Buttigieg enters 2020 race with swipe at 'Make America Great Again'

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Buttigieg enters 2020 race with swipe at 'Make America Great Again'

Trump 2020 campaign senior adviser Lara Trump reacts to Pete Buttigieg's remarks on 'The Story.'

This is a rush transcript from "The Story," April 15, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARTHA MACCALLUM, HOST: Hello, everybody, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, once again. Moments ago, Senator Sanders, the self-proclaimed Democratic socialist, stepped into the heart of Trump country and made his case to voters here and across the country in our exclusive Fox News town hall. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I guess the president watches your network a little bit, right? Hey, President Trump, my wife and I just released 10 years, please do the same. Let the American people know.

Not everybody thought that I should come on the show. It's not whether you are young, it's not whether you are old. It is what you believe in. I believe that health care is a human right.

If we spend all of our time attacking Trump, you know what, Democrats are going to lose. All right?

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt was on hand of course, as he always is as we do these political events as we head across the country, and he joins me now. So, Chris, what did you think?

CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS DIGITAL POLITICS EDITOR: Wouldn't that something? I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

MACCALLUM: Very interesting night.

STIREWALT: He came ready to fight. He was combative, a little cantankerous. He was up there. And you could see a difference in Bernie Sanders 2016 and 2020. I think you and Bret helped bring it out of him, but he has confidence here. He has a feeling like this actually is his moment, and he is the front runner, right?

Joe Biden is still dancing around the outside of the ring. He's in there and he acted like the front runner for the Democratic nomination tonight and by the end, this crowd was -- I mean, the energy in this room was just electric.

MACCALLUM: Yes, they love him.

STIREWALT: Yes.

MACCALLUM: No doubt about it. I think the toughest question for him, which we went at several different ways, is it all sounds wonderful to have all these things, but how are you going to pay for it? And he didn't really give us a definitive answer for that. He believes that the billionaires and the big corporations, as he puts it, can carry the load of all of this.

STIREWALT: That's right. Whatever you're proposing in the end, you are going to say well, our plan is so good, it's magical, and in the end, it will be a balm for every wound and every eye shall be dried. Of course, you are going to say it.

But on his energy and on what he was bringing, he sounded a lot more moderate and reasonable. When he got to the end, what was his message? What did he want to close on? He wanted to talk about bringing people together that what unites us is more than what divides us.

A very sort of healing, soothing message, which is a little different --

MACCALLUM: Yes.

STIREWALT: -- than the Bernie Sanders we're used and I think it's a reflection of the time.

MACCALLUM: Absolutely. You know, we talked about Pete Buttigieg, who had a big moment in South Bend over the weekend and I thought his answer was very good to the question of, you know, are you maybe in your later years and maybe a little bit too old for the job? I thought he was good on that.

STIREWALT: He was very good on that and remember, the voters he's talking to, the voters here in eastern Pennsylvania and the other parts of the country where Democrats desperately need to turn back to blue, that had been blue, as you talked about in the intro, since 1988, they made these voters back.

A lot of those voters aren't so much younger than Bernie Sanders. So, while Pete Buttigieg is young and all that stuff, Bernie Sanders may be can make some hay out of saying hey, people over 70 are people too.

MACCALLUM: Yes. Chris, thank you very much.

STIREWALT: You bet. Great job.

MACCALLUM: Great to have are as always. Thanks for all your help with all of our getting all of this ready tonight. Thank you very much.

STIREWALT: You bet.

MACCALLUM: So, one issue front and center for these 2020 candidates right now is their tax returns. And this weekend, 2020 hopeful Kamala Harris released hers, showing an income of about $2 million in 2018. Beto O'Rourke just released a chunk of his, most recently from 2017 with an adjusted income of $366,000 and moments before our town hall, Bernie Sanders released his. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: You raise the issue I am a millionaire. Well, actually this year we had $560,000 income. That's a lot of money varied and that money, in my case, my wife's case it came from a book that I wrote, pretty good book, you might want to read it.

It's a best-seller, sold all over the world, and we made money. So, if anyone thinks that I should apologize for writing a best-selling book, I'm sorry, I'm not going to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: My next guest spent the last hour combing through Sanders' return. Art Laffer is an informal economic advisor to President Trump and coauthor of "Trumponomics." Andy Puzder is former chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants and author of "The Capitalist Comeback."

Gentlemen, thank you very much. Great to have both of you here.

ANDY PUZDER, FORMER CEO, CKE RESTAURANTS INCORPORATED: Good to be here.

ART LAFFER, FORMER REAGAN ECONOMIC ADVISOR: Thank you, Martha.

MACCALLUM: Art, let me go to you first, what did you see in Bernie Sanders' tax returns that were of interest to you?

LAFFER: Well, he made a lot of money and I love him for doing that. I wish everyone else could too and I hope he doesn't try to stop everyone from making money once he's made his, but no, he's done a very good job of making money and he should be a capitalist, but his policies really aren't there, as you and Bret so cleverly uncovered, but he is a silver tongue old fox, isn't he?

MACCALLUM: Yes. Andy, I suggest that maybe he want might want to make the wealth tax voluntarily because nobody stops you from sending a check to the government if you want --

LAFFER: That's true.

MACCALLUM: -- to pay what he has called your fair share and he definitely demerit on that. He laughed it off. No, of course I'm not going to do that he said, Andy.

PUZDER: Well, not only that, he paid, if you go back two years, he made over a million dollars and paid one penny on the dollar to charities. The last two years he's paid a little over $0.03 on the dollar to charities. He doesn't pay much to the government. He doesn't pay much in charities. As art said, he's been a very, very successful capitalist and he isn't even apologetic about it.

He says look, I'm not going to apologize for the money I made writing a book. It's much like what President Trump said, he doesn't apologize for his wealth. The only difference is that Bernie Sanders wants everybody else to pay a lot more in taxes but apparently isn't very interested in paying more himself.

MACCALLUM: Yes. And you know, it's an interesting thing that you bring up with regard to charity and of course every American can give or not give. It's their, you know, it's their right to do whatever they want in charity so I don't begrudge him.

He -- I think it was 3 percent, 3.6 percent may be, Art, but the whole basis of what he's talking about is that we all should want to give back more to even out the income inequalities in this country.

LAFFER: Well, he doesn't say we should want to. He says we will be forced to if he gets in. That's what he's going to do to the tax codes. And you know, what he doesn't talk about, Martha, which is really serious here, if I may, what he doesn't talk about, is how those taxes, when he is putting them on, will affect the economy.

You know, whenever you do redistribution, and this whole thing was energy, was environment, was health care, was education, all of that, whenever you redistribute income, you take from those who make a little bit more and you give to those who make a little bit less.

By taking from those who make a little bit more, you reduce their incentives and they work a little bit less and produce a little bit less. By giving to those who have a little bit less, you provide them with an alternative source of income other than working and they too will produce a little bit less.

Now this is math. It's not -- it's not right wing, left wing, Republican, Democrat, it's not liberal or conservative, it's just plain economics. Whenever you redistribute income you reduce total income. And that is what he's doing.

And I am very afraid that if he were elected, we would have an enormous crash in the market. Now that crash would come in anticipation of his election, but it's much like Obama, who I believe was the reason why we have the Great Recession. As he got closer and closer to winning the markets collapsed.

MACCALLUM: Let me ask you this, though, Art, because he talks about income disparity and the fact that CEOs in this country make -- I forget the multiple, something like 300 times the average worker makes. That is a problem.

LAFFER: Well, it is a problem and most of those CEOs get their things because they have relations with government rather than producing great products at low cost that benefit -- if you look at any of the major companies, much of their operation is relations with the government.

We have all of these taxes, all of these regulations, we should move to a low rate, broad-based flat tax with no exceptions, no deductions, no exemptions, no exclusions and let people get back to working.

But when you have a tax rate of 40 percent, people will spend 40 percent of their time trying to diddled their taxes rather than working and producing goods and services. It's just common sense. They focus on where they can make the most, and today, companies can make the most by lobbying government and it's been true for the last 20, 30 years, ever since we left office. I'm just joking.

MACCALLUM: Yes. All right. Last question on Medicare --

LAFFER: Sure.

MACCALLUM: -- and paying for -- and paying for Medicare, he said, you know, every -- Americans are paying too much. I think most Americans would agree with that.

LAFFER: True.

MACCALLUM: But now they basically will have to pay nothing essentially in premiums, but he did admit that their taxes would go up a little bit to cover that. What did you make of that answer?

LAFFER: Well, I didn't -- I think it's just the wrong answer, totally the wrong answer. What we need is transparency. We need to know what medical services cost. We need to know the quality is of the people providing those things. We need full transparency in the medical and let people make good decisions on their own with their own income as to what to do with their own health care.

But we need transparency so people know what costs and what the purposes and benefits will be from getting that. But transparency is critical to a free market and our medical system is the farthest thing from a free market. We need to bring it back to a free market through transparencies.

MACCALLUM: All right. Art Laffer, thank you very much. Always good to see you, sir. My thanks to Andy Puzder.

(CROSSTALK)

LAFFER: Martha, thank you. You and Bret did, by the way a great job. It was very disarming and very charming what you did.

MACCALLUM: Thank you. Well, thank you, we had a great evening.

LAFFER: You did.

MACCALLUM: And we look forward to many more of them. I also want to think Andy Puzder, who was with us, but we had a technical problem, that's why he might've disappeared in the middle of the interview. So, our thanks to him as well. Thank you both, gentlemen.

LAFFER: Thank you, Martha.

MACCALLUM: So, coming up right now, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg has officially entered the 2020 race, as I mentioned before, talking to Chris Stirewalt. He's 37 years old. He's an openly gay Democrat who is kicking off -- who kicked off his campaign on Sunday, calling President Trump's make America great again message a myth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And that's why I'm here today. To tell a different story than make America great again. Because there's a myth being sold to industrial and rural communities. The myth that we can stop the clock and turn it back.

It comes from people who think the only way to speak to communities like ours is through resentment and nostalgia. They are selling an impossible promise of returning to a bygone era that was never as great as advertised to begin with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Here now, Lara Trump, senior advisor to President Trump's reelection campaign. Lara, good to see you tonight. Thanks for being here.

LARA TRUMP, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: Absolutely.

MACCALLUM: So, what did you think about that? He says, you know, that we shouldn't promise people that we can go back to a bygone era that is not going to be re-created again in this country.

TRUMP: Well, first of all, I disagree with pretty much everything he said. How horrible that a presidential candidate, someone who wants to run our country, is talking about not making America great. I actually don't understand his strategy with that.

But the difference is that you can't refute it if it's working, Martha, and it's working for the people of this country. We see under this president so much success, economic success, manufacturing jobs coming back to this country.

The people that he was specifically referring to are the ones who are feeling the biggest benefit from this president. So, I wholeheartedly disagree with everything he said, and especially, again, as someone who wants to be the president of our country, to say that he doesn't want it to be great, make America great is a myth, it's not a myth if it's working and it's working every single day.

MACCALLUM: All right, let's talk a little bit about Bernie Sanders, who went after the -- your boss in the reelection campaign, also your father- in-law, President Trump, basically saying that, you know, that it's been a myth and that he has basically benefited the rich people in this country and that that is creating a scenario of great economic inequality in America and he wants to sort of even everything out through some economic redistribution.

TRUMP: Well, we are here, April 15th, Tax Day, and people are seeing on average across this country that they are saving around $1,200 apiece, thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of this president passed. A 2.7 million new jobs created last year.

The economic benefit that this president has given to the people is being felt everywhere and so for someone like Bernie Sanders to come in and say that he doesn't agree with that or that he wants to reverse it, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because what is it that he and all of these other candidates in 2020 are running on? When you have a country that is doing as well as the United States is doing under this president.

And I saw the DNC chair was saying that promises were not kept by this president. This president, of all presidents, Martha, has kept on most every single promise that he made to this country and we are feeling it every single day. So, I know Bernie likes to talk a lot.

MACCALLUM: All right. Well, let me transfer a question directly from Bernie Sanders, who asked Bret and I -- he said when you talk to the president, and I don't have the president here right now but I have an advisor to his campaign --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: You have me.

MACCALLUM: -- tell him that he also needs to release his tax returns, just as Bernie Sanders did tonight and other candidates are doing?

TRUMP: My gosh, we are back to the tax returns. So, there is no law that says that a candidate has to release their tax returns. This is just something that has happened over the course of many years in this country, and it's kind of become a standard practice.

But Donald Trump said in 2016 he was under audit. He legally -- his counsel told him he could not release his tax returns. They advised him against it. I think he listened to them, quite smartly. He is still under audit; he is still not releasing his tax returns. The people in 2016 of this country did not care about it. I don't think they care about it now. It seems to be a good talking point, though, for the Democrats because Russia was not sticking as we saw.

(CROSSTALK)

MACCALLUM: All right. So, no change on that front. We'll report back to Bernie. No change. Thank you very much, Lara. Good to see you tonight. Thank you for being here.

TRUMP: Thank you.

MACCALLUM: Well, this has been such a tragic story today as firefighters are still on the scene of the devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Officials now say that the historic cathedral has been saved from total destruction, but it will no doubt never be the same.

The Story, the live update tonight on the scene in Paris next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're overhauling this fire which tower is high, defying years and weather. The cathedral was renovated and restored a hundred years. The top most people reconstructed. Now once more it needs to repair and (Inaudible).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: A report from more than 80 years ago on the restoration to this fire at the top of Notre Dame Cathedral today, this is just hard to watch. It came tumbling down during this devastating fire causing colossal damages to the iconic cathedral of Christianity.

A towering symbol of medieval gothic architecture that was built in the 12th and 13th centuries is now forever changed.

The Vatican responding saying this. "The Holy See has seen with shock and sadness the news of this terrible fire that devastated the Cathedral of Notre Dame, symbol of Christianity in France and in the world."

Senior foreign affairs correspondent Greg Palkot has just arrived on the scene and he joins me live tonight from Paris. Greg, what can you tell us, what it's like there and what have you seen?

GREG PALKOT, FOX NEWS FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Martha, overall, it is eerily quiet here in Paris. There is a great sadness here because as you noted, the great landmarks of Paris of the world Notre Dame cathedral hit hard by fire today.

As my cameraman Mal James, just zoomed beyond me and show you what we are seeing across the River Seine. We are seeing two different fire hoses still being applied to the cathedral. From time to time we see the glowing embers burn up. We're also seeing some of the smoke come up.

This more than seven hours after this fire started some 6.30. Experts are not exactly sure what caused it but they believe it have to do with renovation work on that spire you were talking about.

Again, this is an 850-year-old structure in need of renovation and somehow that apparently cause this fire. It's not believed that arson or other means was responsible for that. The fire burned through this cathedral very fast. But the good news is that the structure is intact. The towers are intact.

Here is a bit of what French President Macron had to say when he visited it today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE: I'm telling you right now, very somberly, we will rebuild the cathedral altogether.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PALKOT: That is the determination of French President Macron, and certainly, for the French people, especially during this Easter week, a timely incident occurring for all of Catholics here for all the world who knows this so very well.

MACCALLUM: Absolutely.

PALKOT: Back to you, Martha.

MACCALLUM: Yes. Greg, thank you. Apparently, they were able to save the relics and a lot of the artwork inside.

So that is our Story on this Monday night. We will see you back in New York tomorrow night at 7 o'clock.
 
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