in a meeting with ...
POWERS: Yes, and sitting in a meeting, I'm sitting and on phone calls with leaders, right. And so you can then pretty quickly see where the problem is. And so the idea that Donald Trump thinks that this is OK, or actually, to be fair, we don't really know what he's going to do. So, we have to wait and see what he's going to do. But I think that anything less than putting it in a blind trust, which the "Wall Street Journal" has said what he needs to do is not really going to be enough.
COOPER: Does he seem to understand the scope of the potential conflicts of the problems because he seems to have moved somewhat, you know, into this position that he's in now, but taking himself out of the business operations.
BORGER: Well, I think he does understand it more and more every single day as he kind of comes to grips with what the coming president means. And I think he's beginning to understand that every foreign policy move he would make, every question about, say, gee, how did you reform the tax code and how does that benefit real estate? What's your policy on interest rates? How does that benefit real estate?
[21:25:12] I think he's beginning to get the sense of that and I have no idea whether they regret the fact that his daughter was sitting in on these meetings but I know for a fact that people raised it and said, gee, maybe -- maybe you shouldn't do that. So I think he sort of coming to terms with this. I mean, a lots of people think he go to just liquidate and sell off it's interest in the company to his kids. And some people are suggesting there's another way to get around this which is to actually appoint a mediator, somebody who would stand between you and your children and kind of make sure that every decision was ethically sound and that the president of the United State was not involved. You know, that might be a solution. But I think he's getting it.
COOPER: The other issue though is, I mean, it sort of raises questions again about his tax returns, because there's a lot -- that's not known really about the sort of the international dealings of his business and whether, I mean, I'm wondering if he says down the road. Well, look, I've taken myself out of the business operations or whatever it is, whatever, you know, situation he sets up, therefore, I don't really need to release my tax returns because it's done. I'm out of it.
POWERS: I mean, he could, but the problem is this, is this similar to the foundation and it gives other people ways to try to curry favor. Right? So that was the problem with the foundation. It was like, why are they giving money to the foundation? Are they giving it because they want to do good work, or they doing it because they want access to the secretary of state?