360-D-01
Aired 8-9p ET - Part 1>
[20:00:05] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. Thanks for joining us.
We begin tonight with the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, tweeting just moments ago about a story that aired just moments ago on CNN, namely Erin Burnett's interview with the union leader at the center of the Carrier story.
Now, here is the tweet. "Chuck Jones, who was prez of United Steelworkers of 1999 has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country."
Martin Savidge joins me now from Indianapolis.
So, Martin, just explain what was going on here, because this man was on Erin Burnett's show and then a short time right afterward, Martin, Donald Trump is tweeting about him.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Right. Donald Trump obviously watches the media very carefully. One thing, he was grateful for the 800 jobs that Trump was able to save, but he felt he was misleading in the major announcement he did last week which was to say 1,100 jobs of 1,400 were saved.
Well, the real math, and we talked about this last week, Anderson, the real math doesn't add up like that way. It's 730 union jobs saved, total 800 saved. So, he was saying essentially it was bait and switch by the president-elect and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, saying that they were saving more jobs than they really were. And Carrier is still getting rewards in the form of tax breaks, even though hundreds of jobs are still going to go away.
COOPER: And I mean, what's particularly interesting about this is just that the president-elect of the United States clearly seems to be watching a lot of television news and responding almost in real-time or shortly after to things he is seeing or I guess in some cases things he's reading.
Martin, thanks very much. We're going to check in with you a little bit later.
Another tweet on a similar subject is another subject tonight. And there's a mystery. The question that flows from it and potentially a lot of jobs at stake. We're going to get to all of that in a second. But I just want to bring in our panel to just talk a little bit about this latest incident of the president-elect tweeting out based on something he's just seen.
Kirsten Powers, I mean, again, we are yet again, we're in uncharted waters here. It is very rare you have a president-elect watching this amount of media coverage and responding in kind of real time.
KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And also the substance of what he said. He said no wonder people are -- companies are fleeing the country. His criticism about why companies are fleeing the country actually is because of trade. And now he's sort of suggesting it's because of union people who aren't representing people properly. That's not never been his argument.
So, he's attacking this union representative because he angered him. And then saying something that I don't think even fits with the narrative of what he's been saying about companies leaving.
COOPER: Jeffrey Lord, I mean, as a Trump story, this is something on the one hand Trump supporters like, they like he has a direct channel to people and that he's counterpunching, that he's engaged.
JEFFREY LORD, TRUMP SUPPORTER: There's two things going on. The United Steelworkers endorsed Hillary Clinton. So, you know, the union that this guy represents was anti-Trump. So, that's not a surprise.
But number two, I want to stick up for him on this issue of Twitter. I mean, I wrote a column a while ago, talking about Abraham Lincoln and the use of the telegraph, FDR in radio, JFK in live televised press conferences, which weren't done.
Twitter is the 21st century. Donald Trump is going to be a seriously 21st century president. This is one of the ways he's going to use to communicate. And to be perfectly candid, he's going to use it to get around us. So, you know, I mean, this is the inevitable technology. He's making great use of it. There's lots of precedent for it. And more power to him.
PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But not for punching down like that. JFK took on the steel industry. He took on U.S. Steel. He didn't take on a steel worker in Indianapolis named Chuck. That's punching down.
And this --
LORD: Powerful unions are not punching down, though.
BEGALA: Mr. Trump, President-elect Trump got elected with an awful lot of steel worker votes.
COOPER: Right. It might have been the leadership voting for Hillary Clinton.
BEGALA: Right.
LORD: Exactly right.
COOPER: But we're talking about the rank and file.
BEGALA: Absolutely. In fact, now, I have read stories where Chuck Jones themselves that he voted --
COOPER: And we should point out, the local union in this case did not endorse --
BEGALA: No, no, Mr. Jones has told the press, if memory served, that he personally voted for Hillary Clinton.
COOPER: And the local union in this case did not endorse any candidate.
BEGALA: Right.
COOPER: But the larger point is, if there is -- if you want to put a face on a Trump voter, it's Chuck Jones, salt of the earth.
LORD: Except he voted for Hillary Clinton.
COOPER: Chuck Jones is actually on the phone. We have him right now.
Mr. Jones, I appreciate you talking to us. First of all, what do you make of the fact that you appear on CNN a short time ago and then you have the president-elect of the United States tweeting against you quite quickly?
CHUCK JONES, CARRIER UNION BOSS (via telephone): You know, to be quite honest, what I did, I did an interview, and I called him out on some of the things that he misled the people on, as far as the actual numbers of jobs he claimed to save.
[20:05:07] And it was 800, it wasn't over 1,100. I give him praise and thanks for everything he did to save the 800 people's jobs. I really appreciate that.
He also during the conference with the Carrier people last Thursday got up and said he never made any commitments, any promises to Carrier people to keep our jobs here, which is a complete falsehood. He said it numerous times on the campaign -- on his campaign speeches. And he denied that.
And so, you know, I mention those two items, and evidently it rubbed him the wrong way. So, you know, things will go on.
COOPER: Yes, he says on the campaign trail, he was talking about Carrier as a symbol, not necessarily meaning Carrier. Clearly, you view it as he said Carrier, he meant Carrier, and that was it.
JONES: Yes, he said Carrier numerous times. He said numerous times, he said, he was president, he wasn't 50 percent sure, he wasn't 75 percent sure, he was 100 percent sure these jobs would not be going to Mexico. He came in and negotiated a deal, he kept 800 jobs here. Nobody is bringing up the fact that 550 are still moving to Monterrey, Mexico. He did a wonderful job with the jobs that he saved. But don't make it sound like it's 1100 when 350 jobs will remain in this country all along, the research and development. That's what I called him out on.
COOPER: I want to put the tweet that he had just sent out about you back up on our screen, because I want to read it to viewers and have you respond. It says, "Chuck Jones who is president of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers, no wonder companies flee the country." To --
JONES: Yes, that's what we do as a labor union. We negotiate fairly living wages and benefits.
So, on the Carrier situation in its entirety, it was all about wages. We can't compete with $3 an hour workers. We've got a skilled workforce. The company has been profitable. But because of corporate greed and unfair trade, they want to move these jobs out of the country.
So, if he wants to blame me, so be it. I look at him, how many millions of dollars he spent on his hotels and casinos trying to keep labor unions out. You know, so, you know, I like my side of it, trying to work the best, make the people's lives as best as they can possibly be.
COOPER: I want to play what you had said or some of what you had said on Erin Burnett's show, which may be what Donald Trump was responding to. I just want to play this.
JONES: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: They announced at that point in time the research and development jobs, about 350 of them, would remain here in Indianapolis. Then when Mr. Trump got involved, what the actual number of jobs saved is 730 bargaining unit jobs, the workers of the union members, and another 70 office supervisory, clerical workers, management.
And what they're doing, they're counting in 350-some-odd more that were never leaving this country at all. And I think he's did a lot of negotiations, and I have likewise, and if you're dealing with people's livelihoods, you sure ought to know what the numbers are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I'm wondering, when did you find out, you know, you had heard the number that Donald Trump had said. When did you find out kind of the details of this, and what did you think when you heard that?
JONES: We were hearing for three days that 1,100 jobs are going to remain in Indianapolis. Nobody tell us, not the company or the Trump people. So, we met with UTC and Carrier people Thursday of last week at noon. And at that point in time, they said, OK, this is what's going to happen, 730 bargaining unit jobs are going to stay here and 70 other jobs.
But what I'm calling Trump out on was the fact that he was counting in the 350 research and development jobs that Carrier announced in February were going to remain here in Indianapolis.
The only thing I was doing is calling him out. What happened on that, Anderson, was our people heard that earlier in the week, and so once again, they got their hopes up that something was going to be done. They was going to have a job, you know?
So, 1,100 and some-odd jobs would remain in Indianapolis. The mood was good.
Now, we have to tell them, he don't mention it on Thursday night, that 550 jobs are going to move to Monterrey, Mexico.
[20:10:01] They leave that alone. Him and Pence both. And then we have to tell our members on Friday because nobody was upfront with them, we're losing 550 members.
You know, that is what upset me, because you got people's hopes up -- 1,100 some-odd jobs are going to remain in Indianapolis, which was wrong and people got false hopes they were going to be able to provide for their families, which ended up not being true. And how many times can these people -- people go through this disappointment. They go through it once when they announced plant closure.
Now, all of a sudden, they get their hopes build up, and the president-elect 1,100 some-odd-jobs are going to remain in Indianapolis, to find out that wasn't the case.
And so, do I have issues with that? Most certainly. Dealing with people's livelihoods and what's more important to a person's livelihood, their health, their family and their jobs, and that got ripped away from them.
COOPER: Mr. Jones, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you so much for talking with us.
JONES: I appreciate it very much.
COOPER: I want to bring in now, Berkeley professor of public policy and former labor secretary, Robert Reich, who's book, "Saving Capitalism For the Many, Not the Few", is just out in paperback.
Mr. Secretary, what do you make of this latest example of Donald Trump responding to something he's read or seen on television?
ROBERT REICH, FORMER LABOR SECRETARY: Well, Donald Trump is doing this a lot, Anderson. He's using Twitter. He has these tweets going out against people who criticize him. Not only Chuck, the person you just talked to, Chuck Jones, but also Alec Baldwin when he satirized Mr. Trump on "Saturday Night Live", also individual journalists who criticized Donald Trump. Let me just say because Donald Trump is probably watching right now, let me just say with all due respect, Mr. Trump, you are president- elect of the United States. You are looking and acting as if you are mean and petty, thin-skinned and vindictive. Stop this.
This is not a Fireside chat. This is not what FDR did. This isn't lifting people up. This is penalizing people for speaking their minds.
What you did with Boeing the other day, minutes after the CEO of Boeing was quoted as saying that you, Mr. Trump, you, President-elect Trump were wrong on international trade, what did you do? You tweeted that Boeing should have an order canceled. You called it a $4 billion order. And that meant Boeing's own share prices plummeted.
So, in other words Mr. Trump, what you would like is for no one, not a CEO, nobody on television, no journalist, nobody to criticize you. You take offense at that. Well you are going to be president very shortly. You are going to have at your command not just Twitter, but also the CIA, the IRS, the FBI. If you have this kind of thin skinned vindictiveness attitude towards anyone who criticizes you, we are in very deep trouble. And sir, so are you.
COOPER: I want to -- Jeffrey Lord, to the notion that he is thin- skinned and this is vindictiveness to what Secretary Reich was saying. What do you say what?
LORD: Well, first of all, I think this is being vastly overblown. Anderson, I was just looking at the letter that Harry Truman, President Harry Truman wrote to his daughter's -- a critic of his daughter's singing. Enclosed the paragraph, "Someday I hope to meet you." This is the sitting president of the United States.
"Someday, I hope to meet you. When that happens, you will need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes and perhaps a supporter below."
I can only tell you, Donald Trump isn't even close to Harry Truman here. I think we're just getting overworked on this. What he's setting here is the principle. This is the 21st century. He's going to respond to his critics and good for him.
COOPER: Secretary Reich, what do you say to that? That this is just a modern form of communication and Donald Trump is, you know, bypassing the media and talking directly and this is just a sign of the times?
REICH: Well, this is the 21st century. And Twitter as a medium that communicates directly -- it's not Harry Truman. This is communicating directly to millions and millions of Americans and this is about specific personal criticism.
A lot of people read this kind of personal criticism and what are they going to do? They are going to feel critical of that person as well. This is kind of -- this is bullying. This is not using the bully pulpit. This is bullying. LORD: Come on.
REICH: Jeff, I mean, does Donald Trump seem thin-skinned to you? I mean, going after Alec Baldwin? I mean, he is about to be the most powerful man in the entire world.
LORD: Donald Trump, one of the problems, Karl Rove noted this years ago about his feeling that the Bush White House, the Bush 43 White House made a mistake when the critics were going after Bush on Iraq and Bush lied all of this kind of thing.
[20:15:01] And that they didn't answer it. So, they left the impression out there.
One of the things that I personally asked Donald Trump when I interviewed him two years ago was this was a criticism of Republican nominees. They don't fight back. Will you do that?
He assured me he absolutely would do it. And this is what we're seeing and good for him.
COOPER: Paul, what about that?
BEGALA: Mr. Trump, President-elect Trump did not answer back. Chuck Jones said he lied about the numbers. Apparently, Chuck Jones is right. Still a good thing saving 800 jobs but he lied saying 1,100 wrong.
Instead of saying he got the numbers wrong, which lots of people do, he attacked Chuck Jones personally. And it's not -- by the way, that letter from Harry Truman --
LORD: Yes.
BEGALA: Bill Clinton owns it. It was hanging in the West Wing. And I was working at the White House. It's great. But it was a private letter to a guy who is tracking --
LORD: But it got out in the media.
BEGALA: He was trashing Truman's daughter.
OK, if somebody trashes --
LORD: But, Paul, let me just --
BEGALA: No. Professor Reich is correct.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Let him finish.
LORD: I just want to say this.
BEGALA: It's abuse of power. LORD: I just want to say this. What we're not talking about here is at any time during all of this Carrier event in the campaign, Hillary Clinton could have picked up the phone and done this. President Obama could have picked up the phone and do this.
Neither of them did this. Donald Trump did this.
BEGALA: What they didn't do is pick Twitter and trash a steel worker named Chuck in Indianapolis who's fighting for his job.
COOPER: Monica, you spent a lot of time with Donald Trump.
MONICA LANGLEY, SENIOR SPECIAL WRITER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yes. OK. So, one, I think the Twitter phenomenon is here to stay and especially by Donald Trump, whether he's president in January or not. He's going to keep doing it. It is a huge tool for him.
And it shows how aggressive he's going to be and this is all about the economy and he's going to keep doing it. He used Twitter to his advantage just yesterday with the Japanese billionaire, the SoftBank chairman, who was in town.
What I understand when he was in the office with him he was thinking, well, I may invest $50 billion in the U.S., and apparently, the SoftBank chairman said, you know, if you tweeted it I might commit right now. And Donald Trump is like tweet it right now.
And somebody said, well, just go on down to the lobby. And so, Trump went down to the lobby and so he got this commitment for $50 billion, 50,000 jobs because of a tweet. Now, this Japanese billionaire is also kind of a showman like Donald Trump is in Japan. He has a robot that --
COOPER: There's also questions raised about whether or not there was a prior commitment --
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: He made the commitment back in August.
LANGLEY: Yes.
BEGALA: So, apparently, he just snowballed Trump. He just steam rolled him.
LANGLEY: It's all about discussing a tweet. But it's clear that the tweets that Donald Trump makes are going to be here. It's got to be aggressive and they are going to be punchy.
POWERS: There's nothing wrong with Twitter. I mean, the White House uses Twitter. It is just a question of what you are putting on Twitter.
And I do think Paul's right that -- and Secretary Reich is right. This is bullying. I mean, this is just a regular American citizen. This is not somebody who is necessarily on his level in terms of power.
But I do think -- I said this to someone walking off the set last night. And this has been said before. Last night, he was very presidential. He was very well-behaved. He stayed on the prompter.
And I said to somebody last night, tomorrow, he's going to do something. And that always happens, and this is it.
COOPER: We've got to take a quick break. We're going to have more of this discussion and other incidents. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:21:54] COOPER: We are back talking about Twitter and how the president-elect uses it. Not only that, this practice of Mr. Trump personalizing not just aspects of the economy. But now, some of the players, powerful and not so powerful, specifically this tweet about Carrier. "Chuck Jones," he said, just short time ago, "who was president of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee the country."
We just had Chuck Jones on the phone a short time ago, just at the top of the broadcast. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: To be quite honest what I did, I did a interview. And I called him out on some of the things that he misled the people on as far as the actual numbers of jobs that he claimed to save. And it was 800. It wasn't over 1,100.
I gave him praise and thanks for everything he did to save the 800 people's jobs. I really appreciate that.
He also during the conference with the Carrier people last Thursday, he got up and said he never made any commitments, any promises to Carrier people to keep jobs there, which was complete falsehood. He said it numerous times on the campaign -- on his campaign speeches. And he denied that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And back with the panel, including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
Secretary Reich, I -- do you think -- I mean, do we know how this plays out over time? We've had presidents before who have kept enemies list. Donald Trump certainly has a long memory of people who slighted him, or people he feels have been unfair to him.
I guess one question is, how does this play out over -- you know, right now, it seems, even for those who like Donald Trump tweeting like this, it seems refreshing, it's new, it's different. Over time, does it just seem better and better, or does it not play so well to his supporters even? REICH: Anderson, I think overtime, it becomes more dangerous to democracy, which depends on freedom of the speech and freedom of the press. If people feel are intimidated, if individual people that they cannot criticize the president of the United States because he will, using his Twitter account, or using whatever means he has directly communicate to millions of people personal criticisms of the people who criticized him, then there is going to be a massive intimidation -- a chilling effect on free speech and also on freedom of the press.
This is extremely serious. This is not merely talking about fireside chats or Harry Truman being angry at some critic of his daughters. This goes to the essential core of a democracy.
We're talking about the freedom of people to express their criticisms of the president of the United States, without fear of retribution, without fear that the president of the United States is going to single them out, condemn them and humiliate them in the light of millions of other people.
COOPER: It is pretty -- I'm trying to think of other cases where presidents of the United States have in such a public forum gone after private individuals.
[20:25:04] Not networks. Just, you know, individuals who --
LORD: I think the Obama White House, not only FOX News, but I think they went after Glenn Beck in the day who had a television program. I think they went to great lengths to savage him.
COOPER: I mean --
POWERS: I was very critical of that though. I think that was bad actually for the Obama administration to do that precisely because it comes with the power of the president. And you have the senior White House officials going out and doing this and it is chilling. I just don't think you should be singling out news organizations and attacking them and saying they're not legitimate, which is what they were doing.
So, I mean, I'm being consistent here I think that they shouldn't have been doing it and I don't think Trump --
BEGALA: Well, every president has complained about the press, and sometimes about individual reporters. That's not new.
What I can't think of -- and Jeffrey is a great student of history -- is a time a president-elect or a president has reached all the way into the heart of Middle America. And, frankly, the very profile of a Trump voter.
This is what is the most troubling thing about this, is that, in the main is Mr. Jones is able to come on your broadcast. In the main, he's not able to defend himself. He's not. And Donald Trump with one push of a button reaches 16 million people. Then, we all picked it up as we should and must, then it reaches a billion people.
LANGLEY: What's so interesting --
BEGALA: And poor Chuck Jones can't defend himself. And that is what's so chilling, is if he's going to do that to Chuck Jones, do you know how many CEOs are watching this saying, I'm never going to stick my head up, I don't want to criticize, after what happened to Boeing when Boeing criticizes trade policies. How many other politicians are going to say, oh, yes --
COOPER: And just for the record, Donald Trump said he didn't read that "Chicago Tribune" article in which the CEO of Boeing was quoted. He did come out very shortly after that article.
LANGLEY: What's really interesting is I watched the last couple of days, I went to so many rallies with Donald Trump. They were filled with union workers. They put him in office.
So, it is a really contradictory thing to see him attacking a union worker. And then you have the CEOs, you put Steve Schwartzman, the head of Blackstone, it's part of this big panel and he's got all these CEOs and I talked to his CEO today and said, I've got to get on one of these panels with him.
So, now, in the Trump world, they are going to pick up a manufacturing panel. They've got the tech CEOs coming in. The CEOs out there are doing a flip-flop to try to get involved with the Trump administration because they see the deal maker in chief coming on strong. So, here are the people who are on the sidelines that he attacked, now they wanted to be part of his administration.
COOPER: How much also is that want to be part and fear of not being part of it, fear of retaliation?
LANGLEY: That's it. They either want to be in his good graces. Or they think, well, he really is going to change the architecture of this country and lower corporate taxes, et cetera, and we want in.
POWERS: But another thing that's problematic at the way he's used Twitter if you look at attacking Boeing and what happens with their stock prices. You know, a long time ago, I worked in the office of the White House, the U.S. Trade Representatives Office that handled trade. And as a junior spokesperson, you were really schooled in you could never say anything that has not been cleared by 50 people. It has to be very -- every word has to be measured absolutely perfectly because it will move markets.
And he is the president of the United States tweeting about --
COOPER: Well, let's ask the former labor secretary is with us.
Secretary Reich, what about that? I mean, the power of the presidency to move markets with a few words here or there.
REICH: Well, the power of the presidency not only to move markets but also to unleash a hailstorm of criticism against individuals who have the nerve and audacity to speak their minds. I mean, we're talking about presidential power here in its rawest and most important form. It has to be used with a great deal of decorum, with a great deal of sensitivity.
And that's why this is so concerning, because here we have the president-elect of the United States. Not some candidate. The president-elect of the United States, who is tweeting to 12 million or 16 million followers criticisms of individual whose dare correct him, dare to speak out about what the president-elect of the United States is doing.
This is something new. We have not seen this before. And it does pose a huge potential danger. Not just to companies. Yes, there will be a chilling effect on individual CEOs, who will not want to speak out against president or President-elect Donald Trump for fear he's going say something that causes the stock prices to go down.