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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Trump Picks Fox News Host As His Defense Secretary; Trump Taps Musk And Ramaswamy To Lead New Department Of Government Efficiency; Will Trump Pardon Jan. 6 Rioters?; "Wanted" Posters Target Jewish Faculty At University Of Rochester; Demonstrators Wave Nazi Flags Outside Michigan Theater Performance Of "The Diary Of Anne Frank". Aired: 8-9p ET

Aired November 12, 2024 - 20:00   ET

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

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And of course, also the incoming secretary of defense, as the Russians have made absolutely clear that their relations with both China and North Korea are only going in one direction towards closer economic and military ties -- Erin.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right, thank you very much, of course that incoming secretary of Defense nominee, we now know, Pete Hegseth, former veteran, of course and also host for Fox News.

Thank you so much, Fred Pleitgen. He is in Moscow tonight. A crucial place only CNN can go around. Thanks for joining us. "AC360" starts now.

[20:00:22]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, the president-elect chooses a Fox News host to be Defense Secretary as he gets ready to revisit Washington tomorrow.

Also tonight, a new report that the Trump transition is weighing action to put America's top generals under scrutiny and possibly recommend their firing.

And later, an outbreak of antisemitism at home and brutal violence overseas. Who is behind it and what are authorities doing now to stop it?

Good evening, thanks for joining us.

We begin tonight with breaking news and a lot of it. The appointments are coming pretty fast and pretty furious. Within the past hour, President-elect Trump has chosen a Defense Secretary and more. First, the Defense Secretary is Pete Hegseth. If confirmed, he'll oversee two million active duty and reserve forces, three-quarters of a million civilian employees and a budget of nearly $850 billion.

His current job is co-host of "Fox & Friends" Weekend. Hegseth is a decorated Army combat veteran, as well as a graduate of Princeton and Harvard. He has no prior government experience. Then just over 20 minutes ago, another Trump announcement this one

involving former campaign rival Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, to head a new government department. Reading from his statement: "I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk working in conjunction with American patriot, Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies essential to 'Save America' Movement."

This, he added, would potentially become, in his words, the Manhattan Project of our time. Now, all of this comes at the end of a day that saw a new reporting in "The Wall Street Journal" on significant potential moves by the president-elect involving top military commanders.

The headline reads: Trump Draft Executive Order Would Create a Board to Purge Generals. The panel could upend military review process and raise concerns about politicization of military.

"The Journal" got a look at the draft which calls for the creation of a board of retired senior military personnel, empowered to review three and four-star officers and recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership.

Quoting from the report, "As commander-in-chief, Trump can fire any officer at will, but an outside board whose members he appoints would bypass the Pentagon's regular promotion system, signaling across the military that he intendeds to purge a number of generals and admirals."

A transition team's spokeswoman did not comment on the draft order, but she did say that Americans gave him a mandate to, "implement the promises he made on the campaign trail." And he certainly did promise action against certain generals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: You see these generals lately on television? They are woke.

You may have a few people at the top that are woke and we're going to get rid of them so damn fast.

You know we have the real generals and we have the fake woke generals.

We're getting a little tired of the woke generals.

The woke generals should be fired immediately.

We will fire the woke generals.

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST, "FOX AND FRIENDS" WEEKEND: Are you going to fire those generals? The woke generals at the top because you've been talking about it.

TRUMP: Yes, I would get rid of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: "The Journal" article cites two defense officials identifying Joint Chief Chairman C.Q. Brown, Jr. as a feared potential target for the president-elect. Brown, you'll remember spoke about the impact of Black Lives Matter protests had on him and what it was like as a Black fighter pilot.

This comes as the president-elect names more loyalists in addition to Pete Hegseth to his administration. Tapping former director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to run the Central Intelligence Agency. He also chose South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to be his new Secretary of Homeland Security and also named former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, his ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee is a hard line supporter of Israel who once denied the existence of Palestinians as a people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), FORMER GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS: Basically, there really is no such thing as -- I have to be careful of saying this, because people, there's really no such thing as Palestinian.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: The president-elect travels to Washington tomorrow to meet with President Biden. Also tomorrow, Republican Senators having won control the chamber will meet to decide what's been a hotly contested race to decide the next Majority Leader.

Once again tonight, things are moving fast. "The Source's" Kaitlan Collins is near Mar-a-Lago.

So, let's talk about first, Pete Hegseth to run the Pentagon. How big of a surprise is that?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST AND CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: It's a bit of a surprise in the sense that things are moving so quickly in terms of how these picks are happening.

Now, Pete Hegseth is someone who has long been on Trump's radar. He's an Iraq war veteran. He's got two bronze stars, Anderson, but he is much better known to certainly the president-elect from his -- as a Fox News host.

[20:05:07]

He co-hosts the program on the weekends. I remember when Trump was in office the first time, he debated with making Hegseth the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, though there were questions at the time over whether or not he could get confirmed. He does not have any government experience and so, that is something

that is certainly going to be a reaction that we're seeing on Capitol Hill tonight. Even some lawmakers not knowing who Pete Hegseth is.

So I think that's a good question tonight over what that confirmation process is going to look like. Because obviously he has been tapped to now lead what is the government's biggest federal agency. As you just noted there with a massive budget and millions of employees at the Department of Defense.

But Trump has made his choice in Pete Hegseth, similar to others that we have seen, ardent defenders of his on Fox News. He was just in that clip that you were playing there where they were questioning him about the woke generals. That was Pete Hegseth who was sitting the closest to the camera.

And so, I've been talking to people. I had heard his name a few hours ago from one source. I checked in with some who others who said, that can't be real, that's not right, I had not heard that even 24 hours ago. So that could give you some insight into just how quickly this came together, Anderson, which may not be entirely surprising given how this process has gone.

COOPER: I know you've been talking about Elon Musk and how he's been there for quite a while now since the election. What more are you learning about Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy leading this Department of Government Efficiency?

COLLINS: This is not a surprise because this something that Elon Musk had been talking about when he was out on the campaign trail for Trump in Pennsylvania over the last few weeks. I was at the Madison Square Garden rally, where he talked about it as well.

And what they are calling it is the Department of Government Efficiency. Obviously, any federal agency that was created would have to be approved by Congress. That's not a sense that that is happening here, that this is necessarily a real genuine agency. But clearly what they have been seeking to do is cut costs in federal spending and also staffing inside the federal government.

I think there are real questions tonight about what that's going to look like. This says it is being led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Anderson, one question that I have had over the last few weeks is we've heard them talk about a trillion dollars in cuts, but when you look at how much money the federal government spent in the last fiscal year, it's close to seven trillion dollars, over five trillion of that has gone to healthcare, to Social Security, to veterans.

So, if they're cutting a trillion dollars, they wouldn't really be able to do that without dipping into that. So, I think there's a real question of how all this would work because obviously, spending for agencies is approved by Congress and the president, not by outside groups and we have been told Elon Musk is not joining the federal government per se. I still think there's a lot of questions over what exactly this is

going to look like, but Elon Musk clearly has had a lot of influence on this transition as he has been spending a lot of time at Mar-a-Lago with Trump.

COOPER: I mean, it's interesting they're calling it the Department of Government Efficiency as if it's like the Department of Defense, or the Department of Education, and the Department of Interior. It's not going to be like a department like that. It's going to be these two guys and whomever else. I mean, they're not going to go through any confirmation process, are they?

COLLINS: No, there's nothing to be -- there's no confirmation because there's nothing to be nominated to. It's not obviously an actual government agency. I'll leave it to others to talk about the irony of creating a government agency per se as they are doing here to cut down on government staffing and spending, which is the goal here.

But I think this is an effort that also should speak to the amount of influence the outside players are going to have on what this second Trump term looks like when it comes to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in this sense.

I mean, this has long been something he sought to do. Trump pledged to cut federal spending when he was in office the last time. Obviously, that didn't happen. The deficit actually went up. This is certainly one of those wait and see what it actually looks like, Anderson, and how it plays out.

COOPER: Governor Kristi Noem was just confirmed as President-elect Trump's pick for Department of Homeland Security Secretary. I mean that's a huge department. That seems surprising.

COLLINS: So this, I just want to tell you about this because we published the story about 1:00 AM last night. I had heard that she had been picked, that Trump had called her and told her she was his pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Most people think of that and think immigration.

Obviously that's what we've been talking about so much. But the DHS is a huge agency that oversees also FEMA, the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Cybersecurity. I mean, it is a very sprawling agency. It obviously, has hundreds of thousands of employees. A huge budget as well. So, some people that I spoke to, even in Trump's orbit, were shocked that that was the name he had gone with.

There was actually a lot of internal uproar today. It wasn't clear that the statement Trump just put out confirming she was his pick was going to happen. I learned a little while ago that he was sticking by her and she was going to be his selection.

[20:10:12]

But, Anderson, we talk about the confirmation process here because Trump has 53 Republican senators and it doesn't seem like it will be all that difficult. But I think there are questions for people like Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem in these massive agencies, what kind of questions even Republican senators are going to have for them and their qualifications and their views of such huge post in the federal government.

COOPER: Yes, Kaitlan Collins, thanks.

Be sure to tune in to "The Source" at the top of the next hour and Kaitlan's guest is going to be former Trump National Security adviser, John Bolton.

With me here tonight, best-selling author and journalist, Jeffrey Toobin; Democratic strategist Paul Begala, "The New York Times'" Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Also, Republican strategist, Shermicheal Singleton and former Illinois Republican Congressman, Adam Kinzinger.

Congressman, let me start with you, your reaction to Pete Hegseth, Army combat veteran, Fox News host as President-elect Trump's choice for defense secretary.

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean it depends, obviously, it's weird and there's only one reason he's doing it because he's on Fox News. That's what Donald Trump pick is based on. I know Pete. I haven't talked to him actually much recently, but I know him and particularly prior to his life on Fox News.

And he actually is very smart when it comes to things like Defense policy. I remember, his last deployment to Afghanistan, he actually was putting out this kind of newsletter he would do every week or so filling folks in. But the question is what kind of Pete Hegseth is going to show up. That one or is it going to be the Pete Hegseth that's on Fox News that just tries to be loyal to Donald Trump. And that's why he was picked, because of his loyalty.

By the way, I want to make a quick point. The whole reason it's called Department of Government Efficiency and not like an efficiency czar is because the acronym is DOGE, D-O-G-E which is Dogecoin. That's why they did it, that's how serious they are because it's all about this signaling. It's kind of strange.

COOPER: Yes. On the Pentagon, can you just put into perspective how vast and complicated the Pentagon is and how difficult the Department of Defense is to actually run?

KINZINGER: I mean, it's massively difficult. Especially for somebody that really doesn't have experience in running an organization like that. My guess, and my kind of prediction here, is they're putting Pete Hegseth up to really stir the pot. To probably as you guys were talking about prior, to fire a bunch of generals, to really bring the culture war stuff front and center.

And by the way, there's nothing wrong with changing the culture of DoD, if you're saying we need to do better at recruiting. But when you turn it into a culture war and make it more Republican versus Democrat, it's very dangerous for DoD.

But yes, running an organization that's $850 billion with operations around the world, I mean, you better know what you're doing because otherwise you're going to get swallowed up in that bureaucracy.

COOPER: Paul Begala, what do you make of this?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: First, the government does -- no, actually. First, Mr. Trump won the election and I do believe, I've worked in the White House, the president should have a very, very wide berth to put together the Cabinet that they want and need to run the country. I mean that, I actually hope the Senate will defer and I think they will.

Almost every new president gets almost every -- there will be one who flames out. Someone who doesn't perform well on television and Mr. Trump sees that, it's okay, here she is out.

COOPER: Do you have any doubt that a Republican-controlled Senate is going to--

BEGALA: Not much, but somebody could flame out in the hearings. More -- I say theoretically, should they, but as you were talking with Adam, these are enormously complicated departments.

Homeland Security was stood up after 9/11, an amalgamation of a whole bunch of other agencies. And it does, immigration, it does counterterrorism, it does all but TSA, all matter of things and this governor has no experience in any of those things. She's 1,400 miles from the Mexican Border in Pierre, South Dakota.

A great state, I love it, her entire state has 8,500 state employees that she manages. She is now going to manage 260,000.

The same with Mr. Hegseth who his service seems very impressive, my God, two bronze stars. But again, it is his first job in the government, he is running an agency with almost a trillion dollar budget and 2.8 million employees in and out of uniform if you add Guard and Reserve and civilians in active duty and thousands of nuclear weapons. It's his prerogative, it really is, but it's going to be --

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: This is the concern though, I mean ultimately, the concern is are these the people who you want running these very important agencies that deal with terrorism, that deal with our posture around the world, that oversee our nuclear arsenal? Are these the people that are really going to take this responsibly? Are they going to have to be learning on the job at a moment that is incredibly complicated globally. And what signal does this send to America's enemies?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Can I say a word about the Department Of Government Efficiency?

First of all, it is basically, it seems that it will be part of the White House staff, which is fine. The president is allowed to hire whoever he wants. It's not a government department as you said. However, there is a very boring and very important law called the Administrative Procedures Act which governs how the government moves along in terms of changing how it works. And it requires a lot of hoops to be jumped through. If you want to

get rid of part of a government department. If you want to change the structure of the Department of Education, the Department of the Interior. You have to go through all these steps and like it or not, these two entrepreneurs are going to have to start learning that and following it and its going to drive them crazy and we'll see how much they actually do.

There have been lots of attempts to make the government more efficient. Al Gore did it, there was something called the Grace Report back in the Reagan administration. It's a lot harder than it seems.

[20:16:03]

COOPER: Shermichael, what do you make of the changes?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I'm actually a bit open minded about Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk. I think we've just wasted a significant amount of money in our government and I know there's a lot of criticism about how much should the federal government mimic a private business or a publicly traded company. I think we need a little bit of it. I think we need to streamline it. Technology could potentially replace a significant amount of people. We have too much bureaucracy.

And so I'm curious to see if their advisement to the president, working in tandem with Congress, could potentially improve some of those things. I take the point about the laws. That's going the make it a bit difficult. They will have to work around that. I suspect that they will.

As it pertains to Pete, Harvard guy, Princeton guy, 20 years military service, two tours, I think he'll be fine. I was a bit surprised about Kristi Noem, Anderson, I have to be honest with you. Kaitlan reported there was some internal disagreement there. I would have preferred with someone with military background or intelligence background leading DHS. We'll see how she'll do in terms of being confirmed ultimately by the Senate.

But everyone else, I think the president-elect is moving in the right direction but I'm really honing in on this government efficiency. We have to improve the way our federal government works. I think a lot of presidents have tried, none have been successful, can they move the needle a little bit? That could beneficial in terms of the resources for the American people.

COOPER: We're going to take a quick break. We're going to have more. We will continue the appointments conversation. Also, dig further in to tonight's new reporting, a plan to set up a kind of review board for US generals and admirals.

Also, CNN's Donie O'Sullivan revisits one woman who attacked the Capitol, talks to people -- to the people who've been praying for their release to see if she expects to get released. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:21:42]

COOPER: The breaking news tonight. New Trump Cabinet picks, Defense and DHS and he's named Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to head up a government cost cutting office called ''DOGE" the Department of Government Efficiency. Back now, we're with the panel.

Congressman, we talked about "The Wall Street Journal" reporting at the of the program that the Trump transition team is considering a draft executive order, create a board to potentially purge generals from the military. What is your reaction to that?

KINZINGER: Yes, I mean, it's eerie, it's creepy and the thing is, and the thing is, if this was a board that was going to be like hey, we want to get rid of generals that maybe don't have the trust of their troops or something along that line. That would be one thing. But what its actually going to be is basically culture war stuff.

Again, I think it's important to point out that there has been some culture stuff in the DoD that has been acidic. It has hurt recruitment. There's nothing wrong with saying, let's kind of level the playing field here. Making sure the best people are in the right spots because DoD frankly has a history of promoting the wrong people just based on what they do on there -- you know, there is cold work versus based on the trust of the troops.

But this sounds eerie and again, it sounds like the focus is going more to make DoD more Republican instead of more efficient. And that's obviously a huge concern because DoD has got to stay a bipartisan agency. And when this gets politicized, it's actually pretty dangerous.

COOPER: It's interesting Shermicheal, because, there was report in the past about Trump sort of being surprised that his generals are not pledging loyalty to him, there are obviously and then now you're pledging loyalty to the country, the pledge and loyalty to the Constitution, to a piece of paper. Does the prospect of purging generals from the rank, do you think it sends the right message at this point of the transition?

SINGLETON: Look, if you're going to purge people, I want to purge people because they're not performing at the levels they need to perform and Adam sort of alluded to this.

I wouldn't necessarily get caught up in the personality test. We have a recruitment issue in our military. We need to address it. I think the military needs to focus on being stoic and lethality. There's a ton of issues going on across the globe right now and some of these cultural issues that we've seen introduced to the military have no place.

I also agree with Adam, we don't want politics into our military. Whether its Republican or Democrat, I think that's irrelevant. I think readiness should be at the forefront. Their ability to do the job and do it well should be at the forefront. So if you're going to purge individuals who aren't meeting these metrics, then I'm absolutely all for that -- Anderson.

COOPER: Jeff, the unknown I guess at this point still is the attorney general. Which is obviously I've talked about the importance of that.

TOOBIN: Well the attorney general is unique in the cabinet because there's a dual role there. On the one hand, he or she is part of the Cabinet and an adviser to the president. He or she will decide with the president, are we going to spend more money to enforce the border or spend more on fighting organized crime. Those are policy issues. But he, it's currently he, also decides whom to prosecute. And that is a role that has been very separate from the president.

And there are in fact rules in effect. They're not laws, but there are rules about whether the office of the president can communicate with the Justice Department about prosecuting individual people. What President Trump has said is he wants those two roles to be one role. That he wants to be in charge of who gets prosecuted and that is something unprecedented in modern American history.

[20:25:15]

Richard Nixon tried to do it, but it was one of the reasons he was forced from office. He was trying to politically manipulate who gets prosecuted, who gets his taxes audited, that sort of thing. And that's the real fear that if the president-elect takes over the Justice Department deciding who gets prosecuted in the White House as opposed to in the Justice Department, that would be something very new and very scary.

COOPER: Obviously, with Elon Musk with Vivek Ramaswamy, with any business person coming in to government, there is always ethics concerns, obviously with the whole Trump family, there is anybody coming into government, it does seem like Elon Musk is in a separate category certainly in this administration.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think he's in a completely separate category. The conflicts of interest are already are kind of legion. He is a government contractor. He provides an enormous amount of things for the government right now. So, the fact that he's going in and trying to cut people and departments that regulate him and his businesses is extremely problematic.

And let's look at his track record. What did he do at Twitter now X? He completely gutted that organization. It remains to be seen what he does in the federal bureaucracy. But let's not forget here, Trump came in and all of the Republicans around him came in with a promise to basically gut the administrative state as they call it. To get rid of government.

This has been a long standing goal of Republicans and some Republicans will say that's what is needed. Radical change, it's a good thing, but you know, a lot of these people do not have the experience to know what they should be cutting, what they shouldn't be cutting. These are not people are government experience. So it really does beg the question, what are we going to be left with at the end of this?

COOPER: Paul.

BEGALA: We are going to see a purity police everywhere. It's not simply conflicts of interest. It's going to be who is loyal to the Dear Leader. And as we all have seen the first --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: We are seeing it already by who he is putting in there.

BEGALA: Right, and it's a one-way thing, it's a one-way street. So, some of these people pledging their fealty to him today like many did in the last year who used to work for him, they're going to --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But they are weak leaders beyond that, they are already going to be weak because they don't have any experience. And so they won't be able to push back on things.

COOPER: You've been a Washington figure for a long time. Do you need a lot of experience to run the Department of Defense?

BEGALA: It's kind of a big deal. It is unspeakably inflammably large, it's so very big. And you need lots of different kinds of experiences.

Okay, so I really admire Mr. Hegseth's military service, but it also would have helped if he knew more about government bureaucracy or about Capitol Hill or about international relations or these things. But almost all of these people, I'm ready to give them a fair shot. I'm much more worried about this reporting that everyone is going to be tested for their purity to the Dear Leader, than anything about this nominee or that nominee.

COOPER: Everybody thanks so much.

Up next, the president-elect promised the January 6th rioters the possibility of pardons. The question is, will he actually deliver? Donie O'Sullivan checks in with the rioter and a grandmother now in prison who is convinced that Trump is going to pardon her.

Also, latest episode of my podcast about grief, "All There Is." Just out tonight, we'll play you part of the conversation with Will Reeve, who's dad to the late actor Christopher Reeve and his mom, Dana, both died when he was just 12 and 13 years old.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:32:40]

COOPER: In a new interview with our Manu Raju, Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene said that Trump should pardon all the January 6 rioters and believes that he absolutely will. Quoting her now, "A lot of these are ridiculous charges," she said. She also says, quote, "They didn't kill anybody. The only people that were killed were Ashli Babbitt and a few other protesters there that day. They didn't rape anybody. They didn't kill anyone."

We should note four police officers who responded that day later died by suicide. A fifth, Brian Sicknick, suffered strokes and died of natural causes the day after responding to the attack. More than 1,500 Trump supporters arrested for their role in the attack on the Capitol are now awaiting word from the president-elect on what is likely to them the most important promise he made on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But sir, my question is on those --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: What's going to happen to the people that drive the --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- rioter who assaulted officers.

TRUMP: Excuse me. You have to --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you pardon those people?

TRUMP: What's going to happen -- oh absolutely I would. If they're innocent --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You would pardon those --

TRUMP: -- I would pardon them.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

COOPER: We should note that was in July, a month earlier, the campaign said he would consider pardons for January 6 rioters on what they called a case-by-case basis. Donie O'Sullivan has more.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today was amazing. Woke up with the president of the United States, the rightful president, back in his spot. And today, after 828 days, we're going to pop some champagne and raise a glass to President Trump.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the mother of Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was shot and killed by Capitol Police on January 6th.

SHERRI HAFNER, J6 PARDON ACTIVIST: Mama Mickey, we love you honey. And we are so grateful for you bringing this freedom family together.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): It's the night after the election. Trump supporters have gathered here, as they have every night for the last 800 nights outside the Washington, D.C. jail.

O'SULLIVAN: How did you feel when Trump won last night?

HAFNER: I knew that meant freedom for our guys. And I was overwhelmed, thankful. And I know that God heard our prayers. O'SULLIVAN: Are you emotional?

HAFNER: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Jan 6 inmates call in to talk to the organizers nightly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The stressful, barren journey has finally come to an end with the election of our beloved president, Donald J. Trump.

[20:35:03]

HAFNER: I couldn't stop crying last night that you guys are finally going to get pardoned. You're going to be set free. And all of this is going to be behind us.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Trump has repeatedly promised to give pardons to some people serving time for their actions on January 6th.

SUZZANNE MONK, FOUNDER, J6 PARDON PROJECT: And now we have to continue to put pressure on the president to make that right decision to fulfill that promise. And I know that he will. But I also know my president understands trust, but verify.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): One person who certainly hopes to be pardoned is Rachel Powell.

O'SULLIVAN: How do you feel when you watch this?

RACHEL POWELL, PARTICIPANT IN THE JANUARY 6 UNITED STATES CAPITOL ATTACK: You know, I think I am more numb when I look at this stuff. It's like surreal to me. I mean, look how angry I look.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): I met Rachel back in January of this year, right before she was about to go to prison for crimes she committed at the Capitol on January 6th, while protesting what she believed was a stolen election.

O'SULLIVAN: Have you ever had a moment where you're like, you know, maybe I'm wrong? Maybe Biden actually won the election. Maybe I'm the conspiracy theorist.

R. POWELL: No, not at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This call is from a federal prison.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Rachel and I stayed in touch throughout the year.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like I just need to be home with my family.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Rachel has eight children, ranging in ages from eight to 28, along with seven grandkids. We spoke to three of Rachel's older daughters, Ada, Rebecca, and Savannah.

O'SULLIVAN: Wait, this is you and your mom?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: When was this taken?

REBEKAH FEDOSICK, DAUGHTER OF RACHEL POWELL: Yes, this is in the prison. This is Ada, our mom. This is Gideon (ph), me, and my husband.

SAVANNAH HUNTINGTON, DAUGHTER OF RACHEL POWELL: The only thing I could think of when I heard that Trump won the election was that my mom is coming home. She's going to be able to come home now.

FEDOSICK: Yes.

HUNTINGTON: Just -- we're going to have our mom back.

FEDOSICK: You just know she's freaking out.

HUNGTINGTON: Yes. She's so excited. She's so happy.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Their mom was found guilty of engaging in physical violence and of destruction of government property for breaking a window at the Capitol with an ice axe.

O'SULLIVAN: Do you ever just think, oh mom, I wish you didn't go to Washington, D.C. that day?

ADAH POWELL, DAUGHTER OF RACHEL POWELL: I feel like that's a pretty normal thought to have when there's so many consequences to the actions, but ultimately she was going to support something she believed in --

FEDOSICK: Yes.

A. POWELL: And she is our mother. So we support her in whatever she decides to do.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

FEDOSICK: I don't blame her for going. I kind of wish she had a little like held herself back.

A. POWELL: Maybe a little more restraint would have been nice.

FEDOSICK: Exactly. Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: You guys are not of the opinion. Your mom went to Washington, D.C. chasing a conspiracy theory, chasing a lie.

HUNTINGTON: No.

A. POWELL: No.

HUNTINGTON: No. A. POWELL: Yes. She had a strong belief, she wanted to go support it, and we all share her belief that it was definitely stolen in our opinions.

O'SULLIVAN: You're certain he will pardon your mom?

A. POWELL: Yes.

HUNTINGTON: Yes. Yes. He will keep to what he said. He will keep his word. He is going to pardon her.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): While we were at Rachel's home, she called from prison.

R. POWELL: Oh man, when Trump won, it was amazing. It was -- which I knew, I knew that that's what the American people wanted, so I had no doubt. But, as everybody knows, I believe there was election fraud last time, and so I just wondered, are we going to have a fair election this time? And it appears that we did, because Trump got elected.

O'SULLIVAN: And do you think he's going to pardon you?

R. POWELL: I know he's going to pardon me.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

COOPER: Donie O'Sullivan joins us now back with Jeffrey Toobin, author of a forthcoming book, "The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy," scheduled for release in February. What has the transition team said about pardoning January 6th people?

O'SULLIVAN (on-camera): Yes, so, Anderson, they told us that they're going to -- Trump's going to take those pardons on a case-by-case basis. But as you saw in that piece there, the people who gather outside the D.C. jail every night now for more than 800 nights, they expect him to pardon most, if not all, of these criminals, these people who have been convicted.

And if you think about us, I mean, Trump has spent -- Trump and MAGA Media and everything else has spent the past four years trying to whitewash what happened at the Capitol on that day. Trying to say that all these people who are in prison are political prisoners, that they are being persecuted unfairly.

So for him not to do this, I think will put him in a tough spot.

COOPER: Yes. Dozens and dozens of police officers also were injured --

O'SULLIVAN (on-camera): Absolutely.

COOPER: -- during that day.

O'SULLIVAN (on-camera): Absolutely.

COOPER: Jeff, I mean, is there anything stopping President-elect Trump now, President Trump soon to be, from just pardoning them all?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Zero. You know, the pardon power is unusual in the Constitution. Most of the powers in the Constitution have some sort of check and balance on them. The pardon power directly replicates the power of the King of England.

There is absolutely no limit on who he can pardon, when he can pardon. And it can't be challenged in the courts. It can't be challenged in Congress. And he can pardon people who haven't even been charged yet.

[20:40:02]

I mean, the FBI is still looking for more people in this, but he can say those people are off limits too, just as Gerald Ford said to Richard Nixon, you're pardoned even though you haven't been charged with a crime yet.

COOPER: There are some of these people who have, I mean, have multiple year sentences.

O'SULLIVAN (on-camera): Yes.

COOPER: Very long sentences.

O'SULLIVAN (on-camera): Yes. Look, there is a bit of debate, even some Republican elected officials say, look, anybody who touched a police officer, attacked a police officer shouldn't be pardoned, right? So there are people talking about it in those sort of terms.

But, again, if you go back to how -- you know, if you talk to some Trump supporters, they'll say the only people that did bad things at the Capitol that day were the police or imagined Black Lives Matter and Antifa supporters. So again, for Trump to leave a lot of these people in prison --

COOPER: There are still people who claim it was Antifa --

O'SULLIVAN (on-camera): Oh, absolutely. Yes. I mean, the cognitive dissonance here is remarkable.

TOOBIN: But, you know, the people who are still in prison are, for the most part, the people who beat on the cops. You know, 1,500 people arrested, 750 were never sentenced to prison in the first place. Many of the lesser people have served their sentences and are now home.

Only a few hundred are still in prison. And they are, for the most part, people like Stewart Rhodes, the head of the Oath Keepers, who was serving 18 years. Enrique Tarrio, the head of the Proud Boys, he's serving 22 years. Is Trump going to pardon them too? I mean, that's why, you know, when you start getting into the facts of these individual cases, it's pretty ugly.

O'SULLIVAN (on-camera): Yes. Rachel Powell, who's in that piece, she obviously attacked with -- the Capitol with a big ice axe.

COOPER: Right. O'SULLIVAN (on-camera): She would say, look, I didn't lay my hand on anyone. So I wasn't violent in that sense, therefore, I should get out.

COOPER: Donie O'Sullivan, thanks very much. Jeff Toobin as well.

Coming up, high profile acts of anti-Semitism in the U.S. wanted posters for Jewish faculty at a university in New York are just the tip of the iceberg. Details in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:46:08]

COOPER: Authorities in Amsterdam said they're bracing for more possible anti-Semitic violence tonight after attacks on visiting Israeli football fans last week. Last night, this tram in Amsterdam was set on fire. People shouted anti-Semitic slurs as a firework was lit. The trolley car went up in flames. Police say three people were arrested.

And in images obtained today, Jewish faculty members at the University of Rochester and Upstate New York were targeted by hundreds of so- called wanted posters over the weekend. The posters criticized faculty members for their alleged response to the war in Gaza. School officials say the point of the posters was to, quote, "intimidate".

Randi Kaye has more on the rise of anti-Semitism. We warn you some of what you'll see is disturbing and may be difficult to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're protecting our rights from prominent trash because I'm ignorant.

RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anti-Semitism on full display in Livingston County, Michigan. Masked men waving Nazi flags and shouting anti-Semitic and racial slurs.

ALEX SUTLIFF, WITNISSED ANTISEMITIC DEMONSTRATION: They were sticking their arm up, yelling hail Hitler and hail Trump. It was sickening.

KAYE (voice-over): Alex Sutliff recorded this video on Saturday near the American Legion post 141. At the time, the Legion was showing a theater production of "The Diary of Anne Frank," which tells the story of a Jewish girl who hid from Nazis during the Holocaust.

One witness told affiliate WXYZ that many people inside were so afraid they had to be escorted to their cars.

MARK EPLEY, VETERAN, WITNESSED ANTISEMITIC DEMONSTRATION: They have that much hatred in them. It just, it makes no sense to me.

KAYE (voice-over): Sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene and the Detroit News reports the demonstrators left after they were told to vacate the parking lot. The Fowlerville Theater Company issued a statement saying, in part, "The presence of protesters outside gave us a small glimpse of the fear and uncertainty felt by those in hiding."

JONATHAN GREENBLATT, CEO, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: It's no coincidence that this vile hateful demonstration happened during a performance about this young girl whose story has come to epitomize a kind of heroism in the face of evil.

KAYE (voice-over): This isn't the first time Michigan has seen such hate. In July, white supremacists marched through Howell, about 40 miles northwest of Detroit. Faces covered, signs in hand, some shouting, Hail Hitler.

Five months before that, this was the scene in Nashville, Tennessee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (CHANTING).

All of you.

KAYE (voice-over): As masked men marched through downtown Nashville displaying swastikas, this member of the Tennessee House of Representatives took notice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are literally having a Nazi march, literally having a Nazi march here in downtown Nashville. White supremacists talking about -- white supremacist neo-Nazism, talking about deporting folks and just racial hatred.

GREENBLATT: The global Jewish community is on high alert because anti- Semitism is like a pandemic that seems to be sweeping countries all over the planet.

KAYE (voice-over): The Anti-Defamation League tells us since the October 7th attack on Israel, there have been 10,000 incidents of harassment and violence against Jewish people around the world. That's more than a 200% increase over the period prior.

There are growing fears about anti-Semitism in the city of Amsterdam, where Anne Frank hid in the attic for more than two years. In July, a statue of her was vandalized. The word Gaza splashed across it in red paint.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This one children, for the children.

KAYE (voice-over): And just this past week, fans of an Israeli soccer team were attacked in what Dutch authorities have condemned as an anti-Semitic attack. Before the match, some Israeli fans chanted anti- Arab sentiments.

Later, pro-Palestinian protesters charged Israeli fans in what's been described as a hit and run attack. Dozens were injured and more than 60 people were arrested.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

[20:50:03]

COOPER: Randi joins us now. Did the Anti-Defamation League say why they think there's been this uptick in anti-Semitic attacks?

KAYE (on-camera): Anderson, they didn't say exactly why, but they say it started well before the October 7th attack on Israel. In fact, they started to see this shift in 2016. And then in 2019, anti-Semitic incidents hit a record high, and they've been going up every single year since then.

In fact, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League told me today that in the last decade, they've seen a 900 percent increase in incidents involving harassment, violence, vandalism, targeting Jewish people around the world, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Randi Kaye, thanks.

Next, a preview of a new episode from my podcast about grief, "All There Is," which is just out tonight. My guest is Will Reeve, the son of Superman actor Christopher Reeve and actress Dana Reeve. Will was just 12 when his dad died, and less than two years later, his mom died of lung cancer.

We talk about what he calls his long journey to grief. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:55:07]

COOPER: An all-new episode of my podcast about grief, "All There Is," is out right now. You can listen by pointing your phone's camera at the QR code at the bottom of your screen. This week's guest is ABC News Correspondent Will Reeve, the son of the late Christopher Reeve, best known for starring in the Superman movies of the late 70s and 80s.

But to Will and his half-siblings, he was dad. Will was just 12 when his father died of heart failure after living nearly a decade paralyzed from the neck down after a riding accident. About a year and a half later, Will's mom, Dana Reeve, died of lung cancer. She was 44.

We started by talking about the loss of his dad.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

WILL REEVE, ACTOR AND SON OF CHRISTOPHER REEVE: He was injured right before my third birthday. So I got about nine-ish years with him in a wheelchair. But the love that my dad showed me in the short time we had together has sustained me until present day and probably way beyond.

And then he died a few months after my 12th birthday. I remember walking in to the hospital, and the first thing I saw was my dad in a room with a bunch of doctors and nurses around him doing chest compressions. And someone took me into a room, and I could hear my mom next door in the room with my dad wailing.

And then eventually, she quietly walked in the room and told me that he was gone and that I should come with her and walk in and say anything that I might want to say to him. And she said, he can still hear you.

I remember saying, dad, I love you, and I will always do whatever I can to make you proud. And then I walked out into the waiting room of all my family, and thus began a great long journey into grief.

A little over a year later, my mom dies. Didn't smoke. I don't think she drank much. And yet there she is with lung cancer. And then March of 2006, she died. I didn't want to face it. That's so final.

I might have been young, but I wasn't too young to know how catastrophic that could be, that was. That was the low moment of my life, so far.

COOPER: Did -- I mean, did you grieve?

REEVE: No. I learned pretty quickly that whenever I didn't seem like I was grieving, people remarked how strong and adjusted and tough, et cetera, I was. The stronger and happier I seemed, the better I was received by the world around me.

COOPER: People like to see that.

REEVE: Yes. It makes them feel comfortable and safe.

COOPER: Yes.

REEVE: Grief is weird and scary and a little yucky, right? Part of what I've learned as I've tried to wrestle my own grief down to size and understand it better and have it serve me rather than fight me is you need to push on the pain points. You need to work at it like you go to the gym to get strong.

You read books to get smart. You got to go to the dark places in your own way in order to bring light there. The one thing that will be destructive is if you ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist.

The wound will be there. The hole is there. Whatever you want to call it, however you want to identify it, it's permanent. But that is OK because you can heal there and you can live a full, meaningful life with the wound.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

COOPER: Now you can listen to all of my conversation about grief with Will Reeve. The new episode of my podcast, "All There Is," is just now available wherever you get your podcast. You can also point your camera at the QR code on the screen right now and click on the link that shows up.

You can also check out our new online grief community at CNN.com/allthereisonline. It's a new grief community. You can listen to all the podcasts there. You can watch video versions of the interviews, including the one with Will, and connect with others who are grieving. You can also listen to voicemails from other podcast listeners about their grief experiences that are incredibly moving. And you can watch the podcast interviews on the CNN channel on YouTube as well. I hope some of it makes you feel a little less lonely in your grief.

That's it for us. The news continues. I'll see you tomorrow. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.