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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Washington Post Reports, Trump Plans To Fire Jack Smith's Entire Team; Washington Post Reports, Trump Plans To Use DOJ To Investigate 2020 Election; Sources Say, Trump Intel Pick Gabbard Briefly On TSA Watch List; Scott Bessent if Trump's Choice For Treasury Secretary; Trump Picks Oregon Congresswoman Chavez-DeRemer As Labor Secretary; Co-Author Of Project 2025 Is Trump's Choice As OMB Director; Mother Arrested For Letting Son Walk Alone. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired November 22, 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 HOST (voice over): Tonight --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: You're fired!
PHILLIP: -- Donald Trump plans to give Jack Smith a pink slip and assemble a team to investigate the nonexistent 2020 election fraud.
Plus, the billionaire Donald Trump wants to put in charge of trillions. The president-elect picks his man at Treasury. He's a hedge fund manager who might not see eye-to-eye with his boss on a key campaign promise.
Also, the president-elect passes on a potential pick to lead the FBI, as new reporting reveals Trump's pick to lead the intel community was put on a TSA watch list.
And body cam footage shows a mom being put in handcuffs for what the law says is neglect, but what she says is just parenting.
Live at the table, Chuck Rocha, Mike Broomhead, Nayyera Haq, and David Urban.
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.
As always, let's get right to what America is talking about. What retribution looks like? Tonight, a flurry of Trump's second term picks. We'll talk about who he plans to hire in just a few minutes, but, first, who he plans to fire. The president-elect's plan to get rid of Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted Trump, is coming into fuller view. New reporting in The Washington Post indicates that it's not just Smith that Trump wants to fire, but the dozens of attorneys, FBI agents, support staff across the Justice Department who work on those teams.
The Post is also reporting that Trump wants to cobble together a team to investigate something that has already been investigated, and on which there is already a final word, the nonexistent election fraud in 2020.
Now, this looks and sounds a lot like the retribution that Trump promised, retribution that Trump's allies told us would never actually happen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARA TRUMP, CO-CHAIR, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Anyone who is afraid right now, you should not be afraid. He is not hell bent on revenge or retribution of any variety. He actually himself said, my revenge will be success.
I can assure you that whether you voted for him or not, he will be working for you.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: This is the new narrative by all the lemmings in the mainstream media this week, Trump wants revenge and vengeance.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): Donald Trump has been the one that's been very clear that his vengeance is going to be by winning and making America great again, not going after his political opponents.
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): I'm simply saying that President Trump has said it himself, the best revenge is success.
PHILLIP: Actually, Senator, I have to correct you on that because he's explicitly said --
SCOTT: I was in the room. No, you can't correct me with this, Abby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat tonight, CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller.
John, I'm going to get to you in just a second on the, how this is all going to work. But, Urban, I want to get to me the big headline of this is the 2020 election is done and dusted, it has been settled. Trump lost. He then won again. So, why use government resources to revisit something that is basically a conspiracy theory?
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, listen I think what, let's wait and see what happens first, okay? This is some reporting. Let's wait and see what happens. I think that it is not outside the bounds of the Department of Justice or other agencies to look at election security broadly in America. I think people need to know that their elections are secure up and down the food chain from, you know -- every election, there's problems or issues, right? And so I think -- listen, I think everyone should welcome it. I think everyone should welcome it, let's have it over with. PHILLIP: Trump won in this election and suddenly there are no issues. I've heard him talk about a single problem.
URBAN: No, I can tell you, there are lots of problems in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania over the course of the night and remaining up until Bob Casey conceded this week, you had Democratic- elected county officials saying, we're not going to follow the law. We're going to count ballots in opposition of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
PHILLIP: They conceded the race.
URBAN: but those elected officials in Bucks County said, we're going to deny the law. We're going to oppose what the Supreme Court said.
PHILLIP: Okay. Maybe they did that, but they still lost. They lost.
URBAN: I understand. But my point is that people don't have -- when the county commissioner who's elected sits there and says, I'm not going to follow the law, I don't care what the law says, we should investigate this.
PHILLIP: One of the things about Trump's election lies is that he keeps describing it as election security, as you just did, when that's not at all what he is talking about.
[22:05:05]
He is talking about ballots that were tampered with in Venezuela and all kinds of ridiculous things.
Let's take the time machine back to February of 2023. This is a Washington Post story. Former President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign commissioned an outside research firm in a bid to prove electoral fraud claims but never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election. That's according to four people familiar with the matter.
Meanwhile, over at the Justice Department, this is what they're going to be potentially handed with. I want to start with Jack Smith's team, right, because Jack Smith is already moving to basically dissolve this case against Trump because he cannot be prosecuted as president. He cannot be tried as president. Trump now wants to go further down into the ranks, career people who are supposed to have protections. Will he be able to do that?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it'll be hard. I have worked in the federal government and I have worked in the Department of Justice and I have tried to fire people. It's not as easy as it looks.
Now, there are alternatives here that are unpleasant. One is you transfer people to jobs that are so beneath them or inconvenient or unpleasant that they decide to leave of their own accord, which does not negate the idea that they could bring suit that they were put in that position as retaliation. You know, on the other hand people may just decide to leave because of those atmospherics.
But, I mean, the cart is before the horse here, Abby. The idea is, if you want to bring in OPR, the Office of Professional Responsibility, and launch a legitimate investigation into whether their conduct was above or below board, and then take personnel actions, that's one thing. Firing them and saying we're going to investigate it after is a little upside down.
So, we'll have to see how it plays out.
NAYYERA HAQ, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE SENIOR DIRECTOR: Well, the idea, right, isn't necessarily getting to the bottom of the matter and making sure all these people are ethical and honest. The idea is retribution. And making this team of professionals who showed up to do a job they were asked to do by their bosses, whether the boss is a Republican or a Democrat, that's what civil servants and professionals are trained to do. It puts that sense of public service not only under scrutiny, but makes it really unattractive for people who are --
PHILLIP: I think that's the point.
HAQ: Right. I mean, happy to serve in a government regardless of their politics.
MILLER: I think you have to look at this other wrinkle, which is one of the things that he started to do and ultimately didn't complete at the end of the last administration, the Trump administration, and has promised to do again is this Schedule F employee initiative, which is to hire people who passed the loyalty test, not protected by civil service, easier to bring on and more importantly, in this model, easier to fire. So, now, basically, you could have thousands of people who wouldn't be on the level of political appointees, not protected by civil service, but doing those jobs, who would basically be there only for their loyalty and their willingness to carry out instructions.
CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND FOUNDER, NUESTRO PAC: I get the Republicans' argument that you get to win, you get to pick the bosses, you get to pick who you fire. I understand that to a certain degree. But as I was working in races around the country, nobody said anything about what y'all were talking about or the reason why they were going to vote.
Democrats lost this election because the gas and groceries, other things that happened, but none of it was around making sure that the election was safe. None of this was around retribution, even though he talked about it in all the rallies, people thought, but the voters that I've dealt with from New York to California, this is not.
So, I think this comes back to bite Republicans as it continues, because it will not stop here.
URBAN: That's about political capital, right, how much political capital the president has when you start out. Any administration has so much political capital. How you choose to expend that political capital is incumbent on the president. So, if he does, as Chuck says, if he spends it on getting people through that he really thinks can effectuate change, you know, at the grocery store, the gas pump putting in, you know, people like the new secretary of the treasury, other people who are really going to effectuate change and make things happen, that's one thing. If you're going to go chase ghosts and try to push people through who may not get confirmed by the Senate, they're going to burn a lot of political capital in the Senate. They believe they're an equal body and a partner. They've read the Constitution a lot, those senators.
ROCHA: There's a lot of people that got appointed. Now, I just want to make sure if I talk a lot of trash on you that you don't get a job tonight because there's like 15 of us. Before I got up here, they got a job. I'm going to talk smack on you, but if you're going to be assistant FBI director, I don't want no part of it.
URBAN: I don't know. I don't know. Listen.
PHILLIP: Have you got news for us tonight?
MIKE BROOMHEAD, KTAR PHOENIX HOST, THE MIKE BROOMHEAD SHOW: No. Listen, I was --
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
BROOMHEAD: I live in Arizona, so we, everybody talks about how we count votes. There was some very sensible election integrity pieces of legislation that got vetoed by our governor. That phrase election integrity has turned into a combative phrase.
We all want elections to be quick and the votes counted quickly. We want it to be easy to vote and hard to cheat and you can't even work on legislation right now. We had some good people in our County Board of Supervisors leave, Republicans leave because of how they were treated over the 2020 election.
[22:10:03]
But the citizens in Arizona, the only place I disagree with you is that where we are, it takes so long for us to count in Maricopa County and then everybody complains it takes so long, but they won't let the measures get through legislatively to fix it.
PHILLIP: So, Mike, I'm sure I'm curious about -- you know, you're in a state where Kari Lake was, you know -- she was like --
HAQ: The number one election denier.
PHILLIP: -- the election denier, right? Like there's Trump and then there's Kari Lake, essentially. And she didn't win for a second time now in a row. How do you think real voters who maybe they actually did vote for Trump this time around and they didn't vote for him the last time around are going to see this effort to just stay on this issue that has already been settled?
BROOMHEAD: Well, I think it's -- again, it's wait and see. It's let's see what they actually do. The conjecture right now and what they're saying may happen. If he does it, I think there's going to be some pushback from some people saying, I thought they would have learned the lesson in 2022 that 2020 cost them in -- or 2022 was cost -- was not cost effective for them with the way they fought about 2020. So, if they do that again, they're going to have trouble coming up in 2026, I think.
ROCHA: what happened in Arizona is you had a whole lot of people that voted for Donald Trump and a guy named Ruben Gallego, because I worked on that race for two years, and I think that's the biggest difference is you can't now say that there was some kind of thing going on at the top of the ticket. Because in places like Michigan and in Wisconsin, the Senate candidates got less votes than Harris and still one, because people went in the ballot box and voted for Donald Trump and left.
URBAN: To your point, Abby, and the Chuck's point earlier, what Donald Trump and the campaign did was amazing, right? They created this coalition of like working class white rural voters. Those are black and brown working class voters in the cities, right? It was really, truly masterful, right? And those folks, right, those folks are counting on what Chuck said, they want lower gas prices. They want -- you know, they feel inflation every day.
And so to them, I think a lot of this stuff may -- they're not really focused on that. They want to see what the results are. There's an incredible amount of pressure going to be on this administration to get costs down and get things going.
PHILLIP: It sounds like it's a bad idea.
(CROSSTALKS)
URBAN: I think it's a waste of political capital. I think it's a waste of political capital. I would be using things. I'd be -- there's a lot of things you can do quickly. This administration has about 18 months to get things done, then the midterms happen and you could have a different Congress. So, I would focus on things. You can get big wins early. Let's seal the border. Let's deport the criminals that we have, that we know about.
ROCHA: You were doing so good earlier. Stop that. Let's have (INAUDIBLE).
PHILLIP: Well, you know, here's -- I'll let John in real quick, just because Pam Bondi is now the person that Trump wants to be the attorney general. She is experienced as an attorney. She has the credentials to do that, but she is also an election denier. How do you think that's going to affect this whole thing?
MILLER: Well, if they're going to go and do an investigation in the 2020 election, I think that's -- the power of that history and personality is going to play into that. But there is this argument that Trump's people looked at it and couldn't prove it, they went to 68 courts, most of them they got thrown out, not for evidence, or the lack thereof, but for standing. Fox played, you know, almost a billion dollars around those stories. The Republican National Committee did hire an expensive private eye firm that did a lot of work, and then never really shared it with the Trump people, because apparently they didn't find anything either. So, let them look again.
PHILLIP: What a waste of time and resources and energy.
MILLER: As David said, you can spend a lot of time and capital looking backwards. There's a lot of urgency to look forward right now.
HAQ: But there's also the challenge here of, I mean, Trump never conceded the 2020 election, but perfectly happy with this election because, you know, he won in the eyes of the public as well. It's this idea that we've seen at the school board level and now we're seeing at this national level of being able to rewrite history in the way that you want to because you won as opposed to, here are the facts, nonpolitical facts. There is a group of public servants that are doing this regardless of partisanship.
And so this denigration of the American system at the local level with these, you know, nice retirees who are helping us at the election polls all the way up to, you know, what the president of the United States is now messaging that, don't trust anybody else about what's going on in America except for him.
PHILLIP: All right. Everyone hang tight.
Coming up next tonight, no distancing from this. Remember how the Trump campaign insisted that Project 2025 didn't have any connection at all to the Trump agenda? Well, the president-elect just picked the head of it to helm a key cabinet post.
Plus, would you trust the nation's secrets to someone who is on a government watch list? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Quiet Skies, making a loud problem for Donald Trump. Tonight, new CNN reporting reveals that Tulsi Gabbard was placed on a government watch list. The reason, her foreign trips and contacts raised concerns. It's not, to be clear, a terror watch list but it's still may be a concern given that the job that Gabbard is up for is the director of National Intelligence.
Now, back in September, Gabbard accused the Biden administration of orchestrating all of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FMR. REP. TULSI GABBARD (D-HI): My own government has placed me on a secret terror watch list targeting me as a potential domestic terror threat. Why? Political retaliation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That's all very dramatic, but, John, tell us what this list really is.
[22:20:01]
It's something sort of short of that and it's not a terror watch list, as we just said.
MILLER: And it's not really a list. There is a number of things that come together. There's intelligence that the Department of Homeland Security has access to. There is threshold targeting, which is, you know, the machine will look at travel records and say, this person has been to these countries of concern at these times. So, this is something where either coming off a trip, you may want to interview them. A number of plots and other things have been uncovered that way. It may be information you want to pass on to the sky marshals on the plane.
Here's the thing about her is, you know, she has been to Syria. She's met with Assad. She's made statements, but that was back in 2017. So, the real question is what, if anything -- and these are answers we don't know, what if anything in terms of her trips after she left office, or her private travel around the world ticked that machine? Did she go to a bunch of places in rapid succession? And I have no doubt that given the spotlight that's on this now they'll get to the bottom of how she ended up being --
PHILLIP: She was taken off pretty quickly after it was discovered that she was put on --
MILLER: Once they brought her up, she was taken off right away. So, the question is, did the machine, which just gives a passenger number and a name and the biographical thing, not register, member of Congress, which certainly would have changed it.
PHILLIP: Former, in her case, yes, which puts her perhaps in a different category.
I think the question now that this raises for a lot of people is, she is supposed to be up for this very important national security post. And it's not just this, it's also that other Republicans, Mitt Romney, and this is Nikki Haley saying it, have raised concerns about her loyalties.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIKKI HALEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is not a place for a Russian-Iranian-Syrian-Chinese sympathizer. DNI has to analyze real threats. Are we comfortable with someone like that at the top of our national intelligence agencies?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Two big question marks, David Urban, about her. Maybe we could say they're not related, but they raise questions given the job she's up for.
URBAN: Well, listen, I used to work for her. So, I was the chief of staff for a U.S. senator for many years, who believed in talking to everybody, our enemies, our friends. And we traveled to lots of bad places, you know, met with the president of Yemen, Yasser Arafat, many times, Hafez al-Assad. He talked to people that would be -- it would make him, under these standards, he'd be ineligible to be a Senator.
So, I don't think that talking to our adversaries necessarily disqualifies you for anything. Let's hear -- you know, as John said, let's hear her views now. Let's see what she has to say now. She expressed positions perhaps in the past that she doesn't hold now. Listen, we did this with Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris had positions just in 2019 that we were expected to look away from somehow. She never disavowed lots of those positions. So, let's give her some grace. Let's let her testify. Let's see what she has to say.
HAQ: Here's a challenge with grace when it comes to national security, right? There's several of us who have had high security clearances here, and you understand that when they go through your history, they're looking to see financial vulnerabilities. They're looking to see any family tie vulnerabilities and judgment vulnerabilities. And that's ultimately what this is about. As a sitting member of Congress, if you want to have people talking in a diplomatic way with the Syrian regime, there's an entire team in your own government that was doing that. Why did she have to out on a limb to do that? Why does she have to go out on a limb and talk to Putin, make these statements about China?
So, she, in the moment of government, was not working in coordination with other Republicans, other Democrats, which is how national security typically works. When we were national security in our various jobs, we did not know who was a Republican or a Democrat. We were U.S. officials. That's what we did nationally. Literally, her judgment and her sense of patriotism of who is a friend to the United States, that is the biggest vulnerability.
URBAN: See, I find it hard to question Tulsi Gabbard's patriotism. You know, she wore the uniform of this country. You know, she served honorably. So, you may question -- you may want to talk about her judgment. But I wouldn't -- questioning her patriotism is a line I wouldn't cross.
MILLER: I also think the strange part is, it's not just going in meeting with hostile foreign powers. It's coming back and parroting the propaganda of said hostile foreign powers, which, in America, there's a great right to do that. That should be exercised. It doesn't really mix with becoming the top intelligence official. And beyond that, let's put all that aside, hard as that may be, how do you take somebody who has zero experience in the world of intelligence collection, analysis, research or what to make actionable, put them in charge, literally put them in charge of the book that the president gets briefed from every day about what goes in and what stays out.
[22:25:03]
I mean, I was assistant deputy director for National Intelligence. I worked under two DNIs. And when you looked around at the intelligence professional there, especially General Clapper or Admiral Blair, you look, these people have spent a lifetime of public service as intelligence professionals, their experience, their judgment, their depth. None of that is here.
PHILLIP: I mean, it's almost like experience, judgment, and depth are all things that actually make you less likely to be called up for one of these very important positions in our government now.
ROCHA: I am definitely one of the people at this table who does not have a security clearance or never had one. That will not shock nobody at home. But let's talk about the political implications and why senators are elected to six-year terms. One of the reasons is so they don't feel political pressure on two-year cycles like a House person does. So, when she gets in front of a Senate hearing, they can ask these questions, and all this does, and I think this is totally legitimate, all the arguments, but in a Senate hearing, we will find this out, and there will be a lot of Senators.
And we just saw it with Matt Gaetz. Now the spotlight will be on Ms. Gabbard and will also be on Pete Hegseth, will be the next two up, because senators are not as -- they're just not as partisan. They all think they should be president. They all think they're smarter than everybody else. You know that from personal experience. I know that from personal experience, D or R. So, I think that's really what I'm looking at.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, and they have said that with Matt Gaetz, for example, we're not just going to sit here and put up a check mark on it.
BROOMHEAD: But that's the process, the wait and see, let her answer the questions, let her explain her past positions. Have they changed? If they have changed, why have they changed? What was it that led you to those decisions? And then, of course, the qualifications and her experience --
URBAN: You can attack -- I would say, go at it, have it, have at her positions, but I would not question Tulsi Gabbard's patriotism.
ROCHA: I will say this is a little -- everybody's going around their national security credentials. I would like to say --
BROOMHEAD: I'm not -- wait, I'm nowhere near -- that is my statement. It's very important.
ROCHA: Guess who run Tulsi Gabbard's first president -- her campaign for Congress and their biggest reason that she's even here. You're welcome America. It was me in a group called Vote Vets.
PHILLIP: I was going to say she used to be a Democrat not so long ago.
ROCHA: It's worse than that.
PHILLIP: She used to be a Bernie --
ROCHA: She used to travel with me with Bernie. URBAN: If you look at -- there's that photo with RFK with Elon and with Tulsi and said, thank you, Democrats, with Trump, standing with Trump, right? All Democrats who now got so disgusted with your party, Chuck, they came over to the other team.
HAQ: So, here's the thing about Tulsi -- yes, about Tulsi and the views and whether or not they've changed over time. These are the known views and she was nominated by this president understanding those views. So, when you go in for a confirmation hearing, you are also representing the presidency, not just yourself.
PHILLIP: Yes, absolutely. Everyone stick around for us.
Coming up next, they told you that Project 2025 was not part of the Trump agenda. So, what is the country supposed to make of a key figure in Project 2025 getting a very, very important government post? Our panel will weigh in, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:32:26]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump deciding who he wants to fill one of the most important gigs in the government. The job is Treasury Secretary, and his pick is Scott Bessent. Like Trump, he is a billionaire. He ran a big hedge fund, and he's taking Trump's brashest economic ideas and giving them some Wall Street spin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT BESSENT, ECONOMIC ADVISOR TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: Some of the tax cuts that President Trump talked about during the campaign, you know, that's going to be a negotiation with the Republican Congress. You know, I would recommend that tariffs be layered in gradually, which would lay open the price adjustment over a period of time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He is pretty much a kind of just a run-of-the-mill kind of Wall Street figure.
URBAN: He's one of the most successful billionaire --
PHILLIP: Yeah, yeah. No, but I mean, the fact that there were a couple of them that Trump was choosing between tells you that this was not exactly, you know -- he had a lot of options of pretty successful guys to choose from. He has spent a lot of time, you know, bigging up tariffs in the press recently to sort of get his bona fides there. But the thing that is interesting also about him is that he's a George Soros guy. He is a Soros guy. And what do you make of this pick?
HAQ: I worked in the Treasury Department. I was a spokesperson. I worked multiple confirmations. And it's a really tough place to navigate, particularly when you are looking to stabilize markets, signal something to Wall Street, but also signal what may be a very populous message to the American public. The Treasury Secretary says one word sideways, and it affects how markets rise and fall.
One of the biggest challenges we've had since we've had to restructure many of the regulations, like too big to fail, we all know about the housing crisis and bank failures and the idea of having to bail out banks because they weren't managing their risk properly, the rules weren't correct, and pretty much people were all friends and looking the other way. That's a big question for who takes a treasury position. Are they going to be able to look at bank CEOs, understand how they work, but also hold them accountable to the American public?
URBAN: Listen, I think that's one of the reasons Scott Bessent was picked. You talked about George Soros and an incredibly complex, you know, understanding with big markets, big things. Scott Bessent is very, very qualified. I think he's a 10-strike. You know, interestingly also, first openly gay, you know, Treasury Secretary. So much for Donald Trump, the homophobe.
[23:05:00]
Listen, I think the other picks we have to wait and see who's going to run the NEC, very important job in the West Wing, has a lot of buttons and levers on the economy. And where's Bob Lighthizer going to land up, right, so.
PHILLIP: Right.
URBAN: Bob Lighthizer is incredibly --
PHILLIP: Because there are some fire brands that Trump --
URBAN: Bob Lighthizer's incredibly important. He is the kind of the architect of the tariffs, the gentleman who has got incredible confidence in this president. And so let's see how Kevin Warsh figures in here. Who's running the NEC where Bob Lighthizer just lines up. This is an incredibly strong economic team.
PHILLIP: You know, I mean, we've been talking all week about the kind of duality of the Trump picks, right? There's this, which I think is actually a pretty straightforward.
URBAN: Go ahead, just say it. It's great. Go ahead, say it. It's great.
PHILLIP: No, no, no. I just -- I think it's a straightforward pick, right? The Treasury Secretary is somebody, to your point, who knows how to -- needs to know how markets work and needs to know how to run big things. This guy can certainly do that. He's already starting to sort of like roll out a tempered version of Trump's economic plans.
One thing for you, Chuck, that I think you might find interesting, Trump's pick for labor secretary is a Republican congresswoman who was picked basically by the Teamsters. She -- I was shocked because I got a statement from the National Education Association tonight, and they were praising her. They said during her time in Congress, Lori Chavez- DeRemere voted against gutting the Department of Education against school vouchers, against cuts to education funding, et cetera, et cetera.
It's interesting because Trump is trying to make this gesture to working class white voters. I'll whisper it because you didn't like it when Urban said it earlier.
ROCHA: There's a reason why I don't talk no smack on the FBI. It's because the FBI is probably watching my phone right now. It's the same thing with these unions. This woman is going to oversee the unions. She gets to say and make rules for all of their members and do the things that they do. But also, let's remember, we've talked about that a lot here. Donald Trump did really well with Latino voters.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
ROCHA: And he needs to give Latino voters something to be able to turn to and say, look who I just made Labor Secretary. So I'll give him kudos for that. I disagree with everything that this woman stands for, but politically, it's a good move.
PHILLIP: You don't think that she's like a pro-Union Republican?
ROCHA: I have never -- since 1985 in Jack Kim (ph), I haven't met a pro-Union Republican in a long time, but I'm sure she's less crazy than the crazy people he's been picking.
HAQ: So I'm glad you mentioned the union piece because this is also potentially an opportunity for this Treasury Secretary. When we talk about democratizing access to capital and being able to do investments, an organization or company like Robinhood ultimately had to put a stop to people buying on margins for GameStop. This was all organized out in the public by -- on Reddit, and it became something that a huge backlash from traditional Wall Street.
That idea of collective movement and making it easier for people to invest in what are otherwise arcane financial instruments, that would be fascinating if this hedge fund billionaire was able to bring more and support more of those types of actions.
PHILLIP: One quick thing, I want to make sure we get this in because another big appointment that Trump made today was the Director of the Office and Management Budget, which nobody knows about except that it's extremely important. And the guy who's running it is named Russ Vought. He's done that job before. More importantly, he is the architect of Project 2025. I'm sure Mike, you remember. They've been telling us that Project 2025 is not a thing. I mean, can we say now that wasn't true?
BROOMHEAD: No. I don't know why we would say it wasn't true if the president-elect has said, it's not going to be a part of my administration.
PHILLIP: He is bringing the guy who created it and he's (inaudible) administration --
BROOMHEAD: But that doesn't mean he's going to allow that person implement. PHILLIP: -- into the role that would be responsible for implementing how -- basically how the White House's policy trickles down to the rest of the entire government.
BROOMHEAD: But that doesn't mean that he's going to allow that person to implement that strategy. He has said before, and he was very clear, I don't know anything about it, I have nothing to do with it. So to jump to the conclusion that he put this guy there maybe for the reasons he thinks he's best for the job doesn't mean that he's secretly now, because there's never going to be a secret if he does, implement 2025.
PHILLIP: I don't think it's a secret.
(CROSSTALK)
URBAN: Russ Vought is one of the most talented public servants you're going to find around. He knows every button, every lever. He's going to be a success at OMB, and just because he believes in certain core principles of the Republican Party, smaller government, right? Everybody in the Republican platform for the president you can go back, I don't know how far, wants to get rid of the Department of Education.
Ronald Reagan did, wants to shrink the workforce. Shouldn't the president of the United States have a workforce that wants to do the same thing he does? Isn't that what democracy's about?
PHILLIP: Look, I think that's all good and well. I'm just saying the idea that it's some kind of a terrible lie that Project 2025 was a blueprint for what the second Trump tour would look like --
URBANL: There are certain pieces.
PHILLIP: -- that that's not true.
URBAN: There are certain pieces of Project 2025 which will be implemented, for sure, a hundred percent. But it's not -- the president didn't take the booklet, tuck it under his arm, and go scamper down to Mar-a-Largo. It is not true. I talked to the president directly about this topic and he said, never seen it, never read it, a hundred percent.
PHILLIP: All right, well, we shall see.
[23:39:56]
It'll be interesting what it takes for people to believe that Project 2025 --
URBAN: Chuck doesn't believe it.
PHILLIP: -- is actually part of the plan here. All right, everyone, hang on. Would you let your 10-year-old walk to town by himself? Well, tonight, a mother is under arrest for doing just that. We've got the dramatic footage that was captured by police cameras of her arrest. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, helicopter police, a Georgia mom, was arrested, arrested for child endangerment, for what many are saying shouldn't have been a crime at all, letting her 10-year-old son walk to town while she took one of her other kids to the doctor.
[23:44:58]
The confrontation was tense, and it was caught on police video.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Turn around for me?
UNKNOWN: Why?
UNKOWN: Because you're under arrest.
UNKNOWN: For what?
UNKNOWN: For the incident we talked about earlier today.
UNKNOWN: What am I under arrest for?
UNKNOWN: For reckless endangerment.
UNKNOWN: And how was I recklessly endangering my child?
UNKNOWN: Sorry, we're not talking about it.
UKNOWN: Sorry, call mommy and tell them they're taking me to jail because you decided to walk down the street.
UNKNOWN: That's not his fault.
UNKNOWN: Yeah, hold on.
UNKNOWN: You're the mother and in fact your responsibility to pick up your child.
UNKNOWN: Yeah. I need you to not talk to me please.
UNKNOWN: Okay.
UKNOWN: Give her a call.
UNKNOWN: I need somebody here to stay with the kids.
UNKNOWN: I don't have anyone.
UNKNOWN: Do you want to take the watch off or do you want to take it with you?
UNKNOWN: Okay, well then I'm calling defects. UNKNOWN: Soren (ph), come here.
UNKNOWN: 35th (inaudible). Sir won't be in my 95.
UKNOWN: Come here.
UNKNOWN: Do you want to call me (ph)?
UNKNOWN: No, I want you to call Mommy. Can you hear me?
UNKNOWN: Yes.
UNKNOWN: The police are here and they're taking me to jail. So I need you to come stay with the kids.
UNKNOWN: 10-19, can I (inaudible)?
UNKNOWN: You're kidding me.
UNKNOWN: No, I'm not kidding you --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Lenore Skenazy is with us. She's in our fifth seat. She is a parenting advocate who runs the nonprofit, Let Grow. Lenora was one of the first people to report on this story. It is a wild story, let me tell you. I mean, also they were taking her into custody and leaving the kid alone in that --
LENORE SKENAZY, PRESIDENT, LET GROW: Oh no, actually the grandpa was there.
PHILLIP: Oh, there was someone there?
SKENAZY: Yeah, and the mom has four kids altogether and they're all older than him. And you know, the way it's being reported is that she let him walk to town. What happened is that she was taking her older son to the doctor, the younger son was supposed to come with, he wasn't there when they had to leave. She thought, okay, he's either home with grandpa or he's playing in the woods. Either way, I'm fine with that. And off she went.
And instead of telling grandpa I'm walking to town, 370 people in this town, 370, he walks to town. It's less than a mile. He says hi to his friend's grandma. And then some lady says, what are you doing out here? He says, I'm fine. She says, no, you're not. And calls the cops.
PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, we have -- I just want to show people like this is the path, just so you can get a sense of it. It's not a very long path, it doesn't seem. It's pretty direct.
SKENAZY: And even if it wasn't.
PHILLIP: This is -- and even if it wasn't, I mean, we all have stories of growing up and what it was like. And I don't really remember being sort of like, you can't walk to school. My school, elementary school is probably a half a mile from our house. I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
URBAN: This is what happens to the lack of common sense in America, right? This is -- and look, this is what -- you know, listen, I'm hopeful that the Pam Bondi, Department of Justice.
PHILLIP: Oh.
URBAN: Listen. No, listen, I hope they investigate this police department and find some justice for Peanut the Squirrel, right? Those are the things -- I think that's the level of --
SKENAZY: -- the priority.
URBAN: That's the level of insanity we're at, right? This woman did nothing wrong, not a thing wrong, and they're putting her in handcuffs and dragging her away. Where's common sense gone in America?
HAQ: Also, the woman who called the police, I mean, can you -- if you're a town of 370 people --
ROCHA: Her name is Karen. Her name's Karen.
HAQ: You just find the child and call up or like walk him back home.
SKENAZY: Right.
HAQ: This idea of community connection.
SKENAZY: So here -- so sorry, I'm jumping in.
HAQ: No, go ahead.
SKENAZY: Even though she called, okay, maybe she was extremely worried. Maybe she thought he was six years old, even though he was about to turn 11. The cop who answers the call should say, is the kid okay?
URBAN: Where's the common sense?
SKENAZY: Yes. Is he, you know, is he running from somebody? Is he on fire? Is there a lion? Nothing, nothing, nothing. Okay, well thank you for your concern and click. But instead it escalated.
PHILLIP: This is what you do, Lenore.
SKENAZY: Yes.
PHILLIP: I mean, just tell us a little bit more about this, because this is a big issue. I mean, I'm a parent or a couple -- a bunch of parents at this table.
SKENAZY: Yes.
PHILLIP: It is hard to be a hands-off parent. Everything in our society is telling us more, more, more. And you're saying something else.
SKENAZY: Well, Let Grow is the nonprofit that's promoting childhood independence. And the reason we're doing that is because we were just talking about this before the break, that kids are really anxious today. Anxiety and depression have been going up as their independence and freedom and free play have been going down. And when something like this happens, parents think, am I not allowed to let go of my kid? And yes, you are. This is the anomaly.
But one thing that Let Grow has done is change the laws, the neglect laws in eight states. So it says, you know, neglect is when you put your kid in real, serious, obvious danger, not just when you take your eyes off them.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
ROCHA: That's good stuff. You know, when I was 11 years old, I owned a gun, believe it or not. There's a story that says, I pulled my papaw out of a pond with his tractor, with my tractor, and I was 11 years old. I know things have changed. For those of you at home, I'm a Democrat, I'm not the Republican. This is what we did when we were growing up. It made us strong, mean little kids, but look, I don't mean there shouldn't be any safety nets, because I think there are people out there and anything can go one two ways to the other.
But I think that this woman's working hard. I think about my son who's 35, who's got twin eight-year-old grandsons, and sometimes there's an hour before he gets home and they're there and he trusts them and he has a conversation with them. You don't open the door, you stay here and I'll be there.
HAQ: So it's why it's so important to start talking about the anxiety.
[23:49:55]
Its parent anxiety about everything we've heard and seen on television over the years, where one, for whatever reason, parents think that their child on a device with the entire world on the internet is keeping their child safer with all those strangers than just walking down the street in your own neighborhood.
PHILLIP: I want to let Mike in.
BROOMHEAD: Real quick. I was raised by a single mom. My parents divorced when I was about 14. So I was 14, had a 12-year-old brother and a seven-year-old brother. And so my mom just worked and worked and worked and worked. We were alone a lot. Now I know at 14, it's a little bit different. My seven-year-old brother spent time alone. When I was five-years-old, I hitchhiked to a Burger King because my mom said if I could get there, she'd buy me Burger King. My mom lied, by the way, because when I called her, it wasn't Burger King I got.
PHILLIP: You guys --
BROOMHEAD: But it was close to Whopper. It was close to Whopper. PHILLIP: It was a can of something totally different. Everyone, stick
with me. Your night caps are coming up next, including beef with a fast food chain, not Burger King.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:55:00]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the NewsNight Cap. You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. David, you're up.
URBAN: Sure, okay. I want to talk about one of the best and most important warriors in America's top (inaudible) military, General C.T. Donahue, who has a hold on him tonight from Senator Markwayne Mullins, mistakenly thinks that he was somehow responsible for what took place in Afghanistan. C.T. Donahue is a former Delta Force commander, tip of the spear, America's enemy's fear, C.T. Donahue, the exact kind of general that Donald Trump wants to have in this military.
And I would urge Markwayne Mullins to lift his hold, and let's get this guy out to the field, let's get him to Europe, and let's get the bad guys quaking in their boots.
PHILLIP: All right.
ROCHA: A lot of music news this week. You won't expect this from me, but Kendrick Lamar drops a new album today called GNX. For those of you at home, I listen to Lamar. Don't you worry about it, cause he has the beef. You know what I like to do? I like to fight. Also this week at the country music awards, George String got the lifetime achievement awards. Listen to me, Democrats, you need to know you Lamar and you George String if we're going to bring this coalition together.
PHILLIP: I would have liked to see Shaboozey get an award, but you know, that's a different topic. Go ahead.
HAQ: McDonald's seems to have gotten the message from this election cycle that inflation and food prices are a worry. They have a $5 value meal, which is cheaper than a couple of Starbucks these days. But my one gripe with them is that they have the Grinch Happy Meal in Europe only. It's not supposed to be released here in the U.S. They have a Taylor Swift situation going on in Canada, so I'm going to need McDonald's to make Happy Meals great again in the United States.
PHILLIP: Wow, yeah, I mean, you know, the dollar menu was a thing back in the day. Now that it's called the value menu, that feels like it's a slide. It's an inflationary slide.
HAQ: Five dollars for a full meal.
PHILLIP: Yeah, all right, go ahead, Mark.
BROOMHEAD: All right, I'm going to advocate. Arizona gets something right better than the rest of the country. Stop changing your clocks.
PHILLIP: I know.
BROOMHEAD: You make me crazy with changing the clocks. You know, I can't do math very well. And every time I got to do this time change thing, it messes me up. We don't change our clocks. Let's get rid of daylight staving's time once and for all. Follow Arizona, the great 48, and let's just get it done.
PHILLIP: That is so correct.
ROCHA: Bipartisan consensus. I'm down.
(CROSSTALK)
BROOMHEAD: And I'm the George Strait fan. Look at this, all coming together.
PHILLIP: You're a George Strait fan?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: What is it going to take Urban to get Congress to act on Daylight Savings Time?
URBAN: I don't know. I mean, it is a great -- listen, if it's up to Marco Rubio, we'd have it. He's a big fan.
ROCHA: I'm Kendrick Lamar go to briefing on them. That'll get them back on track.
HAQ: I think this is what you need for the Department of Efficiency, Ramaswamy and Musk.
PHILLIP: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
ROCHA: Let's put it out there right now.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much. Would anyone else get even close to getting away with running the Justice Department who was investigated for sexual assault? Well, the comedians of "Have I Got News For You" have an explanation for why Matt Gaetz almost, almost skated into the Trump administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL IAN BLACK, HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU: Have you heard the term white privilege?
UNKNOWN: No.
BLACK: Let me explain it to you.
ROY WOOD, JR., HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU: Yeah, please, mansplain that to the woman. Yeah, go ahead.
BLACK: As a white man --
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
BLACK: -- I can do whatever the (BLEEP) I want.
UNKNOWN: I've noticed. I've noticed that.
BLACK: Without consequence.
UKNOWN: It's true. Yeah.
BLACK: For example, I'm rubbing Jenny's knee right now.
AMBER RUFFIN, HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU: Jenny.
UNKNOWN: I have to let him.
(LAUGHTER)
RUFFIN: Jenny, hit him.
UKNOWN: You know what's what? This is from Amber.
BLACK: Ah!
UNKNOWN: Thank you.
UNKNOWN: Amber.
UNKNOWN: Yes?
WOOD: When he said it, I snuck to see if he was doing it for real.
(LAUGHTER)
WOOD: Hey, I want some privilege. He just open up touching me.
UNKNOWN: I'm gay. I can't feel it.
(LAUGHTER)
UNKNOWN: Let me ask, ladies, isn't Matt Gaetz the kind of guy you dated just before you became gay?
UNKNOWN: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
UNKNOWN: He was the last exit ramp. He was the one where you're like, if I -- tell me -- let me try. Nope. Can't do it.
UNKNOWN: He made you gay.
RUFFIN: He somehow looks like Tammy Faye Baker and her husband.
(LAUGHTER) The same time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Don't miss the new episode of "Have I Got News For You." It airs tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. right here on CNN. That is Eastern time, for those of you on Daylight Savings Time.
Anyway, thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
