Return to Transcripts main page
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Taps Vaccine Skeptic RFK Jr. for Health Secretary; GOP Senators Say Gaetz Has Difficult Path to Confirmation; New Senate GOP Leader Dodges on Trump's Provocative Picks. President-Elect Trump Appoints People To Serve In His Administration; Dr. Sanjay Gupta Gives A Sneak Peek Of His Special Report On Ozempic. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired November 14, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:08]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, down with the sickness. Donald Trump promises to put RFK Jr. --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on medicine.
PHILLIP: -- in charge of making America healthy again. As doctors warn his wellness conspiracies are anything but benign.
Plus, Pledge of Allegiance, the president-elect uses his attorney general pick to test Republicans in Congress, and if they'll simply consent to whatever he wants.
And Federal Bureau of Retribution, Donald Trump deliberates firing the current FBI director and installing a MAGA mercenary obsessed with outing the deep state.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state.
PHILLIP (on camera): Live at the table, Scott Jennings, John Avlon, Geoff Duncan and Madison Gesiotto.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Today, I nominated him for, I guess, if you like health, and if you like people that live a long time, it's the most important position, RFK Jr. Bobby?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He is, in fact, Donald Trump's choice to run the Health and Human Services Department. HHS, it is an absolute monster of a bureaucracy. It administers Medicare and Medicaid and Obamacare. These are programs that cost trillions of dollars and impact tens of millions of Americans.
RFK, though, is thin on the kind of experience needed to run a sprawling agency. He is even thinner, though, on real science. RFK Jr. calls his new potential gig a generational opportunity. But stepping back, this is the latest cabinet proclamation that is seemed to designed to own the libs, perhaps more than promoting good government.
Some of what RFK Jr. says sounds okay, even decent perhaps, making the food supply healthier, making policy to promote more exercise, making the government less beholden to big pharma. That's all fine and good, but then there's the stuff that he wants to roll back that doesn't make much sense, like mandatory vaccines in schools. I mean, do you like measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis, polio? What about chicken pox? No? Well, all of these diseases are diseases that hardly exist thanks to mandatory vaccines and modern medicine.
We are joined, though, today at the table by two doctors, Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University, and Dr. Devi -- I'm going to butcher her last name here, so I'll let her say it for herself. She's an associate professor of NYU School of Medicine.
Dr. Devi and Dr. Lipkin, I'm going to start with you both because -- and, Dr. Devi, I'll let you start because you see something in the RFK appointment that you are fine with. Tell us what it is.
DR. DEBBIE NAMPIAPARAMPIL, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, I think the first question is what are we trying to accomplish with health care at all, which is to increase life expectancy and then when you have more years to have more quality of life within those years. So, that goes beyond just vaccines that involves so many things. Our biggest killers are heart disease, cancer, cardiovascular problems, unintentional injuries.
And the biggest barrier for people is really healthcare costs, that there's a direct cost where we have technology, like robotics and A.I., regenerative medicine, but it's not accessible to people, and then we have other barriers where even the people who might be able to get towards it, where they have insurance, they can't afford co- insurances, deductibles, the indirect costs of, you know, transportation and there's various biases and disparities.
So, my priority would be, is this person able to do that? And I think he can address some of those things. And part of it is because he expresses a degree of skepticism, which I think we could use. It's been several decades that, you know, we've had poor healthcare outcomes compared to the amount of money that we spend on healthcare. And so maybe we can try doing something differently. I don't think this should be a dictatorship or one person does it, but at least we should try.
[22:05:00]
DR. W. IAN LIPKIN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTION AND IMMUNITY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Well, I've been tracking his views for a long time speaking specifically about vaccines. There is no better bang for your buck than a vaccine. I'm older, I think, than everybody else here at the table. I remember seeing kids with polio. I remember seeing measles, encephalitis. The amount of good that vaccines has done is impossible to overstate. And I think the risks associated with vaccines are vanishingly low.
There will always be adverse reactions to any medication or any vaccine or whatever intervention you want to pursue, but if you look on balance and what we save in the way of birth losses, encephalitis, paralysis, death, there's just no question, but these are beneficial.
PHILLIP: And there's the mixture of the -- I think that the difference between what the two of you is saying is you're talking about the health part of what RFK is talking about and then you're talking about the vaccines part, which is completely unfounded that he's pushing all these vaccine misinformation, it's hard to separate the two.
I just want to play a little bit about what RFK has said about the agencies that make up a big chunk of the healthcare infrastructure in this country, the NIH, the CDC, and the FDC.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., FORMER INDEPENDENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Our big priority will be to clean up the public health agencies like CDC, NIH, FDA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those agencies have become sock puppets in the industries that they're supposed to regulate.
President Trump and I are going to replace the corrupt, industry- captured officials with honest public servants. We're going to steer resources to meet our nation's biggest health challenge, chronic disease.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: These are incredibly -- here's the thing, there might be capture, whatever you want to call it, industry capture of these agencies. Those are incredibly broad statements for agencies that are, by and large, focused on, you know, keeping Americans safe and are doing that job every single day.
JOHN AVLON, FORMER CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right. And against a backdrop of a time when those agencies work has been politicized, demonized in many cases, against the backdrop of an administration or President Trump saying that he actually wants to clear out nonpartisan public servants and replace them with partisan apparatchiks. So, those two things are in tension.
And then there's this, look, if you want to care about regulatory capture, there's any number of different people who could deal with those issues, you know, with regard to chronic illness. But if you want to actually raise life expectancy, I think vaccines do a pretty good job of adjusting that curve upward. And you can't take this ala carte. You picking him is an intentional choice where personnel is policy. And because he's got a long record of being a crank on issues related to vaccines, that takes any of the positive good that you're trying to suggest he might do, which could be done by any number of other people, and instead, you have to own that.
NAMPIAPARAMPIL: So I think you know, because you addressed me, I'll just say there's a culture war in this country, right, where most people I think are in favor of vaccines, but not every vaccine is the same for every condition. So, if there are people that are skeptical, which there seems to be a large percentage, then their concerns should be addressed. I mean, how do we know, like if we just look at something else, you know, Venus and Serena Williams, how do we know that they're great tennis players, because they've been challenged and they've won. So, there's nothing wrong with having the science looked at again and people's, you know, skepticism addressed. There's nothing wrong with doing that. This is a country based on a marketplace of ideas and the more debate and discussion you have.
AVLON: The scientific method?
NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Exactly.
AVLON: So, the scientific method would suggest that vaccines by and large work, correct? Or do you disagree with that as a doctor?
NAMPIAPARAMPIL: No, I'm in favor of vaccines. But what I'm saying is that if people have -- of course, I mean.
AVLON: But Bobby Kennedy Jr. is, and you're here defending him.
NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Well, I'm defending healthcare that I think that a person can still achieve great outcomes even if we disagree about things. I mean, I have every day sent patients to other specialties. They're in different specialties. They have different views than I do. I don't expect them to see my patient and then say, oh, yes, everything Dr. Devi said is right. I don't disagree with anything. Just do that. I expect them to add something. And if they have some concern, I expect them to help me to address that before we achieve a bad outcome.
GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: If we're being intellectually honest, there's really no good reason why Bobby Kennedy, RFK Jr. should be HHS secretary, an adviser, a confidant, somebody who talks to the president and advises, but there's no managerial experience in his resume. There's nothing that says he is qualified to do this job, this job that is in charge of the health of all of us, all these different lanes. If he has views and has insights around food sources, around vaccines, then those should be given an advisory roles. SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Why?
DUNCAN: Well, because --
JENNINGS: What were the qualifications of the previous ones?
DUNCAN: Well, I think it's important to always remember that you put yourself -- say that again?
JENNINGS: What were the management qualifications? I mean, Xavier Becerra --
[22:10:00]
DUNCAN: I'm not talking about the previous one. I'm talking about I'm looking forward.
JENNINGS: I know. But you're calling into question whether he could actually do this job, and I think it's --
DUNCAN: Absolutely. I think America is now, I think --
JENNINGS: And I think it's important to discuss it, because Xavier Becerra was just a lawyer and a politician with no management experience.
DUNCAN: So, does two negatives --
JENNINGS: Sylvia Burwell was a Walmart lobbyist. Donna Shalala was a university person. Look --
DUNCAN: RFK Jr. is a nut.
JENNINGS: Okay. So, that's different than what you just said. You just said he doesn't possess the requisite managerial experience, but then we get to the real issue here, which is you want to insult the man, which is your right to do because you oppose them in the election. But you are raising the issues that he has been raising and I think they're appropriate questions to raise.
I don't know whether he can be confirmed or not. The vaccine stuff at the table is obviously going to be the flashpoint of this hearing. But I'll tell you one thing, this whole issue of the CDC and these public health agencies, look, public trust in the health regime in this country is as low as it's ever been.
AVLON: But why?
JENNINGS: It's because of COVID, because of school closures, because of mask mandates, because this country was -- let me just finish. Because this country was drug through a bunch of condescending and heavy-handed mandates that all turned out to be garbage, and that's why it's low and the questions are valid.
AVLON: And RFK is the answer to all of that?
JENNIGNS: Yes, but I don't know if he's going to confirmed.
AVLON: RFK helped promote the assault on the CDC that lowered the disinformation that led to --
JENNINGS: No. The CDC led to its own demise.
AVLON: More than a million deaths, Scott, more than a million deaths in the United States, higher than any other industrialized nation per capita. That's the result of failed policies and the demonization of the conspiracy theory.
JENNINGS: Whose policies?
PHILLIP: All right.
AVLON: Under the Trump administration.
PHILLIP: John, let me let Dr. Lipkin, because, again, we got experts at the table. Go ahead, Doctor.
LIPKIN: So, first of all, the vaccines we're talking about. We know they have to go through safety testing. They have to go through efficacy testing, and it's only when they get through that final step, that final hurdle that they're produced and distributed. So, it's not something that we need to revisit. I disagree.
The other thing I wanted to refer to is the discussion about the NIH and the CDC. These agencies are jewels. They're considered as such by the rest of the world. The National Institutes of Health has given drugs that I would venture to say everybody in this room has taken, and the FDA has approved those. So, if we lose those agencies, we're going to have unproven drugs, we're going to have a whole series of problems.
You were talking about COVID. I was in China in January of 2020. I saw what it did to that country. I was in China in 2003 for SARS. I've seen outbreaks. I've seen thousands of people die. When we had a vaccine for COVID, the major advantage we hoped initially was that it was going to prevent transmission as long as well as reduce disease and morbidity, mortality. We found out that it wasn't as effective in reducing transmission as we had hoped, but it definitely reduced morbidity and mortality.
And let me just finish one last thing. It saved people who otherwise couldn't have gotten care for a heart attack or a stroke or anything else because the hospitals would have been completely overwhelmed.
JENNINGS: I'm not suggesting that agencies should be done away with.
LIPKIN: But that was what he was saying.
JENNINGS: And I respect your opinion, but they do need to be reformed for the purpose of increasing public trust. We have to restore trust in them.
PHILLIP: The issue about the public trust thing is that this is almost like election denialism. You scream that the election was stolen and then when people believe you, then suddenly you're saying, well, if only there weren't these questions that I made up. You cannot just create doubts and then blame the doubts that you created for the skepticism.
JENNINGS: The doubts in the public health regime in this country were not made up out of whole cloth. They are fully derivative of what happened to this country during COVID and the people and the families and the businesses who were devastated by these mandates.
PHILLIP: There are economic impacts. And then there are the health impacts that we are talking about here. RFK Jr. is trying to blame vaccines for health impacts based on no science, no science. We can talk about the economic impacts, but let's talk about the health impacts and whether there is truth to that. I don't think there's that evidence.
JENNINGS: I'm also a supporter of vaccines. I believe vaccines work. And I think his skepticism of vaccines and some of the statements that he has made are going to be the most problematic things in his nomination. But you cannot separate these -- he has raised real concerns that real people have. And, by the way, Trump's not hiding the ball here. He campaigned with this guy virtually every day and the American people said, you know what, some of this sounds pretty good.
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Dr. Devi.
NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Well, I was just going to add, I mean, I treat patients every day and they ask questions, some which I think are higher level, some which, you know, I wonder.
[22:15:03]
But I still have to take those concerns seriously, right, because there are people, other people -- he represents a large number of people who feel the same way. So, it's our job if we work for the government to address those concerns and answer them, you know? It's not enough to just say, oh, that's misinformation.
PHILLIP: Dr. Devi, let me just ask her this because I'm curious.
NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Yes.
PHILLIP: You know, one of the things that he's said is that he wants to go after the medical journals, because he thinks that they're colluding with the pharmaceutical companies and researchers all to make Americans sicker.
NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Well, I think, you know, like I said, there has to be some kind of legitimacy given to certain things. So, what happens is a lot of times in order to get the FDA approvals, pharmaceutical companies do have to fund the studies, because otherwise people don't have the money to do it.
Do I think that suddenly makes all drugs like worthy of suspicion? No, not at all. We have incredible technology and pharmaceuticals because of all these advances. But at the same time, I think transparency is the only way to really address those concerns. If we just say, oh, no, there's absolutely no connection between the two, that's not true. I mean, now most authors have to disclose if they have any financial connections to industry.
AVLON: And they should.
NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Anything's been funded, exactly. So, it's not an idea out of nowhere. There is some basis to it, and it has to be addressed.
DUNCAN: And he has no experience to, to come up with this, right? This is like sending a car salesman to go engineer a bridge, right? Not he's not a doctor. And we have to put that on the scales of --
JENNINGS: Is the current HHS secretary a doctor?
DUNCAN: Scott, you keep going back to --
(CROSSTALKS)
DUNCAN: If you want to compare what's current, then that's not realistic, right? Then that isn't giving us an administration that you've worked really, really hard and talked well to, talked well about, and talked about how well it would go forward. This is headed -- I mean, this is -- the clown car has arrived again.
JENNINGS: You're still campaigning, Geoff.
DUNCAN: No, I'm calling balls and strikes, Scott.
JENNINGS: He got elected.
DUNCAN: I'm actually calling balls and strikes.
PHILLIP: Can I just add one more thing to the conversation? I mean, as Dr. Devi talked about, people have concerns about not just the medical part of this, but also about the food, the pesticides, everything.
Interestingly enough, there was another person who, many years ago, tried to raise concerns about the health of the food that we feed our children and our families. And here's the reception that she received.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I heard this, I thought, get your damn hands off my fries, lady. If I want to be a fat fatty and shovel French fries all day long, that is my choice.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: We're going to have, you know, the government fining us if we use salt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming up straight ahead, all this talk about the government taking salt away from you because it's so bad for you. But aren't there good things about salt?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hate the government getting involved and telling me what to eat and not to eat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Food police.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think the government should regulate the ingredients in the food we eat?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can't we make our own decision about whether or not we want to salt our food?
HANNITY: All right, an Obama Government Obesity Task Force.
Does every American family need a dietician appointed by the government to tell them that this food is going to make you fat and this food is not?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Make America healthy again, but that's pretty retro. I mean, Michelle Obama was actually responsibly, to be clear, talking about what we feed our children, what's in our food lunches, whether or not our nutrition standards are up to the modern age, given the obesity rates in this country.
LIPKIN: I agree. Before I come back to food, because I think that's very important, I just want to emphasize that RFK Jr. was also pushing a variety of drugs for treatment of COVID, like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, that are frankly dangerous and can lead to arrhythmias and heart attacks and other sorts of problems of that sort.
Mayor Bloomberg tried to do something to help make foods more palatable, make them safer and so forth for kids in New York City. A child doesn't have the ability to make a decision about whether or not he should be eating French fries, or cake, or other things. We have to find some way to address this obesity epidemic that leads to hypertension, and stroke, and cardiovascular disease.
We have the same problem with smoking, right? People said you shouldn't take away my right to smoke. But we've done that. And we also need to do similar things with diet.
PHILLIP: Yes. And if that were where this all -- the only place that this was, I don't think we would be having this conversation, but to your point, Dr. Lipkin, it's about a lot of other things. I mean, the dangerous lies, I think, are going to be at the federal level at this point.
Dr. Devi, Dr. Lipkin, thank you both very much for joining the conversation. Everyone else, stay with me.
Coming up next, RFK Jr., he wants to make your food healthier now. Hear how conservatives reacted when Michelle Obama did it.
Plus, pressure mounts over Trump's pick for attorney general as Matt Gaetz becomes a flashpoint in Trump's loyalty litmus tests. We've got another special guest joining us in our fifth seat at the table. [22:20:00]
We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump is actually very serious. He put both Matt Gaetz in charge of the Justice Department, or wants to, and he's getting answers to the questions of who is actually loyal to him. The president elect hopes that the Senate focuses less on advising and much more on consenting to his attorney general choice.
Just a short time ago, the GOP leader, John Thune, tried to tango around this question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think Matt Gaetz can get through?
SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Well, I don't know the answer to that just yet. Obviously, as you point out, there certainly are some skeptics, but he deserves a process.
[22:25:04]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: RFK Jr., do you think he can get through?
THUNE: They deserve --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Same answer?
THUNE: They deserve a process.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you have to do recess appointments? You're saying yes or no. Would you say --
THUNE: Well, I hate to say I think that's still an open question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Madison is with us now. And also joining us in our fifth seat at the table is former Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman, who advised the January 6th committee. Even The Wall Street Journal is getting the heebie-jeebies about the Matt Gaetz situation. They say, Matt Gaetz is a bad choice for attorney general. He's a nominee for those who want the law used for political revenge, and it won't end well. Those is doing a lot of work here. Those is Donald Trump. He said he wants the law used for political revenge, and now he's doing it. Denver?
FMR. REP. DENVER RIGGLEMAN (R-VA): Yes. I mean, you know, I find it amazing. I had the good fortune of saying that January 6th text messages, you know, and I was actually the senior technical advisor, and I remember saying Jason Miller, Marjorie Taylor Greene, starting with, you know, Antifa did it. Then you see Matt Gaetz come out with this incredible thing where facial recognition was actually part of seeing Antifa in the crowd on January 6th.
And when I look at Matt Gaetz since then, and since I served with Matt Gaetz, and seeing now, I mean, this is just a loyalist who has no reason to be in any position of power, as appointee, or anything like that, based on the fact that there's a cascading effect of bad judgment from this guy who can't tell truth from fiction.
And I think that's what I've seen since that time is that you have a bunch of individuals, whether you're talking about him or Tulsi Gabbard or Hegseth, or if you go down the line, you have a bunch of J6 apologists and individuals, again, you can't tell fact from fiction. They have this inability to know what truth actually is on a baseline type of way.
So, you have a bunch of loyalists who've been following down this line of sort of insanity, and they're the ones that are actually putting up being put up for appointments. And I think that scares people who've been in the intelligence business, like I have for a long time, somebody who's been in Congress, that when you have unserious picks like that, there is a way that, right now, when you see foreign adversaries, or even inside our country itself, when you're looking at people who might want to go after individuals, you're seeing that they're -- we're going to become a laughingstock pretty quickly if you have appointees like this.
PHILLIP: Madison?
MADISON GESIOTTO, FORMER RNC NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: I think it's becoming increasingly clear throughout the day to day that it's going to be very difficult for them to push Gaetz through without a recess appointment. I mean, we're seeing senators come out left and right saying they won't support him, and so I think that's where we're at. Whether that happens or not, it remains to be seen. We'll see.
PHILLIP: Yes. Thune was trying to be diplomatic, but, I mean, if he thought that there was going to be a lot of support for Matt Gaetz, I feel like he would have been a little bit more enthusiastic about it. This is going to be an uphill climb, but I don't think you can take recess appointments off the table.
Trump really wants this. That's what the reporting suggests, that he didn't go through the normal process. He liked what Matt Gaetz had to say, he's seen Matt Gaetz being loyal, he wants this, and he might put Thune to a pretty significant loyalty test in order to get it.
AVLON: Look, John Thune is an adult, and he won a secret ballot of his peers because he was not the most loyalist. And I think it's about time that actually some of the co-equal branches start acting that way, particularly vis-a-vis Republicans and Donald Trump, do your job. Advice and consent is an important part of the job. And nominating Matt Gaetz, nobody thought he was the most qualified person for this position. It is about loyalists.
And here's where people who said, oh, I don't like him personally but I like the policy. Personnel is policy, and that's what you're seeing today with these appointments, whether it's Tulsi Gabbard or Matt Gaetz or RFK Jr. This is what you get.
And so it is up for the Senate to do its damn job and go through the process and not acquiesce to advice and consent, which is a sort of constitutional self-neutering by the Senate that I don't think John Thune would allow, and I'd hope he wouldn't.
JENNINGS: I think there's going to -- I think Thune is right. There's just going to be a process. All these people are going to go through a confirmation hearing, which it involves research on their candidacies for these offices. And then they have to sit and answer questions. And some of them are going to fare better than others. I mean, just to handicap it a little bit, I think Gaetz -- Madison's right, I think Gaetz is probably in a separate category in terms of what is likely to be opposition to his nomination.
You know, Gabbard is probably in slightly better shape. RFK, I don't know yet. Might be a little too soon to tell. I think Pete Hegseth has got a really good chance to be confirmed. But the reality is they're all going to do the same thing. They're going to go to the Senate, they're going to sit at a table, they're going to answer questions from senators, and they're going to make decisions about whether they're qualified and that's what they deserve.
PHILLIP: Some people, Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, are essentially threatening Republicans.
JENNINGS: Some of them are unthreatenable. That's the thing about the Senate. They don't like to be threatened. Ask, you know --
PHILLIP: They not up for a little while.
JENNINGS: And some of them aren't running again. And some of them have been around so long that they've seen presidents come and go and some of them have, well-known public feuds with Donald Trump.
So, there is a group that is probably unthreatenable in the political way that you're describing, and that is probably the axis you'd be looking at when it comes to whether these nominations can make it.
PHILLIP: How big of a group do you think it is?
JENNINGS: Oh, I mean, it could be anywhere from four to ten.
DUNCAN: The last 48 hours have really been probably in historically the worst group of nominees.
[22:30:02]
And for me, it's more about a peek into Donald Trump's thought process, his decision-making. And we've heard -- we've seen the warning signs, we've heard the 911 calls from those closest to him that have seen him, how he makes these decisions.
And he's unhinged with -- with how he's going about this. Matt Gaetz is literally the worst pick in the world for attorney general. If your family is trying to seek justice because your loved one's been murdered, because your business has been fleeced by some sort of organized crime, and you're counting on the Department of Justice getting it right, Matt Gaetz is the, probably, worst person in the country to head up that organization.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: You know, it's such an important point. I mean, the work that the Justice Department does, it's basic stuff, it's law enforcement, but here's what Steve Bannon says that Matt Gaetz is going to be paying attention to when he -- if he is attorney general.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP CHIEF STRATEGIST: All the producers MSNBC, preserve your documents. Ari Melber, all you hosts preserve your documents -- all of it. You better be worried, you better lawyer up. Some of you young producers better call mom and dad tonight. Hey, mom and dad, you know a good lawyer? Lawyer up. Lawyer up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Some of this is a big old show, but --
DENVER RIGGLEMAN (R) FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN, VIRGINIA: Yes, jail was rough on Steve, you can see, right? And I think, also, when you have somebody like Steve Bannon, he -- he's the one who said and, if you excuse my language, you need to "flood the zone with shit" (ph). And I almost wonder if that's what Donald Trump is doing with these appointees.
I think you're exactly right, right? He's just flooding the zone with shit (ph), hope to maybe get the other appointees down the line because they absorbed these bunch of idiots, right? They're coming out right now.
And you know, I want to say awful things, right, about some of these individuals because I've seen too much in the data, right, when it comes to January 6th. But for me, he's somebody who has served this country, somebody who has been in Congress, what happens in a crisis?
Do you want Matt Gaetz in charge if there's a crisis in the states? You want Tulsi Gabbard in a crisis if she's, you know, in sec def or she's doing DNI. Or you want somebody like that in charge? It's just -- it's mind boggling to me.
For somebody who's been in the military, industrial complex, somebody's been in the military, somebody's been an officer. That you have these type of individuals that are being put forward to the American public to serve when they're absolutely -- it doesn't even matter about conspiracy theory. They just don't have it.
PHILLIP: Madison, what does it say to you about Trump and his decision-making that he would even do this. I mean, is he flooding the zone?
MADISON GESIOTTO, FORMER RNC NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: Well, I think the American people made it very clear after the election that they want Donald Trump in charge. If there's a crisis, they want Donald Trump in charge when it comes to international and national security.
I mean, you continue to see across the world the peace that we had when Trump was president. And now you look today, there's not peace. We're not richer than we were in 2019. We're not safer than we were in 2019. The world simply wasn't as --
JOHN AVLON, FORMER CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: We are. Actually, we are. We are.
GESIOTTO: No, we're not. You talk to people across the country who have been --
AVLON: We just have a fact-based debate. We were literally -- lower than it was before.
GESIOTTO: But look at some of those stats where they've taken some of the numbers out and you're like manipulating the statistics. We've talked about it on this show. We've talked about it many times.
AVLON: What numbers?
GESIOTTO: And the reality is that when you look at violent crime in a lot of places, New York City is a great example. If you think New York City is safer today than it was in 2019, you're out of your mind.
AVLON: I'm in favor of live policing and I can talk about broken windows all day long, but let's have a fact-based debate about violent crime and make those assertions. And you just admitted that you're not.
UNKNOWN: Can I get it?
GESIOTTO: People are poorer than they were, they're less safe than they were, and I'll tell you one thing. people across the country unequivocally decided Donald Trump is the person that's going to make it better. They said he's the one to make the change. Not Joe Biden, not Kamala Harris, not Democrat policy. House, Senate, White House, all Republicans.
AVLON: With these appointees, the question is when folks on the margins voted for Donald Trump. Did they think they were getting Tulsi Gabbard for DNI or RFK Junior or Matt Gaetz for A.G.?
JENNINGS: Yes. Yes.
AVLON: No. Wrong.
GESIOTTO: To be honest, when it comes to RFK, they definitely knew they were getting him.
AVLON: Maybe they were getting Rubio from Secretary of State, adult pick. Maybe they were getting, you know, the Interior Secretary. But not these wing nuts who are being put in a position of power without any qualifications.
PHILLIP: I don't know. I don't know, John. I will say this. This is what Scott's going to say. But Donald Trump did kind of say that he was going to do this.
JENNINGS: Yes. That was my idea. Yes.
PHILLIP: But the truth is, and we talked about this a lot at this table, a lot of voters did not believe him. I don't --
JENNINGS: See -- my dissenting opinion, and I think, I think you're raising an interesting point.
PHILLIP: No, I'm saying like, I have talked to voters who said, I just don't think -- I think he's big.
DUNCAN: Oh, I heard that everywhere I went. But he's not actually going to do that. There's no way he would put RFK in there. He's just talking about it.
JENNINGS: He campaigned with RFK and with Tulsi Gabbard virtually everywhere he went. He spoke highly of them.
PHILLIP: And by the way --
JENNINGS: He repeatedly talked about them having role in the administration.
PHILLIP: His own head of the transition, Lutnick, came on this network and said, he is not going to be the HHS secretary.
JENNINGS: There's only one boss -- A. B, but campaigning on it. And my belief is people did have an expectation that they would be involved. And the reason that they were okay with it is because, look, they're fed up with institutional Washington. Now, that's different than actually going through the confirmation and running the gauntlet and getting confirmed.
[22:35:01]
But I don't think there should be any political mistake here. Trump ran with these people. He ran on these people. He ran on the idea of blowing up Washington and he is following through.
AVLON: Were there the kind of people that you would have hoped you would have? Would you like to see Tulsi Gabbard be DNI given the visits to Assad and the Russian, you know, parroting Russian talking points according to folks like Mitt Romney? Is that your preferred vision of the Republican Party?
JENNINGS: I'm waiting to see the confirmation hearings.
DUNCAN: Donald Trump mastered, and he did a great job, he won the election. He did a great job of being the mouthpiece of all the things that bothered people without having to deliver solutions. But the problem now he's in the job, right? He's now the president - or he's going to be the president.
And he has no solutions. None. And the only -- the only thing he's put forward -- I mean, Scott, could you tell me -- could you tell me what his economic plan is to lower inflation in less than ten seconds?
JENNINGS: Yes, extend the tax cuts, fight for American workers, get the immigration system under control, stop spending out of control out of the federal budget, lower inflation. Also, unleash American energy to drive back --
DUNCAN: I asked what he was going to do to lower inflation.
JENNINGS: I know that was like 15 seconds.
DUNCAN: No, no, inflation. Not increase the economy but lower inflation. The intellectually honest answer is don't spend $8 trillion you don't have.
JENNINGS: I know, man, I love it. I know you got your stump that you love to polish on the campaign. It's over. The campaign was like weeks ago.
DUNCAN: Yes, but being an American's not over. Wrecking the country is not over. Our future is not over.
JENNINGS: You know, you're right. You're right. And he won the election and being an American is not over.
DUNCAN: So, hold him accountable. As a conservative, hold him accountable.
JENNINGS: And I would hope that you would hope that this presidency is successful.
DUNCAN: All these picks --
JENNINGS: You want it to fail.
DUNCAN: All these picks-- absolutely not. I've got more on the line than anybody. I've got three kids.
JENNINGS: I've got four.
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Denver.
RIGGLEMAN: Listen, a lot of times, I think, when you see the arguments, the thing that sort of shocked me, and listen, you do have a point. The thing that shocked me was that Donald Trump actually won by the margin that he did.
I'll be honest. The reason I didn't vote for him is because he did have Tulsi Gabbard and R.F.K. Jr. and Matt Gaetz with him. Because literally, if you go back and look at what they've done and look at what they've said, there's -- there are some cases that they need mental health.
And I think that's what I -- you know, when you talk about 5G causing leaky brain that's RFK Jr. That's insane. That doesn't make sense, right? When you have a guy sticking his hands in the finger of a bear. When you have somebody who has this type of ridiculousness, the sort of charade where he's out there trying to make money in grift, off crap -- off health crap, stuff he doesn't understand.
As Americans, as individuals, we're allowed to have this debate because for me, since I know these facts, I know this date and I'm actually a free-thinking individual, is that bad people have been elected before in the majority. And what we have right now is we do have a country, I think, that does want things to change.
But I think the disinformation ecosystem was so powerful that people don't even know what they want to change. Because I promise you right now, if you don't ask people what the economic plan like Scott can do it. Scott studied, Scott knows. Scott worked in the Bush administration. Everybody here has to has this sort of knowledge base.
But an American out there who's getting fed the same bunch of crap about R.F.K. Jr. and he comes up looking all nice, make American healthy again. But also, I think 5G calls leaky brain. There's a cascading effect to judgment that's going to destroy the United States in a real crisis. And that's why people like me are speaking out because there's no data or facts based way we could be choosing these type of people.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone, stick around for us. Coming up next, Sylvester Stallone has a special comparison for Donald Trump. You'll want to hear what that is.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:42:49]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a heavyweight actor with a heavyweight comparison, Sylvester Stallone introduced the president-elect at a celebratory gala at Mar-a-Lago with this comparison. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SYLVESTER STALLONE, AWARD-WINNING ACTOR: We are in the presence of a really mythical character. I love mythology. And this individual does not exist on this planet. Nobody in the world could have pulled off what he pulled off, so I'm in awe. When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world. Because without him, you can imagine what the world would look like. Guess what? We got the second George Washington. Congratulations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The second George Washington. John Avlon, you wrote a book on this very subject.
AVLON: Yes, I wrote a book on George Washington's farewell address. Washington was warning about the forces that have destroyed Democratic Republics throughout history. Number one was hyper-partisanship. To excessive debt, there was foreign interference in our elections and foreign wars. He warned that hyper-partisanship lead occasionally to riots and
insurrection. The idea that Sylvester Stallone would compare Donald Trump to George Washington is, you know, he's clearly, he's just kissing the ring, but that's --
PHILLIP: Let's not forget --
AVLON: You know --
PHILLIP: Donald Trump tried to not leave the White House.
AVLON: Sorry, did I need to say that out loud? Sorry, yes. He fomented riots in this election.
PHILLIP: George Washington left the presidency creating the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power. Donald Trump refused to do that.
AVLON: Yes.
JENNINGS: I'm old enough to remember this summer when Joe Biden was unceremoniously dumped out of the race that the main Democratic talking point was, oh, he's a modern George Washington. He's like Cincinnati riding off back to his farm. Ridiculous.
PHILLIP: What are we talking about here? What are we talking about here?
JENNINGS: If you -- people compare people to historic presidents all the time.
PHILLIP: Okay.
DUNCAN: You just did What About is about and what about over --
JENNINGS: Literally the same comparison. People were calling him George Washington all summer and it was Ludacris. And by the way, Rocky beat up Yvonne Drago, he gets a pass from me.
PHILLIP: Okay, okay. Okay, Scott. Joe Biden's not George Washington, but neither is Donald Trump.
JENNINGS: We've established George Washington's not here.
RIGGLEMAN: I just wonder if in the Rocky movies he actually got hit in the head so many times, that he actually can't come up with any other type of comparison.
[22:45:04]
It's so ludicrous, who cares what Sylvester Stallone says anyway. But you know it just gets to a point that it's so ridiculous and so "kiss the ring" type of sycophancy that you have with these people. It just gets ridiculous.
DUNCAN: After hearing that heartfelt monologue or whatever you want to refer to it as, I'm wondering what cabinet secretary position he might get.
PHILLIP: Sly for --
RIGGLEMAN: Secretary of important stuff.
PHILLIP: Secretary of Education.
UNKNOWN: That's exactly what it is.
PHILLIP: Department of Education that may or may not survive a Donald Trump term. Everyone, thank you very much for joining us. Coming up next, what's the truth behind these weight loss drugs like Ozempic? Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to be here to talk about it. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:18]
PHILLIP: By 2050, almost 260 million people in the United States could be overweight or obese. But doctors now have the drug Ozempic as one of their tools in the kit. It promises to revolutionize how people lose weight and it is also changing the conversation around obesity and weight management. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has just finished a year-long investigation into Ozempic and the drugs just like it, and it airs this Sunday. Here's a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Over the years, the evidence has become increasingly clear on this. For so many people, obesity is not a choice.
UNKNOWN: We now know of over a thousand genes that play a role in our body weight. It's sort of like a thermostat, okay, where for some people a thermostat is set at whatever temperature it is in a house, whereas for other people that thermostat is set slightly higher, slightly lower. And so, if it's set higher and you end up having to eat more, you're going to be larger than someone else.
GUPTA (voice-over): It's why obesity is now considered a disease, not at the intestines or your stomach, but of the brain. It's a huge shift in the way that we think, with huge implications for treatment. But these are still early days. And remember, at one time even depression and addiction were seen as failures of willpower instead of a brain disease. Changing the perception of obesity? That's going to take time.
UNKNOWN: It's definitely true that there are people out there who've said time and again, obesity is not really a disease. All you need to do is eat better and exercise more and you'll be okay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And Dr. Gupta is with us now. So, Sanjay, what does this change in thinking mean for the future of obesity and how it's treated?
GUPTA: I think the biggest thing is that this idea that we think of this now as a brain disease. I think we are with obesity where we were with depression and addiction a few decades ago. I mean there was a time when people were depressed they said, hey, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, right?
And now I think it's pretty widely regarded as a brain disease. Same thing with addiction. We've even been able to identify, here's a brain model, of sort of where these areas are in the brain that are responsible for your feelings of fullness. You eat food and then you should feel full. That's what happens normally.
But for some people with obesity, that feeling of fullness just never comes. And it's really interesting. These hormones sort of replace that. They create the sort of feelings of what they call satiety in the brain. So, I think that's a transformational change.
PHILLIP: When people think of this as a shortcut, what do you say?
GUPTA: Look, I think at this point it is pretty clear for some people, not everybody, but for some people there's a thousand genes that are sort of driving their obesity. They have this particular problem in the brain. So, you know, spending a year on something, Abby, as you know, as a journalist, I get to meet so many people.
People who are eating right, they're exercising more than I do and I exercise a lot, and they still simply cannot lose the weight. The thermostat is just set a little differently as Dr. Jens Juul Holst, you just heard from. That's what he sort of describes.
So, for those people, it's not a shortcut. What I would say is there are a lot of people who are also taking this for not medically necessary reasons. And you got to be careful, because there's not a lot of long-term data on those folks. And also, you run the risk of losing not just fat, but muscle, as well.
And especially for older people who are doing this, when you lose that muscle that puts you at greater risk of falls and shorter lifespan and things like that.
PHILLIP: Well, this is a fascinating documentary. I can't wait to watch it. It is one of the hottest topics out there. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, we really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you so much.
GUPTA: Appreciate it, thank you.
PHILLIP: And don't miss Dr. Sanjay Gupta's travels around the world to see how these new weight loss medications are transforming lives. "Dr. Sanjay Gupta Reports: Is Ozempic Right for You?" -- that premieres this Sunday, 8 P.M. right here on CNN. Thank you again, Sanjay.
GUPTA: Thank you.
PHILLIP: And just in, Donald Trump announcing another cabinet pick. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:08]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump has made another personnel announcement at that gala we mentioned earlier. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (R): Burgum, Burgum. He's from North Dakota. He's going to be announced tomorrow for a very big position. So, everybody's waiting. There he is. Hi, Doug. Actually, he's going to head the Department of Interior and he's going to be fantastic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That would be Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota. He was a former primary competitor to Trump, but he dropped out in December of 2023. And then he endorsed Trump before the Iowa caucuses. North Dakota and South Dakota governors, both going into the Trump administration, if they can get confirmed. And thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
