Giuliani Removes Name from Consideration in Trump Admin
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: So, let's talk about the fact that "The Washington Post" is reporting Trump has picked the president and COO of Goldman Sachs as his national economic counsel director. His pick for treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, worked at Goldman for almost two decades. Obviously, senior strategist Steve Bannon also worked at Goldman Sachs. Listen to then candidate Trump talking about Ted Cruz vowing that he would still take on Goldman Sachs even after taking a loan from them.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, the nice part about me is that I don't have any of that stuff. I don't have it. I'm putting up my own. I'm not into Goldman Sachs. I don't care about Goldman Sachs.</s>TAPPER: There was a lot of stuff about Goldman Sachs, having to do with Ted Cruz and later on Hillary Clinton. Salena, you really know Trump supporters well. You have been covering them very well for months and months and months. Do they care? Can Donald Trump flip flop on the Goldman Sachs issue and upset them?</s>SALENA ZITO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: There's very little he can flip flop on. You can to get inside their minds. It wasn't always what he said but how he said it and it was because he was not a politician. And they trust him at this moment. I mean, there's this sort of, you know, honeymoon period to be able to -- you know, to pick whoever he wants because they trust his decision- making at this point.</s>TAPPER: He was so anti-Goldman Sachs in his last commercial, he actually had an image of Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs as an international cabal, boogie man.</s>A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR & COLUMNIST, REALCLEARPOLITICS: All roads lead back to Goldman Sachs and none of us are surprised. If you think about the voters who would be bothered by that or went to Bernie Sanders rallies and somehow brought themselves around to support Donald Trump, they're going to be disappointed in a continuum. What will happen with Trump is, he'll get an excuse here and there, and he'll flip flop here and there. And if it looks real swampy in a year, including his own business arrangements, then it could suddenly turn on him and people can say this is the system we always had, a new face pretending to have a new system. But this could pile up and become an obvious criticism later on that you always in the end are supporting people from Goldman Sachs and giving them good jobs and influence at the highest levels of government.</s>TAPPER: We have been talking about Trump's cabinet. Tom Steyer was critical of a couple potential picks there. Do you sense any confirmation problems for any of his picks so far Susan?</s>SUSAN PAGE, USA TODAY: Yes. I think some of them will have problems because there is a vetting process. You don't just name someone to the cabinet. There is an investigative process that goes on that includes Democrats in the Senate as well as Republicans. And some of these figures have never served in public office before. They've never gone through this process before. I think always we find with a new administration somebody that has a problem we didn't expect and it's very -- turns out to be very daunting. Just think about Tom Daschle. Who would have guessed that Tom Daschle would not have been able to take a job he wanted to take at the beginning of the Obama administration because of something that came out through vetting. But that happened.</s>TAPPER: I broke that story. And I'll just tell you -- one of the things is he was in trouble was because he had not paid the taxes from this free driver that he got from a rich friend. This is a whole cabinet full of rich guys and gals who I'm sure have lots of favors in there.</s>ZITO: There's a potential of something like that happening very easily. And I don't -- this is one of those instances where those kinds of things come out, Trump voters are not going to like that. They don't want someone that way. If this person can be someone that can lead the government or can lead the Treasury and help create jobs -- that's fine. But if they are someone who has this sort of entitlement or skirts the law just the way they perceived the Clintons did, then Trump has a problem with his picks.</s>TAPPER: All right. We'll see what happens. To be continued. A.B., Susan, Salena, thank you very much. Have a great weekend to all of you. Russia claims there is a ceasefire under way in Syria. But the scene on the ground, that tells a much different story. We're going to be live in Aleppo, next.