Trump Promises 25 Million Jobs and 4 Percent Economic Growth
LEMON: Donald Trump speaking today at the Economic Club of New York claiming his proposals will boost the nation's economy to an annual growth rate of 4 percent and create 25 million new jobs over the next decade. Here to discuss, Andre Bauer, he's a Trump supporter, who's a former lieutenant governor of South Carolina, and William Cohen, the contributing editor at "Vanity Fair" and the author of the "Price of Silence," he joins me via Skype this evening. Thank you, gentlemen. So let's go through and talk about this. Here is -- he gave his economic speech. Donald Trump, a major economic speech today. He is promising 25 million new jobs, massive tax cuts, as I said. Listen in, and we'll discuss.</s>TRUMP: We're a nation that came to the West, dug out the Panama Canal and won two world wars and put a man on the moon. It's time to start thinking big once again. That's why I believe it's time to establish a national goal of reaching 4 percent economic growth.</s>TRUMP: And my great economists don't want me to say this, but I think we can do better than that. Now they're upset. They'll be very upset, but I think we can do and maybe substantially better than that. In working with my economic team, we put together a plan that puts us on track to achieve that goal. Over the next 10 years our economic team estimates that under our plan the economy will average 3.5 percent growth and create a total of 25 million new jobs.</s>LEMON: OK. So, William, he's promising to do the -- you know, the tax cuts and all this major growth, without touching entitlements. Is that realistic?</s>WILLIAM COHEN, AUTHOR, "THE PRICE OF SILENCE": Don, you're talking about a guy who supposed to be graduated first from his class in Wharton who is supposedly a billionaire. His economic plan is somewhere in fantasy land. This is completely unrealistic in every aspect of it. You're not going to have growth substantially in excess of 4 percent.</s>LEMON: OK.</s>COHEN: You're not going to create 25 million jobs. I mean, I hate to be pessimistic. But you're not going to do those things. This is a trickle down, Republican, Reagan-esque plan. We've seen that these types of things don't work. He's cutting taxes for everyone. He's shrinking the deficits.</s>LEMON: OK.</s>COHEN: He's doing everything under the sun and it's not going to work.</s>LEMON: All right. I want to get Andre in. Andre, do you think that these policies will actually produce these results?</s>ANDRE BAUER, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, we saw how bad they were for the Reagan years. You know, you're talking about a young guy that walked into New York City and at 27 years old he said, I'm going to change the skyline in New York, and people scoffed. They laughed. You can either pick somebody -- you know, this is a big election. You can pick somebody --</s>LEMON: But specifically these policies, Andre. And most specifically, do you think the policies that he proposed today --</s>BAUER: Sure.</s>LEMON: Do you think that it's going to -- that he can do that? Will they work?</s>BAUER: This is what -- as a business person, I'm a business person. Today I spent all the day working on my taxes, because being the deadline again. He's talking about cutting taxes. That creates job. People like me invest more. Reducing regulations. I've got a project held up right now, stopping through my project because the Army Corps of Engineer is stopping my project over one letter, stopping jobs, stopping building. He talked about unleashing American energy. Again things like Keystone Pipeline that we fought over for years. He's talking about tapping into that energy. Well, we don't buy energy in foreign soil. We do it right here and we create jobs. Scrapping job-killing trade deals. What he's talking about is getting us out of the ditch. And if these won't do it, I don't know what will, but this is what business people come up with. You can get these lifelong politicians -- I hope he starts talking about term limits, kicking the bums out of Washington as well, because stale ideas will not fix these problems we've had for decades.</s>LEMON: OK. William, do you agree with his assessment? He said, you know, basically saying it's bureaucracy in part.</s>COHEN: Well, you know, that is one thing I do agree with him. We are an overregulated economy. That there's too much bureaucracy. We need smart regulations, not ridiculous regulations. But look, if you're -- you know, Donald Trump likes to claim he's not a politician but he's acting just like a politician. He is promising all of these pie-in- the-sky things, economic policies, he's making people feel like he's going to deliver on these things and there's just no way that you can -- the math just doesn't add up.</s>LEMON: And so --</s>COHEN: You cannot create 25 million new jobs. You cannot grow this economy 4.5 percent, cutting taxes and cutting the revenue of the federal government so that these deficits are going to be huge and it's not going to balance even though he claims it is.</s>LEMON: The other -- the other thing that he's promising --</s>COHEN: He's not going to deliver on.</s>LEMON: Andre, the other thing he's promising is that he's going to put miners and steelworkers back to work. I mean, that is a pretty big task when a lot of the jobs just don't exist anymore. How is he going to do that?</s>BAUER: Well, Don, I would reference right in Myrtle Beach where they're shutting another coal-burning plant down because of this current administration's regulations. They shut down a plant that had been there I believe since the '30s but that plant is now being shut down and disassembled that's creating jobs temporarily. He -- look, he unleashed a bold plan. I want a leader with a bold vision. I'm not looking for somebody that can tell me how they've done it for the last 40 years in Washington. I want a business person --</s>LEMON: But is he going to do it this time, was the question. How is he going to do that, how is he going to bring back those jobs that may no longer exist?</s>BAUER: Well, right off the bat, Don. I don't think anybody can argue that there are trillions of dollars with American companies sitting offshore. He said flat out. You bring that money back to the United States of America, flat 10 percent tax to repatriate that money. Who would argue with that? That's trillions of dollars coming back into our shores to invest in new jobs and new factories and new opportunities not only for the 10 percent we get in tax revenue, but the other 90 percent that goes into the states to create new opportunities.</s>LEMON: All right. I've got to run. Thank you, Andre. Thank you, William. I appreciate it. Coming up, Hillary Clinton has a strong response to the Trump campaign's statement that President Barack Obama was born in this country.