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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
FBI Says, Driver in New Orleans Attack 100 Percent Inspired by ISIS; Source Says, Driver of Cybertruck in Vegas was Green Beret; Trump Falsely Links New Orleans Attack to Migrants. Speaker Mike Johnson Says There Will Not Be A House Rebellion; Biden Honors Liz Cheney At The White House; Former "NewsNight" Host Aaron Brown Passes Away At 76. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 02, 2025 - 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 VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, terror at home. What we know about two New Year's Day attacks that shook America's sense of safety.
Plus, he doesn't regret the error. The president-elect pushes bad information about the terror attack, and it gets repeated by his media allies.
Also, the meaning of a medal, Joe Biden awards Liz Cheney with the presidential honor, what he calls an ode to bipartisanship, and what others say is a message to the man who will soon hold Biden's job.
And the speaker calls his shot. Mike Johnson says he'll keep the gavel and predicts exactly how long it will take and exactly who will vote against him.
Live at the table, national security experts on the attack, plus Arthur Aidala, Amanda Litman, Cari Champion, Katie Frost, and Joe Walsh.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (voice over): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in Washington, in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about, terror at home. Tonight, we are learning more about a pair of attacks that shook the country to the core and reminded us once again that safety is never a granted. CNN has just obtained this exclusive video, just hours before the suspected attacker took a car and plowed through the streets of New Orleans. He killed 14 people in that attack. This video was taken just after midnight, and you can see there a man putting what appears to be a white pole with a black top into the bed of the truck. The FBI says that they found an ISIS flag in that vehicle. The FBI is also putting out these new images of the man, pictures that show a blue ice chest containing what law enforcement officials have labeled improvised explosive devices.
The FBI says the suspect acted alone here, that he had a remote detonator for those IEDs, that he made a video pledging his allegiance to the Islamic State, but that the terror group did not direct the attack from overseas.
I'm here with my panel of experts. You know, John Miller, I want to start with you. This kind of attack is obviously something we've been talking about for a very long time in this country, someone who has been radicalized somehow and has decided himself to carry out an attack. At this point, given all that we know about this attack, is there anything that we can glean from this except that potential attackers could be anywhere, pretty much at any time at this point, because they can self-radicalize?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: And I think we've seen that. You know, we have cases of self radicalization with teenagers in Las Vegas, with people in Oklahoma. When you look at the people who are emerging in response to the resurgence, and this is important, the resurgence in ISIS propaganda, which is gathering fuel from the situation in Gaza and the propaganda value that they can exploit from that terrible tragedy of death and destruction there, you're seeing people who are lost, spinning, failing. And what are they promised in the propaganda? If you step up to this, you'll have valor. You'll have belonging. You'll have empowerment. It's, in terms of messaging, a powerful elixir.
PHILLIP: So, everyone, Scott is asking how did the FBI and law enforcement missed this? What's your take on that?
SCOTT CURTIS, FORMER FBI AGENT: Well, unfortunately, you know, we can't be covering everything 24/7 there. And we have to rely on the public to provide us with tips and leads there. You know, I think, you know, one of the things they're going to look at is, you know, was there something that was missed? Did somebody call something in or report something there that either was not thoroughly pursued or was unfortunately maybe overlooked there? But, again, I think the FBI has to take a look at itself there and develop a lot more sources, human sources out there that can provide some real time information about potential threats.
PHILLIP: There is another incident that occurred in Las Vegas, and these two incidents, as far as law enforcement are saying right now, are not related to one another, but they shared some similarities. Both men rented these trucks from a service called Turo, that's almost like an Airbnb but for vehicles. Both men served in the military.
One of the interesting things to me about these separate incidents is when you're dealing with people who do have military backgrounds, it does kind of change the type of threat that they could potentially be. Although interestingly in the Las Vegas, the authorities there were saying they expected actually much more sophistication from someone with the background that that individual had.
FELIPE RODRIGUEZ, RETIRED NYPD SERGEANT: Well, we see all the time, you know what, that a lot of people have the capability of actually building the bombs, but the actual execution or disbursement of even anything chemical related or anything terrorist of this form isn't always so simple. So even though they do have military training, they're not succeeding, thank God. Because if not, if you look at Las Vegas, even the way that the Cybertruck was able to take the explosion and actually force it forward, that saved a lot of lives. If it had dispersed in ways sideways away a normal bomb does, the kinetic energy and everything else would have caused a lot more destruction. So, we've been lucky.
HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER TREASURY SPOKESPERSON, TERRORISM AND FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE: Can I jump in a little bit on the question of a lone wolf and what it means to be a lone wolf? Because understanding that means it's anybody. The reason lone wolf is such a significant terrorist threat, and has been for years, by the way, and the U.S. government is very aware of that, that we used to say that when I worked in counterterrorist financing, lone wolf was at the top of our terrorist threat list. And the reason is that they're so impossible to identify, monitor, and track.
And so even though, for example, you were talking about the FBI and while maybe the FBI slipped on this, I don't know that I would even say that. They do such a remarkable job in identifying threats and thwarting plotter, plots that we don't even see or hear about. And Christopher Wray for the last year has been saying there are flashing lights everywhere, excuse me, especially since October 7.
And so when it comes to the lone wolf, they're harder to track because they're inspired. They're not in touch with somebody we're tracking, like an official from a terrorist group. They are using whatever weapon they can get at their hands on, so a car, a truck, something they can cheaply fabricate. And sometimes we don't even -- people don't even notice the activity until it's too late. So, for that, we have to rely and educate family members, citizens, just citizens across the United States, if you see somebody behaving weirdly perhaps being radicalized, saying something, some kind of violent rhetoric, please share this with the FBI, and I think that's what we have to do.
CURTIS: Yes. I think the FBI has become a little bit too reliant on monitoring social media, monitoring the internet, as opposed to getting out on the street and developing the human sources, the people like you're talking about there who would have the first hand knowledge and hear and see things, right, that they know is suspicious and they should report it.
PHILLIP: Can I ask you about that though, Scott? Because, I mean, I hear what you're saying and I think that makes a lot of sense, except that this is almost like a needle in a haystack. This is a guy who just went through a divorce. He wanted to kill his family. He's emotionally disturbed. How does the FBI even get to his family's front door? CURTIS: Well, I mean, he was residing in a predominantly Muslim part of Houston there, right? Has the FBI gone out there and done community outreach at all? When was the last time they'd done that? Have they developed any sources in that area, for example? Right, that would give us a big head start, right, in knowing or feeling out, right, what the culture is in that area.
RAVI AGRAWAL, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, FOREIGN POLICY: You know, if I had to just jump in there, I think, for all of you who've worked in counterterrorism, you kind of need to be lucky all the time. And someone who wants to commit an act like what we've just seen in the last two days, they just need to be lucky once.
And I think over the last few years, what we've seen is the game has changed. So ISIS, in 2015, 2016, 2017 was a very different ISIS than the ISIS we see today. They were more like a nation state. They wanted to control territory. But ISIS today is very different. It's an ideology. It's like a franchise model. They want to inspire lone wolves. And so the threat has changed.
And meanwhile, what's happened is the CIA and other counterterrorism organizations have shifted a lot of their resources from C.T. to China or Russia. And amid sort of great power competition, what we're seeing is groups like ISIS are finding the conditions to exploit great power tensions (ph).
MILLER: I'd also point out, you know, in the NYPD during the nearly ten years I was there and the people who are carrying on beyond my term, you know, we prevented 62 different plots or plotted attacks or plotted attempts to join terrorist groups, you know, in the course of the post-9/11 era, and they took all forms. But the key was, we had human sources on the ground. We had undercovers that we could put into a group where after we found out about a plot to find out, was there a plot. We had monitoring social media by not just English speakers, but language speakers. And we had it on right wing extremists, left wing extremists, violent Islamic extremists. You know, we covered the board on the idea that to address the kind of threat you're talking about, the needle in the haystack, you have to be all over the map.
PHILLIP: But, I mean, I think this is the thing that I'm still struggling in this particular situation, right? We don't -- you mentioned going into the predominantly Muslim neighborhood that he worked in. How do we even know that he was even connected in that community? I mean, are we still in the post-9/11 era where we're going into Muslim communities and assuming that people there need to be surveilled for terrorism when this terrorism is clearly happening in all kinds of different forms, including people who have absolutely no ties to Muslim communities?
[22:10:14]
RODRIGUEZ: People get upset right away when we mention the word, surveillance. It's not so much surveillance. It's just --
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I'm not trying to be P.C., I'm just trying to be practical. You know what I mean? RODRIGUEZ: I always say have a friend in every location. And even if it's an enemy, make them a friend. Because at the end of the day, you're going to need that help. And we're losing the value, just like you said, of human intelligence. It's one of the key things. It's one of the core investigative tools, and we've gone away from it.
AGRAWAL: We're also talking about --
CURTIS: Yes, I think with the younger generation now, I don't think people are as adept and skilled at wanting to knock on somebody's door, introduce themselves, ask for their help, right?
PHILLIP: But I think there's a total lack of trust, don't you think?
CURTIS: Well, you've got to build that trust over time, though. You're not going to automatically get it. You've got to build it over time. I think we've lost some of that. And it's going to take a long time now to get that back.
AGRAWAL: I think the -- as Hagar was saying, the warning lights have been flashing for quite a while now, and I think there's a little bit of a degree of complacency that's set in post-9/11. But also, you know, global cooperation is at a low. I think as we enter a world in which great power competition becomes more salient, the United States and China are at loggerheads. Intelligent sharing isn't what it used to be. You will see more attacks. It becomes easier for groups like ISIS to sort of use that kind of tension between countries to exploit intelligence sharing.
CHEMALI: It's 100 percent correct. When we're right before October 7, I know the government, my former building, had moved resources around. And that's very common in the U.S. government. When you have a threat, whether it's -- and at that time, it was really Russia and Ukraine and China and Iran, they move folks around. And then they take those people who had been doing, for example, keeping their eye on the ball on Hamas and moving them to another portfolio. And that's very common in the U.S. government, but it creates these vulnerabilities.
MILLER: And it's not just people. They're moving. I mean, if you consider, you know, kind of the Mike Morrell, Graham Allison, all lights are blinking red article that came out a few months ago as kind of the warning bell, they were also talking about they're taking the pros from Dover, their best analysts and putting them on these emerging hard problems, Russia, China, cyber, Iran and other things. And, you know, they are putting people into counterterrorism who are green, who may not have the experience. Collection is down. You look at, you know, how they might handle a group like Hezbollah and they say, well, let's leave that to a regional squad rather than a Hezbollah squad, you start to lose this. And, you know, the tripwires are key.
PHILLIP: Can I just ask -- I mean, I just want to raise one thing. The information that we got this week, especially the New Orleans incident, it was scattershot. It was here, there, and everywhere. I want to play really quickly what the governor said, the governor of Louisiana said, in response to some of these press conferences that were incredibly chaotic down there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JEFF LANDRY (R-LA): We think that life operates like it does on our phones, and it just doesn't. Information changes. In fact, that's why we ask the media for patience. We get information. Like I said, putting it -- no one dumps a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle and puts it together in five seconds.
We're underpromising and overdelivering today, and I think that's important.
We have to trust them. And sometimes the information we put out, we end up finding out that it may be incorrect. But guess what we're doing? What we're doing here is something I think is important. It's called transparency. Something may change again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You know, I hear that, but they said that there were, pretty definitively, actually, in a shocking way, that there were multiple people involved in this incident. They said a lot of things that were just not the case because the investigation hadn't gotten there yet.
Honestly, I mean, the performance in those 36 hours after this incident, surprisingly, amateur for the FBI and the law enforcement down there.
MILLER: Can I say something in defense of, you know, crisis management communications? You're the FBI person on the ground. We have a role in this, which is we, as the press, as the media, we demand answers, and we want as much information as possible, and we want it now.
Then on the flipside of that, you're saying all right, what do we have here? We've done a quick video canvas. We see these coolers that have the bombs in them. We see multiple people handling those. It looks like there's a team of people. We see another guy who seems to be actually delivering it. He actually turns out to be our perpetrator, but he's dressed in completely different outfit and, you know, doesn't appear to be the same person. And that night, as they're trying to get information out, they're saying this is what we have.
[22:15:01]
It's why every time I have ever done this in my life, I have started out by saying, the information we're going to give you is preliminary. You can expect, parentheses, the first story is never right.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, look --
MILLER: You can expect it to shift and change, but I'm going to tell you what we have now. Here's what we know, here's what we don't know, here's when we'll get back to you.
PHILLIP: I do think that there was a definitiveness to some of this information. At the beginning, they said it's not a terror attack. Again, there's --
MILLER: That one I can't figure out. You've got a truck with a giant ISIS flag flying down the street.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I'm a journalist. I'm used to law enforcement saying, hey, we can't give you that answer right now, the investigation is ongoing. That answer was always available to them and they didn't take it at some key junctures.
CHEMALI: It's kind of like when the U.S. government said that the, that what happened in Benghazi was due to a video. Do you remember when that? I was in government when that happened.
PHILLIP: That's always a choice to say, we don't know.
CHEMALI: And I was spokesperson twice in the U.S. government. I have been on the other side of being pummeled by the media to say like, this is breaking, what do you know? And the answer is always, this is developing, we are aware, we're going to figure it out, and we're going to keep you updated. But it is, you see it happen all the time when agencies get too tempted to want to appear on top of things and then you end up having a first story that's wrong. But that's never acceptable in any crisis.
PHILLIP: All right.
CURTIS: They have to --
PHILLIP: Real quick, Scott.
CURTIS: They have to assess what is the priority, what is the most significant threats here that we need to address there. And for like you said coming out for 24 hours, people thinking that there are multiple co-conspirators out there is something that should have been not thrown out there without some further thought.
PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, great discussion. Thank you very much for joining us, all of you.
Coming up next, President-elect Trump politicizing the attack with false information. Now, his allies are following suit and doubling down. Some new voices are going to join us at the table to discuss that.
Plus, backlash tonight after the president awards a presidential medal to Liz Cheney. We're going to discuss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a case of whisper down the lane in conservative media. In the hours after the terror attack in New Orleans, Donald Trump connected the dots where there were none, posting this on Truth Social, when I said the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the fake news media, but it turned out to be true. The implication there is that the Biden border policy is somehow to blame for a terrorist killing 14 people. Only that that terrorist is actually an American from Texas.
As you can imagine, that claim wound up being repeated by Trump's allies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM HOMAN, INCOMING TRUMP BORDER CZAR: This country is in grave danger. We need to secure that border. And despite what's happened the last two days in Las Vegas and in New Orleans, this administration is not stopping. They're still releasing thousands of people every week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Some new faces at the table now. You know, it's like facts don't need to be there for it to confirm your priors, but in this case, these are just separate issues. I'm not saying we can't talk about what's going on at the border, but we also have a separate problem, which is a lot of people right here in this country who are becoming radicalized somehow.
FMR. REP. JOE WALSH (R-IL): Just I'll start out, Abby, with a bang. This is what Trump does. He lied, and he's stoking fear. I think that's really, really important to put out there.
You're right, we can talk about the border, we can talk about the number of migrants in this country, but that was a United States citizen, born and raised here, who committed that act of terrorism. But coming from right wing media, like I do, illegals, illegals, illegals, nothing gets the Republican base more afraid than when you put that stuff out there.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I mean, he didn't make it about a whole cloth, right? It wasn't a reported initially by Fox News that it was a migrant, and then he read, reported it.
PHILLIP: That's a good point because they in that clip was after they retracted that story. And then here is Speaker Johnson today this morning saying something very similar. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We all know that for the last four years, the Biden administration has been completely derelict in its duty. The congressional Republicans, we here in the House and the Senate, have repeatedly asked the DHS under the Biden administration, about the correlation, the obvious concern about terrorism and the wide open border, the idea that dangerous people were coming here in droves and setting up potentially terrorist cells around the country.
They told us, Lawrence, for four years that the number one threat was so called racially motivated extremism. It was nonsense. This is the thing that we were all concerned about. This is why we raised the alarms.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Speaker Johnson, at this point, knows that this guy is from Houston.
AIDALA: Correct.
PHILLIP: He knows that Donald Trump is wrong. Donald Trump has not corrected himself, by the way. Everybody understands the facts here. Why can't we just operate within the facts?
CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, you know what's interesting to me about the time that we're in, especially for the fourth estate? I know that there are a group of people with this, as we've talked about it, this confirmation bias, there are people who want to believe this is the problem, the border is the problem. They want to believe that. So, if Donald Trump says that, no matter what we say, no matter what the FBI says, there is a -- I do believe that there will be a faction of people that will be like, no, no, no, Donald Trump was right, he said this, our president said this, he's speaking the truth. That's the disappointing part.
The bigger issue that I think that we're not even talking about, and I'm just going to speak just for my personal opinion, we are in a very interesting time and we'll get to both obviously issues here, but this idea that people are taking justice into their own hands and deciding that they want to administer or send messages in this way is really scary in this country.
[22:25:04]
Just not long ago, we're talking about what happened with the assassination of the CEO of the UnitedHealthcare. Then before that, there was the -- and not even before that, but we've seen very different instances of what I like to call vigilant justice or sending a message because you feel like you're upset with this country. This was a clear message for both.
PHILLIP: It is an interesting point.
CHAMPION: and we're not talking about it 'cause it's happening more and more frequently, and this is a message to this upcoming administration.
PHILLIP: Because, Arthur, I mean, she brought up the New York incident, but, and I don't want to take us too far astray, but terrorism is terrorism. And when you're using violence to send a message, that's what this is. And it can take this form, maybe inspired by ISIS, or it can take another form. And that's what we're dealing with here, lone wolves.
AIDALA: But the border and immigration or lack thereof is always going to be a central part of this. If you go back to 9/11, if you go back to September 11th, those people came in here. Now, some of them came in here legally. Yes, okay, legally. Well, we can talk to John Miller about the checks and balances, and maybe we need to do a little bit of better checking of who's coming in here legally. But there's a fear.
The bottom line is it comes down to fear. This could have been Grand Central, what happened in -- it could have been Times Square, what happened in New Orleans. We want to be able to walk out on our streets, unlike I did not long ago, Abby, right by the Roosevelt Hotel and watched four 14-year-old kids from the Roosevelt Hotel, which is ground zero, beat up a Chinese guy to try to take his Apple watch and his backpack. That's really upsetting.
MILLER: Okay. But we're crossing over from terrorism to migrant robberies. I mean, a couple of quick points. Number one, Donald Trump on this you could write off to, I saw it on Fox News and he's not the president yet and the staffing isn't there and he tweets first and asks later. Hopefully, when he's in the White House, he'll be able to turn to that national security person and say, what's the story on this?
Mike Johnson, no excuse. He was already briefed and he's fanning that flame, which is, as you pointed out, it's just beat the theme because we know the theme works.
And as for terrorists, I arrested a few terrorists in my time in the NYPD. We took down the Chelsea Bomber, the ramming attack on the West Side Highway, the Times Square suicide bomber attempt. They were all here legally, either American citizens or entered the country legally. It doesn't mean you don't need to watch the border because we saw the border lose control and that became a point of vulnerability, but we have to maintain perspective on these things and get back to the planet Earth.
WALSH: Abby, at one level, like, I love the format of this show, because you have so many different viewpoints at this table. But, my God, can't we all agree, Arthur, that this guy who's going to be sworn in two or three weeks ought to wait until we know the facts before he puts stuff out?
CHAMPION: But why would he do that? He's never done that. Why would he do that now? Why would he start?
KATIE FROST, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Let's talk about some facts here for a second. If you look at the number of people on the terrorist watch list who are apprehended at the border, back in fiscal year, so in fiscal year '23, we had 172. In fiscal year '17 under President Trump, do you know how many we had? Two. That was it. It was single digits that the people on the terrorist watch list apprehended at the southern border every single year in President Trump's administration. Under President Biden, we've been in near triple digits every single year, except those --
PHILLIP: How many people on the terror watch list have carried out these attacks?
FROST: Well, that's what I'm saying. PHILLIP: Because here's my point is that we just had a whole discussion with a whole bunch of experts, and I think everybody agrees. The issue is people who are not on a watch list. It's a random guy going through a divorce in Houston. That is what is causing the difficulty here from a law enforcement perspective.
FROST: Because they're the people we know about. I mean, I'm obviously not the law enforcement expert at the table tonight, but, you know, they're the people we know about, is what Don Rumsfeld said, the knowns, the known unknowns, and the unknown unknown, so many of these attackers fall into that category. But what my question is, those are the people we know about that were apprehended, how many people came into this country that we don't know about, and are they radicalizing Americans here at home? That's a question I have.
CHAMPION: But is that stoking a fear? Is that really an issue right now in this moment where we're talking about the two people who were from here, this country, who actually did it, who were decorated military people, who people say, but I -- but what I'm asking is, can we talk about what's happening right now, not about the possibility of what could be? We have to talk about what we're dealing with right now and the real issue and there are people who are completely unhappy with the state of this country, perhaps themselves as well, and they are taking justice or whatever they believe is justice into their own hands. That is an issue. How do we solve that for us right now, instead of talking about the ghosts that are at the border.
They are an issue. Migrant robberies are an issue. No one's saying that's not the issue. But if we talk about what we came to talk about, we're talking about Americans who were born here in the military who had issues.
AIDALA: One of the factors, I think you're going to see Luigi Mangione is going to get hit with it, you know, look, I conferred with family members of his about retention.
[22:30:00]
And my answer to them was, I'm going to find you a great jailhouse consultant because he's going to be in jail for a very long time.
Now, does deterrence really matter? We can argue that down the road. Is that going to stop anyone if this kid goes to jail for a very long time? Who knows? But that's the only thing we can do is if you become a vigilante and take things into your own hand, the consequences are going to be severe.
PHILLIP: This is like when we talk about, you know, when we talk about gun violence, some people suggest the death penalty is a deterrent. Well, when you go into a crime like this, wanting to be killed, knowing you will be killed, because most people are not --
MILLER: Deterrence is not a factor.
PHILLIP: Deterrence is not a factor at all. John Miller, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else stay with us. Coming up next, Speaker Johnson has a margin of one to keep the gamble in the House. Can he do it? He thinks so. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:01]
PHILLIP: Tonight, he's got one shot. Speaker Mike Johnson says there will not be a House rebellion, no uprising, to try to take his gavel away tomorrow.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: I think it's going to be OK, Larry. We'll have maybe one no vote, I think. I think we get it done on the first round. Certainly helpful for that because as we noted, we've got to stick together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us now, Amanda Litman, she is at the table with us. I have to say, this kind of stuck up on us with everything going on. Tomorrow, there could be a speaker fight despite what he is saying there.
By our count, there are about 14 lawmakers who want commitments from him or undecided. The magic number for him is two. That's how much he can lose. And one of those two, or one of those 14, I should say, is a hell no, OK? So, this is not looking great at the moment.
KATIE FROST, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, and anyone who's worked with Congressman Thomas Massey knows that when he makes up his mind about something, it doesn't change, it never does. So, like he is a hard no, that's, you know, the facts here.
But there really is, I believe, a path forward for Speaker Johnson. You know, he's relatively young when it comes to being a speaker. He's learned a lot. I think he's probably learned a great deal after that last spending fight.
And the real person I have my eye on right now is Chip Roy. Congressman Chip Roy from Texas -- he understands Washington very well. Before he was in Congress, he was actually Senator Ted Cruz's chief of staff. And he's kind of the key here. So, if I'm Speaker Johnson, I'm sitting down with him. I'm like, I want you on my team. How do we make this work? Because I think he's going to bring a lot of the good stuff.
PHILLIP: So, the rumor is that some of the hardliners want Chip Roy, maybe Rules Committee Chair, something like that. Sure, but then you have the rest of the Republican conference to deal with. Do you think that Mike Johnson is being optimistic here? I mean, it might be the case that inevitably it is Mike Johnson, but it could be painful getting there.
AMANDA LITMAN, CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, RUN FOR SOMETHING: I think it's going to be incredibly painful. And I think it's just the beginning of a very painful two years for whoever is going to be speaker on the Republican side.
And you know, this is just going to be the first vote in which their margin is tiny and every single member of Congress, every single member of that Republican caucus is going to be able to play whatever leverage they want.
They're going to be able to ruin Mike Johnson's day any day they want. So, even if he ends up being speaker -- is not a job I would wish on my worst enemy in this particular Congress. It's not going to be a good time.
PHILLIP: I cannot disagree with that. You know these guys.
JOE WALSH (R), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN, ILLINOIS: I agree with that. I know these guys. The next two years are going to be chaotic. But Abby, I'll be the contrarian. I don't think there's going to be a story tomorrow. I think Johnson -- I think it goes like this. And there's no drama. There's no fight. Mike Johnson's best friend is the calendar. The House cannot conduct any business without a speaker. January 6th, Donald Trump's election has to be --
PHILLIP: That's like three days though.
CHAMPION: Yes.
WALSH: Yes.
PHILLIP: You remember the last time around --
WALSH: I know.
PHILLIP: -- they did it for four. So, there's a lot of time for shenanigans.
WALSH: Got to be certified. Trump doesn't want any chaos this month.
AIDALA: Can I just ask you, Congresswoman, if you know how involved will Trump be in something like this? Will he be working the phones behind the scenes to make sure --
PHILLIP: Well, he said -- he said that he will.
WALSH: And by all indications, he's hugely involved.
PHILLIP: Do you guys remember, I mean, I think we have the picture. This is -- I'll call it iconic. Marjorie Taylor Greene holding up the phone, literally shoving a cell phone in the face. It says D.T. That stands for Donald Trump.
And even still, with Trump literally on the phone, it didn't stop a rebellion from happening. I'm not trying to say that there will certainly be one. But this has just been an unpredictable group. And there are some people here who want to make a point. They want to make a point.
CHAMPION: Yes, yes. It's interesting that you don't think that there is going to be an issue. I just -- I am assuming that a lot of people at this table, not that we all agree that there will be, I don't see -- you're saying that even though he even has Donald Trump's endorsement, it doesn't seem like it's going to be an easy walk for him. I'm curious as to why you think time is on his side.
WALSH: Because Donald Trump wants his victory certified on January 6th and he doesn't want anything to get in the way of that. And the House can't certify an election if they don't have a speaker. They can't do anything.
CHAMPION: I understand that, but they have people who are definitely against Speaker Johnson. So, how do you assume that you think that Trump has enough influence to make sure that we can do that?
WALSH: I do. I think there's a lot of posturing. I think Massey will vote against Johnson, maybe one -- others.
PHILLIP: Well, it can't be one other.
FROST: Yes, yes.
PHILLIP: I mean, if there are two, he loses, and there will be another ballot.
WALSH: Yes, and then it'll just be Massey.
PHILLIP: Just now, the great Manu Raju on Capitol Hill is reporting that Mike Johnson is trying to push back on the idea that there will be all these side deals.
[22:40:06]
A source in the leadership office says he is not inclined to negotiate or make backroom side deals, which again, I have to take people back to the McCarthy fight, literally days spent trying to make backroom deals, most of which failed. And some of which, honestly, were doomed to fail from the beginning, but some people just wanted to turn the screws.
AIDALA: I just don't think that that's believable, that there's not going to be side deals. If you take it all the way back to like the New York City Council, which I'm much more familiar with, when they have a speaker fight there.
PHILLIP: That's the way things work.
AIDALA: Right. They have a speaker fight there. It's like, OK, you vote for me and I'll make you the head of the Budget Committee. You vote for me, I'll make you head of Public Safety. And you know, I know you guys need that big park in there. And so, we'll make sure that comes in the budget. That and all kinds of stuff. I mean, that's just the nature of the beast.
FROST: But if I'm Speaker Johnson, I look at this, I go, OK, do I want, you know, the folks in the House Freedom Caucus on the outside pushing me, or do I want to bring them in? And there has been some precedent for that. Like McCarthy worked with Jim Jordan, whereas previous speakers had just kind of tried to sideline him. I see a world where Speaker Johnson and Congressman Roy get together. They get in the room like, all right, we're going to figure this out.
PHILLIP: They don't have another option.
CHAMPION: Yes, that's it. That's basically it.
PHILLIP: They don't have anywhere to go. But again, are they going to do it in time? I mean, it's noon tomorrow.
CHAMPION: I think, that's what I don't -- I think you're right. They don't have another option. But whether they get it done tomorrow is the whole question.
AIDALA: Well, they're probably doing it right now. Like, literally.
CHAMPION: They're making a call. They're making all the calls right now.
PHILLIP: There are some members, Joe, who are talking about a third way. What could they possibly be referring to? I mean, it's either Mike Johnson or chaos is how I see it.
WALSH: Or it's a speaker who's not a member of the House.
PHILLIP: Do you think that's what they're referring to when they talk about --
WALSH: I think that's what they're referring to.
PHILLIP: So, Elon Musk, is that what we're talking about?
WALSH: Vivek Ramaswamy.
CHAMPION: Oh, no.
PHILLIP: Here we go.
WALSH: It's something like that, but that's not going to happen.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, they do love -- they do love flirting with those ideas.
WALSH: Yes.
PHILLIP: It's so unrealistic.
CHAMPION: Just to terrorize us, I think, and then just decide they changed their minds at the last minute.
FROST: It's fun for Twitter. It gives us something to talk about.
CHAMPION: They just want to put it out here to scare us to death and say never mind. PHILLIP: Well, we'll see everyone back here tomorrow night. We'll
tell you how things go. Don't forget you can join CNN's live coverage of the vote for the Speaker of the House. It begins tomorrow, 12 P.M. Eastern Time, right here on CNN. Everyone, hang tight.
Coming up next, there's backlash that's erupting tonight over President Biden's decision to honor Liz Cheney at the White House. We'll tell you why and see what happened at that ceremony.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:46:34]
PHILLIP: Sometimes, a medal is more than just a medal. Tonight, Joe Biden honored Liz Cheney at the White House. This award is both for her service and maybe to celebrate someone loathed by the president- elect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: -- Elizabeth L. Cheney, for putting the American people over party.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: One final act, perhaps. One final jab at Donald Trump. I mean, very few people in the world Trump loathes more than Liz Cheney. Was it the right move for a Democratic president to do that?
LITMAN: You know, I think the right loves to own the libs, so it's nice to see Joe Biden, sort of, get engaged in the counterpart on that from a Democrat. I will say it's clear that Joe Biden genuinely believes that Liz Cheney did the right thing. Like, he genuinely believes that she put country over party and that it's worth celebrating. And while it's also pretty funny from us, from the outside, you know, nothing Joe Biden does now has any electoral impact. He's doing it because he believes it. And it's nice to see some kind of genuine, authentic belief from him.
AIDALA: Does she want -- does she want an award or pardon? If you gave her a choice, well, all right, get the award, but I'll make sure when you're walking out the door and nobody can mess with you.
UNKNOWN: No reason to --
AIDALA: As a federal defense attorney, I can tell you which one I would advise her.
PHILLIP: It's funny that you mentioned that because it is the other thing that because of this medal, people are -- people have been talking for a while that he might pardon her and others. Members on the Democratic side in Congress are basically saying, Mr. President, no, no, don't do it. But should he? CHAMPION: I mean, well, what does he have to lose? How does that
affect his legacy? Those are probably questions he's asking himself. And I don't necessarily think that goes against what he's done.
WALSH: It's been these proactive pardons -- there's a history of these. And let's remember the context. We're about to have somebody sworn in two or three weeks who has said, I'll put her in jail and I'll put my political opponents in jail. These are unprecedented.
CHAMPION: This convicted felon says he's going to put her in jail. All right, there's something about that I don't know why we don't talk about that more often. Where's -- is that just me?
FROST: The lock-her-up chants, you know, in 2016. And Hillary Clinton, yes, didn't end up. But, you know what I mean, it seems like, on the way out the door, Biden's just handing out, you know, pardons and medals. That's just kind of what he's doing. You say, will these pardons impact his legacy? Well, he already pardoned Hunter, which is we all know is so controversial.
CHAMPION: Sure, after he said he wouldn't. Sure.
FOSTER: So -- right. And after telling America, many times he wouldn't. I just -- we were talking about this in the green room, how much politics feels like it's changed over the last decade. I would love to go back to like 2008 and tell someone, all right, guess what?
The host of "The Apprentice" is going to be sworn in for his second term as president, and a Democratic president is going to give Liz Cheney, yes, Dick Cheney's daughter, I'm going to give her a medal and an entire room full of Democrats are going to stand up and applaud.
CHAMPION: That's a TV show waiting to have her right.
PHILLIP: It is the upside down. We've been in it for a little while now. I mean, Arthur, though, if you're Liz Cheney, I mean, we all saw what she did. We know why Trump is mad, but he has actually legitimately threatened to criminalize it.
You've seen people under the threat of criminal, all kinds of things. Even if nothing there -- nothing comes out of it, the process that she would be put through, is it worth the pardon now to prevent that?
AIDALA: Well, it's funny, because I was thinking, does she want it?
PHILLIP: Right.
AIDALA: Because when you accept the pardon, that means you've done something wrong, right?
PHILLIP: Do you -- do you think it actually means that? I mean, if such a case of pardon is --
AIDALA: Well, it's an indication, right? I mean, they're not pardoning the congressman, right? You know, there's something that could be -- CHAMPION: - Is it an indication that she did something wrong, or that she's just protecting herself? Because you don't know what level of justice people have to deal with.
AIDALA: Well, ideally speaking, people shouldn't be prosecuted if they didn't do anything wrong. So, I mean, look, we can make this, we can turn this on his head and say some of the charges against President Trump were absolute malarkey, especially the one in the Manhattan courthouse where he was actually convicted. You know, I'm still dying to do that appeal because there's so many legal issues there.
I'm going to say what you said. He said he was going to lock up Hillary and that never even got close to ever happening. You say a lot of things when you're on the campaign trail. If there's anyone who -- if I was someone who would be afraid, it would be the attorney general of the state of New York, Letitia James, who went after him, his son, his other son, his daughter, and his corporation.
PHILLIP: Let me just play, OK--
AIDALA: That's --
PHILLIP: I hear what you're saying, but let me play Donald Trump himself speaking on NBC about this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (R): Cheney did something that's inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the unselect committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps. I think those people committed a major crime.
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC HOST: Sir --
TRUMP: And Cheney was behind it. And so was Benny Thompson and everybody on that committee.
WELKER: We're going to --
TRUMP: For what they did --
WELKER: Yes --
TRUMP: Honestly, they should go to jail.
WELKER: Are you going to direct your FBI director --
TRUMP: No.
WELKER: -- and your attorney general to send them to jail?
TRUMP: No, not at all. I think that they'll have to look at that.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WALSH: You can laugh at that. And you can say he's an idiot. That's the president-elect making another direct threat. This is unprecedented. It's wrong. We should all agree it's wrong that he says something like that. But, yes, Joe Biden should try to pardon as many people as possible to protect from a guy who said, I want to be an authoritarian.
AIDALA: I know, but, Congressman, the Democratic administration just went after Trump and his whole family -- his whole family.
WALSH: Wait, wait.
PHILLIP: Hang on. What do you mean the Democratic administration -- what are you talking about?
LITMAN: I wish the Democratic administration was going after Donald Trump and his entire family.
AIDALA: Joe Biden is a Democrat. Look, Attorney General Merrick Garland is a Democrat.
PHILLIP: OK.
AIDALA: They hired a special prosecutor who went after him and several jurisdiction. The Democratic Manhattan D.A. went after him. The Democratic attorney general of the state of New York went after him.
PHILLIP: None of these things -- none of these things mean what you said --what you said at the beginning.
AIDALA: Didn't I say the Democratic administration?
CHAMPION: You said they went after Donald Trump and his entire family.
PHILLIP: There's --
AIDALA: Yes, they did. The Democratic went after Donald Trump and his entire family.
LITMAN: That was not President Joe Biden saying I'm going to put Donald Trump and his entire family --
AIDALA: It's his administration. It's his administration and it's his entire family.
LITMAN: First of all --
AIDALA: Ivanka had to testify Donald Jr. had to testify. Eric had to testify.
PHILLIP: Trump was facing legal jeopardy in Georgia, in New York and in federal cases, right? One of the federal cases -- OK, one of the federal cases, he could have resolved like this. He could have just said, hey, come on in, go get the documents you're looking for. The end, it would have been done.
CHAMPION: End of story.
PHILLIP: So, I don't understand --
AIDALA: That case where I'm being dismissed on legal grounds, on technical legal grounds.
PHILLIP: OK. No, but I don't --
AIDALA: It was. What do you mean no? It was dismissed. The federal judge dismissed.
PHILLIP: The federal judge dismissed parts of the case, Arthur. You know that.
AIDALA: The whole federal case is gone in Florida.
PHILLIP: It's gone now because he is the president.
AIDALA: No, it was pending an appeal of her dismissal when he got elected.
PHILLIP: But Arthur, is it not true that she dismissed key parts of the case?
AIDALA: No, she dismissed the federal case in Florida.
PHILLIP: OK, yes.
AIDALA: In Florida.
PHILLIP: But Arthur, my point is that Donald Trump was not being indicted in all of these different jurisdictions by Joe Biden.
AIDALA: No, but by Joe Biden's administration.
PHILLIP: Joe Biden doesn't have any control over the New York district attorney. He does not have any control over the Georgia district attorney.
AIDALA: I bet you, the mayor of the city of New York, Eric Adams, would respectfully disagree with you.
PHILLIP: And we've -- we've talked about this.
AIDALA: Who's been indicted now by Biden's administration.
PHILLIP: We've talked about this before on the air. But I understand that the idea is that all the Democrats are in cahoots. But don't you think if they were all in cahoots, they would have come up with something a little bit better than this?
LITMAN: We would just be so much better at it than this.
AIDALA: They nailed it in what? Seven places? Eight places? WALSH: Arthur, he did nothing to warrant any of those
investigations..
CHAMPION: He was just innocent on it all.
WALSH: They just floated --
PHILLIP: We got to go. But the same Joe Biden administration also prosecuted his own son. Everyone, thank you very much. Coming up next, a tribute to the news legend whose show set the agenda for us.
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, we honor the voice of CNN's first edition of "NewsNight". Aaron Brown, the long-time journalist right here at CNN and at ABC News, has passed away. He was 76 years old. Brown started as a talk radio host in Minnesota before rising through the ranks to anchor CNN's primetime coverage. He helmed "NewsNight with Aaron Brown". And what we do every night here on this program is try to emulate his excellence, both his passion and his no-nonsense precision in telling you what we know as we know it.
[23:00:00] Brown started at CNN in 2001 and had the heavy, heavy responsibility of taking the country through that day that will forever live in infamy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AARON BROWN, FORMER "NEWSNIGHT" HOST: For those of you just joining us, let's just briefly recap what we know. About an hour ago, about 8:45 Eastern Time, one plane crashed into the tower -- the World Trade Center tower on the right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Brown left CNN in 2005, but he would go on to work at PBS, and then later, shepherding students at Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism. Brown is survived by his wife, his daughter, as well. May his memory be a blessing.
