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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

RFK Jr., Trump's Health Pick, Begins Meeting With GOP Senators; RFK Jr. Backs Polio Vaccine, Contradicting His Recent Criticism; Watchdog Debunks Conspiracy That Insurrection was Inside Job. Donald Trump Threatens Lawsuits Against Media; FBI Asking Public Not to Shoot Suspected Drones; White House Still Unclear on Mystery Drones. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired December 16, 2024 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, Kennedy at the Capitol.

REPORTER: Mr. Kennedy, are you going to revoke any vaccine?

PHILLIP: Is Donald Trump's health pick needling a bait and switch on his vax views?

Plus, even before Trump takes the oath --

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: I'm going to be bringing one against the people in Iowa, their newspaper.

PHILLIP: -- his lawsuit parade looks to muzzle the media.

And a watchdog report fuels a conspiracy that the feds instigated the insurrection.

STEPHEN A. SMITH, HOST, THE STEPHEN A. SMITH SHOW: I'm getting really ticked off.

PHILLIP: But the anger isn't supported by the facts.

Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Ashley Allison, Hal Lambert, and Chuck Rocha.

Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.

Let's get right to what Americans are talking about, their health. RFK Jr., who is Trump's pick to run the nation's health agencies, is on Capitol Hill courting Republican senators for their vote. Many of those senators are alarmed by Kennedy's views on vaccines. In fact, we recently learned that his lawyer petitioned the government to revoke approval of the polio vaccine. After that news, Trump tried setting the record straight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think everything should be looked at, but I'm a big believer in the polio vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Trump's words play into what The Wall Street Journal reports is RFK's game plan, talk about the things the senators want to hear, like healthier foods, and talk less about his stances on vaccines. And Kennedy is himself sticking to that plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Should the polio vaccine be revoked? Should the polio vaccine be revoked?

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., FORNER INDEPENDENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I'm all for polio vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: But here's the thing. That is very different than his thoughts on the polio vaccine just last year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.

Here's the problem. The polio vaccine contained a virus called simian virus 40, S.V. 40. It's one of the most carcinogenic materials that is known to man.

And now you've had this explosion of soft tissue cancers in our generation that kill many more people than polio ever did.

So if you say to me, did, you know, the polio vaccine was effective against polio, I'm going to say yes. And if I say, if you say to me, did it kill more people than it did a cause more death than averted, I would say, I don't know, because we don't have the data on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Dr. Devi. I'm not going to try to butcher your name today, Dr. Devi. She is the associate professor at NYU School of Medicine. You're like a famous person. You're only known by Dr. Devi.

So, Dr. Devi, look. I think RFK wants to memory hole what he has said for decades, actually, about vaccines. But that tape is pretty clear. And I'll start with the first part of it. There are no vaccines that are known to be safe and effective. You as a physician, are you comfortable with someone with that position taking the job that he is going to be nominated for?

DR. DEVI NAMPIAPARAMPIL, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, I think the statement saying that no vaccines are safe and effective, that's not true, but he's also kind of rescinded that statement, right?

So, I think what he's talking about, or at least the way that I'd like to look at it, is he's talking about three different things, maybe the tension that we're facing now. So, with vaccines in the past, we used to know, you know, is it a live attenuated or weakened virus? Is it a fragment of a virus? And now we have vaccines where we don't really know what is actually being used to make them. So, it's more proprietary or intellectual property. So, that may be part of some of the tension there.

The second thing is kind of talking about the long-term studies. Well, in all of medicine, whether it's vaccines or in terms of medications and treatments, it's sometimes hard to get studies that go past two years because you have to recruit the patients, you have to pay the subjects sometimes for their transportation costs and other costs, and also pay the researchers to continue the studies. So, sometimes you might have a harder time with the data. That doesn't mean you can't feel confident about things, but you might have a harder time with that.

[22:05:02]

And then the third part is the tension we saw throughout COVID, that medicine is really focused on an individual, what's in a person's individual best interest, but public health is really about society's best interest, which might be very different, especially if you're a healthy person.

PHILLIP: I mean, one thing I will say is that he has not walked that part of it back, that no vaccine is safe and effective. He's being asked about specific criticisms of vaccines, like polio, and he's trying to pretend like he never said that he thought the polio vaccine was more dangerous than polio itself.

But this now goes beyond RFK Jr. Trump himself is now echoing the broader skepticism of vaccine mandates in schools in particular, which is actually very different from what Trump himself was saying just a couple of years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: What do you tell parents about getting their kids vaccinated? Measles, on the measles.

TRUMP: They have to get the shot. The vaccinations are so important. This is really going around now. They have to get their shots.

REPORTER: Do you think schools should mandate vaccines? Do you think schools should mandate vaccines? TRUMP: I don't like mandates. I'm not a big mandate person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, we're not here talking about COVID vaccines, right? We're talking about measles, mumps, and rubella. Trump is now all of a sudden saying that he doesn't think that that necessarily should be a part of when you send your kids to school and you're hoping that everybody around them is vaccinated adequately for these old illnesses that could kill them?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think there's a number of things going on today. Number one, RFK hit the right note on Capitol Hill on the polio vaccine. Polio vaccine's fine. The boss, Trump, laid down the marker. We're not touching the polio vaccine. This was a frenzy over the last few days. This was totally put to bed today. So, that's number one.

Number two, if I were in their shoes, I would just simply say everything we do is going to be based on science and evidenced-based decision-making, because that's all anybody really wants to hear. And if I were further advising RFK and Donald Trump on vaccines or anything else, I would say, I'd like for science to go back to be science, because during COVID and during the last few years, science became religion. You know, when we're putting people up on pedestals and making prayer candles with their image on it and sewing pillows with their face on it, that's no longer science. That became a religion.

So, if I were in their shoes, I would say, science is going to rule, evidence-based decision-making is going to rule, and that's how we're going to make all our decisions.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that's fine if their previous comments were based on science, but they weren't. RFK has pontificated on things, and he's not a doctor, and he's not an expert. And I'm not saying you have to be that to be the head of HHS, but you should actually respect the science, and his past indications have not.

And so, great, if today, he went on Capitol Hill, and he did what he needed to do, potentially to be confirmed. But can I at least have some skepticism that like he's doing this for a political reason, not actually because he believes in science?

The other thing I will say is that I know we want to bifurcate this conversation, but the reason why this actually is a moment of heated contention is because of COVID, is because we did just go through a global pandemic where we lost millions of Americans and a vaccine was introduced into our society based on MNR science. It was a vaccine that has been long tested.

And folks -- now, maybe the way it was applied, folks can have questions about mandates and whatnot, but the science was not flawed. The science is the root, and I'm not a doctor, but you are, but my dad was, so I try and like pretend sometimes, but like the science has been tested, that the root of the vaccine had years in the making, which made it safe for folks.

So, I don't think we can actually bifurcate this. And I will just say that if this administration go -- this is not the issue we should actually be debating in this moment right now after this type of election. This election we were told was about two things. Many, many, many times, you and Scott, we had -- it was about immigration and it was about the economy. It was not about debating science that has been put to bed. And now here we are thinking that our children, which I do not have, but children could be exposed to diseases that we had eradicated as the leader of the free world that could be reinvigorated because of flawed premises that is not actually rooted in science.

I agree with you. Trust the science, but that's not what RFK does.

CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND FOUNDER, NUESTRO PAC: Now, we have to have them confirmed. And when you talk about what you just said, Ashley, this is what's going to be on a senator's mind when they're voting for this. And so they're thinking about politically, sure, RFK seems fine, he walked us back, maybe he's going to be fine. But in the back of their head, they're thinking about what you're talking about, which is, in a year or two, do we have another pandemic? Do we have a trouble getting a vaccine? Does parents -- this is what really scares me of a grandfather, two beautiful eight-year- old twins, is like, does he scare people enough to where some mamas and daddies stop getting the vaccines and then you start --

PHILLIP: I mean, that's already happening.

ROCHA: It happened in Rome (ph). I'm just saying. And then you let that happen with a senator who's up for reelection, who voted to confirm Democrats, this Democrat, will use that against them in an ad all day long.

[22:10:06]

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, what about that? Dr. Devi? I mean, a lot of parents are already pulling back on vaccinations, just writ large.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Yes, I'm concerned about that because, you know, we have these traditional vaccines that have saved countless lives. So, you know, I want people to go get those vaccines. But I think he has put his finger on something in the pulse of the American public. You know, COVID brought some concerns to the forefront that people now know a little bit more about science, and they're thinking about the data and how do we have this information, how are these studies conducted? And I think it is a good question, you know, for people to look at this and understand it further and have more confidence.

You can't have a divided country where some people are in favor and others aren't and their concerns aren't being addressed, but then I think also we have like a change in terms of the way science is headed, because we have so many advances in A.I., artificial intelligence, and in precision medicine, which is more about genetics. So, you know, in terms of a lot of illnesses, you could see how viruses might interact with a person's genetic code and cause them to develop certain diseases. So, if we could figure that out better, then, that could change the entire face of this in terms of who needs what vaccine.

HAL LAMBERT, FOUNDER AND CEO, POINT BRIDGE CAPITAL: We keep saying science and data. I think he is looking at data. And he's concerned about the health of our kids, which are more obese than ever, have higher diabetes rates than ever, and are getting more vaccines than ever. And yet autism's up over the last 25 years. All of these things -- our kids are less healthy, but we have a lot more vaccines.

And so I think his point is, both on the food side, which is obviously a problem on the obesity side, on the vaccine side is are we more healthy than we were 25 years ago or 30 years ago when we had far fewer vaccines that were going around for kids that were mandated?

PHILLIP: Hold on. I'm going to stop right now. Because like you're doing exactly the thing that doesn't actually, when we talk about following the science, what you're doing is saying, well, people are getting more vaccines and all these other things are happening. So, those things are related. That's not how this works. Vaccines don't cause autism.

LAMBERT: Well, they haven't done the studies on the vaccines. That's the problem.

ALLISON: Well, I think if you actually wanted to know about the leading cause of killers for children, that was actually gun violence. So, if you actually want to solve the problem of like what makes our children unhealthy and unsafe, let's actually focus on that, but we don't.

PHILLIP: I mean, you can talk about food and all of that stuff, but the idea that you're just taking the fact that we are now vaccinating ourselves against diseases that could kill us and saying that that's causing obesity and people being unhealthy and autism?

LAMBERT: No, I'm saying overall health, the overall health. And that's both sides of what he's talking about in Congress.

PHILLIP: What proof is there that there's any connection between those two things? Vaccines are causing us overall as a population -- at the population level, to be less healthy.

LAMBERT: Well, what Robert Kennedy said was that cancer rates are higher.

PHILLIP: Okay.

LAMBERT: And specific cancer rates are higher. That's what he's talking about. And his point is not that you shouldn't get vaccines.

PHILLIP: Yes, but he has no proof of that.

LAMBERT: He's saying, why have we not studied, is there a relationship with that? PHILLIP: Well, before you decide to tell people that cancer is related to vaccines, don't you think you should have evidence of that first?

LAMBERT: Well, he's looking at data, and I do, I agree with you, there should be evidence of it. And I think he's arguing that we should go look for the evidence.

PHILLIP: But shouldn't you start from instead of saying, well, I don't know, but it might be the case? Isn't it the more responsible thing to say, we actually don't know if there's any connection between those two things at all, as opposed to scaring people based on conjecture alone? That's irresponsible.

LAMBERT: Well, he, I think he is saying that now. He is saying that we need to study this, and he doesn't know for certain that that's the case. I think he said that in that clip.

JENNINGS: I think a couple things are going to happen after this few- week period here. When he gets to the table and has to go under oath, he's going to get asked very direct and pointed questions. And it's no flip thing to put your hand up and say, you know, I'm telling you the truth and then answer those questions because not only do they hold you to it that day, they hold it to you as you do the job, because you ultimately got to come back and have oversight hearings.

I also think it's important for us to remember why are we here at all in this moment where people are questioning the public health regime, and it is all out of COVID. Everything comes from COVID, things we were told that weren't true, things about the vaccine that we were told that weren't true. This has caused people -- in the past folks, might have just accepted this sight unseen. Now, I think it's legitimate for Americans to say, are we being told the absolute truth by the supposed experts? I don't have a problem with those questions.

PHILLIP: I'm old enough to remember hydroxychloroquine and the horse tranquilizer and all that stuff. I mean, those things weren't true either, okay? So, let's be honest about the fact that there was misinformation happening pretty far and wide in the COVID era. And it's not just that we were telling people the vaccine is the best thing we've got so far to help you in this moment. It's also because some people were actually trying to mislead people for profit. There are people right now still selling COVID cures that are invented. So, that's -- we have to be honest about the fact that it's happening on a lot of different sides.

JENNINGS: But millions of school children, millions of people's small businesses, millions of lives were totally upended on things that ultimately we deeply, deeply regret.

[22:15:07]

ALLISON: But it wasn't necessarily all because of science. And I think what we do a lot of times --

JENNINGS: It was because we were lied to about the science. ALLISON: Well, I mean, we were -- well, let me just say this. If I would have asked you in December of 2019, whether we would all be locked in our house and shut in and not be able to have internet because we were going to have a global pandemic, would you believe me or would you call me a fool? You'd probably call me a fool because we weren't expecting a global pandemic.

So, I think Donald Trump was president for the first time when COVID took place and then Joe Biden inherited that. So, I think like we were learning things and I just caution us all from throwing the baby out with the bath water. And we sometimes tell stories and they conflate and they aren't all rooted in flat and facts, and because something feels one way or the other. We don't actually do the duty of the American people with bifurcating --

JENNINGS: Until we fix the COVID problem, we'll never --

ROCHA: So, two-year-olds should get the COVID vaccine, right?

PHILLIP: We have to go. We do have to go.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: I was just going to add one thing to what you said. So --

PHILLIP: Hold on, Hal. Let me just let Dr. Devi have a final word here.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: So, to what you were saying about the rates rising and stuff, you know, one of the -- that's one of the byproducts of having a successful vaccination campaign because so many people have been vaccinated. It's very hard to separate out that from anything else that might be on the rise. But the real way to do that study would be to look at people who are vaccinated, people who are unvaccinated, who have a similar genetic makeup and environmental kind of surroundings. So, that's very difficult to do in this setting.

But with A.I. and with precision medicine and genetics all of that coming to the forefront, we might actually be able to do a lot of those studies that you're talking about.

PHILLIP: All right. Dr. Devi, we appreciate you very much. Everyone else stick around.

Coming up next, breaking news involving those mystery drones, what the feds are telling the public to do now.

Plus, the conspiracy that January 6th was an inside job is now hitting personalities, like Stephen A. Smith. We'll tell you the facts, next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: You know what I'm getting really pissed off about? I'm getting really ticked off at every time they open their mouth about something pertaining to you all they seem right.

(END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:20:00]

PHILLIP: Tonight, a right wing conspiracy that the January 6th insurrection was an inside job is now being pushed by T.V. hosts like Stephen A. Smith.

Here is the back story. There was a DOJ watchdog report that notes that 26 FBI informants were in Washington on that day.

Now, here's Smith's reaction to that, plus a reality check on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: The report says most of the informants engaged in illegal activity during the chaos. The Justice Department says only 3 of its 26 informants present had been instructed to observe potential domestic terrorist suspects on the day of the riot. The rest of the 23 appeared to have gone to the Capitol on their own accord.

So, 23 folks for the FBI were in the crowd, and we're just finding that out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So here is the reality, and I get it, a lot of people don't understand this distinction, but an informant is not the same thing as an FBI agent. An informant is a person who is within an organization who gives information voluntarily to the feds. Also, the DOJ report makes it clear that no FBI employees, no FBI agents, were part of the violence.

Joining us now is CNN's Senior Political Commentator Adam Kinzinger. He is a former Republican congressman and was a member of the House January 6th Committee.

Adam, you know that this has taken on lore, and I'll play a little bit later some of what has been said about this. But the idea that taking an informant's presence, people who, according to the report, most of them didn't even tell the FBI that they were coming to Washington, and then saying that the FBI was involved, what do you make of that when you hear that conjecture?

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I mean, look, I hope that next time Stephen Smith is doing his thing, whatever it is, he offers an apology for this because it's clear by that he has no clue what an FBI informant is. In his mind, he thinks they are FBI agents or undercover FBI agents.

Now, listen, actually, this report states that they were asked to provide an undercover FBI agent and the FBI said no, because this was a First Amendment activity. So, it's an informant. Look, the FBI has informants in terrorist organizations. They have informants basically in gangs, you know, whatever they are. And it's somebody that gives the FBI information.

They're not under the direction of the FBI. They're not under control. They don't carry a badge. They don't have law enforcement powers. They're usually bad people that have an agreement with the FBI either to get out of prison to reduce a sentence. Sometimes they're paid. And that's what you have here.

I mean, the conspiracies on this, you know, we could talk an hour about them, but there's one, for instance, that's out there that shows somebody showing a badge to another police officer. And the reality is, if you zoom in, it wasn't a badge. It was a vape pin, a vape that the guy had out that they said looks like a badge.

So, if we really want to talk about FBI informants though, the big story is that an FBI informant just pled guilty to lying and making up a conspiracy between Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, which was actually the central inquiry of a Republican impeachment inquiry.

[22:25:02]

PHILLIP: Look, I don't think that there's any quibble with the idea that sometimes you have -- first of all, you have to question what everybody is saying sometimes. That's fine. That's, I think, the conclusion that Stephen A. was trying to make. But the idea that this is an example of Democrats lying about something when it's actually not true, that there was anything in this report that suggested that, as Vivek Ramaswamy has said, that January 6th was an inside job.

JENNINGS: Well, there are some things that the report has brought to light that Republicans have felt like they were misled on over the last few years when they've had questions about who was there and what was going on there. For instance, Chuck Grassley in the Senate pointed out that four of the confidential human sources went into the Capitol but weren't prosecuted. Now, like 1,400 and something people were prosecuted.

PHILLIP: Can I answer that for one second.

JENNINGS: And there was another one that had their -- so they're just little nuggets.

PHILLIP: Yes.

JENNINGS: That's what's fueling some of this conversation.

PHILLIP: Let me respond to that one, because I think that's an important point. According to the FBI, the act of simply entering the Capitol, they did not charge anybody for doing just that. So, if they entered the Capitol, that is technically an illegal act, but they didn't charge anybody for just entering the Capitol. They charge people for entering the Capitol and doing other things, assaulting police officers, for destroying property, doing all kinds of other activities. And so --

JENNINGS: But you can see how it would feel like a bit of a double standard. If you have a relationship with the FBI and you're there and you go into the Capitol and you don't get charged, all these other people go in -- and I'm not saying they shouldn't be. I think people who committed violent acts absolutely should be charged, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of what Republicans are, how they're kicking it around.

PHILLIP: I would say it's a double standard if other people were charged for the same conduct, which they were not. I mean, Adam, what do you make of what Scott just said?

KINZINGER: No, look, I get it. And, you know, look, it's -- the point is, yes, I can see how people, the problem is, we have to have people that are telling the truth about what this is, which we're doing. And there are people that are out there that are trying to spin what the truth is into something that fits a narrative. So, yes, I can see how people can mistake an FBI informant for an FBI agent. That's why it's important that we tell people an informant is not an agent. And it's why it's important that people like Stephen Smith not go off on a rant like these are FBI agents when in fact they're informants.

Again, every -- almost every probably gang activity you see, drug sales, whatever, have informants, local police, state police, FBI, involved somewhere in there. The best thing the Republicans can do now is just like put this FBI thing away in Tibet (ph). It's a conspiracy theory, completely untrue.

And I will say quickly, the FBI and the federal government should have right away said, you know, yes, we had, what, 26 informants or whatever. The fact that it's been three or four years has actually created this theory of conspiracy, but ,truly, it's not a conspiracy inside of the department.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, it's a fair point. I mean, one of the rioters tried to use this report to claim that he should have his charges thrown out, the judge said, no. There's no evidence that this has anything to do with your case at all.

LAMBERT: Yes, I don't see them throwing out a case over this. But, I mean, was this reported in the report that Adam Kinzinger did in the House? Did they report that there were 26 agents in there or informants in the crowd? I don't think they did. But they obviously might have known that.

KINZINGER: How was that relevant?

LAMBERT: Well, I mean, it should be part of the report. It's relevant now because people are talking about it now as saying it was hidden, right? That's the point of what Stephen Smith is saying. Why are we just not finding out?

KINZINGER: No, it's not. We were talking about -- the January 6th committee was talking what Donald Trump was doing and everything else. We weren't talking about whether informants in the crowd. Of course, there were.

And, I mean, look, again, any event anywhere probably has an informant for law enforcement somewhere, it doesn't mean it's an undercover agent.

PHILLIP: And also just to add to that, I mean, if you really read the report, the FBI is actually kind of castigated for not properly utilizing their informants to find out what was going on on that day. They didn't know that a lot of people were there. So, in fact, it's actually probably to their detriment that they didn't use this font of information that was present on the day.

ALLISON: I think we're in an era of sow doubt to undermine, dismantle, and distable institutions. It's just a fact. Like we talk about the deep state, we talk -- fine. If that's your premise for the next four years, go forth and do it. I don't have to agree with it.

Informants in the criminal justice system are never really exposed because part of the reason why they are able to actually like make a case against someone who has done bad behavior is to protect their identity. They're called C.I.s, confidential informants for a reason because they are confidential.

[22:30:00]

You do not want to expose them.

I'm not sure why the January 6th committee, but to the former congressman's point, it wasn't actually an investigation on the CIs, it was an investigation on Donald Trump. So the fact that we did not know that they were there on that day, actually, if you actually want to talk about the stability of your investigation unit, is actually a good thing, because you don't want your CIs exposed.

Now, if you don't actually like that, then don't do CIs in anyway. Don't do CIs in drug busts, don't do CIs in RICO cases, don't do CIs on January 6th. But that is not what people do. They do selective positioning on when they want the system to work for them, when they want to call out the system for not working for them, and when they want to sow doubt. I just want people to be consistent.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: All right. That's what I want to, for the record. Adam Kinzinger, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hold on.

Coming up next, legal threats against the media, even before the president-elect enters office, with another guest joining us in our fifth seat. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:35:00]

PHILLIP: Beat the press, it seems to be Donald Trump's mantra as he heads into a second term seeking to punish unfavorable coverage. After he and ABC News reached a $15 million settlement over claims that one anchor defamed him, the president-elect now feels empowered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONAL TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'm going to be bringing one against the people in Iowa, their newspaper, "60 Minutes," Bob Woodward. We have one very interestingly on Pulitzer. And I feel I have to do this. I shouldn't really be the one to do it. It should have been the Justice Department or somebody else, but I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt, almost as corrupt as our elections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Sarah Fisher joins us at the table now. She's a CNN media analyst and a senior media reporter for "Axios." Sarah, first of all, the idea that the Justice Department would be pursuing defamation suits is interesting. But this is part of how Trump operates. He's been suing, just to be clear, media for a long time. He tends to lose.

But back in 2016, he told "The Washington Post" about another lawsuit that he had brought against a reporter. "I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I'm happy about." Is that the strategy?

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: That's absolutely the strategy. So there was a big commotion when he appointed Brendan Carr, longtime SEC lawyer to be the head of the SEC, that Donald Trump was going to take some sort of regulatory action against media companies. But the reality is that's actually very hard to do. Yanking broadcast license, trying to pressure SEC commissioners to do that is very hard to do.

What's easy to do, Abby, is to bully media companies, is to make their life living hell. And when you sue them for defamation, you're not just robbing them of their time and energy, you're also robbing them of legal costs, you're robbing them of morale internally, and that's definitely the playbook that he's going to pursue.

And might I just say one thing? You have noted that he's tended to lose a lot of these cases, and we've seen him lose a lot of high- profile First Amendment cases, whether that was blocking people on Twitter, et cetera. What's different about these is it doesn't really matter if he wins or loses.

When he wins, obviously it empowers him to go after others. I think there's no reason not to believe that the reason he's announced this today by the Des Moines Register, even though that was a poll from months ago at this point, is because he just won the $15 million ABC super. So if he loses, he wins. And that's why he's pursuing this strategy.

PHILLIP: I guess not pollsters. It's not just journalists, but pollsters.

CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Look, I'm going to be with him on the Des Moines register thing. I'm thinking about sooner myself. They gave me a lot of false hope myself. And I was there (inaudible) talking about, he's going to win women because he's able now. It's how I'm going to win. Scott knows it makes my eye twitch. SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Co-litigant.

ROCHA: It makes my eye twitch.

PHILLIP: Chutkan (inaudible) about.

ROCHA: But look, this is classic Donald Trump. He wants to get out there and talk about stuff, distract and talk about everything else. And the other thing that drives me crazy is regular folks at home. This is the brilliance of this man that I cannot stand, is that he knows what he's doing and people agree with him.

They think because he talks about it over and over again that there's something crazy going on in the meeting, which I know that there's not, but he does it every day.

FISCHER: But you know who doesn't agree with him? Poor conservatives have traditionally upheld the First Amendment in most cases where they are pressed on it. In fact, that's the whole TikTok debate right now, right? They want to go to the Supreme Court because they know that a conservative, legislative Supreme Court is much more likely to defend them on First Amendment grounds from a ban.

And so one of the challenges Donald Trump has faced is you might bring this to a court and you might have it stacked with conservative judges, but conservative judges tend to side with the First Amendment on these types of things.

ROCHA: You just said he wins either way.

FISCHER: Well, he wins either way. I'll tell you this. Even if he loses a case, he wins because he gets to suck the wind out of the media companies he doesn't like.

ROCHA: I'm never going to argue that there's not common sense Republicans. I kind of sit here next to this guy almost every week. I make that -- we can get to that point, but I'm just saying this is classic 101 Donald Trump.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, is he trying to intimidate the media with this strategy?

JENNINGS: I think he is well within bounds to play the game that he thinks they're playing against him, which is to lie about him, to, you know, try to shape the narrative around him in ways that he doesn't believe are accurate. My belief is why can't people just be precise? So look what happened to ABC. They were not precise in what they said. And you can't be so flipped with this kind of serious information when we're talking about the public affairs of our country.

I mean, I've been on TV over the last several years with people who I thought were really loose with their language and how they describe him. I've heard it on Pete Hegseth.

[22:40:00] I've heard it a number of times. But when it comes to Republicans, it does feel like two Republicans, that imprecision and you know, maybe playing a little fast and loose with the edges of things is okay. And Republicans have been waiting for someone to come along and push back on just that that's the way we have to do it, because we don't.

FISCHER: Can I just push back on that? So typically if you aren't precise, which you're right, words matter. The order of processes here is that you send a cease and desist letter, you ask for a correction, you ask the network to make you good on air. If you go through those routes and you don't get your results, that's when you can get into defamation territory.

JENNINGS: And by then, how many months have passed? I mean, these campaigns happen really fast. Here's the problem. He has bombarded. Republicans are bombarded with what they believe is unfair characterizations of whatever they have going on a minute-by-minute basis and you want them to go through a six, eight month period?

FISCHER: Like what?

PHILLIPS: Well, don't you --

JENNINGS: Actually --

PHILLIPS: -- aren't you worried about a slippery slope here?

FISCHER: Like what? Name them.

ALLISON: Name them.

PHILLIPS: Aren't you worried about a slippery slope here? I'm on the internet every day, you know, Al Gore's internet, and I see all kinds of smears against Democrats being perpetrated by the new media in conservative circles. Are those folks ready to be sued?

HAL LAMBERT, POINT BRIDGE CAPITAL FOUNER & CEO: No, that's not what's happening here. It's about holding major media outlets accountable in a game that they're one sided on. And that's the way -- it's not about the money for Trump. It's not about -- he's not doing that. You know what he probably really wanted to get to and what ABC didn't want him to see and what he didn't want the public to see was the discovery side of it where maybe there were e-mails internally talking about this and saying we're going to say this, we're going to say that. That's probably the same thing with the Des Moines Register. What kind of communication was going on before that poll was released?

PHILLIPS: What about the Des Moines Register? I mean, do you really think he's going to sue over a bad poll? I mean, there's --

JENNNIGS: It's not the poll. It's the idea that it was done, and there are people who believe that information was shared with Democrats ahead of time to help shape the narrative. And look, we sat out here for the week before the election talking about this --

ALLISON: Did you watch the January 6 hearings where it was clear that the president knew he had lost and to this day, correct me for accuracy of words, if he has actually acknowledged he has lost the 2020 election. Like do I get sued because I count votes? See, I acknowledge we lost in 2024 despite a poll saying we did -- we shouldn't have lost, but our president-elect doesn't.

Now you have acknowledged, I don't know you, I just met you today, I don't know if you acknowledge we lost, I'd be curious to say, but if you don't acknowledge right now what our constitution and what the electors and what our Congress has just let four years of President Biden actually govern as president, if you don't say he has lost, do we get to sue you?

LAMBERT: No, no, but that's not what this is about. This is about --

ALLISON: What's it about?

LAMBERT: -- well, a major media company, ABC, has the money to defend lawsuit. So why did they settle? What caused them to settle this lawsuit?

FISCHER: It's a very good question. The discovery could have absolutely been a part of it. And by the way, they could have found something in discovery that has absolutely nothing to do with it, right? It's just a matter of not wanting to get that embarrassing stuff out there. That could have been it. But I will say in terms of, you know, why are these media companies settling? There also could very well be this, you know, feeling with inside media companies that you don't want to go toe to toe with the next president. You want to make sure that you're going to develop a friendly relationship with him --

PHILLIPS: Because they have to cover --

FISCHER: -- for access.

PHILLIPS: -- yes.

FISCHER: To make sure you're not getting kicked out of press conferences. But that, to me, is the slippery slope.

PHILLIPS: Yeah, I mean, I think that the point Ashley's making is that this -- it doesn't just get to be Donald Trump's rules. If he sets the standard, it's going to be applied to everybody, right.

FISCHER: Yes.

ALLISON: Well, not in a (inaudible) --

PHILLIPS: So, it will be a whole new world.

FISCHER: And it has been. Look at Fox News.

PHILLIPS: Yeah. It will be in a whole new world. Sara Fischer, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, sit tight.

Coming up next, mysterious drones in America's skies and President- elect Trump is now insisting that President Biden is hiding information about them. Another guest is going to join us in our fifth seat with props, you don't want to miss this, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:45:00]

PHILLIPS: Are the mysterious drones flying over New Jersey and New York actually dangerous? Well, tonight the White House insists that they are not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Do these suspected drones or whatever they are, pose any sort of threat?

JOHN KIRBY, NSC COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: As we speak today, John, the answer to that is no. We don't propose to see any national security or public safety risk by these drones and these aircraft that are flying.

BERMAN: You have, for lack of better words, figured it out?

KIRBY: I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I would say that to date, of all the leads and the analysis we've done, we believe that that these are commercial, lawful drones or law enforcement drones, hobbyist drones.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: But President-elect Trump says that the man that he is succeeding knows a lot more than he's letting off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don't want to comment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: He refused to say if that theory was based on the intelligence briefings, but he did say he wouldn't be staying in Bedminster this weekend because of the nearby sightings. Joining us now in our fifth seat is counter drone expert Joel Anderson. Joel, it kind of does sound like Trump feels like there's enough information that is known about this that he's probably not that worried. He just wants more public information. I mean, talk to us about how easy it is to put up drones in the sky.

[22:50:01]

We have a bunch here that are kind of smaller but I mean people are talking about bigger drones too. JOEL ANDERSON, ZEROMARK FOUNDER & CEO: Yeah, I mean I think he's

probably quite credible in the fact that the government does know what's flying and there's a couple different types of methods for detection. There's different classes of drones too. You've seen the rumors of the large drones that are being spotted in the sky, but there's also medium sized and small drones like the ones we have on the table here that are classically much harder to actually detect.

But that said, the government is deploying radio frequency, radar and acoustic detectors. There's a very good chance that if there were probable drones, they're tracking them.

PHILLIP: And it's fair to say, I mean, yeah, at this point, with all the hysteria going on, I mean, they've got to say a little bit more than they're saying.

ROCHA: I would agree with that. And tonight, if you were in New Jersey and you thought you see drones circling New Jersey, that was my flight trying to get here. We circled New Jersey for an hour. My point is, some of the drones' folks are seeing, like my mamma used to, are an airplane. So we've got to relax a little bit.

I always want to see the government give me more information, especially if they're flying some of these contraptions by my house. But I am not a counter, I wrote this down. A counter drone expert, you got the coolest job I have ever known about.

JENNINGS: I have a question. Can you shoot these things down? Is that allowed?

ROCHA: Let me answer that. A man who got a gun, no. But go ahead, sorry, Joel.

ANDERSON: Yeah, legally, no. They're treated the same as shooting down an aircraft, which would carry --

JENNINGS: Even a small one like this?

ANDERSON: Even a small one -- even your own.

JENNINGS: Interesting.

ALLISON: And is it dangerous?

PHILLIP: Don't shoot down your own.

ALLISON: If you --

JENNINGS: I'm just saying --

ALLISON: If it wasn't against the law, hypothetically speaking, would it be dangerous to shoot one of them?

ANDERSON: Still a terrible idea for a normal civilian to attempt to shoot down a drone.

ALLISON: Listen to the expert.

PHILLIP: Joel, show us these two that are closest to you because these two have been through some things. What happened to these drones?

ANDERSON: So these drones were taken out of the sky. The way that we test that is in special facilities. We're a counter drone company. We build auto aiming firearms to actually take them down with bullets. The common method for drones to be taken out of the sky via law enforcement and agencies with electromagnetic weapons like jammers and spoofers and microwaves, but they don't work against drones that are hardened.

And that, I think, is a really scary undertone to this whole drone mystery, is that we lack the kinetic responses necessary with our law enforcement and federal agencies, although the DOD does maintain that.

PHILLIP: You said drones that are hardened, meaning that they are made to not be taken out of the sky.

ANDERSON: Right, yeah, and it's a very simple thing to do, like microwaves. To harden a drone from microwaves flying it is a copper tape.

ALLISON: They're not heavy.

JENNINGS: A drone that size, could you put a weapon on that?

ANDERSON: You could put -- you could carry a couple pounds of weapon -- being explosives, absolutely.

JENNINGS: Wow. So, I mean, that's not big at all. Could you hear it coming? Is it loud?

ROCHA: Oh, yeah.

ANDERSON: They're pretty loud but you don't know where it's coming from. It's actually a pretty terrifying experience.

JENNINGS: See, that's why we have all these people, I mean, are hearing things.

PHILLIP: Well, I mean, over the weekend, New Jersey Senator Andy Kim, he was tweeting out that he went out and saw these drones. He was very concerned about them. Then the next day, he went out with police to observe them and realized that with more information, many of them really were aircrafts.

And so we're hearing, you know, sightings of dozens of drones. There are probably drones up there, but it's not clear if any of them are illegal or nefarious, and many of them are airplanes.

LAMBERT: Which is why we need the Biden administration to come out and be more clear. I mean, we went through this with the Chinese spy balloon, right? That's part of this whole problem, is they let that balloon go across the entire United States, didn't say it was from China, and then shot it down after it'd already gone through and done what it did.

So, you know, now you have this drone situation. The immediate thought is will -- are these foreign -- are these foreign power drones? Are they some other adversary that's out there? They're saying they're not. They're saying that they're not that. Then, okay, then how do you know they're not? If you don't really know then how do you know they're not.

PHILLIP: And Joel, if you -- if they are saying, I mean, you heard John Kirby. He said they are not a risk to public safety. They are not a national security risk. If he can say those two things categorically, what do you think he's talking about here when it comes to these drones?

ANDERSON: I think they're speaking about a very limited scope of drones that they're detecting. There's still a lot of unknowns, including the origins and the destination of these drones. But I think, going back to the senator that was spotting these over the weekend, we actually spoke on Sunday. And I've got to give him credit. He is being very proactive about coming up with countermeasures to deal with this, because again, law enforcement can't do much about it and it's only exacerbated by the lack of it.

ROCHA: Let me ask Joel a question. We were in the green room when I was looking at these and you said these are made with a 3D printer?

ANDERSON: These particular ones are 3D printed composites, yeah.

ROCHA: Second question, now I'm a reporter. Second question is, would radar see these if they came at my house?

ANDERSON: Possibly, but not always. Depends on the system.

PHILLIP: All right.

ALLISON: I think -- I just think that like, when you're an expert -- you're an expert and when you're not, you're not. And it's okay to ask questions, but I think we just need to be, to go all the way back to the beginning of this hour, we shouldn't be drawing unnecessary conclusions. We should be Republican or Democratic, Democrat, relying on our elected officials to be informing us and asking the people actually know the best about it rather than drawing unhealthy conclusions that leave the public to draw speculation --

PHILLIP: To be scared.

ALLISON: -- and be scared.

PHILLIP: Yeah. And I think there is a saying, we should be asking for more and we are.

ALLISON: Yeah.

PHILLIP: So, here we are. Joel Anderson, the guy with the coolest job at the table.

[22:55:00]

Everyone, thank you very much for joining us. Coming up next, breaking news out of Wisconsin police there. They are now identifying the shooter at that school in Madison and they're telling us more about who called 911 in this horrible case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:59:59]

PHILLIP: From the highest court in the land to one of the highest stages in the country, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made her Broadway debut over the weekend.