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Senate Pays Tribute to Vice President Biden; The Legacy of Barack Obama; Trump Names Homeland Security Nominee. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 07, 2016 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:00:03]

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: How do you think it came to be him vs. some of the other names that had been floated for this position, Rudy Giuliani, Representative Michael McCaul?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It's interesting.

If I had to guess -- hard to get inside Donald Trump's mind, but that issue of the southern border, him talking about that in 2015, raising the concern about a need for greater security there, and this, of course, was one of Donald Trump's, continues to be one of Donald Trump's signature issues, although, from his perspective, more on the immigration issue than the terrorism issue.

But that's one issue. Also, and in Donald Trump's public comments, here's another general's general, soldier's soldier. He's done his time. He has enormous respect and, crucially, respect of both parties, so a position, when you look forward to the approval process, when he's nominated and when Senate and House get their chance to vote, not someone that is likely to face a difficult confirmation process.

CABRERA: All right, Jim Sciutto, thank you for that reporting.

Joining me now, CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger, CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny, Lynn Sweet, the Washington bureau chief for "The Chicago Sun-Times," and CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.

We're going to talk about this and many other Trump-related topics in just a moment, but, Juliette, let's start with this breaking news, the nomination of retired Marine General John Kelly to be homeland security secretary.

I know you have said that longtime employees of Homeland Security Department are relieved over this pick. Why?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: This is a relief.

Look, there is the issue that this is another general, another Marine, another white male. But putting that aside, the other names that were being floated were terrifying senior career members of the Department of Homeland Security, whether it was Giuliani, Kris Kobach. Those were men that were going to come in without a clear understanding of what the department does and for sort of ideological reasons.

Look, the department does a lot of different things. And so I think having a general who understands the border, who he also understands disaster management because of Southern Command, is something that is important to the career staff. So there is a -- I mean, I would call it a sigh of relief at the Department of Homeland Security right now.

CABRERA: And, Gloria, Kelly's son was killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2010. He is a Gold Star father. Could choosing this father, bereaved father, perhaps start to heel the rift from Trump's summertime clash with Khizr Khan, Ghazala Khan, that Muslim American family who also lost a son in combat?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think sure. It might. It depends if it's spoken about or not.

I think that his larger qualifications are not only as were just stated, but also that he's somebody who's a known quantity to Congress, to people's -- to people in the Department of Homeland Security, although I must say, sort of to echo Jim Sciutto a little bit, there are questions being raised about the generals, the notion that the candidate who said he knows more than the generals is now appointing an awful lot of generals to keep policy positions.

And that sort of pushes aside the notion of civilian control of the government. And I think that those are questions you're going to hear from Democrats. But, yes, absolutely, will it go some way to healing this rift? Hopefully, potentially, because there shouldn't have been one in the first place and we will see whether the general addresses it or whether Donald Trump addresses it.

CABRERA: Let's turn to some other news coming out of Trump Tower today.

Lynn, we know Donald Trump met with Chicago mayor, President Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Emanuel delivered a letter today from more than a dozen mayors from all over the country basically urging Trump and trying to convince him to keep DACA in place, the dreamers act in place, allowing undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children with their parents who are undocumented immigrants to have still some kind of legal status that allows them go to college, to get jobs and so forth.

What more are you learning about some of the buildup to this meeting?

LYNN SWEET, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES": Well, we have learned that the seed of this meeting started a few weeks ago, when Trump and Rahm Emanuel talked over the phone.

President-elect Trump told Rahm to drop by Trump Tower if he was ever in New York. And Rahm is in New York today. He's meeting with some bond houses. He's on an East Coast swing. He will also be in Washington later this week to deal with Chicago's financial crisis.

So he dropped in Trump Tower. He had a few messages. One very strong one that he wanted out most publicly is the dreamer situation. He also said that he talked to Trump about how to organize a White House.

[15:05:12]

Just as a quick aside, Mayor Emanuel has said that he will keep Chicago's sanctuary city status. Trump has said that he doesn't want to give any federal funds to any cities that have that.

And a quick aside, all these mayors in the letters are Democrats, but we should be looking for Trump's softening his position and letting these dreamers stay, because that's what he's been saying as most recently in a new interview in "TIME" magazine.

CABRERA: Softening his position and yet immigration being such a huge part of his campaign.

Let's talk about "TIME" magazine. He was just named person of the year. Donald Trump gave an interview after he received the distinction. And Trump pointed out how much he actually likes President Obama. He values his opinion, a stark contrast obviously since Trump pushed the whole birther lie for years, Jeff. What are you thinking about this evolution?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I think the charm offensive is under way by President Obama.

He is eager to charm some visitors and Donald Trump is eager to be liked. So, I think that combination fuses at least into a public example of how they're getting along here. Now, look, they have many, many, many differences, the birther issue, of course, first among them.

I would love to know if they have ever addressed that directly. I don't know the answer to that. I hope to find that out. But I think that, look, the president has one sort of top task here, and he has told all of his advisers in the West Wing to help the Trump administration wherever they can for a seamless transition of government here. And that starts at the top. It starts with him.

So, of course he's eager to give him advice. And we also know from Donald Trump he is eager to take advice and often acts upon some of the final pieces of advice that he hears. So I think that there probably will be more conversations here.

But the president clearly is trying to influence his successor here. We will see on the margins how much how possible that actually is here, and once he actually is sitting in the Oval Office, we will see how much they talk after that. But for at least right now, I think it's also a signal to some of his skeptics out there that he is trying to respect this president, and that's something that he's not shown much of in recent years.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: I want to show -- oh, go ahead, Gloria.

BORGER: No, I was just going to say, one of the issues the president might have actually had some impact on Donald Trump is the issue that Lynn just raised, which is dreamers.

Donald Trump had pledged during the campaign that he was going to reverse the president's executive orders on immigration, one of them being about dreamers. And in the "TIME" magazine today, Donald Trump sort of waxed on about what a difficult thing that would be for those young people.

And Rahm Emanuel came in today saying, look, you can't do this to these kids. They have given their addresses and their phone numbers to you. So that's going to be a huge thing for us all to watch as the new president is inaugurated to see just what he does.

(CROSSTALK)

SWEET: And to see the reaction of people who thought he said exactly what he meant.

BORGER: Right.

CABRERA: Well, let me show you something, because I feel like it kind of speaks to the changing times. Look at these pictures if you have a monitor there in front of you. This is "TIME" magazine's covers over the course of this past year, from the meltdown to total meltdown to president-elect and now "TIME"'s person of the year.

Jeff, when you look at that, it really speaks to sort of this narrative that has been changing and we're also seeing a change within the man at the center of all of this media attention. Let's show a portion of his rally from last night and just a change in tone that we're seeing here. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: This has been a great, great movement, the likes of which they have never seen before, the likes of which those folks back there that write the stories...

(BOOING)

TRUMP: No. No. No. I will tell you -- and they're saying it, that they have never seen anything like this before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Jeff, you were at that rally. Did that moment strike you?

ZELENY: Well, certainly a lot of people in the crowds at all of these events are not pleased at the media. That's part of the shtick here that he's been building up for a year-and-a-half or so.

But it did surprise me when he said, no, no, no, let's see if they will write the truth. But I think we have to watch a couple more rallies here.

(CROSSTALK)

ZELENY: One rally where Donald Trump kind of calming the crowd I don't think changes the whole narrative of what he's been doing.

But, look, I talked to a lot of voters, a lot of his supporters in the crowd last night. They're watching him very carefully. And I think that is much more interesting than talking about our reaction to this. It's their reaction to him.

[15:10:03]

And some of them, frankly, are disappointed that he has not gone after his former rival in terms of lock her up. Those chants were still there last night. They're watching him very carefully here.

So enough about the media, enough about how he was calming his crowd. Let's talk about their reaction to him and that of course is the question here, how his supporters will be watching him along the next four years.

And he said a very true statement last night. He said the script going forward is not yet written. That is so true. He will be very -- he will be evolving in office and that's something that we're all watching very carefully.

CABRERA: And yet, Gloria, it seems like he just can't let go. "Saturday Night Live" even suggested that, you know, it's going to end, it's going to end when he becomes president.

BORGER: Well, I think that may be one thing that he probably doesn't have much of a say in is the audience, if it keeps rating well, yes, it is going to do well.

But I think this whole notion of which Donald Trump we are going to see emerge post-inauguration is what his supporters that Jeff is talking about are going to be watching. And they're going to be watching immigration because that was his signature issue. So what he does on the issue of dreamers and what he does on the other presidential executive action on immigration are going to be watched very closely.

What he does in appointing in his secretary of state, Mitt Romney not a popular figure among his supporters, what he does on that appointment and how he explains it all to his voters, because I think more than anything else Trump sees him as a salesman.

So even if he does something that angers his supporters, I wouldn't be surprised if he takes it right to them and says let me explain to why I did this. And then you can be mad at me if you want, but this is why I did this. And look at what else I'm doing for you.

So this is season two. Season one got finished and now he's casting season two and we will have to see how it turns out and what the plot is.

CABRERA: And, finally, Juliette, do you think all these generals are going to keep Trump in check?

KAYYEM: That's not my worry. He's the president and will be the president. My worry is Flynn. I think it's outrageous that Flynn is the national security adviser. Most people, Republican or Democrat, agree.

So the good news of having competent, powerful Cabinet secretaries is that they're likely to essentially assert their authority over Flynn. And I would not be surprised if Flynn does not stick around for very long in this administration.

CABRERA: We covered a lot of grown there. Gloria Borger, Jeff Zeleny, Lynn Sweet, Juliette Kayyem, thank you all for joining us.

Up next, a CNN special report, the legacy of Barack Obama. How will the nation's first African-American president be remembered? Fareed Zakaria joins me live next.

Plus, we are watching Capitol Hill, where Vice President Joe Biden is set to be honored on the Senate floor. We will take you there live when that happens. You're watching CNN.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:11]

CABRERA: In less than two months, President Obama will turn over the White House to his successor, president-elect Donald Trump.

How will history judge the nation's first African-American president?

CNN's Fareed Zakaria spoke one on one with President Obama for tonight's special, "The Legacy of Barack Obama." It airs at 9:00 Eastern.

And we have a preview clip for you showcasing one of Obama's most emotional moments, when he delivered that eulogy in Charleston, South Carolina, in the church where nine people were shot dead.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): No single moment in the Obama presidency was at once so ugly and unifying as the Charleston church shooting.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: The killing is being investigated as a hate crime now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He says: "You are raping our women. You are taking over our country. I have to do what I have to do."

ZAKARIA: Nine people murdered. The gunman said he wanted to start a race war.

When President Obama came to the Emanuel AME Church, his hesitance to speak frankly on race was gone. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For too long, we have

been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the present. We now realize the way racial bias can infect us even when we don't realize it.

Oh, but God works in mysterious ways. God has different ideas.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

OBAMA (singing): Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And when he sang "Amazing Grace," you know, there was a medicine in that song for 400 years of funeral after funeral. There's a hallelujah anyhow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: That was such a touching moment.

Joining me now, Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS."

Fareed, one of the topics you and President Obama covered was race and what an impact it's had, that issue has had on him as a person and as the president. What was that discussion? What are his views?

[15:20:01]

ZAKARIA: In approaching it, one of the things that some of his staff members had said to me was, don't talk too much to him about race. He doesn't like to talk about it.

CABRERA: Why?

ZAKARIA: He thinks he's the president of America. He happens to be black. And that clearly is one of the ways that he approaches his job, probably the principal way he does.

In fact, his national security adviser, Susan Rice, said to me: "He is the president of the United States. He also happens to be black, just as I happen to be. That's not what -- he's not sitting there thinking about it."

And yet he's the first African-American president in a country that had slavery, that had 100 years of Jim Crow, and he's acutely aware of that history. And he's experienced some of that pain himself. So he's always navigating these two roles.

I said to him, actually, I said the first line of your biography is not going to be something you did, but who you are, the first African- American president. And yet you're half-white. And he grapples with that contradiction every day, I think.

CABRERA: His identity.

ZAKARIA: And it's his identity at a very personal level, but it plays itself out on the national stage, because every time there is an incident, we talk about the -- you remember the first incident -- there was a Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates, who was arrested trying to get into his own House in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The next day, Obama said something about it as president at a press conference. All of a sudden, the lines were drawn. Blacks thought he hadn't been supportive enough. A lot of -- some police officers thought he was attacking the police. And you could see here he is trying to navigate. He has to be post-racial enough to assure the country, and yet black enough to give comfort to blacks.

CABRERA: Did he say in his reflection of his presidency and the racial tension that we see in America today what he believes will be his legacy when it comes to did he advance the conversation forward and the dynamic socially forward when it comes to racial acceptance in America?

ZAKARIA: He's sure he did. His view is, first of all, let's not exaggerate the kind of problems we have now. We have real problems now, but if you look at the 1960s, we have made enormous progress.

And one of his -- one the things he's done, and it hasn't always been appreciated in the African-American community, is he has said -- he has given that message to the Black Lives Matter and to people like that, saying, yes, you know, you have got legitimate grievances, but we have made a lot of progress and the country is much more tolerant and much more accepting. Think back to what life was like in the 1960s for those of you who were even around.

And yet he knows that, in a way, he opened up a Pandora's box. There is enormous acceptance and tolerance. There is some backlash. And that's been all part of this combustible mix that we -- and the differences, of course...

CABRERA: It's all out there on the surface right now.

ZAKARIA: It's all out there, and we can take pictures and videos of it with our iPhones. And that's different, too.

CABRERA: Right.

What do you make of Donald Trump in his interview this morning, after he was named "TIME" person of the year, president of a divided United States of America? And he was asked about his relationship with President Obama and whether they had been talking, and he said, in fact, they talked a lot, and now he's realizing he likes President Obama and he values his opinion. And, in fact, he has taken his advice or has gotten his approval on one of his picks.

And that's a huge change from what we used to see when President Obama would talk about -- or president-elect Donald Trump would talk about President Obama.

ZAKARIA: Well, I hope it's true, because I think a president should really be trying to get advice and ideas from all quarters. One of the things I worry about in terms of the way Donald Trump is

staffing his Cabinet, there's nothing wrong with military people. They're wonderful. They're amazing in many ways. But you do want a diversity of views. You want a diversity of perspectives.

Obama and Trump couldn't be more different. If you think about just who they are as people, one is an urban intellectual, Harvard Law -- editor of "The Harvard Law Review," thoughtful, careful, dignified. The other is a very different persona.

So the fact that Trump could see in Obama things that he admired, it speaks well of him. I hope he does it more and I hope he does it with people -- other people who are very unlike him. I think that one of the keys to success at every level, whether you're a CEO or president, you have got to have to people around you who don't just say, yes, sir, who tell you, well, the argument against what you're doing is this, or I see this from a completely different perspective.

CABRERA: Right.

ZAKARIA: And keeping yourself open to those points of view strikes me as a very crucial part of succeeding as a president.

[15:25:05]

CABRERA: We are seeing the president-elect reach out to people on different sides of the aisle and different walks of life, so a lot of the people we have been talking to on our show said that's a positive and hope he does that as well keeping -- going forward.

Thank you so much, Fareed Zakaria, for joining us.

ZAKARIA: Pleasure.

CABRERA: And really looking forward to seeing the special tonight.

Don't forget it, it's right here on CNN, a "SPECIAL REPORT: The Legacy of Barack Obama." It's tonight at 9:00 Eastern and Pacific only on CNN.

Right now, President Obama's right-hand man is getting his own emotional tribute on the Senate floor. We will listen in live as Vice President Joe Biden's colleagues honor his decades in public service.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Right now, senators on both sides of the aisle