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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Trump Expected To Offer Kelly Loeffler Job As Agriculture Secretary; Trump Weighing Dramatic Shake-up Of The FBI; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, (D-FL), Is Interviewed About Pam Bondi For Attorney General; Trump Taps Former Florida AG Pam Bondi For Attorney General; DeSantis Sets April 1 Special Election For Empty Gaetz Seat; Lara Trump: President-Elect "Not Hell-Bent On Revenge"; Rep. Mike Flood (R- NE), Is Interviewed About Awaiting Trump's Treasury Secretary Pick; Transgender Athlete Shares Her Story; Up To 70 Percent Of Americans Eat Ultra-Processed Foods. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired November 22, 2024 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Plus, critics say the line separating church and state is even more blurred today with news from Texas. The state's Board of Education voted to allow Bible based lessons in public schools. And there is even a financial incentive for schools to use those plans.
And leading this hour, 59 days until Donald Trump takes over as the 47th president of the United States, and we're standing by for decisions. One of the newest names could be someone he once fought to get elected, former Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler or Loeffler. CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins broke the news about Loeffler today. Kaitlan's just back from West Palm Beach, Florida with that glowing tan as we hear these announcements coming from Mar-a-Lago.
It's Loeffler?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: It's a fake tan.
TAPPER: It's Loeffler. Right? Loeffler.
COLLINS: Loeffler.
TAPPER: OK. You know, L-O-E-F-F. It's confusing.
COLLINS: Potentially future secretary so far.
TAPPER: Right. But she was expected at Mar-a-Lago today.
COLLINS: Yes.
TAPPER: It's a sign that maybe she could be named.
COLLINS: Yes. Well, that's basically how everyone who has been named, they've made the trip down to Mar-a-Lago. And what we had heard from sources is Trump is trying to knock a lot of these cabinet picks out in the few in the next few days. We should get some potentially as soon as today. But with Kelly Loeffler, what I'd heard is that he's expected to offer the job to her. Now, the caveat in Trump world is nothing is final until he's, you know --
TAPPER: Agriculture secretary, right?
COLLINS: Agriculture Secretary. What did I say?
TAPPER: I don't think you said anything.
COLLINS: Oh, he's expected to offer her agriculture secretary. She was going down there to meet with him this afternoon. So we'll see if everything goes according to plan. But that is what they had been expecting. This is actually a really important job because two things that I would personally keep an eye on is one, RFK Jr. promised, you know, back in October if Trump won that he was going to assert his will over the agriculture industry. And obviously there have been a lot of questions and some concerned farmers who wonder what he wants to do, how that affects them. And two, obviously immigration. If Trump does carry out his plan to have these mass deportations, that's really going to affect the agriculture industry as well.
So, Kelly Loeffler is someone who obviously was in the Senate previously briefly before she ran again unsuccessfully, she probably could get confirmed pretty easily based on what we've heard. But this is just how all of this is shaking out. Though Trump still has a lot of big cabinet picks to make that we're waiting on today, Jake.
TAPPER: I hadn't even thought about that. But you're right. Big Ag and Big Food control what we eat, how much of that is processed, what chemicals go in there, what pesticides are allowed to be used. RFK Jr. assuming he gets confirmed, which is a big if, I mean, he and Loeffler are going to be Ag.
COLLINS: Well, and it's not that big of an if, really. And also with the food industry, I mean, obviously they've made all these investments based on what is already in place now, what the regulations and rules are now. So if that's change -- if that changes, how much does that disrupt their industry?
I was looking at this today. There are a lot of leading experts in that industry who are concerned about what that could look like and what he's been promising and how that affects them. Obviously, rural voters and farmers are big supporters of Donald Trump. So we've seen that play out and how he's prioritized that. We'll see what it looks like.
But it's actually a pretty interesting cabinet role to keep your eye on.
TAPPER: Last night you reported that Trump was thinking about former CNN contributor and former congressman and losing Senate candidate Mike Rogers of Michigan for FBI director. He was on Fox auditioning for it this morning, basically. What's the latest on that?
COLLINS: So, Trump has made clear he wants to get rid of Chris Wray, the FBI director that he appointed who still has three years left on his 10-year term. But basically no one I've spoken to expects him to serve that out. The question is who is he going to replace him with? Because Trump has been interviewing candidates the last several days at Mar-a-Lago. He talked -- Mike Rogers was actually down there last week based on what I had heard.
And he's having trouble finding someone who is going to do what he wants at the FBI, but also who can get confirmed by the Senate. And we've seen obviously how critical that is, how that plays out and how it's top of mind for Trump right now.
So what I had heard, this one plan that was being floated was maybe putting Mike Rogers in and making him the director and then essentially telling him that if he gets that nod, he'd have to put in Kash Patel, an extreme MAGA loyalist who doesn't have experience at the FBI in as the number two. Now that was something that had been floated down at Mar-a-Lago. But after we reported that last night, allies of Cash Patel were not happy with it. They did not want to see someone like a Mike Rogers at the top, who's more -- you know, he worked at the FBI previously. He's more of a traditional conservative voice, though today he was pledging to make reforms at the FBI.
He was critical of Chris Wray. And then Dan Scavino tweeted this morning, it was right when I was landing in New York, saying that he personally spoke to Trump and Trump said Mike Rogers would not be leading at the FBI.
I think there were a few parts of that. Some people pointed to Andrew McCabe saying that, you know, he'd be an experienced director because he previously worked at the FBI.
TAPPER: That hurt him.
COLLINS: But it played a role in it. I think there's also been a lot of blowback internally as Trump's been considering Mike Rogers. But really the issue and the bottom line here is Trump does not have someone that he wants to lead the FBI that can get Senate confirmed at this moment. They're still very much searching for that.
TAPPER: Fascinating stuff. Kaitlan Collins, thanks.
Kaitlan is working on brand new reporting for her show tonight. She didn't give me all the good stuff. She's saving some for later. John Bolton's going to be a guest on her show. Look for that tonight on "The Source." Excellent news program at 9:00 p.m. Eastern only here on CNN. Thanks, Kaitlan.
[17:05:11]
This follows the announcement of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the Department of Justice just hours after Trump's first pick, Matt Gaetz, dropped out of consideration for the job, saying his nomination had become a distraction. That's one term for it. Let's bring in Democratic Congresswoman from Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Congresswoman, both you and Pam Bondi have long been in the politics of the state of Florida, different parties. What is your reaction to her nomination as U.S. Attorney General?
REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL): Well, with a big thud falling out of Donald Trump's chaos cabinet, Matt Gaetz. The nomination of Pam Bondi at least falls into the category of, I would say elections have consequences, Jake. No, I mean, he does have the right to appoint people, like I've been saying, who are qualified, with a healthy Senate review for advice and consent. But Pam Bondi was the attorney general of the state of Florida for eight years, and so she does have the requisite experience. But she comes with the heaviness of having been a massive election denier.
She even went so far as to suggest that there were fake ballots stuffed in Pennsylvania. She really -- what was really serious problem was she actually looked the other way when Trump University clearly committed massive fraud robbing students of millions of dollars after she got a $25,000 contribution to her PAC from Donald Trump. That's after New York actually fined Trump University $25 million.
So, this is someone who is clearly a Trump apologist, a Trump lackey. That's what he wants as AG. But, you know, she did some good things for consumer protection, did some pretty good lawsuits that brought resources back for people who'd been wronged in the state of Florida. So, you know, we'll see how the Senate looks at it, but it's a heck of a lot better than Matt Gaetz.
TAPPER: So Florida Governor Ron DeSantis just set dates for a special election to fill the seat left by Gaetz. He ran for reelection and then basically resigned from both his current seat and the one that will start soon. There's going to be a primary January 28. The general election will be April Fools Day. That leaves Speaker Johnson a few months without this critical panhandle seat. How much does that help Democrats in the House? I think you -- they can -- Republicans can only afford to lose four votes on any given vote.
SCHULTZ: Could end up being two votes, Jake. I mean, we could end up with a 217, 215 spread by the time all is said and done with the way the elections are finalized. And, you know, essentially Democrats for the last two years with the Republican majority, they couldn't do anything significant without Democratic votes. And no matter what the margin is, that's going to be the case likely coming into this election -- this next Congress.
We have the budget that's still not done. Mike Johnson is irresponsibly trying to kick the budget into March. That's going to cause the Trump administration massive problems trying to get a budget across the finish line with such a tiny margin. We have to deal with the raising of the debt ceiling so we don't crash our economy like the Republicans almost did into the side of a cliff. Doing that with such a tiny margin, they're going to need Democratic votes.
So we have quite a bit of leverage. That's why I keep saying this was not a Republican red wave. Trump won by one of the smallest margins, and Democrats are going to have a lot of say when it comes to what legislation gets across the finish line.
TAPPER: Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of the great state of Florida, have a great Thanksgiving. Good to see you. Thank you so much.
SCHULTZ: Thanks so much.
TAPPER: Panel's back with me. Hi, guys.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey.
TAPPER: So the Politico writes that Matt Gaetz's debacle shows the limits of President-elect Trump's power despite having a whole all three branches of government. Kind of not unlike what we just heard from Wasserman Schultz. Quote, "Rather than showcasing Trump's absolute power over his GOP allies, it revealed his limits. Its failure is an unwelcome lesson for the president-elect who has been projecting invincibility and claiming a historic mandate despite his reed-thin popular vote victory." What do you think?
MARGARET HOOVER, HOST, PBS "FIRING LINE": I mean, if you consider that he proposed somebody to be the chief law enforcement officer of the nation, that was obviously a criminal. Yes, I guess this shows the limits of his authority.
TAPPER: I just --
HOOVER: Allegedly a criminal.
TAPPER: Incumbent upon me to say he's never been --
HOOVER: He's allegedly -- he's never been -- he's been charged.
TAPPER: He's not charged by -- I just --
HOOVER: OK. But thank you for that. And that is fair.
TAPPER: Although we don't know what's in the House Ethics Committee.
HOOVER: But he also hasn't been charged and he was declined to be charged. But look, he does have a unified House and Senate. And if he were putting up anybody who was even plausibly qualified and respectable, then there would -- then he, you know, this is to the thing that Congresswoman Deborah -- Debbie Wasserman Schultz just said, elections do have consequences. And this could be much easier for him if he would pick qualified, respectable, like individuals who -- it's OK if you're a Republican and you point appoint a Republican attorney general, just have somebody of the stature of the before times where the Overton window hasn't shifted so badly that you get people that are so stained that it's so frustrating.
[17:10:38]
TAPPER: I feel like I'm looking --
HOOVER: It is so frustrating.
TAPPER: -- through a portal into 2014.
HOOVER: I know, 2012, 1410, you know, first decade of the 21st century. But that's not where we live now.
TAPPER: So.
REBECCA KATZ, FOUNDING PARTNER, NEW DEAL STRATEGIES: Yes. I would just jump in to say Matt Gaetz, he's the floor, right? He's the absolute floor of a nomination.
TAPPER: Oh, let me just say, let me -- I'm sorry. I've been covering politics for a long time. Do not say that because it will go (inaudible).
KATZ: Fair enough. But I'm just saying usually for --
HOOVER: The floor and things will go there.
KATZ: -- cabinet level positions --
TAPPER: Yes.
KATZ: -- you're looking at resumes of deeply qualified people for the job. Donald Trump is looking at headshots, right? He is looking at these candidates and thinking who would look -- who would play one on T.V.
TAPPER: Who's defended him well on Fox? That's really honestly the question.
KATZ: I mean, and this is not -- it's not about who's loyal to Donald Trump. At the end of the day, it should be about who's loyal to the Constitution, but not in Donald Trump's America. And that's where we are right now.
TAPPER: Well, what did you think when John Fetterman, for whom you worked, said something nice about his former election rival Dr. Oz to run the center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Did that bother you at all?
KATZ: Well, I believe what Fetterman said is if he will uphold Medicare and Medicaid, I'd be for him. And that remains to be seen because if you look at everything that Dr. Oz campaigned on, it was against Medicare and Medicaid. So we'll see how that goes. I also do not think he's remotely qualified and he's a quack, but that's just me.
TAPPER: The election was very divisive. There was a lot of heated rhetoric.
KATZ: Yes.
TAPPER: Lara Trump was asked at the Washington Post's Global Women's Summit how President-elect Trump plans to unify the nation and be a president for all Americans, especially given the fact that he has promised he will be the retribution for his voters. Here's what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LARA TRUMP, RNC CO-CHAIR: Anyone who is afraid right now, you should not be afraid. He is not hell bent on revenge or retribution of any variety. He actually himself said my revenge will be success. I can assure you that whether you voted for him or not, he will be working with you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Do you buy it, Rebecca?
KATZ: No. And also that doesn't sound like anything her father in law actually believes. There's nothing that he has said throughout his campaign that makes it seem that he actually wants to be a unifier.
TAPPER: What do you think?
HOOVER: I think those are great talking points. I think she's also rehearsing for potential appointment perhaps.
TAPPER: Right. There's going to be an empty Senate seat if Marco Rubio gets confirmed and there's talk of her becoming the next senator from Florida.
HOOVER: Perhaps appointed also. Where is her evidence? Right? I mean, of course she is going to say that. Of course she is -- I mean she is -- there is -- she is not an objective witness in this process.
I mean she is the daughter-in-law of the man who won. Her life is going to get better. A lot of people's lives are going to get a lot more comfortable and a lot more glamorous and have a lot more power and a lot more opportunities to do things for themselves and their families and the group of sort of political cronies that are around them. But there is absolutely no evidence that everything that Donald Trump and the other group -- the other individuals who have been part of the campaign have threatened this country with in their return to office is going to be abrogated by her words.
TAPPER: Rebecca, you worked on two winning Senate campaigns in battlegrounds, Fetterman in Pennsylvania a couple years ago. More recently, Senator-elect Ruben Gallego's campaign in Arizona. Kamala Harris lost both Pennsylvania and Arizona. What do Democrats need to do differently other than put you in charge of the Democratic National Committee?
KATZ: Well, listen, Ruben Gallego's win was very exciting. He over, you know, just to say a little bit about Senator-elect Gallego, Marine combat veteran, he comes from a working class background. He will be Arizona's first Latino senator. And he outperformed the top of the ticket by eight points. And this wasn't an accident.
He's been -- he went campaigning for two years. And one of the things -- we're doing a recording an ad early on and we were talking about costs and he interrupted the ad shoot and he said we have to remind people this is not their fault. You know there are so many people who are yelling. You know, we're going to have this solution and this solution. But you have to empathize with folks. And Ruben comes from a working class background. He understood, like, what needs to happen. And let's hope, like, we can actually get something done. That's what we need to do.
TAPPER: So what I'm getting is that actually the Democrats should be getting working class candidates like John Fetterman and Ruben Gallego, people who actually know hardship.
[17:15:04]
KATZ: I think we need candidates who can connect to everyday Americans. And the Democratic Party is losing that.
TAPPER: All right. Thanks to both of you. Really appreciate. And happy Thanksgiving to both of you.
Just coming, CNN's getting some brand new reporting on former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick to be the Director of National Intelligence. We're going to have that.
Plus, the vote today in Texas that will allow for Bible lessons in public schools. We're going to go live to Dallas next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: We have a faith lead today, but it does come with a side helping of politics. Today, the Texas Board of Education voted to allow using the Christian Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, for lessons in public schools, a decision that is, to say the least, controversial. But before we get to that, here are some examples from the curriculum. There's a kindergarten unit on the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is based on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel.
The teacher guide for that lesson also mentions Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and other faiths. There's another kindergarten unit about art appreciation that would focus on the Bible's Book of Genesis and artworks inspired by that.
[17:20:12]
Beyond kindergarten, the lessons include a third grade unit on ancient Rome that would feature a section dedicated to the life of Jesus and Christianity in the Roman Empire. And there's a poetry unit for fifth graders that would include psalms from the Old Testament taught alongside poems by Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams. CNN's Ed Lavandera joins us now live from Dallas.
Ed, even though the lessons incorporate both Old and New Testaments. There are concerns about a pro Christian bias in the lessons. And on top of that, part of the First Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, which many have interpreted as calling for the separation of church and state. Does that interpretation play a role here or not?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, to your first point, there is no in the curriculum as we understand it, no specific guidelines to which version of the Bible would be used, a King James version or a Catholic version. But Republicans and conservatives here in Texas have been rather dismissive of the idea that this violates some doctrine of church and state. Governor Greg Abbott putting out a statement today saying that this curriculum is a critical step in getting students back to the basics. Others have hailed it as an opportunity to round out student's educations and historical perspectives that will give them a better understanding of the things that they are learning.
But there are many critics of all of this. The American Civil Liberties Union saying that this curriculum is a flagrant disregard of religious freedom in the state. And they're urging school districts across the state to reject this curriculum. And one Democratic member of the state school board or the state board of education says they're concerned whether or not this curriculum can withstand legal scrutiny.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STACI CHILDS, (D) TEXAS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION: If a parent or a teacher who didn't feel comfortable teaching this were to bring this up to a court, I believe they would be successful. And in my good conscience in protecting my bar license, I just do not feel that these materials are yet reflective of the experiences and the nuance of Texas students. So I have to vote against ELAR material specifically.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAVANDERA: And Jake, there's cold, hard politics at play here. This curriculum was passed by an eight to seven vote. That eighth member was someone who was a Republican appointed by Greg Abbott just a few weeks ago to fill a seat that was vacated by a Democrat and that was won in the most recent election by a Democrat. That Republican cast a deciding vote in all of this and they were only be there for a temporary moment. The Democrat will take office early next year.
TAPPER: And Ed, tell me about this financial incentive to use the plans for classrooms.
LAVANDERA: Sure. Well, we should be clear that this is not a mandatory curriculum across the state. School districts have the option whether or not to use the curriculum, which is known as the bluebonnet curriculum, after the state flower of Texas. But school districts that do use the curriculum can be paid up to $40 per student annually and on top of that, another $20 annually for printing costs.
TAPPER: All right, Ed Lavandera, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
I want to turn now to some reporting just into our politics lead on the question of whether former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump's pick to lead the U.S. Intelligence community, was placed on a TSA watch list this year. Let's go to CNN's Zachary Cohen.
And Zach, Gabbard is a former member of Congress. You report she was placed on the Quiet Skies list and then was subsequently removed. What is that list and how did she end up on it? ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Jack, this is a government watch list and it identifies passengers who require additional security screening before they get on a flight. And it's based around an algorithm that uses certain criteria to identify these passengers that are then added to the list. And this criteria includes things like foreign travel patterns and foreign connections. And those are both reasons why Tulsi Gabbard, according to our sources, was placed on this list. Again, it's a security -- additional security screening list for passengers who do ping multiple of these pieces of criteria.
And now Gabbard has claimed publicly that she was added to a, quote, secret terror watch list. That's not what this is. She has also claimed that the reason she was added to the list is because she publicly criticized then president -- presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Again, our sources vehemently deny that there's anything political that goes into the process for flagging passengers. And in fact, it's a very serious security tool that's used by TSA in a risk management and a risk based approach.
So look, Tulsi Gabbard, the reasons for and the circumstances around why she was added to this list, the specifics could benign. And the foreign travel that was flagged and the foreign connections may ultimately have no connection and no bearing to her personally. But again, this is unprecedented and highly unusual for someone who is tapped to lead the U.S. Intelligence community to be on a government watch list that is a very legitimate, again, piece of security preventative program by the U.S. government. So again, Gabbard has already raised eyebrows because of her questionable foreign interactions. In the past, you obviously remember that she met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad back in 2017.
[17:25:17]
She's parroted Russian propaganda talking points as well in public. So those are already things that are a concern to Republican senators in particular who are going to have to vote to get her confirmation through. Of course, we also know there's no FBI formal vetting process being done at this time for people like Gabbard, even though they've already been tapped for these cabinet level roles.
TAPPER: All right, Zachary Cohen, thanks so much. Let's get some firsthand feedback on what Republicans are saying about Trump's Cabinet pick so far. A Republican member of the House from the great state of Nebraska is going to join us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: Back with our politics lead, President-elect Trump still has some big announcements to announce to round out his cabinet, including the Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Republican Congressman from Nebraska, Mike Flood joins us now. He's a member of the House Financial Services Committee.
[17:30:09] Congressman let's start with the Attorney General shakeup. You told C- SPAN just hours before your former colleague Matt Gaetz dropped out that you thought he was, quote, articulate, bright and focused. I don't have any issue with those words. I don't think that was really the problem how articulate or bright or focused he was. But what is your reaction to this sudden turn of events, his decision not to return to Congress and the nomination of Pam Bondi?
REP. MIKE FLOOD (R-NE): Well, first of all, I think Matt Gaetz made a great decision. I think that our system of checks and balances, the United States Senate, is working. There are questions being asked. It doesn't matter who the appointee is or the nominee, I should say. I think the members of the Senate have shown that they're taking this very seriously. And, you know, now we're talking about someone who served as the Attorney General of one of the largest states in the union.
She's gone after the pill mills that were writing prescriptions for opioids and oxycontin. She's, she's done heavy lifting with an oil spill off of Florida and negotiating that on the civil side. I think her record stands for itself. And Americans, I think are going to like what they hear when she's in front of the U.S. Senate. And I'm looking forward to them and their process.
TAPPER: We're still waiting to hear critical Cabinet pick the Secretary of the Treasury. Reported contenders include the hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Wall Street CEO and billionaire Marc Rowan, and former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh. Do you have a favorite on that list?
FLOOD: I really don't. You know, I think that I'm on the Financial Services Committee and we have a lot of heavy lifting to do with Gary Gensler at the head of the SEC. We have been dragging our heels on digital asset legislation. We've been last in terms of developed nations like ours in terms of embracing Stablecoins. And now you see bipartisan legislation moving in the House with 70 plus votes.
Nancy Pelosi voting for this, Chuck Schumer voting for digital asset legislation in the Senate. We need a Treasury Secretary that is up to the task that understands that keeping the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency, whether it's in a Stablecoin form or some other type of digital asset backed security is important and I think will help lead the way. So I defer to the president. He is certainly moving at rapid speed to find his nominees. And I anticipate we'll hear something very soon.
TAPPER: This week, economists predicted mortgage rates are expected to stay stuck above 6 percent for at least the next two years. On top of that, Trump's economic agenda does call for stiffness, tariffs and mass deportations. All of that could have a deleterious effect on the economy. It could potentially stoke inflation, push consumer prices higher. What is your response when people in your community or people in the financial sector express concern to you that the economic situation might actually get worse over the next few years?
FLOOD: I think President Trump's first term showed us how good the economy could get with the kind of leadership that he provided. Listen, he's a business guy. He understands that we need fair trade. When it comes to housing, I'm very interested in doing everything we can because you're right, not only our mortgage rates high, but home insurance, given some of the weather events that we've had, has skyrocketed in states like mine.
On top of that, it costs 20 percent more to build a house today than it did in 2019. So home ownership, the idea that you can embrace the American dream is we're moving the goalpost down the field from first time homebuyers. And so as a member of the Financial Services Committee, I'm committed to finding affordable housing solutions that could include manufactured housing. You know, we have to be focused on the solutions.
As to your question about tariffs and trade, if we know anything about Donald Trump, it's that he understands that you need leverage in a negotiation to find the best result for the American people. And I'm going to sit back as a member of Congress and watch what he proposes and then, of course, weigh in if I agree or don't agree.
TAPPER: All right. Republican Congressman from Nebraska, Mike Flood, thank you. And have a great Thanksgiving if I don't see you, sir.
FLOOD: You too. Have a great holiday.
[17:34:30]
TAPPER: Up next, we're going to hear from a transgender athlete about what competing is like these days as folks such as the President-elect threaten to ban transgender individuals from participating in women's sports.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: In our Sports Lead now, Republican campaign ads on transgender issues dominated the airwaves in the 2024 race. Some of them zeroed in specifically on transgender athletes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT F., CONCORD, OH: The idea that Sherrod Brown voted to allow transgender biological men to compete in girls sports, it's unfair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: For Sadie Schreiner, a collegiate trans woman track star, there is a real concern about backlash over athletes like her. CNN's Brynn Gingras sat down with her and brings us this story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SADIE SCHREINER, TRANSGENDER ATHLETE: When you transition, you experiment with your look a lot. I think I look best when I have this kind of makeup on. It feels most authentic to how I want to look.
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sadie Schreiner is three years into her transition.
SCHREINER: I take about eight pills a day to help regulate both estrogen and testosterone, among other things. Everyone who goes through a medical transition does this to some extent. I have to be a bit more strict about it.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Strict because Schreiner submits her hormone levels in order to compete. She's a star sprinter, a two time all- American, and has broken numerous school records on the women's track team at a Division 3 New York college.
[17:40:08]
GINGRAS: Every time you get on that track and field, what's it like for you?
SCHREINER: It's stressful. There's an extra level of nervousness and caution because there's always someone outside who's kind of rooting against me. Sometimes there's a group of protesters. It's a bit of a mixed bag because I like to celebrate when I do better, but then I have to immediately prepare myself for the backlash.
GINGRAS (voice-over): That backlash was front and center this election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kamala even supports letting biological men compete against our girls in their sports.
GINGRAS (voice-over): With Republicans reportedly spending more than $200 million on anti-trans ads. Now President-elect Trump promising his administration will prioritize a federal ban.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: We will keep men out of women's sports.
GINGRAS (voice-over): According to an organization that advocates for LGBTQ equality in sports, fewer than 40 of the NCAAs more than 500,000 athletes are known to be openly transgender. Even fewer are trans women athletes.
SCHREINER: There are so few of us that are actually setting any records that are actually doing anything of worth that people will take those individual moments and blow it up and out of proportion to create fear out of nothing. And my biggest fear is that someone's going to try and attack me while I'm on the field.
GINGRAS (voice-over): But some Democrats are also wrestling with what rights they should have. Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton telling "The New York Times" recently. I have two little girls. I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.
GINGRAS: What do you say to the people who maybe have complete empathy for your situation, right, want you to be your authentic self, but have a daughter that they don't want competing against you? SCHREINER: You want me to be my authentic self, then you probably wouldn't also be scared to have your daughter compete against me. No one's at risk. Part of the problem is it's been so politicized that being trans is not different than being a cisman.
GINGRAS: What do people not realize taking that medication does to your body?
SCHREINER: My body conducts itself, produces muscle, produces body fat. Even just how my bones work. It is fundamentally changed because of my hormones. I'm now slower than I was in middle school.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Schreiner says she tries to tune out the critics and is hoping to transfer to a Division 1 school. But with more states banning trans women from competing, it's proving nearly impossible.
SCHREINER: This isn't like I just can't go to Texas. This is like I can't go to half of the country.
GINGRAS: What is your hope to actually get accomplished?
SCHREINER: Ideal world is one where we're not even an issue, and we're just something that get to exist and get to do as we want without restrictive legislation, without the fear of violence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GINGRAS: Look, this is a complicated issue. Even Schreiner actually admits that, you know, where do you draw the regulations? Where do they begin? Where do they end? Questions about, you talk about team sports versus individual sports. You talk about fairness. There were so many questions, and she recognizes that. But she says at the end of the day, she just wants to exist. She wants to be herself. And one other thing that I thought, you know, really struck me, you know, last week, she had something she didn't have, something that she now has. That's a passport. She is terrified about what the next four years are going to bring for her and other transgenders, that she's keeping her options open if she has to actually leave the country.
TAPPER: She's slower now than she was in middle school.
GINGRAS: Ten seconds.
TAPPER: Ten seconds slower because of the hormone therapy that she --
GINGRAS: And the hormone therapy, she has brought her levels down so low to make a point. They're way lower than they even need to be to compete. She does that because she wants to be able to tell anyone who comes at her, hey, look, I am even lower than I need to be fair in this competitive world.
TAPPER: Fascinating.
GINGRAS: Yes.
TAPPER: So Brynn Gingras, thank you so much. [17:43:45]
Coming up next, the food so many of us eat that can lead to overeating and weight gain, even the ones you may think are healthy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: And our Health Lead, as you put together your Thanksgiving spread, a note about just how much of the food that's on your table might be processed. It's a topic that for all his quackery around things such as vaccines might be something that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Trump's pick to lead Health and Human Services is not entirely wrong about. Americans do eat way too many processed foods and they can harm your health, especially ultra-processed foods. Up to 70 percent of the American public has them in their diet and they can impact everything from lifespan to mood. CNN's Meg Tirrell digs into this important new study.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sam Srisatta has been living in this hospital room at the National Institutes of Health for two weeks.
TIRRELL: Do you have like wearables on, like tracking everything?
SAM SRISATTA: Yes. So I do have a couple of these sensors.
TIRRELL (voice-over): He's not sick. He's a participant in a clinical trial, one of the first of its kind, measuring his movement, his blood, his gut microbiome, even the air he breathes, all to try to better understand how our health is affected by ultra-processed foods.
TIRRELL: Oh, I think your food's coming in. We saw the kind of food he got. It had eggs and spinach and yogurt, but we don't know that could be processed. It could be unprocessed. That's part of the trial.
TIRRELL (voice-over): Ultra-processed foods contain additives and ingredients you wouldn't find in your own kitchen. They were shown in the previous NIH study to drive over eating and weight gain, according to researcher Dr. Kevin Hall.
TIRRELL: Are ultra-processed foods just junk foods?
[17:50:02]
DR. KEVIN HALL, SENIOR INVESTIGATOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: What we often think of as junk foods probably captures a big chunk of the ultra-processed foods kind of category. But there's a lot of things that people would be surprised that are in the ultra-processed foods category and, you know, could potentially be healthy for you. So things like whole grain breads that you might buy from the supermarket, most of those are considered ultra-processed because of some of the additives and preservatives that are in there, as well as how they're manufactured. There's a lot of debate about whether or not all ultra-processed foods are bad for you. TIRRELL (voice-over): And that's what this trial is trying to find out.
HALL: What are the mechanisms? What is it about this category of foods that is driving people to over consume calories?
TIRRELL (voice-over): Dr. Hall's team has two ideas about what might be causing people to overeat some ultra-processed foods. Their energy density or how many calories are in each gram of food, and their hyper palatability, when foods contain just the right combinations of salt, sugar, fat and carbs to make us not want to stop eating them.
TIRRELL: This is where they prepare all of the food. And they don't just prepare it, they weigh it before it goes up and when it comes back after the participant has eaten.
TIRRELL (voice-over): Each day, participants in the trial are offered a total of 6,000 calories and researchers measure how much they choose to eat. The trial is a month long and each week has a different diet, minimally processed or different kinds of ultra-processed. Sam was in an ultra-processed week during our visit, but one with foods Dr. Hall doesn't expect will drive him to overeat.
TIRRELL: How is that ultra-processed?
SARA TURNER, CLINICAL RESEARCH DIETITIAN, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH: It's all based on the ingredients. So the eggs that we used in that omelet, the egg whites, were a liquid egg product. So it has ingredients in it that make it ultra-processed. It's not just egg. Our yogurts, the pancake syrup that was in the yogurt, those all have ultra-processed ingredients in terms of added flavors, added sweeteners.
TIRRELL (voice-over): The next day, Sam would switch to meals that were more energy dense and hyper palatable, the ones expected to lead to overeating.
TURNER: So you can see that these are all foods that they're ultra- processed. And you can see that the volume compared to this is quite different as well.
TIRRELL: That is really illustrative. I mean, just looking, you need two trays of food for this one and one tray of food for this next diet. When you're getting the same number, you're offering at least the same number of calories?
TURNER: Correct. Yes.
TIRRELL (voice-over): All to help understand what ultra-processed foods really do to our bodies.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TIRRELL: And so this trial is still going on. They still need to enroll about 10 to 12 more people who have to live at the NIH hospital for a month to help them complete this study. They hope to get the results next year. And what they're hopeful for is to provide the government, regulators potentially with information about how they should approach ultra-processed foods, but also to provide us information as consumers for ourselves and our families. So we go to the grocery store and we can figure out how do we make the best choices ourselves.
TAPPER: This is fascinating. You don't want to go live at NIH for?
TIRRELL: Only if I could bring my kids.
TAPPER: But you don't want them eating this processed diet? All right. It's too complicated for you. But I guess there's some openings out there, folks. Meg Tirrell, thank you so much. Great stuff.
[17:53:05]
Also in our Health Lead today, a first in the U.S., a child has tested positive for bird flu. What we're learning about that case, that's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: Our last lead start with a Health Lead, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms the first U.S. bird flu case in a child. The California Department of Health reports the child exhibited mild symptoms. The child had upper respiratory issues and has received treatment. It's not clear how this exposure occurred as health officials investigate possible contact with wild birds.
In our national lead, weather could complicate any holiday travel. There is desperately needed rain in the east and a blast of snow in the Northeast and in the Midwest where zoo animals in Chicago seem to enjoy. There's also the bomb cyclone on the West Coast. CNN's Chad Myers in the weather Center. Chad, what are you tracking right now?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Still a lot of rain in San Francisco and not getting out of that airport anytime soon for many travelers out there. And then a snow event begins in the Rockies for the next part of next week. Here we go, a foot and a half of rainfall in places in California this week. Here are some of the vineyards in Sonoma County. Look at the water in the vineyards.
Now, the good news is most of the grapes were already harvested, but the rain is finally going to move out tonight, move out rather quickly from the Bay Area and push some of that rain and snow for you skiers into the Sierra. Take that for sure especially with this upcoming holiday week. A lot of people are going to be heading to the mountains to go skiing.
Still going to see rain possibly all the way down to Southern California. They'll take the rainfall there and kind of reduce the fire risk. It was an ugly day across parts of the Northeast for some, especially the higher elevations. Travel was very difficult, 20 inches in New Jersey, really? Yes, that's the trick. But the problem is right now it's going to get colder at night and we are going to see that refreezing. Watch your drive tonight because the sun has already set. By the time we get to Wednesday, there's the rain in the Midwest.
TAPPER: All right, Chad Myers, thanks so much. Have a great Thanksgiving.
Here is some good news to end your week. Our 8th Annual Home for Our Troops Celebrity Auction is finished and I'm proud to say we raised more than $400,000 to help build homes for severely wounded veterans. There are all kinds of items up for biddings, meals and zooms with celebrities, autographed memorabilia, tickets to events, much, much more. The money raised is going to go toward building these specially adapted mortgage free homes for severely wounded veterans of the post 9/11-era through the top rated charity Homes for Our Troops. My personal thanks to everyone who volunteered their time and their items and to all of you out there who bid.
[18:00:07]
Coming up on Sunday on State of the Union, both senators from Oklahoma, Republicans James Lankford and Markwayne Mullin, also on the show, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. That's Sunday morning at 9:00 Eastern and again at noon only here on CNN.
The news continues on CNN with Pamela Brown in for Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room, have a wonderful, safe and beautiful and full of love Thanksgiving.
