Sen. Joe Donnelly: Trump Carrier Deal Welcome News.
HARLOW: Call it President Obama's pre-inauguration gift to President-elect Trump, a nine-year low for the country's unemployment rate. News yesterday, unemployment is now 4.6 percent, the lowest since 2007, 187,000 jobs created last month. It's a snapshot of the economy that Trump is inheriting when he takes office. The issue of jobs a big one for the president-elect this week, celebrating a deal to save roughly 800 jobs at a Carrier plant in Indianapolis. Those were jobs slated to move to Mexico next year. In return, Carrier gets $7 million in tax breaks. Senator Bernie Sanders slammed the deal in a "Washington Post" opinion piece declaring Carrier had taken Trump hostage and won. Concerned, of course, about the precedent set here. Also, that he'd signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives. And in a letter to Donald Trump this week, Democratic Senator joe Donnelly, of Indiana, wrote, "While this is welcome news, there are also a number of other Hoosier companies planning to move jobs offshore." He continues, "Until we update our federal policies to better prevent offshoring, I strongly encourage to you make it clear that efforts to ship jobs offshore to chase cheap wages will be addressed head-on by the Trump administration." The Senator from Indiana joins me now. Thank you for being with me.</s>SEN. JOE DONNELLY, (D), INDIANA: Thank you very much. And I want to offer my thoughts and prayers and the thoughts and prayers of all Hoosiers to our brothers and sisters in Oakland right now. It's a horrible tragedy.</s>HARLOW: It is a horrible tragedy. We'll keep updating our viewers on that fire throughout the evening. Getting to this deal for your state, the headline is great for these workers and it is. You can't argue about saving jobs. When you dig into jobs being shipped to Mexico, that's .2 percent. A mile away down the road, there's another plant that is closing and jobs that will be lost. Do you believe the Trump administration will make these deals with every company in your state planning to move to Mexico?</s>DONNELLY: Well, here's who I hope, that they work with me and others to help promote those kinds of things. I've been promoting tying federal contracts to making sure that jobs stay in the United States. That offshoring jobs at the same time that you're seeking federal contracts, there's a penalty in there. You get promoted for good quality, for delivery on time. If you're offshoring jobs, there's a penalty. There are tax provisions for moving offshores.</s>HARLOW: So you don't want the Trump administration essentially picking winners and losers. You want this across the board?</s>DONNELLY: Well, I think we can do this for a number of companies because, as you said, just a mile down the road is sending 300 jobs to Mexico and welcome Donald Trump's help in trying to make sure that when these the best place to be is in the United States with the best workers in the world.</s>HARLOW: What do you say, for example, to the criticism launched this week by the "Wall Street Journal" argued, look, overall, this move isn't great for America. It's not great for American competitiveness or our American workers in total because they say this was a move that Carrier was making for cheaper labor to make them a more competitive company on the global market.</s>DONNELLY: Well, they couldn't have been more competitive. The profit margins were up, the company was extraordinarily successful, highest quality at this plant. Ere. They were just chasing $3 an hour wages is what was going on. And so, I say to "the Wall Street Journal," American workers are entitled to a decent living as well. That's the heart of the American promise, that if you work hard, you do a good job, you make sur, that your company is doing well, then in return a decent salary and taking care of your family is not a bad thing for America.</s>HARLOW: Let's take a listen to what Congressman Dave Brad, of Virginia, said about this topic when asked about it yesterday on CNN.</s>REP. DAVE BRAD, (R), VIRGINA: In general, I prefer free markets. I'm pretty clear on that. You can't do that for everybody. So, you are picking winners and losers. And you can't go down that road in the long run.</s>HARLOW: Republican congressman warning, look, you can't pick winners and losers and go down this road in the long run. What do you think prevents every CEO from threatening to move jobs to Mexico, demanding payment and a sweeter deal?</s>DONNELLY: Carrier turned down that money months ago. The reason they came now, they said our federal contracts may be in danger. There may be a tariff here and it makes economic sense to stay in America right now. And so, what we want to do is make sure we have policies in place that favor our workers.</s>HARLOW: I understand that. But what prevents --</s>DONNELLY: When workers do well, our companies do well.</s>HARLOW: I hear that. But what prevents CEOs of all of these other companies from threatening to do the same thing because they can get a deal?</s>DONNELLY: Well, look, it wasn't the money first that got Carrier to do this. If you have strong federal policies in place that if you go overseas, if you ship your jobs elsewhere, Mr. Trump talked about a tariff to bring those products back in. I'm talking about making sure that if you want federal contracts, you stand up for our workers. When you stay within American workers, it makes the most economic sense. It isn't picking winners or losers. It's making sure that we have something for our workers as well.</s>HARLOW: Trump supporter and former Alaskan governor, Sarah Palin, wrote this in a column yesterday, a "Young conservatives column, "When government steps in arbitrarily favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field. Remember? We know special-interest crony capitalism is one big fail." Obviously, you're from different parties. You may not be on the same page with her on that, but do you agree that this is getting in the way of letting free markets work?</s>DONNELLY: I sure do. You know, I'd like Sarah Palin to come with me and introduce me to the families that still have a job and are able to put a roof over the head of their kids. This is simply deterring, instead of having this job at $3 an hour in Mexico, it's here in the United States helping an American family. I think that's a good thing.</s>HARLOW: Yeah. I think we all think that it is a phenomenal thing that these workers are keeping their jobs, especially right before Christmas when they thought they were losing them. Bigger picture, what do we see going forward? I know you have a lot of on solutions on your website that we talked about. Senator, thank you for joining me. Thank you. Again, our prayers are with the families in Oakland.</s>HARLOW: Senator, thank you so much. I'm Poppy Harlow, in New York. I'll see you back here at 7:00. "SMERCONISH" begins right now.