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The Lead with Jake Tapper
DOJ Officials Who Prosecuted Trump Fired; Trump to Address House Republicans in Miami; Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) is Interviewed on the Crackdown of Unlawful Immigrants All Across the U.S.; U.S Tech Stocks Plunge Sparked by New Chinese AI. Aired 5-6:00p ET
Aired January 27, 2025 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:59:49]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to "The Lead," I'm Jake Tapper. This hour the Super Bowl is finally set. Indeed it is. Will we hear the celebratory notes of Fly Eagles Fly? What does history say about the Chief's pursuit of a three-peat and how much more should we all expect to shell out for our watch parties this year?
[17:00:05]
Plus, a stunning announcement sends U.S. stocks plunging right on the heels of President Trump's massive AI announcement. China introduces a new AI rival that China says can do artificial intelligence for a fraction of what the U.S. is spending. What does this mean for the American economy? And is it true?
And leading this hour, any moment, President Trump is set to address House Republicans, the very lawmakers responsible for implementing and passing his agenda, despite the slimmest of majorities. They're all gathering down in Florida, right outside Miami, as they try to figure out how to get Trump's top priorities across the finish line as quickly as possible.
This meeting comes as CNN learns President Trump has fired more than a dozen of the officials who investigated and prosecuted him under special counsel Jack Smith, the acting attorney general telling the fired officials in a letter that they cannot be trusted to quote, "faithfully implement Trump's agenda." Let's go straight to CNN's chief White House correspondent and anchor, Kaitlin Collins. Kaitlin, firing these officials is something that President Trump campaigned on?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: Well, it was pretty clear he was going to do this. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone in his orbit, whether they are someone who's going to work in the Justice Department or even political staffers because he had so much anger towards these people who came after them. He addressed them in his inaugural address, saying that the justice system was used against him. Of course, the justice system, the Justice Department that prosecuted him would argue that differently.
But these are the very prosecutors who were working on these two cases, classified documents and Trump's efforts to overturn the election. And now they were fired by the acting attorney general because Pam Bondi, Trump's pick to run the Justice Department has not yet been confirmed, where they basically sent a letter that said that they did not have faith in them to carry out Trump's wishes at the Justice Department because they had prosecuted him.
My question on this is whether or not these people in return are going to file lawsuits over this because it's not entirely clear that they can just outright and summarily fire them as they have here. I mean, they're career prosecutors. The thinking I had heard weeks before after Trump won the election, but before he assumed office was maybe they'd be reassigned to a less appealing office and kind of shut away somewhere to where they would be pushed out or essentially forced out and leave on their own. That's not what's happening here.
Jack Smith's office had already shut down. Obviously, he himself left. It's a question of how these lawyers and prosecutors handle this.
TAPPER: Kaitlan, walk us through the president's mindset, you think, as he tasks House Republicans with enacting his agenda. The Republicans have one of the narrowest majorities ever. It's like two votes, 215 to 217, once Elise Stefanik leaves. Are they going to be able to implement all this stuff? Not everybody's on board with, for instance, raising the debt ceiling or tariffs.
COLLINS: Yeah. They have a lot to do while they're in President Trump's backyard basically right now. He's about to speak publicly and so we'll see what he says. We know a lot of this boils down to how they are going to get accomplished, what Trump wants them to do legislatively. It's a lot of asks, just not even the debt ceiling, which is his own thing. But tax policy, energy and immigration, obviously, we've heard Tom Homan, Trump's supporters are saying he needs more money to be able to do what they have been pledging for months that they're going to do.
We're gonna see Trump on that stage in just moments from now. And really why these lawmakers are in Miami is to hash out how they get there from point A to point B. I've been talking to some House Republicans who were there. They say, you know, we're not really close. We know what we want to do. The question is how we do it. And do they leave with concrete plans?
And just to put in perspective how formative and important something like this, not just because of that small majority. It was eight years ago in January 2017 when House Republicans met in Philadelphia to talk about what they wanted to do with the Affordable Care Act and their attempt to repeal it. Of course, we know months later plan that they had kind of formulated imploded and they moved on and obviously did not accomplish that. So these sessions are really important and especially for people like the House Speaker Mike Johnson.
TAPPER: Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Kaitlan is going to have much more tonight on "The Source with Kaitlan Collins," including an interview with President Trump's border czar Tom Homan. That's tonight and every weeknight at 9:00 Eastern only here on CNN. That's like your second interview with Tom Homan. Third?
COLLINS: We interviewed him in December. He's really interesting because he is still --
TAPPER: I know. I'm saying we're trying to book him too. Will you tell him to hook a brother up after he, does you?
COLLINS: I'll put in a good word.
TAPPER: We'd like to talk to him. We cover immigration.
COLLINS: I'll put in a good word.
TAPPER: Thanks Kaitlan. Appreciate it. Raids on undocumented immigrants led by the new Trump administration are escalating nationwide with nearly a thousand arrests reported over the weekend across multiple states. Federal immigration agents have intensified enforcement efforts. Sources tell CNN that each ICE field office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, has been ordered to make 75 arrests per day. That's a pace that far surpasses previous enforcement under the Biden administration.
The crackdown is not of course just affecting those being detained. It is impacting local communities and workplaces with migrant workers not showing up for jobs, including many in the agricultural sector out of concern that they could be next.
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CNN's Ed Lavandera is in El Paso. Ed, what are you hearing from lawmakers on the southern border?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, its kind of really depends on what side of the aisle you're sitting on, but there is clearly a sign that things here are changing along the border. But the debate right now is to what extent?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The Trump administration is celebrating images of immigration officers fanning out across the country, arresting undocumented migrants. President supporters call it a new day in controlling the U.S. southern border.
REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): I think what I've seen in the first week has been very positive as far as deporting people that deserve to be deported. These convicted criminal aliens need to go home.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE, says in the last four days, it has arrested an average of 593 people a day who will face deportation. In Colorado, the Drug Enforcement Administration says nearly 50 people suspected of being undocumented gang members were taken into custody Sunday. ICE officials say they carried out enhanced targeted operations in Chicago searching for criminal immigrants.
In Georgia, cameras recorded ICE agents arresting a Honduran man in his 50s at his home. The man's family says he is a construction worker with no criminal record other than a ticket for driving without a license. While the Trump administration is touting its deportation efforts, critics say not much has really changed in Trump's first week from the Biden era. In fiscal year 2023, the Biden administration deported about 390 people a day, according to ICE data. That jumped to 743 a day in 2024.
REP. VERONICA ESCOBAR (D-TX): What the Trump administration is doing right now is performative. A form of propaganda so that he can tell his base, look, I'm doing exactly what I told you I was going to do.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The Trump administration is also boosting the military presence along the southern border. More than 1,500 troops have been brought in and will be deployed along various points on the border. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is also bringing in 400 additional National Guard soldiers to work alongside Border Patrol agents.
TOM HOMAN, BORDER POLICY ADVISER: They're down there to create a secure border and knock that border down. And DODs helped administrations before, but not at this level. So it's a force multiplier and it's sending a strong signal to the world our borders are closed.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Tom Homan is the Trump administration's border czar and he's vowing more arrests to come, which is triggering a sense of fear among immigrant communities across the country, especially among farm workers.
TERESA ROMERO, PRESIDENT, UNITED FARM WORKERS: Right now, farm workers are not even opening their doors to anybody who knock on their doors because they are afraid that it's going to be somebody who's going to take you, who's going to separate you from the family. So this is the worst that I personally have seen in many years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: And Jake, a few of the other things that have changed is obviously the use of military aircraft to carry out deportation orders, people being repatriated back to their home countries. Also, interagency cooperation on some of these ICE raids is something that is a little bit more enhanced than in years previous. But the question in all of this, Jake, is really how sustainable is this for the long term? Jake?
TAPPER: All right. Ed Lavandera in El Paso, Texas. Thanks. Joining us now, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona. Senator, some of the weekend's immigration and enforcement sweeps happened in Arizona. What do you know about the operations? Were all the people arrested undocumented? Were they all unlawful immigrants?
SEN. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): We don't have very much specifics so far. And obviously if they're going after these criminal aliens, people that have warrants for their committed crimes, you know, we hope that they are able to find them. But we are seeing the overalls is there's not much of a difference between what was happening during Biden administration and the Trump administration. And so far, this is more what it seems like to be a show, an act. And this is why I really encourage President Trump and the Republicans
to really work with us, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, to come up with a real, true bipartisan border security bill that will include deportations of these criminal aliens because right now it's not seen that there's much success in their aims and goals and probably is wasting a lot of money.
TAPPER: Well, you talk about it being a show or an act, in your words. We're showing some Department of Homeland Security images of individuals being detained, DEA police and others. So, you're suggesting that really, it's not many more people than Biden was doing it's just that the Trump people are showing it more, showing it off more.
GALLEGO: Yeah, absolutely.
TAPPER: Okay.
GALLEGO: Yeah, at least. And look, again, we're here to stand by with the President's administration if they're going after criminal aliens, if they're going after these people that are dangerous to our communities, to this country. And this is why there is a real opportunity for us to work in a bipartisan manner, because at some point this is not sustainable.
[17:10:03]
This is spending a lot of money that the actual ICE, DHS does not have, and they really need to work with us to really prioritize these criminal aliens at the same time calming these fears in our communities of people that really aren't criminal nor are they danger to this country.
TAPPER: Right. I mean, I think most people, most Americans would have no problem with anybody violent who is in this country illegally, anybody who is a threat leaving, being deported.
GALLEGO: Deported.
TAPPER: Yeah, that's great. But obviously, that's a minority of the millions in this country illegally. We're getting reports that there are agricultural workers in this country illegally afraid to go to work because of what they're seeing of these ICE raids. What does that mean when it comes to, selfishly, the American people's ability to get groceries, food that's being picked on these farms?
GALLEGO: Well look, the chaos that the president is causing is going to raise prices on our farms. There's no way, at the grocery store, there's no way that we have a domestic supply of workers that are willing to do this. Even in Arizona, we have about 10,000 to 15,000 Mexican nationals that legally cross the border every day to go work in Yuma, Arizona. And so whenever we have slowdowns at the border for whatever reason, you will see costs rise.
This is why there is an opportunity, I think, for us to have comprehensive immigration reform to give some of these workers a pathway to at least legalization so they can work here legally and not be afraid of being deported as well as of course giving us a stable labor economy that will not be met by any U.S. citizens whatsoever. But what the president wants is chaos. He wants fear. He wants to show that he's a strong man. At the end, you know, the country is not going to be much more secure and there will be more chaos I think in our streets than we really had hoped for.
TAPPER: You're a Democrat who was elected in a state that Trump won on the ballot at the same time. You have said that Arizona voters elected you to strengthen the state's southern border. Are you supportive of any of the moves Trump's made on immigration in his first week in office?
GALLEGO: Look, I think there's certainly some that we could work with. Number one, declaring cartels as a terrorist organization. I think that actually brings a lot of military resources and knowledge to a fight that is very difficult. I do think that there are some elements of the military being able to support our border patrol that we are also in agreement with. I was under agreement with that when Obama did it, when Biden did it, and when Trump did it the first time.
Also, we just want to make sure that it's done in a way that is both protective of the civil rights of U.S. citizens, but also that we're not deteriorating the training and opportunity for many of these U.S. soldiers. But at the end of the day, the best thing we could do is work together to do this in a manner that, number one, targets the criminals, protects some of these people that have long-standing roots in this country, and actually leads us to a path of legalization because what the president is doing is not sustainable.
They're pulling ATF, FBI, DEA, and making them provisional ICE agents instead of using ICE agents and border patrol that we could actually be funding through the Senate and you're pulling them off very important cases in order for them to have a show of numbers that they're not gonna be able to meet.
TAPPER: Have you had any conversations with Republicans in the Senate about working on a bipartisan immigration deal? Do you have any guarantee that even if you were to reach such a deal that the president would support it?
GALLEGO: I have had those conversations and there is no guarantee of that. This is why we have to do our due diligence and part of our responsibilities as senators. But I've also been talking to a lot of people that work for DHS directly, that work for ICE, that work for HSI and work for other federal agencies that are being pulled off some of their very important assignments to go be essentially provisional ICE agents and looking for some of these aliens, some criminals instead of doing some very, very important work.
And this is the conversation I'm also going to have with my colleagues. I hope they realize that what's actually happening here is that there's a lot of mismanagement of time and effort that's being done to sometimes track down people that are going to be very difficult to track.
TAPPER: All right. Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, thanks so much.
Coming up next, we're taking a look at the iPhone app that sent U.S. markets plunging today. What exactly is DeepSeek, and why did it climb the charts so quickly?
Plus, the big changes President Trump is planning for the U.S. military. and how soon those could have an impact.
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TAPPER: In our "Money Lead," the shocking tech announcement sending U.S. markets into turmoil after rolling out just last week, DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence startup, dethroned Chad GPT on Apple's App Store to become the store's top app. And the tech-heavy NASDAQ. plunged more than 3 percent today. Chinese company behind DeepSeek claims it spent just $5.6 million on computing power compared to the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars the U.S. companies are spending on AI technologies. Let's bring in CNN's Clare Duffy in New York and Marc Stewart in Beijing. Claire, what is DeepSeek and why did it cause the market such a shock today?
CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yeah, Jake, DeepSeek is essentially a direct competitor to the advanced AI models from big tech companies like OpenAI, Google, Meta. If you've used any of those tools, it's going to look really familiar. You type in a question, it waits a couple of seconds, and it starts writing out a response.
It's got this really user-friendly interface. But what's different about DeepSeek is essentially what it took to build this technology. And that is really what's shaking Silicon Valley today, which as you said, has spent billions of dollars building out their AI models.
By comparison, DeepSeek says it spent, as you said, $5.6 million. It used less advanced chips because of U.S. export restrictions related to accessing advanced AI tools in China. And their model is much more efficient. Each query requires less data center power resources than the other big models.
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And so this all really calls into question not just U.S. leadership in AI. But really the whole evolution of this industry that the American tech giants have told us is going to take place. They've said, we need to spend billions of dollars. We need to be building more of these really power hungry data centers that strain the environment because that's the only way that we're going to get and stay ahead.
And now I think you're going to be having shareholders asking really tough questions about whether these big tech companies have been overspending and whether that approach needs to change. One other thing I just want to note that's pretty interesting about DeepSeek because it seems to have some of the same Chinese censorship restrictions that we've seen with many other Chinese platforms. For example, I asked it to tell me what happened at Tiananmen Square,
and the platform said, I can't tell you that. So I don't know that we'll necessarily see DeepSeek remaining on the top of the Apple App Store for consumers, but the technology raises big questions for Silicon Valley.
TAPPER: And Mark, when you look at tech giants such as OpenAI and Google as competitors of DeepSeek, how does this Chinese startup compare?
MARC STEWART, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is still very much in its infancy here in China, but it is certainly getting a boost about what happened. In fact, I was looking at an editorial I just recently published in a Chinese newspaper, which suggested this whole thing is an embarrassment for Nvidia, which of course is the dominant U.S. chipmaker. But all of this isn't so much of a surprise in the sense that China is the world's second largest economy and innovation is a big part of its future formula.
And then if we look at DeepSeek, the company itself, and the man who brought this to be, Liang Wenfeng, he is well known in the AI space. He has raised a lot of money, he runs this hedge fund, he's invested a lot of money, and just recently met with the Chinese premier. He's that important in this space. So he is certainly gonna be one of many people trying to drive the AI future of China.
You know, Jake, it wasn't that long ago, we were talking about ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok and its algorithm, its secret sauce, to know exactly what people want to see. It's really become the envy of the world. It's part of this broader point that when we look at this relationship between the United States and China, it's not just about manufacturing and the military. The tech space is also a very big point of competition and contention.
TAPPER: All right, Marc Stewart, Clare Duffy, thanks to both of you. For more on the new AI rival, let's bring in "New York Times" tech reporter, Cade Metz, and futurist tech entrepreneur, Sinead Bovell. Cade, beyond the cost, one of the other differentiators for DeepSeek is that it's open source over something such as, something like OpenAI or Meta, which have proprietary models. What is the benefit of it being open source?
CADE METZ, TECHNOLOGY REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Open source is a key way that many technologies are built and has been for decades. What it means is after building a piece of technology, like a chat bot, you don't just release that chat bot into the world, you release all the computer code behind it, the code that runs it, and you allow anyone to use that code to build their own chat bot, to build on top of it. It's a way of accelerating the development of a technology.
And China has grabbed hold of this idea, and they have run with it when it comes to AI technologies. If you open source, the thinking goes, you can accelerate the development of your systems at a much faster rate and you can catch up to the competition at a much faster rate. And essentially, DeepSeek is showing that this is true. TAPPER: And Sinead, last week Meta said it would spend $65 billion
this year alone on AI development. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said the AI industry would need trillions of dollars in investment. Does DeepSeek's success, based on millions, upend that narrative?
SINEAD BOVELL, FUTURIST TECH ENTREPRENEUR: It certainly calls it into question what DeepSeek has done. It's thrown the U.S. off its game by challenging this leading strategy that more compute and more capital equals dominance. China has shown that that's not necessarily true. So this moment, it reminds us that breakthroughs, they can happen at any time. Some people are calling this China's Sputnik moment for AI. And I think what happens from this point forward will let us know if that is in fact true.
I do believe if this is the Sputnik moment, we're gonna see AI innovation come out of the U.S. like never before if they have that up their sleeve.
[17:25:01]
If not, this could mark a turning point in China stepping forward. But this certainly creates a challenge for the moat OpenAI has depended on and for all of the investment Meta has poured in to their strategy, and now they are no longer necessarily the leading open source provider in the world.
TAPPER: And Cade, President Trump announced a $500 billion AI project last week. Where does that fit in this landscape?
METZ: Well, having large data centers filled with specialized chips for building and serving up AI are going to continue to be very important. It costs a lot to build this technology. It costs a lot to serve it up. DeepSeek has shown with its system that you can be more efficient. A lot of the American companies are working to be more efficient as well, but at the same time everyone is looking to expand the capabilities of this technology.
They're trying to reach more people with technology, have more individuals and more businesses use it. It costs money to do that, to serve the technology up to people. You need specialized chips to do that as well. And those data centers that are going to be built now and in the years to come are going to continue to be important. They're also going to be important when it comes to training or building these technologies.
If you have more chips and more data centers, you can run more experiments as you through trial and error try to determine what's going to work and what's going to not. As you seek the next big idea, it can help to have an awful lot of computer power. TAPPER: And Sinead, could this just be a temporary shift in the
market or reflective of something more permanent?
BOVELL: I think it's going to be temporary because my worry is that if the U.S. -- if this is -- if we become too reactive to China's fast follower approach because we have to remember that is what this model is. It's a fast follower. And the U.S. has historically led in AI by pioneering on the frontier with bold new strategies, and China has adapted. So yes, U.S. companies do need to shift and be more efficient in how they build and China has demonstrated that that's possible, but they still have a competitive edge.
That are the ones that are driving this frontier forward. So I think that this might be temporary. However, I do think investors are going to be a bit more cautious and ask more questions as to how is all of this capital that has kind of flung into the U.S. with no strings attached. I think that will be called into question. However, I do believe that this is temporary, but it is a wake-up call, especially for the closed-source models in the U.S.
TAPPER: All right, Sinead Bovell and Cade Metz, Thank you so much to both of you, appreciate it.
President Trump is set to make a series of big changes for the U.S. military today. What kind of impact will they have? How soon will they have an impact? We're going to go live to the Pentagon next.
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: In our Politics Lead, President Trump is expected to sign executive orders today that would change the U.S. military in many ways, including banning transgender Americans from serving at all. He also intends to gut diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the military. CNN's Oren Liebermann is at the Pentagon. Oren, which of those could have the biggest impact?
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Likely it is the transgender service member ban that would have the biggest impact, and it's one we've seen before. That's because President Donald Trump made an executive order with the same effect back in 2017. It was revoked by President Biden and then re-revoked by Trump hours after taking office.
The key here, according to officials, is that this transgender ban, when it goes into effect, is expected to be wider and broader than the previous ban, which had a certain number of exceptions under certain criteria. So we'll see exactly what it looks like. But is -- it is expected to be broader than the previous ban on transgender service members.
According to an advocacy organization, there were about 14,000 transgender service members back in 2018. So this could affect many of those, perhaps all of them. Again, depending on how it looks, we'll be keeping a very close eye on the -- on the executive order itself and on the specifics there. Jake?
TAPPER: What about gutting the DEI programs?
LIEBERMANN: So that's been a promise of both Trump and his new defense secretary who had his first full day in the office. Pete Hegseth to remove diversity, equity and inclusion classes or programming or training from within the military. Here the question, of course, how big of an effect is this? One of the numbers that came up in Hegseth's confirmation hearing was $114 million for DEI training. Certainly, Jake, that sounds like a big number, but it is less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the DoD budget. So even if it makes headlines, this is not a major component of the Defense Department.
TAPPER: There's also this new order calling for an Iron Dome for the United States. We know about the Iron Dome defense system in Israel. What -- what is that about for the U.S.?
LIEBERMANN: This is very different, though, of course, it borrows the name from the vaunted Israeli defense system. Iron Dome in Israel is short range defense of -- of short range missiles and drones and mortars. This is very different. This is supposed to be a space-based detect and destroy for advanced ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, so sort of next generation threats, trying to create a next generation program.
[17:34:56]
But I spoke with a missile defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and he points out that, show me the budget. If you want to take this seriously, it takes more than an executive order. This will require billions of dollars. Now, it's worth pointing out here that back when Ronald Reagan was president, he tried to launch SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative. That became a joke called Star Wars. Trump tried to relaunch something like this in his first term. Now it's a question of, will it really take hold with the billions of dollars required in his second term?
TAPPER: All right, Oren Liebermann, thanks so much.
House Republicans are meeting right now in southern Florida. Their headliner in the ballroom is President Trump. CNN chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, is also there. He has the topics breaking through all the chatter. That's next.
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TAPPER: President Trump is speaking right now in Florida at that meeting of House Republicans. Let's listen in.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is the greatest the person that sort of has the rights to it, and he happens to be a great Republican. I said, this is the greatest invention. This thing is going to make a fortune. He said, no, it's not that good actually, because it only works for you. He said, actually, sir, it only works for you because somebody else did they're not picking up.
[17:40:10]
So I'm honored to have that privilege, and I used it carefully. But we've done a lot of the teletown halls for people. And I think -- I don't think we've ever lost one, right? It's hard to lose one. Even if you only get 5 or 6,000 people on a congressional race. But we've done them for states. We've done them for governors. And we've done them for senators. And we did a couple countrywide. I did a couple for myself, countrywide. They're absolutely amazing. And we got the message out through that and lots of other means. We even got it out through TikTok.
Has anyone ever heard of TikTok? I have a little bias toward TikTok right now. I have to tell you. So we won youth by the largest margin. No, Republican, you know, we generally don't win youth. We won by 36 points. Can you imagine that? And I think TikTok had something to do. So pardon me if I'm a little bit -- I became a little bit jaded toward TikTok, but we'll see what happens. We're going to have a lot of people bidding on it, and if we can save all that voice and all the jobs and China won't be involved. You don't want China involved. But we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.
But over the past seven days, my administration has been moving with urgency and historic speed to reverse every single disaster of the Biden administration. By the way, the guy was a disaster. OK. You know, we want to be nice, and he's probably not listening right now because it's a little late, but, you know. I don't want him to listen. I don't want to say it. I feel badly. I was, you know, making the inauguration speech, and I'm saying all the bad things, and he's sitting, like, right here. You know, I'm saying they were a horrible administration. They didn't know what they were doing. They were grossly incompetent.
I got a guy sitting right next to me. It's not that easy to do. Even though he didn't understand what I was saying, he really did. And deliver on the mandate that we've been given by the American people. In a single week, I've taken over 350 executive actions. We've signed 300. And whoever heard of that one? And as I said in my inaugural address, the American decline is over. It's over.
The golden age of America has officially begun. And I think that's a good thing for us to talk about the golden age and the American dream. I think it's a good thing because people haven't been talking that way for a long period of time. On day one, I directed every member of my cabinet to marshal all powers at their disposal to defeat --
TAPPER: OK. So you've been listening to President Trump in Doral, Florida, right outside Miami. We'll continue to monitor his remarks to see if he brings any -- makes any news. CNN's Daniel Dale is standing by to fact check a bit of what we've just heard from the President. Daniel, I've heard the President say this so many times, he did not win the youth vote. He did better with youth than Republicans normally do, but he did not win the youth vote, let -- let alone by 36 percentage points.
DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: He keep saying 36 points, Jake. And the -- this is one of these cases where it's like if you just told the truth, it would be impressive. It is absolutely true, as you said, that young voters shifted toward Trump compared to 2020, did better than most Republicans passed as well, but did not win them. CNN exit polling shows that Vice -- then Vice President Harris beat Trump 54 percent to 43 percent among voters age 18 to 24, 53 percent to 45 percent among voters age 25 to 29. Harris led 51 percent to 45 percent among voters aged 30 to 39. The AP's vote cast estimates had similar, although slightly narrower margins. So he didn't win youth voters at all, let alone by 36, as he keeps saying.
TAPPER: All right, Daniel Dale, anything else jump out at you?
DALE: That -- that -- he just started talking, so I'm sure there'll be more as he continues.
TAPPER: OK. Dive in, my friend, dive in. Good to see you.
Let's bring in CNN's chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, who's also in that ballroom in Doral, Florida. Manu, what's the goal of this meeting for House Republicans, whom we should note are -- are governing with an incredibly slim majority now, only two votes.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they want to actually get this agenda that Donald Trump is supposed to be laying out here and get it done very quickly. And it's a very complex process that they're going to have to maneuver and get it through Congress, potentially beginning the first step next week.
Now what Donald Trump, the -- the goal of this is to try to unite this party behind the idea of getting this done very quickly. There are complex issues, Jake, involving taxes, how to deal with an overhaul of the tax code, how to deal with new issues involving the border, energy production issues, as well as other, the most -- perhaps the stickiest issue of them all, spending cuts. How are they going to pay for this massive package? There's talks about anywhere from trillion -- a couple trillion dollars to up to $5 trillion worth of spending cut -- cuts.
Those things fundamentally divide parties, let alone one that has just a single vote they can lose on the House floor. So Donald Trump wants to try to convince his members to move ahead on this bill. And then behind the scenes, after tonight, tomorrow, they're going to go and have these individual meetings with their members to try to hash out the specific policy provisions to put in the overall bill that they want to race through Congress, potentially by the spring, which is very ambitious given how slow typically this process works on Capitol Hill.
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But that is the idea here, Jake. Him to try to unite his party, you can hear this behind me. This -- this conference is very much behind Donald Trump. But when they get into the nitty-gritty of the details, that's when things will get much more complicated. And that's the hard work they're trying to do behind the scenes. Try to enact this very sweeping agenda, Jake.
TAPPER: All right, Manu Raju in Doral, Florida, thanks so much.
My beloved, beloved Philadelphia Eagles are headed to the Super Bowl. But what does history say about our chances for blocking a Chiefs three peat? Stay with us.
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TAPPER: In our Sports Lead, how about them birds? You all know where this is going. My beloved Philadelphia Eagles are headed to New Orleans to the Super Bowl. It will be a rematch of a tough game, the 2023 defeat by the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. And fine, I'll give the Chiefs their flowers, which the Chiefs fans include my wife, because they sure aren't getting them for most NFL fans right now.
But the Chiefs are seeking their third straight Super Bowl win. That's never been done before, a three peat in the Super Bowl. And it's certainly a historic challenge worth recognizing. Either way, Super Bowl LIX on February 9th in New Orleans will certainly be a thriller. Let's get some insights from USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan. Christine, this game will certainly matter on whether Eagles QB Jalen Hurts or Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes can outperform the other. Do you think either of them has a clear advantage? Is this a matter of who responds best in clutch moments?
CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: You know, Jake, congrats, of course, on your Eagles.
TAPPER: I had a lot to do with it. Thank you.
BRENNAN: And, you know, yeah, I know you did. Yes. Take full credit. And then -- and then if things don't go well, obviously you have no idea who the Eagles are in a few weeks. But I think they're going to go pretty well for the Eagles, actually. Obviously, it's a different team with Saquon Barkley, the ability to run the ball 227 yards per game. I mean, this is smash mouth old time football that the Eagles are playing. You asked about Hurts and -- and Mahomes, two young quarterbacks. Obviously Mahomes, you know, is incredible. He's not even 30 years old yet. He turns 30 in September.
And yet here he is once again and trying to win a fourth Super Bowl, three in a row. And for the fifth time in six years, the Chiefs and Mahomes are in the Super Bowl. Hurts, on the other hand, as you know, was hurt. There was -- there were doubts about him and his knee going into the game against Washington. Well, those -- those doubts were clearly quieted. Washington, an upstart story. We know it here in D.C. how amazing it was to see them back after 33 years with this rookie quarterback. But it was not to me. The Eagles were just too strong.
And I think the Eagles just, as you said, you know, no one's won three in a row, so the Eagles would -- that would help and certainly benefit the Eagles. But the Eagles are a different team than they were two years ago when they lost on a field goal in the last eight seconds. And I think the Eagles just seem to be playing tough, strong Football at a time when there's a premium on exactly that.
TAPPER: In addition, of course, we have the unstoppable running back Saquon Barkley. And if -- I would like to note right now that if my wife were pregnant with our son right now, Saquon Tapper would be a possible, possible naming. The Chiefs defense, of course, will certainly be a bigger test for Saquon and the Eagles than the last two opponents they have faced. No, no offense to my Commanders fans out there.
BRENNAN: Well, exactly. And then, you know, bottom line is for sure, I mean, the Chiefs know how to do this. You know, there's something about a team that's experience. They've been there before. Act like you've been there before. The Chiefs have been there before. They are trying to do something that we've never seen before. And we're talking about, my goodness, the Green Bay Packers back when the Super Bowl first began. We're talking about the great Pittsburgh Steelers, the Miami Dolphins, the Dallas Cowboys, of course, Tom Brady and the Patriots never winning three in a row.
So Kansas City, obviously they, you know, Mahomes is a winner. He pulls it out at the end. I do think in this case for sure, I mean, Barkley has been unstoppable and he's got over. What has he got close to, what is it, 442 yards. I wrote it down to make sure I had it in the playoffs so far. That is an absolutely terrific performance by a gamer in his first year, of course, with your Eagles. And that is the difference.
Obviously he wasn't there last two years ago, now he's there and obviously we'll see how that goes. But he is certainly a force to be reckoned with.
TAPPER: I -- I hesitate to even ask, but do you want to make a prediction?
BRENNAN: Oh, sure. I mean, as a sports journalist, you know, I should. I'm -- I'm often wrong. I do think the Eagles will pull it off. There's a reason why 59 Super Bowls and no team has been able to win three in a row. So with that in mind, the Chiefs have won the last two. Obviously, I think the -- I'll go with the Eagles, your Eagles. Not because I'm talking to you, but I just think they're built for this moment.
And Hurts also played a very good game in the sense of throwing the ball away when he needed to, not making mistakes. That will be obviously a key in the Super Bowl.
TAPPER: I'm not going to make a prediction because I'm terrified, as every Philadelphia fan is superstitious. We're not going to -- I don't -- I don't share in your optimism, but I will say go birds. Christine Brennan, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
[17:55:01]
In our money lead, that Super Bowl snack spread might cost you more this year, depending on what you're serving up. According to a report by Wells Fargo, healthy snacks such as dipping vegetables or cherry tomatoes saw a steep price increase. The price of avocados road -- rose 11.5 percent. When it comes tortilla chips, those prices are down 1.4 percent. And those frozen pizzas, 3.7 percent cheaper. One reason for the price hike is unfavorable growing conditions. Thanks to hurricanes Milton and Helene, many crops were completely destroyed and the land unable to grow more. Our last leads are next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: In our Politics Lead this afternoon, the White House released the official portrait of First Lady Melania Trump. The black and white photograph was taken in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House residence last Tuesday, the President's first full day in office. The portraits of President Trump and Vice President Vance were released earlier this month.
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If you ever miss an episode of The Lead, you can listen to the show once you get your podcasts. The news continues on CNN with Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room. Go birds.