Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin 201708

Quote, grandstanders, just to borrow the president s phrase here, are choosing to sit out of the president S Manufacturing council. Weve just learned in just the last little while this, fourth executive announced his exit, scott paul is the head of the alliance for american manufacturing. He joins the heads of merck, under armor, and intel of bowing out. These executives are protesting the president s initial failure to call out these racists for who they are, who are responsible for the deadly violence in charlottesville, virginia. Scott paul has now tweeted, im resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because its the right thing for me to do. So, lets begin with jim acosta, our cnn senior White House Correspondent outside of trump tower. Jim, in addition to the executive news today, you know, you have the president also retweeting conspiracy theorists. Talk to me about that. Reporter yeah. The president , brooke, seems to be allowing americans into his inner monologue today with all these tweets. Hes been on something of a tweet storm all day long. You mentioned the tweet that he posted earlier today slamming those executives, those Business Leaders for quitting hiS Manufacturing council. But yes, youre right. He also has retweeted a noted conspiracy theorist who is pushing the pizzagate and seth rich conspiracy theories. That person has espoused altright views, was essentially saying, why isnt the media paying more attention to the shootings in chicago, the violence in chicago. President retweeting that. Brooke, he also, i guess, for a brief period, appeared to retweet an image of a train running over what appeared to be a cnn journalist. Now, we have heard from the white house on that. An anonymous white house official, keep in mind, the president has said in the past dont believe Anonymous Sources coming out of the white house but an anonymous source said that tweet was inadvertently post and had then later deleted so we did hear from the white house in terms of one of the president s tweets today, but this has been going on for the last 12 or so hours and it appears to be sort of the president kind of flailing around after some of the negative reviews he got yesterday after those remarks he made at the white house. I was there for those remarks when he tried to walk back his initial comments on the violence in charlottesville from over the weekend. And you were shouting those qu questions at him yesterday afternoon. Staying on the president s tweets, jim, just quickly, whats the latest on he had retweeted this report about the potential of him pardoning, controversial joe arpaio out in arizona. Reporter right, the arizona sheriff, joe arpaio, he has been brought into court and essentially charged with being in contempt of court for violating a judges order to stop rounding up immigrants, apparently for just racial reasons, and the president was asked by fox news whether hes seriously considering a pardon. He apparently told fox news that, yes, he is considering that. Fox friends put out a tweet to this effect earlier this morning. The president retweeted that. And then oddly enough, the president appeared to retweet somebody who is calling him a fascist. That tweet was also retracted, and so its just sort of time zb a and again, were getting instance after instance of the president doing some rather strange things with his social media. And keep in mind, brooke, you and i both know there have been several polls that have come out in the last couple weeks where it has clearly demonstrated that a vast majority of americans would like the president to stop tweeting as much, but of course the president is demonstrating in the last day or so that hes going to keep doing what hes doing when it comes to his twitter account. Thank you for now. Lets get back to the headline about the four executives, four new defectors joining three other ceos who have abandoned the president s business councils. Previously it was over the president s decision to pull out of the paris climate accord. Before that, it was President Trumps attempt to rban refugee and immigrants. With me now, richard quest, and scott jennings. So, good to see both of you. And just for people also just understanding thiS Manufacturing council where you have now four like that gone. You say this is an incredibly big deal because why . Its a big deal because these are companies that have vested big, strong vested interests in manufacturing, and they were being given a seat at the table in washington right at the heart of the white house. Now, we can debate whether or not this council was ever going to do any good or was it just a talking shop, or window dressing, a pr exercise, but to actually then say, no, im not going to stay, im going to leave is setting out whats the message that sends the message is, shareholders, investors, employees, family, friends, whatever it is have put pressure and they dont think i should stay. And remember one crucial point. The head the president of the american Manufacturers Alliance has just resigned from a Manufacturing Council at the white house. Not a good look for the white house. Well, i mean, hes a manufacturing man and hes gone. So your point is that and you alluded to, maybe this is just a talking council, maybe not policymaking, but you say its a bad pr move. Sure. The pr is terrible, and its the consequences of operationally messing up on saturday. I think the president s statement yesterday was right on, and so im glad they came back and got that right. I also think that if the president wants to get a ceo of something on the phone, he probably can, so as it relates to policymaking, if he wants to talk to to a ceo, he can talk to virtually anyone represents to. Do you think theyll really want to hop on the phone with him, given the fact that these four have left the Manufacturing Council and the message this is sending. I would be surprised that if you were sitting at your office and your president calls, you wouldnt take the call. Its happening in private. If the president of the United States calls you, youre going to want to take it. I also think the white house would say, look, this council aside, what we want to talk about today is the positive Economic Activity in the United States, the dow is up, you know, unemployment is down. He led with that yesterday before denouncing the racists. He led with the economic news. If you ask them, they would say, you know, these councils and the machinations of government aside, everythings going fine in the economy and we deserve credit for that so thats the positioning, i think, they will take to pivot out of what is a rough pr moment. All president s in some shape or form, all governments have these Advisory Councils but the speed with which these were set up with these massive Photo Opportunities in the white house with blue ribbon ceos round and about, more than you could throw a stick at, but what have these councils done . Well the economic one, you know, it hasnt really met and although they say theyre doing back room work with position papers, nobody really knows if this isnt just a way to guild the lily so that things look good. Still, richard, weve seen so many photo ops of these ceos sitting around this big table with the president. This is significant. This is a businessman, now president , who seems to me proud of the economy, proud of the progress he feels like hes made, and so he wants to have these be flanked by ceos and when they continue to drop out, how is this not a blow to, if anything, his ego. Well, he is a business person and he clearly enjoys being surrounded by people from the private sector. Look at the people he appointed to his cabinet. But again, i think as an operational matter, you really wont see much of a change on policymaking here. Look, theyre going to move forward on their core economy issue in the fall, which is tax reform, and this council was not going to affect their core issues on tax reform. Whouhow about how hes characterizing this on twitter, calling them grandstanders and critics are saying, wait a second, you took 72 hours to denounce racism and you took 51 minutes to denounce ken frazier. Only the second africanamerican ceo in the s p 500 so when ken frazier left, that was a clear, strong message. Now youve got under armour and the American Alliance and youve got merck all leaving and although theyre not specifically saying we cant stomach what he did, the fact theyve left, knowing the controversy, under the circumstances, leaves no doubt as to what that message is. Okay. Scott and richard, thank you both so much. Appreciate it. Next question, what happened inside trump tower this morning, this wave of retweets and deletes from President Trump, all of them fanning the flames involving his charlottesville response. Also, the vice mayor of charlottesville raising eyebrows by simply referring to President Trump as 45. He refuses to call him the president. Hear why from him. And the Trump Administration demanding the ip addresses of users who visited antitrump websites. Is this crossing the line, violating ones rights . Those details ahead. This is cnn. Im brooke baldwin. 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Were going to look farther into what the president s recent tweets mean, specifically the ones after giving that speech against racism, calling out those hatelaced groups this time yesterday. So with me to discuss, i have Bishop Jim Lowe jr. , pastor of Guiding Light church in alabama. He organized a march with glenn beck. Also with us, a republican strategist. So, gentlemen, great to have both of you on. Thanks, brooke. Shermichael, if i may begin with you, looking at the president here, you know, he certainly publicly yesterday condemned racism, but when you look at his tweets, it might give you a different impression. Let me tick through this. Yesterday morning, he went after the africanamerican ceo of merck. He retweets and deletes the tweet of a train running over a cnn reporter. Keep in mind, this is after a car, you know, ran over that young woman, Heather Heyer in charlottesville over the weekend. And then retweeted a story where hes considering pardoning controversial sheriff joe arpaio. All of that, shermichael, in the full picture, what does that indicate to you . Well, i think for a lot of americans, brooke, who have watched the president s tweets are wondering how serious was he in his condemnation of the altright, of White Supremacists, of neonazis. Saturday, the president had an interesting moment in time to bring the country together. This is the same person who then, as a candidate in 2016, stated about barack obama and Hillary Clinton that in order to address a problem, you have to state it by name. The president had that opportunity to state white supremacy, neonazis by name and he was absolutely silent. These folks not only hurled racist rhetoric, they hurled antisemitic rhetoric. His soninlaw, his daughter, his grandchildren are jewish and now we look today on the president s tweets, brooke, and hes tweeting about things so irrelevant. Hes tweeting about a train running over cnn, which insinuates violence against the media. We are at a crisis level in our country right now as it pertains to morality and unfortunately, we have to look to a leader who, in my opinion, is morally bankrupt. And so what do we do as a country. I think we can no longer rely on the president. I think its becoming, upon all of us, each of us individually in our own respective communities to say what are we going to do as individuals to see the change we want to see, because we can no longer rely on the president. Bishop, you heard shermichael. He said the president is morally bankrupt. Does he have any moral compass . Do you think he does . Well, first of all, in response to that, i think the president is one person. I think the president , on very many times, has tweeted on issues that seem to be not the issue. His tweeting is an issue sometimes when hes not speaking on the subjects that are happening today. Hes been behind before. Now the question of his moral character and things from what we see from his tweets, i think i cannot do that, but i do believe that regardless to what the president does, we, as the people, must begin to respond in the right manner and the right way to what all of these things that are going on. Even the president has missed the lead, we still have to step up, and we still have to begin to condemn these type of activities that are going on like this, even if the president doesnt. Remember, were the nation of we, the people. And we are supposed to lead the president , actually. Well, it depends on who you talk to. We, the people, we lead the president , he is supposed to be our leader. And even though he did come forward and condemn these, you know, hateful people yesterday, im left wondering, shermichael, you know, can the president can he separate himself from these White Supremacists who support him . I mean, brooke, time and time again, when President Trump tested the political waters, starting with birtherism, from the moment he came down the escalator at trump tower where he said all mexicans are rapists and he said some of them may be good people to the time he mimicked a handicapped individual, there are so many times that we could all point out to where the president had an opportunity to correct himself, and time and time again, including myself, i was briefly a part of his administration, weve all stated, give him a chance, hell become president ial. Give him a chance. Hell figure it out. Give him a chance. He will finally get it. Well, brooke, when someone continues to show you who they are time and time again, at what point do we wake the hell up and say, this is who this guy is. We can no longer have the expectation that he is going to change. Well, can i interject in here . Please, sir, go ahead. The point is, right now, we have to recognize the majority of the people in this nation, or at least according to our electoral college, have elected him to be president. To sit up and condemn every action that he takes is not productive. We have got to begin to pull together bishop, i didnt say every action. I pointed out specific actions, specific moments in time that i find ethically and morally objectionable. As an american, what i saw in charlottesville saturday was disgusting. American soldiers lost their lives fighting against nazi germany. As an africanamerican, i was saddened because those images of White Nationalists wearing ku klux klan uniforms are images that should be relegated to history documentaries and museums and as a republican, i am embarrassed that the leader of my party took 72 hours to denounce racism. That is a problem to me. Let me just say to you and im not in defense of President Trump. Im saying the reality that we see with President Trump is that when has he ever really addressed issues that are important that are dealing with the issues . There is something in that in where things are working with him where he will address something that has nothing to do with whats really going on. Thats the nature of the man that we see. So who needs to hold him accountable, bishop . Who needs to hold him accountable and have him address what he should be addressing. Thats what his staff should be doing and of course he needs to have people that are going to tell him the truth. I would like to think he does have people that are doing that type of thing. But its this is the nature of the person, the people of this nation have elected. Now, what do we do . We cant remove him from office except he does something that is of an impeachable nature. Right now, weve got to Work Together and pull together. We must make sure as a people that we focus on the thing that is the thing and the issue that is the issue. I actually